Self-care and Body Image with Denise Jelinek of Weight Loss with the Holy Spirit

Sarah and Denise talk about self-care and body image. Denise a Catholic weight loss coach who helps women turn to God instead of food through her Weight Loss with the Holy Spirit program, 63 Surrendered program, and Restored Lent Challenge.  Restored helps women surrender to God, not the scale.

Denise shares about how authentic self-care is not about expense and luxury--it's a sacred activity given to us by the Lord. She also shares about how we can change our negative thoughts about our body.

Fast from the scale and experience the freedom and peace that come from surrendering fully to the Lord with Denise's Restored Lent Challenge! 

Learn more or join here.

Use coupon code 63LENT for $20 off.

You can also find Denise online at WeightLosswiththeHolySpirit.com

Free Enhancing Marital Intimacy Guide for Catholic Women: 9 Skills for Body, Mind, and Spirit (for married and engaged women)

Transcript

Sarah: 0:50

I am so delighted to talk with my friend Denise Jelinek about self care. Body image. Also, another important topic for having sex with your husband and feeling confident and good about it. Denise is a Catholic health and wellness coach. Denise is the creator of weight loss with the Holy Spirit and 63 Surrender to transformative beautiful programs for helping you turn to God instead of food for. Taking care of all those feelings. So Denise, thank you so much for joining this conversation. I'm so happy to have you.

Denise: 1:25

Thanks, Sarah. I am so delighted to speak about one of my favorite subjects, which is a little known truth that I believe the Lord wants women to know, but we're never taught, and it's how to take care of the human. He created you as. We're so used to create taking care of all the other humans, but how do you take care of this human? So this is gonna be a lot of fun.

Sarah: 1:51

Absolutely. You know, when I was going through, uh, and still am going through your programs, one thing that really struck me is how you teach us women that God put one person on earth to take care of me. Can you tell a a little bit about that and maybe how you discovered that insight and, and then what it looks like to practice that in daily life?

Denise: 2:17

That's a, yeah. I will tell you all of those things. So my philosophy is, and I believe I've not heard anybody counter this, is that second to loving the Lord, our number one job on this earth is to take care of ourselves. And I know that because when I am cared for, and I'm not talking about luxurious, expensive things, I'm talking about getting human, basic human needs met when I making sure that I'm getting water, when I'm making sure that I am. Sleeping and, and getting well nourished. That's the physical part, but also tending to my emotional needs. When I'm recognizing I'm kind of sad, I need a little more space. When I'm recognizing my feet are cold, I'm gonna put some socks on. When I'm recognizing I am so happy, I really wanna call a friend right now when we're tuning into ourselves and we know our own needs. And we're meeting them. The benefit is twofold. Number one, when we know how to meet them, we show up full. Mm-hmm. We show up authentically ourselves, and then we're ready to help all the other humans because we've all experienced when we haven't had our needs met. And guess what? We're just distracted thinking about. Well. Nobody took care of me. Nobody cares what I think. I didn't get my walk-in. There's no time for me. We're just spinning out and distracted by that. Woe is me pity party. I'm a victim. I. Mentality. And for all of you out there who are feeling that way, there's nothing wrong with that because no one's ever taught you that you are the one that the Lord has given the very holy mission to take care of you. And so what happens when we don't know how to take care of our own needs is, number one, we're distracted because we feel like nobody else is taking care of our needs. And number two, guess what? Since we have this soul hole. We try to fill it with other things.

Sarah: 4:38

Mm-hmm.

Denise: 4:40

We try to fill it with food. Maybe overdrinking over scrolling, but the worst part, and where I really found I had the biggest soul hole was I was looking to other humans and expecting them to take care of me. Well, if only my husband would appreciate me. If only he saw the good I did. If only, if only, if only. Expecting other human beings to do the job they were never created to do.

Sarah: 5:08

Right?

