To The Heights
Change your perspective to change your life.
To The Heights
#60 Holy Self-Care With Denise Jelinek
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Denise Jelinick joins me to reclaim self-care as something holy, simple, and deeply Catholic rather than selfish or indulgent. We talk about boundaries, guilt, and the practical habits that help us stay peaceful and present in our real lives.
• self-care through a Catholic lens as stewardship of the body and mind
• the five P’s rule of life: prayer then person then partner then parent then provider
• why moms skip “person” and how that creates burnout
• the difference between authentic sacrifice and people-pleasing
• how serving and fixing can become a way to avoid your own life
• “three businesses” as a tool for peace and focus
• guilt as a signal for sin versus guilt as a lie
• seasons of life, discernment, and choosing where you are irreplaceable
• a simple daily practice: “What do I feel?” and “What do I need?”
If you have any questions or would like to go deeper into this topic or how it affects you in your own life, you can find me at Sharon K Coaching.com. That's Sharon k Coaching.com.
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Welcome And The Self-Care Tension
SPEAKER_00Hello and welcome to my podcast. My name is Sharon Murphy, and I'm a certified life and mindset coach, and I help women who seek to be happy and holy. Each week I'll bring you tools and insights to help you on your journey to the heights. I'm so glad you're here. Hello and welcome back. Thanks so much for joining me today. Today I am really excited to welcome back a guest I had on recently, a fellow friend and Catholic coach, Denise Jelinick. She is a health and weight loss coach and she works with Catholic women. She's doing amazing things. She's got a lot going on. Welcome, Denise. Thanks for having me, Sharon. It's good to be back. Today we are diving into a topic that we talked about the last time we had done our interview, Denise. We talked about this topic briefly and we got off the call and we said, This is we need to schedule our next our next time to talk about this because it's such a great, a great topic. We're talking about self-care, self-care for women, for Catholic women. Denise, you teach something that it immediately challenges the way Catholic women think, right? That it's not just allowed, but it's actually what God wants for us. So how did you come to this conviction that you think that so many women struggle with? I'm sure you've encountered and I encounter in my own work and in my own circles. This is a really hard thing for women to grasp. How did you get how did you get to this point?
SPEAKER_02The whole concept of self-care, it it gets confusing in our brains because we look at it from a secular lens, but when we look at it from Cath, the Catholic lens, the Catholic lens just means like we do it like the Lord does. And if we look at the order of our lives, I really came to this concept that self-care is not only okay, but the Lord wants us to do it and that it's holy. And years ago, I'll just back up for just a brief
Denise’s Motherhood Turning Point
SPEAKER_02moment. Years ago, I became a mom suddenly. And what I mean by suddenly is I adopted my son. And so he was 18 months old when I adopted him. And when you adopt a baby that's 18 months old, you don't have this slow progression of you slowing down your life, and then you have the baby, and the baby slowly gets bigger. So that it feels not so gradual as you would if you birthed a child. And then automatically one day you don't have a child, and now you do, and this child moves. So my life really felt suddenly changed. And one of the things I noticed was my prayer life decreased immensely. And I and a friend said to me, Denise, this one book really helped me. And this book was written by Holly Perot. It's called A Mother's Rule of Life. She said it really helped me structure my life as a mom. And well, as you know, in 24 hours I went from not being a mom to being a mom. So I loved the book. And what I really took away from that book is that she wanted to create what's called a rule of life for women for moms, and she was a homeschooling mom. And what a rule of life is is women who live or people, men and women who live in community life, especially religious life, they have what's called a rule of life. And what it does is it simply addresses the necessary to make sure the necessary things get done and that what's essential is tended to. She couldn't find anything for wives. So she went back to something that her priest had told her when she was getting married in preparation for marriage.
