The incredible Molly Zemek (a professional chef, author and coach) explains how to listen to your body and much more!
Molly will be teaching and sharing her expertise in Connection Crew on February 4th. You can ask her all your questions live on that zoom call. Join Connection Crew HERE today and experience what it’s like to connect with and love your body!
Welcome to Lovin My Daughter-in-law Podcast. I’m relationship expert and master certified coach LeAnn Austin. I’ll help you create more connection, love and fun with others, yourself and your daughter-in-law.
Hey y’all, welcome to Lovin My Daughter-in-law, episode #156: Listen To Your Body with Molly Zemeck.
I love observing and connecting with other humans, especially noting how they feel and implement love into their lives and their relationships.
We have the amazing Molly Zemeck sharing some beautiful love and relationship insights with us today. All right, Molly, tell us a little bit about you.
Well, thank you so much for having me LeAnn. I am a professionally trained chef. I worked as a chef for about 10 years before deciding to step away from that. So I could start my family. I’m also an author. I published my first book last April, which is called Decoding Your Emotional Appetite: a food lover’s guide to weight loss.
And I’m also a life coach. And that’s what I spend a lot of my time doing is working inside of my coaching business, helping people reach their ideal weight without giving up the food they love, and figure out how to drink less if that’s something they’re struggling with. So I just feel very fortunate to be doing the work that I do.
And you are amazing on all of those fronts. Can I just say, I love your book by the way, excellent book. So highly recommend everyone read that.
And then yeah, Molly’s helped me this past year on my weight loss journey and she is amazing and she’ll be joining us on February 4th in Connection Crew. So if you want to join us there, Molly will be teaching us and sharing her expertise. So anyway, I’m so glad that she could be here today, so thanks. Yeah, I can’t wait to just be, you know, meeting with your Connection Crew and teaching. So I’m really looking forward to that. Ah, thank you so much.
All right, well let’s get started on our five questions. So the first one, how do you incorporate love into your business and life and how does that impact your relationships?
Well, I’d like to think that everything is inspired by love. I, you know, have a strong faith in God. And so I really feel like through, you know, the love that I receive through the Holy Spirit, and being connected to that source of inspiration. I feel called to do certain things and I’m not certainly perfect at it but, you know, really work to love myself first and foremost. And I find that that makes such a big difference in terms of my ability to love my family and to really show up as the best version of myself.
And then I would say, as far as my business goes, you know, I was inspired to start my business because of the impact that this work had on my own life and my ability to really, completely transform my health. Mental health, my physical health, and feel actually even more connected spiritually to God, that I just really wanted to help other people with it. So that’s certainly there.
There’s a lot of love behind that, that first really started with me just figuring out how to love myself better. That is key, isn’t it? It’s that self love that, so many things about that. Yeah. I think especially, you know, as a mom, I think women are inclined to do this more so than men. You know, we just feel like we’re obligated to kind of help other people, love other people, take care of other people, but then it’s often at the expense of ourselves.
And so I think for me, you know, making my own health a priority. Changing the relationship with myself so that I was really just loving myself, you know, as my imperfect self, really helped me become a better mom, be a better wife, and then just be the coach that I am to other people.
And I like to, you know, my priority in my coaching business is really to just accept people for who they are and recognize that everybody’s imperfect. And I really hope that builds a lot of trust with my clients, but it really is coming from that love and desire to really help people as much as I can.
Yeah, and you are so good at that. I know that’s helped me a lot as well. That’s beautiful, everything is inspired by love. Awesome. Well, tell us something that you love about you and why.
I’m a fighter. I’m really thankful to myself for continuing to fight. I don’t want to get too emotional as I’m answering this, but I just think about, you know, some really hard things that I’ve been through. And I don’t want to take all of the credit for this because I really do think that this was, I was given the strength by God to fight and to keep going and to persevering. But I haven’t given up on myself. I mean, despite going through difficult times and through wanting to give up, I just believed that I can figure it out and that I can work through it and that I deserve to do the work for myself. That I deserve to take care of myself, that I deserve to keep showing up for myself, and so I really appreciate that about myself, that I’m not willing to give up, and I’ve been able to really accomplish a lot because of that. So that’s what I would say.
I love that so much. And I love that God is in the details of all of it. That’s so cool that you are a fighter and that you recognize the strength. And I love that, beautiful.
I could, I mean, I can’t do it on my own, you know, and every single time I’ve asked God for help, he has shown up. And that’s why my faith is as strong as it is. It’s because I’ve seen him at work and yeah, it’s miraculous. It really is. And it’s so impactful when we have that connection with God or the universe, spirit, whatever everyone chooses to call it, it really makes a difference in how we show up for ourselves and everybody. I love that. Yeah, absolutely. Ah, so beautiful.
