So these Five spiritual attacks, why they happen, how to recognize them, and how to protect yourself during and even after Lent. We know that fear does not come from God. And the reason I wanted to do this is that on a psychological level, our brains really only fear something. Bad thing if you think that you cannot overcome it. 

So I want to calm your brain down so that you can easily spot and easily overcome these spiritual attacks so that your fasting gets you the result that you’re looking for, which is that deeper relationship with the Lord. 

So before we dive in, let me address why in the world you should even listen to me. I am not telling you what I know as an expert and theologian in spiritual attacks. I’m not telling you everything you could know about spiritual attacks. I’m just telling you what you need to know so that you are prepared. When you decide to fast.

I am telling you what I know as a Catholic woman who absolutely loves the Lord, but found myself continually running to food for comfort, even though I had great resolve not to do that,  and I think that’s what really happens to women during Lent, as you have great resolve too fast. And you might find yourself falling off. 

You see, I used to be in a prison of binge eating and self neglect and self-loathing that the Lord freed me from 12 years ago. And so now, I find all of his hurting daughters who are experiencing the same thing, feeling the heaviness of food and weight struggles, and I help them learn how to truly surrender their food and weight struggles to the Lord.

And every day I’m helping them overcome what we’re going to chat about. How to identify  spiritual attacks, how to identify when they aren’t aligned with the Lord. And how to easily overcome it so that you don’t fall into those enemies traps.

Okay, just to teach more about me. 12 years ago, the Lord freed me from binge eating and using food truly as my source of comfort. I’m 48 years old. I’ve been married for over 20 years. We have two adopted sons. They are 16, and 19. And I am a convert. I’m a convert to Catholicism from no faith. I grew up with no faith, until. I was 29 years old. 

The only faith influence I had in my life was my grandma, and she would take me to mass about three times a year when I’d spend the weekend with her, and I know that she has been praying for me and is the reason that I was able to actually come to the Lord. So I want you to know, never discount the power of a grandmother’s prayers. They are so powerful. 

So when the Lord freed me, I realized the cycle that I was in had nothing to do with what I knew. I was a personal trainer, writing diet plans for people and helping them lose weight. And every time they followed it, I thought they were lying to me.

So it has nothing to do with your education or what you know. We all know what we should be eating, and  I want you to also know that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you if you find that you’re stuck in a cycle of overeating. You find that you’re stuck in a cycle of being on a diet and off a diet. There’s nothing wrong with you. 

It’s just there’s some skills that you don’t know that you need to be taught so that you can be at your healthy weight. And you’ll see in that picture that I can now maintain my weight very healthfully in a way that requires zero dieting. 

Alright, so now let’s dive into you and your story. Why this matters is because you matter. No one makes Lent plans to give up and feel like they’ve disappointed the Lord or disappointed themselves. 

Has it ever happened to you where you feel really motivated at first? When you first start lent, when you first decide you’re going to fast, you decide to give up something so that you can grow closer to the Lord, and then you experience a temptation, a setback, just something happens and because you didn’t recognize it as a spiritual attack and you didn’t know how to handle it.

You ended up falling in despair or maybe even giving up, and so you find that your Lent feels dry, like you’re just going through the motions and you really can’t wait for Lent to be over, so you can go back to whatever it is. You decided to fast from that, my friends, is exactly why I’m doing this presentation. I have done that. You have done that, and it doesn’t have to be that way. If we know what we’re looking for. And we know how to overcome it. 

Again, remember, it’s just a few tools that you need to learn.  The three keys I want you to remember is that spiritual attacks are an absolute amazing good sign. They mean that you are getting closer to the Lord. Remember, anytime you get closer to the Lord, someone else is in pursuit of your soul as well. That’s how precious you are. Not only is the Lord always pursuing you, but the evil one is as well. 

The other thing you need to recognize is that spiritual attacks are absolutely normal. If you love the Lord, guess what? You are going to be chased by the enemy. Nothing has gone wrong. It’s totally normal. I bet you could, even when we get done with this webinar, you will be able to see the spiritual attacks that you’ve already experienced today. It means nothing has gone wrong.

And when you know your enemy, it prepares you when you know what you’re looking for. It just makes it a lot easier. So once you know what you’re looking for, you’re more easily able to combat it. Let’s just reframe spiritual attacks as not this scary thing that we should run from, but that it’s a good sign. It means you’re growing closer to the Lord and that your life is being reordered. 

The truth is that as you experience a spiritual attack, once you get on the other side, you’re closer to the Lord. Isn’t that crazy? It actually backfired against the enemy. You have become more reordered. You have become more holy because you’ve overcome it.

