Love, Mental Health, And Faithful Self-Care

We explore how mental health, faith, and self-love shape the way we love others, especially in a season focused on Valentine’s Day. With our first Surprise guest, we go to the root of hurt, practice forgiveness, and offer practical steps for whole-person care.

• love your neighbor as yourself as the guiding verse
• the cost of negative self-talk on faith and wellness
• root causes versus surface coping in mental health
• walls from past hurt that block vulnerability
• self-forgiveness as a daily spiritual discipline
• celebrating yourself without apology
• body care as worship and emotional support
• simple practices to replace shame with truth
• prayer for healing, restoration, and progress

Again, like I said before, I welcome you to leave a review on this or any other episodes that may have blessed you in any type of way
There is actually in the show notes, there's an area that says send a text where you can send a text
You can also email. The email address you can use is prayerwithnatasha@gmail.com
You can also hop on my website and leave a message there

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the All Things Skin, Wellness and Faith podcast. I'm Natasha Diaz, a licensed aesthetician, wellness consultant, and clinical herbalist. This is where skincare meets whole body wellness, and caring for your skin becomes the act of stewardship and faith. As scripture reminds us, our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. So let's take this time to begin the journey of learning the why behind skin health while deepening our walk with the Lord, learning to nourish our bodies and our spirits. Let's get into it. Good day unto you. Welcome back to another episode of All Things Skin, Wellness and Faith. We are in the month of February, and so I just welcome you back on this month's monthly edition of All Things Skin, Wellness and Faith. Today we have for you our full episode on wellness today. And as we are in the month of February, I think it's more than appropriate to speak about love as we are fastly approaching Valentine's Day, one of my favorite holidays at least. So since we are talking about love, I felt like it was more than appropriate to have my love, my special sweetheart, the love of my life, on our episode today as a guest, my husband, Mr. Bobby Diaz. So I'd like to welcome him. Say hi.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Hello, my dear.

Why Love And Mental Health Matter

SPEAKER_00 1:46

To the audience.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Hello, everybody.

Negative Self-Talk And Scripture

SPEAKER_00 1:50

So yeah, so today we have an episode for you in which we just want to speak about the obvious love, but we want to tie that in with wellness and also, you know, from a biblical point of view. And today I just want to open up by just speaking about love and wellness from a point of view, at least my point of view, is more so on the wellness side. Um, not the well, just the wellness side, but the mental health wellness side. I think that I have spoken to you guys plenty of times about, you know, loving your bodies and, you know, the importance of eating right and taking care of our bodies and things like that. But I feel like one thing that tends to get neglected as we focus on wellness is mental health wellness. And the Bible says in Matthew 22, 39, it speaks about, you know, loving your neighbor as you love yourself. But one thing I wanted to think about and just discuss today is what happens when you don't love yourself. So today, as we're talking about love, I just want to talk about the importance of not just nurturing our bodies. And while that is definitely all important, you know, we speak a lot on this show about eating right. We speak a little bit about, you know, exercise and just all aspects of wellness. But like I said, one thing I never got into was more so of mental health. And I feel like mental health ties in, has like a big space within the area of wellness that kind of gets neglected. And I feel like if the Bible tells us and instructs us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and you don't really love yourself, then what does that look like? Because I really feel like whatever is going on inside of you, whatever is going on with your mental health is something that we tend to reflect on to other people. So we have to make sure that we are nurturing our own minds, that we are nurturing our own emotions. And I just want to dive into a little conversation of, you know, what does that really look like? Because I feel like we can have, especially as Christians, as believers, we can have a lot of negative self-talk that goes on. We have desires to be pleasing unto the Lord and to live up to the standards of the standards of the Lord and biblical standards. And I feel like sometimes that can get a little bit out of balance. I feel like sometimes what happens is we tend to focus on the areas that we fall short. And the Bible does speak about, and the Bible says that, you know, we all fall short, but sometimes we stay in that area. And I know I can tend to do this myself, and I'm sure others do as well. We tend to look at all the ways that we may not be pleasing to the Lord. We may look at ways that, oh, we have to repent for this again. We've fallen short, we've gotten angry, we've, you know, had a bad thought about someone, you know, said something to a coworker, came up short with a child. There's so many different things that we can kind of just kind of tear ourselves apart for. And I feel like it's very important that we come out of that. So in this session today, on today's episode is what I really should be saying. I just like to talk a little bit about ways that we can nurture our minds, we can nurture our emotions, we can kind of, you know, just nurture ourselves from a mental health point of view by kind of looking at some of the good things that we do, you know, in our day-to-day lives. I mean, we all do a lot of good things. Sometimes, you know, we fall short and we do bad things, but let's just take a minute to kind of reflect and to look at some of the good things that we do so that we don't stay in that bad area. And I know personally, for me, there's a lot of different things that I do. I mean, in my practice as an aesthetician, I provide, I feel like a lot of what's the word I want to use, um, mental health nurturing just by people coming into me and, you know, coming to me on a monthly basis for skincare. Some people come for skincare and some people come, you know, for a monthly time of rest and reset. But I feel like that's my way of, you know, the Lord using me to kind of give back to people by allowing them a time of rest and relaxation, a kind to nurture, nurture and nourish not only their skin, but their mental health from a point of view. And I just like to invite you to look at some of the ways that you give back. Maybe it's through your work, or maybe it's through, you know, taking care of your children, or whatever ways that you give back. I just like to, you know, invite you guys to take a look on that today. And I'm gonna pass it over to my husband and just, you know, get his two cents on this and see, you know, what he would like to say about loving and nurturing yourself. But babe, you can take it over. You've already introduced yourself.