All right. Well, I love talking about connection with others and ourselves, and I think the daughter-in-law relationship is packed full of endless opportunities and examples to learn from. So any thoughts about being a daughter-in-law or your future daughter-in-law?
Yes, you know, I have all boys, so I am anticipating that if they’re fortunate enough to get married and to have their own, you know, blessed families, I imagine that I might not have the same close knit relationship with them that I do now. I hope that I’m wrong, but I know that oftentimes, you know, boys can become a little bit more distant, but I really do hope that I can have a strong relationship with my daughters-in-law in the future, if that’s a possibility.
You know, I don’t know what that looks like, but I think that actually the connection with the relationship with the mother-in-law is that what I have learned, and it is still very much a work in progress, is if I can just practice being accepting and, you know, working to love my mother-in-law for who she is. And set aside my own expectations of what the relationship should be or what she should be, I just feel that much more connected to her. You know, I think that when I, in the future, as hopefully a mother-in-law myself, that I can practice that same acceptance towards my son’s family, and that by being accepting and that recognizing that they have their own way of doing things, and that I might not be as involved as maybe I would like to be, that maybe there can still be that strong connection if even if that means I don’t see them as much, you know, obviously this is all hypothetical.
I don’t know what the future will look like, but I do know that I have spent a lot of time really working on my relationship with my mother-in-law in the sense that I’ve needed to just, you know, really just accept her for who she is, and also kind of understand where some of my own judgment comes from and really work on that, so I can create that connection because nothing destroys a connection more than judging somebody or expecting somebody to be someone they’re not. And I think that’s something we naturally do as people, but working on that continuously has helped me so much just in my own personal growth and being more connected with my mother-in-law.
And you know it’s not really even just mother-in-laws. I mean, I know that’s a great example to use, but it’s really everybody is everyone. Yeah, for sure. And I love that you’ve made the effort, though, just to accept her more and drop the shoulds and, you know, just connect with her more. That’s beautiful.
Yeah, well it’s important. It’s something for me to work on like I said for my own growth and I really see the opportunity there. But it’s also important for my children, you know for their relationship with her, for my husband, you know, and his connection with his original family.
So it’s a priority, but it’s not easy work to do, but I think if you’re willing to acknowledge your own responsibility in the relationship, which I try and do as much as possible, I think you’re able to really change the dynamic. I think that’s one of the things that’s been really inspiring to me this year is seeing relationships change. You know, sometimes we think like the relationship will always be this way or this person will never change, but I think when you take responsibility as far as the part that you put into the the relationship, and your willingness to be a little bit more accepting of yourself and more accepting of somebody else, the dynamic can change and it can be really powerful and and surprising when it does.
Yeah, and the other person doesn’t need to change at all. But when you’re willing to look at yourself, yeah, things can change a lot. Mm hmm. That’s awesome. Yeah. I think even just like dropping some of the resistance and some of the tension that comes in our own judgment towards somebody else, just allows things to feel much easier. It opens up the opportunity to really kind of understand somebody in a new way.
Yeah, a hundred percent. I know my favorite quote, you either love someone or you don’t understand them. And like you talking about coming from that place of love, when we do that with our mother-in-law or whoever, it’s like wait, how can I understand her a little bit better? Like you said, how can I drop the judgment is so impactful. Yeah. 100%. And even just acknowledging our own imperfections in the relationship. Yes, recognizing that we’re not being the perfect version of ourselves that we might like to be. You know that there just needs to be acceptance on both sides, and I think that a really wonderful thing to model for your children too.
Yes. You know that practice of acceptance, practice of letting somebody be themselves and knowing that none of us are perfect. All of us have faults, and we’re just not in a place to judge anybody else. Yeah, I think that’s a beautiful example. Yeah, all right. So anything else that you’d like to share and where can our audience go to find out more about you?
I guess one thing I would like to share is, and this is kind of tied into the quote that I provided is, you know, be willing to just pay attention to yourself and your own feelings and your own desires. And if something doesn’t feel right, if you don’t feel like something’s off, if you feel like you could feel better, that there’s that possibility, be willing to listen to that, be willing to kind of listen to your body and understand that. And trust that you can figure it out.
I think sometimes we get stuck in these patterns of just going through the motions, you know, continuing old habits that we’re not even aware of and feeling stuck and wishing things were better. But just kind of resigning ourselves to the fact that well life is too busy or it’s always going to be this way. And I guess because of my personal experience and the people that I help, I know for sure that if you believe that you could feel better, if you believe that you deserve to feel better, then you absolutely can live a better life for yourself by first just understanding where you are now and listening to some of those basic needs
So I encourage all of your listeners to really just listen to themselves, and start to just question what are some of the things that I deeply desire you know, if I believed I could achieve anything that I want, what would I desire most? What would be deeply satisfying? If you’re stuck in kind of some habits right now that aren’t satisfying and that are producing some negative results for you, be willing to just ask yourself, like, what is it that I really need?
