Have you interacted with the mainstream therapeutic world in your pursuit of weight loss? When Jes was struggling with her eating disorder, she went to rehab and saw a secular therapist. In doing so, she processed much of her trauma, but also started to lose sight of God’s importance in her life.

When you navigate the mental health world, sometimes you encounter messages from professionals that will conflict with the importance of God in your life. Learn how to balance healing with the teachings of the Bible, and hear Jes’s story of disorder, recovery, and surrender in today’s episode of Phoenix Chronicles.

For detailed show notes, navigate using the time stamps below:

[0:00] Introduction

[1:07] When Jes was in her early 20s, she did a diet called HCG Sublingual Drops and ate almost nothing for many months. She ended up in the hospital four times with debilitating pain, and eventually her gallbladder shrunk.

[4:14] At 24, Jes checked into a rehab program for her eating disorder. Initially, her program was great, and she learned about food addiction and coping mechanisms.

[6:10] Jes gained wait as a means of protecting herself from male attention as a trauma response to sexual abuse. Her rehab program helped her stop constantly weighing herself and controlling her surroundings.

[9:08] The Health at Every Size movement gave Jes the idea that it does not matter if you are overweight. Because Jes had such a fraught relationship with food before, she went from total rules to no rules, which was intoxicating.

[11:09] This view also put Jes in the view of her own healer, and made her values the only thing that mattered. She thought that she was doing the right thing, but she was only focusing on herself.

[15:00] Through all of this, Jes’s disordered behaviors never stopped. She started asking herself where God was in her journey.

[19:30] It was very difficult for Jes to accept that her approach to her relationship with food was wrong. It has been difficult for her to surrender. She began seeing a Christian therapist, who was game-changing for her.

[24:58] When Jes surrendered to God, she finally was able to change her behavior around food. It was the only thing that worked.

RESOURCES

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