And truly, I think you’ll just be smiling this whole time as we talk about what usually isn’t a very smiley topic, anxiety, but Catherine just really brings to life just. So much lightheartedness. Catherine, when we spoke before, I just felt this love and tenderness and just a real joy for the work that you do.

Yeah, share with our audience. Who you are. And today, friends, we’re gonna be talking about anxiety and about food noise. This all things food, anxiety and likely a lot of things that Catherine has seen in the work that she does with women who struggle with their weight or with emotional eating. So welcome Catherine. Tell our audience a bit about you. 

Catherine: Well, thank you so much. That was such a fun intro. I’ve had a number of them, but I think I’m gonna give that one, an a plus. For fun. So as you said, my name is Catherine Dinuzzo and I am a licensed professional counselor and I’ve run my own private counseling practice for about 15 years.

And I dunno if this happened to you, but I feel it did. At some point in your life, you’re going along, happily doing your thing and God kinda touches you on the shoulder and is like, excuse me. I have something else I need you to do. And you’re like I’m pretty comfortable with what I am doing right now.

Like, what do you mean? He is like no. No, Catherine you have something special and people need to hear what you have to say. So, you know what? I need you to start speaking. I need you to do retreats. I need you to talk to these, to people around the world about anxiety because the devil is winning. The devil is winning this lie of anxiety that we are not enough.

We are not good enough. We are not old enough. We’re not young enough. We’re not tall enough. We’re not young enough. We’re not blonde enough. We’re not brunette enough. Whatever we are, we’re not enough, and the devil is winning. And that healing is so strong in so many people’s minds that they can’t tell anyone about it.

Anxiety is this thing that so many people are suffering from and no one feels comfortable to talk about it. So guess what, Catherine, I need you to do it. And I just looked at him in the mantra and I said, have you met me? You do that. He’s like, no, I’m calling you. And so from that time on, I wrote my book, the Catholic Guide Through Anxiety.

I’ve run retreats in Ireland and South Korea. I’ve gone all around the United States. Just trying to empower women, but also just people in general to see their mental health as a positive instead of a negative. To fight this lie that we’re, if we have anxiety, that we’re crazy, that we’re weak, that we’re stupid, instead teach about how God made us amazing and how our bodies are so good.

But sometimes we get triggered by the wrong stimulus, and so we have to better understand kinda what’s happening in our body when we feel anxious. And then once we understand that, we can start managing all the things that come from that feeling of anxiety. 

You know, I would like to talk about today. Why is it that when I’m feeling anxious, I actually think a cookie will make me feel better? Because it’s not a sign of weakness that a cookie makes you feel better. It’s because it matches exactly what your body’s doing at the time. It makes sense that a cookie would be what you would want to make you feel better. 

Maybe we choose that this time we don’t need the cookie, but once we understand why it helps, then it’s easier to understand why. I don’t want to take the cookie this time. And maybe sometimes I decide I do want the cookie this time. And both of those are okay. 

Denise: I think that’s a beautiful segue. When we were talking before, one of the things that you’d mentioned in your email was that anxiety’s a totally natural process and it’s good. It’s good. And so please talk to us about how anxiety is good, how it’s natural, and how it is, of course, why we want to take the cookie. And then also when we get to choose, we don’t want the cookie or we do, but either way. So you have full permission to just talk about whatever. 

Catherine: In my book, I challenge my readers and I say, by the end of this book, you are going to be able to thank God for your anxiety. And if you listen really carefully, you can hear all of your listeners rolling their eyes and sighing, going. Then she doesn’t know my anxiety if she thinks I’m gonna thank God for it. And that’s why it’s a challenge in the book.

Because what we can understand is that God loved us. And He wants us safe, and so he gave our body a natural response to keep us safe. That response is called the fight, flight, or freeze response.

So imagine that you are walking on a path and you see a big, hairy animal. And you hear it roar and you smell that stinky animal smell and you see the teeth and, there’s this part of your brain, I call it the animal part of your brain, but it’s the limbic system and it’s this part of the brain that God gave us so that when there’s a bear in front of us, we’re gonna keep us safe.

