S6 Bonus 1 | Shifting Perspectives: From Diet Culture to Stewardship. Interview With IHIWC Client Liz
Carla is SO excited for this conversation! Join her as she sits down and talks to her client and friend Liz. Hear how God has spoken to Liz about changing her perspective on food, body image, wellness and what it means to take care of yourself.
Liz has been working with Carla through In His Image Wellness Collective - a group Carla runs to help women bring Christ-centered stewardship to their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellness.
Wellness and Faith:
Liz's background in ministry and the connection with Carla through a podcast.
God's calling to focus on health and wellness, challenging traditional views.
Unhealthy Relationship with Food:
Liz's struggles with body image rooted in a negative, food-as-reward perspective.
Realization of building life around food and lack of understanding about caring for her body.
The Shift to Stewardship:
Transformation in perspective: Shifting from diet culture to viewing wellness as stewardship.
Importance of aligning choices with biblical principles and being a good steward of the body.
The Ripple Effect:
Liz's experiences of improved mental, emotional, and spiritual health through stewarding wellness.
The shift from self-glory to God's glory as a guiding principle.
Daily Renewal and Discipline:
Liz emphasizes the daily renewal of the mind as crucial in wellness.
Balancing grace and discipline in making mindful choices for overall health.
Growth and Sanctification:
Acknowledgment that wellness is an ongoing journey, not a destination.
The role of discipline and obedience, even on days when it's challenging.
Renewing the Mind:
The central role of renewing the mind in the process of transforming perspectives.
The importance of aligning thoughts with God's Word to experience true freedom.
Connect With Carla:
Inquire about 1:1 coaching ---> carlaagreswellness@gmail.com
Join In His Image Wellness Collective ---> carlaargeswellness@gmail.com
Come hangout on IG with me @carlaarges
Check out the blog
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Carla: Hey friends, welcome to Affirming Truths. I'm your friend and host, Carla Arges. This show is a safe place to share our struggles, grow in faith, and root our identity in Christ. My hope is that you will leave each episode feeling encouraged in your journey. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode and it would mean the world to me if you would leave a review.
[00:00:30] Carla: I am so glad you're here. Let's get started. Hello everyone and welcome to our first bonus episode of season six. I am your host, Carla Arges. This is Affirming Truth and I am so glad you're here and I'm so excited. About who I'm interviewing today. I don't often get to interview people that I call friend and that I actually know, and today [00:01:00] I have Liz with me from sunny California, jealous as I'm here in Canada and still feeling chilly.
[00:01:08] Carla: But Liz is not just a friend. She's actually a client turned friend and just has. Expressed such beautiful transformation in her mindset, um, and how she views wellness that I wanted her to come and share today. Hello, Liz.
[00:01:30] Liz: Hi, Carla. I'm excited to be here with you.
[00:01:33] Carla: So before we dive in, what's your kind of like 411, what's your, your bio?
[00:01:38] Carla: You don't have to share anything you don't want to, but what's a little snippet into who Liz is.
[00:01:42] Liz: Thank Okay, well, I'm a mom and a wife, and I have two beautiful boys who are 14. Um, I grew up in the church, just kind of a mini background, um, knowing Jesus my whole life, since I was probably three years old.
[00:01:58] Liz: So I've had the background of [00:02:00] being in the church, um, But, um, yeah, and then I, I, you know, I was, I was involved in ministry for many years. And then once I had my kids, I just kind of took a break for many years. And, um, but yeah, what, what has brought me here is just, um, you know, God, um, has just always been speaking to me about health, you know, and taking care of myself.
[00:02:21] Liz: And, um, I connected, I believe I connected with you, uh, just through another, uh, gals podcast that I saw you on kind of, that's what brought me to you. But yeah, that's just kind of a real quick summary of who I am. I mean, I, I hate mentioning age, but we'll just say I'm very mature.
[00:02:39] Carla: No, you're not. No, you're not.
