What if lasting weight loss begins with healing the thoughts and wounds beneath the eating?

In this powerful episode, Darlene sits down with Nina Spina, host of the Pivot to Positivity podcast, to talk about trauma, faith, emotional eating, and learning to feel safe in your own body.

Nina shares how childhood trauma, codependency, an unhealthy marriage, and years of living in survival mode affected her identity, health, and relationship with food. She also opens up about losing 110 pounds—including her decision to use bariatric surgery as one tool in a much deeper journey of physical, emotional, and spiritual healing.

Together, Darlene and Nina discuss:

• Why Nina once used weight as a form of protection
• How our brains repeat old patterns to keep us feeling safe
• The connection between trauma and emotional eating
• Learning to recognize thoughts without automatically believing them
• Using “bridge thoughts” to replace fear with truth
• Why bariatric surgery is not an easy way out
• Moving beyond all-or-nothing thinking and learning moderation
• The importance of counseling, coaching, recovery, and safe community
• How faith helped Nina reclaim her identity and freedom

Nina’s story is a beautiful reminder that your significance is not determined by your weight, your past, your accomplishments, or what you ate yesterday. You are significant because the Maker of heaven and earth created you, loves you, and says that you are.

Listen to Nina’s podcast, Pivot to Positivity, for trauma-informed, fact-based encouragement to help you become a little more positive than you were the day before.

Content note: This episode includes a non-graphic discussion of childhood sexual abuse, trafficking, addiction, and trauma. Please listen with care.

Connect With Neena:

Website : cjspina617.Wix site.com/coachneena

Podcast: Pivot2Positivity https://open.spotify.com/show/1agsTAwYo65FqIySAh7NFn?si=18670dd426fc4764

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/neena.j.spina

Connect With Darlene:

Email: HelloDarleneLee@gmail.com

Facebook -⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/share/199xNVUahY/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/thedarlenelee?igsh=MTVnNG56OHQ2bzIyeg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

TikTok- ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@thedarlenelee?_t=ZT-8w5r0QJjetq&_r=1

YouTube-⁠⁠https://youtube.com/@youaresignificant1?si=ElcdML5zQKMeI7Ib

Link Tree-https://linktr.ee/darlenelee

What happens when pain goes unhealed and slowly turns into bitterness?

In this deeply honest episode of You Are Significant, Darlene talks with Christian speaker, retired educator, and author Lesley Carney about her book, From Bitter to Blessed: How God Transforms Pain into Purpose.

Lesley shares how the painful loss of a relationship with her granddaughter left her grieving a “living loss.” For seven and a half years, unresolved hurt, anger, and unforgiveness began stealing her joy and changing who she was.

Then God showed her that forgiveness wasn’t about allowing someone else to win—it was about releasing herself from the prison of bitterness.

Lesley shares how she learned to:

• Recognize when buried pain is still affecting her life
• Stop replaying the hurt and believing the enemy’s lies
• Name the wound and surrender it to God
• Choose forgiveness even without an apology
• Allow God to transform pain into healing, joy, and purpose

If you are carrying hurt from rejection, family conflict, loss, betrayal, or even a painful experience from childhood, this conversation will remind you that you are not alone—and it is never too late to begin healing.

God already knows what hurts. Your first step may simply be saying, “Lord, I’m ready to be ready.”

💜 Connect With Darlene:

📩 Email: HelloDarleneLee@gmail.com
📘 Facebook: Connect with Darlene
📸 Instagram: @thedarlenelee
🎵 TikTok: @thedarlenelee
▶️ YouTube: You Are Significant Podcast
🔗 Linktree: All of Darlene’s Links

Connect With Lesley Carney:

Email:lesleycarneyspeaks@gmail.com

Lesley's Book

From Bitter To Blessed:How God Transforms Pain Into Purpose

Purchase your copy here https://a.co/d/07ABheAX

Lesley Carney Speaks

https://www.facebook.com/LesleyCarneySpeaks

What if failure isn’t proof that you should quit?

What if failure is actually part of the way forward?

In this episode of You Are Significant, Darlene shares a very personal story about a goal she desperately wanted to reach—and the morning the scale kept saying failure.

She had to hit a specific number to qualify to walk in the KOPS parade at TOPS State Recognition Days. She had worked for it. She had prepared for it. But that morning, the number wasn’t there.

So she tried again.

And again.

And again.

Until she succeeded.

But this episode isn’t really about a number on a scale. It’s about what happens when you’re working toward something that matters and the results keep telling you it’s not working.

Whether you’re building a business, raising children, working on your health, pursuing a dream, or simply trying to become the woman God is calling you to be, failure does not have to be the end of the story.

Sometimes the greatest return comes from what failure teaches us.

And sometimes you have to keep failing until you succeed.

Connect With Darlene

Email: HelloDarleneLee@gmail.com
Facebook: Darlene on Facebook
Instagram: @thedarlenelee on Instagram
TikTok: @thedarlenelee on TikTok
YouTube: You Are Significant on YouTube
Linktree: Darlene Lee's Links