Discovering the Breath of Life and Soul-Deep Beauty Within

Hey there, welcome to the Grace Telf podcast, your source for aging strong in your physical, mental and spiritual health. My name is Amy Connell. I'm a weight neutral, certified personal trainer and nutrition coach who loves walks with friends, chocolate and Jesus. Whether you look into growth stronger as you age, nourish your body, mind and spirit, or fit all the pieces of your health together to holistically thrive, this is the place for women over 40. I'm here to guide you in the areas I can and bring on experts in the areas I'm still learning, and, of course, we cover it all in a whole lot of grace. I'm glad you're here.

I have been sitting here trying to put words to today's conversation, and when I just kind of type out some of those words, I type out the words rich, beautiful, redeeming, grace, giving, gentle all of these come to mind. I hope these sound as lovely to you as they are to me and if so, I know you are going to just cherish this conversation. Today I'm speaking with Melissa Johnson, host of the impossible beauty podcast and author of soul, deep beauty, fighting for our true worth in a world demanding, flawless. So this is the deal I recorded this months ago, because I have just kind of been ahead on my guests, and I am editing this shortly before it goes live. I have to admit I needed Melissa's words now more than ever. I felt like I was listening to it with such fresh ears, fresh heart and it, this conversation, just means so much to me.

We talk about Melissa's story of struggling from an eating disorder and healing from it. By the way, body shame, what she calls the baby shower effect. We talk about influencing our daughters and how not to repeat our own patterns of body shame. We talk about breath and just so much more. So let me tell you real quickly about Melissa before we bring her on. She is a marriage and family therapist. She's a spiritual director and teaches an undergraduate course at Bethel University on soul well being. Melissa is also the founder of impossible beauty, a blog and podcast dedicated to redefining beauty as the life of God at work in us and among us. Melissa lives near Minneapolis, minnesota, with her husband, and you can learn more about her at impossible dash beautycom, and I highly recommend that you tune in to her podcast and, of course, of course, grab your copy of soul deep body as soon as you can. Okay, let's bring on Melissa.

Melissa, I'm thrilled you're here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Yes, oh, I'm loving it too because I can hear your Minnesota accent coming. Oh, no, no, no, that's great, that's great. Somehow I escaped growing up in Oklahoma and living in Houston, texas, for 20 years without a real thick Texas accent.

Yeah, I've lived in Minnesota my whole life and yeah, definitely, you know I don't pick up on it, but some words I do and then I cringe a little bit.

but yes, well, no, it's just something to embrace. All right, it's part of our story. It tells a little bit about where we grew up and all of that. So, no, that's great. Okay, so we are here today. I have read your book, soul, deep Beauty. I love, love, love it, and I think it is a wonderful compliment and resource for my community, which is women 40s, 50s, 60s, a little bit beyond who are looking for holistic health, who are faithful, who faith guides their steps, and are learning to reexamine their relationship with their bodies and with food and with exercise. And you have just written a beautiful book that is part story and then part lessons learned as well. It's just such a gift. So first I just want to thank you for sharing that.

Thank you so much.

Part of your story revolves around body shame and eating disorders, and these are so common among women, and especially young women. I have been in the throes of writing a book for young women, and so I absolutely know this is applicable to them, but also I think there are plenty of grown women who are struggling with this as well, possibly with even more shame that we're trying to cover up. I was wondering if you could start us out by telling some of your story.

To your point. I mean, I think it's like 85 to 95% of women struggle with body image to the point of hating their bodies. And so I think if listeners right now are thinking, am I in the minority here? Definitely not. So, yes, this is such a huge issue for so many women. So my own story, I think it goes back even further than this.

