Hey, everybody. before we get into the podcast, if you have been thinking to yourself all summer, “I’m ready to get back on track. I just wanna get back on track,” then I have just the thing for you. It is my free workshop, Weight Loss the Catholic Way, where I will lay out the four daily disciplines that you can use to finally get back on track after a very full, fun summer.

This is not dieting, so it doesn’t take all the energy that is necessary to diet, and you do not have to stop living the life that you currently have to follow these four daily disciplines and get to your healthy weight. So sign up for the workshop. The link is in the description. Weight Loss the Catholic Way, totally free, August 27th.

Okay, back to the podcast. So today I am coming to you the day after I dropped my son off at college. And I wanted to make this episode because I was sitting in my quiet reflection time and really recognized that this is a huge milestone, that there are probably a lot of emotions that are happening inside my body, a lot of changes, a lot of transitions, a lot of things in my nervous system that I’m not even aware of. And I just want to recognize that.

And so I wanted to make this episode for you. You can save this if you have recently taken a kid off to college or if you’re going to take a kid off to college or if you have a child moving out. So maybe they went to college, they came back, or maybe they never went to college, it doesn’t matter, but you are experiencing your life without your child in your home like you normally have.

And I want to just recognize that’s a very, very real thing and to give you some concepts to keep in your mind and some practical tips of what exactly do you do with yourself if you find yourself with big emotions or you find yourself feeling a little antsy or a little off. I wanted to start this discussion.

And the truth is that this podcast has actually been in the works for several years. Prior to being in this space where I help women lose weight the Catholic way, I was a personal trainer. I was a secular personal trainer, and I had many clients who I was with for several years. Some of them over 10 years, some of them, you know, even 15 years.

And so of course I saw their children grow and I saw these women go through taking their kids to college. Maybe it was the first one and then the second one and the third one. And more than a handful of times I had women during their workout session unable to work out and just sobbing.

And so I started to take mental notes of, wow, when my kids go off to college, this is a big thing. This can be a big thing. So I’ve been expecting it for several years, ’cause I’ve seen women go through it to the point where they feel like momentarily debilitated.

And I thought, “is that how it’s going to be for me?” And now as a coach, I can see is that how I want it to be for me. And I’m very clear that my experience of my child going off to school can be what I choose to have it be.

Now, that’s not saying I negate that there’s real feelings, but I get to choose how I handle those feelings, how I care and support myself through this time. And this is just how I think I’m gonna handle this and get through this.

Again, I am in day one of my son going off to school. Now listen, he did go off to school. Last year was his freshman year. We took him, and I think a kid going out of high school is different than when they go their second year.

So you know, a little background is that we took him his first year. You know, within an hour he was at school, we were unpacked, and he was like, “Sayonara, Mom and Dad.” He had a room by himself. He went one semester of school, came home, spent a semester at home, and so now he’s a different kid.

You know, kids grow up so much. He’s nearly 20 years old, and he’s going to a school that’s not an hour away anymore. It’s four hours away. I took him there yesterday, drove four hours, hung out with him, got him all set, and I drove four hours home. It feels different now. He feels more settled now. I feel like a different. We’re all in a different spot.

Thanks for listening to that very long background. So this is what I want to tell you to help you get through taking your kid off to college or moving them into their first place. You’ve had them around and now they’re not around.

So let’s just dive in, and I hope what you hear today will help you feel seen and help you know that this is a real experience for you. Because so often our efforts are going into helping our child get ready, helping them with all of their packing and buying all the things that they need, and our focus is making sure that they’re prepared.

And then they’re gone, and it almost feels like, “And now what?” So let this podcast be the “And now what?” The first thing, mama, is to recognize that you will absolutely have feelings. So I want you to expect waves of feelings. Okay? Expect the unexpected, meaning that feelings are going to pop up when you didn’t even expect them. And I want you to just allow space for that.

