May 27, 2025 • 17 mins
In this episode, Leanne explores the question: “What would it look like to trust God with my body?” Drawing from her personal journey and the experiences of many women, Leanne delves into the idea that trusting God with our bodies isn't about achieving perfection but about surrendering control and embracing our God-given worth.
Leanne outlines five transformative shifts that can lead to healing: ceasing the pursuit of worthiness through self-fixing, discerning God's voice over shame, moving from control to stewardship, partnering with God in our journey, and anchoring our identity in Christ rather than our reflection. This episode serves as a compassionate guide for those seeking freedom from body image struggles, reminding them that peace and healing are possible through a partnership with God
HOST: Leanne Ellington // StresslessEating.com // @leanneellington
To learn more about Leanne, head over to www.LeanneEllington.com, and to share your thoughts, questions, feedback, or guest suggestions instantly, head on over to www.WhatsGodGotToDoWithIt.com.
Follow Leanne on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leanneellington/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
If you want to go on a journey. If you're skeptical,
don't worry. Now get a preach, gonna keep it clean
and talk to me and recall where faith needs fills
nature and get in touch with your creator with a bacon,
love and jew She even speaks Hebrew. What's that, Dona?
(00:31):
What's that? This little sabosation? You should talking transformation?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Dont? Hey?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Hey, welcome back to what God got to do with it?
Lee in here and I'm so glad that you're here today.
And today we're going to dive into something that might
hit close to home for a lot of you, because
it absolutely does for me. It actually is kind of
a piggyback on what we talked about last week, where
we talked about this idea of what a food in
my body was a spiritual battle. And so now we're
going to unpack the question of like what would it
(01:06):
actually look like to trust God with my body and
with my health journey? And so if your immediate reaction
is anything like mine used to be, like like wait
a minute, but what does God have to do with
my body image or the number on the scale, then
I want to lovingly invite you to just lean in today,
because this right here, this was one of the biggest
missing pieces in my own journey to healing my body
(01:27):
image and breaking free from my food struggles and disordered eating.
And so if this is speaking to you, grab your coffee,
a cozy blanket, you know, pop in those earbuds if
you're on a walk, and let's just have a little
heart to heart. And I want to start by naming
something that many of us feel but we don't say
it out loud, or maybe we just don't know that
it's a thing because it's been in our blind spot
(01:48):
for so long. But for so many women, our bodies
feel like a battle ground, but we don't even realize that.
We think we're like, oh, I'm taking care of my body,
I'm getting healthy, but actually we're kind of like at
war with our bodies. So if you're anything like me,
and you've spent years trying to fix or shrink or
hide or you know, micro manage your body because you
know you've done the diets and the workouts and the
(02:09):
comparison traps, or you know, maybe even spiritualize it sometimes
by saying things like my body as a temple while
deep down you know, still feeling shame or frustration when
you looked in the mirror. I know that inner war
all too well. And I used to believe that trusting
God with my body meant praying for the willpower to
stay on a diet, or you know, asking him to
(02:30):
fix me so I could finally feel worthy. And this
is the kind of conversation. Remember I wasn't necessarily having
it with air quotes God because I didn't have know
that I had God in my life. It was more
just like universe spirit, greater power, whatever I was saying
at the time, Like I just I thought that I
had to do it through logic and reason alone, right,
Or I thought that that meant like praying for more willpower.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
And so here's what I've come to realize. Trusting God
with your body is not about achieving the air quotes
perfect body or praying yourself into a smaller gene size.
It is about surrender, and it's about asking, like God,
what do you see when you look at me? And
what would it look like to live from that truth
instead of the lies that I've been carrying. And so
(03:15):
here's what trusting your body with God or trusting God
with your body is not. And let's talk about what
this doesn't mean, because I know how our inner minds work,
like we're often like, Okay, I'm supposed to just accept
myself and never try to change or improve, like we
think accepting means giving up, right, And it doesn't mean that.
It doesn't mean to give up on your health. It
(03:37):
just means that we stop equating our health or our
body shape or our weight with our identity or our value,
Like two things can be true at the same time.
You can be unhealthy with your health and your weight,
but not let that take away or strip you of
your identity or your worth. And it doesn't mean that
we stop growing or striving or looking for goals, but
it does mean that we stop chasing healing from a
(03:59):
place of not enoughness. Because what happens when you try
to heal your relationship with your body from a place
of self rejection, Well, you end up performing or hustling
or trying to earn your own love or earn God's love.