But in the book I talk about, you know, probably about nine years ago now, I was working as a marriage and family therapist and also working with my own personal therapist and she let me know that my relationship with food and body and movement was maybe a little bit disordered. And she says she started subtly and then eventually said you actually I'm inviting you to do some intensive work on this and kind of, I'm going to end working with you. You have to do some intensive, intensive eating disorder treatment is kind of your next step. And so that really that really threw me and, long story short, I ended up making the decision to pause my work as a therapist and enter intensive eating disorder treatment, which I saw as a huge like roadblock and you know it totally. You know messed my or through my world, the world I knew, kind of into a tailspin, and what ended up happening, though, is I ended up getting a lot of healing in my own experience with, or my own relationship with, food and body image, but also what I started to realize probably I don't know months into treatment is a lot of the beliefs and struggles and behaviors that I was seeing in the treatment rooms were actually a lot of the same beliefs and struggles that were happening outside of the, the treatment rooms. A lot of the conversations I was having with peers, or, you know, just experiencing out in the world and seeing on commercials. I was like these are the same beliefs and ideas that I am being told are disordered and that I am being encouraged to walk away from.

So I was realizing how disordered our culture is and and was, and, on the other side of treatment, I started to just I couldn't not say something. I started to see just how this I call it we're being sold a broken brand of beauty, is the phrase I say, or that I've, that I've learned to adapt, but I just truly think we are, when it comes to this idea of beauty and how we're supposed to treat our bodies and restrict Food and push ourselves to the max, just a lot of our cultural messages around Beauty, around body image, around movement, are so disordered in our Depleting us of life. And I also started to see it through a spiritual lens, and I'm not someone, I don't think there's a demon around every corner, but I do think that there are very real poles on our lives and I do believe that certain things have certain gravity and when it comes like spiritual gravity and when it comes to this idea, when it comes to women in particular, I think the idea of beauty and how it has been skewed and how we have been taught, to quote, steward our bodies, when it comes to beauty and you know, I think that gets wrapped up in food, etc. And and movement I do believe that it has become so warped and I do think that the enemy Can use it, and does use it, as a tool of shame and to really bring us down.

And so, on the other side of treatment, I could not say something and these ideas and this passion was stirring inside of me, and so, on the other side, I did create this podcast called impossible beauty. It's just also a blog and that was the pathway to what is now the book trying to help women, how I'll help us wake up to how we are being played when it comes to beauty and Really wanting to bring some awareness around some of those messages around beauty and food, and how I believe we've been Brainwashed and I think we know this to a certain extent. Like pre my experience with an intense eating disorder treatment, I would have told you like, yeah, I know, like the images we look at aren't real. I didn't know much about diet culture, to be honest, but I did not realize the depths To which I believe that these messages are depleting us, destroying some and, and I do think I did not realize the gravity that that they hold and to various extents in different women's lives. But I had to say something.

I'm glad you did. One of the things that struck me is the beliefs and struggles that you shared. That was kind of the same in treatment as well as out of treatment. To me, the word that comes to mind is normalized. Yes, because and I think that that's also why, like if you said you didn't know much about diet culture that's because everything we see surrounding food and Stewarding our bodies I shouldn't say everything, but predominantly is Wrapped up in diet culture and managing our bodies and managing what we eat for the sake of Managing our bodies. So I think that that has been a journey that I've been on for a while as well, and just kind of realizing how much of what we, what we have been told, is not necessarily Truth to who we are and how we should be taking care of ourselves. Yes, yes, absolutely yeah. So I have a lot of conversations and I'd be curious to hear if the same thing happens to you, melissa. But because I have shared a lot of my struggles, because I have just a heart for walking alongside women In their body shame and of course, I love the health aspect as well. As a personal trainer and nutrition coach, like I, absolutely realized the benefits that both of these can have.

I was doing some research for my upcoming women's young women's books. My friends have Children and half of them, approximately, are young women, so they'll they'll talk to me. And then of course I've got Facebook friends and all of that kind of stuff. So I asked I was kind of doing some anecdotal research and I just put out several questions or several statements. I said which one resonates with you the most, and there was overwhelming majority of one particular Question and that was how do I help my daughter live a healthy lifestyle without creating food and body image issues? I mean, this is kind of the million dollar question, it seems like. Because you have so much experience in so many different areas, including being a marriage and family therapist, I would love to know if you have any guidance for this very difficult question.