A little bit later on in the podcast, we’ll talk about what does allowing space for that mean? But let’s just don’t judge your feelings. Don’t judge if you’re happy that they’re gone. I remember the first time my son left, it felt like a freedom and an opening, and it felt like a new beginning for him, but also a new beginning for our family.

And I remember just allowing that experience to be there. And now I have no idea what’s going to happen. I’m recording this live when I have no idea what feelings to expect, because right now. My energy feels a little low from yesterday, and I’m also feeling very happy for him. His roommate seems great. It feels like a good fit. I don’t know if they’ll be best friends, but I think they’re going to definitely get along well and be respectful to each other’s space.

So right now I’m just in the place of allowing anything. Allow any feeling to be there. Let’s just don’t resist it and don’t judge it. One of the reasons I really wanted to do this podcast was to help women not stress eat or emotionally eat when their kids go off to school.

Some of the biggest wins in our community are when people give me a whole litany of the horrible things that just happened to them, and then the very last sentence is, “And I didn’t eat over it.” And I want this podcast to be the litany of experiences and the last sentence to be. And I didn’t eat over it.

And let’s don’t pass over this experience feelings, allow feelings, don’t judge feelings. Because what happens is that often in our brains when we experience a sad feeling, we don’t allow it to be there and to just cry through it and process through it.

And if you don’t wanna do that and that doesn’t feel safe, I would encourage you to just tell your brain. This will feel safe. This won’t last forever. It’s fine to cry right now, and it doesn’t mean that in 30 minutes I’m still going to be crying, or in 30 days I’m still going to be crying.” Because what happens so often is that we feel that overwhelm of feelings or we start to experience a feeling and an emotion comes up and we try to suppress it down.

And the problem is, though, is that only gives us temporary relief, because the feeling will surface again. And until we allow the feeling to surface and to process through it, it will get stuck in our bodies.

And what happens more often than not, than the women who are listening to this podcast, at least the way that I used to handle feelings, is when they would come up, I would just eat so I didn’t feel them.

And then that is the problem. If you are eating to not feel them, they’re gonna keep coming up, so you’re going to keep eating so you don’t feel them. If you keep pushing them down by busyness, eventually they’re gonna keep coming up. So I really encourage you to take this opportunity to practice feeling safe experiencing any emotion.

I had a friend call me recently and she said, “Denise, I do really well with this work for two weeks, and then something really, really painful happens in my marriage, and then I spend three days and I undo all of the weight loss that I’d had for those last two weeks.”

And the CliffsNotes version is this, my friends. When we experience feelings, we’ve got to allow them to come up in our body and to process them. So when you’re having that feelings, the way that you process it is to simply check in with your body. What exactly am I experiencing in my body?

Maybe it’s heaviness. Maybe it’s a tightness. Maybe it’s weakness. I have an entire podcast episode about how to process an emotion, so I’ll put that in the description. And there’s a little three-minute exercise that you can do to process an emotion. And then just try to name it. I’m feeling sad. I’m feeling anxious

And just continue to breathe through the feeling that you’re feeling. It will wash through you in about three minutes Okay? So number one, expect feelings. They will be unpredictable, and allow space for them to process them. And I know your brain wants to say you don’t have any time, but that’s number two.

Number two is when you’re going through this transition, and this is a transition. Remember, transitions are going from one rhythm to another rhythm, so you don’t have a new normal rhythm on the other side of this yet. So your child was home, and now they’re not, and you’re in a transition.

And any time we’re in a transition, our brain is trying to recalibrate, our brain is trying to reorganize, and it takes some energy. You will feel off during transitions, and I just did a whole podcast episodes about transitions, but here’s what you need to know about transitions. Easy does it. Take it slow. There is no jump back into normal life.

This day that I’m living now, I expect it to work. I have work things but I’m handling it in a very different way, and I’m gonna tell you about that in a second. So because you’re in a transition, I would love for you to take the next two to three days, actually the next week.

I could tell my brain did not wanna say the whole week because it feels like, oh my gosh, a whole week of transition. But what a whole week means is you practice the rule of three. The rule of three is that you have three non-negotiables.

