Respect Your Body with Kristen Schmidt (Intuitive Eating #8)

Respecting our Body with Kirsten Schmidt

Amy: Hey there, welcome to the Graced Health 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're looking to grow stronger as you age, nourish your body, mind, and spirit.

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. And if you're new here, I would love for you to check out season 19, starting January 9th, 2024 to fully understand the future.

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We are in the middle of a season focusing on intuitive eating. And today we are talking about principle eight, respect your body. I have Kirsten Schmidt here with me. So let me tell you a little bit about Kirsten before we get going. Kirsten is a certified health coach specializing in behavior change and intuitive eating. She has two degrees, one in kinesiology and one in human nutrition. She founded the company Totus Wellness to help Christian women learn to sustainably steward, Visit TotusWellness.

com to learn more. And nourish their bodies in the way God designed. She specializes in creating behavior change by getting to the root of the beliefs and behaviors that are keeping women stuck in dysfunctional cycles around health and body image. And we are looking forward to your wisdom on that today.

Kristen, I'm glad you're here.

Kirsten: Thank you. I'm so glad that you had me on your podcast.

Amy: Yes. Well, this is kind of one of the heavier principles to get through. And I know that when the original Elise Rush and the other author whose name escapes me at the moment, do you know off the top of your head? 

Kirsten: Tribal? Is that how you

Amy: Tribole. Bully, that's, There we go. Evelyn tr Tribole.

They did these kind of ins sequential order, so we wanna hit one and then we do that, and then we hit the other. This is, this is number eight, and I think there's a reason for that. So first what I would love for you to do, Kirsten, is just explain the principle of respecting your body.

Kirsten: Yeah. Respecting your body really just means being a good steward of your body which includes spiritual, physical, and mental nourishment. And so we can't just think of it as food and exercise, right? And I think from a Christian lens to fully understand how do we steward the body, because that seems kind of vague, and I think there's a lot of diet culture in Christian circles mixed in with the word stewarding our body, that we have to really first understand the biblical gift of our body, and that, we can go all the way back to Genesis for that. Genesis really lines out what the body is. is as a gift. So we are the Imago Dei, meaning we are created in God's image. We're not just physical beings. Our bodies, And our being actually transcends biology. So there are parts of our identity that can't be explained just by science. And our bodies are amazing.

They allow us to live in communion with others, to be gifts with, for others, to glorify God on this physical earth. And that's why Paul refers to our bodies as temples. Before the fall, when there was no sin and the gift of the body was expressed to its perfect fullness, there was also no shame. And you see that in the Bible.

It says they were naked and they felt no shame. And because Adam and Eve, they understood the full meaning of the body. When Adam first laid eyes on Eve, he immediately knew that she was made in God's image because of her wholeness and communion, her body in communion with the spirit. But there was also something in particular about Eve's body that Adam noticed.

Eve's body communicated a divine beauty. And we actually all have that divine beauty. We don't just have inner beauty. I hear a lot of women talk about, Oh, you know, don't worry about physical beauty. We're focused on your inner beauty. And we do have inner beauty, but we also have a physical beauty. That was given to each person, the moment of our conception, the moment God created your body.

So you are physically beautiful because God can't make ugly things. God is the author of beauty and that beauty can't be changed. It can't be added to, it can't be taken away from. It is a divine beauty that first communicated to Adam that Eve was also the Imago Dei. So our divine beauty is different than worldly beauty. Because worldly beauty changes all the time, but

divine beauty doesn't. The author of divine beauty doesn't change. So worldly beauty is kind of like dust is how I would describe it. Adam didn't look at, at Eve, isolate parts of her body, turn them into objects and go, yep, this woman's for me because she's got a skinny waist and toned arms, right?

Nowhere in the body does God describe this ideal body type. for a woman. Adam and Eve respected the body fully and perfectly before the fall because they understood the gift of the body. But then, so in order to understand how do we view the body now in terms of it not being a gift, it still is a gift, but our view of that now is distorted.