A Rule Of Life For Moms
SPEAKER_02And he said this when you are a wife and a mom, there are five P's of life. And if you keep them in that order, then everything else falls in place. And it was the first time, Sharon, that I'd ever heard these five P's. And this is the order. P number one is prayer, P number two is person. What? Per person, so I'll tell you a little bit more about what that is, is person. Third P is partner with your spouse, fourth P is parent, and the fifth P is provider, which I can just assume like contributing in all the ways, taking care of your home, taking care of, taking care of all the things that aren't the actual relationships. And I hadn't expected to do this, but I'm gonna grab that book so you can hear this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, as you're grabbing that, I'm just gonna mention I read that book years ago myself as well. I kind of forgot about it because I was, I was, you know, I'm telling my age here, but I was a young my situation's a little different. I did have my children by birth, naturally, but I remember somebody referring to that book and I thought, oh, this is great. So I'm familiar with it. But yeah, yeah, cool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, honestly, I I maybe I should just rewrite the book. She, I don't think she's released it. It's such a great book. Um it is. But here's what I want to read. I'm gonna read this to everybody. It is a very short paragraph, and it describes what that second P of person is. The second P person. Next, I needed to ensure that I was caring for my basic physical needs. So I set about determining how much sleep I felt my body needed to keep me refreshed, how much exercise I needed, what types of foods and vitamin supplements I needed, and so on. I likewise considered my mental and emotional health. That's all she said.
SPEAKER_01And all of us listening right now, nobody thinks that that was extravagant or indulgent or luxurious or wow, she's really selfish.
SPEAKER_02You can clearly see the simplicity of simply stewarding the vessel God created you as. Think of this. Who was created to care for you? Only one human was created to care for you. The only one human that was created to care for your needs, make sure you get water, make sure that you have your clothes washed, make sure that you get enough sleep, make sure that you get exercise, make sure that you get rest, make sure that you're tended to. Only one human was created in all of God's kingdom. Only one human was given that mission. And if that human doesn't do that work, it goes undone. So, Sharon, pop quiz. Who was that one human that was created to do that function in the Lord's kingdom?
SPEAKER_00It's ourselves, it's you. Yeah, you know, that's such a such a great point, Denise, because I think what happens is, you know, we're raised by our parents, we were cared for, and then we're launched into adulthood. And for a lot of us women, we become mothers and we we sort of just step into that role of caring for. We know that it's our responsibility to care for our children. But I love how you mentioned in that book that it's the first one is prayer, and the second one is person. We don't have a problem typically. I shouldn't say this, I'm making an assumption, but we understand the importance of prayer. But then what we do is we go right to parent and provider. And I think we skip, you know, that's the part that we skip is the person, right? It's it's easy to skip ourselves. So it's so true. And when you mentioned what she said about the, you know, the sleep, the exercise, the mental and emotional health, we're like, well, of course. But when it comes to the practicals of our day-to-day, then we don't know, we don't we don't give it the attention it needs. I mean, because when we listen to that, like you said, it doesn't sound extravagant. We're like, well, of course we need to care for our needs. But it's it's true, it's something that we often we just overlook.
SPEAKER_02And I think one of the easy one of the reasons is because this is a new conversation. We're probably the first generation, the generation like young, a couple generations younger than us are now getting this. But you and I were both raised without examples of this.
SPEAKER_00Right, for sure.
SPEAKER_02And so when you're raised without an example, then it seems like, oh, that's a thing. Like most women don't even know it's a thing.
SPEAKER_00Right. I know if I was to say something to my mom right now about self-care, I mean, she's probably heard of the term, but that that wasn't something that I mean, she wouldn't even understand it. And we see this, we talked about this before, but the, you know, what in the secular world, it is talked about a lot, but it can look a little different. And so I want to talk a little bit too about how that looks different for Catholic women and what you're talking about when you're talking about self-care based on what the world tells us self-care looks like and what that can look like for us. And how what does the Lord say? You said right out that you mentioned something about live like the Lord has, or the way the Lord said. You referred to it in the beginning. Can you just talk a little bit more about that? What is what does the Lord have in mind for this for us?
