Breaking Free from Body Image Struggles: A Journey of Faith and Self-Awareness with HEATHER CREEKMORE

In this episode, we dive into the complex world of body image and self-image, discussing the challenges many face and how they impact self-esteem and social interactions. Christian body image coach Heather Creekmore shares her journey and offers advice on overcoming insecurities and self-doubt.



We also explore the importance of prioritizing health over appearance and the impact of societal expectations on our self-perception. Additionally, we discuss finding rest from idolatry, living in balance, and practical tips for overcoming insecurities, particularly in relation to body image.



Join us as we uncover the truth about body image freedom and how reflecting God's glory can help individuals find peace with their appearance.


Connect with Heather Creekmore:

Website - www.comparedtowho.me

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/comparedtowho

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/HeatherCreekmoreblog/

Podcast - https://www.comparedtowho.me/podcast

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Chapters

• 0:00 Body Image and Self-Image
• 15:17 Put Oxygen Mask First
• 26:36 Finding Rest from Idolatry
• 40:20 Living in Balance

Transcript

0:00:00
So I don't wanna objectify a woman for her thin body anymore than I wanna objectify a woman for her fat body. Right? I'm gonna try to stop talking about stop objectifying. Right? Like like yeah. Okay. Don't I mean, you can so there's the the Instagram, I'm so proud because I don't eat all day and I exercise a real, like, crazy woman. Right? Or the Instagram, like, look at me. My body's large. I eat all day. Like, neither one of those -- Right. -- the right place I mean Healthy balance. Right? There's the key. Healthy balance. That's that's what I would like. Yeah. Yeah. Well, who's getting the attention in both of those cases? Yeah. Right? The attention is on them. Hi. I'm Ruth Hovsepian.

0:00:44
Welcome to the Out of The Darkness podcast. Where we help you navigate life's trials based on faith and difficult truths. Today, I am speaking with Heather Creekmore, a Christian body image coach She's also an author speaker and host of the compare to who podcast and is on a mission to see women set free from body image issues and body shame. Welcome, Heather. I am so happy to have you join me today on out of the darkness And I think that this is a subject that many women or men and women have to deal with. And that is body image and or even an image of who we are. I know that I've struggled with it. I've struggled with it physically and even of who I am. Mhmm. And I think at my age, I'm fifty seven, there's a lot of that, you know, over the years, you kind of second guess about, you know, what kind of an image you are portraying to people. So we'll we'll get right into it today. So please tell us a little bit about yourself and where you are coming from what your journey was like to becoming a body image coach. Yeah. Well, I like to say that this is the one thing I never in a million years I could have ever guessed I would be doing because my body, misterstruggle, characterized my life in a very secret way. Right? It was something I was constantly thinking about obsessing over trying to fix, but yet no one knew that. You know, that's not something we talk about. And so yeah.

0:02:33
I mean, to this my story really started when I was in about the third grade. I remember thinking that my legs were too big. And I started kind of dabbling in some of the dieting behaviors that my mom was doing. By middle school, I was full blown, like, on the diet with her. And by high school, I'm a little bit of an overachiever roots.

0:02:53
By high school, I was like, well, you know, I can do even better than that. Like, yes, I see your calorie counts, but what if I just try not to eat? And I would try to go to school and not eat all day. And then I come home and of course I would be ravenous because god created our bodies to be sustained on food. And I would, you know, eat to try to replenish. But in my mind, I felt like I'd done something wrong. Because I had made a vow to myself that I was, you know, I was gonna make it the next day. I was gonna not eat, not eat. And And that was a cycle that continued in my life for for many years.

0:03:32
By my sophomore of college, I had lost my period for nine months, And now I recognize that as a sign of having an eating disorder, but this was back in the early nineteen nineties. And so we really only two categories of eating disorders then. We had anorexia and bulimia. And I couldn't purge, although I tried, I couldn't make myself throw up. And I didn't look like a typical anorexic. I wasn't underweight. And so I didn't think I had an eating disorder. I just I was just like every other woman I knew. I just obsessed over food and how to look better and how to get thinner and I mean everywhere around me were these messages, so I just thought I had a normal girl problem. And really, like, this this led me too.

