Find Freedom From Your Negative Body Image
LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | STITCHER
Do you spend countless hours obsessing over your body and striving for an unattainable goal?
Welcome to the Embrace Your Real podcast. In this episode, we dive into the journey of overcoming body image issues and finding true self-acceptance. If you've ever felt like your body is a constant "work in progress," this episode is for you. I'll share the three key realizations that transformed how I navigated my body image struggles and helped me find peace and fulfillment.
Tune in to gain valuable insights into how to start focusing on what brings you joy and fulfillment. You'll learn to think less about your body's appearance, find peace within yourself, and take control of your narrative. These changes will help you build a strong, happy body and a life filled with meaning and passion.
What I discuss:
I decided to stop treating my body like an unfinished project allowed me to focus on projects that deeply fulfill my soul.
I realized I felt more at east with myself when I thought less about my body.
I learned that I can stop allowing my body image issues to control me at any time.
If you loved this episode, be sure to tune in to…
Episode 338: To the Woman Obsessing About What Her Body Looks Like…
If you want more from me, be sure to check out...
Follow me on Instagram: @juliealedbetter | @embraceyourreal | @movementwithjulie
Movement With Julie | App: https://sale.movementwithjulie.com/
Macro Counting Made Simple Online Academy: https://www.macrocountingmadesimple.com/
Website: www.juliealedbetter.com
Get my eBook: FREE Macro Counting Ebook
Amazon Storefront: Julie Ledbetter's Amazon Page
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Hey, hey, beautiful human. Can I steal five minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned. If you're ready to embrace your real let's get it. Let's go. [00:00:31]
[00:00:31] Hello and welcome back to another bonus episode. Do you feel like your body is constantly a work in progress? If yes, this a bonus episode is for you. In fact, I used to feel this way. I would allow negative self-image, negative thoughts to consume me. My thoughts, my life. It weighed me down. It prevented me from chasing the things that I truly wanted until I realized these three important things. And before I talk about those things, I wanted to share. This review comes from C Woodruff. At 23, she gave a five star review and said, the motivation I needed, I cannot express enough how happy I am that I found this podcast. I liked it so much that I decided to start from the beginning, which I am so amazed by you and honestly, like you are incredible. The fact that you started from the very beginning, she said. Every episode is so helpful and uplifting. I feel like listening to this is exactly what I need to start off every day, right? Thank you Julie, for being so raw, real and relatable. You give me hope. Wow. Again, the fact that you decided to start from the beginning is amazing. I give you so much props, especially now that we are into well over 440 episodes. [00:01:37][66.8]
[00:01:38] So the fact that you've been listening to my voice for that much, I'm like, oh gosh, hopefully you still enjoy listening to my voice because I can't imagine listening to that much of my voice. But anyways, I appreciate you. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to send in a review. Hey, if you could scooch over to Apple Podcasts and liberating interview, that would mean so much to me and our team. Just kind of understand how these episodes are helping you. This podcast is helping you in general. It also helps women who stumble upon the podcast, whether that be through just kind of searching through podcasts, or they stumble upon the page from a recommended page. They kind of oftentimes people look at the reviews to see first if it's worth their time. So thank you in advance for doing that. You can just scooch over to Apple Podcasts and type in and brace yourself. First, make sure you subscribe so that you never miss an episode when they go live. And then secondly, you can scroll all the way down and leave. A rating interview really does again, help us out so much. So all right, here are the three key things that changed how I navigated my body image issues when I really struggle the most. And you know, I always talk about this on the podcast, but I kind of create these podcasts as almost like journal entries of things that I wish I would have known in my journey, you know, my early 20s and, and even some days, you know, as I'm in my early 30s, like even some days I need this pep talk. And so I create these episodes, these bonus episodes to hopefully just, you know, encourage you in some way, shape or form if you're struggling with negative body image, if you're struggling in some area of life, you can tune into a podcast and just feel encouraged or empowered in some way, shape or form. [00:03:09][91.6]
