by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 5, 2013 | Blog
There are so many exciting changes ahead relative to God is Doing a New Thing and the Thin Within ministries! I am so excited to roll out each one by one. But let me just tease you a bit with that for now and get to the point of this post!
We may just be beginning the 2013 holiday season, but it isn’t too early to think ahead to January and that time when so many of us want to start fresh (though, truly we can start fresh EACH day—we don’t need to wait!).
In January 2014, I will be leading an online Thin Within group studying the Thin Within workbook material. The first orientation meeting will be Monday, January 6th. The class will wrap up Monday, April 7th, 2014. Posts will be accessible here at the blog for discussion, but we will also have a “live” online meeting each week on Mondays, from 4:30-5:30pm Pacific Time. The web url will be made available each week to those who sign up and who provide their email addresses to me for that purpose.
Here are some details about the Rebuilding God’s Temple Workbook Kit #1. If you have done this workbook before, you can still join the weekly chats January 6 – April 7 and work through *any* of the Thin Within workbooks as they are all designed so that they all have the same lesson topics each week.
The first kit is the most comprehensive and comes with three pieces:
- Workbook #1
- The Temple Toolkit
- The Memory Challenge Cards (click on the image to see a large version and some images you can click again to see it magnified further):
The contents of Kit #1
First, the workbook itself, is a spiral bound volume that has material for 12 weeks of study. To download a sample of the material, visit this link. The download is an Adobe Reader (.pdf) file of Week One – “Hope.” After you download it, print it and take a week to try it out! 🙂
Each week’s unit consists of the following:
- Lesson material – This is dense written material that you will read to glean the concepts that we are teaching or reviewing during the week. I usually recommend about an hour spent with this, highlighting, asterisking, and looking up the verses in my own bible. I may even write comments in the margin or, if I am leading a group, questions to be sure to ask participants.
Each of the reading portions of the lesson are divided into these segments:
- Introduction – A brief overview of the week’s focus
- Spiritual Information – The relationship this material has to the Scriptures
- Physiological Information – The “mechanics” — what you can actually do to make additional changes in your eating to honor the Lord
- Integration – How it all works together
- Exercises – Don’t worry! These aren’t calisthenics! LOL! They are basically guided daily quiet times. 🙂 Each week includes “exercises” for each day of the week. Days six and seven are optional and a bit “lighter.” Days one through five include the following sections:
- Going Deeper – This relates some aspect of the lesson you have read to your life
- Bible Study – This shows how Scripture illustrates or illuminates the principles taught in the lesson
- Knowing God By Heart – One of the best parts, this is a study of the attributes of God. We have found that the way a participant views God impacts how she will view food, herself, her body, as well as her willingness (or not) to surrender this aspect of her life to the Lord for His purposes.
- Getting Practical – These are suggestions for putting some of the mechanics of the program into practice
- Memory Challenge – Hiding God’s Word in our hearts will enable us to be reminded of our commitment to him when we are weak! Memorizing scripture is extremely helpful for renewing our mind and changing our thinking!
- Review of the Week – This provides a space where you can summarize what God has shown you or questions and thoughts you have had. This section is especially helpful when you meet with others in a group setting. 🙂
In addition to these resources in the workbook, there is an extensive Introduction at the beginning and Appendices in the back, providing a great deal of material that will support you on your journey.
But wait! There’s more! 🙂 (Couldn’t resist saying that!) Not only do you get the Workbook, but when you purchase the first kit, you also get the Temple Toolkit. This is a resource that offers a place for you to log your own journey throughout each day during the full twelve weeks. As you progress through the material, the pages change to match what you have learned in the workbook. Let me show you what I mean.
The first image below shows Days 25-28. Click on the image to see a larger version and then click again to see FULL size what these pages look like in the temple toolkit:
Days 25, 26, 27, 28 in the Temple Toolkit
As you progress through the workbook and new material is introduced, the Temple Toolkit changes, too:
Days 49, 50, 51, and 52 in Temple Toolkit
Again, click on the image above and then click again on the bigger image to see it full size. You will see new tools have been added.
