In this episode, we’re exploring the powerful connection between faith and wellness, diving into how treating your health as an act of worship can transform your entire approach to living well. I’ll guide you through the ways Christian principles can shape your daily health choices, making your wellness journey not just about physical well-being, but about honoring God with your body and life. We’ll discuss practical steps to integrate faith into your health routine, shifting your mindset to see wellness as more than just self-care, but as a spiritual discipline. If you’re ready to align your health journey with your faith and make every step a form of worship, this episode is for you.
SHOW NOTES
Liver Bitters/Digestive Bitters: https://amzn.to/3Le0cIS
Work with Dr. Danielle: https://l.bttr.to/Pc6aR
Work with Aria, NTP: https://l.bttr.to/PiTYw
Wilderness of Wellness: https://learn.wildernessofwellness.com/wow-1/
Magnesium Glycinate: https://amzn.to/3S1S962
Email Danielle: hello@cryinginmycheesecake.com
Email Aria: hello@wildernessofwellness.com
Grab Danielle’s Activated Essentials to Reduce Oxidative Stress: https://cart.lifevantage.com/US/shoppingcart/share/2cbb8705-cfad-4083-b853-451db92d23db
Follow Danielle on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cryinginmycheesecake/
Follow Aria on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewildernessofwellness
Transcription
Welcome to the crying in my cheesecake podcast, where we are in pursuit of living life abundantly, not held back by our body size or symptoms, nor are we held back by our hurts habits or other obstacles in life, learn the secrets to crush it in your health, wellness, relationships, and spiritual life. I am Dr.
Danielle, your host and practitioner. And in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about health as worship. We’re going to talk about integrating our faith into our wellness journey. And I’m not talking about this surface level. It’s a lifestyle, not behavior change because. If I can be quite honest, it is about behavior change, but it’s about where we know that out of the heart, the mouth flows, but also out of the heart, our behaviors happen.
And you know, I was, I just took my boards, um, for a naturopathic doctor last weekend in, uh, at least last weekend as the end of, as of this recording in, uh, Vegas. And one of Herring’s laws of cure. It’s interesting that it follows God’s principles and it follows scripture, that healing happens top down.
Inside out, vital organs, and then non vital organs. And it just reminds me that everything that has to do with our health, our physical bodies, points back to our Creator. We’re, this is a topic that I think is deeply important and often overlooked. And it’s integrating this, our faith into our wellness journey, and viewing health as an act of worship.
Because, let’s cut to the chase, your health isn’t just about how you look or how you feel physically, it’s a reflection of something so much deeper. For those of us who live our lives in faith with Jesus, our health is an act of worship and it’s time to embrace this concept, concept, excuse me, and make it a central part of our wellness routine.
You know, I work in the holistic health space and in the holistic health space there are going to be practitioners that are very new age. They are antithetical to scripture. They will say, well, I’m, you know, it’s energy, it’s this, it’s that. And they’re tapping into dark energies. They’re tapping into spiritual realms that we have no idea what’s going on around us.
And that’s just my personal, personal conviction. Um, but there is such thing as energy healing. And I do want to talk about that and I want to go into that. here shortly, but maybe one of the fundamental questions you may be asking yourself, and maybe you, maybe this is what is holding you back. Maybe this is like, you know, God loves me no matter what size I am, or no matter what’s going on with my health, or no matter my decisions, like God still loves me anyway, and he does.
I mean, for crying out loud, he sent his son to die for us, like knowing. Before we were even created knowing that we needed him, right? Oops, I just hit my mic. So let’s start with that question. This fundamental thing that may be lying underneath how you go about life. Because maybe your behaviors, your actions, and your health look completely antithetical to your faith life.
Or maybe there’s some form of unbelief. So let’s ask this question. How does your faith intersect with your health? Many people think that health is purely physical and that there’s a separation from our spiritual life, our relationship life, from our mental health, through our emotional health, all of these things.
But many people think that our health is purely physical. And we even pray, don’t we? We pray for physical healing. And yes, I’m not saying don’t pray for physical healing, pray for physical healing. But as Christians, We are called to honor God with every aspect of our lives, and that includes our bodies.
In 19 through 20, the Bible tells us, Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies. And while this scripture, it does make it very clear that our bodies are not ours to neglect.
They are entrusted to us by God. And we have a responsibility to take care of them. And it’s so humbling that God would take a moment in my personal life to hit me over the head with a big red truck and say, That every time I enter into my gym space, that that’s sacred space. It’s sacred space because it is one of the only places that I can go and silence my brain, push myself.