Seeing Your Daily Good

SPEAKER_01 7:14

So I mean, when you talking about the mental health aspect of it all, I mean, I mean, one thing I can think of is just when you attack things, you gotta attack it at the root. You gotta go for the root, not just the branches and the leaves. Okay, so like a lot of people, you know, will come to me, you know, I I I teach martial arts, and uh, a lot of people will come to me to just, you know, work out, get out their frustrations or whatever. But all those frustrations are kind of coming from somewhere because all of us we're all uh we're all the product of what we've been through. We're all the product and the manifestation of all the things that we've been through. So like a lot of times people will use exercise as therapy and it works, but if you're just kind of getting out those frustrations and not working out of what's going on at the root, then you know, after that workout done, after you healed up, you know, things are still there. Okay, so I mean I think I think a really, really healthy balance is to number one to definitely take care of your body, take care of your mind, but at the same time, if you're truly, truly and righteously following Christ and seeking him, then you gotta be really, really looking to take care of everything at the room. Because it's just like the the Bible says, love your neighbor as you love yourself. Well what what does that really truly mean? What does that really, really, truly mean? Like Christ, like I as a husband, I'm supposed to love my wife the same way that Christ loved the church. And he gave up his life, he bore all of our transgressions, he took he was he took punishment for all the things that we uh that we have done, that we will do, we are doing right now. And that takes a serious, serious type of look. So what does it really mean to just be like that to each other? You know, you have to get you have to really, really take some honest, honest looks at yourself to just really, really get to the root of everything that you've gone through and everything that you've been through. Tell me how you feel about that, baby.

Guest Joins: Healing At The Root

SPEAKER_00 10:15

I feel that's good. That's really good. I mean, and looking at that, one thing I can see is also the love of the father. So I mean, a total selfless love. The Bible says, John 3 16, that you know, he gave us his son. So that's like a total sacrifice. So for me, I don't know, I'm going in a little bit of a different direction, but I'm thinking of the sacrifice that the father gave up, that he loved us so much that he gave his son. So do we have, I don't want to say it, do we have that type of love for others? Or not even that type of love for each other? Do we have that type of love for ourselves that we can just see people in the way that the father sees us? He gave such a sacrifice to give his son for us because he loved us so much. So, do we have a love inside of us that is so big that we can give that love unto others? So, as the Bible says again, and I feel like this is gonna be our staple verse for this episode: to love others as you love yourself. As we look at the love of the Father, are we able to say that yes, we love ourselves and we love the Lord? So we love the Lord, we want to follow his commands, that we can pass that on to others. I feel like that is um the direction that I want to go with it. I mean, even just looking at my own children or even looking at my husband, like if it came down to it, like I have such a love for him that I would do absolutely anything for him. And that love that I have for him does come from a certain amount of love that I have for myself, a love that we've, you know, built together. So are we able to pass that on to others? I feel like sometimes even when we fall short on love for ourselves, that the way the Father has built us, the way the Lord has built us, that it allows us to pass on a love for others that we don't even know that we have the capacity of. And I feel like in being a follower of Christ, that let me see, what's where I lost my train of thought, I'm sorry. In being a follower of Christ, you just have that selfless love just built up inside of you. Like I feel like it's a part of our design. So in giving ourselves completely to him, we kind of give into the nature that he's already built for us. And I mean, I probably went in a little tangent and went in a circle with the way that I said that, but I think you guys get what I'm trying to say. Like the love of the Father is just built in us as he's built us brick by brick by brick, as he's built us, as the Bible says, in his image, we kind of already have that love within us. I think it's a matter of tapping into it and being able, once we tap into it, being able to unleash that unto others. And I feel that another thing is that, you know, as we're speaking of a season being in a season of love, there's so many different types of love. I mean, we have a love for your favorite candy, then you have a love for your husband, then you have a love for the work that we do. As we're passing on love, what level of love are we passing on to other people? As we are loving and nurturing and not just on ourselves, but other people, from what level are we giving to other people? That's what I have to say about that part. I don't know.

