272. 10 Intentions for 2025 to Support My Emotional and Spiritual Health

In this episode, I’m sharing my 10 intentions for 2025 aimed at nurturing my mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

As we reflect on the past year and prepare for the year ahead, I explore how setting clear intentions can help create a stronger sense of balance, resilience, and personal growth.

From practicing mindfulness to fostering deeper emotional awareness, I walk you through each of my intentions and the steps I’m taking to support a more fulfilling and aligned life.

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Resources From This Episode

>> Insulin Resistance Diet Blueprint - https://www.zivli.com/blueprint?el=podcast

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Transcript

Morgan (00:00)
Just a heads up, y'all know I'm a Christian. I will get into a little bit of that today because my spiritual growth is a focus right now for me.

Hi, I'm Dr. Morgan Nolte, founder of Zivli. As a geriatric physical therapist, I saw the heartbreaking effects of insulin resistance. At Zivli, our mission is to help you prevent and reverse insulin resistance for long-term weight loss and disease prevention through a low insulin and inflammation lifestyle. Each week on this podcast, you'll learn simple, actionable tips to lose weight, keep it off, and get healthy. If you're ready to create a body and life you love,

you're in the right place. Let's get started.

Well, hey there and welcome back to another episode of the Reshape Your Health podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Morgan Nolte. I hope that you and your family, your loved ones had a wonderful holiday season and a joyous new year. I know the new year comes usually full of new energy and I know I'm feeling that. I hope you're feeling that I'm sending all the good energy to you. Today's episode is very simple.

And it builds on the last two episodes that I had in December of 2024, where I talked about my yearly reflection process and what I'm focusing on for 2025. And my big three areas of focus are my mental, emotional, and spiritual health. And the primary relationship that I'm focusing on this year is my marriage, but also, God willing, I'm having a baby.

in April, maybe at the end of March, we'll see when he decides to come. So that is going to be a huge focus for our family, really keeping our marriage strong through this busy season and taking care of him. So I'm gonna share my 10 intentions for the new year that will help support those goals. I'm not really big on New Year's resolutions that are broad and it's like.

They're not concrete enough, not actionable enough, not tangible enough for your mind to really dig in and help you do them. So I very much dislike New Year's resolutions like lose weight or eat healthier or sleep more or work less. Like those just aren't specific enough. So I thought by sharing some of my examples with you that might spur some creativity of your own to get specific.

and very intentional about how we want to live this life that we've been given. And just a heads up, y'all know I'm a Christian. I will get into a little bit of that today because my spiritual growth is a focus right now for me. And you know, that's just, it is what it is. So if you want to hop off, I kind of saved some of that till the end. If that's not your deal and you want to hop off, I hope that you recognize we all have so much more in common than we don't. So.

Even if you don't share my belief systems, I hope that you still get value from this episode. So the first intention for the new year is sabbathing. I had a really good friend and his wife come stay with us. They've just been dear friends since college. And I talked about them on the podcast a while ago. And they just are in a really good place right now with their spiritual lives and their marriage. And they talked about sabbathing.

in a way that I really hadn't considered before because in my mind, observing the Sabbath is essentially going to church on Sunday. And they introduced us to a practicing the way course is what it's called. So practicing the way course, you could type it in, it's free. And there's four components that they talk about to Sabbath thing. It's stopping, resting, delighting, and worshiping. And really I was only hitting

like one of those with with worshiping. Like I really, really enjoy going to church. Like that's kind of my bucket filling time to connect with God. But the stopping, the resting, the delighting, I wasn't really getting that. And I think that that's one of the reasons that I've experienced recurring burnout in my life during busy seasons, like when Justin's planting or harvesting, or if we're going through a launch, I'm getting better about the launches, but mainly when

Justin is busy, that really affects me. So I'm trying to build my own resilience and stress tolerance so that I can better support him and my family. And the first way to do that, I believe, is sabbathing. So one day a week, really taking the time with family to worship and stop and rest and delight in this life that we have. Not just make that a day to like go to church and then hit like three other stores on the way home and wear myself out and then just be tired.

Right. So that's going to take a little bit of planning ahead. It's going to take like grocery shopping, perhaps on Saturday instead of Sunday, maybe doing more meal prepping on Saturday and Monday instead of Sunday. I'm not quite sure what it's going to look like yet, but I'm glad that there's that course that I can go through to learn more and just hear from other people's experiences. think courses are such a great way to get new ideas. And that is one thing on my list.