Selfishness Versus Stewardship
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I first I want to just say the difference between selfish and self-care. Selfish is when I am taking care of my needs at the expense of someone else. And I mean like I'm taking care of my needs at the expense of something else I'm supposed to be responsible or stewarding. Now, sometimes not staying up and reading, this is just a simple example, not staying up and reading two to three to four to five books with your child because you need the sleep. So that child probably perceives that they're being neglected. But the truth is that you know that you're you're just honoring and stewarding yourself well. So it doesn't mean other people might be inconvenienced at time. Totally fine. It's totally fine to inconvenience other people to truly steward what you've been called to steward.
SPEAKER_00I think that's where it's sometimes that's where sometimes I think the great that can be a great, great area, or where it can get a little bit hard for people to understand where is that line? Because when you have young children and they're needing you, or as your children grow, you know, that's where I think it can get a little muddled. Do you have any have any advice as to how we can draw that line?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I think a really simple way to say this is am I neglecting myself or neglecting my own needs because it's more comfortable to neglect my needs and make this person over here happy. All of us know when we slow down, if the Lord would say, Oh, hey, you know what? Susie cannot have three books tonight and you can go to bed and it's totally fine. All of us know when we're simply trying to people please, and that feels more comfortable. And we like to call it a sacrifice, but it's not sacrifice. It's just we feel more comfortable. It quiets that child down, it makes our husband happy. And we know when we're doing it from authentic love and a nurturing place, and it feels like, you know what, I really want to go this extra mile for my husband. I really want to go this extra mile for my child. It feels very slow, it feels very mushy and warm and giving. It doesn't feel neglect, it doesn't feel resentful and bitey and like, ah, no one's taking care of me. And this is this is the key, my friends, to being able to truly sacrifice well, to give well, is that when we are filled and we are nurtured, then we become that truly nurturing mother, that truly nurturing uh wife. What I would suggest is that as we go through our days, start to notice when it's a true act of love, of giving, of sacrifice, versus I'm just doing it because A, I've always done this and I didn't know there was a different way. Or B, actually, I feel very uncomfortable standing up for myself and advocating for myself. So it's just easier to make other people happy. Which I know I'm going far here, but that's a false God. That's when we're seeking our pleasure and our identity in giving and doing and being. The more we do, the more we give, the more we go, do, say yes, that becomes then a false God that we're chasing. Because I'm gonna tell you authentic true self-care, as you heard from Holly Pro's book, which I think that's how you pronounce her name, is not indulgent, but it is really uncomfortable to set boundaries. It's really uncomfortable. What feels really good to our brains is going, doing, being, checking things off lists, happy people.
SPEAKER_00I think that's actually really common.
When Serving Becomes Avoiding
SPEAKER_00It's it's so much easier to just focus on somebody else. And that's one thing that I want to talk about is sometimes how we can fall into this trap of pouring ourselves into the lives of other people as a way of actually avoiding our own lives and looking at what we need to look at. Sometimes that can be it's it's really easy to look at other people's things. And it can feel, it can feel really rewarding. And it can, that's where sometimes it can be kind of a little bit selfish, like you said, self-serving, because we can feel really good about all the things we're doing for somebody else. We live in a time where all of that performance and stuff like that is it's really honored and it's put up on a pedestal. So look at all the things we're doing, right? And it can because a lot of times if we're taking care of our loved ones, whether it's our children or our spouse, right, we get that feedback from them and we feel good about ourselves. And that can feel very, very good for our egos and for our self-esteem. So, what does it look like? I mean, how can someone know if maybe they're trying to avoid looking at their own life, right? That they're doing that, that they're falling into this trap.
