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:
Welcome to WEEK ONE of our summer study on Renewing of the Mind! If you are on the Thin Within journey, this study will support and strengthen you. I am so excited because this summer will be the summer you realize your godly goals. If you do the work in the assignments shared here –many of which will refer you to Barb Raveling’s blog, you will experience the transformation by the renewing of your mind that God speaks of in Romans 12:1-2:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy,
to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—
his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Our transformation doesn’t happen merely by changing the outside of our bodies…how we appear. We all have done diets before and know how to lose weight. What we want, though, is permanent change, that isn’t dependent on an approach that causes us to be so obsessed! You know what I am talking about, I bet…where the scale, food, eating, clothing sizes has your mind in a flurry–ALL THE TIME! Don’t you just want food and size to be a *non*-issue? We are called to freedom! It’s possible! Let’s experience it. To do that, though, we have to be willing to train our minds. That’s all there is to it. Dieting is easier, to be honest. Training ourselves to think differently is tough work.
In this video, I give you my reasons for making this summer a time to study, learn and do this Renewing of the Mind. I mean, we just DID this study here at the blog, right? So why on *earth* am I revisiting it? Why should someone who hasn’t done this study do this one instead of something else? Why should Thin Within participants do this “non-Thin Within” study? (Barb Raveling’s material is awesome, but she is not a Thin Within participant and prefers another approach for maintaining her healthy size–in spite of my bantering with her about it! LOL!)
Have a look at this video:
We will begin to evaluate what our focus on thin is doing to us. (You can take a moment to journal about this, if you like.) Is it serving our godly goals? Is hopping on the scale so many times in a day something that draws us closer to God? Are we growing in trust and dependence on God when we have a death grip on food and scrutinize every single nutrition label? Are we condemning ourselves more than we are walking in the wonderful freedom that Christ paid for with his precious blood? Can we be free from our emotions and thoughts causing us to eat? What if we release our grip on the food? Will that just send us into clothes that are 4 sizes larger than what we are currently wearing? What do you believe? Journal about this.
This summer, we will evaluate thoughts we have that control our actions. What we think about (especially again and again) affects what we believe. What we believe affects our actions. What actions will result in the transformation we hope for? What actions are needed to experience the transformation GOD hopes for in our lives?
This is the heart of this study, but it will have some VERY practical applications. You will experience great breakthroughs!
In all my years of supporting people in the Thin Within program, I have never seen the large numbers of people having breakthroughs as I have since using Barb’s Renewing of the Mind material to supplement other Thin Within material. I hope you will give this the next three months and really give it a try and see.
To understand a bit about what this summer’s study will be about, please stop here and read this post at Barb’s blog. It is an easy read and explains what we are up to this summer.
In her post, Barb encourages us to look at Ephesians 4:17-24. I have linked it here for you. I would suggest you study this passage, answering a few questions, perhaps. You can do this in your new “Renewing of the Mind” journal if you like. Here is a bible study from this passage that you can use if you like:
1.) From your experience, what describes the way the “Gentiles” (unbelievers, world) live?
2.) What is “futile” about the way the world thinks?
3.) Have you struggled at all with thinking the way the world does–in futility? What examples can you think of relative to your journey with food, eating, size?
4.) As Christians, we don’t have to be concerned about being separated from the life of God since Christ paid the price for us to have access to God, but we can nevertheless remain in darkness in the way we think. We can do this habitually and harden our hearts to God’s voice. Have you struggled with this in your life at all? How so?
5.) In what ways have you experienced less sensitivity to the Lord and given yourself over at times to indulge in impurity with a constant lust for more? The obvious answer may have to do with overeating, but can a quest to be thin also be thought of in a similar light? How so?
6.) What are some practical things that you can do to “put off the former way of life” and the “old self?” (see verses 22)
7.) Do you see any ways that your former way of life was corrupted by deceitful desires? How so?
8.) Spend some time journaling about the promise of verses 23 and 24. How does it sound to you to experience the following:
to be made new in the attitude of your mind?
to put on your new self created to be like God in TRUE righteousness and holiness?
9.) Journal a prayer to God about your desire to no longer think like you have in the past, but to think differently during the course of our study this summer…to be trained for the rest of your life!
10.) Sit with your journal open for a few minutes. Ask God to impress HIS thoughts upon you…what is HE speaking over you right now? Jot it down. (Share it with us here if you like!)
Here is the recorded version of our online class that we held during the week this class originally ran:
These posts have been edited for those of you going through later than our 2013 class. So, you can go at your own pace. The way this was originally intended was for a posting each Monday. Then, the participants (you!) could spread doing the assignment out over the week or do it all in one sitting. Even if you are later in doing the study, you can still comment here at the blog. Some have subscribed to the comments and may respond if you have a question or need support.