Of course all of the tools are optional as you go through the 12-week workbook. If you have come out of a background of excessive charting and graphing, you may only want to use the journaling pages. Or, as time goes on, you may experience freedom with one tool and not another. The Lord will lead each of us individually. Some have freedom to use all the tools, charts and graphs. Some have the freedom not to.
By the time you are closer to the end of the first twelve weeks, you will have been introduced to all of the tools. Note how the material in the toolkit has evolved:
Days 77, 78, 79 and 80 in Temple Toolkit
Again, “Wait! There’s more!” 🙂 When you order the first kit, you get not only the Workbook, the Temple Toolkit that changes as you go through the material, but you also get the Memory Challenge and Temptation Buster Cards:
Memory Challenge and Temptation Buster Cards
Again, click on the image above and the larger image, to get a full size view of what these include. You cut them up and can carry them with you so that Thin Within isn’t just a bible study that you begin in the morning and leave behind the rest of the day. These resources are very supportive in helping you to keep the principles that God is leading you to embrace and apply with you throughout the day.
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.
Do what it says.
Anyone who listens to the word
but does not do what it says
is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and,
after looking at himself,
goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
~ James 1:22-24
We don’t want to just accumulate head knowledge, but then leave it behind for the rest of the day! We want to ACT on what we learn in our times of study and in God’s Word!
$40 includes three months of workbook material and exercises, as well as the Temple Toolkit and a set of Scripture Memory Cards, one verse for each week. There is no additional cost to participate in the class at this time.
Did you know that there are 3 additional workbooks, each covering 12 weeks? The material is designed so that people who have gone through workbook #1 before, can do workbook #2 or #3 or #4, even while most in the group use workbook #1. Each of the workbooks are presented in 12 weekly themes that parallel each other. These are the themes for all four of the workbooks:
- Hope
- My Body–God’s Temple
- Identity in Christ
- Celebration of God’s Grace, Part One
- Restoration
- Counting the Cost
- The Fight of Faith
- Celebration of God’s Grace, Part Two
- Building Godly Boundaries
- Forgiveness
- Prayer
- Celebration of God’s Grace, Part Three
When the group is on week five, everyone will be studying, reviewing, learning about the theme of Restoration. This helps prevent the material from becoming stale! It is a great system that allows people of all experience levels to enjoy a group together, studying and reviewing together.
Workbooks #2, 3 and 4 cost about $25 each.
To order materials, call Thin Within 1-877-729-8932 (9:00am-5:00pm Eastern) or visit this link at Amazon.
To sign up for the class starting in January 2014, visit this link and fill out the form. This email list will only be for the class information.
The group I will be leading starting January 6, 2014 is an “open” group. You can join the chat at any time. There will be more details to come—but if you want to get the information sent directly to you, please sign up to be on the class email list. Hope you can join us!
How About You?
Do you need and want support? Now is your chance. I will probably not be leading another class through the workbook in 2014. Sign up today and purchase your materials! 🙂
Want to lead a group? If you want to live dangerously :-), you can lead a Thin Within group. The best way to do this is to plan to use the material here at the blog and the videos will be created along the way. Plan to join us for the discussions here, the videos, and the class sessions on Monday. Then, following the Monday classes, you can meet with your own group of people live and in person to lead them through the material using the resources provided to you by your own participation in the online class! By the time class time rolls around for us online each Monday, you will have all the material under your belt and be ready to teach it yourself! I would love to know if this interests you! 🙂
by Heidi Bylsma | Oct 23, 2013 | Blog
Last week I posted a “Set the Timer Challenge.” If you missed it or need to review what that was about, have a look at this post.
How did it go for you?
-
I know some of you joined us late…no problem there. I would still love to follow up with you.
-
Some of you may not have tried it yet. You can today, if you like. 🙂
-
Some of you extended the challenge and may still be enjoying it.
So please use this space to tell us how it has gone for you! What truths did you use to renew your mind? What did you do when your timer went off? What about when you were with people and your timer sounded? Did that happen to you? What did you do about it? How has this challenge affected your intimacy with God? How has it affected your eating? Has it changed you in some way? How? Would you recommend it for others? Are you going to do it again?
What else can you tell us to share the encouragement!