So after the fall, we know that the serpent convinced Eve that she was Lacking in some way that she could be like God if she just ate the fruit, if she just grasped for something separate of God. So out goes humility, in comes pride, the fall happens, sin enters the world, and the first fruit of sin was actually shame. And it was a shame so great that Adam and Eve hid from God. And that's what shame does. It causes us to want to hide from God, even though God is who heals our shame. So we often. In today's world, we hide from God and we go to the world to fix our shame. And diet culture is a perfect example of how we outsource, how to steward our body to the world rather than to God who created our bodies.

So afterwards, when the Bible says that they realized they were naked. It doesn't just mean that. They all of a sudden realized they needed to put on clothes. It actually just means that they no longer saw their bodies as this whole and pure and good gift. Sin distorted this full meaning of respecting the body as a gift.

So the bodies became objects, which led to shame. And they felt like they had to now. cover their bodies which is the meaning of they realized they were naked. So we learn that the body stops being a gift the moment we turn it into an object. And diet culture does a really good job of turning the body into an object.

And we can't respect the body fully when we're treating it as such. So before the fall, Adam and Eve, they have this very I would say childlike relationship with their body. No idea of shame or body objectification. And I think as kids, we can all remember a point where you just felt good in your body.

At some point, we all just, we didn't really think of our body in a shameful or icky way. Right. But after the fall The body all of a sudden kind of seemed icky and shameful. And that's just a natural consequence of treating the body as an object. It's treating it as separate from the spirit. So that is how we see the enemy working today. The enemy makes you believe that you don't have beauty, which means that you don't have worth, but you can earn, you can earn both of those things if you seek the world and you do it separate of God. And that is diet culture. But because beauty can't be earned. It can only be realized. You end up spending your whole life just searching for some kind of beauty, some kind of worldly beauty that's separate of God. And this is what leads to body shame, to body objectification, to eating disorders, disordered eating, poor health, exercise addictions, and really just this counterfeit version of beauty that never truly works. So from day one, the enemy has been trying to alter our perceptions of our body, and I think, in particular, he's been targeting women's bodies.

Men's bodies get targeted too, but for women, much, much more. And I think it's because Satan knows that God partners with women in our body in a really particular and special way, because it's through our bodies that life is created. It's through our, it's through a woman's body that our savior was born. So God chooses to partner with women and our bodies for, a divine purpose, and Satan hates that, and he hates our bodies for it, and he wants us to hate our bodies as much as he does. So he makes us forget the gift of our bodies. So we're chasing after a worldly solution, like diet culture, that keeps us disconnected and ashamed of our bodies. Right. So

this, when you look at the fall, the first fruits of the fall were shame and body objectification. Those are the fruits of diet culture. And so if we want to learn to respect the body and what that really means, we have to understand the full gift of the body and how that gift has been distorted from the beginning of time.

Amy: Okay. I've been furiously taking notes over here. All of that is so good. I wish I could, I, I, there's so many things I want to talk on, but I really like how you say the body stops being a gift when we turn it into an object. And I have never thought about why Satan. And why the enemy focuses on women so much.

And you make such a great point about how God has partnered with our bodies to do such beautiful and different things. Not to discount men's, 

Kirsten: Right. 

Amy: but I, yeah, that's so good. And you know, the, the other thing that my friend, Sherry Fletcher, who is host of the, your spiritual game plan podcast taught me several years ago is the The very first thing that the enemy said to Eve was, did God really say not to eat that?

And so just messing with her mind, messing with her mind. And so yeah, all of that together is really putting a lot of, I mean, that's just, that's so beautiful and that's such wisdom. And thank you for all of that. I feel like we could end that right. And right now, but I'm not going to.

Kirsten: Podcast over.

Amy: Yeah, Mike drop.

Literally we're done. Okay. So we're sitting here and we're listening to you, Kirsten. And we're like, yes, yes, yes. All of this. And yet. can be really hard to accept our body's natural shape and our size. Like you were talking about, the world has this fleeting change in body ideals. I, I actually talked about it in both of my books.