Assignment:
1.) Write down what you believe about food, about yourself, about emotions, about your ability to be your natural, God-given size, and anything else that you might want to deal with. Skipping lines as you write in your journal will give you room for the rest of the activity.
2.) Interrogate what you wrote down with truth…use the Philippians 4:8 test… Is the thought TRUE, noble, good, pure, excellent, praiseworthy, etc?
3.) Prayerfully ask God to help you to recognize lies in what you have written down. Reject them. Simply, cross them out. Replace those lies with God’s view of the situation by writing the TRUTH down next to the crossed-out lies.
An example would be I will never be able to get this weight off.
or
I have to be thin in order to ever be happy.
The truth is, these are lies. I hope that thin will be put in it’s place–that we will begin to think God’s thoughts about thin and size and weight. What are GOD’s thoughts about these beliefs? We can do all things through Christ!
4.) Recognize little “t” truths that you magnify or give a lot of time and attention to. An example of a “little t” truth might be I have such a hard time losing weight and keeping it off. This may, in fact, be true. How much mental energy do you give this thought? Is it owning you? Are you condemning yourself for this? Is it a truth that has any right affecting your mood, your thoughts, your actions? How much are you “magnifying” it? Are you making it bigger than God? Would magnifying the Lord make a difference?
5.) Write down Truth – Big “T” Truth – from God’s Word to replace any of the lies that you are now choosing to reject or that trumps any of the little “t” truths. An example of a Big T truth that trumps the little t truth of I have a hard time keeping weight off might be:
God is doing a new thing
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me
God has begun a good work in me and he will complete it.
Even better if we begin to realize: Being thin isn’t as important to God as I have made it out to be. Really…what are God’s thoughts about this?
For this summer’s study, you will want to have a journal, a translation of the bible you like, and a spiral bound set of index cards. You can purchase the cards this way. More on that during this week’s online class.
6.) If you can either join us for the class on Wednesday by registering here, or watch the recorded version of it–you need to sign up for that, too.
7.) If you don’t have an accountability partner yet, prayerfully consider getting one.
I hope you are taking captive any thoughts that say “I can’t do this much work!” or “This won’t work for me!” or “I don’t get it!” and submit these thoughts to Christ in obedience. Instead, ask God what HIS thoughts are about this study, this work, this hope for you for this summer. Replace the lies or “little ‘t’ truths” with HIS thoughts–his “BIG ‘T ‘Truths!”
“Abundant Life” – The phrase brings to mind many things for each of us. For some, it might mean material wealth. For others, being surrounded by friends and family. For still others, it means good health and the freedom to serve others without restraint. Certainly, for as many different people there are on the planet, there would likely be definitions of “Abundant Life.”
The real question, though, is what did Jesus mean when he used the term? He said he came that we might have life and have it abundantly. If he came to give it to us, if we don’t know what it looks like, perhaps we won’t know if we have it. What if, for many of us, this is an untapped resource?
This week we look at a couple of facets of the “Abundant Life Gemstone.” To do this, we will evaluate our lives a bit inviting God, once again, to search us and know us and show us what we need to adjust. He provides the strength to do it. There is a great deal of joy in following his lead!
In the past, many of us were consumed with dieting, calorie counting, weighing, measuring, researching. The countless hours that we invested in the pursuit of “Thin,” actually may have diminished our ability to be sensitive to what God was calling us to do. We may have magnified our longing for thin so much that God became small in our eyes. Can you relate to this?
If so, we don’t need to condemn ourselves. We can, however, be intentional to be sure this no longer happens.
We want to invite God to show us what “Abundant Living” is for us. This will be individual. What it looks like for me, it may not look like for you. But one thing is certain…it will cause us to look more and more like Jesus and he was definitely “others oriented.” He was God focused and driven by a desire to serve people. This isn’t something we want to fabricate, but as we fix our eyes on Him, he will form a heart in us that cares about what He cares about. There is great joy in that place as we welcome his work in our lives, making us less and less myopic and expanding our vision outwardly.
One of the great things about the Thin Within (or HEAL) approach to eating and body image changes is that, while it may take some time and attention to have it be second nature, it will ultimately become second nature. It won’t require our constant attention the way counting, weighing, measuring did. It ultimately frees us to be consumed LESS with ourselves and more with the things that God intends for us!
Psalm 37:4 says Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desire of your heart.
We are made by God for a life that is filled with so much more than we often settle for. We think we are happiest when we cater to ourselves, but the truth is, we were wired for community, for service, to have a heart for others. We are going to experience a sense of purpose and joy when we live as God intends! THIS is abundant living!
What is the call of God on our lives based on this passage?
What are the promises offered to us when we pursue His will, His way?
Where, according to this passage, is our healing going to be found?
With the Lord, so much of life is sort of the opposite of what “makes sense” to us. Who would have ever imagined that by giving ourselves away, we would actually experience wholeness.