And honestly, that's not freedom, that's just another form of bondage.
And so let's get into it, like, what does it
(04:19):
actually look like to trust God with your body? And
so here are five powerful shifts. They're just they're simple,
they're practical, they're really just mindset shifts that change everything
for me, and I want to just lay them out
for you. And the first one is this idea of
like being done trying to fix yourself air quotes, fix
yourself into worthiness. And so let's just call this out
up front, Like, we live in a culture that screams
(04:42):
you're not enough from every angle, like you're not thin enough,
or toned enough, or disciplined enough, or if you're a
woman of faith, like maybe not even holy enough, or
you know, grateful for the body that you have. And
so that is a heavy burden to carry and one
that you're not met to carry. And if you're anything
like I was, you internalize those messages early. And so
(05:05):
for me it showed up as as in believing that
if I could just lose enough weight or finally get
control of my food struggles, then I'd be worthy of
love or attention or you know, as I grew older,
it's like being used by God to share my gifts,
Like I didn't find myself worthy of those things because
of my weight, right, I truly thought that, you know,
once my body was fixed, then I could start living.
(05:28):
And of course I'm putting fixed in air quotes, but
here is the hard truth that I had to learn,
and I still remind myself of it often. Worthiness isn't
something that you earn. It is something that is yours
because you inherited it. Okay, and you were created in
the image of God. You were knit together in your
mother's womb by a loving creator who already declared you
(05:50):
very good, as it shows us in Genesis one thirty one.
And so trusting God with your body begins with just
laying down the belief that you have to achieve your
way to worth through your appearance, right, And it means asking,
what if I stopped chasing approval and started living from
acceptance instead, like the receivership of what you've already inherited.
(06:13):
And so that doesn't mean that you never grow or change.
It just means that your growth is rooted in love,
not in lack. And when your growth is rooted from
that place, that is when everything changes, right, and you
can learn to discern the voice of shame. Right, you
can learn to discern God's voice from the voice of shame.
(06:35):
That big distinction and that's the second thing. So this
one is so crucial because let's be honest, when it
comes to our bodies, most of us are walking around
with a lot of shame, just rambling on autopilot. And
if we're not careful, we'll confuse that voice of shame
for the voice of God. And so here's a quick
way to tell the difference. Okay, the voice of God
(06:57):
convicts us but never cans us, and the voice of
shame is the one that accuses and beerates and belittles. Okay,
So God's voice says, you know you are mine, you
are enough, just come to me when you feel this way,
and shame says you're disgusting, or you should be further along,
or you'll never get this right. And so trusting God
(07:19):
with your body means learning to just pause and ask like,
is this God's voice or is this just my own
inner critic running its show right? And if it's not
God's voice, you don't have to keep listening. And I
remember a season when every time I looked in the mirror,
I heard words like lazy or failure, or like your
body's messed up or broken. And one day I heard
(07:42):
this loving whisper from God. And obviously I didn't know
at the time it was God, but now I do.
And he just said, you know, that's not how I
talk about you, and that's not how I look at you.
And so if the voice in your head doesn't sound
like grace, it is not God's voice. Okay. The next
is shifting from this idea of control to stewardship, which
(08:05):
is a lot of like how the faith based way
of saying it says it, but I like to talk
about it in terms of stewardship but also like personal responsibility.
And so this one hits deep for me because I
used to white knuckle my way through every new diet
plan or fitness regime, just believing that if I could
just control my body hard enough, I'd finally feel safe
(08:25):
and worthy. But here is the distinction. Control is rooted
in fear right and stewardship and taking responsibility for your
health and body is rooted in trust, or in a
lot of cases, it's learning how to trust yourself again
and seeing where there's a gap where you don't trust
yourself right and taking responsibility for that. But also, you know,
trusting God with your body means surrendering the illusion that
(08:49):
you're in charge of all of the outcomes, and it
means asking, you know, what does it look like to
honor this body as a gift and a responsibility, not
as a problem to fix or a burden? Right, Like
again taking this conversation from like, oh, my body's a
burden to like, no, it's a responsibility, but it's also
a gift and I can stored it well. And stewardship
(09:10):
is not passive, right. It means that you care and
you nourish and you move your body with intention. But
the distinction is it's not motivated by punishment, which I
think a lot of us learned. It's motivated by partnership
with God. And it's a posture shift from like I've
got to control my body in order to be okay
to you know what, I'm going to care for my
(09:31):
body because I already am okay. And that is a
massive shift state right or state shift, I should say
the next idea or the next part of this, And
the next step is really, what if it was instead
of trying to do this all alone, you actually started
to partner with God on this right, And Like, this
was a total game changer for me because I used
(09:52):
to pray that God would fix me, right, But I
never actually invited him into the process, right. I like prayed,
but didn't ask God to meet me in the process.
