The pantry is rarely the real problem. When stress hits, when grief stays unspoken, or when divorce shakes your sense of safety, food can become the fastest way to numb, soothe, or distract.
I’m joined by Jane McGuinness, former psychotherapist and author of Always Hungry, to talk about emotional eating with a level of honesty that cuts through diet noise and gets to the root.
Jane shares the pivotal moment after the birth of her third child that pushed her to heal her disordered relationship with food, not just “lose weight.”
We dig into why crash diets and quick fixes backfire, how nervous system dysregulation can shut down interoceptive awareness, and what it looks like to rebuild trust with your body through baby steps. We also talk grounding exercises, diaphragmatic breathing, meditation, walking, yoga, and why eating real, whole foods makes long-term change easier than living in restriction.
I share my own health journey around cravings, hormones, and faith, plus how habit stacking (Atomic Habits style) helps make meditation and movement more consistent, especially with ADHD.
If you’re looking for emotional eating help, mindful eating tools, nervous system regulation practices, and a more compassionate approach to sustainable weight loss, this conversation is for you.
Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s struggling, and leave a review so more people can find the show.
To purchase Jane’s book, Always Hungry, click on the link here: https://www.janemcguinnesstheauthor.com/
To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham’s bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God’s Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com
Transcript:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt, or worry and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, Sylvia Warsham.
Hey Lightbringers, it’s Sylvia Warsham. Welcome to Release Out Review Purpose. And today’s Jane McGuinness. She’s done it all. She has been a psychotherapist. She is now an author of the book Always Hungry. And she’s here today today to talk about the emotional eating that she encountered in in times of stress because, as emotional beings, especially the women, we tend to internalize everything that’s happening to us. And as young children, what we see at home is what we think is normal. And so we pick up on these cues subconsciously, not realizing that we’re going to project it outwards, and that’s what we’re going to attract into our life, and that’s what we’re going to end up living until something happens. And we know that in Released Out Revealed Purpose, there’s always a pivotal moment, our guests encounter, that helps shift their lens from that dark chapter into joy and into ultimate surrender to their purpose in life. So without further ado, Jane, thank you so much for joining us on Released Out Revealed Purpose.
Oh, thank you for having me, Sylvia. It’s my pleasure to be here.
I’m so excited to get into your story because I know the eating disorders is something that many young women are plagued with, especially because of the environment we’re in currently of social media. There’s so much comparison out there. And when we emotionally eat and then we don’t do it in a healthy way. And none of that is healthy, really. Whether you become bulimic or anorexic, that’s not healthy. Whether you emotionally eat and just gain so much weight that then something something drastic usually happens. So, Jane, please share with us this journey you’ve been on of how you became a psychotherapist, why, and now an author. Sure.
No, absolutely. Um so let’s just begin with just that pivotal moment you mentioned, because for myself, I there was some small tea childhood trauma. You know, I as a teenager discovered that food was comforting, it was which we often do, you know, when we emotionally eat, go, I went, would go to the fridge, I was unhappy, it was, you know, the weight started to go on, I was lacking self-confidence, and it was a it was unfortunately a habit that really, really became very, very unhealthy. Uh, this this continued into my twenties. I married young after university, had a few children, and it was that pivotal moment was after the birth of my third child, because at by at that point I was in a very a much larger body. I wasn’t feeling well, I was lacking energy, I was unhappy, and and I respect, fully respect that some people are very, very happy and comfortable in larger bodies, and that’s that’s wonderful, but that wasn’t my experience, and so I wasn’t feeling well. I thought, okay, something has to happen here because I’d tried all of the ridiculous crash diets over the years. I mean, none of it works because they don’t, of course. It’s a quick fix band-aid solution. And a couple of pivotal moments, I discovered the work of Janine Roth, Women, Food and God and Breaking Free from Emotional Eating. That was really one of those moments, those aha moments, where I started to connect my behaviors, disordered behaviors around food, with the emotion within, with what was actually going on and why I was going to the fridge or pantry when I wasn’t physically hungry, but there was all of this unprocessed emotion in here. So that was huge, a game changer. And then when my third child was born, and at that point we weren’t having any more children, and I looked at my disordered relationship with food and realized I need to heal this, not just for myself, but for my children. This is not the example I want to set to them. Quite frankly, I realized, well, I don’t want to die. And if I continue to gain weight, not only do I have to keep buying bigger pants, am I going to be around if I have grandchildren? Like what’s what’s it was just, I was one of those, one of those moments you don’t forget where I realized, okay, this this has to be healed and it has to be done properly. And that’s when the journey really began. And so I did lose just over a hundred pounds. And this was my son was born nearly 18 years ago, so it was a long time ago. I kept I’ve kept the weight off, and I did it the old-fashioned way. I did it by starting to walk, by eating real food. And ultimately, without the internal work, without healing emotionally, I would have never been able to keep it off. Or I don’t believe I would have been able to lose all of that weight in the first place if I hadn’t addressed what was really going on. Because so many of us eat for a million different reasons that have nothing to do with fig physical hunger. We were anxious or sad or stressed or sometimes excited. All of these reasons were dysregulated and we reach for food. So that for that was key.