The second thing is a three day work week. So this is a goal for me in 2025 to move towards a three day work week. Currently we have a four day work week or I have a four day work week because my children have a four day school district, which is awesome. We've really enjoyed the four day district because Monday is kind of the day where the kids get to bond. The kids get to play together. It's an extra day for me to catch up on the laundry.

and other housework and meal prepping and just spend more time with them as a family, I think that's important. However, what I have come to realize as I've been trying to be intentional in practicing a Sabbath is it's really difficult to stop and rest and delight in God and creation and just do things that bring me like joy.

I guess I hate to say that because it sounds like my family and my kids don't do that. They do. But as an introvert, I really thrive when I have solitude and silence and have that chance to kind of just spend time alone. And that's just it doesn't happen on Sundays when I'm trying to Sabbath, we're taking the kids to church and then we're with family, which is great and awesome.

but it doesn't necessarily recharge my batteries or refill my bucket because that happens when I'm alone. So what I've really tried to accept is that is how I am wired. That is how I am built. I know not everybody is built that way, but I have to do what's in my power to create more alone time and solitude, specifically to just be with God and grow in my spiritual life.

and truly stop and rest because as you fellow moms know, you just don't really get to do that with children. So my plan right now is to work, be working Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, be moming is what I call it, moming, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. So I'm home with the kids. That's my primary role on those days. Not that I'm not a mom all of the time, every day. It's just, you get the picture, working, moming. And then the...

The break is Tuesday. So my goal is for Tuesday to be like a pseudo Sabbath where I can actually have time alone and in solitude and peace and quiet when the kids are at school. I don't know how this is gonna look in the summer or how this is gonna look with a newborn. It's a constant recalibration as all parents know to find that balance and find that work life harmony. But I thought it was a good idea and I'm gonna give it a try.

My third intention for 2025 is to have more intentional quality time with my husband. So if I want to grow that relationship, we have to spend quality time together. And I think it's so easy, especially when the children are young, to kind of like get in your rhythm, right? Go through the motions. And children will just like take as much energy as you'll give them. And we do give our kids a lot of our energy and attention.

And I think that in order to support our marriage, I wanted to give more of that to Justin. So I asked his mom and my mom to do one sleepover a month so that we can have just a night together where we're not, it's almost like just a chance to reconnect and be together and spend quality time together. I don't know if we'll,

send that we probably won't send the newborn with them, but at least that gives the two older kids a chance to spend time with their grandparents and then we get some more time together. So making that a priority this year is important for both of us, but me especially. The fourth intention is less TV and more family games. So we are guilty, just like everybody I think of watching too much TV probably and

That's kind of how my husband and I like to connect in the evenings is we cuddle and watch TV. However, like there comes a point where it's excessive, right? And so I think that our goal is one hour of TV a night, which I think is very reasonable. And for the kids, instead of just like turning to the TV as a way to pass the time, we really want to play more games. They're very into Kings in the Corner right now.

and we have a marble game called Aggravation, because it's like sorry, but it's really fun, Aggravation. We play War and Bananagrams is a fun game too. So those are the four games that we're playing right now. I guess we just wrapped up a Monopoly game too. And there's just so many great games. It reduces the screen time. It increases our quality time together. I love games because honestly like screens are so easy for kids to like.

just get what they want and not be challenged emotionally. Like when you're playing a game with someone, someone is winning and somebody is losing. And so it's a great way for us to practice that emotional regulation, social skills, that kind of thing with our kids. All right, number five, this is my only like health or weight related one. Just get back to my pre-baby weight by football season so I can wear my jeans. That's usually my goal postpartum.

I don't have any specific weight goal or anything like that. I just want to fit in my jeans when football season comes around in September. So I feel like that's realistic. It gives me several months to reach that goal. Number six is to trust in God more and worry less. And I think that I'm reading a really good book right now and they said, know, worry is really kind of a sign of, you know, thinking that you know better.

than God or thinking that your ways or your thoughts are better. And it's just not true. And I think that that when we really accept our results in life as what we are supposed to have at this moment in time to teach us what we're supposed to learn and trust that, you know, he has it, he has it taken care of. We have so much more peace. And that's really what I'm feeling. A good example is this morning.

Dawson came to me crying because I hadn't packed his lunch yet. And it was, 10 minutes before it was time to go. And I explained to him, he was like very upset. He was crying, he was nervous for whatever reason. He doesn't normally do that. And I said, Dawson, do you understand that we have 10 minutes to go and it only takes me five minutes to pack your lunch?

So really you have five minutes above for time. He didn't see the whole picture. He didn't understand the whole picture. And I think that's how our life is with God. You sometimes we're coming crying or upset because we just don't see the whole picture and we don't understand the whole context, but he does. And so I'm gonna choose to trust in him more and worry less and accept my results as what I'm supposed to have at this moment in time. So.