And I didn't talk to him before meals, and I
didn't ask for help when I was binge eating in secret,
and I kept him on the outside of the struggle,
almost like I didn't want him to see how messy
it was. Like that's again where my shame showed up.
(10:14):
And here's the reality, Like he already saw, right. He
wasn't shocked or disappointed. He was just waiting to be
invited in. Or at least that's what I say. And
so partnering with God might sound like, hey, God, like
just help me be gentle with myself today. Or it
might say be like, you know, God, give me the
wisdom to know what my body actually needs right now
because I've been ignoring those needs for so long in
(10:35):
favor of chasing skinny or chasing weight loss that was
my big thing. Or just God, show me how to
move and eat and live in ways that bring peace,
not pressure, not using food or exercise to punish myself, right,
And so you're not in this alone. But it might
feel like you are, and God is not expecting you
to muscle through healing with willpower either. He wants to
(10:56):
walk this part of it with you as well. And
so maybe just ask yourself, like, what is one little
thing I can do to partner with God? Or one
little question I can ask God so that I can
partner with God today in how I care for my body.
And then of course it's about anchoring yourself in the
identity that is designed for you, like anchoring your identity
(11:19):
in God, in Christ, not in your reflection. Right, And
so we've got to talk about identity here because let's
be honest, when your identity is tied to your appearance,
your weight, your fitness routine, and here's the distinction. Okay,
you are allowed to care about your appearance, your weight,
and your fitness routine, right, but when all of your worth,
(11:40):
like let's look at it like a worthiness bucket, right,
if all of your bucket is filled with your identity
being rooted in appearance, weight, fitness routine, money, I mean,
you name it, anything outside of you. That's when you
feel empty and meaningless, so you can have you are
allowed to value those things, but if it's all you value,
it's like building your house on sand, right, because your
(12:02):
body's going to change, and seasons shift and life throws
curveballs that we didn't know to even look for. But
who you are in Christ that doesn't move, it doesn't
have to at least, and if it does move, that's
another conversation for another day. But that's the part that
doesn't move. It's about you receiving it. And you are chosen,
you are loved, you are his first. Peter two nine
(12:25):
tells us this, so does Romans eight thirty eight through
nine thirty nine, that when you trust God with your body,
you get to stop just simply defining yourself just by
numbers and pant sizes and calories and away ins, and
start defining yourself by truth with a capital T. Right.
And that identity is what gives you stability, That identity
(12:47):
is what gives you confidence, and that identity is what
gives you the freedom to enjoy your body instead of
obsess over it. And so one of my favorite beliefs
that I just kind of remind myself of is like
when what I say in the mirror might change, but
what God sees in me never will. It will never change.
And so the next time the mirror tries to tell
(13:08):
you who you are, just remind it that your identity
is rooted in something far deeper and far more eternal.
And so let's get practical, Like what does it look
like to start this week start trusting God with your body?
So it could just start each day with like a
little body prayer, right, like something as simple as God,
help me take care of this body that you have
given me, and give me love and wisdom to do that.
(13:31):
We talk about interrupting negative self talk with truth, not
with roses and butterflies, not with positive affirmations, but with
truth that meets you where you are right. And so
again it's beyond the scope of this conversation, but like
if you just had three go to scriptures that speak
life over your body and keep them somewhere visible, that
will transform you. And I do invite you to find
(13:51):
scripture that really resonates with you, because if somebody else
gives you scripture, it's great, But if it doesn't land
with you in that particular circumstance or that cond text,
it's not going to create the positive neuro associations that
you need to transform on a brain level. So make
sure that anytime we talk about scripture. Anytime I'm giving
you scripture, right, fine, ones, if the ones I'm giving
you resonate, steal it, take it, have it. It's yours, right,
(14:14):
But do not feel like you have to take something
just because somebody else gave it to you. Find what
resonates with you. Resonance is everything, okay? But then also,
like if you're a journaler, right, what if you journaled
on this question? Like, what would change if I stopped
trying to earn my worth from my appearance and instead
just focused on receiving it from God? Like, right now,
(14:36):
you're feeling like you have to earn it, and that's
where the conversation is, that's where the focus is. But
what if the focus went on just receiving it? Like,
what would change for you?