Loving Like Christ And Self-Reflection

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Yeah, and I mean as you just said, that that love is already in us, because I mean we were created in his image. Like we could we could go on for days talking about what does that really mean, but as far as love goes, okay, okay. If he showed so much love, it's like what stops us from giving love and loving in the way that he did. That's basically all the things that we've been through. It was like a saying that that you hear all the time love like you've never been hurt again. It's like nobody's watching. It's just like love like you've never been hurt before. It's just, you know, it's just you know, why do we people become so guarded in relationships because of the past relationships that they've been through that have gone a little bit crappy? Right, right, right. So it's like so a part of that list, a big part of all of this is you know, just getting over yourself, getting to get to the root of what's really, really going on with you, and just like dealing with all the manifestations that you've been through. Because I mean, if you like when you when you come into a marriage, it's like you coming into that marriage with every single relationship that you've been through, every single person that you've been through. So like like the proper thing to do is you just go for marriage counseling and just get the deliverance and just or anything that you need to just kind of get over everything so you can go into the marriage, just like not carrying any baggage or burden. But does it always happen like that? No, not everybody has just those perfect circumstances. So yeah, so so again, we come to like the root of everything. It's just like we're all products of what we've been through. And just like in some times, just like our experiences change who we are or who we were supposed to be. Just like in like an you just you just really, really need, you absolutely need that spiritual guidance to just kind of get over it and get through it and get yourself right back on track.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

That's so true. You know, another thing I was thinking of too when you said that too is one question that came to my mind is what stops us from loving at the capacity that the father loves us. And as you spoke about, you know, everything that we've gone through that that changes us, so that alters our personality per se, I think that also hinders us from being able to love the way that we're supposed to love because there's that trust factor. And I was just speaking to you about this the other day. So as we want to love and we are built to love, but then everything we have gone through, every single hurt, every single pain, every single um teenage relationship or previous relationship, or every single bit of hurt that we have gone through, allows us to be guarded and allows us to build up a wall so that we cannot love the way that we want because we're afraid of being vulnerable and afraid of being hurt. So then what we need to do, speaking on mental health, is just to make sure that we're paying attention to those bad bricks that have been built up.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Bricks in the wall is exactly what that song is about.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

So that those walls, those negative bricks that are being built up, don't stop us from sharing the love that the father wants us to share with other people. Because you may want to, you know, love on your neighbor, you may want to love on a coworker, a girlfriend, or for me, I struggle with female relationships, like just building friendships because I feel like I put myself out there so much, and I want to love people and I want to just give you the shirt off my back, and then part of me is like, but what if? What if you tell my secrets? What if you do this? What if you do that? So then that stops me from being able to love the way the Bible calls us to love. So this is part of like the mental health exercise I'm talking about. Are we taking the time to make sure that we spend that time with the Lord so that he can one show these things to us? Because as he shows these things to us, then it's the Father, it's the Holy Spirit, it's Jesus Himself that will allow us to tear down some of these walls. Because if we don't go out there and love the way that we're supposed to, then we're not doing our due diligence as Christians. Then we're not operating in the design and the way that He's called us to operate. And if we are not operating in those ways, then it's just a big dysfunction within the body. So by taking care of ourselves, by nourishing ourselves, by loving ourselves so that we can love people, we are coming into the grand scheme of the kingdom. And I think that's um really what I want to focus on. The Bible says that God is love. And if we are built in his image, or we are made in his image, is what I should say, not built, but if we are made in his image, then we are made to operate the same way that he does. And when he operates with us, and he the way he works with us, he doesn't necessarily say, oh, well, you know, they've hurt me so many times, so now I'm not gonna love. So how do we mimic his love? And the way we do that is by not letting these hurts, these things that had built up in our lives over the years stop us from loving unconditionally the way that he loves.

