Hello friends, welcome back. Thank you for joining me again on Wellness God's Way. I'm really excited for this episode. Today we're going to be talking a bit about why trying hard isn't, why trying harder isn't working and what to do instead. So again, welcome back. I'm so excited that you're here. I'm excited to kind of have this conversation with you.

Before we dive any deeper, I first want to acknowledge you for the effort that you've already put in. I don't know where you are on your health and healing journey and Odyssey, as I like to call it. But I know that you're here right now and you're listening to this podcast, which to me says that you are committed, that you are dedicated to improving your health, to improving your wellness. And not only that, but doing it in a way that's honoring to God and that's stewarding the gifts that he gave you.

So I want to acknowledge you for that and for all the effort that you've already put in. I am so incredibly proud of you. And I honestly can't wait to hear what some of your results are down the line from the work that you're doing. Well, I want to start out by talking about what it means to try harder in our health journeys and odysseys. And a lot of times people will say, you got it. You have to try harder. You just have to try harder. What does trying harder look like in our daily lives and on this daily adventure that we're going on? Well, it may look like diet hopping, moving from jumping from one thing to another from paleo to keto to carnivore to whatever it is, jumping from one to the other, still not seeing results because you it just isn't working for you in the way that you wanted it to. It can look like all or nothing habits, like I've got to do all of it or I've got to do none of it.

This one really speaks to me. I'm a type A person. So this one speaks to me a lot. ⁓ I am very much an all or nothing kind of girl. And this one is hard for me. It was a hard truth to swallow when I finally figured it out, but it doesn't have to be all or nothing. It can also mean feeling like health is just one more thing that you have to manage perfectly. Like all of the other things that you have in your life that you need to manage. may be a mom and you have littles in the house and you have to manage school schedules and you know, activities, sports, you have to maybe you have a job at the same time and you're trying to manage that and you know, a spouse and getting dinner on the table, making sure the kids are fed and all of all of these things that life throws at us and maybe your health kind of falls to the bottom of the pile, but it feels it just feels like something that you have to manage just like everything else and it becomes very much a chore and that's not a fun place to be.

But I want you to know that I see you, I hear you, I've been you, but fear not, we are going to get through this together. So I wanna take a minute to talk about the difference between striving versus stewardship. So what does striving look like when it comes to health? Well, it looks a lot like those things I just mentioned, diet hopping, looking for the next trend, all or nothing habits and... ⁓ constantly struggling to keep up with a plan that feels honestly more like torture than progress. It often comes from this place of fear or pressure. We want to see or feel those changes right away, right? Like we live in this society of instant gratification, but that's not how God's timetable works. And I know you know that and that's not something we want to hear because we want the miracle. We want it to happen right now. And there is a time and a place for that, but often it's not when we're on a health and healing odyssey. But again, it also often comes from this place of fear or pressure, just ⁓ fearing what is life going to look like if I don't do these things or pressure from those around you, whether it be your spouse or whether it be the people that you see on social media or whatever it is, these fears and these pressures keep us in this rat race of chasing this health and wellness ideal or standard that we think we're supposed to live up to. And striving actually disconnects us from our bodies and spoiler alert from God, because we're focused on the outcomes rather than the one who empowers those outcomes. When we strive for those results, we make the results an idol. We've elevated the results over God. And friend, you know that God does not want to be second place.

Now, I'm going to say something that I know you already know, but sometimes it's really helpful to be reminded of certain truths. And here it is. While God obviously is interested in the outcomes that you seek and the goals that you hope to achieve, he is much more interested in the journey, in the Odyssey, in having you draw close to him so he can be that still small voice in your life and change you in a multitude of ways that you never even thought about. The joy truly is in the journey, especially when that journey is with God. So one of the concepts that I really want you to take away from today's episode is this. It's the contrast between striving, which says it's all on me versus stewardship, which says I'm partnering with God. I want this to be just a simple truth that you think back to over and over and over again.

Now, why does trying harder typically backfire? Why is it a bad thing? You know, I've been there and there have been times when I have tried harder and I have seen results, but then as we'll talk about, it wasn't sustainable. Trying harder in our own strength requires willpower and willpower only approaches don't last. So let's talk about willpower. What is willpower?

Willpower is defined as the unwavering strength of will to carry out one's wishes. So why is this approach bound to fail? Like that doesn't sound like a bad thing. Like if I have unwavering strength to carry out my wishes, that sounds like a good thing, right? Well, to get the results and the gains that come from long-term changes, we cannot, or at least very rarely can, maintain unwavering strength. Why is that?

Well, it's because we have bad days, we have busy days, we have emotions, we have that time of the month. And of course, that is not to say that if we quote unquote fall off the wagon every now and then, that it's going to ruin every ounce of progress we've made, no. But I think that now is a great time to share with you one of my life's mottos, which goes like this. The first time only makes the second time easier. And I believe it applies to everything in life. You can fight me on that one. I haven't found a single thing yet that it hasn't applied to. So willpower only isn't going to work. Now, secondly, trying harder causes stress, guilt, and pressure. And all of these things affect the body and counteract the very thing that you're trying to do for your benefit. And third, our bodies respond way better to safety than force. Willpower only approaches feel much more like force than will, wouldn't you agree?

