My commitment here at God is Doing a New Thing is to provide as many means of supporting you on your Thin Within journey as possible. Right now, here are some of the opportunities available to you:
Daily blog posts. You can “Follow This Blog” and get a notification when new content has posted.
Community interaction. Here at the God is Doing A New Thing website, people are interacting with one another in the comments section. Engage in a dialog. Share what works for you. Ask a question and experience encouragement and help from others on this journey!
Accountability partnerships. Have you gotten an accountability partner yet for your journey? This page offers a place to post if you are interested in finding a buddy to connect with for mutual encouragement.
Newsletters sent out every-so-often (probably not more than once a month). Subscribe here. When you do, you get a link to an audio file that tells you what turned the corner for me in my own Thin Within journey.
Studies together! We have just started a bible study to support Thin Within participants in renewing their minds. Visit this page to see what we have done so far and to get started with us!
There are weekly online classes to teach more content regarding the topic for the week during our summer study. Each can stand alone.
YouTube Channel with all kinds of Thin Within and God is Doing A New Thing videos.
We are creating a Thin Within / God Is Doing A New Thing app for your iPod, iPhone, and iPad! I am so excited about that! Development is slow going, but it is happening!
Coaching opportunities one-on-one. You can accomplish your goals. Maybe you just need a little more support. Consider the coaching option. I currently have spots that have just come open.
There are so many resources here for you! I hope that if you don’t find what you think you need here, you will ask.
NOW is the time for you to experience the ongoing victory that you know Christ has purchased for you! You can do this in the strength he provides!
What will you begin to do that you, perhaps, haven’t done before to turbo-charge, hyper-boost your Thin Within journey? 🙂
When I was in high school, my friend, Shauna, and I routinely packed away an entire large pizza at the nearby Shakey’s pizza parlor. Another typical activity was entering Baskin Robbins (an ice cream store), talking loudly about “All the people coming over tonight who will enjoy eating a Mud Pie with us…” There were NO other people. We bought the Mud Pie for us to eat all by ourselves! We were just too embarrassed to let the clerk believe that we didn’t have a host of people joining us! (Maybe asking for two spoons was a give away!)
We often joked about how “jolly” we were when we were together because of how much we enjoyed eating together.
Do you have someone like this in your life? Or even sort of like this in your life?
One friend of mine calls an “eating partner” a “drinking buddy.” She has a point. I guess psycho-speak might refer to this as being “co-dependent.”
How do you think God feels about this partnership at this stage of your life? If eating within the boundary of physical hunger and satisfaction is something that you are convinced God wants you to do, maybe you will need to come up with a new strategy for this friendship. Maybe a secondary boundary is in order when/if/for what purpose you get together with your “drinking buddy.” It might be as simple as switching restaurants. You could suggest you split a meal together. Or, perhaps, you could switch “activities” altogether! Is it possible you need just to stop getting together for a month or two? Ouch!
What do you think? Is there someone in your life that you may need to take a “hiatus” from temporarily? What will you gain if you do? What will you lose if you don’t?
As a child growing up, I wasn’t safe. I feared and experienced abandonment frequently. Life was devoid of the safety and protection of reliable authority figures.
Any surprise that I struggle with God as a wonderful, reliable, safe and strong authority figure today?
But I am growing in this–even now! As I sit in his presence and experience his love, tenderness, compassion, strength, and beauty, I am able finally to experience what it is to be a child–His child.
This video is of a great Jason Gray song…I just have to share it with you for your renewing of the mind playlists (editing this post after it has posted because I don’t want it just stuck in the comments!):
I hope this video is helpful for some of you who are wondering about how to set up your own truth cards.
How about you? Do you have plans to design your own Truth Cards? Do you already use Truth Cards? What are some of the TRUTHS that you have on your cards? Share here so others can get ideas! How do you use them?
This was the subject heading of an email I received last week from one of my coaching clients.
I went on to read:
“Yep, you read that right. I hate my legs and butt because of all of the cellulite so I decided to pray that I would love it. That may sound weird but I know that I have to completely accept my body before I can relax and learn to eat like a normal person. When I go shopping for clothing and I see myself in the mirror, it sends me over the edge with disappointment and it’s a big trigger to find a diet. I decided that God wants us to turn to him for everything and that he loves my cellulite so he can make me love it. I just don’t want to feel that urgency that I have to lose weight by a certain time anymore. I know if I keep going and eating 0-5 I will get there. ”
Thank you, Debbie, for giving permission for me to share this GREAT perspective here with others who will read it.
How about you? Will you pray that God will help you to love your ____________? (Maybe it is your hips, thighs–or cellulite…whatever aspect of your body that you secretly or, not so secretly, despise.) What might be the results of loving this “part” of your body with God’s love?
Here is a sound file that explains what I hope ALL of us (even those not involved in the bible study) will do! (Email subscribers need to visit the blog site to access the sound file):
1.) Establish our primary and secondary boundaries.
Mine are:
Primary Boundary – Eat 0 to 5
Secondary Boundaries – 1.) Eat only when sitting down (sitting in the car doesn’t count! :-)) 2.) Eat only when my mind and body are relaxed
2.) Establish our plan for renewing our minds.
Mine looks like this and I will send a report to my accountability partner each day about these things as well:
Renew my mind with my Eating Truth Cards each morning.
Listen to my Truth Play List at least once during the day.
Review/Scan or re-read highlights in my cards between 4 and 6pm each day.
You can do this, too.
What is your primary boundary? This one’s easy–If you are a Thin Within participant, you will want to have this one be “To eat 0 to 5” or something like that.
What will your two secondary boundaries be this week?Remember that secondary boundaries support your ability to live within your primary boundary. Any of the Keys to Conscious Eating can work. “To have the TV off when eating,” or something like that can work, too!
What will your plan be to renew your mind? Remember, renewing the mind is something we are doing so we can think differently–specifically, so we can think God’s thoughts about something, in this case, 0 to 5 eating, or our bodies, or food generally…or something like that! I have made my truth cards specifically about eating 0 to 5 since that is my primary boundary. More on that in our online class. We talked about ways of renewing our minds agin the online class for this week. Here is that video: