Have you ever found yourself in a relentless battle with your body image? For the longest time, that was our reality. We grappled with body image issues since our turbulent teenage years. In this heartfelt conversation, we delve into our personal experiences, revealing the truth about body image, and how our upbringing significantly influenced those perspectives. More importantly, we expose the liberating journey towards self-acceptance and gratitude, proving how these practices can shift those deeply ingrained patterns and aid in renewing our minds.
In the second part of our conversation, we explore the transformative practice of self-compassion and kindness. We've experienced firsthand how this practice has not only improved our lives but also empowered us to make healthier decisions for our bodies. We highlight the opportunity to reshape our thoughts about our bodies during difficult seasons. We leave you with a renewed perspective - one where kindness, rewards and gratitude align with God's perception of us. Join us in transforming the narrative surrounding body image, fueled by the limitless power of gratitude.
Learn more about our Revelation Within Community: https://www.revelationwithin.org
Have you ever found yourself in a relentless battle with your body image? For the longest time, that was our reality. We grappled with body image issues since our turbulent teenage years. In this heartfelt conversation, we delve into our personal experiences, revealing the truth about body image, and how our upbringing significantly influenced those perspectives. More importantly, we expose the liberating journey towards self-acceptance and gratitude, proving how these practices can shift those deeply ingrained patterns and aid in renewing our minds.
In the second part of our conversation, we explore the transformative practice of self-compassion and kindness. We've experienced firsthand how this practice has not only improved our lives but also empowered us to make healthier decisions for our bodies. We highlight the opportunity to reshape our thoughts about our bodies during difficult seasons. We leave you with a renewed perspective - one where kindness, rewards and gratitude align with God's perception of us. Join us in transforming the narrative surrounding body image, fueled by the limitless power of gratitude.
Learn more about our Revelation Within Community: https://www.revelationwithin.org
Hi and welcome to Revelation Within on the Go. I'm Heidi Bilesma-Epperson, one of your hosts and the owner and lead coach of the Revelation Within Ministry.
Speaker 2:And I'm Christina Motley, your other host, also a Revelation Within coach and Heidi's partner in all things Revelation Within, and we are so happy to invite you to this episode of our podcast, revelation Within on the Go. Welcome, we're so glad you're here.
Speaker 1:We are glad you're here. Well, we thought we might broach the topic of body image. Are you sure you want to talk about? This I'm pretty sure I don't. No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 2:Oh no, we do because we have good news and we have hopeful things to share absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think a few weeks ago on one of our other podcasts, christina and I both shared our body image truthless. It was the episode titled Declare a Truth with your Body, and absolutely the good news is we do not have to be at war. But even better news is we can think God's thoughts about our body and we know that he has made our bodies beautiful and amazing and incredible. And if you listen to our episode on the neuroscientific ways that gratitude affects our bodies, you heard 10 more reasons that we should think our bodies are amazing.
Speaker 2:So, Heidi, when you say body image, I mean what does that?
Speaker 1:mean the image you have of your body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's how we see ourselves, right. I mean, those are two words that I've been throwing around for a really long time Because really I can remember being 14 and having issues with the way I looked. I had a best friend who was my next door neighbor and she and I had very, very different body types. Our shapes were different regardless of how much we weighed. There was no issue there, it was our shapes. And I remember thinking about body image even back then, you know, and thinking I should look more like her, my body shape should look more like hers. So this is a topic that is very near and dear to my heart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, christina and I have been doing a lot of work so that we could have renewed minds about the way we think about our bodies, and both of us have our own unique struggles with this, but God has been meeting us. Why don't you tell us how God's meeting you and renewing your mind about your body?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, so this is something that is you know. As I mentioned, it's something I've been struggling with for a long, long, long time. I realized not too long ago I think it was you and I, heidi, were talking and we also have this wonderful class going on, mind Renewal 201. That's all about body image and mind renewal, so it's been really fresh on my mind. We've been thinking about it, praying about it, walking other people through it, and then my one-on-one coaching ladies as well, and I thought you know what? Let me just think back for a minute. Was I ever at peace with my body? I'm thinking back to all the diets that I went on. I'm thinking back to all the exercise plans. I'm thinking back to the shape shifting that I've done, where I've been more or larger or medium size or whatever. Let me think back to that moment that I found peace with my body. It's not there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too. Even if I had the number on the scale, that had been my so-called goal, it's like okay, great, but that's not enough.