Quoting the same source, because it's so powerful about how, like, if you go through decade, decade by decade, just in my lifetime or just in the 1900s, like it, it constantly changes. So we so desperately want to fully embrace what you have just said. And at the same time, it can be hard. How can we start to tear down the cognitive dissonance of knowing that our body is so good and divinely made and we have divine beauty. I love that you say that. And we still maybe want to change our body size.

Kirsten: Yeah. You know, I think, I think part of it is understanding the scripture where it says, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God? You're not your own. You were bought with a high price. So glorify God in your body. A lot of times we use this to justify. living as the world does when it comes to stewarding our bodies, which is really ironic because the fact, the simple fact that our bodies are temples. means that we cannot treat our bodies and view our bodies the same as the world does. But we tend to do this when it comes to fitness and diet culture. That scripture is a, really a call to end body objectification, to help end shame so that we can. Treat our bodies as temples, which really means our bodies serve a purpose for God. Yeah. I would say when I started my practice before I made it faith based and I was working with both just all, you know, kind of all types of women, there was really no difference in how Christian women view their bodies versus secular women, but we know as Christians that we can't do things that are not like the world does.

We can't use scripture to justify living as the world does. And so I, I often kind of pose this call it a question to people who are really struggling with image and feeling like I need, my body needs to look like the world because if it doesn't, then I'm unhappy. I don't feel beautiful.

I don't feel worthy. You know, all the things. If you only feel worthy in your body, when it meets worldly standards for beauty, at the end of the day, you're never ever going to feel satisfied with your body and every single woman. Who is struggling with body image. It's not that you want to have This amazing body as much as you just want to feel unconditionally loved, because we were all made by love, we were all made by God, who is love, for love.

So to be loved and to give love, to receive and give love. And so when you have a lot of wounds from childhood, maybe you felt rejection, maybe you felt abandonment, Maybe you felt a lot of judgment. We start to believe these lies that I can earn love with my body and with my appearance. But we know that that, that version of love, it's not unconditional.

It's it is conditional because you're performing for it. You're trying to earn it. And it never actually feels like enough. I hear so many women that say You know, when I was in high school, I didn't like my body, but now I wish I had my high school body, and then 10 years later, when I was 30, I didn't like my body, but now that I'm 40, I wish I had my 30 year old body, and it's because no matter what your body looks like, if your heart is not in the right place, It won't matter what your body looks like, you're trying to earn love with your body, and that's, that will never lead anywhere good. That will never lead to this kind of peace. So we have to recognize that the Bible tells us that beauty is, fleeting. And we, we can't try to hold on to this one standard of beauty that at the same time is constantly changing. Because when your body changes, because it absolutely will change, and you

can't, we are not called to perfectly control that, when it changes, you're going to feel empty. And you're going to feel like, you're going to start grasping for all these worldly solutions, separate of God. And those worldly solutions like diet culture, or, you know, I mean, gosh, the world has so many worldly solutions to keep your body from ever aging and from ever changing. And we start to idolize those things to hold on to some sense of beauty and hold on to some sense of worth.

So we have to recognize that Jesus is really the only one that's going to restore that beauty that we all desire that's been distorted by the enemy. So we have to focus on Like, we have to recognize that our beauty comes from the one thing that never changes, which is God. And if you're, if you think your beauty comes from any, anything but God, you're going to spend the rest of your life chasing beauty and not feeling satisfied. So if you think deeply about this, if what you truly want at the end of the day is to is to feel accepted and loved. Earning that is never going to get you to feel accepted and loved. You have to turn your eyes from God and let yourself feel his love.

Amy: I had this light bulb moment as you were talking a second ago about, you know, we've all heard the scripture. I've used it as well, you know, hopefully not in a diet culture sense, but you know, our bodies are, are a temple of the Holy spirit. And when you said we can't treat our bodies the way that the world does I'm going through the Bible recap right now.

So we're going through like the whole Bible in a year. This is the first time I've done it, and I'm certainly no expert on it at all. But one of the things that has been, had a focus recently is when Solomon was building the temple and all of the and even before that, when God would be, I hope I'm going to say all this, right.

So if you know better, if I, if I mess up, please, please stop me. But basically God has always put these certain rules around the temple. And And particularly in the temple, there was, you know, there were, it was, it was very specific and they were, it was exactly how God wanted that dwelling place for him to be.