Barriers To Love: Hurt And Walls

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Yeah, and just like that whole that whole forgiveness thing. It's like, I mean, what does it really, really take to righteously forgive? To righteously forgive. And I could just say, you know, okay, I forgive you, shake hands and yeah, everything is okay. But when you just have that underlying feeling and just like did that, and just even even just like okay, I can I can think about it. You know, like the hurt that you feel from whatever was done for you to just hold on to that unforgiveness. Like if I touch a hot stove and it burns my hand, I'm gonna be in fear of touching a hot stove again. And rightfully so. Why? Because it hurt.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Okay, so and the same thing, but you know, just dealing with certain people. Or whatever the case may be. Or just being in a relationship, or just pretend to pretend to a relationship. You were in a relationship, you got hurt, you're in another relationship, you start feeling feeling, you feel again, and then it's all of a sudden you start feeling guarded, and just yeah, you can't really focus or be what you're supposed to be in that relationship. So, what does it take to righteously just really, really let go of those things? Because unforgiveness is a big thing. It's a really, really big thing that holds people back. No. Forgive those who trespass against us again. Forgiveness are trespassed. As we forgive those who trespass against us. That's a condition. If you want to be forgiven, then you have to forgive. That's just you know how it is. But how do you righteously do that? That's, I guess, that's almost like a whole nother episode.

Forgiveness As A Spiritual Practice

SPEAKER_00 22:17

It is, it is. So, I mean, I really feel like, you know, to give you a takeaway from this session, because I don't know if we rambled a little bit or not. It was supposed to be conversational style, and I hope that you guys enjoyed this. But we want to also give you something to take away because, like I said, the main gist of this episode was more so like, you know, a mental health point of view of love. We want you to focus on, obviously, the father wants us to focus on loving others, but if we don't love ourselves, then how can we give something that we don't have ourselves to other people? So, what are some ways that you think we can tell them to focus on loving themselves? And I think you said it when you said forgiveness. Forgive yourself first and foremost. Forgive yourself for the areas that you fall short. Because I know for me, I struggle with this one. As I'm looking to further myself and my walk with the Lord, I may fall short one day. And then I kind of hold on to that. And the Bible says that there's no condemnation in there's no condemnation, correct me. There's no condemnation in Christ. Yes. For those who there's no condemnation for those who love Christ. That's what it is. So I feel like the one thing I can give you to love on yourself from my point of view is to forgive yourself. Take a look at those areas that you fall short in if you've had a bad moment. I know I was speaking to another sister the other day, and she was just like, I was on my way to church and somebody cut me off and I just let out an F-bomb or whatever. Okay, your whole salvation did not go out the window with that one F-bomb. Yes, it's not pleasing to the Lord, but we have forgiveness. If he forgives us, then why can't we forgive ourselves? So, one thing I want to advise you to do is to forgive yourself, to look at yourself through the eyes and through the lens of with the father in the way that the father looks at you. To know that he already knows, the Bible says he knows every hair that's on our head. He sees your heart. He's looking at your heart, he's looking at your heart posture. So, in loving yourself this season, something we can do spiritually is to just exercise self-forgiveness. So that way, as we forgive ourselves, just as it says, we can we we can forgive other people. Another thing I want to advise you to do is just have a chance to just do something nice for yourself. I know for me, a lot of the times I feel like I'm always wanting to give like that perfect gift. I'm always wanting to, you know, grab something for my kids. Take some time to do something special for yourself. It's Valentine's Day, and you may not be, you know, in a relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend, you may not be married. There may be a lot of singles out there, but Valentine's Day shouldn't just be a day about love for couples. So if you are in a position where you are single, I want to invite you to celebrate yourself. Take yourself out for a lunch day. Buy yourself, you know, a nice new dress or outfit or, you know, a box of your favorite chocolates. Take some time to journal and to kind of, you know, just reflect on some of the good and positive things that you've done. I work with so many amazing people from so many different walks of life. Um, there's therapists, and there's just, you know, stay-at-home moms, and there's just so many things that we do that are good. And I feel like we just don't take the time to celebrate ourselves. And when you take the time to celebrate yourself, then you can go out and reflect that same love that you just gave to yourself, and you can righteously reflect it on someone else, and you can live out the scripture that says, love your neighbor as you love yourself, because then you have truly exercised loving yourself. How about you? Do you have um baby have anything spiritually or non-spiritually? Anything that you can recommend for the audience for them to do to kind of just like love on themselves?