So what he does is as soon as the brain senses that there’s a bear, it starts pumping all this adrenaline and cortisol through our system because we have to fight the bear. We have to run from the bear. Right? So what we’re doing is we start feeling our heartbeat really fast. We feel our muscles pump up and ready to fight, right?

Our tummy gets sick and nauseous because it’s like I can’t finish that burrito right now ’cause I gotta fight a bear. And then, we can’t think very well because the thinking part of our brain, which is right at your forehead, starts thinking like I don’t know if we could do this bear, but can I fight the bear? Am I strong enough? Am I fast enough? 

And so God out of love for us is like, you’re in the way. You’re not connected to this conversation. So there’s actually a disconnect between what our thinking brain can do and what that animal brain’s job is doing to keep us alive. When there’s a bear, when there’s a thing, when we see a car coming and hitting our kid, we run and pull in front of that car and we get the kid safe. 

Right? Because God loves us. And he wants to give us everything we need to be safe. And it is in good, is a good response. But what happens when instead of a bear, it’s a job interview or visiting your mother-in-law or going on a first date or having a test. See, the problem with our animal brains is it’s an animal. It reacts, it doesn’t think to that part of the brain, it’s all the same. 

And so when we think, oh my gosh, I have to go see my mother-in-law and I don’t know how that’s gonna go. And if she doesn’t like me, then my husband might not like me. And then he might leave me, and then I’ll be homeless and I’ll be, then I’ll die. And that’s what the animal brain does. 

And so sometimes we have to take those deep breaths. We have to take those moments to know. Okay, animal brain when there’s a bear. I appreciate you so much. Thank you God for this response that keeps me safe. But my mother-in-law is not. This test is not a bear. This fear I’m having may be something from my past, but I am safe today. 

And then I can calm that animal brain and I can give that adrenaline and cortisol time to work through my body, and I can actually stop that anxiety from growing. Because what we tend to do, instead of stopping it as soon as we feel it, what’s the first thing we do?

Feel my tummy turning. Yeah. We push it away. We’re like, okay, I don’t like this. It’s scary. I wanna stop it. So we’re like, the thinking part of our brain keeps telling that animal broth just stop. Just stop. And the animal brain’s, like I always say, anxiety is where those two disagree. 

Denise: Yeah. 

Catherine: So what happens is our animal brain sees this test or your mother-in-law and is thinking, this is a bear. This is dangerous. They could hurt us, right? And our thinking brain’s like, no my mother-in-law isn’t dangerous. So they’re disagreeing. And I really feel like that’s where anxiety lies. 

And so what happens is instead of telling ourselves like, okay you are safe, this isn’t a bear. Instead, we get on what I call the hamster wheel. We start to feel anxious and then we’re scared and we want it to go away, but we can’t make it go away. So we become anxious that we’re anxious, and then we become anxious. That we’re anxious, and then we become anxious. That we’re anxious. 

And so instead of telling the brain we’re safe, instead we’re building the idea that we’re not safe. And so instead of stopping the cortisol and adrenaline production, we’re actually increasing it. And what is a cookie? Why do we want a cookie in that moment? Because it’s a stimulant. It’s sugar. 

So the body’s like, oh, good, now I’m getting this extra energy to fight this bear. And for a minute the body goes, oh, that’s everything I needed. Okay. We made it through the bear. And then what does our brain think? Oh, you did it again. You hate the cookie. And we bully ourselves and we continue a pattern that makes it harder and harder to change the overall pattern.

Denise: So that makes sense. Then when we are having the cortisol spikes and the adrenaline and we need energy to fight the bear or what feels like a bear in our brain. We would be reaching for high sugar foods. 

Catherine: Absolutely. Because they work. 

Denise: They do work. They feel like, and I love how you just said that. Your brain says, yes, that’s exactly what we needed. Because it feels like that. It feels like exhale. That’s what I need. Yes.

Catherine: Absolutely. And what I talk to my clients a lot about is that what happens is we get into this cycle of bullying ourselves that we’re so mad and we feel so weak that we’re anxious, that we just perpetuate the cycle.