That's not how the Egyptians did it. That's not how those around them did it. It was different than what they had experienced. And yet it was how God wanted them to be. And so I'm just kind of putting this together, like, yeah, the world does want us to manage our bodies. The world does want us to do that kind of thing, but that's not how God wants us to, and that goes way back to the very first temple built for him.

I, so I hope that makes sense.

Kirsten: It does! That

makes perfect sense. Mm hmm. A temple is a place of worship, and so are you using your body to worship diet culture and worldly standards of beauty, or are you using it to worship God?

Mm hmm. Mm

Amy: Okay. So let's just say we're on this journey here in principle eight and respecting our body. And this is making more sense and we're feeling good and all of that. I'm going to pull out some when you're talking about like, what we're looking for is unconditional love. And we know that that's what we get from Jesus at the same time, our human hearts.

Want unconditional love from other people.

 I have been a part of enough Facebook groups and just seeing community and that kind of stuff that sometimes women will start along this process of respecting our body and feeling good about it and all of that, but maybe they're not getting that kind of same support from those around them.

Maybe they're not getting it from their spouse or from their parents, or maybe even like, maybe the other. Mom's on the sidelines of the game. I mean, you name it. And that's scary and it's vulnerable. And even though we know we need to stand in God's unconditional love, we kind of want other people to like us too.

So how can we, how can the woman who is listening to this and there that is resonating with them? How can they manage that? Give us some guidance with that.

Kirsten: Yeah. Well, I think one thing we have to understand why it's a little bit harder when it comes to body image, because when it comes to body image, there's so much misinformation. in Christian circles particularly, I think it's a little bit, it's more intuitive to say, okay, the world will judge me because I'm Christian and I'm following Christ, but it's harder when other Christians, other fellow Christians are, feel like they're judging you or not supporting you. That is much, much harder, but it doesn't necessarily make those other Christians right. Because. Nobody's perfect. And so usually I get this question a lot because there's a deep fear of judgment.

And again, most of my clients who are Christian, they don't really fear the world, you know, kind of the worldly world judging them as much as people in their Christian circles judging them because they don't want anybody to think that they're a bad Christian

who are also Christians. But I always pose this question. If you knew somebody, which I'm sure we all do, that was judging you for being a Christian, and you knew that they didn't support you being a Christian, they were judging you for being a Christian, how would you respond to them? When I ask my clients this question, I always get the same answer.

They say, well, I would pray for them. I would extend love and show them truth, but I wouldn't allow their judgment to change who I am because I know the truth. And they need that truth. So I would pray for them that the truth be revealed to them. And I go exactly when we don't feel that support, when we don't feel, when we do feel judged, especially by other Christians, but you know that you are stewarding your body the way that God meant it to be steward, that it's not you who has an issue for following God. We need to pray for the person who is judging you, who isn't supporting you, that their heart be changed. Right? You stay strong in your identity as God's daughter. You remain in truth despite judgment. And it's easy to do this if someone's judging you for being Christian, because we recognize the importance of being Christian. We have to recognize the importance of following God's will when it comes to stewarding our body as well, and recognize that instead of turning your focus inward and saying and thinking, And starting to ruminate like, Oh my gosh, this person's judging me. I don't have their support. Maybe I should change.

Maybe I should do this. And you start questioning all these things and your focus is on you. Instead of your focus being on you when you feel that judgment or where you, when you feel that lack of support, turn your attention to the person who needs your prayers and who needs your love and who needs your testimony and your example. And that's exactly what Jesus did on the cross. When he, when people were. were judging him and rebuking him, being mean to him. He wasn't questioning whether or not he should have gone through with what he did. He was praying for them and asking God the Father to forgive them. His focus wasn't on himself.

His focus was on others. And so when you feel judged and unsupported, don't focus on yourself. Focus on how can I love this person in front of me better and help lead them to truth.