By naming it and growing an awareness of it, you can do something about it. If you can’t identify it, then there’s nothing we can do if we don’t grow an awareness, there’s nothing that you can do. And I like to use the example of on our property, we’ve got this fence line that has a lot of brush on it, and every time my husband goes out to clean it up, he comes back contracting poison ivy.

And if I go out there with the weed killer and I try to kill only the poison ivy, I would first need to know what the heck poison ivy even looks like because I don’t, otherwise I would be killing maybe the other plants that my husband wants to keep. 

So it’s very important that once you see what a spiritual attack looks like, you are able to then spray the weed killer or the tools that I’m going to give you so that you can. Diminish it, make it go away. 

So the five common spiritual attacks that you can expect to experience while fasting are intensified cravings and obsessive thoughts, pride and vain glory, discouragement, and loss of motivation. Despair and self-hate and ungodly self-reliance. 

As I go through these, I want you to just take mental notes or even actual notes on a piece of paper that say, that’s the one that the enemy likes to use for me, because these are all very personal. You have the spiritual attacks that you have because the enemy knows they work for you. I have the ones that the enemy wants to give me as well. 

And so let’s just know what his personalized tricks are for you. So the first one is intensified cravings and obsessive thoughts. And it makes a lot of sense when you’re fasting because when we’ve relied on something that we’re fasting from for a long time for comfort, the body will notice that it’s not there.

Now this discomfort will often drive you into being distracted by obsessive thoughts about whatever you’re fasting from, or it will initiate obsessive thoughts about other comforting behaviors that aren’t super healthy. Maybe over-scrolling. Maybe if you’re giving up food, maybe now you want to have more wine the body will notice a discomfort. It will notice agitation.

And that’s how you spot it by noticing, I’m having some physical discomfort. Stronger cravings physically for the food or obsessive thoughts about the thing that you’re fasting from. It’s very easy to overcome these intensified cravings and obsessive thoughts when you know that they’re coming and you can expect them.

One of the things that women don’t think about is to really start leveling up their self care. So expect the discomfort, but also plan ahead. When you notice the discomfort, what will you do? How will you care for your body? How will you comfort yourself in a way that doesn’t lead you to regret, that doesn’t lead you farther from the Lord?

Maybe if you crave a certain food at three o’clock, we now have a substitute, like a warm tea. Maybe now we’re bringing comfort to our bodies with baths or with some really beautiful smelling hand lotions or candles. 

So we’re creating pleasure in our other senses, not just in our taste buds, which the majority of the women that I work with are getting a lot of the pleasure from their life, from their taste buds instead of exploring their other senses.

I also want you to guard your senses and exposure to whatever it is you’re fasting from. If you’re fasting from  chocolate, let’s not have the chocolate around the house. If you’re fasting from wine, maybe you skip happy hour with your friends. Increase your physical care, get more sleep. Make sure your nourishment, aside from the fasting times, are really giving you what you need. 

And I love creating simple routines, when we’re fasting, it creates more brainpower and so perhaps the things that are unnecessary, we set them aside and we stop pressuring ourselves to overdo and over task and complete all these things on our to-do list. Maybe we simplify our life. And when you notice those cravings, this is the beautiful time to unite that craving, that suffering, to Jesus on the cross. A way to offer this to him. 

One of the ways to prevent intensified cravings and obsessive thoughts is to not have a cold Turkey, all or nothing approach if it truly is something that you want to continue to fast from. Then I would suggest you have a gradual decrease and create a plan that doesn’t remove the item from you right away.

All right, spiritual attack number two is pride and vain glory. And this is the, look at me. I’m so holy. And it makes so much sense because fasting restores order to what the enemy wants to disrupt. The enemy wants to make something else your God. 

His tactics are to get you attached to other things, to have compulsions and disorder desires to have false comforts. Like food, wine, whatever we’re running to for comfort instead of him and rationalization. Well, it wasn’t that big of a deal. I only had one small piece. Well, it wasn’t that big of a deal that rationalization. 

And one of the ways that the enemy does this is by having you simply live on autopilot. When we live on autopilot and we’re not examining our lives, boy, he can just run amok inside us, and so fasting opens our eyes, it restores the Lord. As our God starts to remove those attachments, and it draws us closer to the Lord.

So just know that fasting is so powerful for that reason. It reorders what he’s trying to disrupt. And when we are doing something so good, one of the ways that the enemy can come in, and twist that is to twist our virtue.

And take that virtue when we’re doing something for love of the Lord and just twist it a little bit. So we bring the spotlight back on us and say, wow, it was so great. I got through this day and I didn’t have the thing that I’m fasting from. 