But when we’re able to get off the Hampshire reel, when we’re able to say, God, thank you for this anxious response for keeping me safe when it is a bear, then I don’t go down the spiral. That makes me want one cookie to four cookies, to six cookies. ’cause I’ve just spiraled down. I’m able to say, okay, I know why that one cookie helped.

And then I can say, okay, now I’ve calmed myself. I feel safe. Maybe I don’t need that second cookie because even in my own emotional eating, I catch myself, is that the first cookie helps me to feel better. The second, third, and fourth are because I’m mad that I ate the cookie. 

Denise: That’s so interesting. I was just coaching a woman the other day who said that we’re filming this around Easter. She said she had a piece of cake at Easter and then she had a piece of something else after that, some other dessert, and she felt great about the piece of cake. But then it was the second thing that she had that she started saying, I shouldn’t have had that. And then that led her into that shame spiral. The whole, I shouldn’t have had that. 

And I think, to your point, by understanding, oh that first cookie felt like a real, a natural solution, if you will. And to just recognize, oh of course it felt that way because of the way anxiety works in my body or this fight, flight, or freeze. And to say, of course I reached for a cookie. That was a totally natural thing to do and just ended there. 

Catherine: Absolutely. And to be kind to ourselves. So on my website, one of the things that I sell is this sticker, and I wish everybody had this sticker. Like, if I could, I would just give it to everyone. And it’s very simple, but it’s so powerful, and I wish more people just had this constant reminder. 

And so that in very big letters. It says, “don’t be a bully” because no one in the world disagrees that you should be a bully. That is a universally accepted belief, but then in really small letters where you have to read it and really think about it. It says “to yourself,” and we say things to ourselves that we would never say, someone else.

Denise: Yeah. 

Catherine: So in that woman that you were coaching, I almost guarantee that if you came to her and said, yeah, well I ate that piece of cake and then I ate this one, and then I stopped because I realized I didn’t want to anymore, she would’ve said, wow, great job. 

Like, I’m so proud of you that you noticed that in yourself and you decided to make a change and be really proud of yourself for it. But what we tend to do is not say what we would say to a friend to ourselves. Instead, we’re like what’s wrong with you? Why were you so weak? You ate that second piece and you build over time. 

So yes, we have to acknowledge the humanness of that first response, that fight, flight, or freeze. But then as we are processing it, if we stop ourselves and say, how would I respond to a friend? And then only say those words to ourselves, we really stop the spiral. 

Denise: Yeah, it reminds me of the self-compassion, remembering, just how we would treat a friend and we’re compassionate to friends, and now that’s the way we do it to ourselves. That self-compassion. Can you talk to the woman who is listening, who says, all right, yeah, that totally makes sense, but how do I stop this reaction? How can I minimize thinking everything is a bear? 

Catherine: Well, they’re not gonna like my first response, and I completely accept that. And the first is realizing that you can’t stop the reaction. And the reason I say this is that the animal brain is going to think and process things before your thinking brain has any chance to. 

So an example that I like to give is thinking about watching a scary movie. If you’re watching a scary movie and something jumps out at you, what’s the first thing you’re gonna do? Jump back, pull yourself away. 

And then this thinking part comes in and says, oh, that was a scary clown. But it doesn’t think first. It doesn’t go, oh, that’s a scary clown. I guess I’ll move back now. 

Denise: Yeah.

Catherine: Right? Your body, your whole body has moved before your thinking. Brain even knows what’s going on. And so I truly think we don’t acknowledge the power of that animal brain and like how quickly it responds to things and makes decisions before our thinking brain has the opportunity to really process it.

And so we have to realize that my goal can’t be to stop that reaction from happening. It’s about how do I stop it from spinning and continuing? Right. And then another thing with that animal brain is like an example I give with people, and this is gonna sound a little funny to your listeners, but just stay with me for a second.

I’ll say until I said you have clothes on, your body couldn’t feel clothes on you, but now you do see your animal brain is processing stimulus all the time. If you have kids, you know that you can not hear them talking until they scream just the right way. 

