Why You Need a Healthy Soul in Order to Have a Healthy Body [Podcast Transcript]

Title: Why You Need a Healthy Soul in Order to Have a Healthy Body

Podcast Date: January 14, 2025

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Description

Pursuing physical health seems to have great benefits. Longer life, more enjoyment of life, compliments from friends who notice . . . But, what if the best way to become more physically healthy is to first become more spiritually, mentally, and emotionally healthy? In fact, what if a lack of spiritual, mental, or emotional health is actually keeping your body stuck in diseases or distress because you've tried to fix the problem from the outside in, instead of from the inside out? On today's podcast episode, Heather Creekmore talks about the importance of caring for our souls: our emotions, our mental health, and our spiritual health. She talks about research that shows how a failure to take care of what's going on inside may keep us fighting our bodies. As Christian women, what should take priority? Heather explores these questions and more in today's new episode.

Listen, learn, and be encouraged to get healthy emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically in 2025.  

Did you get the January resource kit? Make sure you're on the Compared to Who? friends list at: https://www.improvebodyimage.com so you get our monthly resource kit with direct links to podcast episodes, YouTube videos, and more that connect directly with this month's new content.

Are you ready for the 40-Day Journey? Learn more here.

Wnat more information on Christian body image coaching? Learn more here. 

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is AI-generated and has not been edited for accuracy or clarity.

[00:00:02]:

Life audio. Hey, friend. Heather Creekmore here. Glad you're listening to the Compared to Who podcast today. If you are wanting to be healthier this year. I hope you feel supported here. Today, we're gonna continue this conversation kinda that we've been having all month because I know it's January and you might have health goals. And maybe those goals are weight loss goals, body goals.

[00:00:30]:

Maybe they're another kind of health goal. Today, I'm gonna talk about why it's very important that you see your health as more than just your body, your body size, your body shape, that you look at health in a holistic way. And some of you are probably thinking I already do that. Oh, I don't know, friend. Today, we're gonna go deeper. I'm gonna challenge you on some things. Right? That's what I like to do. I'm gonna challenge you to think about maybe even some of your physical health struggles as being more connected to emotions or trauma or things in the past or stress that maybe you haven't really worked through than you might imagine.

[00:01:15]:

So that's where we're going today. I'm glad you're here for it. Hey. This week, our first resource kit is available. So this is something new we're doing. Every month, our podcast is gonna have a theme, and we're gonna create a resource kit for you that'll be housed on the website. If you're on my email list, you're gonna get an link to it every month. So join the email list.

[00:01:33]:

Go to improve body image dot com. Join the email list. You get a link to it every month, and it's just gonna have other podcast episodes that you can listen to. I've got more than 400 podcast episodes. So I know just telling you, hey. Go find the other episodes on this topic is not enough help. So we are gonna name for you and link for you this podcast episodes, blog post episodes, YouTube videos, other things that might be helpful if the topic of the month is important to you. January is about health.

[00:02:02]:

Next month, we're talking about marriage and all the things marriage. Like, what if my husband doesn't like my weight or size? How do I make my marriage better? How do I not feel so insecure in the bedroom? All these things. So you're gonna want these resource kits every month. Go to improve body image.com, and you can sign up for the website. Excuse me. Sign up for our email. I think this month, we're offering you the opportunity to watch the free webinar we did earlier this month as your incentive to join the list. But join that list, and, and we'll get these resource kits to you.

[00:02:34]:

Now let's get to today's brand new episode.

[00:02:43]:

Welcome to Compare To Who, the podcast to help you make peace with your body so you can favor God's rest and feel his love. If you're tired of fighting body image the world's way, compare to who is the show for you. You've likely heard lots of talk about loving your body, but my goal is different. Striving to fall in love with stretch marks and cellulite is a little silly to me. Instead, I want to encourage you and remind you with the truth of scripture that you are seen, you are known, and you are loved no matter what your size or shape. Here, the pressure is off. If you're looking for real talk, biblical encouragement, and regular reminders that God loves you and you're not alone, you've come to the right place. I hope you enjoy today's show, and, hey, tell a friend about it.

[00:03:29]:

Well, hey there, friend. I'm glad you're here today. I wanna talk about what you do when you just want a healthy body and whether or not maybe we're missing something when that's what we pursue. And let me just speak to you from personal experience. I knew I wanted to be healthy. And if the doctor told me anything that was wrong or sort of wrong or could be wrong or was headed in the wrong direction, then I started to focus on that thing, fixing that thing, and that was how I was going to be healthier. Right? So you tell me there's something wrong with my thyroid. I am going to Google, you know, how to help thyroid, how to support thyroid, how to fix thyroid.

