The Surprising Way to Stress Less this Christmas

The Surprising Way to Stress Less this Christmas

Image courtesy of photostock at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of photostock at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

“Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.”

Luke 10:40

The month of December is packed with crammed schedules, stretched budgets, and the ever present assortment of sweets, alcohol, and all-night shopping. Whatever your particular temptation, it will be waiting for you in abundance. When we add in the visits from family and far away relatives, there is a potent brew of stress swirling around us. We can be so easily distracted by it all, and miss the good gifts God wants to give us this year.

If you tend to get a little (or a lot!) stressed out by Christmas, you’re not alone. Christmas is an emotionally-charged holiday. A Consumer Reports survey found that 90% have at least one thing we dread about the holidays. Dread is a strong word; it implies a gnawing fear about something we have no control over. Let me share my top three things I am tempted to dread, and then I’ll share my secret for stressing less.

1. Body: At Christmas, I often visit with relatives whom I haven’t seen all year. Many times, other women will want to talk about weight and diets. Sometimes, other women might even comment on my weight. Even if they are complimenting me on “winning” the war with the scale, I am immediately tempted into pride or fear or even resentment. Any discussion of weight or diets is like sticking a finger into old emotional wounds. No matter what is being said, it can stir unpleasant feelings.

2. Money: Obsession tends to shift around in my life, looking for a home. If I stop obsessing about weight and food, I can easily start obsessing about money. And during the holiday season, the extra spending makes me feel uncomfortable. I am often tempted to blow my budget, just like it was a diet. “Oh, well,” I might think. “I’m spending so much on everyone else, I might as well blow the whole budget.”

3. Expectations: I want my house to be decorated and clean. I want everyone to be happy and the kids to get along. I want to feel the magic of Christmas in my heart from the moment I wake up until I collapse from exhaustion at night. The problem is, I don’t have a set designer, a food stylist, or even a maid. I do, however, have PMS and occasional insomnia. I just can’t ever seem to meet my own expectations. And neither can Christmas. Sometimes I secretly wonder what is wrong with me…

It would seem that Christmas could give me, and all of us, plenty of reasons to overeat! Christmas can be emotionally-charged because there are so many opportunities to be aware of the aching hole in our hearts. And when we try to fill the hole, we often fill it with the wrong things. Spiritual bondage is defined as filling the hole in our hearts with things that only make the hole bigger.

So how can we navigate the season with joy? How do we fill our hearts with what they need? For me, the secret is thinking small. The bigger my fears, the larger my problems seem, the smaller my focus must become. In particular, I am focusing on 0-5 eating, and here’s why:

Living within the boundary of 0-5 eating seems to pay extra dividends during the holiday season. With all the triggers and temptations around me, staying within safe boundaries eases all my stress. The comfort of this one godly boundary soothes my nerves. It’s like my heavenly Father draping His strong arm around my shoulders.

0-5 eating pays dividends all year long, of course. But during Christmas, 0-5 eating keeps me focused on Jesus. As I focus on following His lead in this one area, all the other distractions and dreads seem to fade into background noise. Christmas, with all its necessary preparations, becomes a quieter, sweeter experience. What comes to me as a test of faith (giving up that extra piece of fudge!) becomes the key to release from all my other my burdens.

How about you?

What is it about the Christmas season that seems daunting to you today? Have you ever noticed that keeping one godly boundary, even imperfectly, seems to make the whole day more peaceful? How could the godly boundary of 0-5 eating bring you comfort and peace this Christmas season?

G. Ann Arias

WLBS Review: Appearance, Entitlement, and Failure Eating

Don't Give Up! Photo Courtesy of iStockPhoto

Don’t Give Up!
Photo Courtesy of iStockPhoto

Hey, how is it going for you on our DITCH YOUR SCALE challenge? This is day 13! One more day! Did you make it? I am away from home on a trip right now, so I am not weighing myself. Unfortunately, I am dealing with the “vacation eating” challenges. I must renew my mind! I think I will do that. But on to what we are reviewing today:

Appearance Eating – In this bible study, Barb reminded us that focusing on weight loss is potentially detrimental to our success!  (This is one reason why some of us may have needed to “ditch our scales!”) God may be at work doing a NEW THING that is a more lasting, valuable work and if we throw in the towel because we don’t see the results we want on the scale soon enough, then we may miss the blessing–AND the weight loss! If you want to review the video from this particular day, here is the link for that.I hope that, for those of you participating in the “Ditch Your Scale” Challenge, you were helped to see (well, I messed up on that!) that God is doing a new thing that is beneath the surface. What we see on the outside is not all that matters! In fact, it may not even be the most important thing at all. Do you need to renew your mind about that? I know I do. For me, here are truths I might need to rehearse again and again to combat a temptation to focus too much on appearance, weight, and size:

  • I am a 50+ year old woman and I simply will NEVER look like Barbi! And while looking like a teenager might be nice, it would be an unrealistic goal for this middle-aged lady.  (I know this sounds silly, but I have to get that simple sometimes.
  • My value is not determined by what size or shape I am (or how much I weigh).
  • I am able to go on long walks in the woods, play tennis (singles and doubles) and enjoy doing all kinds of things physically. My body is amazing when I really stop to think about it!
  • My value is not determined by what size or shape I am (or how much I weigh).
  • God is at work doing a new thing from the inside out. He puts a premium on my character. Do I really want to have a different set of values (in a different order) than he does? No!
  • My value is not determined by what size or shape I am (or how much I weigh).

Oh, and did I say yet that my value is not determined by what size or shape I am or how much I weigh? 😉

What other truths could you add to this list?

Entitlement Eating – I really think Entitlement Eating and Justification Eating are twin sisters that wreak havoc with our 0 to 5 eating boundaries. If we aren’t able to deceive ourselves about breaking our boundaries via justification eating, then we most certainly DESERVE better than to have boundaries as restrictive as 0 and 5!!! NOT! LOL! But entitlement eating really convinces me that I…well…am worthy of this treat or that “prize” outside of my boundaries. I may be tired, stressed, have worked hard, put up with behavior of spouse, kids, or in-laws and so deserve to REWARD myself with food! NO! We want to renew our minds with truth about this:

  • God has called me to this (stress, challenge, difficult person, etc) and he wants me to meet the challenge in the strength that His Spirit provides.
  • I have no rights in Christ, but because of God’s grace and mercy I am given everything I need for life and godliness and I have been given every spiritual blessing in Him.
  • If I want to “reward” myself, how about something that will invest in my spiritual and emotional growth–something really beneficial? Like a hot bath with praise music playing or time on the back deck with my bible open?
  • A food reward is actually not a reward at all as when I eat outside of my boundaries it costs me spiritually, emotionally and physically.
  • A true reward would be something that God bestows on me. If I wait on him and his timing for a “reward” that HE establishes, then I will experience joy!

What other truths could you add to this list?

Here is the blog page where I shared a couple of audio files during our bible study on Entitlement and Appearance Eating.

Failure Eating – If Justification and Entitlement eating are the twin sisters that wreak havoc with our 0 to 5 boundaries, then failure eating is a tag-along kid brother! No sooner do we “blow it” –usually due to justification or an attitude of entitlement–than we start beating ourselves up about our missteps and want to quit the entire thing. We reason “I didn’t stop at 5 so I may as well eat whatever now. I knew  I could never get this Thin Within approach right! I am such a failure!” Then for a day, a week–however long–we give it up until we finally try again. This is one reason why Observation and Correction is such an invaluable tool. (I spoke about this in this post.) If we get in a routine of using the Observation and Correction tool, we will not let our failures or missteps define what we will do next. We will, instead, 1) observe 2) correct and 3) rejoice that God has drawn us back to his side! On this page, I have a video discussing “Failure Eating” in case it helps to review or you didn’t see it before.

Some truths that I use to renew my mind when I struggle with a temptation to throw in the towel (and honestly, I believe the longer you keep at this, the less this temptation will face you):

  • I may have failed in the moment, but I am not a failure.
  • God has declared that I am more than a conqueror. That is a FACT. I may not always live like this is so, but since God says it is true, I can believe it.
  • Do I really want to allow one misstep to define what I will choose to do next? No!
  • 0 to 5 eating boundaries may not always be easy to follow…this is for a lifetime. Learning now how to start again immediately will serve me well for the rest of the days I am on this planet!