If you have questions that you would like help with in order to do the challenge, feel free to post that, too.
What About You?
This entire post is all about you today! Share, won’t you? 🙂
by Heidi Bylsma | Oct 16, 2013 | Blog
Want to get serious about renewing your mind?
Want to take the bull by the horns?
Are you sick and tired of the embarrassment and shame that you feel for your size or your eating behavior?
Are you willing to get a little crazy to do something about this? Proactive?
Are you desperate?
How about taking the “Set the Timer Challenge?”
It’s a three day challenge, but you can take it as long as you want…half a day, one day…a week! Whatever!
Here is how it works.
Select 5 truths that, if you really believed them, would turn your life around. Truths that have to do with eating, with people, with God, with yourself—anything is fair game. For the purposes of the focus of this blog, I recommend that it has to do with eating in some way, but pray and see how God would lead you.
Here are some to choose from:
1. No food tastes as good as obedience feels.
2. Starting NOW with following my boundaries will bring a quicker victory!
3. God walks with me through my challenges!
4. I am more than a conqueror through Christ!
5. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, including eat only a fist-sized portion.
6. I feel best when I eat when I am hungry and stop after a small amount of food—when I am physically satisfied.
7. I refuse to bow to food any longer. Christ is my King!
8. I don’t need to diet to release extra weight—I can eat the amount of food that my body calls for and land on my natural, healthy size and maintain it!
9. Evening eating (outside of 0 and 5) is NOT worth the price I pay.
10. The sooner I live by my boundaries, the sooner I will experience the freedom Christ died to give me!
Set your timer on your watch or your computer or you cell phone (or whatever). You can set it for any increment you want to. I have mine set for 30 minutes, but that is a bit much for most people.
When the timer goes off, commit yourself to the Lord afresh, “Lord, I offer my eating, my choices, my heart and mind to you again.” Then, choose one of your truths to say out loud (or, if you aren’t in a place you can do that, to just go over again in your mind.)
If you do this for three days, I am CONVINCED you will experience some radical transformations beginning to take place from the inside out. This is where LASTING CHANGE has to occur! INSIDE! Romans 12:2 tells us not to conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Let’s do it!
How about You?
What is your plan? Will you take the “Set the Timer Challenge?” What will that look like for you? Do you have an accountability partner? If so, ask her to hold you accountable. If not, feel free to report here! We can DO THIS!
by Heidi Bylsma | Oct 14, 2013 | Blog
Every year the Lord gives me a word for the new year. In December of 2012, I began to pray about what the word would be. Almost immediately the Lord said my word was “change”. With that being such a simple word, I thought that just couldn’t possibly be it–but it was! And one of the things the Lord said would be changing is my eating. So being the planner that I am, I started to decide for myself what that change would look like. Following my emotions and compulsiveness, I decided that God no longer wanted me following Weight Watchers, but wanted me ordering powdered shake mixes to follow a regimen of drinking shakes and doing cleanses. The Lord let me go along with it, and after a few days in the beginning of January of drinking shakes and being told when, what, and how to eat, I was humbled and confessed that I made the wrong decision. Oops! I knew that change still needed to take place in my eating, so I began to search again. This time the search led me to contacting a naturopath, hoping to figure some things out with my body. Again, I followed my emotions and was compulsive. And the Lord let me go along with this as well. I was told not to eat carbohydrates or sugar. And so I began that quest and discovered very quickly that I felt very deprived and, after awhile, fearful that if I ate those two “don’ts” that I was damaging my body and tempting God.
And so began (or continued) my struggle. I had never been so fearful about food in all my life. I was constantly being attacked in my mind about food. I wrote SO many journal entries about this, going back and forth about what I should do. I wanted to go back to Weight Watchers SO badly, but I didn’t feel peace doing that. I also didn’t have peace following the naturopath’s regimen. And then one day in March, the Lord led me to look at Heidi’s blog. I hadn’t looked at it in a couple of years. And immediately, as I began to read her posts, peace entered my heart. It was the first time in months that I felt peace and comfort in the area of food. It was like the Lord shone His light and said, “This is what I want you to be doing. This is the change I intended.”
