And the Lord’s truth is that self-care is exactly what he wants us to do. Did you know that second to loving the Lord, our number one job on this earth is to take care of one person. First,  ask yourself who has been entrusted to take care of you?  It’s not your kids, it’s not your husband, it’s not your neighbors,  it’s you! 

So often we’re so busy momming and wifing and serving that we forget the mom, the wife.  The server  needs tended to as well.  And I’m not talking about excessive luxury, indulgence, or doting all over ourselves lavishly and neglecting the needs of others who have been entrusted to us. 

I’m just talking about first getting our basic needs met. Heck, I’m just talking about recognizing that we have basic needs. Really, just seeing ourselves. Giving ourselves the basics of attention like, Hey, I’m thirsty. Here’s some water. Or, Hey, this shirt is really uncomfortable. Well, let’s find something that you feel really good in.

Today I want to talk to you about how you can start to grow  in taking care of yourself in a very holy and sacred way. 

So many women, Catholic and non Catholic, are living in a cycle of self neglect right now. And the truth is that, self-care really starts with how we view ourselves, our own self image.

In general, what is self image? It’s just the way that you view yourself. What do you know about you? What are your quirks? What are your preferences?  And in the secular world, we might say what labels do you put on yourself? 

And I find that so often the view we have of ourselves has been taught to us since childhood. And then it’s just been perpetuated by our society.  What’s funny is,  I was a music major in my first semester in college, which meant that I was a pretty good piano player and I rarely play now. It’s been 30 years, but would you believe that I still think I’m a great piano player? The truth is that I’m pretty much mediocre at best.  But I still believe it, Isn’t that crazy? It’s just these identities. What we grow up is what we start to believe.

Think of that right now. Think of the labels that you have of yourself. How would you describe yourself?  Some of these things we really like, and we like to call those strengths. Maybe you’re organized, you’re a great cook, there’s just all these labels you put on yourself that you would label as positive.

And then some of our labels are some of our not so shiny sides, like I’m messy, I’m disorganized, I’m not a very patient mom.

Our self image is just the way we view ourselves, these labels. But the coolest part about self image is that at any point you can change it. It’s not written in your DNA but what we as Catholics believe is written in our DNA is that sacred self image.

And what is a sacred self image?  A sacred self image is what the Lord sees when He looks at us. How do you even find that? It’s so hard. I’ll tell you, I’m still uncovering what this is. But if you’re like me, there’s a lot of world ideas and labels that I get to look at and sift through  to see what God’s view of me is. To see what my  sacred self image is. Looking at myself the way the Lord looks at me. And peeling off all those layers to get down to the way He formed you. And the way that He sees you.

Peeling off these layers is part of our sainthood journey. And there’s so much peace and great reward found in it. But it does come at a cost.  And that cost is creating quiet time and space.  It’s the only way that you’re going to know what your sacred self image is. If you don’t give it the time, attention, and silence for the Lord to speak to you, you’ll never know it. And for years, you guys know I’m a convert, I didn’t even know that was an actual thing. That the way that the Lord views me is different than the way that I view me. 

And I had never intentionally started to look at my sacred self image  until really last year.  But as I started to tune into myself, I saw that the Lord sees me way differently than I see myself. So how do you do this? How do you find your sacred self image?  How do you find the aspects of you that the Lord created? I like to do journaling, I love journaling. You can ask yourself with the Lord, maybe an adoration hey, what do you see when you look at me?  You can ask yourself, how did the Lord uniquely create you?

And you can see your uniqueness by your preferences.  I like warm beverages.  I like fluffy socks. I love citrus scents.  What are your quirks?

Where has he made you irreplaceable?  Because you know, there’s no one else on this earth that was created like you.  I know that sounds so cheesy, but the profound truth is that no one else in this world at any other time has been created to perform the intricate function that you’ve been designed for in the Lord’s kingdom. 

I mean, think about it. It’s like you’re looking at this crazy jigsaw puzzle and there’s you,  that little piece over there, that really tiny, tiny piece. It’s like a 10,000 piece puzzle.  That’s how unique you are.  You can see that if that one piece were missing, your eye would be drawn right to it.  When you can see that uniqueness and fit yourself exactly into where the Lord wants you in his kingdom. 

Oh my gosh. You can just view yourself in such a different way.  It’s crazy to think how special and chosen and cherished and precious you are.  You’re absolutely perfect the way the Lord created you.  What happens is we go through life and we’ve created all these protective layers and labels to just feel safe. 

And when we start to ask for what the Lord’s truth is about ourselves, we can start to let go of some of these labels.  We can start to let go of some of the protection.  One of the reasons it’s so hard to do that is because it requires stillness. That chance to have quiet and contemplate and that is such an alien concept in today’s world.

I mean, think about it. If you have a quiet moment,  what’s the first thing you do when you have a couple minutes?  Yeah, you pick up your phone, you scroll. We don’t spend time in stillness  in reflecting or thinking instead what we’re doing is scrolling so often we look at other people’s lives.  And we start to get so many ideas of the ways that we think we should be. And instead of giving us just a chance to begin this work, we’re being bombarded with  other images that make us feel less than, or even more inadequate. Instead in some quiet, we can just talk to the Lord.  I just started to contemplate with him. See, I truly believe that the fastest way to get to know the Lord is to get to know ourselves and that the only way to get to know ourselves and what I mean by that is just even your thoughts, being an observer of your thoughts.

What are you feeling right now?  Just start to get to know the woman that you’re living as instead of living on autopilot. Tune into her thoughts, her feelings.  But it’s so hard. 

We’re so used to not even turning a thought to ourselves. We’re so used to neglecting ourselves, and it’s totally expected that you would feel that way. Women have such a hard time figuring out even basic self care. As my friend Kelsey Pasquarelli from the True Presence podcast calls it, there’s a distorted balance.

And I love that word, distorted, because that’s how simple and peaceful the Lord’s teachings are. It’s not that it’s wrong, it’s just been twisted.  When we feel division or confusion or lack of balance or distortion  that is not the Lord. So what is His truth?  I truly believe that the roots of self neglect start because we live in a world where everything is so outward focused, very external, external, external. 

We’re always judging.  That’s just about what we’ve been taught. If you think about it, in the beginning, we’re taught some basic hygiene. Learn how to brush your teeth, comb your hair, take a bath. We’re  taught how to cultivate and pursue our hobbies and our interests.  And you know, then we’re taught how we can use our strengths.

And use this or that strength for an organization, or how we can get a better grade in school. We’re always looking at those external measurements. Then as we get older, we learn life skills. Money, home management, cooking,  everything that we’re taught can be measured.  Practiced, seen, felt, touched, something that you can check off a box.

Our world has made little g gods of productivity and efficiency and accomplishment and checking off a list. And you guys know that’s true. Everybody listening here, including me,  loves accomplishing to-do lists. It feels like we have arrived, like we can’t rest until it’s done, but nobody gives us gold stars or pats us on the back for tuning into ourselves, for noticing that we’re having a bad day and just comforting ourselves, for taking care of our needs, for filling up our water bottle and extra time even though it made us late to a meeting. See, we’re not getting accolades for that, but you can start to do that for yourself. 

See, the result of having our little G gods Be productivity, inefficiency  is that they haven’t even led us to consider that it’s worth the time to tap into our feelings  to even contemplate how we’re doing and talk to ourselves.  You know, when kids fall down and scrape their knee, we’re like, you’re okay, put on a happy face.  That mentality is so. I feel strongly that the women that I work with, that they have such a hard time picking restaurants, telling someone what their preferences are, and speaking up when someone offers them food that they don’t want.  They just get into this chronic cycle of people-pleasing. 

They also believe that they’re in charge of other people’s happiness and well being. And that is such a trap, you guys, such a trap.  And then personally, we’re taught to push our feelings down, to eliminate them. That there’s like this visceral response, especially if we’re raised in an environment that couldn’t hold space for our feelings,  that it might be dangerous to share your feelings.