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Right?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
And if you are struggling with this, please hear me out.
You are not failing. You are just learning and God
is patient with your process, right and trusting God with
your body. It is absolutely a journey, and it takes patience,
and it takes courage, and it takes grace and a
whole lot of unlearning what society taught us. But it's
worth it because on the other side of all of that,
(15:08):
that is where you get to have the peace, peace
with food, peace with your reflection in the mirror, and
peace with the one who made you right. So that
is it for today. So glad to have you here,
and if you do want to alongside this, alongside What's
God Got to Do with it? Stressless Eating is the
work that I do with women to help them rid
(15:28):
themselves of decades of binge eating, body dysmorphia, self image
and identity mismatch that's keeping them stuck in a food
and body prison. Really helping women take the stress, the emotion,
the obsession out of food and body and really take
a brain based, nervous system, identity, self image approach to
the problem rather than trying to solve it with food,
fitness or weight loss. So if you're interested in that,
(15:51):
head on over to Stressless Eating dot com. Because I've
laid out the five step process that I teach my clients.
I've heeled back the curtain, left no stone unturned. Go
ahead and check that out over on Stressless Eating dot
Com And we will be back for more God Pod
next week. Bye, We'll be back with more What's God
Got to Do With it, But in the meantime, I
(16:13):
would definitely love to hear from you, so just tell
me where you are in your story or maybe what
questions you have, like where do you feel you need
clarity or support or wisdom in your own journey. I
definitely want to hear from you, So head on over
to What's God Got to Do with It? Dot com
and scroll down to the form to share your thoughts,
(16:33):
your questions, your feedback, and you can do that instantly.
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(16:55):
and while you're there, be sure to rate and review
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God Got to Do With It? Is an iHeartRadio podcast
on the Amy Brown Podcast Network. It's written and hosted
by me Leanne Ellington, executive produced by Elizabeth Fozzio, post
production and editing by Houston Tilley, and original music written
(17:17):
by Cheryl Stark and produced by Adam Stark,
If you want to go on a journey. If you're skeptical,
don't worry. Now get a preach, gonna keep it clean
and talk to me and recall where faith needs fills
nature and get in touch with your creator with a bacon,
love and jew She even speaks Hebrew. What's that, Dona?
(00:31):
What's that? This little sabosation? You should talking transformation?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Dont? Hey?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Hey, welcome back to what God got to do with it?
Lee in here and I'm so glad that you're here today.
And today we're going to dive into something that might
hit close to home for a lot of you, because
it absolutely does for me. It actually is kind of
a piggyback on what we talked about last week, where
we talked about this idea of what a food in
my body was a spiritual battle. And so now we're
going to unpack the question of like what would it
(01:06):
actually look like to trust God with my body and
with my health journey? And so if your immediate reaction
is anything like mine used to be, like like wait
a minute, but what does God have to do with
my body image or the number on the scale, then
I want to lovingly invite you to just lean in today,
because this right here, this was one of the biggest
missing pieces in my own journey to healing my body
(01:27):
image and breaking free from my food struggles and disordered eating.
And so if this is speaking to you, grab your coffee,
a cozy blanket, you know, pop in those earbuds if
you're on a walk, and let's just have a little
heart to heart. And I want to start by naming
something that many of us feel but we don't say
it out loud, or maybe we just don't know that
it's a thing because it's been in our blind spot
(01:48):
for so long. But for so many women, our bodies
feel like a battle ground, but we don't even realize that.