That’s because your brain is processing the sound of them talking the whole time the animal brain is, and then the thinking brain is like, well, that’s not important. But once you put your clothes on, your brain’s, like, I don’t wanna go all day long thinking I have clothes on, I have clothes on, I have clothes on, I have clothes on, I have clothes on. 

So our thinking brain’s like, oh, you have clothes on, don’t think about it. but our animal brain is still feeling the sense of our clothes. That’s why you can feel it now. You just didn’t recognize it before.

Right? So we’re trying to expect that we can tell our thinking brain to control this animal brain, but it actually does everything first, right? Another example I like to give is to ask someone, like with all of their mental power to stop their heart from beating. Just can’t. Right? But it’s the same idea because that animal brain regulates your heart rate. 

So if you can’t tell your animal brain to stop your heart from beating, you can’t tell it, to not be anxious about a fear. But what I can do is let the animal brain feel it. I start to feel all the warning signs in my body and I can stop and say, is this a bear or is it not? Am I safe or am I not? 

And sometimes it’s really hard to feel that in the moment. And that’s where I bring God into the prayer. Like, thank you Lord for this response. Help me to know that I am safe and then I can take some deep breaths. And in my book, I give a lot of strategies that they can do in that moment.

But my first strategy, honestly is stop trying to make it never happen. Because that’s a losing battle because you don’t have the cognitive control of your animal brain. Now when I start to do this more often and I gain more skills in understanding my response and how I handle it, then the animal brain is like, oh, I can do this.

So that’s not as scary as I thought. I got this, and it starts being able to feel more comfortable in those situations. For example, if every time I sit down to take a test, I get really nervous and I get on the hamster wheel and I start pulling myself. All I’m telling my brain is, tests are scary, tests are bears.This is real. 

But if every time I do that, I get off the hamster wheel and I’m like, this is not a test. So this test isn’t a live or die, this isn’t a bear. Soon that animal brain, like an animal, is gonna be trained like, oh, these aren’t as scary as I thought. So we can learn to minimize it and feel empowered in how we treat it. But truly the best technique to start minimizing anxiety is to stop fearing it. 

Denise: So if I hear you correctly, expect it, detect it, and not have that feeling of something’s gone wrong or it shouldn’t be this way. It is. So allow it. And then bring the Lord in and show your body that you are safe.

And by that repetition of allowing it, recognizing nothing’s gone wrong, this is a natural response, showing your body it’s safe. You’ll slowly, by slowly, by slowly minimize your animal brain from thinking, oh, going to my mother-in-law’s house on Christmas is dangerous, or stressful, or whatever the things are.

Catherine: Absolutely. 

Denise: Yeah, and I want everybody to hear just how simple the Lord makes things. He says, I’m gonna send you signals in your body and let’s just embrace them. We don’t have to love it, but nothing’s gone wrong. And then bring him in. Bring his truth in to show your body you’re safe. Catherine, you mentioned you have some techniques in your book.

We have our ten second pause. And it’s really, that’s the first line of connecting to, when you said that anxiety is a natural response, a good response to just the wrong stimulus. It is by calming ourselves that we can actually start to discern, oh, is this an appropriate reaction? Or is this reaction necessary? Or am I really actually safe?  And that discernment process only comes when we can start to calm ourselves down. 

Catherine: Absolutely. Because if there’s a bear in front of you, I don’t really want you to, take deep breaths and take a little walk around like I would tell you to do with anxiety to move that adrenaline, right? 

Like, I want you to fight the bear. Like we have to see that as like this is a gift for when I do need it. It is a good thing. And I can take that minute or that ten second pause and say, okay am I in danger right now? Right. Am I safe in this space? 

Denise: That’s really good. That’s really, really good. So I want to transition to a different topic, which may actually be the same topic, and I just haven’t known it, is the concept of food noise.

I would like for you to share with me how you talk to your clients about food, noise. 

And in our program we have something that we call chaos foods and a chaos food. Could be a certain food substance that creates chaos or an intense reaction, or intense cravings, or it’s taking up space in our brain and we’re thinking about the food.

