What comes to mind when you hear the word self-care? For many of us, it's spa days and bubble baths—or maybe the idea that it's selfish to even think about. But in light of our Catholic faith, self-care looks very different. It's not about indulgence or vanity—it's about stewardship of the life and body God has entrusted to us.
In this episode, we're kicking off a brand-new September series on Christ-centered self-care. Together, we'll explore why self-care is not optional but essential for living out our vocations with joy. Through the foundational pillars of Catholic wellness, we'll discover:
✨ Why our dignity comes from being made in the image of God—not from diet culture or appearance ✨ How caring for our health is an act of stewardship, not control ✨ Why true wellness must include body, mind, and soul—never just one piece in isolation ✨ The missing "Who" at the center of our health decisions—and why inviting Christ into this area changes everything
Friend, you were created in God's image, your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and your life is a gift meant to bear fruit. When we begin to see self-care as a spiritual practice, rooted in Christ, everything shifts.
Join The Nourished to Bloom Community: www.community.karatrochta.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/karatrochta
The Nourished to Bloom Podcast Show Notes: www.podcast.karatrochta.com/shownotes
00:00:01
Self care is often painted as spa days
00:00:05
and bubble baths and things that just like
00:00:08
scream indulgence. Or on the flip side,
00:00:12
it's dismissed as nothing other than us being selfish
00:00:16
and only focusing on ourselves. But
00:00:20
what about self care in the light of our faith? Because
00:00:24
when we put it in that perspective, self care is really none of those things.
00:00:29
For Catholics and Christians, self care is about stewardship.
00:00:33
It's about caring for the gift of life, the gift of our
00:00:37
bodies, and the gift of our souls because they belong
00:00:40
first to God. Join me as we kick off
00:00:44
our Christ Centered Self Care series for the month of
00:00:48
September. Welcome to the Nourish to Bloom podcast where your
00:00:52
faith meets your health. I'm your host, Kara Trochta, a
00:00:55
registered dietitian and certified Catholic coach, and I'm here to help you
00:00:59
cultivate a deeper connection with your body, your spirit and the
00:01:02
nourishment that sustains them both in a world filled
00:01:06
with noise and confusion about food, health and body
00:01:09
image, this podcast offers truth and healing from a Christ centered
00:01:13
perspective. Together we'll untangle the deep roots of diet
00:01:17
culture and discover what it means to truly care for
00:01:20
ourselves through joyful nourishment of mind, body and
00:01:24
soul. We're here to dive into the transformative power of intuitive
00:01:27
eating coupled with the rich teachings of our Christian faith.
00:01:31
With every episode, I'll be cheering you on, offering insights,
00:01:35
inspiration and practical tools to help you heal your
00:01:38
relationship with food and embrace the beauty of your body
00:01:41
as a temple of the Holy Spirit with confidence and
00:01:45
courage that can only only be found in Christ. Join
00:01:49
me as we journey together towards a more holistic approach to wellness, one
00:01:52
that honors the wisdom of your body as God's creation, the
00:01:56
teachings of our faith, and the unique purpose you're called to fulfill.
00:02:01
You were made to bloom, to come into
00:02:04
full beauty and health in order to bear good fruit for the Lord with
00:02:08
your life. So if you're ready to nourish your body, feed your soul
00:02:12
and bloom into the best version of yourself, then you're in the right place. And
00:02:16
I'm so happy you're here. Welcome to Nourish to
00:02:19
Bloom, where every day is a sacred invitation to
00:02:23
thrive. Hey there. Welcome back
00:02:27
to the Nourish to Bloom podcast. So happy to be spending some time with
00:02:30
you this week and excited to kick off our new
00:02:34
theme series topic, whatever you want to think of it as for
00:02:38
the month of September and we're going to focus on
00:02:42
Christ Centered Self care. So let me start
00:02:45
off by asking you a question. What
00:02:50
influences your Health decisions. Where do
00:02:53
you turn to for wellness advice?
00:02:57
Because for many of us, it's a friend sharing her
00:03:01
latest detox, or an Instagram
00:03:04
influencer promising quick results with the newest diet or
00:03:08
fitness hack, or we're seeing our friends enjoying these
00:03:11
amazing spa days, and we are so
00:03:15
jealous and envious that they are taking that time for themselves.
00:03:19
And really, all of this is no wonder,
00:03:23
because we know that we live in a culture that is obsessed with
00:03:26
health and beauty and trying to achieve
00:03:30
wellness. But I really believe it's for the wrong
00:03:34
reasons. I think we are so focused on these things because we are
00:03:37
trying to prevent aging.