Denise: 5:09

It's my job to recognize I have needs and it's my job to meet those needs. And guess what? Okay, so. I think we all get what Denise gel's saying, but your brain is probably saying, yeah, but I don't have time to do it. Yeah. How do I do that? How do I prioritize me? And here's the groundbreaking truth that the Lord revealed to me one day. Denise, you're living like, you're either taking care of your family or you're taking care of your own needs. Oh. That's not the way I designed life. This is the Lord speaking to me. Mm-hmm. I want you to learn how to take care of you while you're taking care of your family, taking care of your family's needs and your own. And I was like, I don't even know how to do that. But of course. Of course that makes total sense because you've heard me say it before, Sarah. The Lord would not give us the families we have, the marriages we have, the professions we have outside the home or in the home. If it required us to neglect ourselves if it required one of his precious chosen creatures, which is you, whoever you are listening to this. To neglect you, to destruct you, to allow yourself or at the expense of you, and I think that's what we do. We're living life saying, I'm doing all these things for the Lord, neglecting and at the expense of ourselves, and now we're, that was a stinking hard truth because the reason why I was doing that. First of all, because nobody taught me how to do it differently. But secondly, because I wasn't being honest with my own needs, it takes

Sarah: 7:12

humility, right? To recognize that we have needs,

Denise: 7:17

and guess what? Mm-hmm. It's, it's invisible. And when in the mu the women in our community, I'm just like applauding and applauding and applauding when women are honest with their needs. You are right. The two virtues here are humility. Like, oh, I'm not super woman, but the only reason I think I want to or need to be superwoman is so I get the accolades from the world. I get the accolades from my husband, I get the. Accolades from that committee

Sarah: 7:49

or our internal self critic who has these unrealistic expectations of how much we're going to perform and achieve Right? Like we think, okay, if I do all these things, then I can give myself permission to feel good about myself. There's just this treadmill that keeps,

Denise: 8:06

it's kind of this impossible. Yeah, I mean, I think what, and Sarah, we were talking before the. Before our, we hit record, but for all of the women listening to this, the very simple way to look at it is, here's where you are right now in the self-care spectrum and the Lord and he, and, and you can't see this'cause you're, we're on a podcast, but I like to extend my arm out in front of me with my hand. And my hand is. What I know the Lord wants for me. I know the Lord wants me to be like him in every area, including the way I care for me. He wants me to care for me and talk to me and love me as much as he does. And so all the things on my arm, my extended arm are the obstacles, the things standing in the way, and that's just what we get to look at.

Sarah: 9:04

That's the work. Yes. So, so good. And so we talked about humility and then what is the other virtue, Denise, that you think is really key with learning to take care of ourselves?

Denise: 9:19

Honesty. Oh, honesty. You guys are beautiful. It's really dishonest if I'm gonna overextend myself and grumble Mc grumble, MC grumble as I'm folding laundry. No one's making me fold the laundry. If I need a break, if I need to say, I'm gonna wait for this till tomorrow, I get to do that.

Sarah: 9:46

Yeah. Or ask for help. Train your kids, ask your husband. Pay someone if you. Wanna allocate money towards that. There's, we actually have so many options when we think we're stuck, you know?

Denise: 10:00

Yeah. And I think, you know, the other thing, I use the laundry example, but you guys know it's not the laundry. The laundry isn't the reason you're overextending yourself. The reason you're overextending is because of all the things that you probably put ahead of that. That you're just running on fumes. And part of running on fumes is the grumble mc grum stoles that are happening in our brain. And I talk to Sarah often about what authentic self-care is, and I hope I can just please. Okay. So for all of you who are like, this doesn't even make sense. Well, let me just give you a place to start, and I call this authentic self-care. And let's just put aside what you've heard about self-care in the past. It's not luxury, it's not expense. I mean, pedicures and manicures are great. Getting our hair done is great. Massages are great. And I'm not saying that that's not important, but our first line of defense is authentic self-care, and it costs$0 and it takes zero time. There's three parts of it. The first one is just checking in with ourselves. Hey Denise, how you doing? How are you feeling? And I just check in. I just kind of do a temperature check with me. The women in our community, I have them do this three to five times a day. So this one question, and then the second question is, what do you need? What do you need right now? What do you need right now? And listen, I give you full permission to not even do that. See, you don't have to do what your brain knows you need. You might not even know what you need.

Sarah: 11:47

So you could say, for example, what I need now is a long nap, and you might not take the long nap, but at least recognizing that that's what you need is really important. Is that what you're saying with when you're saying Yes, do it. Yeah,

Denise: 12:04

because you can at least tell the truth.

Sarah: 12:08

Mm-hmm.