But more often than not, I find that it’s not truly a chaos food that’s causing the chaos. It’s just a stressed out brain and the brain is seeking relief or Like you said, the natural response is to reach for food and then that’s creating chaos. 

So I use that word chaos, and I’m just curious how much that could relate to what you call food noise. So could you just talk about that topic a bit? 

Catherine: Yeah. And my feeling with food noise is. That it really goes to something you said earlier, which is the shoulds. I feel like when we give too much power to the shoulds is the fertile ground for food noise because we feel like there’s something we should be doing. We didn’t do it correctly, and now we’re going to bully ourselves for it. 

So one of the things that I work with my clients a lot with is about what I call trusting your Holy Spirit nudge. And, we talk about how, if you think about something, you can feel it in your head. And then there’s this space somewhere in your chest that just, is like of God.

So an example of how I help a client kind of determine their Holy Spirit nudge is I’ll ask ’em. So this afternoon after our session, would you like to go get coffee with me? And I said, somewhere right here, you have a yes or no. That’s very clear. Yes I do. No, I don’t. And then it travels up 12 inches to this thinking part of our brain.

And we’re like, well, if I go get coffee with her now, is that weird? Because I probably shouldn’t go out to get coffee with my counselor, but she’s funny. So maybe I would like to go to get coffee with her ’cause it would be fun. And I haven’t had my coffee yet today and I really like this new coffee shop, so I should try it.

Yeah. But then people might see me out with my counselor and that’d be really weird. But if I had to say no to her, would she be upset at me? I don’t know if I should do that. And maybe I should. Maybe I shouldn’t. I don’t know. And before they know, they spun themselves up. They don’t know, do I wanna go, do I not?

Right? And I think we do this with food a lot too, but we have a feeling inside of us that’s like, should I eat this or should I not? Am I, do I need this, do I not? And then if we eat it or don’t eat it. It goes up that 12 inches because I have clients who have as much noise when they don’t eat the food.

You should eat the food. Why don’t I eat the food? I just want the food and I can’t eat this, and like all that comes in as much as, oh no, I’ve eaten the food. No, no. Why did I eat the food? I shouldn’t have eaten the food. And this. And kind of. Taking a moment with our food first and saying, okay, Lord, as I’m preparing to eat this, like where’s my Holy Spirit nudged in this?

And do I give it to myself or do I not? And trusting that Holy Spirit nudge so that when I eat the cookie and I’m like, it’s the one cookie and I told myself I could have this cookie, then I’m like, okay, I felt like I prayed about it and here’s my cookie and I’m gonna have my cookie and I’m gonna move on.

Or I’m gonna feel that Holy Spirit nudge, like. Hey, this cookie you actually don’t need because it is trying to cover an anxious feeling or it’s an emotional, and you’re like, okay, so now I feel uncomfortable that I didn’t eat it. Now I’m gonna give it to God and be like, okay, you led me in this Holy Spirit edge and I’m gonna have peace in it. 

And so the idea for me when I’m working with food noises, is how can we feel confident in our choice and then give to God the noise that makes it hard to accept our choice. Whatever choice we made. Bringing him in to calming the noise from spinning uncontrollably. 

Denise: Okay. That makes a lot of sense. And in the way that I describe it in our program is that it’s tornado thinking. And going with 2 Corinthians 10:5, “Take captive our thoughts and align them with the Lord.”

It is we noticed we’re in spinning out. Either we ate the cookie or we didn’t eat the cookie, or the regret and remorse. It doesn’t really matter the choice, but we notice that we’re in a tornado thinking or spinning out like you said. And the question is how do we align that, calm that down, and align it to the Lord’s truth?

And when we are having peace. We can detect that Holy Spirit nudge. We can detect what he truly wants for us. And it’s just a knowing. 

Catherine: Yeah. And it’s knowing that we are good like that. He sees us as good. See, we’re think if I ate the cookie, I’m bad. If I didn’t eat the thing, I’m bad. Where he sees us and knows us in our good.