SPEAKER_02So I'm gonna use an example of I work with women, helping them lose weight by just reordering their food. What I mean by that is helping them learn how to eat foods that all the foods that they love without dieting, and just create a lot of peace around their food. So the women that I work with typically use food as a way to escape their own life. Stress hits, they go to food. They feel uncomfortable, they go to food. They're sad, they're lonely, they go to food. And we can do the same thing by binging on other humans' lives. We can be distracted by feeling sadness or lonely. Oh, I'll just go, go do more, be more, go to we get distracted by other people's lives. Or perhaps if we feel uncomfortable with a choice that our family members are making, then we try to convince them to do something different. But it's just so that we feel comfortable and essentially that we feel like they're gonna be okay. I was doing an in-person retreat over lent, and I talked to the women, and I said, if you are not talking to the Lord about your own life, he is like, What are we doing? Why do we keep talking about all these other people? And I try I get that praying is important. I'm not diminishing praying, but what I am saying is, girl, if you are not talking to the Lord about your own shortcomings, your own salvation, your own what needs to be, your own attachments, you know, where you can't, where you need his help. Because so often what we're doing is we notice something in our life once we want it to be different. And so we go research online or we go look at Instagram followers or whatever, and we need to go to him with those problems first. Lord, I'm really angry with my husband. Talk to him about it. Lord, I'm overeating my face off, talk to him about it. I'm over-drinking, talk to him about it. I'm so worried about my kids not going to church, talk to him about it. He wants us to go to him for everything. So the point is, is that for many of us, we've spent years and decades finding so much comfort, security in trying to control things.
The Three Businesses And Exhaustion
SPEAKER_02And the truth is, is that there's three businesses in the world, Sharon. There's your business, there's other people's business, and there's God's business. I'm gonna say that again. There's your business, your business are the things that you can control. There's other people's business, and there's God's business. God's business are things like the world and politics and wars, other people's business are their choices, are their opinions, are their judgments, are the things they do, the things they say. And when we cross the line and try to control other people's business or God's business, we will always be exhausted. We will always end up feeling like life feels heavy and burdensome. And our work is to stay across the other side of the line, keep our focus on what we can control, on our behavior, on our thoughts. And the reason why, Sharon, in our relationship with God, not other people's relationship with God. I mean, of course, you know, there's when we're raising children, that's very different than once we become adults. But when we focus on what we can control, we are doing exactly what the Lord asked us to do. He has only asked us to steward what is ours to control. He's not asking us to do all that other stuff, take care of all of his business and the other people's business. And when we focus on what we can control, that is also how we improve our own lives, our lives get better. And I haven't looked this one up, but I believe that in the end, we will only be judged on what's in our control. God can't judge us on anything else. And that's why it's so important for us to really just continue to keep our eyes on our lives, make sure that we're walking with the Lord, not getting distracted by overdoing, where we get exhausted.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I gotta be honest, I love that idea of there's three businesses in the world. You know, I'm very familiar: your business, other people's business, and God's business. And I would even take this a step further and I say, this is why so many of us lack peace, is because we're in the other people's, you know, other people's in God's business, right? We can't have peace unless we're actually in our own business. Because when we're just focusing on our own business, even if our lives are not what they we want them to be, which for most of us they're not, we're always striving, you know, we're on the path to holiness. We're we're on our way there. So there's always ways that we're not living the way we want to. We're we're in our human nature. But when we're in that one-to-one relationship with God and we're focusing on what's our business, we're still gonna have peace in that process. God gives us that peace. We heard this in last week's readings, you know, in the gospel, peace be with you. He wants to bring us his peace. It's when we're up in everybody else's business or we're trying to take care of his business that we can't, we don't have access to that peace. And I love how you talked about talking to the Lord. I want to just say that I think talking to the Lord, and maybe for some of some of the listeners out there, maybe that is a challenge. But I think you brought up a really good point as well is that when we're talking to the Lord, very often we're talking, we can fall into the trap of praying for everybody else. We become an intercessor, you know, especially as moms. We're praying for this person, we're praying for this person, we're praying, and that's all necessary. It's fantastic. That is part of our role, but we forget to look at the Lord, and maybe, maybe the prayer even for ourselves can be something like, Lord, help me fix this, or Lord, but it's usually out of like a desperation or it's a graspy, or it's it's not coming from a place of uh peace. It's coming from a place of like kind of fear or scarcity or desperation. And I think what can be really helpful is to when you talked about just talking about our own life, is just asking the Lord and then listening. Asking the Lord, Lord, where am I where where do you want to heal me? Where do you want to lead me today? Where is there opportunities for growth? Where are you calling me to? And then just listening, right? And letting the Lord speak to you. Speak, it's talking to the Lord is one thing, but I think an area where we really can, because the Lord will reveal to us in his gentleness and in his kindness the ways in which he wants us to care for ourselves, I believe, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think the woman who's listening to this can simply say, Oh, this is hmm, this is very fascinating. And say, Lord, illuminate to me what it is you want me to know. Send down the spirit of counsel. I love that. Illuminate to me.