In a nutshell, I'm going to strive less and rest more. Number seven is at least 10 minutes of undistracted playtime with each kid every day. And that kind of goes back into playing games. I've really, I've been doing this, but it's something that I want to continue doing. I just love it. You know, I think as parents, it's so easy to be distracted on our phones or working like after the kids get home or we're busy.

doing dishes and cooking and laundry and getting ready for tomorrow that we really forget to live in the moment and enjoy them. And they're at such a precious age right now. Like, my goodness, we are so blessed and so lucky to have the children that we do. And I wanna know them and I want them to know me and I wanna have such a loving, positive relationship with them. And I do, and I wanna continue that. So at least 10 minutes of undistracted playtime.

with each kid daily is a really big priority of mine. Number eight, intention, my eighth intention for the new year is seasonal planning meetings with Justin. And this might sound very type A, that's fine. One of the reasons that I wanted the kids to have a sleepover at grandparents once a month so that we could have a date night is so that we could have some intentional planning time. Both of our businesses are very cyclical.

predictable and seasonal. so he's busy during planting and harvest, and I'm busy during launches, twice a year usually. So we have the ability to plan ahead and think, okay, what are the roles that each of us need to fill in this busy season to support each other and to support our family? What are some things that we can do ahead of time, like making meals, for example, or even just being a little bit more.

specific with like who does what task, like who's unloading the dishwasher. I think stuff like that would be helpful. All couples know it's so easy to keep score and that's never ever, ever helpful. So this isn't like a way to keep score. It's just a way to be proactive and plan and try to manage our time and our energy and our expectations well. I'm very guilty of having way too high of expectations of everybody, myself and him included.

So having that planning meeting with him just to say, hey, this is the season that we're going into. These are the kids activities. These are my responsibilities. These are your responsibilities. know, ready, set, go type of thing. So that's another intention is a regular planning meeting with him so that we, you know, it's like we know it's coming. It's not our first rodeo. This is not our first.

planting or harvest or launch so we know how to support each other and ourselves in those busy seasons. And I think just a smidge more intention and planning will help with that. Okay, now we're gonna be getting into the spiritual stuff, which I'm really excited about because honestly, the better my spiritual health and the mental health and the emotional health, the better my relationships are. And that to me is like what it is all about. It's all about the relationships and love and feeling.

That, like that's what I wanna feel is peace and love. And I sound like a hippie right now. Peace and love, but you know, they probably had something to them. All right, so number nine is an evening routine. So I have a really great morning routine. I wanna continue my morning routine slash morning workout routine. That's been a pretty good habit, I would say in 2024. I wanna continue that in 2025.

I just feel so much better in the morning if I can get up, do my morning routine, read my personal faith formula, read my daily intentions, read some scripture, pray, journal, and then go work out before I face the day. Like I just have more energy and I have a more positive mindset all day long. But one thing I realized that would be beneficial is an evening routine because...

there's just a lot of stuff that can build up throughout the day, a lot of stress or worry or negative energy. And what I realized I was doing was like, there was no boundary between like the end of the day with the children and with work and then with Justin, like when we finally had time together. And I wanted to create a buffer between my day and him so that he is not getting the worst parts of my day and he is not getting the worst parts of me.

So I think God can handle that, right? Like God's gonna get that. He's gonna divert that energy. So my plan, what I have been doing and what I want to continue to do is an evening routine where right after the kids are in bed, so I'm habit stacking here, kids are always going to bed. They usually go to bed 7.45, eight o'clock. When the newborn comes, obviously I have to be flexible with this. I go to my little cozy corner.

and I get my journal out and I might journal through anything that I'm worrying about or that I'm stressed about. Again, just to release that and give it away, get it out of my mind. I might read some scripture. I might just sit there and like a lot of times like, God, what do want to tell me right now? What do you want me to hear right now? Just, you know, rest, honestly, like incorporating little moments of like Sabbath into every day and

I call it like my cleansing, like my evening cleansing, just cleansing the energy, cleansing the mind so that I can really rest and sleep better and enjoy my time more with Justin in the evenings. The other thing that I've been enjoying doing in that evening routine is looking ahead to the next day and making my action items for the next day, the night before. That's a very helpful. When I do that, I'm much less likely to...

miss something or accidentally like look over something that I should have done. So creating my action items for the next day the night before is helpful. And then right now I'm logging my food, I kind of go through spurts of logging my food, but that's kind of a nice like evening stop point to be sure that I logged all my food for the day in that evening routine. And then the last thing that I'm doing my 10th intention for 2025.

is to lean into scripture more and use autosuggestion. So autosuggestion is something that I use every day with my personal faith formula, but I realized that I could really harness it in a powerful way to improve more of my mental, emotional, and spiritual health, just like I've used it to improve my physical health. And autosuggestion is,

Suggesting things to yourself in order to change your behavior. So it's not like these automatic thoughts that pop into your head. It's not automatic negative thoughts. It's intentional suggesting like suggestions to yourself on how you want to think and how you want to behave. Me specifically when I'm thinking about well, what would help with my mental, emotional, spiritual health? It's having a better attitude, being less critical and less judgmental, being more joyful, being more present and grateful.