It’s me and God against and like challenging my body and moving my body that every single time I work out when I’m done, I’m stretching and I pray and I say a prayer that goes like this. God, thank you for giving me the breath of life today so that I can move my body, challenge my body, and to love others and serve others well.
Because I know that I have been entrusted with the gift of this physical body, and yet I’ll look in the mirror and I’ll say, oh, I don’t like this about my body. I don’t like this. I don’t like this. I don’t. I can find everything I don’t like, but I can also find every excuse to stay exactly where I am. I can also find every excuse that, Oh, well, this happened to me.
So I deserve to go eat, or I deserve to not work out, or I deserve to not open my Bible, or I just like all of these things. But we have a responsibility to take care of our physical bodies. So what does that even mean as health as worship? What does it even mean? Health as worship means more than just avoiding junk food and hitting the gym and I want to hit that home.
That health as worship means more than avoiding junk food or foods that are deemed sinful or foods that are, you know, that are gluttonous. It’s more than that. It’s more than going to the gym and I know that some of you are going to probably find some relief in that. Like, oh my gosh, okay. Like I’m listening.
I’m listening. It means treating your body with the respect and care it deserves because doing so honors God. It’s about recognizing that your physical, physical health is a way to show gratitude for the life and gifts that you’ve been given. How many times do you look at your body as a gift? Or do you look at your body or think about your body and like, Oh, it’s so big.
It’s so achy. It hurts. It’s, it’s giving up on me. It’s, it’s burdening me. It’s become a battle. My body is battling me. My body is fighting against itself. It’s fighting against me. And we know that there are so many things, so much deeper, so much more going on. Herring’s cure of law is top down, inside out, and vital organs than non vital organs.
You see, when you have, let’s just say period problems or perimenopausal problems. And when I say problems, I mean like symptoms. When you have symptoms, symptoms are a problem. Okay. We should enter into a period with no symptoms other than maybe just a little faint heaviness down there. Um, maybe just a tiny bit more fatigue just because the hormones are shifting.
That’s it. We shouldn’t even know. Um, and our spouses should only know because they’re paying attention, that kind of thing. But anyway, we shouldn’t even know that our period is coming. So, if we’re having symptoms in our female reproductive organs, I’m sorry dudes if you’re listening to this in your reproductive organs as well, most, most of you are women anyway.
So if you’re having problems in your female reproductive organs, those organs are not vital organs. They are not required for you to stay alive. So if you are having any kind of symptom, that means all of the nutrients, nourishment, and so forth has been taken away from those non vital organs to go to the vital organs and support them.
Something is much deeper and much more wrong. God didn’t make a mistake when he was, when he made you. Every symptom is not your body fighting against you. It’s trying to keep you alive. What kind of God do we serve? That he created a body that can overcome and adapt everything, even if it causes us problems in other areas.
He created a body where that my dad has been in stage four heart failure. That’s the top end. That’s the end game He’s been in stage four heart failure for two over two years now at the recording of this over two years There are so much going on so many nutrients I see being pulled away from other non vital places and and his vital organs are struggling We serve a God who did not make a mistake.
Your body is not fighting against you, it’s screaming for help. And while he may be too far gone, that may be a thing, he may be too far gone, but you’re not. If you’re having period problems, you are not too far gone. I’m going to say that again. If you’re having period problems, you’re not too far gone. If you’re having perimenopause symptoms, if you’re having bone aches, joint aches, you’re not too far gone.
We don’t need our bones to live, right? We’re not too far gone. I want you to think about your body as a temple and taking care of it. It speaks if we let it speak, but it also teaches us. That there’s a God that loves us so much that he would provide us a body that would want to overcome and adapt. But here’s the hard truth.
Here is the hardcore truth right now. And I’m gonna, I’m just gonna share this. Integrating faith into your wellness journey is not gonna be easy. It’s not. We are, most of us that are listening to this are Westerners. We are, um, may I, dare I say we are entitled We believe that everything should happen like that.
We believe that a symptom must be suppressed. That is what we’re taught. The world offers us countless distractions and quick fixes that lead us away from true healing. Just like, just like the enemy leading us away from our relationship with God, pulling us out of our family, telling us that our enemy is our spouse or our kids or our in laws or whatever.
We’re often tempted to look for shortcuts rather than committing to the hard work of maintaining our well being. So I’m going to give you a few practical steps right now to integrate faith into your health and here they are. You need to know how to live out this principle. So let’s break down these action steps.