[00:04:11]:

And I'm going to take those supplements, and I'm gonna eat that special diet and maybe exercise in that special way. And the only problem with this becomes when you've got, let's let's just say a 100. There's probably more than that. Different influencers, different voices saying, oh, if you have low thyroid, you should definitely never eat gluten or dairy. If you have low thyroid, you should be low carb. If you have low thyroid, you should be intermittent fasting. And you got other voices saying, if you have low thyroid, whatever you do, don't intermittent fasting. If you have low thyroid, whatever you do, make sure you're eating enough carbs.

[00:04:44]:

If you have low thyroid, make sure you're getting quality dairy products that you're like, ah, but you wanna do it all because you wanna fix your thyroid. Right? And that's how I thought about health. You tell me the physical ailments. Thank you, doctor. And then I will use Google or it'll take some of your advice too. But I will use Google to find the fix to my physical problem. And what I've learned over the last couple years, y'all, is that our bodies are a lot more complicated, nuanced, and individual than that. So while there have been times where I was diagnosed with something, prescribed some course of treatment, and it worked just fine, like, for example, if I had strep throat, and they said take the antibiotics, and after 10 days, the strep throat was gone because I took the full course of antibiotics, then check.

[00:05:41]:

That worked out great. But there's other things that don't quite cure that easily or that quickly that we struggle with that can kind of put us on this lifelong quest to be healthier, this lifelong quest to get our blood pressure down, or maybe it's a battle with diabetes, or maybe you're prediabetic, or maybe it is your thyroid, or maybe it's that there's nothing wrong with you at all. But you know from your genetics, from your parents, that you have a proclivity or tendency or genetic inclination towards these things, and you just wanna make sure you don't end up where your parents are. Oh, friend, if that's where you are, I totally get it. But I wanna challenge you that focusing or uber focusing just on your physical body and physical health may be missing the roots of your problem. Now I know that might sound kinda strange, but what if your mental health, your emotional health, your spiritual health, what if the health of your soul actually plays a much greater role in your physical health than you ever could have imagined? And what if it becomes the question of which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Right? Well, if I just fix my physical health, then I would feel better to take care of my emotional and mental and spiritual health. Like, I've heard people say that. But what if it's the other way around? What if you need to fix your spiritual, emotional, and mental health in order to better be able to take care of your physical health.

[00:07:29]:

And that's really my thesis for you today, is that if you focus on having a healthier mind, healthier way of thinking, if you focus on healthy processing of emotions, if you focus on spiritual health, soul care, working through things that maybe you've never worked through before, that is an avenue to also having greater physical health. Now where I wanted to start today was by looking at scripture, and I tried to find all the places in scripture where the word healthy is used. And, honestly, there's only 2 places in the New Testament where God uses the word healthy in the Bible. And in both places, it's Paul kinda talking about what happened with the shipwreck and saying that all the sailors sailors there were healthy. So other places where God uses the word health in the bible, and I think there's, like, 49 occurrences of it in the new testament. Most of them are about times when he healed someone, restored someone to health. There's also the very famous scripture, the Luke version of it. It's in, I think, all of the gospels, but in Luke 531, Jesus says, those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick do, which, of course, he's saying that he is the great physician.

[00:08:54]:

Right? But he's coming not just to help their physical health because Jesus did heal many people, but he's saying, ultimately, he's there to cure their greatest problem, their greatest ailment, which is their spiritual sickness. He is the physician to do that. But it's interesting. As I read through the way, especially in the gospels, the way the word health is used, a lot of times, health means absence of disease. So we don't know for sure. I mean, I would assume when Jesus heals someone, he heals them absolutely, completely, like, of everything, but I don't really know that. Like, I don't know if when he restored the blind man's eyesight, if the blind man's, blood pressure went down. Right? Or if when he restored the lane and they were able to walk, you know, if they their eyesight got better.

[00:09:47]:

Like, we don't really know that level of detail. But, generally, you can see just from the way contextually, the way the word health is used, it's being used to say the person's no longer sick. But here's the problem in our culture. Health isn't just the absence of disease anymore. That's not the kind of health we're looking for. Instead, we've kind of been lured by our culture into chasing this concept of optimal health. So even being absent of a disease is not enough. We have to always be figuring out how we can be healthy.

[00:10:28]:

Right? My blood pressure is good, but it could be better. My heart rate is alright, but it could be better. And we start chasing better in all these different arenas of health instead of basically saying, oh, I'm I'm healthy. I don't have a disease, and calling ourselves healthy and calling it good. No. No. No. We end up chasing better.