0:04:16
So I had I have a master's degree in public policy. Like, I had jobs and politics and nonprofit management, but I decided I needed to be a fitness instructor because I thought that would really solve it. If I could just prove myself physically, you know, get that credential, like, teach the classes, then I would know my body was good enough. But I'll tell you, the first class I took after passing the tests, getting a job, I remember standing in front of that class looking at every other woman there and deciding, oh, she's got better legs than I do. Oh, she's got better apps than I do. Oh, she's in much better shape than I am. You know, pretty convincing myself that I shouldn't be in front of that class. My body still wasn't good enough.

0:04:57
And then I wasn't married. And so I thought, you know, oh, marriage. Marriage must solve all body image issues and every one of your listeners who is married or has been married and lasts. Right? Like, insert your laughter here. Marriage, I think, made it worse. And I had I had a whole new set of struggles. That came with my body image and relationships and marriage. And then I thought, well, maybe at least once I have kids, I'll have something important to do. Right? All that brain space that was dedicated to food and exercise. Now, you know, I've gotta keep someone else alive. Maybe that would just distract me enough that I would find freedom. And it didn't work. And I actually had four babies in just over four years. No twins in there. So I was pregnant or breastfeeding for almost five years. And and really it was at the end of that season of having lots of little babies at the same time. That got kinda interrupted my journey as normal and set me on a new path, and I'll just kinda jump to where I'm at now. So my husband's a pastor We live in Austin, Texas. He's not a senior pastor anymore, but we are in full time ministry.

0:06:10
And what I do is I speak to women about these issues of body image. I tell them the story of how God interrupted my, you know, And I'm gonna say Christian life as usual because I was raised in the church. I knew the scripture. I knew I was fearfully, wonderfully made. I knew that God looked at my heart, not my gene size. Like, I knew what God's word said about these issues. But yet, it took something different happening when I was in my thirties for me to truly find freedom from body image struggles that had just kind of run concurrent to my regular life as a Christian. And so now I encourage him around this. I've written two books. I've got another book coming out in November. Called the forty day body image workbook, and I have a podcast. And I just I I love the opportunity to really kinda challenged women in a grace filled way around their body image in comparison issues.

0:07:06
Your your story in in many ways aligns with my story as well, you know, except that I was considered large by many standards as a young child. I was never slim. I was never you know, nobody would ever say I was under fed. And I was also very tall for my age. I'm five nine now. And by the time I was in grade six, I must been, you know, close to five, seven, five, eight. You know, I haven't grown very much. And when I look at grade school pictures, I'm a good fut taller. If not more, I look like the teacher. I have to say in one of the pictures, I'm as big if not bigger than our teacher. So I grew up with that. Now, I was never told to diet But I was always told not to eat so much.

0:08:03
Mhmm. And so what I and and by, you know, very well meaning people and and Unfortunately, some of them were men who said it, and and I know as I grew older, I understood where they were coming from. But when you're a young child or preteen, it affects you. So what I started to do was when I was out in family, events or social events, I wouldn't eat very much. I would just nibble. I I never went for seconds. Because I was so afraid of people saying, well, that's why she's so fat and so big. And it wasn't until after high school. And I don't know why maybe it was I didn't know. I was never made fun of in school, but I always was self conscious because I was always the big girl. And I have a very self deprecating sense of humor. Mhmm. So that I would make fun of myself before any what I thought they would make fun of me for.

0:09:04
But it was after high school that I I do and I still don't know why I did this, but I maintained maybe about a forty pound weight loss by having maybe a muffin a day -- Mhmm. -- and some popcorn. Mhmm. And I did that, I don't know, for many years, you know, three, four years. And as you said, when I started to eat just another meal or two, the weight came on. And that was the beginning of a lifelong struggle with wait for me. And this this, you know, image of who I am. Mhmm. And recently, in the last five years, I lost over a hundred pounds And again, it wasn't about the way I looked because at that point, I didn't care anymore, obviously.

0:09:55
You know, I had let myself get to that point. It was more for health because of health scares. You know, I was dealing with gout. I was dealing with high blood. A lot of complications. And I realized that I was at my daughter's wedding and I hadn't really enjoyed myself. I had been in too much pain. I was uncomfortable. And then I said, yeah, no more. I can't I can't do this. And it it helped that I was doing it for health reasons. Mhmm.

0:10:26
But underlying, it was also the perception of what people thought. And now as I'm starting to speak in front of women, I still as I'm getting ready to get up to speak, I'll say I'll think I hope they don't think that I'm unworthy to speak because I can't control what food I put in my mouth. Even when we're doing what God has called us to do, our human nature is you know, to second guess what people around us are thinking. So, how what is your advice to someone like me? Let's let's take me, you know, to say, how how do I stand up in front of people? And talk about God's love and God's grace and yet. Underlying, I don't give myself that grace. What is your advice to us? Yeah. So, goodness. There's a couple different things I'd love to touch on in that, and I hope I can remember all them all.