If we haven’t been living this way, now is a great time to make a shift! There is no condemnation for the past. We may have regrets, but God calls us forward! Let’s move forward into our future with him!
This week’s material encourages you to have a look at your friendships. Do you have supportive, loving, encouraging friends in your life and people that you can love and encourage to pursue Christ? Are there any toxic relationships or people in your life who are like that shouting voice in last Friday’s video–spurning you, criticizing you, mocking you for your faith or your approach to eating and weight? Maybe it is time to ask God to show you his will for these relationships. Are they a hindrance to abundant living? Are boundaries needed?
If you still are without an accountability partner, this website exists to support your journey and there are people who posted as recently as last week that they still would like to be partnered up. Remember this is how it works to get an accountability partner:
1. Visit the Accountability Page
2. Post a bit about yourself–how long you have been involved in Thin Within, your current life situation (kids, empty nest, single, etc.), what your availability is for a partner (daily, email only, etc.)
3. Look at the postings there and see if one sounds like a fit for you based on the bit of information that others have posted.
4. Send me a note to heidi bylsma at gmail dot com (no spaces) and let me know the name of the person you want me to send your email address to and that you are interested in partnering up with her.
There is no reason that, if you want an accountability partner, you shouldn’t have one at this point! If not here online, then get a friend in real life to join you for your journey! We are pressing on and in to know Christ more and to be more like him.
In the activities for this week is a challenge to be still in God’s presence. I highly recommend this activity. It is difficult for us to truly be still. But it is well worth working at it. Share with us what God does!
Let’s welcome what God wants to do in us so that we might experience the abundant life that Jesus came to give us. He gave his precious life so that we might experience it. We were made for so much more than what we often settle for!
Assignment This Week:
Complete the personal study portion of Lesson 6 in your HEAL book.
Post your thoughts, insights, questions, comments here so we can share in the experience together!
If you haven’t gotten an accountability partner yet, DO!
If you have an accountability partner, now might be a good time to connect with one another and evaluate how it is going, should you continue, in what ways you should tweak your partnership. Be honest with one another. If you are looking for more accountability, just share with your partner this is so. If your availability has changed, tell your partner that.
Evaluate your friendships, using the suggestions in the lesson.
Complete the “Be Still Before God” activity. Share with us what happened!
Come back here on Friday for the final “Group Session”
The material this week is INCREDIBLE! I am so excited to share it with you!
This week we get a chance to look at our lives and evaluate where legalism may lurk. Legalism isn’t always obvious, but it’s affects are. Like a wind, you can’t always see it, but you can see the impact it has, so we want to invite God to show us where we have bought in to the performance trap, as this is a sure indicator that legalism may be having its way with us.
This week we will see the difference between legalism and grace and one way we will do that is by becoming well acquainted with grace in many forms. This is where this study really gets GOOD!
Do you ever evaluate yourself based on if you ate 0 to 5 today? Or based on if you lost weight in the past week? (Hopping on the scale may indicate you are caught in a performance-based mentality.)
If you are living in a way that how you feel about yourself is based on your performance in some way, you probably feel discouraged and exhausted on the one hand or prideful and energized on the other. That may not sound so bad, but there is no stability on that pendulum! We swing from one extreme to the other. This is what Thin Within calls “The Path of My Performance.” We want to get off of that path and enjoy what God has in mind instead!
Let’s cease striving and know that he is God. Let’s lean into his grace and let him carry us along. In fact, the approval issue has been dealt with. We have God’s love, approval. Let’s tell ourselves the truth: God has lavishly poured grace all over us.
Have you ever thought about diets and how they have so much in common with Legalism? In fact, diets are rooted in legalism. If we have a long dieting history, we may have brought legalism with us (even subtly) into our Thin Within experience.
20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules:elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. Colossians 2:20-23
Let’s get the legalistic mentality out of our Thin Within/HEAL journey.
This week, you will get to look at the self-imposed rules you may still have in your life, left over from your dieting history. You may even be combining a dieting approach with 0 to 5 eating. Let’s dissect that mentality this week, too.
Let’s not buy the lie that victory can be bought with our self-will!
God’s perfect love casts out fear and allow us to embark on a freedom filled way of eating and living. Yes, inform your conscience. Turn to the Lord and do it for his glory.
Homework assignment:
Complete the Personal Study portion of Lesson 5 – An Aisle of Grace
Ask God show you where legalism lurks in your thinking and living. Share with us here what God has shown you already about this or as he shows you this week!
Ask him to help you to sense his approval and love for you that is based on Christ’s “performance” at the cross, rather than on your ability to “wow” him!
Connect with your accountability partner.
Check in here and share how God is at work through the study this week.
Half of the image above was photoshopped by someone at iStockPhoto. Which is beauty? Which is untouched? Who is to say what the standard of beauty is.