SPEAKER_00Spirit of counsel. I love that. I love that. What's the next step here? Yeah. Now you talk, you mentioned uh a little bit a few times when you were talking, and you said about nurturing, right? And as
Guilt, Seasons, And Being Irreplaceable
SPEAKER_00women, that's part of our feminine nature is to we're nurturers. And you say that a nurtured woman is a woman who's able to nurture. And I think what you're saying there is we're not able to nurture others unless we are nurtured. So for the woman who's out there listening, and it feels like taking time for herself or her way, let's just say taking time away from her family, because that's what it's viewed as. A lot of times, if we're gonna take time for ourselves as moms, it does require us to pull back a little bit. From what we might feel feel. What would you say to the woman who's struggling with that?
SPEAKER_02I often have this feeling of, I still get that twinge of guilt. I've I've noticed that personally, the more and more I get into self-care and the more the Lord truly reveals to me my nature. I'm an introvert. I get very overstimulated with people and including my family. And what what this new awareness has brought me is to understand where I was unnecessarily giving my attention. All the things that I was filling my life with that were exhausting me and depleting me, so that the people in my life that where I'm truly irreplaceable, I was too tired for, or just like, oh, I just need to be alone. So I think this is what I would ask. This is I've got several things to say about this, Sharon. The first one is that women, let's look at our lives. And often we get overextended for two reasons. We're doing things that the Lord does isn't asking us to do. Ladies, just because you're good at something doesn't mean you should do it. Right? You could be like amazing organizer person, person, and everybody wants you on their counselors and wants you to volunteer. That doesn't mean you should do it. So we're usually getting overextended because we're doing things the Lord hasn't asked us to do, and we're just not really being honest with our own own nature. So let me let me give you a little key. When you look at your life, where you should spend your time is number one, the first place is where you're irreplaceable. I want you to look at everywhere in your life, and I mean, aside from your family, you're replaceable. You could die tomorrow and they would find somebody else to be a Eucharistic minister. You could die tomorrow and like the RE department would still go on. So you want to focus on where you're irreplaceable. The only place you're irreplaceable is to yourself and the other humans that you've been called to care for and that you love, and that love you. The also I want to say is where I feel like that's a simple line. And did you hear me say that you're irreplaceable to you, yourself? Right. Yeah. The second place is where you were created. What you really feel created to do in this season of your life. So sometimes you, and and I've seen this as my kids grow up, they're teenagers now, where I can say, you know what, when they were little, I would be like, I'm gonna do that when they're teenagers. This just isn't the right season of my life to do that. So, friends, when people are asking you, hey, will you do this again this year, this event, or volunteer for this? Instead of saying yes right away, I want you to say, I'll get back to you. And then just discern that with the Lord. Lord, is this what you want for this season of my life? To full circle, your original question was, How do we not feel guilty? Because what I've noticed is that my life, I am much happier personally when I am not overextended. And the only person overextending me is me. And then I have to really steward my quiet time, my refill time. And I say, and it's just a thought, I know, but I really feel like I need a large amount of quiet time so that when I'm with the people that I love, I can authentically be there. So what I tell myself, which I do believe is very true, that helps me from feeling guilty, is I say, you know what? When you get me, you get me. Like I'm not somewhere else, I am with you. Like my yes means yes. I am here with you. Like I'm coming full. And I feel me first. And I know that if like let's say my son wants to talk unexpectedly at like while I'm going to bed, I can choose which is usually when they come when they find you.