[00:03:09] But number one, I decided to stop treating my body as an unfinished project, and that really allowed me to focus on projects that deeply fulfilled my soul. Like, honestly, this realization made it so clear of how much time and energy I had been wasting on striving for this unattainable body goal. Like between hours spent, you know, in long workouts, obsessing over my calories, my diet, all the deprivation, the mental battles that I had of myself. I didn't even realize it, but it was leaving me feeling so drained and so lifeless. And my personality really became all about weight loss. Like, who was I, right? I don't know if you can relate to this, but how much time do you waste on trying to build this perfect body, this perfect life, this perfect facade? Like, aren't there things that you'd rather be doing instead? And for me, there were. And it wasn't until I actually took the time to realize how much mental space and how much actual physical time I was spending obsessing over these things, you know, and it really everything changed when I realized and had that realization, everything changed in my life, and I was really able to redirect my focus towards projects and activities that truly nourished my soul, which brought me this deep sense of fulfillment and joy that I'd been missing. And you know that I didn't even realize that I had been missing previously. But until I started actually spending more time and more energy on them, I was like, oh my gosh, this is actually fulfilling my soul. This is actually what I'm created for. And I didn't even realize that. Right? The more I focused on what my soul wanted, I found that my preoccupation with my body's appearance began to have less of a hold on me. [00:04:44][94.9]
[00:04:45] I realized that my worth and my happiness, they were not tied into how I looked, but rather how I felt and just overall like what my goals were and what my giftings were and what you know, I believe God has created me to do on this earth. And the more that I engage in these things that fulfilled me, the less I cared about these superficial standards on beauty. And I really understood that my body, you know, it is enough just as it is, and that, you know, it's a vessel that allows me to experience life fully and passionately, and that's truly all that matters. So I want to challenge you to stop using all of your energy on weight loss, and instead use it towards something that truly fulfills your soul. Now, this doesn't mean you. Have to completely write off or should write off health and fitness? Absolutely not. That is. I believe it's a blessing from God. I believe it's our duty to take care of ourselves. But I don't believe that it's our duty or our goal, or should be a goal in life to obsess over those things. And so I really just want to encourage you to try something and really put your energy towards things that fulfill your soul, because it's most likely going to be the missing link on this self self-acceptance journey, on this, you know, journey of you trying to find more peace and fulfillment in your life. Number two, I realized I felt more at ease with myself the less I thought about my body. Which again, sounds kind of like a contradiction. But when I started to kind of divert my attention away towards away from the superficial things, you know, superficial insecurities and thoughts and obsessions, a huge transformation took place within me. [00:06:19][94.6]
[00:06:19] I began to feel this sense of peace inside of myself, like peace with my body, which is something that I previously had never experienced before. And I mean, like when I stopped to think about how much I thought about what my body looked like, I realized that it was like 90% of my thoughts. If I was honest with myself, like so much of my mental capacity was on what I look like or what I what I wanted to look like, but what I didn't look like are all of these, you know, thoughts were just they were consuming my mind. And it didn't, you know, it didn't matter what I was doing or where it was. My body insecurities always seemed to take over. They always seem to have this hold on me. And when I forced those thoughts out, it was actually eye opening of how much room I had in my mind and my mental capacity for exploring other things. I always thought, you know, that I was a person of depth, but when you're constantly thinking or obsessing over your body, like you kind of lose the depth of you, and when you're able to push that out and when you're able to identify it and say, okay, no more, do you have a hold on me no more, are you going to consume me the way that you have? You have so much more room in your mind and in your heart to explore deeper parts of yourself and really get to know yourself and get to know yourself, you know, deep at your core. And so people ask all the time like, okay, how did you start this journey though? And for me, it was like I would challenge myself to go a full day of thinking without like, how do I look? Or consumed about that? Or at the very least acknowledging the thoughts, right? Like, okay, if I acknowledge a thought, I would immediately say, oh, I just thought about that, acknowledge it out loud and say, all right, I'm going to choose to not engage in this thought anymore. [00:07:57][98.1]
