Whatever Is Excellent with Leanne Tuggle
Encouragement and Inspiration for women choosing to rise above the “just survive” mentality and instead set their mind on thriving in all that they say and do. The ultimate goal is to equip you to pursue whatever is excellent in the midst of your ordinary life and in all that you say and do.
Whatever Is Excellent with Leanne Tuggle
23: Discovering Freedom in Personal Struggles
Ever felt like you're fighting an uphill battle with habits that seem impossible to shake?
Join me as I recount my recent personal health journey. I share how participating in a challenge initially broke my chain of unhealthy eating habits, only for them to return with a heavier emotional toll. Discover the rollercoaster of emotions and self-doubt that accompanied my quest for maintaining a healthy lifestyle, especially during the stress of motherhood and real life. Through candid reflections, I reveal how the key to overcoming these struggles lay in surrendering to a strength greater than my own.
The episode delves into the profound reassurance that comes from understanding we are beautifully and wonderfully made, known intimately before birth by God. I discuss the shift in perspective that made all the difference for me to finally overcome health related hurdles. This is personal and raw and vulnerable. And it is freeing to be able to share what I have learned with you.
Listen until the end with a recitation of Psalm 139 from some very special guests to help anchor you this week.
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A little over a year ago, I decided something needed to change. As a generally very disciplined person, I was frustrated and angry with myself and with the cycle of bad habits I had developed surrounding my health, particularly those habits related to how I nourished my body. This sweet tooth was literally going to be the death of me if I didn't make a change. The day after my 39th birthday, I started a challenge called 75 Hard. You may have heard of it. I committed to 75 days of this mental toughness challenge because I knew that changing my habits needed to begin with my mind and, as you may know, you tend to go in the direction of your most dominant thoughts. So I was determined to change my thought patterns and, as a result, change the trajectory of my life. And I did it. I made it through the 75 days. Like I said, I am a disciplined person and I like a good challenge. But after the 75 days I was right back to some old habits, this time with more guilt attached, because I knew better. Meanwhile, every month, my 40th birthday crept just a little bit closer. Outwardly, I was doing all of the things. I was discipling and mentoring other women, encouraging you and many others to show up with excellence every day. Yet internally, I was discouraged and, in a way, obsessed with my own lack of discipline in this one area of my life. Basically, I felt like an imposter. Now let me back up for just a moment, because it wasn't always this way.
Leanne:In my younger years, I benefited from a high metabolism and an active lifestyle, thanks to hours and hours spent training as a ballet dancer. Proper nutrition was the fuel my body needed to be able to have the energy to do all of the things, and I knew that, recognized that and nourished my body appropriately. In this season of my life, my biggest challenge was remembering who I was doing all of these things for. The verse that I always came back to was Colossians 3.23. That says whatever you do, work at it with all of your heart as working for the Lord and not for people. The part I really focused on was working, working really hard, with all of your heart. The part that I struggled with was the doing it for the Lord and not for people part of things. I struggled with the people-pleasing tendency and I compensated by working really, really hard, often in my own strength, to the point of burnout and exhaustion. Food helped me keep going, and perhaps without even realizing it. This is when some of those first unintentional habits took root the habit of maybe emotionally eating, but I was active and healthy and I didn't notice any potential pitfalls.
Leanne:Fast forward several years when I found out I was pregnant with my first child, and while the changes my body went through were at times alarming for a newbie, I was overjoyed to be able to carry life and to feel my baby kicking and moving. But it's true, I did not fully comprehend what a toll it would take on my body. Other women had tried to warn me that my body would never be the same, but surely that didn't apply to me, right? It came as a bit of a shock then when my body didn't immediately go back to my pre-baby size and shape. Yes, the pounds came off, and relatively quickly, but my bones had literally shifted to accommodate to the growing baby, and those things take time to go back. They say it takes nine months to grow a baby and about nine months to go back to your regular size. In theory, I'm still not completely convinced that that statement is true, though.