You know, I think a lot of women can relate listening. We go through tough times and and some resort to food, others to different vices. Because food is not the only vice, you know. Some of us resort to just avoiding pain, avoiding sitting with what’s really ailing us by like binge watching on Netflix, for example. I know I’ve been guilty of that. When I was going through the death of my dad, I didn’t want to face it, I didn’t want to deal with those raw emotions, which are very painful. Absolutely. And so I I just I found myself hours upon hours. And then, of course, I’m like ignoring my family. And and I have a young girl, a young uh baby girl, she’s 11, she needs me. I can’t be distancing myself, and of course, it’s gonna impact your marriage. And I love my husband, my second husband, he has always been such a rock for me in a lot of ways, always supported me in this in this mission and this ministry because I’m a woman of faith, and there’s reasons behind that, very powerful reasons, testimonies. He was with me when we received my second chance at life, and it just profoundly shifted the way I looked at life and looked at death because I face an 80% chance of dying. And I received three miracles in 72 hours during Easter weekend, which is a very profound time for Christians. I mean, like I’m like, you have to pick resurrection weekend to resurrect my old life into a new life with you at my center. I think it’s it’s it’s key to our journeys. You mentioned becoming a psychotherapist. Were you a psychotherapist already, or did you become one as this was happening in your marriage, this was happening in your life?
Yes, that’s a great question. So I actually decided to go back to school after my divorce. So a long, long time ago, I had been an elementary school teacher before I married and had children, then I was a stay at home mother, so I had wore that hat for a long time. And then, of course, like a lot of women ended up divorced and realized, oh, like I not only did I need a career, but I also wanted a career. And I thought, how can I do something positive in the world? I knew that I wanted to contribute in a positive way. I my eldest child is on the spectrum, was undiagnosed for a very, very long time. I saw, I saw the benefits of therapy for them, and that was when I first realized, oh, I’d like to do that and help because of my lived experience, because of what, yeah, a few things that of course I went through privately during the divorce with my ex-husband, we’re friends now, which is great. We, you know, we tried the marriage counseling and all of that. And I and through that, I realized, okay, this is what I’d like to do in the world. So I went back to school, did that, and then of course, because of my lived experience around healing from emotional eating, understanding the psychology behind emotional eating, disordered eating, you know, the root causes. So that’s when it all sort of came together. And I thought, okay, how can I help people in a larger way? I can reach a few people a week in my practice with clients, but by writing this first book where I detail my journey and then working on the second book now, I can better help more people and reach far more people than I ever could in a practice, which is why I decided to just go all in and make this next career change. I mean, my children are grown now, so I do have the time to be able to write and and focus on this next stage of my life. So I’m incredibly grateful to be able to do that. Oh, it just it cut out.
Let me commend you first off the hangs that you went back to school after a divorce. That’s that’s tough. That’s tough because you’re already dealing with shame, guilt, all of those emotions that come with divorce. I I’m divorced too, and I understand all that goes into it because you have little ones. How how old were your children when you guys divorced?