And what I use with my clients a lot is just seeing our kids. Like I don’t think I truly understood God’s love until I had children who all I wanna do is help no matter what good choice they make, no matter choice. I wish they would make a different choice. I just love them and wanna be in that decision with them, and I wanna help guide them and walk with them.

And never once have I ever looked at my kids and gone. Just don’t like you or, oh, you’re bad. I might be like, oh, that decision, that one’s a little hard, or Let me guide you next time. But I just wanna be there. And when I can sit back and think, wait, God loves me more than I love my kids. That makes my mind explode. I’m not gonna lie. 

I really sit there. That to me is like, how could someone love me more than I love my kids? But I know that if my kid ate a cookie and I didn’t want him to eat a cookie. I wouldn’t be mad. I’d be like, okay let’s talk about why didn’t want you eat before dinner, or whatever it is. 

But I’d wanna be in there and loving with them instead of being angry or disappointed. Which again, I think sometimes we see God and assume he’s upset with us or we weren’t good ’cause we made this decision instead of seeing him as the loving father that he is just wanting to walk and help us. 

Denise: Yeah, it’s interesting, I talk to a lot of women who often get to the point of tears by feeling that they have disappointed God. And what’s interesting, I wanna relate this to my own parenting. Both of my children are adopted.

And it was always very important for me that my boys knew that they’re loved. They’re loved, they’re loved. There’s no, like I’m never changing my mind. There’s no changing my mind. And in fact, that’s really helped me with disciplining my children because they knew that whatever I said, they could count on it, always staying the same.

And of course, I make mistakes and then I can go back and be like, Hey, I made a mistake. But that’s not, I changed my mind. And so my point is I would say to them that I love them so much and there’s nothing they can do to make me love them more. And there’s nothing they can do to make me love them less.

You could come and just fight me and kick me and stab me in the eye, and I will never love you less. And I love thinking of that with God. God loves, there’s nothing I can do to make him love me more. Nothing. There’s nothing I can do to make him love me less. And when I make decisions that aren’t for my best good, he isn’t disappointed.

He just loves me so much that he wants me to be cared for by me. Where he is like. Let’s support you. I love you so much. I don’t wanna see you hurt. But he is not disappointed. 

Catherine: Oh, and that’s what’s so beautiful about your story with your boys is that like, your story and how you love them is so beautiful and God is better.

Denise: Yeah. 

Catherine: That’s the thing that blows my mind. Yeah, I can, as a parent you’re like, oh, easily. Like I would do this. And then when you think he has that and more imperfection and endlessness and no time beginning and end and all these things, you just can sit back and say, you know what? He doesn’t really need my help. He just needs my surrender.

Denise: That’s right. You know, you said something that God wants to give us everything when you’re talking about the anxiety. And he will always come in and keep us safe. And that’s part of the anxiety way that he created us, the fight, flight, or freeze response, which is just beautiful because he wants to give us everything he gave us everything we need to live on earth as humans and be safe and thrive right with him.

And there’s only one thing that he wants from us. And you said it beautifully here. You said he only wants our surrender and he only wants everything, which is our surrender. And I don’t know if you know that that is what our entry program is called. It’s called 63 Surrendered. 

It’s 63 days of the surrender novena and learning how to surrender and say, it’s yours, Lord. It’s yours, Lord. It’s yours, Lord. It’s yours Lord. And we just practice it for 63 days. So that we can start to allow him in ’cause that’s all he wants. 

Catherine: Yeah, and I think it’s important here. I just wanna take a little moment to go take this a little farther because I’m imagining in my mind listeners who are saying, yeah Catherine, but he didn’t always keep me safe. Oh, that sounds good in theory, Catherine. Sure. He didn’t keep me safe.

And I think we have to give ourselves permission for that both end. That two feelings at one time, that he does desire to keep us safe and that that is a beautiful part of our God. And sometimes on this side of heaven, there isn’t perfection and hurts happen and bad things happen.

And as you were talking, I was thinking about my own story of surrender, and I definitely don’t have time to go into the whole story here, but I don’t know if you remember what was going on in 2020. There was like this weird pandemic thing. 

Denise: Yeah, I heard about that. 