[00:07:58] And it really allowed me at first to realize just how many thoughts I had. I mean, on average, I think that person has, you know, 60 to 70,000 thoughts a day, which is so wild. But if you actually take time to acknowledge every little tiny thought that you have, it really puts things into perspective. And so for me, it was really acknowledging that and then recognizing those times and then forcing myself to not engage in that thought and to not continue to obsess about that thought. And so for me, it was just that, just that simple act of saying, today, I'm going to acknowledge it today, you know, maybe in two weeks, you know, after acknowledging those thoughts in two weeks, I'm going to say, okay, I'm going to challenge myself to go a half day or full day of like, really not consuming myself with these thoughts about myself and instead like engage in deeper thoughts, listen to, deep conversations, whether that's a podcast, whether that's engaging with a friend, whether that's, reading a book or doing a Bible study. Whatever it is, you are actively engaging in other things that allow your thoughts to go deeper. And I'm telling you, like when I was not so hyper focused on my body, life felt freer. It felt more engaging, it felt more present. And it's beautiful. Like it's there's so much beauty that came out of it, and it allowed me to go and do things that I was previously doing. Like I could go on a spontaneous day, I could go out for a dinner or drink with someone and that's freak out about it. Like, or on the days that, you know, I had planned a full workout and I only had, you know, 20 minutes to get a workout in, or I used to stress about that and I used to say, oh my gosh, this is like, this is the end of the world. [00:09:44][105.4]
[00:09:44] Basically. Like, that's how I approached every little thing or every little inconvenience. And I'm just telling you, that is especially as we go through different seasons of life, that's just not sustainable. And it's not going to allow you to live 100% present without feelings of guilt. And and so I want to encourage you to do this, to try this practice, to just at the very least, engage your thoughts and ask yourself, okay, how much of my thoughts are actually consumed by this and challenge yourself to try to lessen that? And again, it's not going to happen overnight, but over time, you'll be amazed at how much progress you can make when you act of. Engage in it. And lastly, number three, I learned that I can stop allowing my body image issues to control me at any time. So for so long, I felt trapped by my insecurities, as if they had this unbreakable grip over my thoughts, my actions. Like every glance in the mirror, every passing of my reflection, it was a reminder of these like perceived imperfections that I had. Like, my self-worth seemed so linked to my personal appearance that it was creating this cycle of doubt and dissatisfaction. And I was so dissatisfied with my body. Which makes me heartbroken, especially especially because I'm like, God created every single one of us, and he calls us beautiful. He calls us a masterpiece, and he loves every part of us, and he never wants us to feel like we are less than because we are a product of him and of his glory and of his masterpiece. And so it's insane how much that had over me, like how trapped I felt by my insecurities. But when I realized that I could actually change the narrative, that I had control and I didn't have to engage in this narrative on a daily basis, I actually had the power to redefine my relationship with my body. [00:11:42][117.7]
[00:11:43] Like I could ignore the negative thoughts. I could wear the outfit without caring, you know, if I looked fat, especially as, you know, as a talk where in the warmer months and months of the summer, for years, you guys, I did not wear shorts because I was scared and I hated the way that my legs looked. And I remember specifically this summer that I was like, no more will this have power over me? And I can't tell you how freeing it is to now be able to wear the dang shorts and not hate my body, like, wear the shorts and feel confident in them. And yes, there's still days and I'm like, you know, you have those negative thoughts. But the beautiful thing is that you have control over them. You are able to immediately, in the moment say, no, I will not allow this thought to control me. You know, I realize I didn't have to stress if I gained a pound or two or whatever. I mean, here I am in pregnancy, I'm gaining so much weight, you know, that's that's beautiful. Like, I never thought that I would feel as beautiful as I am at this number on the scale at 34 weeks pregnant. And it's because I have this miracle growing inside of me. And I just it has. I could do a whole podcast episode on just how my body image has changed, even from, you know, seemingly thinking. And I do believe that I did have a healthy body image prior to pregnancy. But now that I'm well into pregnancy, you know, well into 34 weeks of being pregnant and and just looking at my body in such appreciation and awe, I feel like I have such a deep found gratitude for my body more than ever before. [00:13:17][94.6]