[00:02:42] Carla: Oh my goodness. You're so youthful. Um, so before God started to talk to you or even in the midst of this, right? Cause obviously he starts talking to us for a reason. What was your view? On wellness. [00:03:00] And what were some of your struggles with your own body image? Because I think that's one thing we don't talk a lot about as women in the church, that we all struggle with this.
[00:03:10] Carla: With body image. I mean, it is across the board. We struggle with it. It is, um, it impacts and, and, and blocks in so many ways, the way that God can use us because we're so fixated on this. How did that show up in your life? Well,
[00:03:32] Liz: I would have to say that my whole life, um, well, first of all, in my own opinion, I've never been like stick thin, you know, I've never been like what I figured was the model perfect body or person, which was fine.
[00:03:43] Liz: I didn't, I never felt a need to be that, but I think what happened with me growing up with food, my perspective of food is where I kind of built this faulty foundation. So, um, for me growing up, food was a reward. [00:04:00] Food was about love. In acceptance. And so, and I, one of the interesting things that I realized is that I never realized how much I built my life around it.
[00:04:12] Liz: And so, so that, and I, and also I didn't really realize how much I didn't understand that I was supposed to be taking care of this temple, you know, growing up. So I kind of had a negative, or I should say unhealthy relationship with food in terms of how I looked and viewed it. And so, um, and so even though, like I said, I never considered myself the thin person or whatever, I was okay with that.
[00:04:38] Liz: But, um, what God has been doing with me lately and what has brought me here is that, um, he wanted to challenge how I was viewing things, you know, he wanted me to rearrange how I viewed it through a perspective that is biblical.
[00:04:54] Carla: God does that, doesn't he? He wants all of our heart. And I think sometimes we [00:05:00] don't recognize that the relationship we create with food or the relationship we create with our body, the relationship we create with exercise actually become idols in our life.
[00:05:12] Carla: Right. And, you know, sometimes people think idols are something that you worship that you love, but it's really anything that gets your eyes off of God. And when you're so fixated, going to the food for comfort to numb your emotions or, or forgoing taking care of your body. And then sitting in lethargy, there's also an idolatry there that's
[00:05:35] Liz: happening.
[00:05:36] Liz: Right. And, and to, you know, when you've grown up in the church, you've grown up with the idea, Oh, I'm going to be a good steward of my time, my talent, my money. But when it comes to your body and taking care of it, it's almost that one piece that you forget. About growing up in the church. And, um, so God through, through the ministry of in his wellness, um, you know, collective has [00:06:00] shown me that.
[00:06:02] Liz: That has been a huge piece that I have failed to look at through the lens of scripture and, um, and so anyways, so that has been a challenge, but it's been a good challenge and it's been a good, um, how would I say it like deconstructing? I hate that term, but I looked at. What is my obligation or not my obligation, but responsibility as a daughter of the king.
[00:06:27] Liz: What is my responsibility in taking care of this temple that he's given me? So that has been a good change and a good challenge in my life. I would say over this, I think since August that God's really been just. pinpointing, you know, when God puts his finger in your heart, he's like, this is what I want you to look at.
[00:06:46] Carla: Yeah. And so how did viewing your wellness through the lens of stewardship change things for you?
[00:06:54] Liz: Well, it made me more aware of what I was doing with my life and how am I [00:07:00] taking care of this temple? Am I doing things that are going to make it better? Or am I doing things that are going to harm it? So, um, you know, I can choose in the morning whether I'm going to Eat better or eat something that's going to, I shouldn't say eat better, but maybe what's going to fuel me better when I wake up, um, is moving my body with exercise and movement.
[00:07:20] Liz: How is that going to help me? You know, so it's kind of just kind of re tooling and rethinking how I see what are, how are these things going to help me? And how is that going to help me, you know, even Bring glory to the Lord, you know, in that sense, like how am I, how is my obedience? I'm going to do what I know I need to do to be obedient to the Lord so that my body, you know, can last a long time, you know, I want to be here for a long time.
[00:07:43] Liz: So I want to make good decisions now that will hopefully affect me for the good later.
[00:07:49] Carla: And what I have experienced, and I don't know if, if you'll be able to relate to this, but when God really called me out on how to steward my [00:08:00] life and my health, um, I was maybe the opposite of you. I was always chasing the skinny.