Number one is sleep. Number two is making your easy to stick to meal plan. And number three is you look at the essentials in your life, and I have three areas that I look at essentials in: myself, my house and family, and my work.

And under each one of those, I’ll put only three things. What would make my brain happy for me today? What’s essential for the house and my family? Only three things. And what’s essential for work? Three things.

So that’s the transition period. If you take nothing else from this podcast, I love the rule of three. It’s very, very helpful for me. But I wanna say one other thing. I’m usually a transition girl with rule of three, but I feel different with this. I’m adding one more layer to it, and for one day I’m gonna practice this and see how this goes.

What if I just did what makes my brain happy? I’m not negating my feelings. I’m not saying I cannot feel unhappy. But what if I just look at my day and I say, “What can I do in those three areas to take care of myself, to take care of the house and family, and to take care of work that feels fun for my brain?”

And I wanna give you permission not only for one day, but for a week to just say, “What would make my brain happy?” And I want you to think, so we’re gonna pull you out of just the framework of the three essentials, and I want you to think of what would make your brain happy.

Seriously, is it that you haven’t really gotten a great walk in for a while because you’ve been getting your kid all ready for school or for their move and all of the other details that you really haven’t just gone for a walk with no time limit? Is it a walk? Is it a workout? After I get done recording this, you guys, I’m recording this in my workout clothes.

I just felt like I wanted to get this out before I did a workout because I have that energy to just really talk through this with you. But I’m gonna go have a workout, and it’s not a workout because I have to and it’s pressure. It’s a workout because I’ve been thinking, I just wanna go exercise in unrestricted timelessness, where I go and I do the sets and I do the reps and I listen to a great podcast. That’s what I want.

But here’s what’s cool. Maybe. And it doesn’t have to be anything productive like that. You might say, “Oh, well, that’s so productive.” But what would make your brain happy? Do you wanna sit on the couch and watch a great movie today? Is there just a lot of random things strewn about your house?

I know at least for my house, my son, we have a sitting room that has our piano in it. So in the piano room, that’s where he was getting all of his stuff organized, which overflowed into the dining room. And so today already I’ve taken some time to just tidy up the dining room, and then later today I’m gonna take all the extra stuff and just put it in the basement so at least our living space looks clean.

And then probably not today, but another day I’m just gonna go tidy his room so when the door is open, my experience of looking in his room feels tidy. Like, his bed isn’t made. What would make your brain happy? Do you just wanna putz around your house? Do you wanna go out to lunch with a friend? Do you want to call a friend?

What do you want to do that feels, that will make your brain happy, that feels luxurious and kind and nice? How can you celebrate this milestone for you that’s not food? That’s not food. You know, if I look at my list of what would make my brain happy today, guys, it’s things like I really wanna clean out that junk drawer. It would make my brain so happy to just do a little tidying. I already told you I wanna go for a walk.

Literally, I’ll tell you what else is on my list. For me, what would make my brain happy? Oh, I’ve got my coaching call today, so I really wanna show up for that for the coach that I have. I wanna putz around my house, and I wanna work out. That’s not really crazy luxurious, is it?

That’s what I wanna do, putz around my house, work out, and go to my call, and be really present, and be really engaged. I already told you I wanna do that junk drawer. Every time I get in there, I can’t find anything, and that would just make my brain so happy.

For work today, I wanna do this podcast. I wanna get out a couple social posts. I just wanna have some fun. I want you to start asking your brain, ” What would make my brain happy?” And give yourself permission to do that.

So I want to wrap this what would make my brain happy today back to the rule of three. So if we look at the rule of three, sleep is non-negotiable. Uber’s easy to stick to meal plan is non-negotiable. What would make my brain happy today with regard to you, and then the other two buckets for my family and house and work?

I just want it to be a very light, open day. I’m just not gonna pressure myself to do anything today. Nothing is urgent and immediate, and there are a few deadlines, but I’m going to do them in a really light and playful way.