SPEAKER_00If you have a teenager, it's late at night.
SPEAKER_02It is, and then and then I just get to decide am I doing this? Am I gonna sleep in? Am I not gonna sleep in? But I don't do it because I feel like I feel guilty if I don't. I get it's my choice. This is an opportunity or not. I get to view it however I want. I can say, hey buddy, can we talk about this on tomorrow? Or I can say, you know what, this is gonna be 15 minutes. I'm gonna stay up with them. But I I think that the more we understand and just give ourselves permission to be human, because friends, you are not more important than other humans, but you're just as important. And when we start caring for ourselves in that way, you just get to address those guilty feelings. I mean, you know, Sharon, you're a mindset coach, it's just a thought. It is just a thought. But I'll tell you that one thought is very powerful because I see a lot of women really neglecting their needs from that one sneaky thought.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it only takes one thought to drive a whole area.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, do you think that the Lord's saying that to you?
SPEAKER_00No, no, not at all.
SPEAKER_02No, because the Lord created the feeling of guilt in us to let us know when we're sinning. So there's an appropriate use of guilt. But if we're not sinning and feeling guilty, we're believing something that's a lie.
SPEAKER_00That's the one thing I wanted to mention when you you talked about guilt being nurtured, and that it's so true because so many people, yes, but so many women, so many moms are just they spend so much time in guilt. And it's not, you're right, guilt has a place in our lives, but it's it's so misguided right now in our world. There's so much guilt for moms. We carry a lot. And I don't think that this was the case from previous generations. I think it's something that stepped in within, of course, our generation on down. And we maybe because we're filled with so much information, I'm not really sure. But there's a lot of guilt that we carry that is not, it's not rightly placed. Because you're right, the only the only purpose of guilt is really to guide us towards what is good and true and beautiful, and when we're not living in accordance with what God has called for us, right? That's the purpose of it, to call us out of sin. But the reality is, is even when you talked about seasons of our lives, and that we have different seasons, and I think that's super important because it looks very different depending upon the season of your life. Self-care looks different, how we show up and and our family situations. And and I know it looked different for me. I too am an introvert, just like you said. And actually, I have a lot of compassion for myself now when I look back at the number of years that I was so overextended, and I didn't know how to say, I need alone time, I need, as you know, I my husband and I have six children and he worked a lot, and I I didn't, I didn't know how to do that. I didn't think it was available to me. I I was just overextended most of the time. And I do, I have a lot of compassion for myself. And so when you talk about allowing ourselves to be human and realizing that, you know, we're not gonna do it perfectly. And you talked about when your son came in, because that was a big thing for me. How would they come in at the end of the night? So I'm somebody that likes to go to bed early. That was a thing. And by early, I don't mean like super early, but you know, by 10 o'clock, I'm gonna be in bed. And I have some family members who are night owls. Of course, as teenagers, as you know, that's when they want to talk very often as they come in. And so it was a struggle for me a lot of times to really try and be present and to, and I would have to make that decision too of am I going to or am I protecting this is my this is my time because I'm up early and they have me all day long. I'm I'm at somebody's somebody else's back and call. It's uh felt like from the time I got up until I went to bed at night. So I would really try and protect that time. Now, there were times where I made a decision and said, I'm really sorry, I'm I'm sleeping. I've been I've been asleep now for 10 minutes, you know, and I and I did that. But there was always a period of like the next few days of me then taking it to prayer and discerning, you know. And there was times where I was like, I think next time I'm gonna give that a little bit more attention, I'm gonna talk to that child. But there was times where I was like, no, actually that was an okay boundary for me to set because that that child really, you know, I was sleeping and it really wasn't anything important, and I felt okay with it. And it was different. It was different at different times. And so it's something that I think we need to take to the Lord and just say, you know, what do I need at this point? Did I really need to be sleeping or did I really need that rest time? And maybe you do, and maybe sometimes you don't. And it's it's it's something that we're just gonna have to work through continually and taking it to the Lord.