That peace remained in my heart for a short time until I began entertaining the dieting and restrictive thoughts again. I was really hung up on the lie that eating carbohydrates and sugar would damage my body–that it would basically kill me. I was being tormented in my mind. When the enemy tries to bring fear, he likes to ask the “what if” and “what about” questions. There was a major battle going on in my mind and I had a very hard time getting out of it.
I knew from personal experience and from what Heidi was sharing about renewing our mind, that truth was the only way I was going to win the battle that was going on in my mind. The hard part was pushing past the “what abouts” the enemy was throwing at me constantly. I had to get to a place where I absolutely could ONLY believe and focus on what the Lord says in His Word about eating and food. I wrote out scripture after scripture on notecards about how God has blessed ALL foods, about how no one had right to judge me in food or drink, about how I was to set aside what the world was saying and fix my eyes on Jesus, etc. And every day I read through those cards 2-3 times a day, sometimes less, sometimes more. It wasn’t easy at first, but after awhile those truths began to resonate in my heart. I also asked different ones to pray for me. After awhile I recognized that it wasn’t so much of a battle about food, but it was the enemy trying to lead me down the path of fear. Fear comes in all shapes and sizes. The enemy will tempt us with fear about EVERY thing in life. But God and His word is bigger and more powerful than any lie the enemy throws at us. The Word of God is our weapon! It never returns void. It goes out and accomplishes what God has set for it to do. The truth sets us free!
So little by little, every single day, every single time I read those scriptures, the Lord was setting me free! By mid-June I was walking in victory over this food battle. Praise the Lord!
And then the next part of the journey began. The second phase of the Renewing of the Mind Weight Loss Bible study started mid-June on Heidi’s blog. The Lord blessed me with an accountability partner and I began the next phase of my journey. This part of the journey included overcoming the diet mentality and finding truth about Weight Watchers.
Would you believe that I subscribed and cancelled my Weight Watchers subscription probably 4-5 times since January? You better believe it! It’s quite embarrassing, but that shows right there how hard it was to break free from those chains.
Let me give you a little history about my experience with Weight Watchers. About 4 years ago I was at my heaviest weight, which is about 30 pounds heavier than I am currently. I knew all about Thin Within and normal eating. I felt that I had “tried” eating 0-5, but really, I wasn’t committed and found every excuse to eat. I had just come through a lot of emotional healing, which unfortunately was combined with emotional eating. We had also been trying for a child for about 5 years at this point and I was very discouraged. So I ate. And ate. I felt disgusting. I felt discouraged about normal eating not working for me (even though that was a lie I was believing), so I prayed about doing Weight Watchers. The Lord allowed me to follow Weight Watchers for about 3 years, except for when I was pregnant or breastfeeding. I always kept in mind listening to my body’s hunger cues and I knew better to eat if I was hungry, even if I didn’t have extra points. That doesn’t mean I didn’t feel guilty about it, but I knew that listening to my body was more important than a points allotment. I lost weight and then lost weight again after pregnancy. Toward the last few months of following Weight Watchers, I began to lose my peace. And when the Lord told me that my word for this year was “change” and that would involve even my eating, I knew I would be kissing Weight Watchers goodbye.
Up until the last part of August of 2013, I was really struggling with thinking about going back to Weight Watchers. My accountability partner encouraged me to commit myself to a certain amount of time with Thin Within. The Lord told me 90 days, which would end September 11th. I went back and forth about Weight Watchers, with it as a constant afterthought. Whenever I felt like I failed with eating 0-5, I would tell myself that I just need to go back to tracking points. And sometimes I would be so tempted that I would actually subscribe to Weight Watchers online again, but never actually track points. Why didn’t I actually end up tracking? Because there was NO peace! The Lord kept putting His foot down and would NOT release me back to Weight Watchers.
Heidi has talked a lot recently about truth cards. I have a little notebook with about 50 cards filled out with scriptures, truths from Heidi’s blog, tidbits from the Thin Within book and from Intuitive Eating (my other favorite book about normal eating), and quotes. I read through these cards about twice a day. I had lots of truths written down about how I don’t want to diet anymore and about why dieting (Weight Watchers) is not something I want to do. But I was still struggling with going back to Weight Watchers!