One more thing I want to address, Mama, is this. in Weight Loss: The Catholic Way, we have a triad of three things. We have God, we have your food, and we have our emotions. And I really think I just talked to what you do with your food, which is essentially is make your easy to stick to meal plan, make it uber easy to stick to.

And then I also told you how to handle your emotions, which is allow them to come up, and then they will fall away. They just come in waves. Let them wash over you. Try not to judge them or resist them. They’ll just get bigger and come back stronger, and you’ll probably eventually eat over them.

But what I didn’t talk to you about is God. And God in His infinite wisdom has created this beautiful life not only for your child, but He’s created a life for you. And as your child is moving on to the next chapter of their life, I want you to consider that you are moving to the next chapter of your life.

I just think that’s so exciting to start thinking, “What’s next for me, Lord?” What’s my next chapter? What’s waiting for me? And I don’t say this to pressure you to figure it out. I just want you to ask that question. What’s next for me? How is this the next chapter for me? How is this opening me up and preparing me to walk forward to become the next version of me? What is next for me?

And I think so often we can really focus on the chapter that’s closed or that the chapter that’s completed and feel like a sadness about that. And this podcast isn’t about that, but I want you to possibly ask yourself if we can look at it as an appreciation and a gratitude and a privilege to have had that chapter and to now have the wisdom from coming through that.

There’s so many things in my parenting if I focused on that I could feel a lot of heaviness about that I would do differently now. But I wanna tell you there’s no benefit to that, and that is not what God is asking of me. That voice does not come from God.

And I want to tell you that you get to focus your brain on whatever you want to focus it on, and I really encourage you to focusing it on things of God and of the alignment with God and be in alignment and calibration with God.

And I think what God would like for you to focus on is not negating that you will have feelings. You will have feelings. They come and they go. Okay. But also, Lord, what is next for me? What is the possibilities for me? What do you have waiting for me?

And when we see that we are growing in parallel as our children are growing, we are all growing towards the Lord into the next versions of us, it becomes a very hopeful, open exciting and sparkly time, but not a worldly excitement, more of a divine excitement of a stepping into the next version of us.

Maybe you’ve been wanting to be more creative. Maybe you’ve been wanting to have. This is me. I am ready for a more physically active season. That’s where I really want to go, is a more physically active season, and that doesn’t mean harder workouts. That means that, hey, if I’m not going to do a walk today, or I’m not going to go to the gym today, if I’m not going to lift, I like to stretch.

I like to tend and acknowledge my body in a really kind way most days of the week. Maybe I’ll stretch and I’ll do some foam roller, but I’d like to acknowledge my body every day. To get stronger every day, even if that means stretching. That’s the next season that I want to grow in.

Like I said, maybe you wanna be more creative. Maybe you want to be more physically active. Maybe you’re saying, finally, it’s time to get back on track. It’s time to get this weight thing removed as an obstacle.

And when I say that, if you feel any resistance to that, it’s likely because you believe that the answer to your food and weight struggles is something with secular dieting. And I wanna tell you that you’ve got to see that secular dieting will get you nowhere long term.

And I want you to know there is a solution to your food and weight struggles that meets the demands of your life, that helps you actually be excited to start something new that you’ll never have to end. A way that helps you get healthy living the life that you have where you don’t have to stop living life.

You know, one thing with secular dieting and a lot of the methods that you’ve tried in the past is it feels like you have to just stop living life. And then you get to an age and a point, I think, in wisdom where we say, “Hey, if I have to stop living my life and having fun to lose weight, I don’t wanna do that. I’d rather just be at the weight that I am and live my life.”

But did you know there is a way that you can live the life that you have now and be at your healthy weight? There’s a way to eat the favorite foods that you have now and be at your healthy weight. It’s not either/or. There’s a way to worship the Lord and be at your healthy weight.

In fact, use the method that you’re using to get to your healthy weight as a way to worship the Lord. You can take your food and health and weight loss journey and make it part of your worship and part of the gift that you give to God.