We think we're like, oh, I'm taking care of my body,
I'm getting healthy, but actually we're kind of like at
war with our bodies. So if you're anything like me,
and you've spent years trying to fix or shrink or
hide or you know, micro manage your body because you
know you've done the diets and the workouts and the
(02:09):
comparison traps, or you know, maybe even spiritualize it sometimes
by saying things like my body as a temple while
deep down you know, still feeling shame or frustration when
you looked in the mirror. I know that inner war
all too well. And I used to believe that trusting
God with my body meant praying for the willpower to
stay on a diet, or you know, asking him to
(02:30):
fix me so I could finally feel worthy. And this
is the kind of conversation. Remember I wasn't necessarily having
it with air quotes God because I didn't have know
that I had God in my life. It was more
just like universe spirit, greater power, whatever I was saying
at the time, Like I just I thought that I
had to do it through logic and reason alone, right,
Or I thought that that meant like praying for more willpower.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
And so here's what I've come to realize. Trusting God
with your body is not about achieving the air quotes
perfect body or praying yourself into a smaller gene size.
It is about surrender, and it's about asking, like God,
what do you see when you look at me? And
what would it look like to live from that truth
instead of the lies that I've been carrying. And so
(03:15):
here's what trusting your body with God or trusting God
with your body is not. And let's talk about what
this doesn't mean, because I know how our inner minds work,
like we're often like, Okay, I'm supposed to just accept
myself and never try to change or improve, like we
think accepting means giving up, right, And it doesn't mean that.
It doesn't mean to give up on your health. It
(03:37):
just means that we stop equating our health or our
body shape or our weight with our identity or our value,
Like two things can be true at the same time.
You can be unhealthy with your health and your weight,
but not let that take away or strip you of
your identity or your worth. And it doesn't mean that
we stop growing or striving or looking for goals, but
it does mean that we stop chasing healing from a
(03:59):
place of not enoughness. Because what happens when you try
to heal your relationship with your body from a place
of self rejection, Well, you end up performing or hustling
or trying to earn your own love or earn God's love.
And honestly, that's not freedom, that's just another form of bondage.
And so let's get into it, like, what does it
(04:19):
actually look like to trust God with your body? And
so here are five powerful shifts. They're just they're simple,
they're practical, they're really just mindset shifts that change everything
for me, and I want to just lay them out
for you. And the first one is this idea of
like being done trying to fix yourself air quotes, fix
yourself into worthiness. And so let's just call this out
up front, Like, we live in a culture that screams
(04:42):
you're not enough from every angle, like you're not thin enough,
or toned enough, or disciplined enough, or if you're a
woman of faith, like maybe not even holy enough, or
you know, grateful for the body that you have. And
so that is a heavy burden to carry and one
that you're not met to carry. And if you're anything
like I was, you internalize those messages early. And so
(05:05):
for me it showed up as as in believing that
if I could just lose enough weight or finally get
control of my food struggles, then I'd be worthy of
love or attention or you know, as I grew older,
it's like being used by God to share my gifts,
Like I didn't find myself worthy of those things because
of my weight, right, I truly thought that, you know,
once my body was fixed, then I could start living.
(05:28):
And of course I'm putting fixed in air quotes, but
here is the hard truth that I had to learn,
and I still remind myself of it often. Worthiness isn't
something that you earn. It is something that is yours
because you inherited it. Okay, and you were created in
the image of God. You were knit together in your
mother's womb by a loving creator who already declared you
(05:50):
very good, as it shows us in Genesis one thirty one.
And so trusting God with your body begins with just
laying down the belief that you have to achieve your
way to worth through your appearance, right, And it means asking,
what if I stopped chasing approval and started living from
acceptance instead, like the receivership of what you've already inherited.
(06:13):
And so that doesn't mean that you never grow or change.
It just means that your growth is rooted in love,
not in lack. And when your growth is rooted from
that place, that is when everything changes, right, and you
can learn to discern the voice of shame. Right, you
can learn to discern God's voice from the voice of shame.
(06:35):
That big distinction and that's the second thing. So this
one is so crucial because let's be honest, when it
comes to our bodies, most of us are walking around
with a lot of shame, just rambling on autopilot. And
if we're not careful, we'll confuse that voice of shame
for the voice of God. And so here's a quick
way to tell the difference. Okay, the voice of God
(06:57):
convicts us but never cans us, and the voice of
shame is the one that accuses and beerates and belittles. Okay,
So God's voice says, you know you are mine, you
are enough, just come to me when you feel this way,
and shame says you're disgusting, or you should be further along,
or you'll never get this right. And so trusting God
(07:19):
with your body means learning to just pause and ask like,
is this God's voice or is this just my own
inner critic running its show right? And if it's not
God's voice, you don't have to keep listening. And I
remember a season when every time I looked in the mirror,
I heard words like lazy or failure, or like your
body's messed up or broken. And one day I heard
(07:42):
this loving whisper from God. And obviously I didn't know
at the time it was God, but now I do.