It's an excellent question. I was just pulling up a statistic here. So we know that girls body dissatisfaction was predicted by how they perceive their mom feels about their own body. And so I just think you know this idea of modeling, our modeling, our behaviors around food, modeling our behaviors about how we, how we treat our body, but how we even talk about our body, how we think about our body, I think that that cannot be underestimated and so I know it can feel maybe you know, a bit removed but I think, doing our own work, as you know, as moms, around our own relationship with our bodies, our own relationship with food.

I think that when we are kind of, I think that when we are kind of able to model kind of helpful nutrition, you know balanced nutrition, I'll say making sure that we are not, you know, cutting out certain food groups and not, you know, speaking with fear about certain kinds of foods or elevating kinds of certain foods. When it comes to sweets or whatever, that we aren't saying that those are bad or wrong. I think oftentimes there is this, this fear that can come with with food or out for so many reasons, and so one reframe that I've done in my own life is seeing food as a gift, instead of thinking about like I don't know if it's like broccoli or something, instead of thinking about it as like this is what I should eat and I should start with it or whatever. I should fill up on this, which is such a diet culture related message. I've learned to think about like all different foods, like each, each as a gift, like even with sugar, which I know can get such a bad rap these days, but like it is amazing that it can give me, like quick energy that I need, or like with a broccoli, thinking about like the amazing vitamins and minerals that provides my brain and my body.

And so I'm wondering what it would be like to speak about the gift of food with with children. I think is one thing, but then also I think I think the biggest thing we can do is modeling when it comes to you know what we're serving, how we're speaking about food, how we're speaking about our own bodies, and I think that that so much of that goes back to perhaps doing our own work around this, which I think likely women listening to your podcast are trying to do just that, and so I think that that's a beautiful thing.

I agree. You know, one of the things I was thinking about as you were talking is the other part of this is these children are very attuned to us often and we can't fake it. I love how you said you know we've got to do our own work around this because just saying that they'll sniff that out in a heartbeat, if, if our actions and our words don't necessarily mirror our hearts and it's an easy thing to say like, okay, well, we're going to model this it's a harder thing to actually change our heart, posture and do, but I think it's worth it. I think it's worth it. It's funny I have so this book that I've written and I'm sorry to talk about my book, but I think it's really applicable in this part of the conversation.

So every chapter is a question and like is sugar bad? For me is one of the chapter titles Will carbs make me fat? And I come at this with the posture of there are no good and bad foods, there are no morals, and I am anticipating some pushback from parents who are going to come at me and say why are you telling me that my kid can have sugar? Which in it? I, I, my whole focus is how does this food make you feel and function? Because it is a gift to make us be able to feel better and function better. And I think when we start to be aware, then we can go through that process. But I'm prepared for that, Like I'm ready for this, because, going back to what we were talking about, it's well, how did that work out for you? And, like the most gentle and loving tone, like how did it work out for you having these rules around our food? And it didn't work out that great for me.

Yes, yes, perhaps you talk about this in other episodes on your show, but you know it's like a tenant of intuitive eating, or a thought around. Intuitive eating is, I think oftentimes there can be this misconception like, well, if no food is good or bad, then I'm going to probably just eat all of the hostess cupcakes in the world and, you know, never eat anything else. Another lesson that I've learned is just the beauty of like when we do tune into our bodies, they actually don't want hostess cupcakes all the time, like if you've been depriving yourself of that for months or years. Yes, you know our bodies can go into that like starvation mode, and so that can be a pull at first. However, once things normalize, I really do trust our body's wisdom that we will gravitate toward the things that our bodies really need, and so, yes, I love your messaging that you're bringing forth in your book.

