Faith-Based Coaching: 2 Essential Tips for Achieving Health Goals Without Sacrificing Spiritual Wellness

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Speaker 1: Life Audio a friend Heather Creekmore here. Glad you're listening to the compared to a podcast. Today, Today I'm going to give you my two best coaching tips. As you may know, I coach women all the time around body magsues how they relate to food, pursuing their health goals without sacrificing their spiritual goals. We dig into all the things here and today, just as we start a new year, I want to give you my two best tips for free, because I want this to be the year when you feel like you can pursue health from a spiritually healthy place. There's nothing more important than your spiritual health. And so often I see women sacrificing their spiritual health or thinking it's okay to put their spiritual health on pause while they pursue physical health in front. It just doesn't work that way. Seek you first the care of God, and then all these things will be added to you. So today I'm going to be my two best tips. Before I do, I want to invite you one last time. Our forty day Journey starts January twentieth, one week from today. If you're listening to this in real time and friend, I need you to be there because you are going to get so much out of it. And if you're a little scared, if you're like, I don't do things like that, I get it. I don't know that I did things like that. But you can go back and listen to the last two episodes where you'll hear from real women like you who started their journey to freedom on the forty Day Body Image Journey and you'll hear their stories, so hear how it went, and they'll tell you, yeah, they were a little scared at first, but oh it was so worth it. And you can stay as quiet or be as chatty as you want to be in the forty Day Journey, but I think it just may change something for you if this is where you're stuck. So you can learn everything you need to learn about the forty day TIS Journey at improvebody Image dot com and look for the forty day Journey tap. Now let's get to today's episode. So a question I get all the time is what is coaching? I mean, there's a zillion coaches out there. You can have a coach for anything, or you can have a life coach for everything, I suppose, but there are some confusion in a round. What's the difference between coaching and counseling, And so before I give you my two tips, I just want to explain that to you so we're all on the same page. What we do here at compared to you could be considered something called nuthetic counseling, And that might sound really fancy, but really what it is is a Biblical way to guide women through their struggles like body image, self worth, feeling stuck in habits or thoughts. So the word nuthetic means to lovingly guide or gently correct. So in practice, what this means is as coaches, we don't just listen to you like maybe a counselor would just be like just talk. Maybe you've done counseling sessions like that where you just do a lot of the talking and they do a lot of listening, and there is, you know, something that feels good about just being listened to. But we're gonna walk with you and apply God's word to the areas of your life where you're struggling. In real practical terms, we are going to apply scripture to what we hear you saying. And so that means we're gonna push back a little bit. It's not all listening on our end. We are going to coach you. I don't know, maybe you were on a sports team as a child and get a coach that was like, hey, your tennis swings a little off, like do it this way, or your kick could be better if you, you know, stood on your back leg more. I don't obviously I didn't play soccer, but we're gonna coach you. We're gonna say, hey, have you thought about this? Do you think you could be stuck because of this? What about the fact that God's word says this, Wow, it sounds like there's a lot of fear here. What does scripture say about this? And unlike other counseling that may rely on psychology or advice, nuthetic counseling points you back to God's truth every single time. It's not Heather's truth, It's God's truth. And we're gonna explore our thoughts, habits, behaviors together, and then we'll work out practical steps, baby steps, not all at once, but baby steps to help you realign those areas of your life where maybe you've kind of gotten off track with the life that God created you to live. Now listen, I am all for counseling. In fact, a lot of our coaching clients have spent some time at counseling and that's fine, but what we do here is different. And you may find that you have a counselor who doesn't really understand your body of issues or doesn't really understand your relationship with food. And that's another advantage to working with us is we get it. We've been there, all of those crazy thoughts that you think you're the only person who has, and you might feel a little embarrassed even say to anyone, trust me, friend, I've thought them, I've lived by them. So that's what we do here in coaching, and it is different than counseling. And I work with a lot of women who have a counselor and then they work with us. If you've never done anything in that realm, it's okay to start with us, and we will be honest and tell you like if there's something that is like kind of outside of the scheme of things that we do, will be like, hey, friend, like we need to send you somewhere, but there's a lot of things that we can work through, talk through, help you