Yes, that was that was tough. So my son was seven. Well, when we when we separated, and um his elder siblings would have been 10 and 11. I had them close together, and you know, my eldest at that point was still not diagnosed, had been diagnosed with OCD. They missed the the neurodivergence with the well with the autism, and those were really, really tough times. Really tough. Yes, it was really truly the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And and anybody, as you say, you know yourself navigating a divorce and with kids, it was I mean, we’d also moved to Canada for my ex-husband’s career, so our family was all in Australia, so I didn’t have that family support. It was, yeah, it it made me stronger, and I do believe that steel is forged in the fire. I know not everybody feels the same way, and I respect that, but for myself, this has made me stronger and more resilient as a woman because I had to figure out, I had to discover my own strength and power and independence and autonomy and realize, you know what, I can do this, we can do this as women. I wanted to share that story in the book and say, yeah, you can rebuild and we can go on and build something, something wonderful, and we can do this because of course it was it was terrifying, but you just have to I had to keep calm and carry on. I knew at that point I had three little kids that needed me. Yeah, and yeah, very, very grateful now that my ex-husband and I are friends, and it helps, isn’t it? Oh my goodness, absolutely. Well, particularly, yeah, with you know, young adults, they still they still, of course, need some nurturing and input. And so, very, very grateful.
Yeah, and they and they need both parents, they need both influences, and that’s what as divorced women we we understand as we journey through that process of the uncoupling, of the like coming from being a couple to being an independent person, and then also being a parent and guiding these little children because this is traumatic. You’re a psychotherapist, you know this. Trauma doesn’t have to be these big, big things, they could be as small as not having your parent around, like working, that you’re working, and and they take that as abandonment because you’re not there to to help them in a day that they needed you, like they had bought the school and you just weren’t there, and so they associate your work with abandonment. My son went through that with me as a single mother, and it you know, when you realize that as a mother, you carry this guilt, whether whether you want to or not, it’s it’s a natural we’re we’re nurtures first, and mothers. We we never intend to hurt our children because of the choices that we make in life, yet we do, because you chose to separate, you chose to be divorced, they didn’t choose that, and so we as mothers carry that, I think, profoundly in our hearts. I’m sure that also played a role in this emotional eating piece as your marriage is unraveling. That is something that likely contributes to it. Can you speak a little bit more on what those feelings are for those women that are navigating and what can they do to start taking baby steps to get to healing in a healthy way?
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. That’s a great question because what I had to figure out as I was healing my body at the same time as I was navigating the separation, and you’re right, the maternal guilt, which never ends because of course we just feel so incredibly guilty that these poor little kids have to pack up their things every week and move houses. But there was a few things that again were really, really profound game changers, because what I learned through my studies of psychology also was that when we’re dysregulated, when we’re in that the sympathetic nervous system’s activated and we’re in that fight, flight, freeze, fawn mode, we’re in the kitchen. What happens is we’re just we’re completely disconnected often from the body. When somebody’s standing at the fridge or pantry, like I did for years, so I know this, there’s no interceptive awareness. So basically, from the neck down, we’re usually not feeling whether we’re hungry, full, sad, happy, like there’s just a complete disconnect within the body. So, of course, that’s incredibly unhealthy because, and we’ve all done it, we stand there, I certainly know I did in the past for years, and wouldn’t even have an awareness of, oh, what did I just snack on? Why was I eating? Was I hungry? There was just those questions initially weren’t even asked because I wasn’t feeling safe in the body, and that’s what happens when when we’re in that the sympathetic nervous systems activated, there’s no safety, and we’re just trying to nurture and feel safe, and of course, going about it the wrong way. So, what I learned and what I’ve helped clients with is teaching them to engage the parasympathetic nervous system. I mean, I meditate every day, yoga exercise is a great way, any kind of exercise in reselling resetting the nervous system. So learning that, those grounding exercises that some people might be familiar with, or the diaphragmatic breath work, you know, the deep belly breaths, right? Pressing the feet into the floor, like even now as I sit here, feeling my weight on the seat. And as we notice and we come back down into the body, then we begin to reset. We can just bring, engage the parasympathetic nervous system and start to feel calm within the body, because at that point, then we give ourselves a chance to say and to ask, okay, am I hungry? Like, am I full? Do I need a glass of water? Like, what’s going on here? Or am I sitting with an unprocessed emotion, whether it’s guilt over the divorce or it’s sadness again over the divorce, or whether it’s, you know, a million other things, but there are so many reasons that we all go to the fridge or pantry that have nothing to do with physical hunger. And it’s often, it could be like you say, small tea trauma from childhood, some big tea trauma, whatever’s unprocessed that we hold in here, it’ll push up. And if we push it down, try and ignore it and avoid it. As you said, some for some people it’s drugs, alcohol, it’s sex. I mean, for whatever reason, my my preference was food. So, of course, you know, I would go and bake a cheesecake, and and and there’s nothing wrong with that, of course, provided it’s in moderation and we have a slice, which is why my substacks called all things moderation, because I really just advocate common sense around food, like cooking real food, eating real food, taking a walk, like healing the body gradually. But the yeah, the interceptive awareness piece, just being able to start to find that place of calm within the body. Some people call it dropping anchor when we we do some of this work and ground ourselves. That for anybody listening is really, really key. And it takes practice and time. You could work with a therapist, there’s a lot of free resources online for some people if that’s not an option. There’s so many free, you know, introductory um sort of demonstrations techniques on YouTube for these kinds of exercises. But getting to that place for myself anyway, and for the clients I’ve worked with, is essential for long-term healing. Otherwise, a quick fix diet is just a band-aid that, you know, then we just yo-yo, and it’s just a it’s a big mess.
You’re not getting to the root of it. Exactly. You need to get to the root. We know that at roots, at least in the life coaching space, is the belief systems, right? Because we have the traumas, we have the experiences, and they’re feeding into these belief systems. And the beliefs get formed early on. I mean, we’re itty bitty children, even in as babies, because our mind is always on. It’s it has no filter. I was explaining this to the kids at career day, um, of of being because I’m an author like you, and how a storyteller could help heal people, right? And they were intrigued by that title. They said, Well, what do you mean? And I said, Well, I’m not gonna talk about what life coaching is, I’m gonna show you because I want you guys to learn how to fish and understand coaching, like how you can actually coach yourself out of some of these feelings and thoughts that are plaguing that are really promoting the reactions, like going to the pantry and eating. And then so the results are the circumstances you’re overweight and you’re unhealthy overweight, because there’s nothing wrong, like you said, in having that slice of cheesecake. I I last year in March had a blood test done genetically, and I done one genetically first a couple months before, and then just went to the same doctor and said, Hey, I need you to draw my blood again and let’s look at what foods are causing inflammation in my body because I’m 51. And so I and I can’t do the the traditional menopausal track because of my pulmonary embolism background and it being tied to hormonal uh therapy. So I cannot touch any of that. I’ve got to go the holistic route. Well, that’s a little tougher because hot flashes and you know, wanting craving all sorts of junk, because that’s happens a lot in the in the body. Yeah, and so I went to this guy and I said, Well, before this thing hits full on, I was kind of puzzle. I need to understand what food is doing inside my body. So he does the test. Oh girl, it comes back and he says, You cannot have additional sugars. Let me explain what that means. Uh no honey, no maple syrup. Some of the stuff that’s labeled like healthy, I couldn’t touch. The only thing I could have sugar-wise was stevia. And I’m like, okay. And he goes, You can have chocolate, but not with not milk chocolate. All the additional sugar, you want the hot chocolate, and I was already drinking plant milk anyways. I’ve been doing it for years. Um, he goes, So do your plant milk, put some cocoa or cocoa powder in there, and then some stevia, and you can have your hot cocoa now. And I’m like, dang, I don’t get to do the Mexican hot chocolate I used to do. Oh, that’s a question. So lovely because I’m Mexican, and I’m like, great, he says, and you gotta green group of foods that you can eat as much as you want, and you have yellow, which all of my favorite food was on there avocado, uh beets, cucumber, all these things were causing bananas. I’m like, Great, apples, all these things, kale. I can eat kale. I’m like, what? You know, it was just crazy, it was just nuts. So then I was like, okay, and I’m a woman of face. I’m like, okay, God. You I prayed for a sign and I prayed for help as it came for this hormonal journey. I want to kill you right now. You gave me the answer, and it just wasn’t the answer I was expecting. Yeah, I need your supernatural strength here because there is. Is so much sugar, additional sugar, in just normal stuff. I could say for my coffee. Oh, and the other thing was, yeah, he said, you can’t have more than one cup of coffee a day.
Oh, okay. That just dropped my joy by like several.
Yeah.
Oh, I’m a huge espresso drinker. Like I would I would be devastated.