And he just said, you know, that's not how I
talk about you, and that's not how I look at you.
And so if the voice in your head doesn't sound
like grace, it is not God's voice. Okay. The next
is shifting from this idea of control to stewardship, which
(08:05):
is a lot of like how the faith based way
of saying it says it, but I like to talk
about it in terms of stewardship but also like personal responsibility.
And so this one hits deep for me because I
used to white knuckle my way through every new diet
plan or fitness regime, just believing that if I could
just control my body hard enough, I'd finally feel safe
(08:25):
and worthy. But here is the distinction. Control is rooted
in fear right and stewardship and taking responsibility for your
health and body is rooted in trust, or in a
lot of cases, it's learning how to trust yourself again
and seeing where there's a gap where you don't trust
yourself right and taking responsibility for that. But also, you know,
trusting God with your body means surrendering the illusion that
(08:49):
you're in charge of all of the outcomes, and it
means asking, you know, what does it look like to
honor this body as a gift and a responsibility, not
as a problem to fix or a burden? Right, Like
again taking this conversation from like, oh, my body's a
burden to like, no, it's a responsibility, but it's also
a gift and I can stored it well. And stewardship
(09:10):
is not passive, right. It means that you care and
you nourish and you move your body with intention. But
the distinction is it's not motivated by punishment, which I
think a lot of us learned. It's motivated by partnership
with God. And it's a posture shift from like I've
got to control my body in order to be okay
to you know what, I'm going to care for my
(09:31):
body because I already am okay. And that is a
massive shift state right or state shift, I should say
the next idea or the next part of this, And
the next step is really, what if it was instead
of trying to do this all alone, you actually started
to partner with God on this right, And Like, this
was a total game changer for me because I used
(09:52):
to pray that God would fix me, right, But I
never actually invited him into the process, right. I like prayed,
but didn't ask God to meet me in the process.
And I didn't talk to him before meals, and I
didn't ask for help when I was binge eating in secret,
and I kept him on the outside of the struggle,
almost like I didn't want him to see how messy
it was. Like that's again where my shame showed up.
(10:14):
And here's the reality, Like he already saw, right. He
wasn't shocked or disappointed. He was just waiting to be
invited in. Or at least that's what I say. And
so partnering with God might sound like, hey, God, like
just help me be gentle with myself today. Or it
might say be like, you know, God, give me the
wisdom to know what my body actually needs right now
because I've been ignoring those needs for so long in
(10:35):
favor of chasing skinny or chasing weight loss that was
my big thing. Or just God, show me how to
move and eat and live in ways that bring peace,
not pressure, not using food or exercise to punish myself, right,
And so you're not in this alone. But it might
feel like you are, and God is not expecting you
to muscle through healing with willpower either. He wants to
(10:56):
walk this part of it with you as well. And
so maybe just ask yourself, like, what is one little
thing I can do to partner with God? Or one
little question I can ask God so that I can
partner with God today in how I care for my body.
And then of course it's about anchoring yourself in the
identity that is designed for you, like anchoring your identity
(11:19):
in God, in Christ, not in your reflection. Right, And
so we've got to talk about identity here because let's
be honest, when your identity is tied to your appearance,
your weight, your fitness routine, and here's the distinction. Okay,
you are allowed to care about your appearance, your weight,
and your fitness routine, right, but when all of your worth,
(11:40):
like let's look at it like a worthiness bucket, right,
if all of your bucket is filled with your identity
being rooted in appearance, weight, fitness routine, money, I mean,
you name it, anything outside of you. That's when you
feel empty and meaningless, so you can have you are
allowed to value those things, but if it's all you value,
it's like building your house on sand, right, because your
(12:02):
body's going to change, and seasons shift and life throws
curveballs that we didn't know to even look for. But
who you are in Christ that doesn't move, it doesn't
have to at least, and if it does move, that's
another conversation for another day. But that's the part that
doesn't move. It's about you receiving it. And you are chosen,
you are loved, you are his first. Peter two nine
(12:25):
tells us this, so does Romans eight thirty eight through
nine thirty nine, that when you trust God with your body,
you get to stop just simply defining yourself just by
numbers and pant sizes and calories and away ins, and
start defining yourself by truth with a capital T. Right.