guide you in an athetic Counseling way through, and we'd love the opportunity to do that. And that's one reason why I love the forty Day Journey, because it kind of gives you the opportunity to maybe observe what it would look like to work with us in coaching. Because in the forty Day Journey, the participants get to ask questions about the content of the book, and a lot of times those questions are personal because the books are about body image issues, and so you'll hear how I respond and answer the very personal questions that come up there, and you get a feel for whether or not like that's something that would help you. You have similar questions about your life and how things apply to you, you can just kind of observe and then you'll know whether or not the best next step for you would be to do coaching. So let's get to those two coaching tips that you've been waiting for. Okay. Number one, do all things out of love. Okay, A bajillion versus that instruct us in this way right, walk in love, show the world what love really is. Love God, love others. It's a way of obedience to God, following Christ. Let's just go through a couple of them. First Corinthians sixteen fourteen. Let all that you do be done in love Colossians three seventeen. And whatever you do in word or deed, deed action, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Colossians three twenty three. Whatever you do work heardily as for the Lord and not for men. Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us Ephesians five one and two. Through love, serve one another Galatians five thirteen and fourteen, First Corinthians thirteen one through three. If I have not love, I am nothing. And so my first coaching tip free friend is ask yourself, why do I want to be healthier? Why do I want to change my body? Often women will tell me that their motivation is love because they want to be able to live longer, love their children or grandchildren better as they're older. And those aren't bad goals at all, But we have to be very careful that it's actually the love of God and others that's motivating us on our health journey, and not love of self or love of our own life. Because if we're driven to exercise or eat a certain way because we're paralyzed with fear about what may happen. If we don't, then that's not love motivated. That's fear motivated. That's fear driven. That's not having faith that God is sovereign and according to the Bible, already knows exactly how many days you are gonna have on this earth. And then remember, Jesus also says, you can't actually add to them. I'm sorry, no matter how hard you work and what you eat, Matthew six twenty seven says, and which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his life span? Oh? Friend, Like I live in Austin near the best longevity expert in the world, and even though he is the best longevity expert in the world, he has no power to add to your lifespan. And you don't either. We're not in control, a friend. You can do everything right and still live a shorter life than you'd hope. What is most important is not you trying to preserve your life. In fact, it kind of makes me think of that verse that if you try to save your life, you lose it. And now the newest buzz that I've heard replacing longevity is this word health span. Like, you're not actually trying to expand how long you live. But you're trying to expand the number of years that you are healthy and independent and can take care of yourself. And that makes sense to me. I don't have any problem with that. That's a noble goal. Go for it. But here's my caveat. If that's your primary goal, if that's the first thing on your to do list, If you can't serve at church or even go to church because you've got health goals to take care of to pursue. If you can't tithe because all of your money is going to your personal trainer and your health equipment and your special foods, and you don't have any money left for God, that's a problem. If you can't be in God's word every day because the gym has to come first, and then you've got work, responsibilities and families, you are missing the point of life. Friend. You are storing up treasure here in vain. You're investing in something that's fleeting, even if you end up being the most mobile ninety nine year old the planet has ever seen. Friend, that's still just aspect in the realm of eternity. Don't gain the whole world with your health goals and lose your soul. It does matter what comes first. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and then all these things will be added to you. And if it's too scary to think about releasing some control in this area or be on the opposite side of the spectrum, maybe it's too scared to think about doing something proactive in this area, reach out to us. We'd be honored to walk with you and dig into why you felt like you needed to retain such tight control and work with you on ways to gently surrender to our good God, who gives us the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us so we don't have to rely on our own wisdom or our own strength. And we'll walk with you and I grace filled loving way. We're not trying to beat you up with a Bible. We just want to encourage your heart and bring you back to the only place you really will find life, and that's in Jesus. So what is your motivation for getting healthier? It has to be love. You need to be rooted and grounded in love. Then that filters all of your decisions through a process. You could ask yourself the question before