0:11:31
But but my first thought is and this is something I've had to learn as a speaker. I had to make a shift in my own speaking career from I'm here to impress you. I want you to think nice things about me. I want you to think I'm attractive and funny and witty, you know, like, I want you to think I'm a great speaker. To I want to love you well. And that shift has made quite a difference. Because in that shift, I am taking the focus off of me and putting the focus onto the people I'm ministering to.

0:12:10
And really, what does god call us to? He calls us to love him and to love others. This whole culture around self love has been blown way to a place it should never have gone in Christian circles. Right? Timothy tells us that in the last days, men will be lovers of self, and it's not a good thing. When he says that. Right? And a hundred percent. Yeah.

0:12:38
A lot of times people try to use the passage in Matthew that says, you know, love love God and love others as you love yourself. They try to use that as a justification for self love. But if you read the verse right before it, it says there are two great commandments. Two, love God and love others if there's a third secret commandment, then God has a counseling problem. Yeah. Right? Or he's just really being unclear with us, which I don't think that's his is nature. Yeah. Not a style. Yeah. So I think we already have enough self love. In fact, there's a fantastic book by Ed Welch. Caught when people are big and when God is small.

0:13:17
And then if he talks about how self hate and self love or really pride and self loathing, are two sides of the same coin. They're both pride. The person who hates themselves, oh, I just I can't stand myself. They're really thinking about themselves too much. Yeah. In the same way that the person's like, oh, I'm so wonderful. Doesn't everyone see me? What does everyone think of me? You know, and so So really, I think the freedom comes in self forgetfulness as to Keller says. Right? I am free to go serve women when I am not worried about what they think of me and when I can walk into the room and be like, okay, how how can I love you? And, you know, even for women that are listening that don't speak, or, like, I'm never taking a stage. I'd never do that. Like, this is advice I give to my coaching clients all the time.

0:14:03
If you walk into a room full of women comparing yourself and trying to figure out how you rank. Right? Like, oh, you know, am I thin enough? Am I dressed kitting off is my hair done well enough. Like, if you go in with those thoughts, you're not gonna have a good time. Right? Because yourself sabotaging yourself. Hey. Right. You're gonna be so obsessed over how you compare to everyone that you, you know, you're gonna lose you're gonna lose details and conversations, right, as you're thinking about her body, you're not thinking about what she's telling you. Right? But instead, if you walk into a room, looking for how can I love these women well? Like, who needs a friend today? Yeah. Like, who looks like they're hurting today? How can I love them? Well, I tell you when you take the focus off yourself, oh goodness. Like, you walk away from those events -- Yeah. -- built up, restored, energized. Like, yes. I had a great morning. Instead of leaving, like, I am I'm a lowly creature who needs to do something to fix myself. Right. You you know, Heather, I I I gave myself a little challenge when I started to do this, and I was because I am by by nature very shy.

0:15:17
I don't like walking in into a a crowd and making conversation. But when you become when you go to an event and you are speaking or you have a mission, you've been commissioned to go out there. I challenged my stuff now to look around the room and find someone who is standing there probably just as awkward and shy as I am and go up to them and ask them if they are with someone else. And it it has worked for me. So I'd have been yeah. And and actually, I wanted to with what you were saying, Mary Snyder gave a great example to her her master class that I'm typing with her.

0:15:58
And she said, that in a picture, we all look at ourselves, and we nitpick ourselves, you know, our double chin, our whatever it may be. And she said, ladies don't worry about it. Every woman in that picture is looking at themselves and no one else in the range. And you know, that was like a light bulb moment from me and I went, oh my goodness. It's true. If I'm doing that, they're doing the same. Thing guys as well. Yep. Oh. That's in my new book. I don't know about that in my new book. There's a chapter. What to do if you hate yourself in pictures? That's all my goodness. I talk about Yep. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's it's just interesting how we we focus so much on it. And you're right.

0:16:45
You know, like, I I have taken on this this challenge of saying, okay, Lord, you show me where to go and what to do. And it is out of a comfort zone. Right? Because, you know, those of us who struggle with body image will actually isolate ourselves in in many instances. And I know many women who do that. And sometimes without even knowing that they're doing it. Right? But you're right, you know, because if I've taken on this commission to go out and spread the word of God, then who am I to put my insecurities in front of this commission from the Lord? Right. I have to love these women and you are spot on when you said that. I think it's amazing. Okay. Can I jump in and and show some results as you said? It's the way I hope. Yes. Of course.