Speaker 2:No, because I was always able to find something to criticize and I was never at a place of peace with my body. So I thought, you know what? Let's do a little experiment. Let's see how things change in my body image, the way I view myself, if I am grateful for what God has given me. And Heidi, you created that wonderful body scan audio. That was an exercise in gratitude for our bodies and I love that and I listened to it several times and went through that activity. And then also one of my favorite mind-ridden tools is what I call from head to toe and basically just thanking God for all of the parts of my body, from my head to my toes. Maybe when I'm on a walk or late at night I'm thinking about these things and I'm practicing gratitude for each body part and it's allowed me to do and enjoy how it's allowed me to serve others, how it's allowed me to love the people in my life. And wow it's made a huge difference.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what's the difference it's made? Tell us what that looks like. I mean, we kind of have a grasp of what the before was, but what difference do you see now?
Speaker 2:What I'm realizing and I'm seeing this also in the ladies that we work with is that the more I renew my mind with gratitude about my body, how it works, how it functions, how wonderfully and fearfully I'm made, that I'm made in God's image, that I'm his masterpiece, you know, and he doesn't make mistakes the more I renew my mind with these thoughts that are from the word of God, the more I want to take care of my body, support it, be kind to it, be compassionate to my body. That's what I want to do. That's what what the natural result has been. So it's easier for me to do things and to make choices that care well for my body if I'm filled with gratitude. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Oh, it makes perfect sense. I'm seeing the same change in me as well, and so I wonder if it's pretty consistent. As I practice gratitude for my body, whether it's like through that body scan audio that I created or any number of other ways, the truth lists I've created about my body and whatnot I find that I really do have the felt sense of gratitude well up inside of me for the body that I have right now, and I never even had that when I worked out all the time and was really fit. I never felt the way I do now about my body, which is crazy. It's so God, it is so obviously God, and it's subsequently I find a new way of thinking coming along in my mind and it is so. What would be the kindest way to express gratitude to my body in this moment, when a choice is before me, a choice to move my body, a choice to rest my body, a choice to feed my body? What would express kindness and esteem and gratitude? And it might look the same. What I'm doing now might look similar to what I did previously, with an attitude I must change my body. But I'm letting go of the idea of changing my body and, in doing so, grabbing a hold of. I want to be kind to my body. It might look the same, but on the inside it's gentle, I don't know. It's authentic, it's appreciative of God, it's aware of God. It's just totally different.
Speaker 2:Well, because for how many years and I know you did this to Heidi, you and I both, and so many of our listeners, I'm sure we thought I have to be harsh with myself, I have to demand these things of myself, I have to be uncomfortable. No pain, no gain, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I have to be pushing myself in this way, Otherwise I will never change. Where does that come from what is not truth? From the Word of God? Certainly.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:God created our bodies in his own image. I mean, I know I just said that, but that blows my mind. I don't really understand it, but that is amazing to me, Christina.
Speaker 1:What about the person who might really love what we're saying and say, yeah, okay, I really love the idea of feeling good about being in my body now, before it's ever become this perfect specimen or whatever, but they're worried that if they accept their body the way that it is, that they will stay on a path of destructive eating and destructive behaving? You know license, they will overeat, they will grab for foods that their bodies aren't happiest with. What would we say to those people who I can't? I can't accept this body the way that it is, because if I do that, that's like giving up.
Speaker 2:Well, number one, I would say what have you got to lose? The mode that I was in for so many years. That was torturous, that was hopeless, that was full of despair. It was destructive toward me and my body and my mind, my thoughts about myself, and it affected everything I did. Everywhere I went, I was thinking about how I was comparing myself to others. I was always uncomfortable in my own skin.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I pretended that it didn't affect me, but it sure did, all day long, at work, in the grocery store, at the picnic, you know, at the church picnic, whatever event it was or even just at home in front of my own mirror. Wouldn't it be worth it to go to God with this and say do you have something better for me? What is better for me? Because when I go to the Lord, he receives me with love, with kindness, with patience, with compassion. So if I want to be more like him which I do, and those of us who know the Lord, we want to be more like him then why am I being so harsh, mean and actually cruel to myself? I don't know. I mean I feel like in the last couple months, like I said, heidi and I really been focusing on this personally and in a class and with people that were coaching.