you make every health related decision is this loving to God and others? If I tend this dinner that my friend's made for me and I choose not to eat the gift of food that they prepared, is that loving? Now? For sure, you don't have to clean your break plate, you don't have to eat foods that make you sick, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm talking about your heart posture. Are you more concerned about the size and shape of your body than anything else? Like, let's be honest, friend, Like I've done this and there's no shame coming from me. But there are ways that the pursuit of me and my goals make me unloving to others. Perhaps it's never eating dinner with my family because I had to prepare a special meal with my special foods, and I would prepare my special meal with my special foods while everyone else is eating, and then I eat alone later after everyone's doe. Like, friend, if sounds that you're doing, oh stop, please stop. There is copious amounts of data out there around the importance of family dinner and how that is literally the variable that all these studies show will keep your kids out of drugs and risky behaviors. Eating family dinner together is so so important, And if you're choosing not to eat with your family to meet your weight loss goals, you've got to decide if that's loving them well, Like yeake, I know I stepped on some toes there. If you feel like you have to have your special food, figure out a way to eat it with everyone. Don't sit there not eating either, because that will communicate dangerous messages to your children about who deserves to eat and who doesn't. So as you pursue a healthier lifestyle, just ask yourself with every decision, is this loving to God and others? And it's going to be case by case. There's no hard, infest rule about what is loving and what is not loving. It's not necessarily loving to go to the gym at six and not loving to go to the gym at seven. Like it's going to vary depending on your situation and week to week and day to day and who is God putting in front of you to love right now, You're gonna have to rely on the Holy Spirit to guide you, not what influencers say you should do. It's not going to be rigid. Most of the suggestions that you are getting online are going to be self focused, to put self first, like sacrifice everything for your own routines. You can meet your goals, but friend, that's not a spirit guided life. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you how to be loving in all things, including your health goals. Now, my second coaching tip that's a doozy, it's coming up right after this quick break. Coaching tip number two is get a new accountability partner. And I'm not talking about your friend that you walk with or that you talk about macros with. I'm gonna shock you with this one, Okay, So let me back up just a second. Set the stage for this. Why are you pursuing your health goals? What drives you to do that worked out or eat that spinach and kale salad over the burger that you want into order? And we already talked about asking yourself is it love? But if it's not love, and let's go a little deeper here, let me speculate, is it shame and condemnation that's driving you? Now? See if this sounds true for you, if I don't go work out, then I'm gonna have to deal with this voice in my head that's gonna shame me all day long. For skipping that workout. It's gonna yell at me, it's gonna be mean to me, it's gonna tell me how awful I am because I didn't go work out. So I go work out so that I don't have to hear that voice. Or maybe it's like this, if I eat the thing that I said I wouldn't eat, like those girl Scout cookies, what will torment me as I try to go to sleep is the fact that I ate the cookies. When I said I wasn't gonna eat the cookies. I said, after Christmas, I'm not gonna eat any cookies anymore, no more cookies ever. And then that little girl Scout showed up and I got the thin mince and I ate the cookies when I said I wouldn't eat the cookies. And you hate how those voices shame you. How you lay down in bed and that's all you hear. You eat these cookies so awful? Why did you eat those cookies? You said you weren't gonna eat those cookies. Where's your willpower? You don't have any willpower at all. You're so undisciplined, you're so out of control. I can't believe you eat those cookies when you said you weren't gonna eat those cookies. Friend, if these are your motivators for pursuing your health goals, these voices of shame and condemnation, If these voices are so loud, friend, I want you to ask yourself, is this why you're pursuing health goals? And then ask yourself another follow up question, do you actually believe that you can get healthy enough to make those voices shut up? Because if you believe these voices are helping you, and I hear this all the time, like, I'm kind of afraid to make the shame and condemnation go away, because those are the reasons that I exercise. Those are the reasons that I don't eat the cookies because I can't handle how loud and me and these voices are. I'm gonna make them shut up by being quote unquote good friend. If this is how you're living, then wait for it. Ah. You've made the devil the enemy of your soul. You've made him your accountability partner. You're saying, I need his voice of shame and condemnation to meet my health slash fitness slash diet goals. You were saying Satan is your accountability partner? What that's crazy? And yet and yet, oh, friend, I hear this all the time. Every week in