Number one, number one practical step to integrate integrating faith into your health is to start with prayer and reflection. This has been hard for me to start my day, to start my day as a, when I was a young mom of a kid that did not sleep at all for like four years and I had two others. And I had to homeschool them or get them to school or whatever.
But beginning each day with a moment of prayer and reflection, simply asking God to guide our decisions regarding our health. Instead of going to bed every night, I don’t know if you’re like me, but instead of going to bed every night and be like, oh, for years I would do this almost every night. I’ll do better tomorrow.
I’ll do better tomorrow. Why not wake up in the morning and before we put our feet on the ground? God, guide me in my decisions today regarding my health. And then take some time to reflect on scriptures that encourage healthy living, and let those scriptures guide your choices throughout the day. Number two, make mindful choices.
When making decisions about what to eat, how to move, how to rest, ask yourself if your choices honor God. This isn’t about being perfect, but about making more intentional decisions that reflect your commitment to your faith. Number three, set realistic goals. This is a hard one for people because they’re like, Oh, I want to lose a hundred pounds.
Like that’s all they care about is their weight. And I’m sorry, but weight, my friends, is not a root cause of anything. There’s a reason you have extra weight on your body. And it could be. Trauma that you refuse to address. It could be trauma that you don’t even know that you need to address. And trauma is not like, my mom was a cocaine addict, blah, blah, blah.
That’s not necessarily trauma. Trauma can be and feel like your parents didn’t understand you. Or you come from a political family who had to have everything a certain way. Or maybe you were just in the quote unquote really good family in the neighborhood or in the, in the community and perfectionism was what was required.
That’s trauma, my friends. So I want you to think about setting realistic goals. Setting goals for your health is essential. But they need to be realistic and attainable. So instead of focusing on like drastic changes, like overhauls, like going through your cabinet and throwing away every piece of junk food, going to the grocery store and only buying organic things or whatever, set small manageable goals that you can work toward consistently.
Keyword consistently. And then what you do is celebrate progress and stay committed to the journey. And a lot of my women love getting a new bra as a celebration. Like who doesn’t want their boobs back up where they belong in a fresh new bra? Makes you feel a little bit more confident. And we don’t reward ourselves with food by the way.
We don’t reward ourselves with food because we are not dogs. Got it? Four, we’re going to create a supportive community. We need to surround ourselves, like I am the first one to say, I don’t want to be around people. I don’t, I don’t need a ton of friends. I don’t like, I’m not a small group, girly, anything like that.
But I will say, even if I’m not a small group girl and I do one off people here, there, whatever, those people must be committed to living a healthy and faith driven life. Otherwise, I’m going to fall into their habits. No matter how strong I am, no matter how convicted I am to live a certain way, I need to create a supportive community that is, that allows me to be surrounded by people who share my values.
who push me and elevate me. You know, uh, this week I was in my mastermind meeting with my, uh, with my mentor, Tracy Harris from Australia. And she was talking about relationships and it was relationships in business, like, you know, all like business, our relationship with God, our relationship with our family, you know, all of that kind of stuff.
Okay. And something that she brought up was about sewing. Where am I sewing? And in scripture, she wasn’t meaning this necessarily like religiously, but she is a, I would call her a Christian Catholic, um, as Australia is not necessarily a, um, a religious country. Uh, we take it very much for granted in America that even in our more liberal states or liberal cities, there are churches on every corner.
And it’s weird for most people to not be in church here. So, it’s not like that in Australia and I can talk about that on another episode at some time. But anyway, all that to say, she brought up this idea of sewing and sewing in our relationships. I have never thought about sewing what I, or reaping what I sew when it comes to relationships.
I’ve only thought of it personally as like my behaviors. Like where am I sewing my time and my behaviors and like that kind of stuff. So, yeah. I don’t, it hit me afresh this week that the people I’m around, I need to take massive inventory of the people I allow myself to be in relationship with. Do I want to reap what they’ve sown?
Do I want to reap? What they’re doing in their life and the way their marriages look or don’t look or the failed marriages or the relationship with their kids or they’re falling away from faith or not able to come through with their word or like, is that what I want? Because if something I am, if I’m investing in a relationship, it must help elevate me.
I should not be the one elevating the whole time. I need to be around people that are supportive, offer accountability, don’t feel intimidated, or um, they don’t feel intimidated by a powerhouse of a woman in her presence. That they can hold space for me. They can provide me encouragement and motivation when I need it most.
I would have you think about that too. Because oftentimes in church we’re like, in, in, this is why I quit going to Bible, like female. This is why I quit going to women’s Bible studies. Because everything was so surface level. I don’t care what church it is. I don’t care what group it is. Everything is so surface level.