0:17:37
So I think the other part of kind of what you were laying out is this belief that people are going to think, you know, ex about me, if people are going to think ex about me when. And And of course, people can think whatever we want about us. Right? Yes. But we actually have no way of controlling that. Right? Like, there is no look you could achieve that would protect you from having people think something negative about that. True. True. You could look like a model and walk into that room and women are still gonna criticize. Yeah. So so there's no freedom from that in trying to attain a certain image so no one will criticize me. Nope. That's not possible. But then the other thing, I don't know if we really wanna go too far deep into this.

0:18:26
But there was an underlying belief that you shared that people would see your body size and assume something about your health. Mhmm. And what's really fascinating is most people believe it because we conditions to believe that. Right? But it's a very sad and true story that atypical anorexia people who are that have larger bodies and are barely eating anything and qualify for the eating disorder, Anorexia -- Yep. -- are everywhere. Right? You really can't look at a woman and tell how much she Yes. You you cannot tell whether or not she x her sizes. Now there are certain women you can look at and you can smell exactly what they eat and how they exercise. Right? Exactly. Yeah. But in but in general, like, we have been fed this lie, that health looks like this particular body. And that's just not true. That comes from an two hundred and forty billion dollar industry that wants to sell us their products.

0:19:26
And I think as believers and followers of Jesus Christ, right, there's There's truth with a capital t, the truth that comes from God's word, and then there's all these little truths. Right? You know, and culture talk So my truth, your truth, which yeah. But, you know, but but, really, we, as Christians, kinda, do that too, like, well, you know, my truth is I think I would look better. Thirty pounds less. Right? Or my truth is people will like me more when I have a smaller body. Or my truth is, like, this is really the only way to be healthy, and it's like, okay, but wait a second here. What does God say? Like, God doesn't get it. God God's word does not tell us we have to be keto. You know, I I I was challenged on this one thought because I had I hesitated for for a while to start a podcast or to to get out there and to speak or to put myself out there.

0:20:22
And someone I I respect very much said to me, but Ruth God wants you out there now. Yeah. And who are you to say no to that? And that really made me stop. And and not that I don't know it. I grew up in the church. I know the verses like you said, you know, we know everything. Right? But it was just that that precise moment that -- Yeah. -- she said this to me and I said, yeah, you're right. Because God wants me to do this now. And I'm say, okay, when I'm I I look this way or I feel this way or I'm not ready and and sort of like, you know, Moses, I'm I'm not I'm I'm not a speaker because I, you know, I'm not a writer.

0:21:04
All of these thoughts and yet I'm saying, and and here I am telling people to trust God and put their faith in Him. And he why am I not doing the same thing? So spot on to what you're saying, you know, I I I'm in Greek. Yeah. Can't love that so much. Well, I I coach women. All the time, and it's something I hear. You know, like, oh, I really would like to serve at church.

0:21:24
But as soon as I, like, do this with my body, as soon as I, you know, have this thing happen, But it's like we believe this lie that changing our bodies will completely revolutionize our lives. Right? And it's No. It doesn't. It's it's something so why wait till then to start living? And start serving because really serving as you've probably found. That's what makes us feel alive. Exactly. Right? And that's what energizes us more than any weight loss ever could. For sure. I mean, I yeah. I've I've I've been at that point where I've always said, you know, if I if I did this, I'll do this.

0:22:00
You know, if I lose weight, I'll be happy. And I've come to realize that it's not the weight loss. It's my where am I in my journey in my life with the Lord? And that negates everything society tells us. Right? Society tells us, you know, we need to have this kind of wealth and this kind of looks. And this many followers and this many whatever likes on on social media. But is that what God wants from us? You know, and as women, we really make things difficult for ourselves.

0:22:32
And honestly, I have I have thought about the effects of what mothers do to their children and to their daughters. Now fortunately, my my daughters did not realize that whether they had a way to issue or not. They didn't, but they never had an issue with their looks, you know. Now they're, you know, their adults, grown adults. And, you know, they they struggle with their own image, you know, the way they look and I I have to reiterate to them all the time. If you're I want you to be healthy. You know, just be healthy. Eat well. Be healthy. It's not the It's not the weight on the scale. It's it's what your health is.