Speaker 1:I feel like we've been doing our own experiments with this really, yes, yes, and I've been teaching a class on Tuesday nights going through the book the Body Revelation by Elisa Keaton and yes, I do recommend the book and I have found it's congruent with where God has been taking our ministry, definitely along the path of having the mind of Christ, thinking with the mind of Christ about my body now, right now, right in this minute, instead of somewhere out there. I will accept my body when dot, dot, dot. Okay, when what? When I finally am a certain size? Well, no, because history says you won't accept yourself. Then I didn't and I know a lot of people haven't. So, by having the mind of Christ, we're saying thank you for this, right here, right now, thank you for the way that my body works and all of the narrow scientific things about it and the physical things about it. Really, that's a beautiful place to be. We take the pressure off and instead of I gotta do this, what happens?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it feels easier, it feels more natural. I want to. Yes kind to my body. I want to please the Lord by being grateful for what he has so generously given me. And if you flip it around, this is what I noticed when I look back on my life the more I have criticized my body, the more I have been saying awful, mean, critical things about my body, the less I want to take care of it because I'm grateful for it. I wish I had something else. I wish I looked a different way. That's what I used to think all the time. Right, I made this body for me, this body with these shapes and these attributes and features. He made it for me and he made it carefully. He wasn't rushing, he wasn't in a hurry, he didn't mess it up. I mean, that's what I used to think. I have to admit, I used to think that he messed me up and so I had to find a way to look like I was supposed to look. But that's not who God is.
Speaker 1:God is bigger than that I know a lot of people say well, yeah, okay, so he made me fairfully and wonderfully in my mother's womb. I buy that, but I have messed me up. I am now in a body that I have totally messed up. What would you say to them? That it's beyond, it's a lost cause, because this isn't God's view of my body, is not that? It's beautiful, it's that. What have you done to what I left in your charge?
Speaker 2:The first thing I would say is I get that, I understand. I have been there and I know how that feels. It's a really, really awful, hopeless place, because you're blaming yourself and really for me, the whole focus was on myself. I messed up, I couldn't do it, I wasn't grateful, whatever you want to say. So here we are at this place where we have a choice. We have a choice to do something different and we can think God's thoughts after him about our body and things will change. You will want to take care of your body. You will want to appreciate it and tell God wow, lord, I'm so grateful for how well my arms work. A lot of people that we talk to they say you know, I just don't know how to increase my want to quote unquote.
Speaker 1:I don't really want to.
Speaker 2:I'm stuck, I feel like I'm entitled and I want things a certain way. I want a quick fix. I'm struggling with my want to here. It is yes, this is the one to renewing your mind, and a lot of that has to be gratitude and that's straight out of God. You know what he's told us to do. He's made a way for us.
Speaker 1:Right. I have found that, as my perspective on my body seems to align more and more with God's thoughts about it, that I have wanted to, as I shared, express kindness to myself in the way that I take care of my body, but what I've also had to do, because I have had for years a faulty view of what kindness to my body looks like I've had to go to God about, okay. So, god, what is kindness to my body? What does it look like? What are your thoughts about this? Okay, so here's the scenario for me when I grew up and I've shared this on the podcast before Okay, there was very definite this versus this set up in the kitchen and it was the vegetables and all of that was on one side and anything that tasted good on the other. The vegetables tasted bad. These desserts tasted good, so the desserts were the reward for eating the things that tasted bad. That was my childhood understanding of food. There were two categories the ones I wanted, the ones I didn't. The ones that tasted good were the ones I wanted, the ones that didn't taste good. With the ones I didn't, those were all green. The foods I wanted that tasted good were not, and so I grew up with the sense that reward means I have this food category and that's where I get my reward. If I want to be nice to myself, if I want, to quote, treat myself, it's going to come out of that category the foods that are all sweet, that all taste good, that I want, that we're always off limits unless I ate all of these other things, and as an adult I don't have anybody telling me I have to eat the vegetables first. So this set me up a whole lot to be an adult who struggles I say it in the present tense with a massive sweet tooth. But most important, I think, is the thought behind it. Do I think of treating myself or rewarding myself or being kind to myself the way God does? I want to give that to him as well. So I'm renewing my mind about my body, to think God's thoughts about my body. But I'm also renewing my mind about what does it mean to reward myself? What does it mean to be kind to myself? What does it mean to give myself some sort of a treat? Are they only food rewards? Are they all sweet? What does it mean? And then I'm seeing God do a lot of work through that.