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Hmm. Um, well, the thing that I would say is just uh work out. Keep yourself, you know, well, yeah, keep yourself healthy. You know, because if you don't, if you're if you don't how can you feel good mentally and emotionally if you don't feel good physically? Because if you're sick are you thinking right? Are you happy if you're sick? So taking taking care of your body is just it it really is huge. It really, really is a big thing because our bodies are supposed to be living sacrifices, and when they sacrifice in the old testament, did they bring like uh anorexic cow or whatever? No.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

He speaks about that. He speaks about the best of the best.

Practical Takeaways For Self-Love

SPEAKER_01 27:46

They brought, yeah, they brought the best of the best as the sacrifice, and we're supposed to be a living sacrifice. So we want to bring the best. Yeah, we wanna we wanna bring the best, you know. I mean, if the Holy Spirit lives here, if your pastor is coming over to your house and you got dirt on the floor and dirt and everything, you're gonna clean it up, you're gonna sweep it up, but God's in your body. So, I mean you can look at it that way. So I mean, and he's always there. So you should really be taking care of yourself all the time, or as much as the self all the time. I mean, but we all fall off, I know I do, but yeah, that's no comment. That should be that should definitely be a goal. I mean, if you don't feel good physically, then it's really tough to say that you're gonna feel good emotionally. And if you're not feeling good emotionally, then you're not gonna be acting good, reacting good, or just yeah, it's just not gonna be perfect.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Right, right, right. That totally makes sense. All right, guys, so I think we are going to wrap it up uh right there for now. I mean, I certainly, this is a different episode because this is the first ever guest that I've had on the podcast. I just want to test it out. So I welcome any feedback that you guys have. Um, I hope that you've enjoyed this episode. I just want to thank you once again for just, you know, tuning in and lending us your ears today. I hope to have more guests on the show in the future. This was just like, you know, like I said, it's love season. Just want to throw out, you know, a little test for right now. But like I said, I hope this episode has been not only enjoyable, but I hope so, hope that it's been beneficial for you. And as always, on our wellness episodes, I always close you guys out with a little prayer. So I'm going to leave you with a brief prayer, but I'm actually going to throw my husband on the spot and I'm going to let him lead and leave my um my audience with a little prayer.

unknown 30:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

All right. So, dearest Lord, in the mightiest name of Jesus, I thank you for this time with my wife, and I pray that every single ear that listens, that's hearing, is blessed somehow, somehow. Blessed. Mentally, physically, spiritually. I pray that as this goes out, I pray that your blessings go out. Blessings of healing, blessings of restoration, and blessings of moving forward in progression in everything that everybody does. In Jesus' mighty name we say, Amen.

Care For The Body As Worship

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Amen. I just want to piggyback off of that. And I just want to say, Father God, thank you for this platform. Thank you for every listener that has tuned in today. I pray for their health, their wealth, and their spiritual well-being today, Lord God. I pray in this season of love, Lord, that they more than ever feel your love, Lord God. I pray for healing over any ailments that they may have, may they be physical or mental or by any other means. I just thank you, Father, for your presence over this podcast. Thank you for the opportunity to record with my husbands and my husband. And I just say all this in the name, pray all this in the mighty and matchless name of Jesus. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

All right, guys. So we're gonna wrap it up there for now. Again, like I said before, I welcome you to leave a review on this or any other episodes that may have blessed you in any type of way. If you have any other suggestions for any other topics that you would like to hear myself or myself and my husband speak on, there is actually in the show notes, there's an area that says send a text where you can send a text. You can also email. Um, the email address you can use is prayerwithnatasha at gmail.com. You can also hop on my website and leave a message there. Whatever suits you the best is where you can reach out to me. And I just want to thank you again. As always, I invite you to come back and listen to the next episode and to be blessed and remember to be a blessing. Ciao for now. Bye, guys.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Good night.