This week we look at that a bit. I am excited!
BUT…
…I worked my patootie off editing a video for you for this week’s session and then inadvertently deleted it…so I have to give it up. So sorry. I just can’t seem to figure out how to recover it. So here are my notes from my video…
This is a GREAT lesson this week! We will get to DIVE in and invite God to help us to KNOW FULL WELL that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). Let’s seek His will, His heart, His mind, His truth about our bodies, shall we? We want to pray: Lord, help me to know full well that I am fearfully and wonderfully made!
The authors redefine “Body Beautiful,” reminding us that our bodies are wonderful inventions that hug needy friends and family members, carry us, kiss a special someone, serve those in need, nurse babies, etc. If we could really believe that these things are what define “body beautiful,” I think we would break free of some destructive lies that hinder our freedom!
These are lies that are perpetuated by the media. Have a look at the Dove video called, Evolution:
The truth is, the perfect body doesn’t exist! It is PhotoShopped! We want to be able to love our bodies–the wonderful creations that God has given us, but in order to do that, we may have to go about it in a round-about way. We may have to get to know our God better. As we get to know him, we will love him more and more and begin to see that he has created our bodies in a truly marvelous way. One of the best ways to get to know God is with a God List (I have shared this here at the blog numerous times, but I really believe strongly that this is SO helpful, so I will keep mentioning it!). As you begin to love God more and more, you see that what he creates is wonderful and trustworthy and amazing…and that means YOUR body!
We are in week 4 of our HEAL study this week. So you may be wondering “How do I know what my ‘natural, God-given size’ is supposed to be?” The authors mentioned it briefly early on, but I want to highlight it again. Here is the definition of YOUR personally unique natural God-given size! Ready?
Your natural, God-given size is the size you become
when you
eat according to
God’s parameters for you–hunger and satisfaction.
When you do that, you will “land on”
and
maintain
the size you are intended
by your Creator to be.
What is so awesome about this, is that there is no need for a bathroom scale ever again! Use the hunger scale and you won’t need a bathroom scale! You just keep at this 0 to 5 eating and you will become the size you are supposed to be and you will live there. No fuss! No muss! No obsession! This really IS freedom. Never having to worry about the content of your food ever again. Never having to live in fear about the “weigh in” ever again. Sure, your size may vary a bit, but you will know that eating 0 to 5 a bit more faithfully will restore that healthy size once again.
It is SO worth pursuing this! Honest! 🙂 This is ONE thing I really DO know! 🙂
Spend some time asking the Lord to show you what your “Body Vision Statement” should be. Then, dare to write it down! 🙂 On Friday, you can share it with us. 🙂 (If you want…)
Do you still need an accountability partner? Visit the Accountability page and pick someone that you feel God is leading you to possibly reach out to. Email me and I will forward your request to her. You may want to consider a second and a third option in case the person that you select first has a partner already. But after you email me, I will shoot your request to the person you have asked about. If you don’t hear anything, it is possible that they haven’t checked their email…you can shoot me the name of another person and we can keep trying until we get you linked up. Something this important is WORTH persevering about, ok? 🙂
If you have an accountability partner, it may be worthwhile to check in and evaluate how your accountability is going. Do you need more frequent check-ins? Less frequent? Is it taking too much of your time and you are concerned? Are you LOVING it? 🙂 You may want to open a dialog to tweak your partnership so it can be even more effective. I honestly believe that if you want an accountability partner, there is no reason that you should be without. A bunch of you are celebrating the value of being partners! Let’s do this for everyone!
This week, consider prayerfully what a godly approach to activity (exercise) might be for you. You might want to try Dance Praise (I just did a search and “Digital Praise” seems to be out of business, but you can still get Dance Praise from various vendors, I think). It is a “game” for the computer that includes a mat and Christian dance music in a video-game like approach similar to “Dance Dance Revolution.” What are some activities that you enjoy to move your body?
Gratitude has been life-changing for me. This, too, is covered a bit this week. I would love to see everyone here create an online gratitude blog! We could share them with one another and be not only a dynamic supportive community like we currently are, but one of the most grateful communities online, too! My gratitude blog is found here (I need to update it more frequently!). I have found that when I practice gratitude daily, my ME oriented mentality can’t thrive! MY food, MY body, MY way, MY will just has no where to rest when I am thanking God for HIS gifts, HIS will, HIS way. Truly, it is really hard to reach for more food than my body needs when I take the posture of humility that gratitude requires. Try it and see what you think!
I am eager to see what you add to the Body Beautiful Checklist!
Also, develop your affirmations in the “Challenge” on page 74.
Memorize 1 Corinthians 6:19,20. God will use this verse and crucial moments to encourage you to offer yourself to God in humble devotion and worship as HIS property!