Speaker 2:Oh, I just think that's amazing and it's beautiful and it really lines up with who God is, with his character, so much more than what we've been doing all these years with the dieting mentality of pounding ourselves somehow into a certain shape. And for me it's not just the weight, it's not just the number on the scale, very much, like I said before, my shape and also, you know, aging comes into that, how our bodies are changing as we age. I mean, all of that is natural and normal. So I was kind of joking about this, heidi, I know you heard me say it in one of our classes, I think the other day. But I have been practicing and renewing my mind about this, not just by myself and by my, about my body, but when I go to a public place, replacing my old patterns. My old patterns were to compare and to find everyone that looks like I should look like that kind of thing. But now I've just been practicing. I go, I'm in the library or I'm at the airport or whatever where there's a lot of people, the grocery store, and just in my mind, by myself, I look at a person and I say fearfully and wonderfully made, the next person over here looks totally different different size, different shape, different. That person is fearfully and wonderfully made. Next one fearfully and wonderfully made. How about her? Fearfully and wonderfully made? How about him? Made in God's image? Made in God's image, fearfully, wonderfully made. We all are. And the more I practice that, the more I am having the mind of Christ about my own body. Yes, it has been such a struggle for me I can't even tell you my whole life. And you're feeling freedom about it now, yeah. Well, I have felt some freedom for quite a while, but what has really challenged me lately, I think, are the changes that are coming with perimenopause and menopause yeah, feeling different. Everything feels a little different, right, and there's some shifting going on, and I know that that's normal. It's God's design.
Speaker 1:I was online and I don't remember I saw this ad pop up, like you sometimes do, and it was for a dress and it was just really pretty and I don't have many dresses and so I clicked to look at it on the website that hosted it and saw reviews about this dress and there was a comment at the top about how wonderful it is that this dress has sleeves, because my upper arms aren't allowed out in public. And I thought, oh, she's basically saying it's a good thing that I can cover them, because they're not allowed, my upper arms aren't allowed to be seen and I just thought I want to be free of hiding anything, because who's going to judge? me? I don't know the answer to that. I remember years ago and I was smaller than I am now. I remember it was spring and friends of mine and I were going to go play tennis. We were going to go play tennis and I did everything I could to find something else I could wear other than shorts. Because I did not want to show my legs. Well, you know, it's hot, you're even hotter on a tennis court because it just radiates heat, even in May in Sacramento, Anyway, and it's like how many years have I lived limiting myself? How many years have I hated myself in that way? Or overheated myself by wearing more clothing than was even appropriate, on a tennis court, for instance. I didn't do that very often and I quickly left that idea behind. But even now I find myself, I'm enjoying the summer in shorts and a t-shirt. I am I'm not hiding, and it feels very liberating. It really does, because I think God wants me to really get that he's given me a gift move as I'm able to enjoy, as I'm able to and not miss a thing because of wanting to hide for some reason.
Speaker 2:OK, so here's a gentle challenge for you, and Heidi and I have already challenged ourselves, so we're in it with you. If you are a person who has hated your body for years and years, if you are a person that regularly tells yourself very negative, mean awful things about your body, maybe you want to try some gratitude. Go to the Lord, invite him in, say God, you made my body. I am really struggling with this and have for a long time. Now you help me with this, and then be intentional about practicing gratitude about your body and see what happens. Maybe just try it for a week. If you love it, try it for a month. Heidi and I have been really doing this now for a couple of months. I'm going to just challenge you to give it a try and see if it doesn't help you with your want to and with just learning how to be compassionate and kind with yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a beautiful idea. I hope you'll take Christina up on her challenge.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, we are so glad that you've been here. Thanks for joining us today and I look forward to seeing you at our next podcast episode of Revelation Within oh bye bye, let's go.
Speaker 1:All right, see you next time. Bye, bye now.