Perhaps this is the next thing for you, is for you to finally be turning your eye to you and taking better care of you. And if that’s what God is inviting you into, then I’m pretty sure he wants you to do it in a way that’s aligned with him.

And you probably don’t even know how to do that, but I’ve got the answer for you. And the answer is a workshop that I’m doing called Weight Loss: The Catholic Way. Because in this workshop, you will be able to finally know how to be a woman who can live the life that you have, change nothing in your life, and be at your healthy weight.

The only thing we’re going to change is your relationship with food. We’re not even gonna change the food that you eat. I’m simply going to teach you how to eat the food that you already love in a way that you feel peaceful about and that you can truly enjoy and that you’re not overeating, so you can finally be at your healthy weight.

This workshop is free. It’s August 27th, and it’s right around the corner. After this workshop, you will be able to implement right away getting back on track in a way that aligns with your faith. It’s four daily disciplines. And the thing is that they’re not rigid disciplines like other food plans that you’ve done. They’re very flexible disciplines.

So if you find yourself having a celebration or something over the weekends, the four daily disciplines still apply. You don’t have to leave life to practice the four daily disciplines. And those four daily disciplines teach you how to eat food in a way that you enjoy eating your favorite foods without overeating them. And so if that is the next step for you, I’ve got the answer.

If God is saying, ‘Hey, it’s finally time for you to be at your healthy weight. It’s finally time for you to start working on your own health. Then it’s Weight Loss the Catholic Way. It’s a free workshop. This is also one of those weight loss methods that you never, ever, ever have to stop. Do you remember always trying something and you couldn’t wait to stop once you got to goal weight?

The women who do Weight Loss the Catholic Way tell me they never wanna stop living this way. And you don’t ever have to because it will. Those four daily disciplines take you through every season of your life and keep you at a healthy weight no matter what season of life you’re in. It’s pretty incredible.

It’s time that you have Weight Loss the Catholic Way, and it’s time that you start supporting yourself in your next season of your life as these kids are going off to school, and they’re going to. And maybe you find yourself already with kids gone, but they still have stuff going on.

Know that their lives are happening and we can trust God to take care of their lives and we can be there to support them, but we do not support our children at the detriment to our own wellbeing. Let me say that again. We do not support our children or spouses at the detriment to our wellbeing.

And how do I know that that’s theologically correct? Because God would never ask us to support another creature, one of his creations, if it required us to damage part of his creation, and we are his creation. He would never ask us to sacrifice ourselves, not because it’s not sacrificial, but at the detriment to our own wellbeing.

So we can sacrifice our desires and our will, but we never damage ourselves to lift or support someone else, another part of his creation. And I would love to debate anybody on that. I would really, really, really love to debate that concept, that we as God’s creation do not sacrifice or damage or kill ourselves to support someone else.

Because I think there’s a way that if we are called to be a caretaker or we are called to be a parent, I am pretty which we all of us are probably in one of those categories. There’s a way to do it where we can preserve and care for ourselves in a very humble and ordered and nurturing and honest way.

Not in a luxurious way, but in a very ordered way, so that we are able to care and support ourselves as we are equally caring and supporting the people that we love through whatever they’re going through. I feel like that’s another podcast.

But right now, you need to know this. If you have a child who’s recently left for college or moved out, it’s a real thing. You’re going through a transition. You need care and support. I want you to listen to this podcast one more time, pull out what you need.

And so if the next thing for you is you finally getting to your healthy weight, is you being able to finally take time to care and support yourself, and to lose weight for the very last time so you can maintain your weight for the rest of your life, then I want you to come to the workshop. It’s free. Weight Loss the Catholic Way. The link is in the description.

Okay, everybody. Remember, at Weight Loss with the Holy Spirit, we keep God our God. Not the scale, not our pant size, not the magic diet. God stays our God, and that’s why weight loss is lasting, because it’s ordered, just like Him.

Okay. Have a blessed day.