0:23:15
But what advice do you give to to moms and to mothers? Who have children. And maybe the mothers, you know, up till now have not been the greatest example. To their daughters or maybe they have been, but their daughters are buying into what society says. What is your advice to that demographic? Yeah. So I mean, I I definitely it's put your own oxygen mask on first. Right.

0:23:41
You cannot tell your daughter, oh, you're beautiful because God makes you beautiful just the way you are. Yeah. And then skip dinner because mommy can't eat because mommy has an exercise to earn through today. Or when you look in the mirror, It's oh, I'm so gross or oh, I can't put on a swimsuit because mommy doesn't get to wear swimsuit until mommy loses some weight. Mhmm. But you cannot give your daughter and really your sons too, because boys are just going now more than ever. You can't give those mixed messages and expect them to believe you when you say, oh, dear, it's on the what's on the inside is what really counts when you're so obsessed with the outside. Yeah. So we really have to get the issues straight in our own hearts and our own heads too.

0:24:22
I mean, you know, the other thing with a lot of talk has happened in recent months over over weight loss drugs for young children. And and issues related to that. And and, you know, I I feel like a lot of our kids are in trouble because mom and dad or or just mom or just dad, but but there's been so much pressure around food, food has been elevated to this really strange place that it was never supposed to be elevated to you. Where a lot of times the big time restriction that can happen in homes that are super healthy that actually leads to a kid who either has an eating disorder or, you know, as soon as they're away from home, is eating sugar nonstop because never had access to it or eating carbohydrates nonstop because they've never had access to it. That's two extremes. We're we're seeing two extremes of kids Yeah.

0:25:18
Right. For sure. There's not there's not this healthy balance of, hey, you know, It's okay to have some sweets every once in a while. No. You can't eat donuts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If it's a treat on a Saturday morning, That's okay because God gave us food as a good gift to enjoy. And it's only the culture around us that tells us that food is bad or food is out to get you or food is gonna destroy your life by making fat. Those are all disordered eating messages. Yeah. And and yes, as parents, I think we've got a really wide what comes out of our mouths -- Yeah. -- around food and body.

0:25:54
I I think also as parents, we need to start to educate ourselves. Of what we're eating and, you know, you you mentioned it just you touched on it briefly earlier about the types of foods that are out there and what food large conglomerate companies are producing and putting out there. And, you know, I was talking to an older woman recently. And she said, you know, Ruth, she said, I remember going up in a time where mom cooked meals at home, and we ate everything. We ate potatoes. We ate this. We ate that. And she said, we have dessert. But she said the difference was that everything we made was made at home or grown in the backyard.

0:26:36
And I've discovered also in the last five years edgy cating myself from my own health was, yes, the way food is produced has changed. We're eating packaged foods constantly. And I laugh now and I say, I don't know what's inside of the grocery store because I shop the stirier items of the grocery store. Yeah. And but that's what it is. Right? Educating ourselves. Instead of teaching our or or telling our kids, this is bad. Don't eat it. Well Right. What do you wanna eat? For bin food. Right? Like, so I'm clean again. Give me some of that then. My friends like it. Right. Interesting. Or they go to university. Right? They go all the way to college and where does this this first year? What what what do you freshman fifteen? Freshman fifteen. Yeah. And, you know, how does that happen? It's because suddenly kids are left alone to make their own decisions on food and they don't know how to do that.

0:27:40
But how did you come to understand the root of your body image? And you know, comparing it to, you know, what what's happening in your life? How did you have that aha moment? Yeah. Yeah. I love sharing about my aha moment because My aha moment was really when God showed me that I had made my body image an idol.

0:28:04
And like I said, Ruth, I was raised in church so I knew I didn't have any idols because we didn't have any statues. Right? And, you know, I wasn't rubbing through his belly. Like, yeah, we didn't have a garden gnome in my home just in case that was some sort of garden idol. Right? So I knew I was idol free, but God showed me through through the teaching of Tim Cal. Color that that I had made my body image, and I don't know.

0:28:29
Let me explain that because it sounds it sounds pretty I don't know. Pretty confusing. Right? Like, what? You mean her she was statue of herself or something now? That's right. The golden what is it? The golden calf. Yeah. Yeah. No. So I didn't have any statues of myself, but really what I so an idol is anything other than Jesus that we believe can save us. Right? And and let me clarify the word save. Right? Not that we think that this thing is gonna get us to heaven. But we think that this thing might bring us heaven on earth. Right? That this thing might give us some sort of earthly salvation.

