post-thanksgiving!
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[00:00:00] The goal with these holidays is to practice. Practice what we've learned with our relationship with food practice, what you've been picking up from these episodes or in your coaching with me, these holidays. Are not pass or fail.
It is all practice and we're not practicing to be perfect. We're practicing so that these things are permanent and we permanently have a healthy and healed relationship with food.
Welcome to Your Daily Bread podcast. I'm your host, Abbie Stasior, a registered dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor. My prayer is that these bite-sized episodes will help you heal your relationship with food and improve body image, as well as help you grow closer to God. Now, I can't personally heal you, but each week I'll be directing you to the one that can, and that is Jesus. As a disclaimer, I'm not a pastor, but a sister in Christ providing you with some food for thought for you to bring to the Lord and into your quiet time as your daily bread. Let's dig in.
Hello. Hello. [00:01:00] Welcome back to Your Daily Bed podcast. I hope that everyone had a great and restful thanksgiving. I hope everyone enjoyed good food. I really wanna make this episode an episode of Encouragement Post Thanksgiving so that we can look at how that holiday went and this can. Help you for Christmas and future holidays to come because if you didn't eat well \ over Thanksgiving and you're disappointed or you're feeling a little discouraged, or maybe you have guilt or shame, I just hope that this episode is comforting for you and gives you some tools, gives you some language to.
Keep improving your relationship with food so that Christmas can be better so that next Thanksgiving can be better so that future holidays can be better. Working with my clients and talking with them post Thanksgiving this week, by and large, very, very positive. Clients have a lot of wins.
They surprise themselves with how [00:02:00] well they did and how connected to the Lord they felt and in tune with their bodies they felt, so I hope that. You can look back and see some wins too, and nothing is perfect. So with each client, I'm going through and asking 'em, okay, what went well? What were you surprised by?
What are you happy about? And then what are the opportunities for growth? What are some things that didn't go so well that you would want to improve for next time? And I don't ask that to harp on the things that didn't go well, but when we have holidays like this and we see. See this as a time to practice, not pass or fail, but as a time to practice our relationship with food and see how, how are things going?
We've been working on these tools. Let's put them to practice and see how we do. Let's jump in the pool and see if we float, and this can help to order our steps. In nutrition counseling. I say it's not bad if bad things happen or if things don't go the way you expect with your relationship with food because you [00:03:00] can come on your next session and we can talk about it.
We can debrief it, and that actually gives us some data of what you need to work on healing next. When it comes to. Your relationship with food. So this is how the Lord helps to make our crooked path straight by revealing, Hey, here's where you did well, here's how you've improved. It's a better holiday compared to last year, but we still have healing to do.
We still have improvements to make. So this is how the Lord makes our crooked paths straight and helps to direct us on continuing to improve our relationship with food. Now, if you're someone that's been listening to the podcast for a while and you're curious about what it looks like to work with me and have this counseling style, I encourage you to go to the show notes and book a free call with me, A free Food Freedom in Christ call and.
That's where we go through how you're currently eating, what you're struggling with when it comes to your relationship with food, and I give you some initial tips so you walk away with real action steps and eat in a Christ-like way.
And also I [00:04:00] give you some personalized scriptures and usually some podcast episodes too that speak to your specific situation. So if you wanna trial what it looks like to work with me and kind of have a a half session. Then I would recommend booking that free call and that would be a really great step for you to see, Hey, do I, do I like working with this person?
What does it look like? How do I apply what I'm learning in these episodes to my specific relationship with food? But to give y'all a bit of a taste into what a post-holiday debrief session looks like with clients, I wanna go through some questions that I typically ask clients. And I have them ask the Lord.
And I think that these will be very helpful for you to bring into your quiet time with the Lord as well. And this is a spiritual practice called the Examine. If you're a listener of the podcast, you know that sometimes we do episodes where we just meditate on a scripture. And those are our Lectio Davina episodes, our [00:05:00] Divine Reading Divine Scripture episodes, and that is one spiritual practice that teaches you how to meditate on scripture.
The examine is another spiritual practice where we go through Psalm 1 39 and we use that to debrief things with the Lord. What went well and where do we need to improve? What are our opportunities for growth in a way that is grace based? In a way that is through the lens of self-examination, not condemnation.
So I'm really excited to teach you all that tonight because perfection is not the goal. The goal with these holidays is to practice. Practice what we've learned with our relationship with food practice, what you've been picking up from these episodes or in your coaching with me, these holidays. Are not pass or fail.
It is all practice and we're not practicing to be perfect. We're practicing so that these things are permanent and we permanently have a healthy and healed [00:06:00] relationship with food. Father God, thank you so much for this day, Lord. This is a season of gratitude, Lord, and as we enter this advent season, as we celebrate the birth and coming of Jesus, our hearts are just, we're so humbled.
And we're so grateful,, thank you Lord for sending your son Jesus we are just so grateful that the word became flesh.
Okay. Lord, I pray that as we continue throughout this holiday season, that you continue to reveal yourself as Emmanuel God with us, and that we tangibly feel your presence. We feel your heart, we feel connected to your spirit. And Lord, help us to be sensitive to the Spirit as you are guiding us. Through different eating scenarios and goal setting and thoughts about food and worries about food in our body.