Denise: 12:09

What I need now is a nap and to not have to fold this laundry. But I'm going to because I wanna have it done and there's no one to watch the toddler and all the, all the things. But let's just be honest with our own needs. Honesty, honesty. Honesty, honesty. Um, I love to do this because a lot of the women I work with are, um, indulging in food instead and using food and believing that, oh, I just need a snack to get through this. I'm not saying don't eat. But at least acknowledge that I'm eating because I'm not getting my nap right. Right. I just think it's, I think it's so cool. Let's just acknowledge that I am scrolling on my phone because I am totally procrastinating wanting to unload the dishwasher. I dunno. So what do I feel you might not know? Totally fine. What do I need? And then the third part of it. It's the way we talk to ourselves. I was working with a client this morning who has had this huge amount of, this is her, her words, I've got all my shoes, and they just need to be organized. And we got to a place in our coaching that she was going to just pull the shoes out that she knows she loves, and then the rest she's just gonna put in a bin and she'll deal with those later and put'em in the basement.

Sarah: 13:39

Nice.

Denise: 13:40

Yeah. I was like, that's great. And she was like, it'll take 15 minutes. I'll just do a real quick sort. To make a long story short, she did it three days after she thought she would do it. Mm-hmm. And her brain's like, you're so lazy, you procrastinate, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Instead of like, oh my gosh, I've been looking at this for a month. I've been wanting to do it. I'm so grateful I did it. So you guys, which one. Boost your energy in which one steals it. And for all of the women out there who are feeling so exhausted and so tired, this is a hack. The more you speak kindly and see the amazing things that you're doing, the more you gain energy and you're releasing dopamine in your brain. Little bits, amounts of dopamine, the more. You criticize yourself, the heavier your life will be, the less energy you'll have.

Sarah: 14:40

That's such a great hack. Yes. The words we use in our own mind to speak to ourself can deplete our energy or give us more energy. I love that hack. You know, this is so important. I'll just share a little personal example of. Learning to identify and take care of my own needs, which is, um, to recognize that a lot of my emotional eating had been eating the silence and quiet and personal alone time that I wasn't creating for myself in my life. That I realized as an introvert that this really is, you know, God made me this way. And that when I'm not honoring that and not giving myself. The doses of quiet time that I need to process, reflect, just chill out, just not have more external stimuli coming at me, um, that I would eat instead to self-regulate, I'm sure to, you know, feel calmer and soothe myself. So that was just so huge for me to realize I'm eating the quiet that I actually need to be giving myself that it's really quiet time that I need, not more snacks. Yes. Yeah. So I don't know. Oh, good. Others can relate to that. This is so important because a lot of times when it's time for love making, we as women, as wives, we wanna show up for our husbands, but we haven't shown up for ourselves because we believe this lie. And the lie is, I don't matter. But that's not the truth. The truth is you matter as much as your husband. You do matter and your needs matter and maybe your needs are not being met. And so you feel resentful when you over and over again overextend yourself in love making, saying like, okay, yeah, alright. Yes. When you're really your yes, should be too. The needs that you have. More sleep, putting those socks on so your feet feel warm, a bath, um, time to do emotional connection and repair so that your heart is in a good place to, you know, have to celebrate your connection with your husband physically, because it's based on. That heart to heart connection that you've made time for. All these things are so important and we often don't think of them as connected to sex, but everything shows up in sex and this is just a really important area where I think women can learn to, to follow the Lord's will for them better by caring for themselves so that they can be. Present and more fully, authentically themselves in love making instead of hiding behind a false Yes.

Denise: 17:42

Mm. So good. You know, I find that this is an area, again, where we have so many worldly views, but the woman that you're living as, and I want everyone to hear my voice, the woman that you're living as is not the most important human in the world. But she's just as important as the other humans, and getting to know her is vital for your relationship with the Lord, because who is the one person that can stand in the way of you being close to the Lord? Yes, it's you. The only person who can stand in the way of you knowing what he wants for you is you. The only thing that will bring you closer to the Lord is the more you know yourself, the more you know him. I really believe that's a hundred percent true and that he wants you to know you as much as he knows you. And we just, we just, your, your experience of living the life that he created for you starts to look more like what he envisioned it to be. It's just so worth it. It's so worth it. I heard someone say one time and I'll, I know getting short on time, she said, we just can't expect other humans to treat us better than we treat ourselves.