Amy: Oh, that's really good. Yeah. I love how you say, you know, turn your attention and prayers to the other person rather than focusing on yourself. That's great wisdom. Thank you for that. Kristen, I want to ask a a little bit more of a sensitive subject or question. That's around, all around right now and I know that there's a lot of different thoughts on this, but that is the topic of obesity.

You know, there is a lot of you know, we're in the midst of the semaglutide drugs GLP 1 inhibitors, which is, which are Ozempic and Mugobi and all of that kind of stuff. And then there's a lot of talk about how obesity is a disease. I was just wondering if you could share your thoughts on that and where does that, I don't, we don't need to get into like the full discussion of all of the some magnitude type drugs,

 but where does this fit into respecting our body?

And stewarding our body.

Kirsten: Mm hmm.

Amy: That's a big question. I know.

Kirsten: Oh, yeah. Yeah, but it's a really important question, and I think we have to, we have to both look at science and we have to look at God and how he wants us to steward our bodies. So I'll start with science, because that's a little more straightforward. You know, and I don't know about you, but I remember in middle school and high school and even in college, we talked about the scientific method in almost every single science class I

ever took. So

the scientific method is very important for good research, but the medical community did not even use the scientific method when they were creating medical guidelines surrounding BMI as a health indicator.

And I learned in my undergrad that There are just mounds and mounds of evidence, evidence that have proven that BMI is not a good health indicator. So right off the bat, we know that obesity is based, you know, the diagnosis is based on BMI, which is a bad measure for health. We already know that, but also in 2012, the American medical association created a council to review. All research that had been done on obesity and even their own committee concluded that there wasn't sufficient evidence to say that obesity is a disease to, to make that a disease. So their own community, their own committee commute concluded this yet they went ahead and move forward with it because of things like insurance, industry funding, that type of stuff. So that's, Also, really bad science. You don't research something, come to a conclusion on it, and then just decide, eh, that doesn't matter. We're gonna move forward with what we think is best, right?

That's not science, that's just an opinion.

Amy: And a diagnosis. I mean, like, cause they were looking for a diagnosis, like a what are the, what's, what are the codes called? I can't remember.

Kirsten: Yeah,

yeah, that's where 

Amy: codes, like they wanted to be able to put something to it. 

Kirsten: yep, yep, a diagnosis so that it could be treated now as a disease. And even then, even, even if it was really good science, our health pursuit should never lead to body objectification and health idolization. So yes, we are called to steward our bodies. But all of our actions to steward our bodies should flow from a pure inward disposition that is aligned with God. So if you're stewarding or trying to steward your body from a place of control, shame, body objectification, it doesn't matter that health is a good outcome. It's not actually going to yield good fruit because your heart is in the wrong place. And this is a really hard truth. When I was healing, that God revealed to me, that as Christians, and this is different than what the world will tell you, because the world is chasing the fountain of youth, but as Christians, we are We shouldn't be pursuing health from hell's perspective.

We need to be pursuing health from heaven's perspective, which means we should actually only prioritize health to the extent that it serves God better. Anything more, anything past that is just an idol. It's going to leave you fearful. It's going to leave you restless. And ironically, it actually leaves you less healthy. So you don't even get the outcome you really want. Like, could you imagine if, if Jesus was trying to preserve his own life over the father's will, we'd all be in huge trouble. Right?

So we shouldn't be chasing the fountain of youth, we should be stewarding our bodies the way that God designed. And what does that actually look like? When you steward your body the way that God designed, whatever it ends up looking like is how God intended it to look. And that is so important. So your body, it belongs to God and we are privileged to steward it. So when we take care of it, however, it ends up looking is how God intended your body to look and he loves that he delights In the way that he made your body and so what's really important, you know with my story when I put God first He showed me how to listen to and trust the body He gave me and then how to steward that according to his plans.

Not mine. Not the world's And I found that it was really freeing. A lot of women find that when they put God first rather than the scale, they become healthier. Because you're not worrying about, okay, should I do keto, or should I, should I cut carbs, or should I do the Mediterranean diet and eat lots of carbs and plant based proteins, or should I do carnivore and not eat plants, or should I do intermittent fasting, or should I eat every two hours, or like, there's so much conflicting information, and it's confusing, and it's overwhelming.