Catherine: Heard about it. Might have experienced it a little. I wasn’t too worried about the pandemic because I was young, healthy, my family was young and healthy. My husband I don’t think had ever even been into the hospital. Like I think he may maybe went to a well check once ’cause I made him and in November of 2020 he started getting really, really sick.

And it was obviously he had covid and he was progressively getting worse and worse. And long story short, he ends up in the hospital and they’re pretty sure he’s not going to make it. This was before they had any treatments for them. You were all isolated. I just don’t think people remember 2020 and where you couldn’t see anyone.

He was isolated in a room by himself. Like the only way we could talk to him for 28 days was putting him on a video and just watching him breathe on a ventilator. And I have never felt so abandoned at first by God, because from the moment I married my husband, all I ever told God I pray, just don’t take my husband from me. ’cause I can’t make it without him. 

And here I was looking down the barrel of living life without him. And I didn’t understand. I had four kids and they were still very young, and I was like, I don’t know how I’m gonna do this. And as the day was unfolding and as the days and days were unfolding, I would see all these people who I called my little jesuses.

And they would come and they would, some would pay my utilities. Some would take my kids out to play, some would bring me dinner. Some would let me cry. Some would pray for me. And I had all these little jesuses that were giving me everything that I needed. And when I would go to prayer to, I would say, Jesus, why are you taking him away from me?

I can’t do this without you, without him. And he’s like, you’re right. You can’t do it without him. But he very clearly showed me I could do it. With Jesus. Like, you’re right. You can’t do this without your husband. You’re 100. I agree. Like he was very like, I felt very like, you’re right. You alone cannot do this.

But with me you can. And It was the first time I was able to really surrender this very horrible experience. And by the grace of God. Long story short, if you ever wanna really cool, he has a very cool miracle story with thank you to Pope Francis who actually offered prayers for him. The immaculate inception, which I just have good friends. It’s not that cool. 

But so Pope Francis actually offered masks for him when he was in the hospital and he had a miracle, and he is okay and he’s home now. But he’s never been able to work since. And so my whole life changed that day. And many people think, do you hate Covid? Do you hate what life did?

And I was like, no. Because my marriage is the best it’s ever been. My kids’ Faith in Miracles is the best it’s ever been. I got the opportunity to write my book because I needed to make more money to provide for my family. So I was like, I’m finally gonna write that book. I thought I needed to write.

And I built my caseload up and I’m helping more and more people and I’m doing more talks and I’m spreading the word on anxiety and no, I don’t wanna take. Yeah, there are moments when we look and say, God, why did you allow this to happen? I thought you were supposed to protect me. 

And in those moments, I just had to let him hold me because I was confused. I was scared. I didn’t understand. But I also was able to surrender and let him walk with me till I figured out how to make this work and how he was going to lay down a path that was so good. And so no, I wouldn’t change or take back Covid because I don’t wanna be the person I would’ve been if I didn’t have it.

And I’m not saying to anyone who’s gone through hardships that it’s easy. I am here to tell you there has been crying and anger and all the feelings, but I also know that he never abandoned me in it, and I never felt alone and knew he was walking with me even today.

Denise: That’s so beautiful. That’s so beautiful. And so what I think I hear you saying is you see the Lord’s hand in it and you stayed with him and he never Abandoned you. And I know you help a lot of women through many things that where they do feel that they were abandoned by the Lord.

And for those people, they require and can benefit from more deep work with. Maybe you could just share, for the woman listening, how does she know if. Because I imagine some people just don’t believe that either God loves them or their faith isn’t big enough. How do they know if they have a wound that could benefit from seeing a counselor? I don’t even know if that’s right, yeah. How does somebody just discern that? 

Catherine: First of all, I biasly would say that most people benefit from seeing a counselor. Totally. Because we’re just, you just need, it’s nice to walk with someone, but when you have a wound that’s so deep, the way that I like to describe it is we all have holes in our lives and we want these holes to go away.

And we want to pretend like they never happened, so we fill them up with sand. Again, your sand can be your traditional drugs, alcohol, sex, but it can be eating, it can be not eating, it can be anxiety, depression, control. I’ve seen millions of different types of sand over my years in practice. But what works with sand is for a minute it feels good, right?