00:03:41
Maybe, I don't know, it just seems like our focus is not
00:03:45
really where it should be. In fact, in
00:03:48
2021, the wellness market was valued at $1.5
00:03:52
trillion, and it's only growing year after
00:03:56
year. Girl, that's a lot of money that we're pouring into
00:04:00
our physical bodies. But yet are you also
00:04:04
seeing that at the same time there's this skyrocketing
00:04:07
rate of stress and, and burnout and
00:04:11
anxiety and chronic illness and
00:04:14
disconnection and discontentment, y'. All. Like,
00:04:18
clearly something is missing. But here's my challenge,
00:04:21
because it's not a what is missing, but it's really a
00:04:25
who is missing, right? So why
00:04:29
is self care important to us as
00:04:34
children of God? Because we know that it's often
00:04:37
painted as these spa days or indulging in bubble
00:04:41
baths, or it's just this like that self care is this luxury.
00:04:46
But then when we try to engage in self care, we're often met with
00:04:50
this guiltiness because it seems selfish. But we
00:04:53
really have to take and stop and look at this in the light of our
00:04:56
faith. And that self care is really none of those things.
00:05:00
And so that's the whole point of today's podcast episode, is to really
00:05:04
think about Christ centered self care.
00:05:07
And what does that mean? Because self care,
00:05:11
as Catholics and Christians is about stewardship.
00:05:16
It's about caring for the life that we've been given.
00:05:20
It's about caring for the bodies that we're living in, and
00:05:24
it's caring for our souls because they belong
00:05:28
first to God. And so let's look at this from kind of this
00:05:31
foundational place, right? Like that this
00:05:35
is really going to be the foundation and what we build this
00:05:38
self care series upon and why we can
00:05:42
look at this foundation that the church gives us
00:05:46
for understanding why self care is. Is important and why
00:05:50
it matters. And the first one is that we are made in the image and
00:05:53
likeness of God. And this is
00:05:57
important because I think in today's day
00:06:01
we are seeing this loss of
00:06:05
dignity that so many people look at another
00:06:09
person and don't actually see them as a child of God, that they have no
00:06:13
dignity and they have no worth. And we're
00:06:16
often seeing that many of us define our
00:06:20
dignity based off of a number on the scale, the
00:06:23
size of our jeans, how productive we
00:06:27
are, other societal standards, like how much money we make,
00:06:31
the places that we're living, the material things that we have.
00:06:35
But that is not true because our dignity
00:06:38
doesn't come from, from any of those things. It
00:06:42
comes from God alone. And we
00:06:46
can see this if we turn to scripture in Genesis 1:27 and
00:06:49
also in Ephesians 2:10. Because every life is set
00:06:53
sacred, every life is unique, and every life is
00:06:57
unrepeatable. There is only one of
00:07:00
you, there is only one of me. And we were
00:07:04
created by this ultimate creator,
00:07:07
God himself. That we have to believe
00:07:12
in our dignity and our worth and that it's not, it's not
00:07:16
something that's defined and it's not something that's, that's earned. It's just
00:07:20
that this is it. We have dignity because God created
00:07:23
us, okay? And our second foundational
00:07:27
pillar is really that our lives are a gift and
00:07:31
that we are stewards and not owners.
00:07:35
So God has entrusted us with caring for our bodies,
00:07:39
with caring for our health, and also caring for the
00:07:43
created world around us. But we have to remember that we are not in
00:07:46
ultimate control. God is. And so
00:07:50
this caring for ourselves is, is part of
00:07:54
our responsibility, right? It's
00:07:58
in, in creating us to live in this
00:08:01
moment of history. There was a reason why
00:08:05
we were created to live at this moment. And there was a reason
00:08:09
why from the sense of we were being
00:08:13
called to steward our body is steward the
00:08:16
earth, steward those around us as well, at this moment in
00:08:20
God's history, right? So this is also
00:08:24
important. Stewardship is this deeper sense of
00:08:27
caring. And this leads us into
00:08:32
this third pillar, that health and
00:08:36
wellness is holistic.
00:08:40
Because true health and true wellness is never just about the physical
00:08:44
body. The Catholic tradition teaches that we are
00:08:48
whole persons, body, mind and soul, and
00:08:52
that all of these parts are deeply connected and
00:08:55
integrated. And so our
00:08:59
emotional and our social and our spiritual well being
00:09:03
are just as essential as focusing on
00:09:06
nutrition and movement, right?