And as someone who has been in abusive relationships, several of them, I know firsthand that my body and emotions and thoughts improved once I finally felt safe. Not when I was trying to force myself to put on a happy face or suck it up and drive on.

There is safety in taking things slow, in training your body to understand that this is the new routine. This is the new habit, slowly, one at a time, consistency over intensity. And grace for yourself really is the perfect health strategy. And we'll get into that a little bit more, but I want you to keep that mind, grace as a health strategy.

Now there is a different way forward. There are small faith-led steps that you can take. To take small steps, I want to refer back to episode one. I don't know if you've heard it or not. If you hadn't, go back and take a listen to that introductory episode. But we talked about crowding out and sustainable shifts. Crowding out is bringing in more of the good so that eventually there's no room for the bad and it crowds it out. And sustainable shifts are those small things, the small changes that you make that over time create lasting and incredible change and impact.

We can invite God into our decisions and our planning instead of kind of white knuckling them, just holding on for the ride and hoping that it goes well. If we listen to our body instead of fight it, and we bring God into that process, we're gonna understand and accept that meaningful transformational change takes time. Well, here I want to share a little bit of what I've been studying lately. And I hope and plan to do that on this podcast a lot because I think it's important to learn directly from the Word of God.

Well, I've been doing two things. I've been studying two things lately. I have an actual Bible study with, you know, lectures and questions that I'm studying and that's all about the book of Esther. And then in my own reading, as I'm reading through the Bible, I'm currently at the story of Elijah. And what's interesting and quote unquote coincidental, as if there is any such thing as coincidences. God knew I was going to be in both these places at the same time. And He's been showing me the same message in both of these stories. Now, one of the things that makes Esther really unique story in the Bible is that there is no reference to God. And that seems odd in the Bible, right? But what it teaches us is that God is like, that's the very beauty of the of the entire story. is that you get to look for God through it and you can see Him through it, but He's not specifically mentioned. Now, what does that speak to our lives and what does that speak to my life? It says to me that while, God is in the miraculous and the big things and the amazing, wonderful things that happen in life, He's also in the quiet. He's also in the everyday and the mundane. And that was such a beautiful lesson for me to to learn just recently in these days or to relearn that, you know, everything isn't fireworks all the time, but he does have that still small voice with which he wants to speak to us and he wants us to be quiet before him so that we're able to hear his voice.

And then the second story is the story of Elijah. And there is a part in this story where Elijah is hiding from the king and God told him that he wanted to speak to him. So he goes and he's hiding in the cave and there are all these things going on, this great wind, possibly a tornado, but it says God wasn't in the wind. And then it says there was a great earthquake, but God wasn't in the earthquake. And then there was a gentle breeze and it was there that God was in the gentle whisper.

I just love both those stories. I love the fact that God has lined them up for me at the same time, reading the same concept and being able to assimilate that into my own life. And what it speaks to me when I kind of try and relate it back to the whole health journey thing is that God often works through those small and faithful choices. He works in the everyday and the mundane and we can't just dismiss those things because they're not grand, because they're not fireworks, but in the quiet of our hearts, in the protection and the, I don't know what the word is, being in our homes when no one else can see us, it's those small faithful choices that God honors in our lives. And especially when we're trying to steward the things that he has given us, we're trying to be good stewards of this body that he's given us. Because one thing, I'd really love to kind of ⁓ present to you and propose to you. I think that a lot of people think that we are bodies living on this earth that have a soul. And I would like to propose that it's actually the opposite, that we are souls that God has given bodies in order to go forth and do his work.

So first and foremost to me, we are souls and God wants us to be able to walk this earth and fulfill his purposes. And so in order to do that, he gave us this vehicle, which is called our bodies. Now, just like our actual vehicle, our own cars, we take care of them, right? We make sure that we get oil changes. We wash them. We clean them out. You know, we get maintenance on them when we know it needs it. like, it's the same thing with our bodies. That's the way I see it. Like, we have to maintain it. We have to take care of this body in order for it to function optimally in order to do the things that God has called us to do. And whatever that is, it's different for everyone. Another area of bio-individuality. Our callings are all different, but they're all from God. And God needs us and wants us to be as healthy as possible, as energetic as possible, and feeling as good as we possibly can in order to go forth and do those things. So that's kind of what this Odyssey is all about for me. It's about being the best that I can be or in treating this body the best that I can treat it because God has given it to me, because he has trusted me with it. So your progress friend can be quiet and still meaningful. And I would assert that that's when the most change takes place, when it is quiet, behind closed doors where nobody else can see. It's in those little choices that you make that no one will ever know about, but God knows, God sees, and God will bless.

So as I kind of wrap up this episode, I do want to ⁓ invite a little reflection. I like to end these episodes with a question. So the question that I want to leave you with today is, are you striving and putting everything on yourself or are you stewarding and choosing to partner with God so that he can show you what you need to do that will make the difference in your life that you're trying to make?

Remember, friend, you don't need to fix everything today. You're allowed to go slowly. And in fact, it's encouraged. So as I close out today's episode, remember, I love you, but God loves you more. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May he make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. Thank you so much for being here and for hanging out with me for a few minutes and stay tuned for the next episode where we're going to talk about exactly what it means to invite God into your health's Odyssey. All right.

We will talk soon. Bye for now.