Like you fill your hole up with sand and okay, now it feels good and I’m gonna start trying to build my house on top of this hole full of sand. And what happens? it falls. Yeah. So we’re like, oh man, my house fell, do you know what I need more sand. Yeah. 

So I go in there and I just shove more sand and I pack it down really deep and I just try to make the as full as I can with that same sand. And then I build my house and then it falls. 

And when I say people are ready for counseling is when you’ve tried to build that house multiple times and it keeps falling. It probably means you’re building your house on a hole full of sand. And the beauty of what counseling does is it’s someone who lovingly, kindly with compassion can help walk and get that sand outta the hole so we can see it.

I think a lot of us want to believe that our holes just can go away, and if I had the magic thing that made it go away, I would sell it and I would be richer than Mr. Amazon.  Right. That’s the truth out would’ve all the monies. But that doesn’t actually exist. 

What we have to do is we have to get the sand out. We have to see the hole, and then we can start putting what I call, making it a basement where you put some cement, some two by fours. You give structure, you give understanding. You start to build a foundation in that basement that is a good, sturdy place to build your house from. 

See? ’cause what happens is we wanna pretend like this hole doesn’t happen, but then in a way, we’re kinda living in that hole. The house keeps falling. We become identified by that hole. For myself, my dad was an alcoholic, and so most of my growing up life, I just would tell myself, I’m the daughter of an alcoholic. That’s who I am. 

That was my whole, all that came with that, until one day I learned that I was Catherine, whose dad was an alcoholic, right? So he’s part of my story. That basement’s not going anywhere. But if I learn the structure, if I get understanding and tools, I can now create a very good, stable basement that I never need to go into ever again.

I can if I want to, but I don’t have to, and I can build a beautiful house on top of it. So if you feel like I keep trying and nothing’s working, and I just keep seeing my house fall and everything falling around me. They would challenge you to ask Lord, am I building this house on sand? Are there holes that I’m trying to hide with my sand?

And maybe this is that Holy Spirit nudge to say It’s time to reach out and have someone walk with you who can help and support you in creating that basement.

Denise: Oh, I love your analogies and I know everybody else is oh, that makes so much sense. Catherine, thank you so much for sharing your, just very easy to understand analogies sharing your story. We will link Catherine’s miracle story. The story of her husband’s miracle. We’ll put that in the description.

But if somebody would like to either have you as a speaker or find your book or your website, just share with them all the things. Okay? 

Catherine: If you go to sacredheartmentalwellness.com, that’s sacred heart mental wellness.com. On that website, you can book me to speak. You can see some of the different talks and retreats that I’ve done, other podcasts I’ve done. There’s also some free resources to download. 

There’s also a free mental wellness quiz that will give you a chance to see where your own mental wellness is. Are you in a hole? Are you building your basement? Are you building your house? And so I describe that in this quiz that you can take. 

There’s also videos on mental wellness and on the biology of anxiety. And you can also get my book there, which is the Catholic Guide through Anxiety. And you can also get that on Amazon.

And if you subscribe to the email list, a companion book is coming out in probably the next couple of weeks that’s gonna go with the anxiety book, just to take the anxiety book a little further and really give some more depth. 

And I made it so that if you have a group of women that are working through anxiety, you have a book Group you have even a school parish staff, anything like that where you’re thinking, okay. The world and anxiety is growing exponentially. Like we are in the middle of a crisis over anxiety, and we are definitely keeping it in the dark. 

And I feel like we have to, and I feel like God has called me to be a voice, to bring anxiety into the light and to realize it can be empowering and it can be positive and helpful to talk about this very scary topic.

So I’m hoping that the book and the companion could be. Purchased for various, parishes or office staff or family groups or anything like that to do like book clubs on the book to help bring anxiety outta the darkness. And I can also come to parishes and teach those and do trainings and various things like that. But really just trying to empower the world over anxiety, so it has a lot less power than it does today. 

Denise: Thank you so much. 

Catherine: You’re welcome. Thank you so much for having me.