Lord, I just pray that every single listener feels your nearness and [00:07:00] your closeness, your love and your guidance. And Lord, I pray that every single listener lets your rod and your staff comfort them your direction and protection. I pray that it comforts them. Lord, we are just so grateful for everything that you are and everything that.
You have done for us our doing and will do Lord. And I pray that as we go into this episode, that you give us ears to hear and soft hearts to receive this process of how to approach loving correction from a loving, loving Father. I pray that everything that's said in this episode is not what I want to say, but what you want to say through me, Jesus, have your way.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So we have a couple different scriptures to anchor this episode. First is Proverbs 24 16 that says, for the righteous fall seven times, they rise again. We always can rise again. The Lord's mercies are new every [00:08:00] single day. So regardless of how Thanksgiving went for you, it is not over.
It is not a failure. It is another opportunity. It's an invitation from the Lord to receive that correction, see what went well, what's an opportunity for growth and how you can continue on with healing your relationship with food and anything that you went through last week and how you ate it is not wasted.
The Lord will use that to propel your healing if you fell down this past week, don't stay down. Rise again. Rise again. Accept Jesus's invitation and he will lift you up. When we humble ourselves, those who humble themselves will be exalted.
They will be lifted up. The Lord will hold you securely with his right hand. He will uphold you. So even though we stumble and fall. And we may fall seven times, we will rise again. So that is one of our anchor scriptures. And I also wanna [00:09:00] take us to Psalm 1 39. And this walks us through the spiritual practice called the examine, where we want to use self-examination to examine how are we doing?
What's our connection like with God? Are we operating in a Christ-like way? And in what ways are we doing that? In what ways aren't we doing that? And Lord, search me, oh God, and help me return back on the path of the life everlasting. Help me to improve, order my steps, help me to improve my relationship with food.
Help me to look more like you. With this exam in practice, and this is something that I try and do honestly with myself on a daily basis, and I just talk out this process and I review my day with the Lord. I know some people that do this practice on a weekly basis and they review their week with the Lord.
Something you can do monthly, you can do quarterly, [00:10:00] annually, uh, but I love it on a daily basis. Because it gets me thinking because the Lord's mercies are new every day and we're only guaranteed today. And the Lord says in Matthew 6 34, don't worry about tomorrow. 'cause today's got enough of his own. Like I try and do as many of these things as I can on a daily basis.
Now, I'm not perfect with this, but I try and do this most days because it helps me to kind of course correct, things aren't a failure, things are feedback. And so I'm trying to get that feedback from the Lord. On a daily basis so that I can keep course correcting,
so , I'm gonna read all of Psalm 1 39 because I just think this is so good. You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue, you Lord know it completely. You [00:11:00] hem me in behind and before you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your present? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there, your hand will guide me. Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me. Even the darkness will not be dark to you. Okay, the night will shine. Like the day for darkness is as light to you for you created my inmost being you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your [00:12:00] works are wonderful and I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts? God, how vast is the sum of them? Where I to count, were I to count them? They would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. If only you, God would slay the wicked away from me. You who are blood thirsty, they speak of you with evil intent. Your adversaries misuse your name.
Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and arbor those who are in rebellion against you. I have nothing but hatred for them. [00:13:00] I count them my enemies, search me God, and know my heart, test me, and know my anxious thought. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting, the word of the Lord, y'all.
So Psalm 1 39 gives us this recipe for reviewing how we're doing with God. First, you want to root yourself in God's love. God loves you. He knit you together in your mother's womb. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, he's never going to leave you nor forsake you.
There's nowhere that you can go when you make your bed in heaven. He's there with you when you make your bed in the depths of hell. He is with you. Whether you're in the light or you're in the dark, he is with you. His right hand is holding you securely. You are securely attached. If anyone knows the different [00:14:00] attachment styles, whether like anxious attachment, avoid an attachment, any of those different attachment styles in psychology, we can relate those to our relationship with God as well.
And typically what attachment style you are, you also are like that with God too. And there's a really good book that walks. People through this called Attach to God that I just think is so, so good and that really helped heal my relationship with God. 'cause I had an anxious attachment style. And so it's important to affirm through the beginning of Psalm 1 39, that you are securely attached to the Lord and that he loves you and you're rooted in that.
You're anchored in that. So as you read Psalm 1 39 and you're about to go into the exam and rest in God's love and that. All of your days are ordained in his book. Nothing that you do is a surprise to him. The Lord can't stop thinking about you. He's gone before you. And he is your rear guard. So he's, in your past, but he's also with you. He's got his Emmanuel . He's with [00:15:00] you and he loves you, and he's never going to leave you nor forsake you. So that is the mindset that we wanna go into before reviewing anything with God.
Then we want to be completely honest to God, even though he knows our thoughts before we even say them. It's important to get that out. It's not that God can't heal what you hide, but most of the time he won't heal what you hide. So it's important to really let yourself feel. I've heard it said that we want to feel to heal and really be honest and undone, uninhibited in the safety of the Lord's presence.