He said, because genetically, you don’t produce enough dopamine serotonin, and your brain does not convert folic acid to folate. So you’re gonna have focus issues, which already come. The brain fog comes with the menopausal. Um, you’re gonna start blurring things out. My ADHD was under like going crazy. I was blurting and interrupting and doing you can’t do that as a podcast host. That that really doesn’t go well. Or in a marriage, that really sucks too. That interrupts, you know, intimacy all together. And um so I just pray. Um and so for a whole year I was doing this thing, you know. So Halloween rode around and I just looked at the candy going, I guess I don’t get to have you this year. Wow. Interestingly enough, I like you did baby steps. I did give myself a cheat day because life is too short not to have that slice of cheesecake. Yeah, for sure, which for me would be more like a sugar cookie or a chocolate cake or a brownie because I love chocolate, but and I gave myself some grace. These are big changes, and I want to remind the listeners that’s smart that these are baby steps, you gotta do what feels right for you, and your body is extremely intelligent. Yes, you it will guide you if you’ll allow it. Your faith can also guide you. I know God guided me into these chapters, and I relied more on his strength than my own strength because I knew that this was gonna require all the discipline in the world, and so I had this verse that I just love, it’s from 2 Timothy. I read it this morning, but I have it posted up in my daughter’s door of all doors, and it’s one that says, you know, you that didn’t give you a spirit of timidness, he gave you a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline. And I remember looking at that verse saying, I have the discipline within me to follow through on this. And I want to remind everybody listening, you have that power too. You have love, you have power. You are a you can step into this chapter with confidence because he’s telling you, I didn’t give you a spirit of timidness, I give you a spirit of confidence. So step in there. So so share with me uh briefly, Jane, what the greatest lesson was for you in this journey.
Oh, you know, there was there was a few. I think one of them, because what I what I really wasn’t expecting was the reality of slim privilege and what that’s like now, because I’m treated very, very differently in society because I’m in a smaller body. So a huge lesson was unpacking all of that. I mean, it’s horrific, but then realizing that my self-worth as a woman, as a human, has nothing to do with my external form. Like that was huge. And I still have to separate caring for myself and looking a certain way because I want to feel comfortable in pants and I I want to, and I I love exercise now. So of course I maintain my health for for a lot of reasons, not just my children, of course, but it’s not because I want to look a certain way in society if I’m on a date or because of a man, and I had to I had to really unpack all of that. I mean, the thin privilege is is horrific. I could talk about that all day because it’s it’s incredibly sad and what I’ve learned and found because life is so much easier now, not just physically, but it’s easier because I’m treated better in society by everyone, and that’s that’s really abhorrent, and it’s it’s so sad because it’s not okay. So that was that was a massive, um quite really quite shocking and surprising lesson along the way. I also learnt the you know, the the meditation piece, the getting calm, the grounding, the trusting myself, feeling safe in the body. That was huge. And also learning that, yeah, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. I think in the past I’d do these ridiculous diets and think, well, I can never have sugar again, or the cheesecake or whatever. And you’re right, we have to be gentle. And it is so for me, it was the baby steps. I used the power of time to my advantage, and I loved you know atomic habits, James Clear. Like his work on he says, use use the use time to your advantage. And so, of course, over the years, I’ve been able to maintain the weight loss by continuing to show up for myself, continuing to go for the walk if it’s raining and I don’t feel like it. And I mean, I’ll be gentle too. If I mean if I’m having a tough day, I’m not going to drag myself through a workout I don’t feel like. Maybe I’ll do some yoga, or it’s a gentle walk. But I always show up for myself and move my body. So that was key. Learning that, of course, when I move my body, find exercise I love, gets the happy chemicals going. I feel better, I make better choices. You know, there’s so many puzzle pieces, like that was a big one. And also just absolutely cooking from scratch, like eating whole unprocessed food. Like I really avoid ultra-processed food because it’s designed to be addictive. We crave more of it. I know if I eat a ton of sugar, I just want more sugar, you know, with the whole microbiome that I didn’t even know I had years ago when I was healing it. Learning more about that’s been incredibly helpful. So I’d say it’s not just been one key lesson, but a whole lot of puzzle pieces that have sort of led to this long-term healing and maintenance, which I believe is possible for all of us if we extend self-compassion before we give it to others. Like, let’s just start by practicing some self-compassion, realizing yes, it’s going to be tough. I’m human. There’s going to be days where I’ll fall off the wagon and craving ice cream. I mean, at this point in my journey, I know I can have some, and I know I can balance it with movement, I can balance it with healthy food, so I’m not, you know, gaining 30 pounds and eating through tubs of it and depressed and upset. You know, it’s it’s that balance piece of knowing, okay, I can enjoy it in moderation, which was why the substack had to be all things moderation, because we can, but it’s it’s just also it’s just using some common sense. I think our great grandparents were right about a few things. Some things are meant to be treats, we’re meant to enjoy them for a party, we’re not meant to have them every day. I mean, and if somebody wants to every day and they’re comfortable in their body, I fully respect that, but I wasn’t. And I know if I ate cheesecake every day, I’d regain the weight. If I wasn’t exercising, I wouldn’t feel as well. And yeah, it’s just a very, very quick, you know, downward spiral at that point.