That sounds great Leslie Schilling, the author of Feed Yourself, said it are good and wise bodies, and I think she's been on your podcast as well, and I just think that that's so gentle and powerful at the same time. Yes, one of the other things that I loved in your book is you shared this story of a transformation during a yoga class. I love participating in yoga and all kinds of other things Like while you were in intensive treatment. You did this yoga class and I would love for you, if you don't mind, to share the connection that you made during this yoga class and how it really spread far beyond just the act of yoga.

Yes, yes, this was part of our treatment protocol was doing yoga every day, which I was very like not excited about at first, because I wanted to just like get healed and then like leave treatment and can you before you?

where did you come in in terms of a movement Like hard exercise, no exercise somewhere in between. So set up where what was normal to you before.

Yeah, yeah, that was part of my disorder, I would say, was I over exercised and so part of my, one of my treatment challenges was to not do movement when I was in treatment. So, besides this yoga which was not it was very gentle yoga, right. So I mean that's a good point, because I'm thinking, yes, the way I treated my body previous to this was very different than how this kind of yoga invited me to treat my body. And so what was different? One day we had a substitute yoga teacher and there was something about her presence, but then also the way she would word things and one of the things you know usually in a yoga class, oftentimes they'll invite you to notice your breath, and that particular day, something hit different about that. I don't know if it was. You know exactly who she was or how she was wording things, or you know, I was just more open to God's spirit in those moments.

But I had this all of a sudden, like this transition from noticing my breath. Well, first it, the realization, was just what a miracle that is Like even thinking about our conversation today, amy, like how many times have I like took a breath and or how many times has my heart beaten, or beaten today since we began, and like I don't think about that, I never think about how my body is actually sustaining me and what a gift that is. And so for for a moment I, you know, at first I realized like this was this idea of my body being a miracle and like my life being a miracle really started to sink in. And then she said something like the yoga instructor said something like you know, it's your breath, a centering force that's with you all the time. And all of a sudden that like my realization kind of sank in deeper and I realized like God's breath, like God's spirit is with me, like all the time. And all of a sudden I had this image of like God's love, like swirling around me and in me, like all the time, and I had this centering force, this spirit with me all of the time. And I even thought about like back in Genesis, when God breathed breath into like the first human, and how really, like God is breathing life into us moment by moment, and like literal breath and also like the breath of his spirit.

And so what I started to do, like in those moments, it really shifted my relationship with, with my body.

It shifted my relationship with, like, noticing the presence of God in, in the present moment, and I started to see my body, I think, in.

You know, I had this like adversarial relationship with my body and previous to that, and I do think that that is oftentimes what our culture teaches us to do is, you know, to push our bodies and to ignore things like hunger cues. And you know there's that old just do it Nike phrase, like you know, even if you're so tired or whatever, just just keep running. And. And so those were the messages that I had structured my relationship with my body around. I would get annoyed if my body got hungry or tired, but instead I started to really befriend my body, seeing it for the miracle that it was and for like the partner it was in my life, and then also starting to experience the very real, tangible presence of of God and how life sustaining it was literally, and also life sustaining in terms of, like God's life within me was present moment to moment, like all of the time. And so those are some of the major shifts that happened in one yoga class.

That's incredible.

That's a lot too.

Yes.

Yes.

I'm wondering how. Sometimes I don't know about you, melissa, but I'll have something similar to that and I kind of ride high on that for a little bit and then it will kind of taper off as life gets back to normal and I keep getting the punches of everyday life and all of that. How did that moment pivot you or shift you into this new relationship with befriending your body and with truly acknowledging I guess I don't know if that's the right word, but you know the spirit of God and having that realization?

Like how did I continue it from there? Is that yeah, yeah.

Like what happened next. I guess is a simple way of saying that.

Yes, yeah, it's such a good question and I do feel like God was trying to teach me something, because I think there are so many, they're like points of convergence, like that.