Instead, what if you just let Your body, designed by our creator, tell you how it needs to be nourished, and then you let the rest go. And in doing so, we find what's called our natural set point weight, which is the weight that you're genetically predisposed to be, kind of like a shoe size, or your height, right?

We don't try to change those all the time, we just accept, well, this is my shoe size, or this is my height. There is a weight that you, We're genetically predisposed to be the way that God designed you to be so we've got to stop focusing so much on a specific weight and trust that when you throw out the scale and you just focus on stewarding your body the way God designed you're going to find the weight That God designed your body to be at.

And that is different for everybody. So I want to, I just want to talk about two quick studies to illustrate this point. Also to illustrate that health is a behavior. It's not a number on the scale. So there was a meta analysis, which is like, this is some top tier research. There's different levels of research.

Meta analysis are, are pretty good levels of research. And it showed that people who are doing four or more health promoting behaviors. No matter if they're obese, no matter if they're overweight, or no matter if they're at a quote unquote normal weight, according to BMI, they actually have the same mortality risk. So if they're engaging in four more health behaviors, no matter where they sit on the BMI scale, they actually have the same risk for mortality, which is huge. That means that right there shows that behaviors are more important than weight. But one study that really surprised me in college that I was really lucky to learn about this is what really started opening opening my eyes to Weight centric health and the problems with it was there have been studies that have shown actually one study in particular showed that people in the overweight category according to bmi actually have a lower risk for mortality than those in the quote unquote normal weight category. And they were just looking at all, like, all risks associated with health and all weights and all BMIs. And so this is, this is more of a correlation study, so it's not necessarily causation. However, I think it still gives a lot of indication that we shouldn't be focusing on weight. We shouldn't be focusing on BMI.

What we should be focusing on is stewarding our body as a gift and trusting that your body will find the weight that it was meant to be at and that is the healthiest weight for you regardless of what the BMI scale says.

Amy: Yeah. That's good stuff. That is something I, I say in my, both of my books, you know, there's no BMI in the Bible and just the origins, the origins of it as well are you know, focused on white men. I mean, there's no room for Different ethnicities it there's no, there's a, there's a lot of problems with it.

So, yeah, I've come across some of the research that you have taught, been talking about, and it really is fascinating. And I think the thesis of what you just said in the last is when we steward our bodies with Christ centered health, promoting behavior, our body will shake out to be, you know, the size that God designed it to be.

Kirsten: Mm hmm. Mm

Amy: we wrap up, I feel like I could, I could pull a lot of threads with a lot of this stuff, but I want to say I want to respect your style time. As we end Kirsten, what are some of the strategies or maybe mental exercises that people can use to do this? To develop a, just a more respectful and appreciative relationship of their bodies.

Kirsten: Yeah. I think there are two really important things Exercises that you can start doing right now. The first one is sitting with the uncomfortable sensations that you feel with your body. A lot of women have been taught that if you feel uncomfortable in your body, then you should change your body. You should control the situation and try to change your body so that you feel more comfortable in your body. That never leads anywhere good. You never actually wind up feeling comfortable in your body. So instead of fearing feeling uncomfortable in your body, learning to sit with The uncomfortable sensations that you feel in your body will be very, very healing. This is something I work with my clients on a lot. It's simply getting comfortable feeling uncomfortable. And then pretty soon, you don't feel uncomfortable in your body because you know how to process uncomfortable feelings, rather than numb or try to control those uncomfortable feelings with dieting, controlling your weight, etc. So if you can learn to sit with. The uncomfortable sensations. That's important because I'll tell you I've been eating intuitively For a long long time now, and I still have Bad body image thoughts that pop into my head and it's not so much That we get to a point where we never struggle with body image ever It's that now I know how to respond to those thoughts so that they don't feel Oppressive and so if I have a bad body image day I can sit and I can process the emotions that I'm feeling.