[00:13:18] But again, a whole other episode I could do on that. But I just, you know, I realized that I didn't have to stress. When my body change, our body will change from season to season. I realized I didn't have to have, you know, step on the scale. I didn't have to have that number control me. In fact, I didn't even need to see the number. Like, the number wasn't even something that I needed to see any longer. Right. And I could really focus on whatever I wanted. And it didn't need to be my body. Like I could focus on so many other things other than my appearance, and recognize that my self-worth doesn't come from my appearance. And those are all choices that I recognize that I could make. And for the longest time, you know, I was just making the choice. And for a long time it was unconsciously. And then I do believe there were some just conscious times that I did choose to allow the body image to control me, and it was because it was just a habit in my life. It was a toxic pattern that I had allowed to manifest in myself and I, I couldn't I felt like I couldn't get out of that cycle. And it wasn't until, you know, I took control and and chose to say, no, this doesn't have power over me. And, you know, I'm not saying I'm perfect. I'm not saying that, you know, every day is a walk in the park. There are definitely still days that I struggle, of course, but I feel like I have the tools and the power and the will and determination to say no more. Does that have power over my life? And again, like I mentioned, it wasn't just this sudden, drastic or dramatic transformation, but rather this gradual shift in perspective over time and this conscious decision to kind of reclaim, you know, control over my thoughts and my emotions. [00:14:57][98.9]
[00:14:57] Tons of prayer has gone into this, you know, friends praying over me, me, you know, journaling about it. I'm a huge believer in journaling and just journaling your thoughts. And I'm just sitting in this and, you know, I realized in that time when I decided to take control, which I would say is probably about 6 or 7 years ago now, I really decided that I didn't have to be a passive victim of my body image issues like I could. Actively choose to focus on the positive aspects of myself and of my life. And again, the mindset shift hasn't always been easy, but with persistence and just it becoming more of just what I do on a daily basis, it's become more natural over time. And so by consciously, you know, redirecting my focus away from superficial concerns towards more meaningful aspects of my life. Again, I have just personally found a profound sense of freedom. And I'm no longer, you know, allowed to or no longer allow myself to dictate my life or have my life, you know, ruled by my appearance, but instead of just who I am and really started to embrace, like my relationships, my passion, my personal growth, my my gifts, my talents, the things that God has instilled in me. And that's again, it's a constant just giving it up to God and saying, God, you know, I choose today to focus on what you have before me. I refuse to be ruled by. I refuse to live my life by, or have these negative narratives or negative thoughts or rule in my mind. So free my mind today. And it's just this constant like, okay, I'm going to I'm going to leave it at the feet of Jesus. I'm going to constantly give it to him and not just, you know, leave it there and say, God, I give it to you, but then not do any work on my part. [00:16:47][109.4]
[00:16:47] It's it's both. It's giving it to God, but also taking the time to do the things that you need to do internally to put the work in. So that's, you know, acknowledging the thoughts that's taking captive of those thoughts and saying, I refuse to believe this and and replacing it with a thought that honors, you know, and glorifies God. And really, is a positive reinforcement of the negative thing that you were previously thinking. So let me quickly recap, just kind of how I personally have found freedom from my negative body image and how hopefully you can as well. Number one, I decided to stop treating my body like an unfinished project, which allowed me to really focus on projects that deeply fulfill my soul. Number two, I realized that I felt more at ease with myself the less that I thought about my body. It gave me so much time and space to be able to do the things that I believe I'm put on this earth to do, to serve the people, to, invest the time and my gifts and talents. And lastly, I learned that I can stop allowing my negative body image issues to control me at any time, like I. I interrupted that cycle, and I was able to instead focus on all of the beautiful things and all of the many glorious things that we are put on this earth to do and and not engage in that constant negative body image. If you love this episode, I know you'll also love episode 338 to the woman obsessing about what her body looks like. So if you are just struggling with negative body image issues, I hope that this episode helped you. I hope that it gave you some good tools or encouragement, or just that pep talk that you needed. [00:18:26][98.2]
[00:18:26] But I also think that episode three through eight, which I will link in the show notes below, will help you as well, so you can go tune in to that now. But that is all that I have for today's bonus episode. I love you so dang much! You are beautiful, you are powerful, and I believe that you can reclaim your life and overcome the negative body image issues that you are just consuming your thoughts in your mind. I believe it because I am living proof. Again, not perfect, but it has been a journey and it is something that I 100% believe that you can do as well. All right, I love you so much. I'll talk to you in the next one. [00:19:01][34.9]
[00:19:01] All right, sister, that's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so. Julie A Ledbetter. Yes, it's with an A in the middle for that daily post workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world, and I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace it real because you're worth it. [00:20:03][0.0]