So I went through scripture and I picked out some verses that I felt like really reinforced the beliefs that I want to grow in, the characteristics that I wanna grow in. So I'm gonna read some of those too now. All right.

This one is Philippians 4 through 7, and I have a really cool version of the Bible. I don't even remember what it's called, but I really like it. It's very readable.

which will keep your thoughts and hearts quiet and at rest as you trust in Jesus. Love that one. This one is Ephesians, I can't even read my own handwriting. I think four, 23 to 24. Now your attitude and thoughts, or now your attitudes and thoughts must all be constantly changing for the better. Yes, you must be a new and different person, holy and good. Clothe yourself with this new nature.

I'll read a few more of my favorites. And then 1 Corinthians is at the end, because that one's like the best synopsis of all of them. Ephesians 4, I think 29, do not use bad language. Say only what is good and helpful to those you are talking to and what will give them a blessing. That one was a really powerful one for me, just to not criticize people, don't speak negatively, don't gossip, just.

Say only what is good and helpful to those you are talking to and what will give them a blessing. It's pretty clear. This is Ephesians 4, 31 through 22. Stop being mean, bad tempered and angry. Coraling harsh words and dislike of others should have no place in your lives. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God has forgiven you because you belong to Christ.

I really like this one too if you're struggling with negative thoughts about another person. 1 Corinthians, not that one. Philippians 4, 8, fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and dwell on the fine, good things and others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about. All right, I'm gonna read you, I think two more.

I ran out of space on that journal page so I had to write it somewhere else.

This is Romans 14 10. You have no right to criticize your brother or look down on him. Each of us will stand before the judgment seat of God. And then the one that I really like reading, that I often read in morning and evening routine is 1 Corinthians 13, four through seven. And just as an example of how this auto suggestion process works, all of us are triggered.

by something like me, it's my kids whining and when they're not listening very well, I am so triggered. And I have to remind myself like how many times have you whined and not listened to God and he is very patient and very kind with you. So you can be very patient and very kind to your children. So if I read this every day, I'm much more likely to remember to be patient, to be kind, to be loving, to not be irritable, all of these things. So I hope that that's making sense for you.

All right, this is the last one. Love is very patient, very patient and kind. Never envious or jealous, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. I think of that one a lot when we're talking about like what to watch for TV. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold.

grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices when the truth wins out. If you love someone, you will be loyal to him no matter the cost. You will always believe in him, always expect the best of him and always stand your ground in defending him. I just love that one because there are so many things in there that I'm actively working on it within myself like being very patient, being kind, not being selfish or rude.

not demanding my own way, not being irritable or touchy, not noticing when other people do me wrong, know, everything. So it's always a good reminder. And I think that you can just hear in my voice, like when I'm reading that, my mood elevates, it lifts, like it puts things into perspective and it helps me like settle down any like earthly worries that I have because I understand that in the big picture, they don't.

matter that much. You know, it's kind of like don't sweat the small stuff and it's all small stuff. So those are my 10 intentions for 2025. I know that they may be very different from yours. And I hope that me sharing this information just helps you get the juices flowing on. man, like her intentions are pretty specific and they're very meaningful for her. What are my intentions? What's specific for me? What's meaningful to me? Like, how do I really want to improve? Because

I think the worst thing is like when you reach a new year and you're like, my gosh, I'm in the exact same place that I was a year ago. So adopt that growth mindset, be intentional. If you haven't listened to the last couple of episodes about my end of year reflection and goal setting process, that could be a really nice resource for you. And I hope that you have a wonderful start to your new year and I will talk with you at the same time, same place next week. Bye for now.

Thanks for listening to the reshape your health podcast today. To learn more about Zibli our online course and coaching program to reverse insulin resistance for long-term weight loss and disease prevention. Check out our website at www.zibli.com that's z-i-v-l-i.com. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please leave a rating and review on your listening platform and share it with a friend.

I'll talk with you at the same time, same place next week. Bye for now.