What other truths could you add to this list?

Which of these three–Appearance Eating, Entitlement Eating, and Failure Eating–challenge you the most? Can you anticipate a situation you may face in the week ahead when you will be tempted to eat because of this? What can you do to be victorious?

Attitudes: Entitlement and the Value of NUMBERs in This Journey

scale3

When I create the audios and the videos, God speaks truth into MY life through the process. It reminds me of what is true and how great my God is. He uses my rambling on to you to remind me yet again of what is true and what He wants from me.

I hope that when I create the audios and the videos that you will have yet another modality for learning the stuff that God may want you to know. I hope that he uses it to breathe over you an enveloping peace, a saturating sense of his love, and a call to press on–to pursue holiness and excellence.

You may not agree with everything I say, but I do so hope that you will sense his invitation to intimacy with him and that he wants to use this struggle with food and eating as a forum in your life for a wonderful adventure of dependence on him.

This week, God has used my video and audio creating time to really minister to me. Does that sound just so selfish? As I speak the truth that he has given to me, then as I listen and evaluate, delete, re-record–whatever the process may be–he again and again bathes my mind with the truth. I hope it works that way for you as you listen or watch.

And if it is helpful to you to download the files and put them on your iPod to play, go right ahead and do that. I sure hope that doesn’t sound self-aggrandizing. I don’t mean it that way at all. I just know that, at least for me, every way possible that I can to create a way to bathe my mind with truth, is another step toward renewing my mind and experiencing the transformation promised in Romans 12:2.

This week, we looked at the premium we place on our appearance or weight loss in this journey. Barb has really gotten to the heart of a very important issue. I have an audio here talking about some thoughts I have about this aspect of our journeys. Just so you know, I am experimenting with a plug-in microphone, so I apologize for the fuzziness…the microphone was TOO close to my mouth for part of the recordings…I will improve on that in the future.

Appearance Eating
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Entitlement is a poison that can taint our pursuit of godly character. It affects not only my eating, but my relationships as well. In this audio, I share some of the things that God laid on my heart about entitlement. I have found that this is a perfect example of how God uses this journey about food, eating and my body to show me character qualities he wants to build into my life generally and I invite you to consider that may be the very purpose he has us on this course.

Entitlement Eating
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How about you? What connection do you see between what God is doing in the realm of eating, weight, how you view food and your body and growing you into Christlike character on a broader scale? What is God showing you about this connection?

Weight Loss Bible Study Week 3

Woman upset with her scale

Photo Courtesy of iStock Photo

How important is it to you to be thin? Do you feel like losing weight will solve problems in your life and just, well, make you happier? What if God were to offer you a wonderful change in your character, a heart that is being conformed to his, a mind that is not burdened, yet you weren’t as thin as you think you should be. Would that be ok?

This week, we have the opportunity to evaluate the premium we place on thinness and if we are thinking God’s thoughts about it or if we have some work to do renewing our minds about how we think about weight and size. I hope that you are encouraged even though the material may be convicting!

We will also have a look at Entitlement Eating–another BIGGEE in motivating much of our eating outside of our boundaries.

We are already in Week three of our Weight Loss Bible Study with a Thin Within Spin. 🙂 If you are subscribed to this blog with  email or another reader and the video doesn’t show up, please visit the blog site and check out the video.  Here is what is going on this week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZASAhFLiGE?rel=0&w=480&h=360

So, this week, be sure to:

  • Continue with your renewing your mind goal and taking time to try renewing of the mind.
  • Can you resolve to not eat outside your boundaries for three days this week?
  • If you haven’t tried Truth Journaling yet, give it a go.
  • Read and do the questions and journaling activities for Barb’s Bible Study Day 5.
  • Read and do the questions and journaling activites for Barb’s Bible Study Day 6.
  • Continue to post here. Each time you do, it enters you in the drawing for a free book or free coaching…each Friday, I draw a name. The lucky winner gets to pick either a Thin Within book, a Hunger Within book, or a free week of coaching. Not only that, but you all are such GREAT support for one another! THANK YOU again!