Sarah: 19:16

Oh, amen. That is so important. Yes. And this does, again, I just wanna emphasize this does not mean being selfish because I lo, I think a lot of times good Catholic women feel like, well it's, it's be selfish of me to say I need a nap, or I need more sleep. You know, be, I wanna be generous to my husband. Um, and that is, you know, that's. True that we don't wanna be selfish, but taking care of your needs is not selfish. And it is sharing yourself. It's being an authentic gift of self. When you can be honest about those and let your husband in to that part of you to be like that part of you that needs more rest, emotional repair, help, relaxing first, whatever it is. Um, or just right to, yeah, to really just be aware of not. Overextending yourself. I think that's just the main work of it here. Um, Denise, there's, I, we might have to do more episodes on this'cause it's a very important topic, but I do want to touch on another, um, genus that you have, gif that you have for helping women understand body image in a more positive way. Because this is another thing that really gets in the way of wives showing up with confidence. Uh, to lovemaking with their husbands being like, okay, well, you know, I'm not the same woman that I was 20 years ago, five kids ago, whatever it is. Um, you know, when our bodies change and we see this in a negative way or we feel that, that maybe if our husbands use porn and we're comparing ourselves in our mind to whatever women and images he may have seen from porn. Um. The thing is that we are all created good, and we are all beautiful, and a lot of times it's, well, most of the time in women that I've worked with, it's their own self-talk. Their own self-image that. Is the criticism. That's where the criticism is happening, not from their husbands. Their husbands are delighted to unite with their wives in love making and have never said anything negative about their bodies. It's just the woman feeling like, oh, you know, I don't look like the women I see in media images, or, I don't look like I think I should look. Mm-hmm. What can you tell us, Denise, about becoming, getting to a place that's more neutral or even positive in our self-Talk about

Denise: 21:43

our

Sarah: 21:43

bodies.

Denise: 21:44

Yeah. And then Sarah, we can always do like a body image one that is just a podcast on body image. Okay. Okay. Okay. So we can go through that. One of the things that, um. We are all known that we are made in the image and likeness of the Lord, and our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit. And we know that in our head. The thing that's blocking us from truly internalizing that and believing it are our thoughts that we have about our bodies, and I can tell you that it's your thoughts as crazy as that sounds, because I can look at your body and I will have different thoughts and you can look at my body. You would have different thoughts than I have about my body. And what I like to teach women is that they're not, um, and it feels really ingrained and it feels really heavy and really big, and it's my body. And when we can simplify it down to this concept that the beliefs you have about your body, our simply sentences that you tell yourself they're thoughts and that thought that you have. I'm so fat, I'm so chubby. I've got a big stomach. I have football shoulders. I have a barrel chest, which are, these are some of the thoughts that I've had. Were taught to us at some point in our lives, and I want you all to know that every single thought that you have about your body was taught to you somewhere and simply recognizing, oh my gosh. It was taught to me. And what happens is when something is taught and it creates a thought when we practice that thought over and over and over and over, and you all have been practicing these thoughts for a really long time. We call them beliefs, and a belief is something your brain believes is true. And so if we just go back to the root of this, what I love to have women do, and I created a course for you, for the My Delight, women is so grateful to just write down all the thoughts they have about their body, all the thoughts, all the sentences. And then the second thing is to write down where did I learn that? How did I even learn that? Where did I first have that thought? And it may have come from something you heard as a child. Um, I find that often women have thoughts about like their identity of what a body should look like. Usually comes from like the family they were raised in. And that came usually from maybe the way that their mom talked about her own body or comments that she made about other people's body or even comments that she made about your body or as we grow as teenagers. We start to see, oh, that kind of girl gets that kind of attention and we can assume that it's because of her body. So there's lots and lots and lots of sources for where we get the thoughts we have about our body. But what's so amazeballs and you said, how can we at least come to a neutral place?'cause this is the first step, is to take out a piece of paper, write all of these things down. And list, how did I even learn that? How did I even know that was a thing? And really press yourself. Because if the answer is, well, that's just the way it is. You probably learned it from the culture or what media you are surrounding yourself with. Mm-hmm. And when we can start to see, oh, that's that source. We can start to rec to separate, create some separation. And when I teach in your course is to then we start to think on purpose. But where we get to start this whole process is to recognize could it not be true? And I like to have, um, to create some more neutrality are two different hacks. You can say, I have such a barrel chest, which means like, I mean, I have, I'm like a box. That's what I always say. I'm, I'm a box, I'm a football player. Box, I, I'm a box and that's okay. So I love putting, um, I'm having the thought. I look like a box. I'm having the thought. I have a thick waist and that's okay. Again, creating some space between you and the thought. And the final one is, um, oh, I think that's it. I'm having the thought. I look like a box. I'm having the thought. I have such a thick waist, and that's okay. And that's, I mean, it just, you can already tell you're like.