[00:10:54]:

And so and so then what happens is there's not really this line that you cross where you know that you're healthy. And in that way, health becomes a whole lot like wealth. Right? Like, someone who makes $10,000 a year may feel rich when they start making $50,000 a year. Similarly, if they made $50,000 a year and get a raise to $100,000 a year, they feel rich. But are they rich next to Elon Musk? No. And does Elon Musk probably believe he could be wealthier? He probably does. There's no real clear line on what wealth is, what qualifies someone to be wealthy. It just really depends on who you're comparing yourself to.

[00:11:37]:

Right? And it's the same for health. There's not really a line where you can say, okay. Now I've I'm healthy enough. I've arrived. And that's what makes it really difficult. And, frankly, that's what makes it so easy to make health an idol that we chase and pursue. But to truly be healthy, I think scripture supports this concept of health as wholeness. And there are 5 key areas in the bible that talk about health and wholeness.

[00:12:07]:

And that's our spiritual health, of course, but also our mental and emotional health, which could also be called maybe our soul health, our relationship health. Because remember, we were created to be in relationship with other people, and it's fascinating. I talked about this in the webinar a little bit, but, you know, there's a lot of physical health benefits that come from just having friends, being in community that, like, delays when you will die if you have friends. Crazy. Right? So there's relational health, and then there's body health. There's physical health, and then scripture also talks about economic health as well. But in 3rd John 1 2, the apostle John was writing a letter to his dear friend, Gaius, and he opens the letter like this. It says, dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health, and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.

[00:13:04]:

And so what was John's prayer for his friend, Gaius? It was that he would be physically healthy, but that other things in his life will be going well. And in that, he also says, even as your soul is getting along well, your physical health, your relational health depends some part on the health of your soul. So we come back after the break. We're going to look at how your soul health can actually be affecting your physical health. So there's a book that came out a few years ago called The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, and it was kind of a groundbreaking book in this whole area of trauma and trauma recovery, and paying attention to our nervous system and nervous system regulation, and how things that have happened to us in our past may come out in the way our bodies are health wise, really, you know, from every aspect of our health. Let me just kinda summarize it. I'm gonna just use the AI summary. That's cheating, I know.

[00:14:12]:

But I thought the AI summary was gonna do a better job than I could do of summarizing this whole complex book. So here you go. The body keeps the score emphasizes that our body store and manifest emotional experiences, particularly traumatic ones, through physical sensations and responses. Meaning that when we undergo trauma, our bodies retain the memory of that event often leading to physical symptoms like muscle tension, digestive issues, or altered breathing patterns. Even when we try to mentally suppress the emotional experience, essentially, our bodies keep the score of our emotional history. Another thing that this book, I guess supports or really, argues for is that as long as we don't resolve the trauma stress hormones that the body secrete to protect the body from danger, they keep circulating, and the defensive movements and emotional responses that belong to the past traumatic event keep getting replayed in the present. And so these concepts are super fascinating to me. I've been looking at this stuff for a couple of years now.

[00:15:31]:

I am not a trauma expert by any stretch of the imagination. But I've bought enough books. I've read enough. I've listened to enough to begin to learn that, oh goodness, all of those years that I thought being healthy was just about eating and exercising, how shortsighted that was. Because there were things going on in my body related to past experiences. Some of it past trauma, some of it just emotional experiences, a lot of it just stress. And I was not doing anything to make myself healthier around those areas just by eating more carrots or eating less sugar or exercising more. In fact, in some ways, I may have hurt my body more by denying it, the food it needed, the amount of calories it needed, and by exercising too much.

[00:16:27]:

I haven't found this study again, but I I read it one time, and I discussed it with a doctor friend of mine. There's some research out there that shows that one commonality between people with thyroid issues is that we're not good at breathing. And some of you know, I got my deviated septum fixed just over this past summer, and I got it fixed because I had taken a sleep test. And the test showed that I was, hypoventilating at night, which meant I wasn't getting enough oxygen at night. But I've had problems with high heart rate pretty much my entire life, and I also have had thyroid issues for about a decade now. And as I was discussing some of my issues with this friend, she was talking to me about how, yeah, like, they've they've cited now how people with thyroid issues aren't good breathers. We don't breathe deeply enough. We breathe too shallow.

[00:17:21]:

We don't get enough oxygen in. And as some of you, maybe you're fitness professionals or you've studied this in health class, as you may know, more oxygen in helps your heart rate. And so it's fascinating to think about how there could be some trauma response in this. Right? Because those of us who maybe grew up in a stressful family or were raised in a traumatic environment, we probably weren't comfortable and relaxed enough to do a lot of deep breathing. Our breathing was shallow because in part, we were nervous. We were running on nervous energy. Right? We didn't know we had to be prepared for whatever was gonna happen next. So shallow deep shallow breathing, not deep breathing.

[00:18:11]:

And how that could be a connection point to thyroid issues that maybe like me, you tried to solve through not eating gluten. But what if it's not about the gluten at all? What if it's about healing those traumatic memories, healing that stress response, those feelings that are still there, even though you might not be in the same situation or even dare say danger that you were in before 10, 20, 30 years ago whenever the trauma happened, what if healing that can resolve what happens with your breathing and what happens in your nervous system, and that actually is what will bring physical healing to your body. Another interesting thing I read, which I don't I'm not even gonna cite this book. Okay? I I'll probably give you enough information that you'd be able to find it, but I don't necessarily want you to go right out and grab it. I guess there were some things in it that were a little troubling to me from a biblical perspective. But, yeah, there were some things in it that I was like, that's that's interesting. I don't really know about that. But there's a series of books kind of exposing the, biblical reason behind some diseases.

[00:19:28]:

And, again, I I don't know to what degree this is true, if it's 10% true, if it's 90% true. I don't know. But I purchased the book on the biblical roots of autoimmune disease. And one of the things that he said in there that was fascinating was he talked about autoimmune disease as self rejection. Now in autoimmune disease, like, technically, what the body is doing is the body is attacking itself. Right? So I have Hashimoto's, and it's in remission now. But I had Hashimoto's. I was diagnosed, I think, at age 40 or 41.

[00:20:09]:

And what Hashimoto's is is your thyroid cells attack your thyroid cells because they think your thyroid cells are invaders. Right? So the body is attacking itself. And he talks about this root being self rejection and how that kind of mimics that, like, you feel self rejection in your in your brain and your heart. Right? This is a a mental, emotional, like, posture of self rejection and then how your body physically adapts to that self rejection and starts rejecting itself in this way. And, again, friend, look, I don't know. I don't know if this guy is off his rocker or if he's spot on. I don't really have any way of knowing. Right? There's not, like, a test you can do for this.

[00:21:00]:

But I do know that self rejection has been an issue for me. I do know that I had a very poor opinion of myself, that I didn't like myself very much for most of my life, that I just felt like I needed to do better, improve myself more, and I didn't know who I was. And I just kinda felt empty and shallow, and I didn't really like me. And that would be the definition of self rejection. And then at 40, I have an autoimmune disease. I don't know. So it's food for thought for you today. But I do think it kind of would support one of my thesis for you today, which is that what's going on on the inside for us, mental, spiritual, your soul health, your emotional health is so important to your physical health.

[00:21:53]:

So my second, and this will be my last point for you today, and we'll continue this in the next episode. But my second point as to why you may want to consider focusing on soul health, as your avenue to physical health, or your first play before focusing on physical health, is that when you are more emotionally, spiritually, and mentally healthy, you are going to bring your physical body out of its fight or flight, its stress response. And it's more than just fight or flight, of course. There's fight, flight, fawn, or freeze. Right? But you are gonna bring your body out of its stress response, and that's gonna just calm you down. Okay? And when you are calmed down, when your body is calmed down, first of all, that's much healthier for you. Right? You aren't pumping the cortisol all the time, like the lion is chasing you, even though the lion's not chasing you. Right? So reducing that stress is really healthy for you physically, and that has to be taken care of emotionally, mentally, spiritually.

[00:23:01]:

Right? But it also separates for you the ability to take care of making these physical changes without it being life or death, without it being fear based. And so let me spell this out maybe even a little bit clearer. Some of you learned that you are not safe from your mother or father or grandmother. Some influence in your life told you that you would be accepted if your body looked a certain way. And you may be 30, 40, 50 years out of that situation, that childhood scenario where grandma puts you on the scale or mom stood you in front of the mirror and showed you how fat you are. You may you may be decades away from that. But inside the stress, the emotional turmoil turmoil, that stress response, that fight or flight or freeze or fawn response is deep in there. And it is driving why you are still trying so hard to lose weight, stay in shape, you know, get the baby weight off, or get your body back to the size it used to be today.