Finally, toward the end of August, I emailed my accountability partner and Heidi, asking for prayer and help with my thoughts about Weight Watchers. Heidi shared an idea that was so powerful to me that it honestly rocked this whole mental roadblock. She basically said that maybe my thoughts about Weight Watchers was bringing some kind of “drama” into my life that I was actually, in a weird way, enjoying. Like, that I needed something to fixate on and Weight Watchers was that thing. It was creating this drama, this thing for my brain to constantly go on and on about. One word came to my mind: obsession. I was OBSESSED with thinking about Weight Watchers. This wasn’t new to me. The enemy has used lots of things over the years to encourage me to obsess over. Little obsessions. Big obsessions. When I realized that this was just something that was trying to get my attention and create drama, I was like, “There is no way I’m entertaining this anymore!” And I made the decision not to entertain the Weight Watchers temptation anymore! I was done!
And really, just like that, the obsession was gone. It was all the Lord. It was like I had to surrender that drama to the Lord. He gladly took it. And now when I read those truth cards about how Weight Watchers IS a diet and the damage dieting does, I can nod my head in agreement, with NO temptation to go back! Praise God!
So since starting the Thin Within journey, in 6 months the Lord has freed me from the bondage about fear of food AND about being on a diet. I PRAISE God for what He has done! His work is marvelous!!
This was something I wrote in a comment recently on Heidi’s blog. It pretty much sums up my thoughts on truth cards and the importance of renewing our mind:
Renewing our mind is VITAL to becoming a normal, intuitive, Thin Within eater! I wish I would have realized this truth many years ago when I was “trying” to eat 0-5. I had so many hang-ups and wrong thoughts about it. But now I have truth cards that I read every day at least twice and they are packed full of truths from the Word, from the TW book, from this (Heidi’s blog), from other ‘normal eating’ material, and tidbits of truths I have found here and there. The first few months I felt like it was more of a burden to read the truth cards, like it was more of a duty than a privilege. But NOW it’s what I cling to and it’s VITAL in overcoming the battle I have had within my thoughts about food, body image, dieting, etc.
Back in May I was struggling (almost being tormented) by thoughts about food. I was believing lies that I couldn’t eat certain foods and that if I did, that I was purposely damaging my health and tempting God. It was a HUGE battle! The Lord had me write out scriptures on notecards, which eventually became part of my truth cards, and it was after reading those cards over and over again that I began to see a breakthrough. God’s truth prevails! It doesn’t return void! It is our weapon! I have read through scripture cards like that before for other situations, such as fear. When we consistently wash our mind with His Word and truth, we are being renewed little by little. At first it may seem like a lot of work, but after awhile we see LIFE being brought back into our minds. The lies flee. Freedom reigns! It’s pretty awesome!
I no longer deal with those thoughts about food. God has completely released me from those lies, that prison which held me. He continues to set me free daily from other mindsets I have struggled with. I am praising Him for what He has done and is doing!
I don’t know how else to emphasize on how very important it is to renew our minds in the area of our struggle with eating, dieting, and body image. Honestly, if I would have understood this years ago, I would have been set free a lot earlier. I’m thankful for the journey I have been on because I learned a lot along the way. The beauty of having truth cards and renewing our mind is that even when we don’t think it’s working–it is! God’s word is powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword! He wants us to absorb these truths. I think of the scripture Psalm 119:11, “Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” I thought I would never be able to conquer the food thoughts I was being tormented with earlier this year, but as I began to bathe my mind with the Word, I saw victory through Christ! The Lord helped me breakthrough and all I did was read those scripture cards that I had hand-written. That’s it! God did the rest! I had to commit myself to writing them out and reading them; that was my part. God honored His word. He set me free! And He WILL do the same for you!
I’m not perfect with 0-5 eating. I have moments where I want to eat when I’m not hungry. The next part of my journey is learning to delight in the boundaries God has set up for me in regards to eating. I see Him working in me and I’m so excited!