Like I feel like I was being taught that in a number of different directions and so, like, honestly, I think it shifted my yoga practice then, and so every time I would go into yoga, then going forward, I think my brain, my brain in like my, my neural circuitry, like the way I was thinking about breath, the way I was connecting with my body, was different, and so I think I'm thinking of, like, how to like to make that transferable for others, you know, in those moments, those aha moments we have, and so, you know, I think, probably integrating that into our, into our bodies even, you know, and in repeated ways, because that's all our brains and our bodies work with fires together, wires together.

So I think, for me, continuing that practice of yoga and then having that shift every time I would practice it really solidified that as well, as something that I also talk about in the book, is I was simultaneously getting a degree in spiritual formation, and so I would, during the day, I would have these kind of shedding, these ideas of cultural beauty and diet culture during in treatment during the day. Those things would be kind of pointed out for the lies that they were.

And then in the evening I would go home and I would read about, like the Christian mystics, love for God and how they would have these like amazing experiences, knowing God's love in really deep and beautiful ways.

I also, simultaneously, during this time, was learning about one of the theologians I learned about. His name was Baxter Krueger and he talked about the great dance is his I think that's the title of his book and he talks about how this idea of the dance since the beginning of time has been played out between the father, son and Holy Spirit, this dance of love, and how that dance is actually being played out in us and among us all of the time. And so when we hear, like children laughing, or when again my heart is beating or I'm breathing, the rhythm of life and the rhythm of love is at work in and around us all of the time, and so I had those messages also being taught to me, and so it was like clearly I feel like God is trying to teach me new ways of thinking, new ways of being in the world, and so I think that that definitely helped as well, kind of solidified some of these things that I was experiencing, like things I experienced, such as in yoga.

That's great. You know, the vision I see between the intensive treatment during the day and then the spiritual formation at night is just like somewhat like God coming through and just prying open, like prying open your heart, prying into the depths of where he wanted to be and outside of the surface of what we've been told. Yes, yes, yes. One of the other terms that you used I think it's actually a chapter title that I loved and I thought we have got to talk about this here is you call it the phenomenon of the baby shower effect. So I would love for you to explain what that is and then how we can combat that when we find ourselves in the baby shower effect situation.

I'm guessing women who are listening can likely relate to this. So I would notice that when I would go to an all-female event and so I chose a baby shower, because oftentimes that's all female someone is bound to pick up on these cultural ideas around food or our bodies, whether it's someone saying how bad they are for eating a brownie at the gathering or how they're trying to do this new diet or this new quote program, because we don't oftentimes don't call them diets anymore, the new cleanse or whatever. Basically, this idea of the baby shower effect is we take these cultural narratives and we run with them in our all-female groups, and what that does is it actually picks up the momentum of those narratives. And so there's this term in psychology called group polarization, and so it's this idea that when we have a belief that is spoken about in a group, it actually picks up more momentum. And so that is what I call the baby shower effect when it comes to cultural narratives around beauty and, I would say, body image and food.

And so how we can combat that is, you know, I think we have more power than we think we do, and I think when we actually can kind of start to see and tease apart what these messages of diet culture and beauty culture are and how they're actually tearing us down.

I think it can give us some momentum to fight against them and so how we can combat that is, instead of talking about, you know, how bad or good our food choices are, or the diet we're on or how many steps we took, we can actually start talking more about, like, the function of our bodies, the strength of our bodies, the gift of our bodies, and so what I'm inviting us, as women, to do, and that's why the first half of the book is really trying to expose these lies in our culture, because I really do think it is like a brainwashing that we have all been taught to ways to think about our bodies, ways to think about beauty, ways to think about food, and so when we become aware of these things and realize that they are bringing shame, they are depleting us of life, then we can actually let go of them and start new conversations in our own minds, in our own families, in our own homes, but also with other women as well, knowing that, again, we can use group polarization to our advantage and we can actually start a new, like new momentum in a different direction when it comes to redefining beauty.