Leanne:So, as a new mama, for the first time really in my life, I struggled with my body and coming to terms with the changes that I saw in the mirror. Now don't get me wrong. I was so thankful to have this precious baby in my arms and to be able to take care of her and nourish her with my own body. But I didn't feel lovely. I didn't feel desirable, even though my husband assured me that I was. Outwardly, I put myself together as I knew I needed to in order to care for my child, but internally I felt like an imposter. I didn't feel good enough anymore.
Leanne:As with many moms, there comes a season of acceptance. You get busy caring for everyone else and little by little, your concern for yourself wanes. You end up drinking coffee for breakfast and eating your kids' leftovers for lunch. These habits are small and subtle, but they sneak up on you. And then, before I could really find good, healthy rhythms, I found out I was pregnant with twins. Talk about changes to your body. Suddenly, nutrition became really important again. I needed to eat all of the food and all of the protein to keep those babies in and growing healthy. Nothing makes you more aware of what you are consuming than when you are trying to eat enough for three. And it only got more intense when those twin boys were born, because now I needed fuel to nurse them. Did you know that a nursing mom of twins needs to consume about 1200 more calories per day just to feed her babies? Needless to say, I gained some new eating habits that were harder than I thought to break.
Leanne:Then you add in a pandemic, right after my husband left for deployment, which meant a solo move across the world with a five-year-old and two-year-old twins, it honestly isn't any wonder that my earlier habit of emotionally eating resurfaced during a time when I felt completely and utterly out of control. That is until I was flipping the calendar and I realized that my 40th birthday was just four months away and I was still stuck with these habits that I just couldn't kick. I remember going for a walk and staring out at the ocean and crying out to God why can't I figure this out? Why is maintaining a healthy weight so hard? What am I doing wrong? Why do I feel so burnt out? It was in this moment that I heard that gentle whisper apart from me, you can do nothing.
Leanne:I had been striving and relying on my own strength to do all of this, to care for my children, to do any work and to get my sugar addiction and emotional eating under control. It wasn't working because I wasn't abiding in Christ. Because I wasn't abiding in Christ, this moment of realization led to my confession that I needed help. I couldn't do it on my own, and with a humble heart I turned to a friend who I knew had the tools and resources to help me. She introduced me to a very specific nutrition plan designed to balance my blood sugar and, with the full support of my husband, I committed to following this plan for 12 weeks. Like I said, I like a good challenge. So on the last Friday of October, just before Halloween, I put aside consuming sugar and dairy and gluten and alcohol and I made a decision to go all in on this nutrition plan. I was determined to begin my forties with a new mindset.
Leanne:During this season of challenge, a verse that kept coming back to me was Ephesians 2.10. It says For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus so that we can do the good things he has planned for us long ago. I love how this verse calls us a masterpiece. God sees you as a masterpiece. He loves you for who you are and not how you look. He loves you simply because you are his. There's something so incredible about this reminder God has good things for me to do, he has planned for them and he sees me as a masterpiece. I want to be walking in that truth.
Leanne:Another verse that surfaced quite a bit in these last four months is 1 Corinthians 6, 19 and 20. This verse says Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price, so you must honor God with your body. I don't think I'd really understood the implications of this, that my body is not my own, it belongs to God. And when I am trying to do all of these things in my own strength, I fall short. Jesus paid the price for me and now I get to live my life for Him.
Leanne:Somewhere along the way I let my body and the way I looked become an idol. I became obsessed with my appearance, and not in any outward way that would be super obvious to someone else, but with the negative thoughts that consumed my mind all day, every day, with the way I overanalyzed pictures of myself, with the way I would give into the temptation to eat sweets and then feel terrible about myself later. Over the last few months, I have watched the extra weight I was carrying slip away and I'm grateful for the way my clothes fit again. I am no longer embarrassed to look at photos of myself. But more than all of that, I am incredibly humbled by the biggest lesson I have learned throughout this challenge. By surrendering my health to God, I have become less self-focused and more others-focused. All of those negative thoughts circling in my brain are gone. I get ready in the morning, smile at myself in the mirror, perhaps even briefly celebrate the looser way my jeans feel, and then I move on with my day. I am no longer worried about what someone else might think about me or the way I look, which is reminiscent of those former people-pleasing ways, and with all of those thoughts gone, I have a greater capacity to think about and serve others. This is part of that being God's masterpiece and doing the things that he has planned for me. I am not worried about myself anymore under the surface, and my mission to be a good steward of what God has given me has never been more clear. I want to be a good steward of the body that God has given me so that I can love and serve others more effectively.