0:29:07
And so for me, I believed that if I could just achieve a certain look or size or weight, then I would have all of the the secrets of joy, peace, happiness, love, everything would just be magically unlocked as soon as I hit all those numbers and my life, oh, wouldn't it be blissful? And I know because reality, like, walking through a season where, you know, with an eating disorder over exercising as a fitness instructor I was at at that weight. I hit that number, and I was the most miserable I've ever been in my entire life. I am nowhere close to that size now. And I can tell you I have so much more enjoyed peace. Freedom rest than I had before.

0:29:56
But but when god showed me that I had made my body image an idol. It was actually good news. Because the idolatry is sin. Right? And so, like, no one's cheering at home. Like, yay. Oh, it's a sin issue. Wonderful. Like, so so glad you had this guest on today roof tell us that we're sitting. Like, no. Okay. So I get that. Like, no. It's cheering about this. But but let me explain. Like, Until that point, I just had a normal girl issue because I was female and every female I knew or ever had no.

0:30:31
Worried about her body, then I it was just my, like, my lot. Like, I was just gonna have to carry this baggage around because I was female. I'm just well, it's just the way it is, you know, the rest of my life. I guess, I'll just worry about this. My grandmother's still worrying, so I guess there's no time when it stops.

0:30:47
And when god showed me that the root of my problem was a sin problem that I had made this an idol in my life. That was good news because there's a cure for sin. Right? First on one nine tells me that we confess our sins. He is faithful and just forgive us of our sins and the cleanses from all in righteousness. Like, if I could say, oh, god. I have made body image an idol again. Please forgive me.

0:31:11
And and so that what that looks like today is I wake up in the morning and maybe I, you know, I read my bible and then get on Instagram, but isn't really it's a better order to do it in. Read the bible first. But, you know, you get on social media. You see the picture. You see the weight loss ads. Right? Like, they know our age. And look what we're dealing with. So I don't know.

0:31:30
I get the, like, menopause belly ads. Like Oh, you don't have to go to this menopause belly. And so you start to see those ads and you start, like, the real start turning your brain. Oh, okay. Maybe I should do it. Maybe that would fix everything. Oh, Maybe I don't have to have a menopause belly. Maybe I can just do whatever they're selling and and for seven easy payments of twenty nine ninety five. I'll get rid of my and and you start to go down the same road that for most of us, right, the average woman has been on sick the average forty five year old woman has been on sixty one diets since the age of sixteen. Okay? So you you've been down these roads before, but why do we keep doing it? Why do I click on that? Because I think it'll be the one that saves me.

0:32:14
And we're always looking for the unicorn. Right? The the magic -- Yeah. -- of this could be the rainbow that has gold at the end. You know, most of us are are, like, rational, like, logical, intelligent women. But when tempted with with these little, like, Oh, but you could just do our plan and and, you know, and really with what I think women want more than weight loss. Right? Because yeah. Yeah. Okay. Wait loss. That's that's nice. But what I really think we want more than that is rest. Right?

0:32:46
And the promise of weight loss, the promise of a diet program, the before and after picture, It's really the promise of rest. It's the promise that after you do this program, you won't have to think about your body anymore. You won't have to think about your food anymore, you can just be. Now everyone who's been on the diet knows that's actually not true. Right? Because Even if you hit your goal, you have to stay on maintenance. That's right. Right. And and guess what you don't stop thinking about your body like we already talked about. Right? Like, it doesn't suddenly body image doesn't suddenly disappear because you weigh a certain amount. Mhmm. But but there's it's that rest is part of the idol. Right? It's that idol saying Oh, come to me and I will give you rest. And it's like, wait a second. Someone else said that. It was Jesus. And guess what? He's the only one that can deliver on that promise. No weight loss, body transformation, body makeover. None of those things can deliver.

0:33:42
You know, I also have come to understand. And and this is just something in in maybe that last couple of years really was when I started when I stopped thinking constantly about my body, it freed up so much space in my brain. Yeah. And it was, you know, it's funny saying it, but unless you've experienced it, it was like a burden. I know, you know, like, when I gave my life to the Lord and I asked him into my life, a burden, my addictions, and my burdens fell off. And yet, I carried this one part of it with me. And when I and I'm not perfect with it, you know, I I don't know if I will be. This is but it's like any of my other addictions that I've left you know, and I'm sober in that area.