I love everything you said, and I can totally relate because it is baby steps, and I love James Clear, by the way. I did read Atomic Habits. One of the things that I did want to highlight as we build this practice of meditation, as we build a practice of walking every day, or just finding what works for you, refer to habit stack. Now, and you find that concept. I love this concept. This is what helped me meditate. Now, for those listening, they know I have ADHD. So to sit and meditate was tough. That was just tough. In 2020, nonetheless, in the year of the pandemic, when my anxiety was through the roof and it was impacting my marriage and impacting my relationship with my two children. I said enough. And I reached out to God at night, and he put it in my heart. He’s like, You’re gonna sit there quietly and meditate, and you’re gonna listen. You’re gonna be present, and I’m gonna teach you how to do this, and we’re gonna do this slowly. Okay, you’re gonna give yourself some grace. And I started with five minutes at a time. So going back to James Clear Atomic Habits, the habit stacking. Well, I stacked it with my habit of drinking uh coffee in the morning and having chats with God. I stacked the meditation practice there because it was something I enjoyed, number one, and I could remember easily. And that’s what you need to remember about habit stacking is you want to stack it with something that you’re already doing consistently, one and that you enjoy. So that it’s it’s communicating to your mind that you are enjoying doing this, especially if it’s a hard thing for you to do to start doing, because we know both Jane and I know and understand this well. She’s in the therapy space, I’m in the coaching space, and we I have mutual respect for therapists. I I refer to therapists because I have a limitation to what I can do with with clients. I’m not trauma, you know, certified or trained, they are, and they can do EMDR. I cannot do that, and I won’t do ethical.
And we all have different strengths, no, are fully right, and I have huge respect for what you do too. Absolutely.
You know, so it’s it’s understanding that the baby steps are there to do slowly. So, what I did just to kind of give the listener some perspective, yeah. For those suffering from ADHD, you can do this, you have the self-discipline in you. Let me just remind you. I sat there for five minutes. I didn’t know what I was doing because I didn’t know how to meditate, and I just kind of learned on the fly. What I also did was I hung out with people that meditated and so I could learn from them. Like, oh, what do I use? I didn’t even know what what applications to use on my phone. And I had insight timer. They they were using insight timer, so I just started using insight timer. Yeah, and I found the teachers that communicated the the messages that my soul was craving to hear. And that’s how I determined who I clicked on. I just kind of read, and whatever felt in alignment to my soul’s pulling and yearning, that’s what I started with. And I started five minutes, and then I built up. I built up because that works for me. Five minutes now. Five minutes may be too much for for people, then start with two minutes, three minutes, whatever is small and achievable for you, that’s what you want to do. Because when you initiate change, and she can speak to this as well, our egos will come in and stop us from making that change. I call this in my book in Faith I Thrive, I call it the ego identity. We have two identities that are battling out, and this actually comes from a biblical perspective. Yeah, scripture talks of this in Galatians 5.17. This is what Paul writes to the the church in Galatia was you’ve got the flesh, the desires of the flesh are in direct conflict to being spirit-led. What is spirit-led? Light led. Like what is good for you, what is gentle for you, what is kindness towards your body, that’s spirit-led. The other, the other going to the pantry and eating junk is flesh. That’s desires of the flesh, like we said, be porn, it could be sex, it could be, you know, all sorts of addictions, that’s flesh-driven. So this is we are in constant conflict with each other. So in my book, I call it the ego identity and the soul identity, and they’re battling it out when you are starting something new. So realize number one, baby steps, okay? Do it whether you feel like it or not, consistency. It is a small word, but it’s big implications when you’re consistent with anything in your life. Okay. So even if the day you don’t go out for a walk, don’t beat yourself up. That’s just it’s your programming coming in to make sure that this change is the change you want to make. Because the mind, what it does is it protects you from feeling pain. And so it thinks it’s doing that by telling you to not do this new change. It doesn’t realize that you’re not seven anymore, you’re not six. It doesn’t realize that you’ve grown up and that what worked for you when you were a little kid does not work for you now. And it’s a lie that you can distel using the truth and the evidence of your present moment. And that’s what behavioral therapists do is that they check, they they take the present moment and they say, Okay, now show me the evidence in your life where this lie is true.