How to overcome this? is with humility. It’s totally fine that that happens. Oh, it’s a trick. We about tripped over that crack in the sidewalk, and maybe you did trip over the crack in the sidewalk, and you fell on your face. It’s not a big deal. The Lord’s gonna pick you up and dust you off.

The fastest way to get back on track is to remind yourself that all of your success and all of your strength is only possible by his grace. So when you find yourself saying, I did amazing yesterday. I want you to say only by his grace. All by the grace of God.

All right. The third spiritual attack is discouragement and loss of motivation. This  is very common when we fast, because whatever we’re fasting from, it leaves a void. Typically, we’re fasting from something that is brought us lots of comfort and has been used as a tool for our emotional reasons. 

So when we had intensified cravings, that was the body noticing that something is missing. And now the discouragement and loss and motivation is the emotions noticing that something is missing. 

And if we don’t learn how to care for our emotions without the thing we’re fasting from, we become very drained. We feel like we’re just white knuckling through fasting. And we’re not really learning how to care for ourselves.

And this is where we start to feel so much discouragement because we are so drained and exhausted from white knuckling that we start to think, what’s the point? I’m just so tired of this. I feel like I’m just going through the motions anyway. Right. That rationalization, that’s one of the tactics of the enemy. And exactly this reason is why you return to whatever it is, especially after Lent. 

I work with women often and they say, I have so much motivation during Lent, or I can give up the thing during Lent, but why can’t I do that any other time of the year? And the reason why is because whatever you’re fasting from.

Let’s say it’s chocolate when it’s removed. Typically you’ve been using it for emotional needs and if we haven’t learned how to address our emotional needs and meet those needs, then we just spend Lent white knuckling and we cannot wait for Lent to be over in some regards so that we can get back the chocolate.

And the reason why is because your fasting was not allowed to truly bring you closer to the Lord because we didn’t learn how to care for you emotionally. So let’s remember that’s the reason, and instead, let’s prevent discouragement and that loss of motivation by learning how to care and support yourself emotionally.

So whatever you’re fasting from, know that your emotions will feel a void. And so we have to learn how to care for your emotions. Notice the feelings that bubble up instead of avoiding them. Start to notice, I’m feeling offended, sad, lonely. 

I remember I used to dump. Chocolate chips in a jar of peanut butter and hide in my pantry. I mean, that was what I did for every emotion I had, whether I was offended or frustrated or overwhelmed or try to procrastinate.

And it wasn’t until I learned how to actually care for those emotions without turning to food that the jar of peanut butter was just, I wasn’t white knuckling my way through trying to not eat it, because I could do that for a good four days. But I’m telling you what the weekend would hit and I could not do it after that. 

When you’re noticing discouragement, I want you to say, well, what is possible right now? What is possible? And so lack of motivation and discouragement is us believing that well. I cannot have any of my thing. Well, what if you had one piece of chocolate and not an unlimited amount? What if you plan to have a piece of chocolate tomorrow? What can you do? 

The point is that you don’t want this beautiful time that’s been given to us to be all about the food or whatever you’re trying to remove, and you’re white knuckling and you actually don’t go closer to the Lord.

So if this happens to you, I want you to ask yourself, Lord, what do I really need right now? If you’re noticing that lack of motivation, what do I really need? Tap into that emotion that’s trying to express itself, and you automatically want to run to the food. 

Instead say, no, what is that emotion? What do I really need right now? Do I need a hug? Do I need somebody to listen? Do I just need to feel appreciated or seen? Because I want you to know this is not a moral failing. This is simply an unmet need issue. That’s it.

Now, if we have that discouragement and loss of motivation, it typically takes us into the second one, which is despair and self-hate. So let’s say for example, you say you’re going too fast from chocolate for lent, and you end up eating some chocolate. You will then fall into another trick and another spiritual attack, which is despair and self-hate.

And this is very common, easy to spot with the way you’re talking to yourself. Here’s the crazy thing is that you may be experiencing this spiritual attack every single day, even outside of fasting. Even outside of Lent, even outside of your weight loss attempts, despair and self-hate. I’m a failure. I can’t do this. I’m so weak.

These thoughts are not from the Lord. It’s like the enemy uses this one two punch where he gets you to eat the thing and then leads you into despair, and this is what it typically looks like. You overindulge in food. You have that shame cycle. I’m a failure. I can’t do this. You feel despair. Which is really the spiritual attack. That’s when the enemy knows that he has you.

