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Guest Post Series: Five Questions on…Exercise (with Anonymous Guy)

Apr 26

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fivequestionsonExercise

with Anonymous Guy

1) Describe your relationship to/experience with exercise.  If it has changed over time, describe the change.

Consistency is my challenge. Exercise perpetuates more exercise for me and inactivity perpetuates more inactivity. Staying somewhere in a healthy middle ground by exercising a few times a week is the toughest. I’ve gone weeks where I exercise 12-14 times for the week and then I’ve gone through a couple weeks where its hard to do anything.
 

2) How has that relationship/experience affected the way you think about your body and/or your self-image?

Body image is largely a control issue for me. It’s been something I could control and when things have been beyond control in life, my mind has thought “well at least I can control how the body looks” and that anxiety is projected outward to the flesh. Being conscious of this idea has helped to be healthier and more moderate, though past emotional damage will always pervade my mindset in some way.
 

3) How has that relationship/experience affected the way you relate to others?

 If I am not confident in my body, I am not confident. My mind goes into ultra-introvert mode and I feel a sense of embarrassment being around others. Shame is a nasty attachment that maladaptive mental habits can create and perpetuate. What I act like on the outside is always a picture of how I’m processing internally.
 

4) How has that relationship/experience affected your spiritual life?

When shame abounds, grace is the last thing I want to accept because something inside me tells me I’m not good enough – that I need to earn it. Of course, with my theological understanding of God, I know better… but the emotional and the rational/intellectual absolutely wage war between each other sometimes and that can adversely affect my overall being and spiritual life. 
 

5) What word of wisdom or encouragement would you offer other people on a similar journey?

Learn to love yourself. Don’t hold yourself to an impossible standard, but, instead, a standard that is one of integrity, health, and happiness – and accepting of the grace offered to us. Body image is never ever a primary issue… but it’s symptomatic of other things happening. If you ever feel not-so-confident physically, look beyond that at your mental and emotional workings. And remember that Jesus loves models as much as the chubbiest of chubby people. Grace is as far away as we allow it to be.
 

What about you?

Have your own answers to these questions? Why not share them? Email your responses and a recent picture to bodytheologyblog at gmail dot com.  You can also post anonymously if you wish.

 

Posted in Body Image, Community, Guest post, Identity, Physicality, Spirituality

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10 Merits of Digital Community

May 30

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  1. We are available anywhere and everywhere there is internet access.
  2. We meet people we may never have interacted with otherwise and thus expand our horizons.
  3. We can focus less on socio-economic status, race, ethnicity, or custom and more on loving relationship.
  4. We can communicate more readily across language barriers with online translation programs.
  5. We can “see” and speak with people very far away and feel for a moment that our physical distance cannot diminish our emotional connection.
  6. We can more readily and naturally take advantage of social media to interact, encourage, educate, and influence ourselves, each other, and those not directly involved in our community.
  7. We can retain and maintain friendships forged in physical proximity but separated by job, family, or calling.
  8. We can reconnect with those we may have lost contact with.
  9. We can better respect and cater to the needs of introverts who thrive in environments that limit the energy needed for social situations and allow for internal processing.
  10.  We can better respect and cater to the needs of shy and socially anxious people as well as people with physical limitations that make physical interaction more difficult.

Posted in Body of CHRIST, Community

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Death and Life

May 17

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My friend’s grandmother just died.  In the last few days, I’ve been remembering how I grieved when my grandfather died back when I was in college.

We are marked by the passing of those we love.

Death and grief — painful and necessary as they are — can be catalysts for new awareness, growth, and even hope for the future.

All day I’ve had this verse in my head.

For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. – 2 Cor 5:4

Selah, as it says in the Psalms.  Pause, and quietly think about that.

Posted in Physicality, Spirituality

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