I want to know what are you talking about with your spouse? How do you talk to your spouse? How do you talk to him? Do you make, do you raise him up? Do you make, appraise him for being a provider? You give him the space and the, the ability to do so. Or are you nitpicking and nagging and, and making it feel like he can’t do anything for himself or he can’t do anything to please you.
All your man wants ladies is to provide and protect, protect you. And providing for you also looks like being able to do things quote unquote right for you. And I don’t want to be around a bunch of women who don’t understand that concept. Who are constantly putting their husbands down and like nitpicking and nagging and all of that.
Like I don’t, I don’t want to do that. That’s part of our health too. So I got off on tangent here about creating a supportive community for us, but let me just go back over it. So there are four of them I’ve gone over so far. Practical steps to integrate faith in your health. And it’s number one is start with prayer and reflection throughout the day or to start your day.
Two, make mindful choices. Three, set realistic goals. Four, create a supportive community. And five, practice gratitude. Incorporate gratitude into your daily routine. This sounds so woo woo, so frou frou, and like, what is the point of this? I started doing this when I was in some of my hardest seasons back in Indianapolis when I lived there.
And every night I would just say three things I was grateful for and thank God for them. And sometimes it would be, there’s a roof over my head, my dogs that love me unconditionally, and um, for my church at the time. Incorporate gratitude into your daily routine and thank God for the strength, the strength or the breath in your lungs even, the health that you do have, and thank him maybe for the opportunity to improve and grow.
Gratitude can shift your mindset from focusing on what’s lacking to appreciating what you have and what you’re working toward. So again, that goes into that whole like over, overdoing over, um, uh, making unrealistic goals all of that. But let’s face it. We’ve got obstacles, right? There’s always obstacles.
Integrating faith into your health journey isn’t, isn’t without challenges. You might face obstacles that lack, like, I’m sorry, you may face obstacles like lack of time, motivation, and you might not have any support. And here’s how to overcome these. If you have lack of time, prioritize your health by scheduling it into your daily routine.
Even a small action like taking a 10 minute walk after you eat lunch at work, that’s better than you sitting all day. Lack of motivation. Remind yourself that the bigger picture honoring God through your health, Is the bigger picture. Keep your goals and faith in the forefront of your mind because the I don’t want to’s are just an excuse.
That’s letting your emotions dictate everything about you. If your obstacles, you have lack of support, seek out community groups, either in person or online that align with your values and offer support. And I specifically would think about joining some kind of faith, faith based wellness group where you can share experiences and encourage each other.
And that is the wilderness of wellness. If you are a woman who is a follower of Jesus and you want that kind of experience where your faith is interwoven into literally every aspect of your health, the wilderness of wellness is for you. The Explorer tier is always open to get you started, get you going, um, get acclimated into our community.
And when you’re ready and you see the doors are opening to the adventures or you wouldn’t want to upgrade. Do it because the more you upgrade, the more of a personal experience you get, the more time you get with your, with your fellow community, the more round tables you get, the more sitting around circles instead of just in line, little lines on my zoom screen that you get.
Because only you know that you have some vulnerable vulnerabilities in your health or in your mindset or in your, in your life. And you need to address those. And we’re here to do it in a safe space so that you can share vulnerably, you can create human connection, and you can make the changes you need to start using your health as a sign of worshiping.
Worshiping the one who created you. And that gratitude for that body that you get to live in. And, you know, I will never forget a series that my church did back in Indianapolis. It was called Set Apart and Set Free. We’re not meant to look like everybody else. The way we do life is not meant to look like everybody else.
So I encourage you to go check out the show notes and see if the wilderness of wellness is right for you. Go check it out. But I just want to remind you that integrating faith into your wellness journey is about more than just making healthy choices. It’s about viewing your health as an act of worship.
It’s about honoring God through every decision you make, every meal you eat, and every exercise you do. Every time you say no and every time you say yes. If you’re ready to take this journey seriously and start implementing these practical steps and embracing the idea that your health is a reflection of your faith, you’re not alone in this, but together in the wilderness of wellness we can create a community that honors God through our health and our wellness.
So I just want to remind you, health is a form of worship. It’s time to take a step forward, stay committed, stay inspired and keep honoring God with your body.
Thanks for listening to the crying in my cheesecake podcast. I hope it encouraged you to make a next best step for your health. Take a look at the show notes for more information or other links I mentioned in the episode. And if you got to this point, come find me on Instagram at crying in my cheesecake and send me a DM.
Tell me that you listened to this episode and what you got out of it.