So we see that, David is going through in this psalm, affirming God's love for him, and you knit me together. My weather's boom and I'm fearfully, wonderfully made. And then we hear. If only you, God would slay the wicked away from me. You who are blood thirsty, they speak of you with evil intent.
Your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord? And all of those things, like it seems kind of random to have that in [00:16:00] there, but that is the part where we are honest with the Lord. And I praised, praise God that David had the courage to write this down on paper so we can see his honest thoughts.
But whatever you are feeling, whatever you are thinking, bring that honestly to the Lord and that is our second step in this. And then you ask the Lord to search you and correct you so that you can get back on the path everlasting. So with the examine, we want to affirm God's love for us then. Be honest with the Lord and kind of say all of our thoughts plainly and then ask the Lord, a series of questions and ask for that correction so that we can keep improving and.
I love that David is talking about like other people, like shouldn't I hate, you know, these evil people and these wicked people. But then he asked the Lord for correction for him, he's humble enough to know, Hey, I need correction. I know there's wicked people out there, but Lord, I'm a man after your own heart.
And I know that [00:17:00] I need correction. And so, uh, my prayer is that we are humble enough to know that we need correction even though there are wicked people out there. And we can't control what other people do. We can only control ourselves. So praise God that David was asking the Lord to search his heart and we want to do the same.
So some questions that you can start by asking the Lord is, Lord, what about this holiday, holiday weekend? Or what about yesterday? If you're doing this as a random day, not just a post Thanksgiving debrief, but Lord, what pleased you. What pleased you? What brought you pleasure? What brought you delight about what I did today?
What was pleasing unto you? Lord, when was I aware of you? When was I aware of your presence? And when I do this in the evening, I do this as a, brushing my teeth and washing my face, doing my hygiene things, making, maybe making an evening cup of tea as I'm getting ready for bed. Like I'm just talking to God in my head, Lord, bring to my remembrance.[00:18:00]
When was I aware of you today? What pleased you today? What made you proud? What was Christ like today? When did I exhibit your heart?
Then you can also ask, Lord, when could I have been more aware of your presence? Lord, reveal to me times of my day that you were there, but I wasn't aware of you, Lord, what were times in my day? That I could have exhibited your heart better, that I could have been walking by the spirit more reveal to me those times
and then ask the Lord, Lord, what can I do differently next time? Lord, what is your vision, your will, your desire for my relationship with food, for the way that I'm eating and stewarding my body? What is your vision for that? And how can I take one step closer to that tomorrow? Lord, search me if there's anything, any way in me that is either offensive to you or not following your way, reveal that to me and what is [00:19:00] the next best step for me to take to get back on the way everlasting and to look more Christ-like tomorrow.
So I hope , that gives you some good journaling questions to ask the Lord in your quiet time or in your evening. And it can just be a genuine conversation. It doesn't have to be these exact questions. Ask them in a way that feels authentic to you, knowing your relationship with Jesus.
But this is our recipe and this can help people, especially after the holidays where there tends to be a lot of guilt and shame. Fear around foods, so we wanna make sure that we're coming at this from a place of self examination, not condemnation.
And so rooting yourself first in God's love and having that secure attachment that gives you the freedom to offload your honest thoughts and feelings to him, and then be in a place to receive his loving correction. And this spiritual practice is called the examine. So I hope that this is helpful to you.
I hope that this blesses you, and [00:20:00] I hope that this helps you to debrief, kind of run through, as they say in sports, run through the, the game tape or whatever it is, like the game recordings, like basically to run through that with the Lord and receive that correction so that the next holiday you can steward your body better, and you walk into the next holiday, the next family dinner with more confidence.
And more joy and more peace and less guilt and shame and fear because that is not from the Lord, and the Lord has not called you to a spirit of fear. So that is my prayer for you. Let me know if this send me a DM on Instagram, if you found this episode helpful and if you try the exam and if you like it, um, I have found so much peace and have had some of my most profound encounters with God.
The more consistently that I do this practice, the more I feel like I'm growing in the Lord and connecting with the Lord. And so I just pray that that's [00:21:00] helpful for you too. And I'm looking forward to the rest of the episodes for December as we close out the year. 'cause I really wanna prepare us for prayer and fasting season.
That typically comes up at the beginning of January. So just to cast some vision for the next month, I'm gonna help you all with setting Godly goals. So we're gonna do that and have an episode on biblical fasting and how to approach religious fasting.
We've done other episodes in the past, but we haven't done an episode on fasting for season two, so I really wanna make sure that we have one in season two and we have a really great guest episode for.
This month as well. So I'm super excited for y'all to hear that y'all are gonna, it's, it, it is such a delight and so much, so many value bombs dropped by this guest. So, , we got so many good episodes coming up. I'm really excited for the new year. I have a surprise for season three of the podcast, so I'm really, really excited about that.
Y'all will know season three when you see it. Thank you so much for sharing this [00:22:00] episode. If you know someone that did not eat well and maybe overate, or was feeling really guilty or sluggish after the holidays, hopefully this episode can help them and help them connect with the Lord. Love y'all so much, and I'll see y'all next week.