And then out of that feeling of despair, then we go ahead and overindulge in food. The quickest way out of this is to overindulge in food, but instead of going into the shame spiral, I want you to ask yourself two separate questions and that will realign you and get your soul back online with the Lord.

The first question is, what did I learn? What can I learn from this? What can I learn from overeating or indulging in whatever I was passing from, and where do I need support? So that you know the next time you’re in that situation. How you can support and care for yourself more. 

And by asking these two questions, you don’t become the same woman who is in that shame spiral into despair, and then overindulging in food. No, you have gone out a different way and

 you’re making progress so that you aren’t the same woman. 

Alright, and now the fifth spiritual attack is ungodly self-reliance. It’s easy to spot. And our diet culture has really trained us very well in this. It’s that thought of, if I just try harder, I’ll get better results. It’s all up to me, it’s the whole concept of if I do… then I’ll get… 

So we’re doing something specific expecting a result. We’re focusing on the outcome, which feels like a big burden, a big responsibility. Self-reliance is so darn common because we accidentally believe it is all up to us that God doesn’t care that it is based on our own effort.

The huge percentage of the women that I work with say that they didn’t actually think God cared about their food and weight loss, or that God had bigger problems. Which perpetuates the belief that they are in this alone.

And if you are struggling with your food and weight, I want you to know that the Lord does not really care what you eat, nor does he care what you weigh. But what he does care about is anything that’s stealing your peace. Anything that you’re holding onto yourself, anything that’s burdening you or that’s heavy that you’re not inviting him into, that you’re not chatting with him about.

He wants to be integrated into every area of your life. I know that’s hard to believe. It’s hard to believe that you are cared about and loved that much. That cycle of self-reliance. This is how you know it’s not of God because of the fruits. 

So when you’re in self-reliance, you believe it’s all up to you. So it’s easy to feel like a failure when you overeat or don’t stick to your fast, where you fall into despair and then into shame because it’s all up to you.

Which is that pride and being glory. Again, these aren’t like totally separate because we think like, I’m the one who’s in charge and I’m the one in charge of my success. It’s just a heavy burden to carry. 

Instead, let’s use the same method that we did before that if we find ourselves failing, and in this case saying, not sticking to your fast or overindulging in food, again, ask yourself, Lord. What can I learn from that going forward? Where do I need support?

The key to overcoming self-reliance is one word. It’s surrender. And the way that you know that you’re in surrender is that you don’t care about the outcome. You’re not focused on the outcome. You are focused on your part. What the Lord has told you, he wants for you, and you let him do the rest. You stay focused on what he wants and let him do his job. Our work is just obedience, it’s faithfulness.

All right, so now I want to get into three ways that you can minimize all of these attacks. So that no matter when you are fasting, or you can use these really on your weight loss journey at any time. Or anytime you want to get closer to the Lord. Three ways to minimize all five of these spiritual attacks.

The first one is to discern what the Lord is actually asking you to fast from, and I’ll help you do that. Expect that the attacks and plan for them. And I’m gonna help you do that and to use the sacraments in a very targeted way, and I’ll tell you what that means.  

First, let’s ask the Lord, what do you want me to fast from? Often we start lent with an idea of what we want to fast from, but are we even asking him a few questions you can ask yourself so that the Lord can reveal what it is that’s truly standing in the way of you being closer to him is, Lord, what do I run to for comfort?

Lord, what’s stealing my peace, Lord? What makes me feel okay? It’s sort of that I’m okay as long as… It’s showing you and revealing to you what you are attached to. These questions will reveal that. And so when you are clear that the Lord wants you to fast from something, it makes it a lot easier because he can then partner with you and you’re not doing it on your own.

And then once you decide what it is and he’s revealed that to you, just expect and plan. We went through these five common spiritual attacks and I’m sure a few of them you could say, oh yeah, that’s so me. 

So I want you to again, go back through, identify what you can expect, the one to two most common attacks that you are prone to, and just decide how you want to handle that. Decide ahead of time when that hits. What do I wanna do? 

Some of the things that are very helpful at this time is to find a community of other people who are fasting from the same thing or on the same journey as you, so that you have that touchpoint. These are women who will always be turning you back to the Lord.

I want you to create simplicity in your life, not packing on more things when you are also trying to fast. Simple routines and game plans, and a game plan is just how am I going to handle this? So during fasting, how are you going to handle it? 

Number three, I really want you to look at the way you’re talking to yourself and how you’re supporting yourself. One of the tactics of the enemy is that self-hate, and you can spot it by the way you’re talking to yourself. Start to become aware of the way you’re talking to yourself and the words that you’re using. 