coaching, I hear this. I'm kind of afraid to make those voices go away. It's a little scary to think about being nice to myself. It's a little scary to think about being guided by the Holy Spirit, whose voice is kind, because it kind of helps me that these mean voices are gonna be there unless I do the thing. And so I don't know if I want the mean voices to go away? What a friend? Track with me here? You know that's not the voice of the Holy Spirit. I mean, maybe you don't know, right, because I think sometimes we can have a distorted concept of God where we actually think He would speak to us in that mean, judgy way. I do meet clients who think that it's God telling them they're a fat slob, and it's God telling them that if they eat that cookie, they're bad. They maybe call it gluttony or something else. Right, But friend, oh, those are not the voice of the Holy Spirit, the comforter. He is the wise, guiding voice that helps us with every part of our daily lives. Right, And maybe you've heard this sad about Jesus, but it's good to remember it's his kindness that leads us to repentance. If you want to change, Jesus's way to change is through kindness, not through shame and condemnation and berating you. Those voices of shame and condemnation are the devil. And if you're trying to exercise or eat your way into being good enough to shut him up, let me assure you he's not going to be proud of you when you accomplish your goals. He's not going to just let you go when you meet that weight loss goal, fitness goal. He just keeps going. In fact, that's why so many women have serious eating disorders. He starts them off on a health journey, but he wants to take them to their death. Remember he's not on your side. He comes to steal, kill, and destroy John ten ten. There's no halfway about it. His voice of shame and condemnation isn't helping you and maybe motivating you, but not in a good way. Instead, it's stealing from you. It's quietly killing you. You are in bondage. If this is the voice guiding you, you are a slave. To something that's not Jesus. You are a slave to the enemy, and that's not good. Let's take it one step further. There's also like a theology issue at play, because if you believe that you can beat the enemy like fighting in his way, like he says you need to exercise more, and you exercise more, thinking this is how I'm going to defeat him, then that's you trying to defeat the enemy on his terms. This is you trying to prove to the devil that you are good enough the friend you're not only Jesus was, and he's already defeated him, and the work is finished, and you can rest in that work. You cannot defeat fear or the devil by outworking it. You cannot defeat shame by proving it wrong. You have to rest. You are invited to rest in what Jesus has already done to defeat fear and shame. Friend, you can't exercise or eat enough kale to get it done. And then once you can rest in that, once you understand, okay, wait, Jesus already took care of all of this. I don't have to live by fear and shame. Then when you try to achieve your health goals. Then you can do it from a place of enoughness through Christ. And only through Christ are you enough. And then you don't have to prove that you're enough because you didn't skip that workout, or you worked out really hard, or you ate a certain way. Then you can pursue health goals knowing you're already accepted. You're already so much more loved than you ever could imagine. You are free from shame. You can turn off the conversation with the devil, who is the worst health coach ever, and turn on the conversation with the Holy Spirit. Ask him to gently convict and guide you in this area. When you don't feel like getting up off the couch to exercise, listen for still small voys to say, it'd be good to move your body, the body I gave you today. It will gentle and kind. It won't be you big fat slob. You don't move your butt, you're going to get so fat that no one will love you and you'll be lonely and gross. Friend, that's not the Holy Spirit. And so as we close today, I want you to just ask yourself two questions. How am I doing pursuing my health goals out of love? And number two, who's my accountability partner? Do I need a new one? Am I motivated by shame and condemnation and guilt? Do I need to change the way I'm pursuing my health goals? Friend, if you want this year to be different, these are the two most important questions you can ask, because I promise you that devil is going to tell you that you cannot possibly get there without him. And let me remind you he's a liar. He's a liar. Oh, friend, try a new way this year? Hey, maybe join us on the forty day Journey. This whole concept of a Satan your accountability partner came from my book, The Forty Day Body Image Workbook. Even if you don't want to do a forty day journey, you can grab that book on Amazon. You can work through the questions by yourself. I think it'll be more helpful to work through them in community because we go deep. But you can grab the book by yourself and get started, and maybe you'll want to join us on a future forty day journey. The books available everywhere books are sold. But don't wait, run. I'm okay with you. Pursuing your health goals, but seek you first the Kingdom of God. I hope this has encouraged you today, and I hope something today has helped you stop comparing then start living. Good bye bye. Compared to a podcasts is proud to be called a Life Audio podcast network for more great Christian podcasts called a Life Boudio dat