There’s one more thing I want to share. When I decided to commit to 90 days of Thin Within, I asked the Lord whether I should weigh myself after the 90 days were done. He didn’t answer me right away, but then the answer came when I found out I was pregnant about 1/3 of the way through my commitment. I’m one of those that doesn’t want to know weight gain in pregnancy until the very end. So that pretty much solved that question. And I think it’s so neat to be going through this part of the journey being pregnant, without the focus of weight loss (which is what I should be doing anyway), because I really get to mentally focus on finding peace with food and allowing God to help me with renewing my mind. God is so good!
Oh, and in case if you were wondering, I did stay committed through September 11th, and I continue on! Praise God!
What About You?
Can you identify with Christina’s turmoil? Do you find yourself playing along the perimeter, toying with 0 to 5 eating, but never really “buying in?” Do you leave in fear of “normal” food? Do diets seem to have the answer, but you don’t feel released to have peace dieting any more? What thought has Christina shared here that God is driving home to your own heart and mind? WIll you please share it with us here? We can commit to praying for you!
by Heidi Bylsma | Oct 11, 2013 | Blog
1 Timothy 4: 7b-8 says:
…train yourself to be godly. 8For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.
Physical training is of ____________ value.
________ has value for ________ things.
Have you ever been or known someone who has been a true fitness fanatic? The amount of energy they put into their training is amazing. The time invested…the sheer determination and true grit….well, wow. It really is a testimony about what someone is willing to do when they want something badly enough.
Years ago, I trained for marathons. I completed the San Francisco marathon in 1997. I invested hours in my training, in reading about how to do the marathon well, in learning about nutrition on the run and a million other things!
I wonder about the investment of my self that I made back then. I have to wonder about how quickly I fuss now about the energy and effort it takes for me to keep at 0 to 5 eating and how far afield I can go in a week of traveling (or even staying home). Why don’t I put even a fraction of the energy I used to put into my physical training for marathons into persevering now? Into honoring God with my thinking? My eating? My choices? It seems I would rather use that energy to complain after the fact!
This is a long haul. There can be no doubt that it requires a lot of us—quite a commitment. We want to reshape, rebuild, change our character. This is no quick fix!
So, how much energy DO you (and me, too!) put into lamenting poor choices… after the fact? How much emotional energy DO we put into beating ourselves up and then trying to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps?
What if we were to put that energy into this journey at the front end? What if we were to do the radical thing? Like take the time and energy to write up the truth cards and to speak them out loud once or twice (or three times) a day?
What if we were to use our computers to record ourselves reading these truth cards and then saved the mp3 recording to a CD or to our iPods and then played this recording on our morning or afternoon commutes? What if we were to really put some ENERGY into changing the way we think?
What if we were to pray that we would be faithful? Spend time with God daily in the Word? What if we were to set the timers on our watches or our cell phones to go off every hour to remind us to check in with Him and to recommit (again) to honoring him with our eating? How badly do we want this?
I know when I struggle with stringing together days of eating to glorify God with 0 to 5 eating, I have to evaluate what I believe right now. Sometimes, I get distance from what I know to be true—that this WORKS! It works for keeping me close to God spiritually. It works for being sure I don’t numb myself emotionally to feelings and helps me to process things like a “big girl” instead of like a child. It works for getting me to and maintaining a healthy weight.
So maybe…just maybe…is it worth the energy and effort to do whatever it takes to think and act differently? Ya think? 🙂
How About You?
What do you think today? Will you put extra energy into thinking differently? Into creating and reading truth cards out loud? (I believe this is much more effective because it affects more modalities…it means I see it with my eyes, shape the words with my mouth, and also hear it with my ears so truth is affecting me in at least three ways.) What about choosing to create a “Renewing the Mind” play list that includes recordings that you can download from the Sound Cloud site, your own recordings (of you speaking your truth cards) and some songs that can encourage you (do a search here if you want as I have posted songs that have encouraged me and they may encourage you). By the way, all of the official Thin Within lesson recordings are available from the Sound Cloud site now, too.
Are we really willing to do what it takes to think differently? Yes, it takes time. Yes it takes energy! But we put out a lot of energy bemoaning bad choices after the fact. Why not put that energy out at the front end, planning for positive change instead?
What can you do to change things up a bit?
Will you? 🙂