New momentum. I love it. So true. And I think too, this also circles back to our points where we are talking about talking with our daughters. And also I do think it is important for us to be aware of how we're talking around other young women who are not our daughters, because it may be that you are the cool aunt, it may be that you are that really super fun neighbor and taking away that group polarization and getting them and planting the seeds in them for how we're functioning. I always say, feel and function that it's all a gift. So those are great. And I will say too, it's hard when you're at a girl's night out and everybody's digging into the 10 layer chocolate cake at PF Chang's and be like, oh my gosh, I've got to work this off tomorrow. Oh, this is so bad. It's really hard to say like, hey, time out. Actually, let's reframe that. But I think it can change. We can change the narrative and we do have the power to do that, but it does take a bit of braveness.

Absolutely, and I think there are a couple of things, the ways that we can take this to.

I mean, one thing would be to maybe seek out groups who maybe think in more of a non diet type of a lens, and I think that that can help us build some strengths and build some strength and build some muscles around some of these ideas.

I think that that was one thing that was really helpful for me to be in treatment for a while was to build some neural pathways around these things, Because, if you think about it, we have literally been sitting in these beliefs for decades, and so it would make sense that it would take a while to actually realize the lies that we've been being fed, but then also to start thinking in a new way when it comes to food in our bodies, and so that's why I think finding groups of people who don't talk poorly about food or about their bodies and that can feel a little bit overwhelming too Sometimes it'd be like find a new group of people, find a new group of friends.

The other piece of that, then, is kind of what you were talking about is maybe being the vulnerable one in a group and say like hey, guys, I'm just noticing the way that we're talking about this cake. I don't know that it's going to be helpful for us. Or, like the way we're talking about our bodies, I'm not sure that this is going to be helpful for us. And yes and I recognize that you're at PF, chang's and everyone's having a light hearted time to be the person to say that and I think, obviously to be mindful of when we're feeling strong and also maybe the next day after that moment of so you're not feeling like you're the Debbie Downer in the group. But, yes, I totally agree with you that it can be so challenging and I think it's going to be so worth it because I just think I think it's going to bring us just so much more like thriving and fullness of life when we're able to shed these narratives.

Yeah, and peace as well. Well, you've given us a great thing to say. There is like hey, is this helpful to us? I like that, and that would probably give people pause for just a second. And you know, I love how you talk about the neural pathways and earlier. I want to just circle back to this because it I wrote it down what fires together wires together, and so the more we're firing all of these words, whether they are helpful or not, they will wire together, and so I think that's a good litmus test for us as well, like what I call it the intermingle. What are we firing?

Yeah, on the inside in our mind yeah, yes, yeah.

So you know I love that you have shared so much of your story and that you also have spent time growing spiritually and being a spiritual director. And just how incredible I just God, I tell you what he's pretty cool Like putting having you do that dual role during that season of your life. Just I can't imagine the growth that you were experiencing during that time. But we do have a lot of diet culture in safe spaces in church and, depending on how someone may have grown up, depending on the words that they have heard, either from their family of origin or maybe even from the pastor or other influential people in the church, they may feel like God is critiquing us, he's judging us. We have to earn our not necessarily earn all salvation, because I think everybody be like well, I don't have to earn my salvation with my body. But I think some, if we were honest, it would be like well, but I might be a better Christian if I stewarded my body better and lost some weight.

So talk to us about how that perspective changed during treatment and kind of that. Doing that, I'm going to call it your dual season. I don't know what you want to call it. Yes, yes, and speak life into that person who might be struggling with that.

Yeah, yes, so glad you bring this up, because I think we could talk about this for a long time in terms of, you know, church and diet culture. One thing that I kind of came across and I don't know if others have experienced this is when it came to issues around food or body image, I got the message oftentimes that oh, that's idolatry, like just don't do it, like that's, and so all that really did is increase shame. That was already there. And so for me I had this dual track mentality kind of, because I didn't really know how my faith converged with this particular struggle, ongoing struggle that I had. And so in the book I talk about how my faith and my struggle with food and exercise, how they were like parallel tracks, and so I just kind of continued to do life, but there was always kind of an underlying tension because I knew that there was some way that they probably informed each other, but I just didn't know what it was.