Sarah: 26:39

There's this relief and acceptance. Yes, giving permission. Yeah, that's really good. I like too, just thinking that, um, I'm my own kind of. Beautiful. That's just a helpful thought. That has really helped me through especially some tricky situations. My younger sister, my youngest sister's wedding, she's nine years younger, and all her friends who are coming to the wedding who are in the wedding party, I thought, oh, these young people look, they're also. I, you know, spelt and toned and here I am, mom of four. I think I had four kids at the time. Maybe five. No, I had, I was pregnant. It's probably part of, also, you know, here I have a voluptuous pregnant belly and. More lines on my face and, but I had to just tell myself I am my own kind of beautiful, I'm not their kind of beautiful, I'm my kind of beautiful, and that was a positive thought that really helped me, you know, feel confident and help my insecurity in that situation. So yeah, I think after we get to neutral, then we can choose to get to positive as well and say, and decide on positive things too. Repeat in our thoughts and then create beliefs about our body.

Denise: 28:00

Yeah. And with our body. Um, so we can start to transition to more neutral positive. So I'm my own kind of Beautiful is really amazing. But for the women listening that might be really hard to reach for that she could start saying things like, I have a body. Yes, I have a body. My body moves. I had one client who would be like, my body moves, my body feels good, my, but I want women to see that even taking the time to do the work, I just told you as an act of self-care, that my friends is what self-care truly is, is saying, oh, I don't really, I'm having all these negative thoughts. I don't wanna, I don't wanna think that anymore. I wanna try to be kinder to myself. I wanna work on my body image and giving yourself the time to even make that list. Giving yourself the time to even consider, where did I learn that? Giving yourself the time to start creating new thoughts that you can try. I'm learning that. You can start to focus on, oh, here I, this is one of the thoughts that I absolutely love. I refuse to criticize my body anymore. I refuse to do that. I'm learning to focus on the things that I do. Like I love my eyes, I love my lips. I've got some great shoulders. I love my hands. And so when you start to spiral out, you can just go into those places and for all the women who want to create new thoughts about their body, when you come up with a thought that you like, like I have a body, my body moves. Then you get to a write it down in several places and practice it a lot. You're just trying to retrain your brain.

Sarah: 30:08

And this does not have to. It, it can be shorter than you think to find this transformation in how you think about yourself. Denise, I know when you came on to my community and my delight and shared in a guest expert call with my current students, um, you talked about. Of weeks that it might take for you to start having new thoughts about your body and feel good about it, and can you just Yeah. Mention that?

Denise: 30:36

Yeah. I mean, I really think that if you give yourself, so I like to tell people to, uh, take 30 days to retrain their brain, but if I have looked at just anecdotally the women who decide, oh wait, I'm not talking to myself anymore like that. No, we're not doing that. And they start. Recognizing, oh, I'm doing it again. Oh, I'm doing it again. And they have a replacement thought to say, I mean, give yourself 10 days. Mm-hmm. And then that new thought just becomes part of who you are. I have a body, I feel good in my body. And then you notice if you're criticizing yourself, Nope, I refuse to criticize myself anymore. We're not doing that. I don't treat myself like that anymore. That's

Sarah: 31:24

such a beautiful act of self-care to stop criticizing our bodies. And Denise, the mini course that you made to, um, for me to be able to offer the women inside my delight as part of what they get when they join my course. It is such a beautiful gift from the Holy Spirit. I know you talked with me and emailed and we went back and forth and you mentioned like this was really. Insightful for you as well, the process of creating it, but I know it is transforming other women, uh, as, as they go through it. I love it. Um, three beautiful little videos and worksheets to really take women step by step through this and, and we call it learning to love your body, right? The, yeah. Letting yourself love your body. Letting yourself love your body. And Denise, where else can women find you? Um, I know you have a podcast and your, um, programs. Can you just share the places where women can come find you?

Denise: 32:24

Absolutely. So I have a podcast called Weight Loss with the Holy Spirit, which is truly like, how do you turn to the Lord instead of food and stress and how to get to a healthy weight. Living life in a really peaceful way. It's amazing. Uh, so the podcast is Weight Loss with the Holy Spirit, and you can visit me at weight loss with the Holy spirit.com.

Sarah: 32:48

Denise, this has just been absolutely delightful to talk with you. Thank you so much for coming on and having this conversation.

Denise: 32:56

Thanks, Sarah and I will continue to pray for all the women in your programs as well as the women who are listening to this.