Leanne:Prior to four months ago, I didn't realize that the body image issues that I have been struggling with for the last 10 years have been a huge hurdle for becoming a woman of excellence on mission for God. I didn't realize that I had constructed an idol right in the middle of the path that God had laid out for me. In the middle of the path that God had laid out for me, and now that the idol had been demolished, I am right back to running this race with perseverance. As that verse came to my mind, I went ahead and looked it up in Hebrews 12. I turned to my Bible, to the first three verses, and was taken aback by what I read in light of this topic. Listen to this, therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin that clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that these three verses really encapsulated everything that I had been wrestling with and dealing with since all the way back in those years of being a ballet dancer, as I was looking at this and realizing that I had let go of this weight that was dragging me down.
Leanne:I am now more effectively able to run this race and do the things that God has planned for me since the beginning. I have more energy, more excitement to do those things that God wants me to do. I no longer feel that shame of being an imposter. I am no longer so hostile towards myself and I don't feel that burnout and exhaustion because I am abiding in Christ. I have chosen to fix my eyes on Jesus, who is the founder and perfecter of my faith. The hostility that I directed toward myself because of the way I looked in the mirror led to feelings of burnout, and I was weary and frustrated. By despising the shame I felt. Laying that aside, confessing the sin that had held me captive and turning to Jesus, I found my way back to the path that he had planned for me, and it is so freeing to break those bonds and once again experience the joy of the journey.
Leanne:I share all of this with you because I think, as women, we are in danger of burning out when we rely on ourselves to be women of excellence. Our identity is not centered around what we do or what we look like, but it is founded in our relationship with Jesus. Jesus says in Matthew 11, 28-30, come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy to bear and the burden I give you is light. All those years that I spent trying to work really, really hard in my own strength here in these verses, I see I was never meant to do that on my own, but to lay those heavy burdens down and pick up Christ. His burdens are light.
Leanne:These verses are life-giving, especially for us women. Lay your burdens, your self-doubts, your fear of failure, your people-pleasing tendencies, your frustrations and anger. Lay them all at His feet. Jesus is better than any self-care you could participate in or purchase. You could participate in or purchase, and the good news is that surrendering it all to Him might just give you the perspective shift, that mindset change that you've longed for to be less self-focused and more others-focused, so that you can love and serve your people as a woman of excellence, so you can take that next right step for the glory of God. To close this more vulnerable and heartfelt personal episode, I want to end with a well-known, beloved passage of scripture that I think perfectly sums all of this up. Passage of scripture that I think perfectly sums all of this up. Over the last several months, my children and I have been working on memorizing Psalm 139. I would love for you to hear their recitation of this benediction for you today.
Analise:Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down, you know when I rise up, and you discern my thoughts from afar. You search at my path, in my line down, and are acquainted with all my ways, even before a word is on my tongue. Behold, oh lord, you know it all together. You have me in behind and before, and you lay your hands upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your spirit? Where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in the trail, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning or dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand will hold me. If I stay, surely the darkness will cover me and the light about me be night, but surely the darkness is not dark. With you, the night is as bright as day, for darkness is as light with you.
Caleb:Along with my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for being beautifully and wonderfully made Before I worked. My soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substances and you but grew it. In every one of them, the days that were foreign for me is yet there are none of them. How precious to me are my thoughts, O God. How vast are the sum of them. If I could count them, they're more than the sand. I awake and I'm still with you. Search me, O God, and know my heart, Try me and know my thought, and see if there's any grievous way in me, and lead me in a path everlasting.