00:09:10
But when we leave Christ out of our health and wellness, when
00:09:14
we leave Christ out of this stewardship
00:09:18
and this, this caring of ourselves, we're basically reducing
00:09:22
ourselves to calories in and calories out or
00:09:25
how we look in the mirror, how our clothes fit.
00:09:29
But when we stop and we challenge ourselves to
00:09:33
invite Christ into our care, we really see
00:09:37
that whole picture. We can remember
00:09:40
that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit as it tells us
00:09:44
in First Corinthians 6, 19, 20.
00:09:49
And when we really embrace that perspective, when we
00:09:52
really latch onto that Christ centered
00:09:56
perspective, when it comes to our health and wellness,
00:09:59
suddenly self care becomes really this spiritual
00:10:03
practice because it's an act of love and it's an act
00:10:06
of gratitude and an act of stewardship,
00:10:12
y'. All. For years I left Christ out of my wellness journey. Like
00:10:16
even as a dietitian, my focus was always on these external
00:10:20
fixes, the next diet, the next rule, the next plan,
00:10:24
just thinking, like if I could just lose weight, then I would finally feel
00:10:28
worthy, I would finally feel happy.
00:10:32
But honestly, when I look back at that time in my life, I
00:10:36
really felt a lot of emptiness. I
00:10:40
didn't have a lot of self confidence, I didn't have a lot of belief in
00:10:43
myself. And my dignity and worth were tied to
00:10:46
numbers and there was no amount of willpower
00:10:50
or control that could fill the void that I was filled with
00:10:54
experiencing. And it really wasn't until I began exploring
00:10:57
intuitive eating and then eventually integrating it with
00:11:01
my Catholic faith that I realized that Christ himself
00:11:05
is what had really been missing all along. I looked at
00:11:09
myself as this thing to be fixed instead of this,
00:11:13
this body and the soul to be cared for,
00:11:16
y'. All. Christ is that divine physician. He cares about
00:11:20
every part of us. And when we surrender our health and
00:11:24
our habits to him, we experience healing.
00:11:28
We can achieve wholeness and fulfillment and peace
00:11:32
in ways that the wellness industry can never promise.
00:11:37
Right? And so that's the invitation for you as we begin
00:11:40
this self care series is to pause and reflect
00:11:44
and ask yourself, where is Christ in,
00:11:48
in in your wellness right now? Where does Christ fit
00:11:52
into how you are caring for yourself, mind, body and
00:11:55
soul? Is he at the center or
00:11:59
is health one of those areas that you've tried to manage on your own?
00:12:04
So this month I want to walk with you step by step to help you
00:12:07
discover what true Christ centered self care looks like.
00:12:12
We're going to talk about nourishing our bodies. We're going to talk about
00:12:15
tending our minds and our emotions, being
00:12:19
to cultivate and embrace, rest and grounding this
00:12:23
all in a Christ centered perspective and in prayer.
00:12:28
But today when we are laying this
00:12:31
foundation, I want you to reflect on where you are at.
00:12:35
Where's Christ at currently in your
00:12:39
self care? In your wellness and your simple action step is
00:12:42
this. Just invite Jesus into your self care.
00:12:48
And that's simply just praying Lord, help me care
00:12:52
for myself the way you desire.
00:12:56
And that one small surrender is going to open the door for
00:12:59
transformation because you are a beloved child
00:13:03
of God. I think we all need to remember that
00:13:06
that you and I were created in his image and
00:13:10
we've been entrusted with a gift of our life
00:13:14
and that caring for yourself is really not
00:13:17
selfish. It's actually very
00:13:21
sacred. So we are going to begin this
00:13:25
journey for the next month as we really
00:13:28
talk about Christ centered self care. How we can
00:13:32
take these these foundational pillars and
00:13:36
how from this foundation it's going to shape the
00:13:40
actions that we're going to take. It's going to shape the things that we're doing
00:13:43
on a daily basis. So I'm so excited to
00:13:47
get started on this Christ centered self care journey with you.
00:13:51
And remember, beauty held is the seed, beauty shared
00:13:55
is the flower. It is your time to bloom. Thank you so
00:13:59
much for joining me this week. I hope you have a beautiful and blessed
00:14:02
week and I will see you right back here here in a week. And
00:14:06
until then take care, God bless and we'll talk soon.
00:14:10
Bye.