Is Your Self Talk Like an Apple Watch or Oura Ring? God’s Grace vs. Self-Condemnation

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Speaker 1: Life Audio. Hey, friend, thanks for listening to the Compared to You podcast today. I'm your host, Heather Creekmore Boy, We've been on a journey this month looking at the ways that die culture. And if you're not familiar with that term, I'll kind of basically explain it as the culture we live in that really tells us that having a certain kind of body is the best way to be or the healthiest way to be. But we've been looking at ways that die. Culture uses religious language and really kind of confuses us, right. We kind of think like, oh, that must be God's standard that I eat only unprocessed foods that come straight from my garden, or that must be God's standard that I only weigh this amount. And it's confusing because we all do long to be healthy and we want to be good steers of our body. And how do we know really when we're accomplishing that when culture is shouting one standard and you know, I don't know, maybe the Bible's not speaking quite as loudly to us. Today we're gonna explore that just even a little bit further because I got an Aura ring for Christmas, and friend, I love my Aura ring. I wish I was an affiliate of theirs, so I could get a little kick back if you decide to go buy one. But I'm not though that my endorsement is sincere. And here's what I noticed. More than anything, my Aura ring is nicer to me than my Apple Watch. And this got me thinking, like, Huh, I wonder if the way I talk to myself is more like my Apple watch talks to me, and the way God sees and thinks about me and how I steward my health is more like the way the Aura ring does it. So if that intrigues you, you're in the right place. This is gonna be a good one. I'm glad to hear for it. Hey share it with a friend if it touches you. We're about to start another forty day journey June third. It'll happen Wednesday afternoons. Learn more at improvebody image dot com. We'd love to have you join us. Okay, or rings have been around for a little while, but I think they're just really becoming a lot more popular. Part of that might be that the price is coming down on them. But I have a family member who's had one for years, like he was a early adopter and he's been singing its praises for years, but it took me until this last Christmas to get one. And mostly I got it because I was curious about my sleep. And I'll just like tell you experientially, I thought I was getting like eleven hours of sleep a night because I would go to bed at like nine and wake up at seven, and thought, you know, my goodness, gracious, like, I'm getting ten to eleven hours every night. And I realized from wearing my or ring, like, no, I like maybe eight even if I'm in bed that long. But here's where I want to go today. I recognize that there was a huge difference between my Apple Watch and my Ara ring, both wearable technology, but one seemed to condemn me and the other motivates me in a different encouraging I'm going to even call it grace filled way. My Aura ring and my Apple Watch have two different voices. Okay. The Apple watch says, close your rings, hit the goal, finish the task. Did you stand enough today? Did you stand this hour? Did you you know exercise enough today? You didn't move enough today? My or ring says, oh, look at your sleep. You didn't sleep very well last night. Oh, look at your stress. Your body's very stressed. You should take it easy today. And what I started to think about was like, how, okay, this is a little strange. Forgive me if it's too strange. But these two devices reflect two very different ways of thinking about how we steward our bodies. One I think mirrors maybe how we treat ourselves and how we speak to ourselves and how we think about ourselves. The other, I think may mirror how God sees and cares for us. A stretch, I don't know, maybe, but let's see what you think when we're all done. Okay, So let's start by talking about the good old Apple Watch. The Apple Watch is goal centered and static. It asks three questions, did you do enough? Did you move enough? Did you close the ring? There's no nuance. There's no asterisk for hard days, stomach bugs, travel, Nope, none of that. There's no compassion if you're grieving. There's no adjustment for which week of the month it is hormonally, whether you're stressed, whether you're exhausted. It's just black and white. You closed the ring or you failed to close the ring. You lose. Sorry, you're not going to get that little reward at the end of the month because you didn't do it, and you know, the reward is such a big deal, like you're watched like I don't know, lights up tells you got a reward. Woooh yeah. But isn't this how we treat ourselves? Isn't it like we create our own goals, maybe invisible rings, in our own lives, right, Like was I productive enough? Did I eat clean enough? Did I parents well enough? Does my body look good enough? Did I do my spiritual disciplines enough? Like we make these all