Your Looks Are Not Your Identity
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Do you define yourself by the color of your hair, the sizes of your jeans, or the number of workouts you do? Or, have you placed your identity in your body or your appearance? If your answer is yes, this is a very scary territory you are venturing in!
In this episode of Embrace Your Real, it’s my mission to convince you that you are not your body, or your hair, or your clothes, or anything about your physical appearance. I also explain the danger attached if you do place your identity these external things.
TRANSCRIPT:
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 you real. Let's get it, let's go!
Hello and welcome back to the Embrace Your Real Podcast. So grateful that you are spending some time with me today. Now I know that with many of us being in quarantine or stay-at-home orders, we are not feeling like our normal selves, we're not on our normal schedule, which means that our normal eating and workout routine has completely been thrown out of whack. And with talking with so many of you guys on a daily basis, I feel this sense of just anxiousness and guilt, and I wanted to address that.
But before I do so in today's episode, I wanted to dive into our review of the day. This comes from Kate O. She says calling every woman, the messages you need to hear. If you are a woman, an adolescent, teenager, Julie has messages that you need to hear. It's very tough to live in the world that we live in and feel like you are worthy, you are beautiful or even know that you are capable of anything. To hear Julie's story, ask the tough questions, and give some actionable takeaways is absolutely game changing. From someone who prides herself on supposedly believing in all of those things, this is helping me realize that I am but not in all of my actions and thoughts, so here's to a new day to Embracing My Real and honoring myself a little more every day. Thank you Julie. Now go listen if you haven't already.
Kate, thank you so much for the review. If you haven't already rated and reviewed the podcast, it would mean the absolute world to me. It really does help us in the podcast land, so all you've go to do is open up Apple podcast, scroll all the way down when you were on the podcast app, and you will see under the Embrace Your Real podcast an opportunity to rate and review it. If you do screenshot it, send it to me in a DM, and I will personally voice memo you back. I just want to show my appreciation.
All right, let's dive into the episode. Now I think much of our guilt and our anxiety is created due to placing our identity in our body or appearance or what we are doing every single day, like the job that we have or the house that we live in or any of that, right? Because when we don't feel like we look our best, we allow this to take away from our confidence and feelings of worth. This is why it's so, so, so important that we realize that our identity should never be placed in anything outside of who we are at our core, right?
Because we are not our body. We are not our hair. We are not our clothes or physical appearance. We are not defined by these things. We're not defined by the number of workouts that we did or skipped because we wanted to have quality time with our family. We're not the broccoli that we traded in for Toll House cookies, that was me on Friday night because date night with my husband, we are not any of those things. We're not our bra size, we are not the width of our waist, nor the slenderness of our calves. We are not our hair color, skin color, or shade of lipstick. We are also not our jean size. I've said that so many times but I need you to believe it. We are not defined by any of these things. The amount of attention that we get from males or females or combination thereof. We are not the number of setups that we did, the workouts that we completed that week, and we are not defined by the numerical reflection of our relationship with gravity aka if you are struggling with weighing yourself daily, multiple times a day, on multiple times per week and you are stressing about that, throw that scale out. Listen to my episode talking about weight loss and how important it is that you really get your mind straight on that. I will put that in the show notes.
But so, so important that you recognize that no matter what you think right now, you are not those things. You not having perfectly blonde hair right now and having roots, or having eyelash extensions that are half falling out, or having the scraggly nails because all of your nails have fallen off, none of that is you. You need to understand that those things can be taken from us at any moment and right now we are literally living through a global pandemic that we have never seen before and those things easily have been taken away from us. The luxury of going to a gym, the luxury of going to a hair salon, the luxury of going to get our nails done, all of those things. Heck, even the luxury of having a job. So many of us have lost our jobs.
It's a scary thing, a really, really scary thing. And I don't want you to place your identity in these things because when our roots grow out, we feel like we're no longer beautiful or when our pants no longer fit, we feel like we're no longer worthy. Or when we don't have a job, we feel like we're worthless. This is what we believe when we place our identity in these things, right? So we need to find our identity within ourselves and whose we are. I believe at the core of who all of us are. We are God's children and as a result, we need to live accordingly with all that other stuff stripped away from us, we're still worthy, right? You are not your appearance. You are who you are at your core. You are the content of your character. You are the ambitions that drive you. You are the things that you laugh at and the words that you say, you are the love that you spread, and the energy that you radiate.
You are literally everything that I just stated other than your appearance, right? So my challenge to you is to stop placing your identity, your worth in any of these things because like I said, at any moment it can be taken from you. This could be the size of your bank account, the car that you drive, the job that you have, the house that you live in. The more and more you strengthen your identity in those things, you will be completely destroyed when they are gone. Not if but when. Things will come and things will go in our life. So you have to understand that your identity should not be rooted in those things.
You have no control over the world around you. So you need to have your identity placed in you are and whose you are as a person because that is the only thing that you have control over. You cannot control your weight. You cannot control your living situation always, but you can control who you are, the way that you act or react, the characteristics that you hold, the beliefs that you have, all of those things identify you.
So the next time that you have negative thoughts arising or guilt arising or anxiety because you feel like your appearance has been altered or you feel like these things have been taken away from you, you have to remind yourself that those things did not make you up in the first place. I want you to literally say out loud, "I am not my hair. I am not my weight. I am not my car. I am not my bank account. I am not my job," or whatever struggle you may find yourself in. You are not those things. You are you and remember to find your identity in whose you are and who you are. And look at the things that you can control.
All right. I love you. I hope that this episode encouraged, inspired or motivated something in you. If you have a friend or someone in your life that you think would benefit from this, I just ask that you click the share button, copy the link, send it in, message, a DM, whatever. I just want to spread this message and I hope that this found you in a place that you needed it. Be sure to screenshot this, post it up on your story, tag me Julie Ledbetter, so I can see it. I love you and I will talk to you guys in the next episode.
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 juliealedbetter. 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 your real because you're worth it.