And that identity is what gives you stability, That identity
(12:47):
is what gives you confidence, and that identity is what
gives you the freedom to enjoy your body instead of
obsess over it. And so one of my favorite beliefs
that I just kind of remind myself of is like
when what I say in the mirror might change, but
what God sees in me never will. It will never change.
And so the next time the mirror tries to tell
(13:08):
you who you are, just remind it that your identity
is rooted in something far deeper and far more eternal.
And so let's get practical, Like what does it look
like to start this week start trusting God with your body?
So it could just start each day with like a
little body prayer, right, like something as simple as God,
help me take care of this body that you have
given me, and give me love and wisdom to do that.
(13:31):
We talk about interrupting negative self talk with truth, not
with roses and butterflies, not with positive affirmations, but with
truth that meets you where you are right. And so
again it's beyond the scope of this conversation, but like
if you just had three go to scriptures that speak
life over your body and keep them somewhere visible, that
will transform you. And I do invite you to find
(13:51):
scripture that really resonates with you, because if somebody else
gives you scripture, it's great, But if it doesn't land
with you in that particular circumstance or that cond text,
it's not going to create the positive neuro associations that
you need to transform on a brain level. So make
sure that anytime we talk about scripture. Anytime I'm giving
you scripture, right, fine, ones, if the ones I'm giving
you resonate, steal it, take it, have it. It's yours, right,
(14:14):
But do not feel like you have to take something
just because somebody else gave it to you. Find what
resonates with you. Resonance is everything, okay? But then also,
like if you're a journaler, right, what if you journaled
on this question? Like, what would change if I stopped
trying to earn my worth from my appearance and instead
just focused on receiving it from God? Like, right now,
(14:36):
you're feeling like you have to earn it, and that's
where the conversation is, that's where the focus is. But
what if the focus went on just receiving it? Like,
what would change for you?
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Right?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
And if you are struggling with this, please hear me out.
You are not failing. You are just learning and God
is patient with your process, right and trusting God with
your body. It is absolutely a journey, and it takes patience,
and it takes courage, and it takes grace and a
whole lot of unlearning what society taught us. But it's
worth it because on the other side of all of that,
(15:08):
that is where you get to have the peace, peace
with food, peace with your reflection in the mirror, and
peace with the one who made you right. So that
is it for today. So glad to have you here,
and if you do want to alongside this, alongside What's
God Got to Do with it? Stressless Eating is the
work that I do with women to help them rid
(15:28):
themselves of decades of binge eating, body dysmorphia, self image
and identity mismatch that's keeping them stuck in a food
and body prison. Really helping women take the stress, the emotion,
the obsession out of food and body and really take
a brain based, nervous system, identity, self image approach to
the problem rather than trying to solve it with food,
fitness or weight loss. So if you're interested in that,
(15:51):
head on over to Stressless Eating dot com. Because I've
laid out the five step process that I teach my clients.
I've heeled back the curtain, left no stone unturned. Go
ahead and check that out over on Stressless Eating dot
Com And we will be back for more God Pod
next week. Bye, We'll be back with more What's God
Got to Do With it, But in the meantime, I
(16:13):
would definitely love to hear from you, so just tell
me where you are in your story or maybe what
questions you have, like where do you feel you need
clarity or support or wisdom in your own journey. I
definitely want to hear from you, So head on over
to What's God Got to Do with It? Dot com
and scroll down to the form to share your thoughts,
(16:33):
your questions, your feedback, and you can do that instantly.
So What's God Got to Do with It? Dot com?
You'll find all the ways to do that. And if
you like this podcast and want to hear more, go
ahead and follow, like, and subscribe wherever you listen to
podcasts to get your weekly dose of What's God Got
to Do with It? New episodes drop every single Tuesday,
(16:55):
and while you're there, be sure to rate and review
to show your support. It really means so much. What's
God Got to Do With It? Is an iHeartRadio podcast
on the Amy Brown Podcast Network. It's written and hosted
by me Leanne Ellington, executive produced by Elizabeth Fozzio, post
production and editing by Houston Tilley, and original music written
(17:17):
by Cheryl Stark and produced by Adam Stark,
Host
Leanne Ellington
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