SPEAKER_02You know, Sharon, I just want to amen that when I was young, mom, I didn't know this concept. I didn't know myself enough to even know I needed, like that I was so overstimulated, and that's why I was binging my face off. Right. But I also want to say that once I started to understand this, I started to teach my boys this. I started coming into this new concept when I was 30 something. Like I'm 48 right now. I really started my self-care journey like at 37. I'm almost 49. It doesn't matter. My point is that now I will say to my boys, you have to take care of yourself. What do you need? What do you, you know, like really, and I really I think that I for if there is a young mom listening to this, I want, or even if teenagers, I want you to start knowing that you can teach your kids how to take care of themselves because once they start having that language, it makes it a lot easier for you to say, you know, I need some quiet time. It's time for me to, or you know, it's I need some quiet time. My nervous system is really overstimulated, you know, and they start to hear that language, and then they'll be, you know, mom, do you need a timeout? You know?
SPEAKER_00Right, right, right. And I actually, that's one thing that I I would say, what I have a hard time when my kids come at me with they want like a quick answer. And the way I am and the way I'm wired, I'm I'm just like, you know what, I need time. I I my immediate response is no, always they know that I'm like, if you need an answer right now in this very moment, all I can give you is no, because I really need to think through things deeply. And so I just have been very honest with them with, you know what, I I don't know. I I need some time. I'll get back to you. And they've come to understand that. But I too, you know, I have some kids that are grown now and they're married, and some of them are having children themselves. And that's one of the things that I just want them to understand too, is just being very aware of their own needs and you know, having an awareness around it and having the language, like you said, to be able to use to say, because everybody is so different. Some, I have some children who, you know, I can relate to the one who needs the quiet and I can be very protective of that. But I also have some kids that are like they need a lot of a lot of interaction, a lot of people. They're they're extroverts. And that too can be something where I've just talked to one of my daughters and said, you know what, if she has a couple of little kids and is struggles a little bit with sometimes needing the adult interaction and the social interaction. And that too is just as much of self-care. You know, it's like finding those people, those connections, that community that can help support you in your role as being a mom, because you need that just as much as sometimes we need quiet time. So that's one thing I want to ask you is what are some practical tips for authentic self-care? What does that look like for moms?
SPEAKER_02I can't say this enough. How simple, simple, simple it truly
Two Questions For Daily Self-Care
SPEAKER_02is. Is the first thing is simply to be able to pause in the middle of the day. And I don't suggest that you do this when you're busy, busy, busy, but I want you to start developing a practice of answer, asking yourself two questions. The first one is what do I feel? And the second one is what do I need? What do I feel? And when you start doing this, you are going to say, I have no idea. But that's fine. You don't have to know right away. But I encourage you to continue the practice. What do I feel? I can feel calm. What I often notice is that when I have done this practice, I'll notice this underlying anxiety. I feel slightly anxious, I feel preoccupied. So it's just it's just a look inside you. And then what do I need? I need quiet. And if you can put your hand even on your chest or on your neck, you can get a really beautiful response that might be I just need to know it's okay. I need to know I'm doing a good job. For the women that I work with with weight loss, we do this practice so that they can start to show their brain the answer is usually not food. It's usually something else. And for women, I'm assuming it'll just be it's a really fun. What do I need? And it might be I need a snack, I need some water. How about this one? I need to go to the bathroom. Sometimes we hold it so long, and then we're like, you know what? Actually, I just need to go to the bathroom.