0:34:35
And I've come to realize that I have to deal with this on a daily basis and say, Lord, take this over. I don't want this to become my focus today. I have too many things to do. And, you know, I at my age, I look at all the things that I want to achieve for the lord now, not for me, not for the world, but for the lord. And I'm like, I don't have time I don't have time to focus on this, and you're so right about it. It is an image that an a dollar hydraulic image that we put and we are worshiping this whole thing. It's it's mind boggling. What we do in so much time that we waste, that we can better use. For family. Right? Family, friends, loved ones. The Lord, Loving other people because I I think we're we're told by culture that it's attainable, that you can get to this place where you just love your body so much.

0:35:36
That you're free. Yeah. But but I think and there's some, you know, cultural icons not necessarily Christian women. Right. Right? That has maybe come to that place I think when we look at them, we can see that that's really a place of pride. Right? They're not free. They're just proud. Right? And it's not it's not pretty. Like like, no one wants to be friends with someone who's really proud. Like, that's a hard person to be in relationship with. Right? It's humility that draws us close together. And and, you know, we love being with someone who's humble and just authentic and real. And, you know, we want we think we want to be perfect, and we think being perfect will get us more friends, get us more love, get us better promotions and opportunities. And yet, when we answer the question for ourselves, like, what am I really looking for? I'm looking for someone who's authentic. He's not perfect. He's just a woman in their love. And it's it's so funny how the enemy can get in there and just like distort all of that. Yeah. And take away our joy. Right. Right.

0:36:36
And and and and make us you know, like, depression has become such huge thing in in today's society. And if you look at it, where is this coming from? When we are not satisfied with what we have in front of us. And I say this to the younger generation. Stop looking at what you don't have because you're missing out on what is it right in front of you? You have a roof over your head, you can you eat well, you travel, you do all these things, stop reaching for things. I mean, I'm not saying don't have a goal in life. By all means, you know, I think we need to achieve things in our lives. But not at the expense of losing out on what we have in our hands right now and appreciate that. Yeah. Well, let me let let me go to a hard place again if if you think your listeners have their seatbelts on. Put it on everyone. Here's your morning. Right?

0:37:36
So we use the word comparison. Right? It's like a nicey nice word. Like, oh, shocks. I shouldn't compare, you know, O and O comparison is a thief, away. But but Ruth, we avoid using the words the Bible uses. Right? Because the Bible doesn't really talk about comparison of the way we mean compare sense. Yep.

0:37:55
And so if I am sitting in my house, looking at your house, thinking you've got a better home than I do, I wish I lived in that home, what would it be like to live in your home? And I've got a problem with either covetousness or envy or maybe a little bit of both. Yeah. Right. Right. And the same thing happens with looking at other women's bodies, you know, we object to fire other women when we stare at them and just see them as bodies. Yeah. But when I walk and I'm checking out of Target or Walmart and I see those magazines and I think, oh, I wish I had her abs. I wish I had her legs. Well, I'm basically coveting her body parts. Right? Or maybe I'm envying her whole life.

0:38:29
But but again, right, scripture calls these things out as covetousness, as envy, calls them out as sin to protect us from the misery that comes when you live in envy and when you live in catholicists. Right? So for us as Christians to just keep calling it comparison, oh, checks. I should really stop that one of these days. Like, we are missing it. Right? Because, like, again, like, no, my dear one. This is sin. There's a cure. Cut it out and you'll find your joy again. Yeah. We're so afraid of saying it as it is. Right? We wanna avoid hurting someone, but I think that you and I love what you just said that using the words of the bible, using the verses in the bible, that should speak to us. You know, that is what is so important to us. And it's just unbelievable.

0:39:21
Now, I just very quickly, What about this whole phenomena of the other extreme of looking at very unhealthy women in the sense that they are so large and they're just eating. I mean, because, you know, there's there's both extremes. Right? Then there's the other whole thing of I'm happy with I am and then just just eating because that's another you know, that's, like, that positivity, is that kind of Yes. That posh. Yeah. So I I think there's a happy medium.

0:39:54
What do you say to those women who now have gone to the other extreme and talk about, you know, this that positivity and you're looking, but is is this person truly healthy when they're eating what they're eating? I don't know. I struggle with that one. Yeah. So we we can't know for sure if they're truly healthy unless we see their blood work. Right? Because you truly can't look at someone's body. And say, oh, unhealthy. Oh, healthy. Right?