Just push them down. Push them down.  But  when we push our feelings down, it’s like pushing a beach ball down under the water. And then what happens?  Eventually, it’s going to pop out some way and usually not in a super healthy way.  So the natural thing that happens when we push our feelings down is that we want to create space between ourselves and that feeling that feels uncomfortable.

So we buffer and buffering creates distance between ourselves and that feeling, but we do it with activities that are very self sabotaging. We do it with things like eating or drinking or over-scrolling. That’s the reason you pick up your phone, guys. You pick it up because the silence is so uncomfortable. 

It feels so uncomfortable.  Because then we don’t have to deal with it. We pick up our phone so we don’t have to deal with the silence.  Everybody who’s listening to this, I just challenge you to not pick up your phone for 10 minutes.  Maybe even 60 seconds and just sit with that uncomfortable feeling. 

Isn’t that so interesting? Because when we’re uncomfortable, we just create some sort of movement or fill something in us. And that’s what happens when we numb out.  with some sort of self sabotaging behavior. And the majority of women listen to this, it’s usually eating or drinking. Sometimes it’s yelling at your kids or scrolling, but the point is that we never really address the root cause of the discomfort.

We’re just trying to create distance between us.  Okay, did you hear me? We’re not addressing the real need that we have, which sometimes just means acknowledging our feelings. Hey, I’m kinda sad. And feeling them. You guys, if you sit with sadness, it will probably pass through your body within 90 seconds to 2 minutes. 

See, that’s your real need. And so often, we just turn to food.  Because we don’t want to feel it and get into this cycle of self sabotage where you start to gain weight And we see ourselves doing behaviors that we feel horrible about and then to make ourselves feel better because we feel so horrible We’re trying to create distance between ourselves and that horrible feeling by buffering more Gaining more weight and feeling horrible about the weight as well as what we’re doing

And this cycle will continue until you decide to try something different. But what is the secular answer? The secular answer is to just look at the buffering activities. Oh, well, I should stop scrolling. Oh, I should go on a diet. Oh, I should stop having glasses of wine. Whatever it is, we look at that activity.

But that’s not the problem. The problem is we’re not willing to sit in discomfort. It has nothing to do with the amount of scrolling that you’re doing. It’s that you’re not willing to look at your feelings. It’s that you’re not willing to tune into yourself.  So you can go on any sort of diet. You can make any rules.

Say, I’m not going to pick up my phone for 20 minutes. You can make whatever rule you want, but it’s still not addressing the real need. The real need is that you’re stuck in a cycle of self neglect. The real need is that you need to be out of that  so that you can be seen and cared for and tend to your real needs. 

So I want to give you a little gift.  I want to give you a gift that isn’t the secular answer. I want to give you a gift that isn’t about focusing on to stop scrolling, to stop eating, or to stop drinking. It is an absolute most simple yet profound way to begin your journey of overcoming the guilt of self care and to actually care for the way the Lord intended you to meet your needs. 

This is effective for every Catholic woman because it connects you to the Holy Spirit and it is so fun and powerful. This is one of the things that help women start meeting their own needs and tune into themselves. It’s a five day challenge and this five day challenge will help you with a few things.

Number one, it’s going to give you permission to not worry about the scrolling, the eating, the drinking, or whatever you’re doing that you don’t love. And number two, it will give you permission to let go of guilt. See, the only reason you feel guilty is because you think that spending time on yourself will negatively affect other people.  But the truth is, if I said, what do you really need? You probably don’t know. So we think that self care is expensive and lavish and takes a lot of time. 

This challenge will clarify  and reveal to you how simple your needs are. So simple that you don’t even have to feel guilty by meeting them. And number three, this is a simple, gentle, and yet incredibly powerful and revealing challenge. Plus, our brains love doing something, and it’s something that you can do that’s very simple, and your brain will love doing it. 

So I want you to go to www.weightlosswithaholyspirit.com and you can sign up for this free five day challenge where you can start to uncover your needs, to ditch the guilt of self care, and to start caring for yourself in the way that the Lord intended.  That sacred self care. This is truly what self care looks like for Catholic women.

Alright everybody, have a blessed day.