And so when one day I was actually doing a prayer practice during for my this degree program I was doing in spiritual formation, I would go into, I would go to Intensives in Portland Oregon, and so I went out there and during this one prayer time that I had with a partner in real life. This was not a virtual piece of the program I didn't know like was like what I tell her, like the real thing I needed prayer for or thing, and you know, give her like a slow, like a softball or something. But I decided like I really wanted like some help with this and so I offered this for this, this prayer practice that we did, and what came in this prayer practice was not what I anticipated at all. So what happened is I, my prayer partner, invited me to envision the face of Jesus and what I saw was actually like the most compassionate and pathetic eyes and expression I got.

This sense of Jesus was not judging me in any way for what I had been going through. Instead, it was like he saw and he knew what I had been going through. He knew the messages that I've been drowning in my life during my whole life growing up. He knew like every last part of the struggle has deeply or more deeply than I knew it, and it was like we were in it together, like this, this, when we locked eyes. It was as though he was saying like you know, I've, I've seen it all I'm with you in it. We're gonna do this together. And so, coming out of that prayer practice previously, I thought maybe God was judging me for this struggle and critiquing me, and instead I was met with this deep compassion and deep empathy and this togetherness or, in this together, type of a new way of viewing the way forward, and that really that really shifted things for me going forward from there.

We're in this together. It's easy to forget that sometimes, so that's a great reminder. It's funny earlier we were talking about breathing and I know you're a big fan of breathing and you know in yoga there's a lot of intentional breathing. But I tell you what, as I and I will, I will preach to the choir about the benefits of breathing and let me tell you how hard it is for me to sit down and actually do it, like I. It's a win for me if I can get three minutes of breathing in in the morning. So it is really hard. But I would love for you to share some about what you learned about your breath in treatment. And you know, let's not even say how you would encourage someone, but maybe how you would encourage me who knows about the benefits and still has a hard time prioritizing that because it just seems too simple. But just how to in a practice connecting to God in that way?

Yes, it's interesting because I can't help but think about just how amazing like God's good design for our bodies are too, and how, you know, when we, when we do slow down to breathe, it can shift us to that parasympathetic nervous system. That is just an amazing, miraculous thing to think about how we can actually pause and center our bodies like in a very real way. You know, I think if I'm encouraging this, I've encouraged you to like to do this practice. I do feel like we are so much more, I think, centered. I teach this class on well-being so I'm like this keeps going through my mind.

We talk about diaphragmatic breathing so much because of how it brings us back to the parasympathetic nervous system which allows us to access our prefrontal cortex, or our logical way of thinking, and how we can then go forth more regulated in terms of our own way of moving through the world and be more thoughtful about the decisions we're making, be more thoughtful about our relational interactions and also be it'll be more, I guess it'll be easier to access our like our relationship with God as well, obviously, if we're thinking more logically, and so I think, from one lens, we could think about this as God's centering breath in us and having like starting the day or you know, midday, maybe, grounding ourselves in the presence of God, and this idea that, like his life, breath is like in us right now, like this life, that where we've been given is a gift and this moment is a gift.

We won't be given this moment again. I think that that is is a huge reminder with breath I also believe you know just so much of when it comes to this idea of well-being comes from this idea of being regulated, and so breath also gives us the gift of regulation, which is a gift for ourselves, but also with our interactions with other people in the world around us.

Yeah, god's centering breath within us. I mean, how can we not and you've given us a lot of really great reasons to do that to pause, to center our bodies, to be more regulated and more thoughtful relationship or relational, and then I love, you know, talking about accessing the relationship with God. So, yeah, those are. Those are great encouragements for me and if anyone else wants to enjoy that as well, your book Soul, deep Beauty is beautiful. It is, it's just so good, and I would encourage anyone who is interested in restoring their relationship with food, bodies, breath, movement and really just reframing how we see beauty, because what we have, as you say, we are being lied to. So thank you for writing this, thank you for putting this out in the world and I just wish you abundant success with that. Thank you so much.