So if people would like to learn more about me, I have a podcast, a free podcast, it’s called Weight Loss for Food Lovers that comes out every Thursday, you can find that on apple podcast, you can find it on spotify, or by going to my website, which is mollyzemich.com/podcast. I have a couple of free trainings on my website, if you would like to just get some additional free help. And let’s see what else I have, a membership program, a monthly membership program that’s also called Weight Loss for Food Lovers, where you can get access to my digital curriculum for how to manage habits of overeating and over drinking so that you can lose weight without deprivation and restriction. And then I also offer private coaching for people who want more of a one on one experience with me. And all of that can be found on my website, MollyZemek.com. And I’ll put that all on the show notes, and I highly, highly recommend working with Molly. So reach out to her anytime.
I know I’ve been blessed to work with her over the past year and it’s been life changing. Like I said, she’s helped me shift from my all or nothing mindset around food. She’s helped me reduce my binges and lose weight, and just embrace a much healthier relationship with eating. And so again, she’ll be teaching our Connection Crew call on February 4th.
So if you’re ready to create more connection with yourself, with others and your body, join us in Connection Crew today. You’ll love learning from Molly and you can ask her all your questions on that live zoom call. She is just incredible and it’ll be so fun to learn from her here in Connection Crew. So looking forward to that, Molly.
And then lastly, what is your favorite quote about love and how have you used that for yourself and in your relationships? Yes, so my favorite quote about love comes from the poet Rumi, and it is: “Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart. Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” I love this quote because I really do think that we all are born with just an abundance of love in our hearts, I think that’s how we’re designed. I think that’s how we’re born, but sometimes things can get in the way of our ability to connect to that love and I I think that this is something we all struggle with.
And so if you’re struggling to love yourself right now, if you’re struggling to love and connect with other people, I just encourage you to really believe that that love exists, that you have the capacity to love yourself, that you have the capacity to love other people, but you first just need to question, you know, what’s interfering? And it can be as simple as just asking yourself, what’s kind of getting in the way? Okay or me really feeling love for myself what’s getting in the way of me, you know, feeling good in my body of me, you know, being able to love other people and, you know, both LeAnn and I understand the role of our thoughts and our emotions in this.
Oftentimes, you know, it’s a matter of just understanding an old belief system, old habits, maybe emotions that we haven’t paid attention, to really get to kind of the root reasons why we’re blocked, to really love ourselves and love other people. And that is, I think, some of the most powerful work that you can do. LeAnn and I have both really benefited from that, really understanding the role of our thinking in kind of the lives we lead. And many people just don’t understand how powerful our own thoughts and our own emotional well being can be in in our capacity to love. And so, I I think that if you’re not familiar with coaching or thought work, or understanding you know, maybe some of the underlying beliefs that you have in the role that they have on your current habits. This is definitely something to explore because you can feel a life you can’t experience, a life of more abundant love by figuring out how to get out of your own way.
Ah, 100%. Ah, so good. Seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against love. Hmm, something to think about.
Thank you Molly, for sharing your love insights with us today. We so appreciate you being here. So thank you LeAnn. I am always inspired by you and you know, I had been thinking about something that you said to me once about, you know, your goal of trying to really be more connected in your life. And I thought that was such a beautiful intention to set. And so I’ve been thinking about that in my own life. Like, how can I be more connected? I’ve just been asking myself that question as the results of you talking to me about it. And I’ve come up with a lot of ways just in this last, you know, month in the year of how I can create more connection in my life. So thank you for all the work that you do and all of the ways that you show up with love for the people that you help. And yeah, it’s just, I feel so, so fortunate to be working with you. Ah, same, same. And thank you. I really appreciate it.
All right here’s to listening to our body. God is in the details, connection, and love. Have a good one y’all.
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Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode and want to create more fun, connection and love into your relationships, check out my Connection Crew membership and One-on-One coaching programs. This is where I share practical strategies to help you deepen your relationships.
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If you’re ready to transform your connections from the inside out, start with my free Connection Blueprint, your easy three step guide to connecting with yourself and others on a whole new level.
And here’s a bonus. If you’re looking to strengthen your bond with your daughter-in-law, grab my One Question that will instantly boost the love and understanding in your relationship.
All the details, including your free Connection Blueprint and that powerful One Question are in the show notes or at leannaustin.com. Don’t wait, start creating those deeper, more meaningful connections today.