The fourth thing that you can do, of course, is always prayer. And in our community we love to use renunciation prayers. They’re fabulous for spiritual attacks. And then finally, let’s talk about how you can use the sacraments in a very targeted way. When you’re fasting. 

You can attend mass more than just on Sunday with a special intention offering it. For the Lord, offering your fasting, asking for special graces so that the fast can be fruitful for the Lord, his kingdom, and for you Using renunciation prayers. They’re fantastic and very effective. 

And finally, a targeted examination of conscience. For the women that I work with who struggle with food and weight, we are prone to certain sins. We are prone to making false gods out of food. The right plan, our pants size and the scale. 

And so if we can ask certain questions of our conscience and bring out the certain sins that are hiding underneath that a general examination of conscience usually doesn’t pull out, then we can do a deep clean of our soul, bring it to confession, and allow the Lord’s grace into those areas that we didn’t even know about.

So has that ever happened to you where you have those good intentions, you have a setback, and then you find that your lent ends up dry or you’re just going through the motions? I don’t want that to happen to you. Are you also wanting to surrender to the Lord and your food and weight struggles? 

If you want a meaningful Lent and fast and you’re ready to open your grip and turn your food and weight struggles over to the Lord. I invite you into a different kind of Lenten fast. A fast that’s not only going to restore God as your God, but also remove one of your false gods odds. The scale.

Why should you even fast from the scale? You’ll want to fast from the scale and consider this one of the things that’s standing in the way of you being closer to the Lord. If the scale is stealing your peace, if the scale determines if you’re having a good or a bad day, if you feel worthy, if the scale goes down and despair, if it goes up.

See when we fast from the scale, it shifts your focus from the scale to focus on how God wants you to care for yourself, it creates this space. ’cause you’re not distracted by the scale to be able to surrender to him the outcome. You do your part and he does the rest. It reorders your interior life, your interior peace, and it allows him to come in and heal your relationship with food and weight.

So do you wanna give up the scale this lent?  Focusing on fasting from the scale. We spent 63 days, 63 surrendered. Once the scale’s out of the way, then we learn how to surrender in our food, our self-care, and our self-support, and God becomes first again.

What makes this different is that there’s no specific diet. There’s no food rules, there’s no obsession with outcomes. We are simply allowing the Lord to become our God again. It is 63 days because we start in Lent the first 40, but I want to make sure that you have the skills that you need to continue the journey aligned with him so that you don’t have that Lent rebound and go back to your old ways.

The Lent practice is very simple. We have four daily spiritual disciplines. And each one of those becomes a constant conversation between you and the Lord. These are the skills that allow the Lord to create that interior reordering and healing. I told you there is no specific food rules. 

Our food rules are very simple. You eat the food that you love, and I teach you how to do it in a way that you don’t overeat it and in a way that you don’t feel guilty. When you enjoy your favorite foods, you eat food that feels peaceful. You eat it in a way that feels peaceful and that works for your day. So if you have a busy day, we make sure that we plan foods that are very convenient and easy for you. 

And yes, fast food may be a tool for you. I’ve had many women who enjoy fast food as a tool when they plan it and they’re not scarfing it down. It’s crazy how the Lord will remove your obsession with food. When you allow him to come and reorder it. 

We’ve had over 5,000 women come through this program and all of them say the same thing. They’re closer to the Lord. They feel more peace around food, and their body is shedding the excess weight that it just doesn’t need anymore.  

So if that feels intriguing to you, ask yourself, is he calling you? Is he calling you to not do Lent alone this year? Not white knuckle through fasting to have a dry Lent to just go through the motions.

Is he calling you to make him your God? Not the scale, not your pants size, not the magic diet. Is he calling you to allow him to heal your struggle with food and weight? Is he calling you to truly become a new creation in him? This lent.

One of my favorite scriptures is John 15:16. He said, “It is not you who called me, but I who called you.” And 12 years ago when I started this journey. And was freed from binge eating from the Lord. I now see as much as I was pursuing him. He finally called me to the answer and the answer is in him.

So if this resonated with you and you can see how you’ve spent many years or even decades allowing the scale to be your God, try fasting from it. This lent allowing the Lord to be your God and not the scale.

Allow him to bring in peace and freedom with your food. Allow him into heal and reorder. Your relationship with food and weight and to take your food and weight struggles, not only this Lent, but for a lifetime. 

So go to weightlosswiththeholyspirit.com and get your spot. Join me and hundreds of other Catholic women as we journey this Lent fasting from the scale and making God our God again, weightlosswiththeholyspirit.com. I’ll see you there.