And I will actually touch, usually I think for me and for a lot of women, it's our stomach that we feel the most uncomfortable with. So I will actually put my hands on my stomach and completely relax my stomach. I'm not sucking it in. I'm sitting and I'm relaxed and I'm putting my hands on my stomach and I'm talking kindly to my stomach, which sounds a little wacky. And then I might, the other thing that I might do is ask a different question. And what I mean by this is usually when we're criticizing our body and we're ruminating on our body, it's because we're subconsciously or consciously asking bad questions. What do I mean? If you're going to a mirror to figure out what's wrong with my body, to find what's wrong with my body, is there anything wrong with my body? Our brains hate open ended questions. So your brain, whether it's true or not, will come up with an answer. And usually it's worst case scenario when we're framing questions in the negative, when we're framing questions from a fear based standpoint, from a shame based standpoint. And so you're going to come up with answers you don't like, even if they're not true, and then you'll start ruminating. So instead, one way you can stop that rumination is by asking a different question, because the moment you ask a new question, your brain still hates open ended questions, but now instead of thinking of, ruminating in all worst case scenarios, when you ask a good question, you get better answers. So instead I might ask a question instead of thinking, what's wrong with my stomach?

I might think, I wonder what God thinks of my body right now. What is one thing I can do to, to make myself feel a little better right now, a little more comfortable? What is one way I can nourish My soul right now, my spirit right now. So I'm asking, still asking questions, but I'm asking questions that are going to yield much better answers. And this is one way you can start to rewire what I call is your critter brain. And it's the part of your brain that. wants to stay stuck in these kind of dysfunctional, shame filled patterns, because that's what you find safe on a subconscious level. When you start asking better questions, and you start getting better answers, you start thinking in ways that are more aligned with Christ, and then your behaviors show. It comes through in your behavior. So those are the two tips. Sit with the discomfort and ask questions. Better questions.

Amy: I like that. I like that. Kristen, you have a few products that you have available. One of them is a body image mini course that you have super generously offered a 20 percent off with the code graced health 20, that's all caps. You also have Integro and a masterclass. So can you briefly explain about those three things?

And we will include links to those in the show notes. Awesome.

Kirsten: really breaking down everything we've talked about today, but a lot more comprehensive, just breaking each of these topics down thoroughly, and I always say that information isn't enough to create behavior change so you can know something, but it doesn't mean you act on it. So there's also act. Weekly action steps for you to practice, kind of like ones that I just mentioned here there's daily journaling prompts and there is coaching included in that. And then their Integro is a more comprehensive program, so it includes intuitive eating, it includes body image, it includes creating behavior change, so overcoming self sabotage, and that includes, you know, modules, action steps, coaching, and the like, so that's just a much more comprehensive program.

a much larger, more comprehensive program. And then the masterclass, it's a free masterclass, and it's on overeating. I'm actually creating a new masterclass that's just not out yet, and it's on cravings and emotional eating in terms of when we go to food to numb. So those are some other free resources that are geared more toward our relationship with food specifically.

Amy: Awesome. And all of that is going to be at totuswellness. com for the, for the most part, Yes. Yep.

Kirsten: You can find it all on that website. Yep.

Amy: Okay. So tell people where they can connect with you.

Kirsten: You can find me on Facebook. It's just my name, Kirsten Schmidt. I do have a Facebook group there as well. And then on Instagram, it's TOTUS, at TOTUS underscore wellness, T O T U S, and YouTube, at TOTUS Wellness. And I think those are, those are the main social

medias that I have. Yep.

Amy: Awesome. Okay. All right. This is going to be a hard one. But what is one simple thing? Cause we've covered a lot. One is one simple thing that you would like us to remember about our conversation today.

Kirsten: Hmm. Oh, do I have to pick one?

Amy: I know.

Kirsten: I, I really think it is. Just trusting that when you steward your body The way god designed it rather than the world's way And by the way, that's far less complicated than the world makes it when you steward your body that way You will find the weight that god created your body and At first that might feel a little difficult because maybe you you want your body to look like I don't know Jillian michaels or somebody some famous, you know influencer or whoever But then we just have to remember that beauty cannot be earned.

You all, you are already made beautiful and so it's connecting to that truth.

Amy: So good. Okay. That is all for today. Go out there and have a graced day.

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