[00:08:06] Carla: I could never get skinny enough. I was. disordered in my eating, obsessed with my eating, I would exercise as punishment or as permission to eat. And I had a really bad relationship and it was definitely idolatry in my life that God called me out on and, and shifting out of that perspective, you know, which is really heavy with diet culture and moving to the perspective of stewarding my wellness.
[00:08:37] Carla: I have found that it's not just physical blessings I'm getting out of it. I find that my mental health is better. I find so much that God speaks to me through my workouts. And there is a, uh, a spiritual strengthening now that my perspective and my goal [00:09:00] is different before the goal was about. My glory, ultimately, really, right?
[00:09:05] Carla: How can I look my best? And now the goal is about his glory. And so the benefits are all over my life, my mental health, my spiritual health, my, my emotional health and my physical health. Have you seen it all? The ripple effect that as you are focusing more on the stewardship aspect, it's impacting
[00:09:29] Liz: other areas.
[00:09:30] Liz: Yeah, because what it's doing is it's changing how I view, like, so for example, like when it's almost like this thing of alignment, I like to say like, um, you know, taking care of my body, taking care of my spirit. Um, you know, taking care of my mental health, like there's just a dynamic and a powerful dynamic at that when we're living under that umbrella of God's, um, how would I say it?
[00:09:58] Liz: Like. Um, just, [00:10:00] or I should say living under the umbrella of God's presence and all areas of that. You know what I'm saying? Yes. Cause it's an obedience thing too. Like, where am I going to be obedient to, to you or am I going to be living how I want to live, you know, for myself. And so I have noticed that, you know, that when I'm in alignment, I just, I like using that term when I'm in alignment.
[00:10:22] Liz: It's just, it's, I just feel like I'm more centered, you know, in my life. Yeah. And like, I know we've talked about in the group is that it's like those pillars, those foundational things in our lives that help us, right. When we're struggling, because we're going to still have stuff happen in our lives. But when we know there's these foundational pillars that keep us steady, even when stuff comes in, like, I think that's, it's a good foundation to build on.
[00:10:48] Carla: Yes, yes, the four pillars of thriving rooted in Christ. Yes, I love that. Um. What, where do you hope to grow from, from here? [00:11:00] Like you are, like, this is not a thing that you arrive to. It's a journey. And I've seen that working through stewarding our wellness, just like stewarding everything else. There's a part of that that's part of the sanctification process, right?
[00:11:18] Carla: So it's a journey. You're not going to end at a destination next week and then you stop doing what you're doing. It's ongoing activity. So how do you feel set up to continue doing what you need to do? How do you feel that you can lean into discipline or lean into obedience? Because frankly, and we talk about this in the group sometimes, we don't feel like doing it.
[00:11:46] Carla: I often don't feel like doing my workout, or I, I feel like I deserve that dessert because I've had a bad day, right? Like not mindful choices, but, but these other choices. [00:12:00] So So when you don't feel like doing it, how are you going to keep on doing
[00:12:07] Liz: it? Well, number one, I think you have to always give yourself grace, grace for the journey because, um, the achiever and the person who's wanting to do all these things the right way or however you want to do it is saying, oh man, you missed your workout or man, why did you have that second serving of blah, blah, blah.
[00:12:26] Liz: And so I think it's just. It, it's a day to day decision. It's a day to day decision. And, um, like you said, we never arrive, you know, and it's like, like, I think the same way with our walk with the Lord, like we, we go from glory to glory, you know, and we are on a journey to like knowing him and growing in him.
[00:12:47] Liz: And I think it's the same way in our health and our wellness is that we take it a day at a time. And if there's going to be days that don't happen according to our plan, then we walk in the grace that, okay, there's another day. [00:13:00] Yeah. And that's the thing, you know, there's another day and we don't beat ourselves up over it.
[00:13:03] Liz: So I think it's a daily journal journey and I think it's walking in the grace of the
[00:13:07] Carla: Lord. Yeah. And it's knowing where that balance is. Like where do I need to have compassion for myself? And where do I need to have a little bit of a tough love conversation with myself? True. True that. Yeah. I have this balance.
