Bodies – Do You Like Yours?
Episode #5: Welcome to the She Builds Show, I’m your host, Stefanie Olson. I hope you’re having an amazing day. On today’s episode, I’m going a little deeper. I’m going to chat with you about something most of us may not want to talk about. But it’s on my heart, and when I started this podcast, I want it to be real and authentic, and I wanted to cover everything that a woman builds. When I think about She Builds in the complexity of who I am as a woman and the things that make up my life and all the things that I’m actually building, there’s a lot to cover; family relationships, business, children, health. I think a huge component I want to touch on is our bodies. I know I said it. I’m sorry, but it’s the thing that carries us around every day, that we as women, probably struggled the most with. If I would’ve had more time in forethought in planning this episode, I would’ve wanted to blast a text to every woman I knew and ask her. What do you say to yourself in your mind about your body? I would have asked them now to be real, don’t sugar coat it. What do you say to yourself on a daily and hourly basis about your body?
Ready to hear more? Listen in…
SHOWNOTES:
• Yes. And for the first 25ish years, I’ve pretty much punished myself mentally and physically if I wasn’t absolute perfection. The mental part is the hardest struggle for me, I’m introverted and I don’t process out loud so I tend to suffer in silence and the conversations I allowed to be spoken over myself are things I would never say to another human being. Even the worst of the worst people that I really don’t like, I would never repeat the things I say to myself to another person out loud, because it would crush them, it would defeat them. It would affect them for the rest of their lives. (02:22)
• One day, his response really slapped me into reality. I said out loud while I was getting dressed, I’m so fat, and he looked me in the eye and he said, you never see what I see. He was mad. He was frustrated. You will never believe me when I tell you how beautiful you are. You have been telling me, you are fat since the day we got married. Ooh, dang, really have I? That hurt. But you know what? I needed to hear that the pattern of the mindset has been around way too dang long. We’ve been together for 12 years and married for 10. Holy crap, crap. I have been saying this horrendous stuff to myself for over a decade. (03:23)
• I will seek out God’s will in my daily choices. With my time, it is time to let go of old thought patterns and design a life full of balance, freedom, calm, purpose, growth, and impact upon others in a positive way. I will design a life that I do not need a vacation from. I repeat that to myself every day. I type that every day. It is this daily offering of my weakness and asking for God’s help that I’m addressing the body image issue from the inside out. Which, if you think about it is really where I have found out that that’s where the problem hides. It’s a daily reminder that I can choose my thoughts and let go of the ones that no longer serve me. I can ask God for help when they overwhelm me. I can accept and love myself just as I am. No diet or workout will ever rid my mind of the terrible negative thoughts. It’s a daily habit change. (04:59)
• What do you say to yourself about your body? And even the most confident, beautiful woman that seems like they have it all together, when you really ask them what they say, it’s not nice. It’s not things they even want to repeat to me. So I offer them this practice of a mantra and a word that speaks truth and life over them, knowing that this was one of the longest struggles that I have, knowing that this is one of my longest struggles that I’ve been saying terrible things to myself. I created a rule in my house and the rule is you may never speak bad about yourself. If one of my children says something like I’m so bad at that, or I’m not smart enough. My entire family knows that we are to rally around that person and speak life and truth over them. And we make them repeat the words, spoken over them until we are sure the lie is gone, and the truth of who they are remains. (06:22)
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