Exactly.
And if you cannot provide the evidence, that’s a lie that you’re believing as true. So let’s reframe that thought and move forward from that. So when that ego identity, now the ego is not your enemy, it is your self-image. So if your self-image is comprised of belief systems that are not in alignment to the person you are becoming, then what we coaches do is we help you just shift that belief over to a loving side. It’s instead of I’m not worthy, I am worthy, and let’s show the evidence in our present moment where that lines up so that you can start to embody that truth, right? And because when you embody it, then you can have the strength, and plus you recruit the strength of God. Because there are moments that when they told me no chocolate and no coffee, I was gonna need God because I was gonna kill someone. I just love your points. You you had such solid points. Any any last words of encouragement, Jane, that you want to leave us with? And tell us how we can find you and how we can purchase your books.
Sure, absolutely. And you’re right, I love the habit stacking. You know, I will still, if I’m doing a big workout the next morning and I’ve planned it, I will fill up my drink bottle. I put my workout clothes on the end of my bed so when I wake up, I see them. So it’s like the first thing I do and do my workout before I shower. So those little things are really, really helpful. So, no, I love everything you said too, absolutely. And my path to faith, I know we’re nearly out of time, but it’s interesting because I didn’t grow up with religion. My father was an atheist, but I did, and I detailed in the book I took the children on a part of the community to Santiago, and we got to the Compostela in Santiago, and I prayed, and it was it was life-changing. It truly was. It was an incredibly powerful experience that that I wanted to share through this because the journey, yeah, the journey was there, there was a there was a lot of pieces to it, and just incredibly powerful. So, yeah, if anybody is curious, they can go to janemeguinness the author.com. There’s links to Audible. I narrated the audiobook myself, it’s on Audible. There’s also the ebook for people that like Kindle, the paperback, they can find on Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes and Noble in bookstores. So it’s janemeginnastheauthor.com and also all things moderation is my substack where I share every week. And of course, one of the overarching themes is is emotional eating and just why are we in the pantry when we’re not hungry and what can we do about it? Practical steps that can help us to just take back our take back our power and slowly, slowly heal the body and the soul, because for sure it’s it’s it comes from within. Absolutely.
Loved loved our interview, loved our time together, Jane, and for the listeners of released out reveal purpose. Remember Matthew 5.14 to always be the light, be the light like Jane was the light. She stepped into her light so powerfully, and in the darkest of times, you can always find the light. Your soul is there to guide you. Your God is always there, he’s just patiently waiting for you to invite him into a relationship with him. That’s all he wants from you. He doesn’t care for religion, he doesn’t, he it that does not matter to him. What matters to him is that you invite him into your everyday life, into your everyday struggles, and that’s very strange because he sees, he understands, he knows what’s coming. You don’t, you don’t have that understanding, and he can equip you for what’s coming next. So just pay attention to that small voice whisper and and do as James said. Go out in nature, like go out in nature and just be present, come back to your presence because that’s where you’ll find them, and you’ll find your light.
I love that. It’s it’s I could not agree more. And thank you so much, Sylvia. That was really beautifully put. Yeah, I absolutely agree.
Yes, and uh everybody have a blessed and loving rest of your week. Bye now.
Thanks so much, right?
So that’s it for today’s episode of Release Doubt Reveal Purpose. Head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review back on iTunes. We’ll win a chance the grand prize drawing back to win a twenty-five thousand dollar private VIP day with Sylvia Worsham herself. Be sure to head on over to sylviaworsham.com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia’s gift and join us on the next episode.