[00:13:23] Carla: It's like the other day we were late in the ER. with Caleb. And it's taken me two days to recover from the stress of going to the hospital with him and I didn't work out those two days. Full of compassion and grace. My body was tired, I was stressed. But then comes the third and the fourth day. So now, Carla, what you gotten out of routine, it's hard to get back in routine.
[00:13:50] Carla: Now it's time to, to have a little bit of tough love and say, what is the responsible? I like that you use that word before, what is [00:14:00] the responsible decision here that is going to, and for me, it's fundamentally about. Supporting my mental and spiritual life. What is going to do that for me? Right. All right.
[00:14:12] Carla: Then Carla, we're not going to be feelings led. We're going to be decision led. So let's go do it. Yeah. Yeah. How much of renewing your mind, which is a huge topic on my podcast, because like this is, this is what Christian living is constantly renewing your mind. What role of having to renew your mind? Has had to come into play in, in switching over your, your mindset, really?
[00:14:42] Carla: Yeah. It
[00:14:43] Liz: has had to be a daily renewal of my mind and priority, because if we're not renewing our mind and our thoughts and our way we perceive and look at life, then everything's going to be probably filtered through emotions. Yeah. You know, what, what do we [00:15:00] want to do based on how we're feeling? And so, um, it is a huge part of my daily wellness is I have to be centered on God's word.
[00:15:10] Liz: And so, and in fact, being a part of this, in his wellness is, has helped me to be more committed to the word because, you know, we're meeting once a week. We're praying together. We're talking, you know, you're sharing a devotional with us every week. Um, plus we're having chats in our Facebook group, you know, talking, encouraging one another.
[00:15:34] Liz: So, I mean, yeah, the, the, the renewing of the mind is so huge. It's, it's a part of the success. And I guess I can say that word we're on.
[00:15:46] Carla: Yeah, absolutely. It's why it's one of the four pillars, because everything, the battle, Paul says that the battle is in the mind, whether it comes from dealing with temptation, you [00:16:00] know, sexual sin, if it comes to steward, stewarding your wellness, and taking care of the temple rather than praising the temple, whether it has to do with their fears or anxieties, like The battle is in the mind.
[00:16:14] Carla: We have to take control of the thought lights, take them captive into the obedience of Christ. And I love how Paul says by the renewing of our mind will be transformed so that we know what is the good and pleasing perfect will of God. Yes. So many times if we struggle, like what is God's will here? Have we bought our thoughts into obedience because God is actually pretty clear about his will.
[00:16:39] Carla: Oh yeah. He doesn't disguise it or hide it from us. Yes, definitely. Anyways, I am just so thankful that you have been here. I'm so thankful that you've trusted me and that you're part of In His Image Wellness Collective. Um, and I have seen growth in you since [00:17:00] you've been part of the group and you are just such a joy.
[00:17:03] Carla: I love our Sunday night prayer and connects and yeah, I'm just, I'm grateful that you're here today and so grateful for what God is doing in your life. Well, I'm,
[00:17:14] Liz: I'm so happy that I found this group. I'm happy. I found you Carla. And, um, man, I, I talk about you to people in my life and I'm like, yes, you got to do this.
[00:17:26] Liz: So, yeah. And I encourage anybody that is listening today, that if you want to grow, if you want to grow, just, just in your relationship with the Lord, because, you know, It, our wellness and our growth in the Lord is so important. And you have a group in a community of women that are there to encourage you and cheer you on and pray with you, cry with you.
[00:17:48] Liz: Yes, it's good. It's a good place to be. Oh,
[00:17:51] Carla: thank you. Thank you so much again for being here. Liz. I appreciate you. You're welcome. All right guys, we will see you next time.[00:18:00]
[00:18:05] Carla: Thanks for joining me today. I hope we're already friends on social media. But if we're not, come find me on Instagram at Carla Arges or at Affirming Truth. Can't wait to see you back here next week. Bye friends.