rings and then every night we go to bed and we say did I do enough? Did I do enough today? Did I close the rings? Did I close the rings? And then there's the r ring voice. I'm going to call it the voice of wisdom and grace and maybe even context, right, because what the raa ring does is it pays attention before it makes demands or even set skulls for you. Okay, So the or ring tracks how you slept. It looks at whether or not your heart rate was elevated, or whether or not it came down, and at what point in the night it came down, and what your heart rate variation is It looks at how stressed you are, how much time you've sent stressed versus relaxed the day before, and it evaluates all of that to really ask the question like is your body ready to move or does your body need some rest? And then it adjusts the expectations. Instead of just saying closed rings, closed rings, close rings, it like literally my or ring Apple say something like prioritize rest today or choose recovery today, or it will say We're not even going to put a move goal on you today because you are sick and you just need to rest, and you don't need to see any numbers at all. It's so vastly different than the black and white system of the Apple Watch, And I wonder if this is closer to how God sees and deals with us. Right. God is not disconnected from our context. He knows our frame, our limits, our season of life. He knows our hidden burdens. He knows what really depleted and to get out of us last night. He knows what grief for carrying. He remembers that we are dust. Think about it like this. God doesn't demand summer fruit in the middle of winter, does he. But here's the problem. Friends, we kind of prefer Apple watch technology or theology. Many of us secretly prefer the rigid system of closing the rings because it feels very controllable and the rules are simple. You can know whether or not you are righteous. You hit the target, you are good. You miss the target, did not close the ring, you are bad. And grace is much much messier because it requires flexibility and listening and adjusting daily, hourly. And is the truth that we'd rather just count our steps and measure everything rather than asking am I tired today? Am I anxious today? Like? What does love require from me today? What does stewarding my body well look like today? In this exact season of my life with all of these variables, you see, we often just want to scoreboard. Just tell me how I'm doing, tell me I close the ring. And what God offers us is a relationship. He offers us the opportunity to dig into the nuance of season versus season, day versus day, how we feel week one of our cycle versus week three or four of our cycle. That's what a relationship does as it considers the context. But here's what most of us are afraid of. We're afraid that caring for our bodies with grace will equal laziness or letting ourselves go, or if we're too gentile with ourselves, then we'll just never move and will never be healthy. I mean, we've actually believed the lie of shame that I need shame in my life in order to so I can keep myself like on track. We believe that shame is a helpful accountability partner effect. I did an episode not too long ago asking is the devil your accountability partner for your diet? Right? Because, friend, it's like his voice is the voice of shame and condemnation. And so if you're afraid to let his voice go, like who is it that you're really hoping will keep you accountable on your journey to steward your body? Well wait, but here's what you need to know and hear right, Grace is not laziness. To go back to it, like, the Aura ring doesn't say never move, The or ring says do what is wise for how your body is today. And that's what's so beautiful and honestly, friend, as someone who was in dye culture for so long, I've come a long way with my food. But the or ring has really helped me around exercise because I realized though I was doing a better job at being tuned into hunger and fullness and like what I was really hungry for those kind of things. With exercise, it was still kind of black and white. You do it, you do it the right way, or you don't do it. You're not doing it the right way. Right, it's like on or off, And if it was off, I kind of felt bad because it should be on. And I really wasn't able to listen to my body and know, like, am I too tired to exercise? I mean, like in die culture, we've been told like that's just laziness, Like you have to override that. You tell your body get up and get to that gym, get your lazy bum up and go work out, Like no, who cares how you feel, You just go do it. And we're told to like ignore any of those physical symptoms. And that's why the or ring has been so helpful for me because it's kind of allowed me permission through really knowledge and understanding, right, but permission to see that I didn't sleep well last night, and see that I spent the last three days completely stressed, and see that the best thing for my body is probably not to go do crazy hard workout for thirty minutes, but