[00:24:18]:

And in doing that, it makes those health slash body goals that you have for yourself even more difficult to accomplish because you are trying to accomplish them as if they are going to save your life, as if they are going to keep you safe. If you can just lose the weight, then you don't have to be afraid of mom or grandma or dad's judgment anymore. If you can just, you know, get the body back, then you will be safe. You'll be safe from their opinions. You'll be safe from their lectures. You'll be safe from their punishment in some cases. But friend, that's why I want you to do the hard work of working through those things that happened first. Because the truth is, according to scripture, right, if you're a believer and follower of Jesus, friend, you're already safe.

[00:25:10]:

You're safe in Jesus's arms. He has you. You have nothing to fear. Right? No matter what size your body is, you are loved. You are accepted. You are fully seen. You are fully known. You're okay.

[00:25:25]:

And some of you know that in your head, but you cannot feel that in your heart because of this. Because there's things that happened. There are things that you experienced. You may not even remember those things right away. Right? It might just be a general feeling for you now, and it might be that when you start to, like, process and dig into the memories, you start to remember more specifics, and that might not feel comfortable at first. But when you start to dig in and can heal some of those memories, can work through some of those traumas, can name them without blaming who did it to you. Right? Like, there's so much help and health in saying this happened to me, but you don't have to say this happened to me, and it's all such and such as fault. Right? That that doesn't have to be the next sentence.

[00:26:16]:

This happened to me. Now, Lord, show me show me how to get well. You know, maybe it's forgiving the person, but also just show me how to not believe that anymore. Show me how to separate those things they said about me, and those things I believe about myself from what you say about me and what is true. Right? And so if you want to be physically healthier, if you have some physical health goals you wanna accomplish, let me encourage you. Accomplishing them, working towards them from a place where you are safe no matter what is gonna be so much healthier for you and so much more effective in the long run. Because if you're trying to lose weight out of fear, and maybe you're not even conscious of it. Right? But it's this underlying fear that I know I have to do this, or I'm not gonna be okay.

[00:27:04]:

I know I have to get this weight off, or I'm not gonna be okay. I'm not gonna be safe. I'm not gonna. It's it's gonna be bad. And then I talked to some of you in coaching, and I'm like, well, what what's gonna be so bad? Who's gonna reject you? Is your husband gonna leave you? No. He's not gonna leave me. You know? Well, like, are your kids gonna be upset and, like, you know, leave home and, you know, like, what is gonna happen if you don't lose this weight or if you gain the weight? And they can't name it until we dig in to their history, and we realize, no, it was someone else, someone else's voice, someone else's influence that made them not feel safe to be in their own body, and that fear is still driving them today. And ultimately, it's getting in the way of them feeling healthier.

[00:27:51]:

It's getting in the way of their physical health goals. So what would happen? What would it look like to work on those traumas? Work on those hurts and hang ups. And then know that you are safe in Jesus' arms. Know you're safe no matter what happens. And then try to make some changes in maybe the way you eat or maybe the way you move your body or the way you sleep or bad habits you have trying to kick addictions or, you know, other bad habits. Then make changes from a place where you know you are already safe and accepted. Oh, friend. That is so much healthier than trying to make grand sweeping health changes out of a place where you don't feel safe.

[00:28:42]:

So when we come back next time, we're gonna talk more, oh, about your feelings. That kinda sounds like the, like, the butt of a joke. Right? Where you used to say, you know, you invite men to go to small group and talk about their feelings, and that's the joke because men don't wanna show up anywhere and talk about their feelings. But I think the truth is women don't wanna show up anywhere and really talk about their feelings either. We talk about things we think and observe, but feelings are hard. Feelings are uncomfortable. And most of us would rather not have them, especially those of us who have an eating disorder, disordered eating, body image, dysmorphia, disordered view of our body. Like, those of us with this background front, one of our key problems is we don't like our feelings.

[00:29:26]:

Our feelings are not our friends. We don't want to sit in our feelings. We just wanna fix things. And so that's where we're gonna go next time. We're gonna talk about acknowledging those feelings, what those feelings are, and how that in and of itself can make us healthier spiritually, emotionally, mentally, which can then help us be healthier physically. I hope something today helped you stop comparing and not living. I hope something was helpful to you on your journey to feel healthier in this January. Thank you for listening.

[00:30:01]:

Hey. Go to improve body image.com. If you want more great resources, if you're brand new

[00:30:06]:

to the show, hey. We're glad you were here today.

[00:30:08]:

You can go to improve body image.com and go to the start here tab and find other great resources so you can learn more about what we're about. Thanks for listening, By the way, the Computer Do Podcast is proud to be part of the Life Audio Podcast Network. For more great Christian podcasts, go to life audio.com.