I do have a few questions that I ask all my guests. I love learning about people's tattoos. I don't have any, but I found that when people put tattoos on their body, it's often with meaning, because if you're gonna put something on your body for the rest of your life, you often have meaning behind it. So I was wondering if you have any, what is it and the meaning behind it? And if you don't but you had to get one what would it be and where would it go?

Oh, I'm gonna sound so boring, I do not have one. Oh, that is such a good question, you know I, that this is just popping in my mind. So my husband and I met up north. We both grew up on actually the same lake, from like, across the lake from each other, but we didn't meet until in our early 20s, and so that particular lake is a place that I have experienced God in very deep ways and also where I met my husband and we were married on that lake, and so I gave him a picture for one of our anniversaries with the coordinates, like the latitude and longitude coordinates.

So I think I would maybe do those, those coordinates, but where would I put it? I'd maybe like on a wrist or something, because then people could see it and remind also. I could see it a reminder of. To me it's also a reminder of God's faithfulness, because I would pray at times about, like a husband wondering like God, do you, is that something that you have for me? I, after honestly going through marriage and family therapy, my coursework for that, I realized that marriages are complex and and it made me really afraid, honestly, of getting married I was not married at that point after I finished my coursework. I would just remember praying. Oh my God, if there's someone that you think would be a good fit for me, like, let me know. And lo and behold, he was actually on that very lake that I had been praying about that.

Oh, wow, oh, that's cool. Yeah, I love that. The latitude and longitude of that super cool and I love that God answered your prayer with that. So specifically, you are the host of the impossible beauty podcast and we said in the bio that we can find you at impossible dash beauty dot com. Is there anywhere else where people can connect with you?

Yeah, yeah. So on Instagram I'm at Melissa dot, louise dot Johnson, and then at impossible beauty, and then on Facebook I'm the impossible beauty blog and podcast page there.

Okay, great, great, and we'll put all of that in the show notes as well. Do you have a meaningful Bible verse that you would like to share?

So, yeah, I do.

So this is one that actually came to mind and when I was reading over this, this invitation for a Bible verse today, and so this might seem kind of like a weird one, but there's one phrase that that I wanted to call out in this.

So this is first Timothy six, 19. And so he says in this way, they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. And I should the verse before that as command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds and to be generous and willing to share. And so the phrase there that this is, this phrase has like this, resonates with me every time I read. It is to take hold of the life that is truly life. And when I think about this idea of beauty, like authentic beauty, which I'm defining as the life of God at work in us and among us, like for me to that is like the life that is truly life, to really live in that and live in the like that being our truest reality, so taking hold, encouraging us to take hold of the life that is truly life, beautiful.

Okay, we've covered a lot, lots of different subjects. What is the one simple thing that you would like us to remember about today's conversation?

Yes, I think it would be that beauty is so much bigger than our culture teaches us. If beauty truly is the life of God at work in us and among us, we can't even begin to imagine how big that is. If we can imagine those awe inspiring moments in nature where we feel so small and God feels so big, but like in a really beautiful way. I would encourage us to maybe think about that kind of imagery when we imagine, like, what authentic beauty is and how big and glorious it is, and how we are actually invited into that reality, to be a part of it, and that same beauty is actually in us.

Amen. Okay, that is all for today. Go out there and have a grace day. Thanks for listening today. If this episode was valuable to you, could you do one of two things that are enormously valuable to me but super simple for you? Number one just share this with a friend. Super simple. Number two provide a rating and review, particularly if you listen in Apple podcast. This is super valuable for me. Also, if you haven't yet subscribed to my monthly journal, why not? I send it out twice a month and it is a private fun space for me to share some of my favorite foods and recipes, movements, books, sermons and more. You never know what you're going to get, but I promise it will add value to your day. You can sign up at gracehealthcom slash monthly dash updates and, of course, the link is in the show notes. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you next time.