maybe just to take a walk and be gentle, and it coaches me in the same way. Right, And I think we've confused. But God asks for us in terms of godly stewardship for our body. We've confused that with diet cultures principles of punishment. Right, you should punish your body, you should beat your body into submission. Your body doesn't know what it wants. You just work it, and you work it hard and who cares how you feel. You just keep working if you want results. And God doesn't have that anywhere in the Bible, Like, that's not a biblical principle. Like we've taken this beautiful concept of stewardship that allows for context and grace and understanding and we've turned it into this yaki principle from die culture. But godly stewardship is responsive, and sometimes being faithful and godly stewardship is going to look like getting in your strength training and being disciplined and going to bed earlier. But sometimes faithfulness might look like taking a nap, slowing down, canceling your plans, eating more because your body is stressed and it's hungry because you haven't been eating enough nutrients, or maybe it's just walking because you know you need to move your body, but you don't have the energy to crush a workout today. Wisdom changes with the season you're in. Wisdom changes depending on what your day is, what your week is. But the law law does not. And I think Apple Watch is a little bit more like the law. An aura brings the wisdom of grace. So here's my questions for you. Ask yourself. Do I set and use body goals like closing my rings? Am I doing that to actually care for for myself? Or do I still kind of view that as punishment, like a penance, I must pay for what I eat. Are my body goals punishment or wise care? How about this one? Do my habits sound more like accusations like you better, you better? You're don't, you didn't, you shouldn't, you shouldn't, you shouldn't? Or are they an invitation? Hey, you're invited to eat things that fuel your body. Well, you're invited to add some vegetables. You're invited to go for a walk. Those things might feel good. It's a very different tone, the tone of addition versus restriction a very different tone than accusation and shame. How about this one? Is my wellness rooted in fear. I'm afraid I'm gonna get fat. I'm afraid no one's gonna like me. I'm afraid I'm not gonna like myself. I'm afraid God won't accept me. I'm afraid, I'm afraid. I'm afraid. I'm afraid of afraid if I'm afraid, if this, I'm afraid, if this, I'm afraid. Or is it stewardship? Okay, God, you miss body, I'm gonna take care of it. Show me what this looks like. I'm not afraid. Just help me to make good decisions. That doesn't mean they're going to be perfect decisions, and it's going to change contextually from day to day as to you know what. I have the opportunities for an access to but I can be a good steward without obsession. And then the last question, do I listen to my body for information? Or am I rebelling against my body? Am I angry with my body? Am I trying to beat my body into submission? Or am I on the same team and hearing what it's saying to me, is there great questions for you to consider? As we close today? Here's what I should think about. Maybe you didn't close the rings. Maybe you're behind on all of your goals. Maybe your body it feels slower different than it used to. None of these things mean failure. God is not standing over you with a notification badge. He is your creator. He made you fearfully and wonderfully Intimately. He niche you together in your mother's womb. He knows your chemistry, he knows your nervous system, he knows your hormones. He knows your grief. He knows the amount of sleep debt you have. He knows your limitations. He is wiser than any algorithm, and he's kinder than all of your self judgment. You don't need to earn caring for your body today, friend, you only need to receive it. Let's pray, Oh darly father, teach me to care for my body in the way that you care for me. You're filled with wisdom, you're filled with patience, and you're filled with grace. Free me from my self accusation and my own standards and my scoreboards and my trying to get it all right. And punishing myself. Help me to choose stewardship over that punishment, to choose listening to my body overstriving to meet arbitrary goals. Help me to trust you over being afraid. It's in Jesus near my pray. Amen. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the podcast today. I hope something today has helped you stop comparing and start living. If this episode has been encouraging to you, consider sharing it with a friend. That's one of the kindest things you can do for us. In addition to leaving us a review wherever you get your podcast episodes, we love those reviews. They help Apple and Spotify note to share this show with other people. So if you have just a minute and are willing to leave us a five star review, that one honor us so much. Thanks so much for this thing. I hope something that has helped you stop comparing and still I think that h