0:40:20
Because even the data around disease that's been linked to obesity, Right? If you really dig a little closer into that data, it's uncertain as to whether or not the people who ended up with the disease when they were x amount of pounds of weight. Ended up with the disease because they were x amount of pounds over the weight, or did they end up with the disease because they spent their whole life going down and wait? Going up and wait. Going down and wait. True. Going up and wait. Because actually, what's healthiest for a person is to stay around the same wait.

0:40:50
So if someone has always been larger their entire life. I mean, I talked to many clients who've always had larger bodies and they've got perfectly great health markers. Their blood work is great. And yet, I have clients that are super thin, orthorexic, never touched in Oreo. And they're battling all kinds of things, arthritis, things that were promised only for the heavier people, and they're like, wait a second. I didn't touch the cookies. How did I end up with this? Right?

0:41:18
And so so that's a little counter to what culture tells us that that positivity, I have the same problem with that we talked about a minute ago. It's pride. Right? So I don't wanna objectify a woman for her thin body any more than I wanna objectify a woman for her fat body. Right? I'm gonna try to stop talking about this. Yeah. Stop objectifying. Right? Like like yeah. Okay. Don't I mean, you can So there's the the Instagram, I'm so proud because I don't eat all day and I exercise a real, like, crazy woman.

0:41:47
Right? Or the Instagram, like, look at me, my body's large, I eat all day. Like, neither one of those. Right. It's the right place to believe. Healthy balance. Right? There's the key. Healthy. Balance. That that's what I would like. Yeah. He well, who's getting the attention in both of those cases? Yeah. Right? The attention is on them. Right?

0:42:05
So I I like to do this thing risk called the the mirror tilt. And where I think we find body image freedom. So you just have to pretend as my mirror's a little outer reach. You know, to pretend this is a mirror. I think where we find freedom is instead of in the mirror to, like, love ourselves. Like, oh, I love my body. Oh, love love love. Right?

0:42:22
I think where you find freedom is when you can do this. Just kinda tilt your mirror up. Because then I'm actually doing what I'm here for. Right? I I am made I'm here to reflect God's glory. Right? This is a reflective position where your mirror is telling it. Right? And then if this stuff isn't perfect, if what I look like in the mirror isn't perfect, it's unfreeze. Right? Because I can still reflect God's glory even if my face doesn't look how I wanted to look if my chins are multiplying. Right? My my hair's got more grey than I would prefer. I can I'm still free to show his love. Yeah.

0:42:57
And you know, and every one of us knows this. Every one of us can think of someone who is never gonna be on the cover of a magazine who's never gonna be complimented for her physical beauty alone, yet who is beautiful. Because her heart shines through the way she loves us well, shines through, and we love her, and we see her as beautiful. And we don't even think about what she looks like. And that's the kind of beauty that we can all attain. Every single one of us can be beautiful like that. And I really think that's what God wants for us. I think that's amazing advice. And I I was gonna ask you to leave us with one piece of advice. Do you have any more? Because that that one was an awesome one. I love that. The the mirror analogy. So what would you like to leave us with today? Uh-huh.

0:43:46
So I would say don't gloss over what I said about idols. What we find is the areas of our lives that we are most tempted to compare ourselves to other people. Those are the areas that reveal where we have idols in our lives. And for some of us oh, that's a tough one. For some of us, we might find that the idol is our self. And our own opinions and our own judgments. Right? And the idol might just be the this ideal concept we've come up with for our lives. Like, I should be like this. And I just picture Jesus looking over saying, who says you should be like that? Like, I didn't say that. That's not what my bible says. Like, what book are you reading? And so it's it's tough stuff, but don't gloss over the idol stuff. That's really the linchpin. And then, you know, and then a lot of practical steps have to follow that, of course, but that's that's the heart of it. Yeah.

0:44:41
Well, Heather, I wanna thank you for joining me today and sharing your story and your wisdom. I really I enjoyed this and this could go on for another hour or so because I this is this is something that's really, you know, really important to me as well, but I really appreciate you coming on today sharing your knowledge with my out of the darkness listeners and to my friends, please check out the show notes on connecting with Heather Creekmore, and please subscribe and share to grow our community. Thank you, Heather. Oh, thanks for having me. Thank you for joining me to stay connected Follow me on Instagram and Facebook. If you like this podcast, can you help me find new listeners by leaving a rating and review. This small step takes only a moment, but really helps grow the listening audience. So let me thank you in advance. I hope you have a wonderful day and until next time. Let's continue on our journey as followers of Jesus Christ. I am Ruth Hovsepian.