SPEAKER_00So true. So true. Yeah. And I like how it there's a there's a point to that, I'm sure starting with what do I feel? And then it leads, what do I need? Right. Because we might be like, I need this, I need this, but it we don't really always know what we need until we know how we feel. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Is there anything else that you want to add to this conversation? We've touched on a lot of really great things. Is there anything else that's coming up for you that you think our listeners that you want to leave them with?
The Lord’s Care And Closing
SPEAKER_02Yeah, one one thing is I did that in-person retreat recently, and it was all about self-care. And we really just got into all the evidence that self-care truly is holy. And one of the women said that she just couldn't say that word because it was just kind of triggering, and it had such that connotation that of secular self-care, it felt very selfish. And she said that what she started, what she likes to say is the Lord's care. How do I give myself the Lord's care? And I was like, I love that. I love that because what we want to do, if we truly want to be like Jesus in all ways, then caring for ourselves the way he would if he were here, then that just puts it in perspective. It's kind of like, hey, let me fill up your water bottle for you. Are you kind of cold? Do you want some socks on your feet? Hey, do you want to go ahead and set the coffee for the morning?
SPEAKER_00You know, it just I love that. Yeah, I love that. Because you know what? When we're looking at ourselves, it I mean, even if we know that it's it's what we need, it can still feel for some of us selfish. So I like how you say that, basically reframing it into like almost placing ourselves as the recipient or the patient and and making the Lord the person that you know you're focusing on is that and and that somebody's caring for you. I mean, we have no problem caring for others, and yet it can be so challenging to receive that, you know, to do that for ourselves. So to be the one that's just putting ourselves in the position of allowing the Lord to do this for us. Lord, what it what do I need? And and then receiving what he reveals to us that we need, right? And as you talked about, as you're doing all your work, and then we did in our last podcast, is just really it comes back to making ourselves available to what the Lord wants to say to us, right? Opening ourselves up and becoming a conduit of his grace and just letting him speak to us. And that's part of part of our journey here. And it it can be a challenge, but I think that's absolutely necessary when we want to figure out what it is that's gonna, as you say, holy self-care or you know, true self-care or the Lord's care.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, let's just call it authentic self-care. I mean, if we just look at authentically, how would the Lord define self-care?
SPEAKER_00And I think it's important that we talk about this and make this common language within our Catholic circles with for Catholic women, just that it's just part of our language that we speak so that it it becomes natural. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Denise, for all your wisdom. It's such a pleasure to talk to you. I always love I I don't I don't record in video, but I wish people could see you because you just you have so much of the Holy Spirit just bubbling up within you, and you have so much life and love and enthusiasm. It's beautiful. Where can people find out more about you?
SPEAKER_02Where where can people find me over at weight losswithheirit.com, and my podcast is the same name, Weight Loss with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00Are you on? I'm assuming, are you on Instagram or Facebook?
SPEAKER_02Right. All of our handles are at Catholic Weight Loss. And I just like to say, why don't we just do everything like Catholic women? And all that means is we put the Lord first in our self-care and our weight loss and everything that we do in our parenting, in our endeavors. Let's just put the Lord first, friends.
SPEAKER_00Right, it seems obvious.
SPEAKER_02It definitely sounds like a no-brainer.
SPEAKER_00Solves most of our problems, but you know, we get tripped up on that. So great advice, though. Well, thank you so much again for joining, joining me today, Denise. And thank you to all my listeners for joining in. I appreciate your time and your attention. I know how busy everyone is. And until next time, onward and upward, my friends, to the heights. Thanks so much for listening today. If you have any questions or would like to go deeper into this topic or how it affects you in your own life, you can find me at Sharon K Coaching.com. That's Sharon the Letterk Coaching.com. If you've enjoyed listening, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite platform. And feel free to share with anyone you think might benefit from what you've heard.