57: Deny Yourself: What Wellness Culture Gets Wrong About Your Body

Welcome to part one of a four part series called Body Theology, where Dr. Brook Sheehan builds a full biblical foundation for why the way you treat your body actually matters to God.

This episode starts at the very beginning, asking a simple but important question: was your body ever the problem in the first place? Drawing from Genesis 1:27 and Psalm 139:14, Brook makes the case that your body was designed with intention, not defaulted into existence, and that listening to it is not in conflict with the biblical call to deny yourself.

The key is understanding two different Greek words that get flattened into one in English: sarx, the flesh, meaning the sin nature we are called to deny, and soma, the body, which scripture consistently treats as good and worth caring for.

Brook unpacks how confusing these two concepts is where so much unnecessary guilt comes from, and shares a client story along with her own experience gaining weight in chiropractic school to show what happens when you finally stop forcing your body and start asking it what it actually needs.

She walks through the bodyOS framework of pause, connect, ask, and adjust, and explains how this discernment becomes a spiritual practice, not just a wellness one.

This episode sets the stage for the rest of the Body Theology series, including next week's conversation on when caring for your body tips into worshiping it instead.

✨ Your body has been trying to tell you something.

Find out what it's saying with the free 30-second Body Signal Decoder Assessment. Pick your signal, get your personalized guide straight to your inbox, and finally start making sense of what's going on inside.

Get it here: os.drbrooksheehan.com/decoder

🎧 And if you caught the mention of the Talk to Me, Body affirmation card deck during the episode, here's where to grab yours. 63 scripture-anchored cards to help you trust the body God designed for you.

Get yours here: drbrooksheehan.com/talk-to-me-body/

📱 Come say hi on Instagram: @drbrooksheehan

⭐ If this episode spoke to you, would you take a second to leave a five-star review on Apple or Spotify? It helps more women find this show. And more women learning to listen to their bodies is exactly why I do this.

Transcript

Dr. Brook Sheehan (00:00)

Scripture says to deny yourself, and wellness culture says you've got to do all of these things in order to maintain any level of health and vibrancy. These things sound like they're in such direct conflict with each other, but they're not. The difference comes down to two Greek words that get flattened down into one word in the English language.

Are you doing everything right for your health but you still feel off? Does the wellness world have you overwhelmed, second-guessing your body, or chasing yet another fix? You’re not alone. I’m Dr. Brook Sheehan, and welcome to Beyond Wellness Culture, a space where we step out of the noise and rebuild trust with our body. This is where we stop overoptimizing, find clarity instead of confusion, and approach our health in a calmer, more grounded way. Take a deep breath, and let’s dive in. 

Hey girlfriend, welcome back to another episode. I am so glad you are here. Today is going to be a great day, and we are in part one of a four part series that I'm going to be doing over the course of this next month. Breaking down something I've been doing in a mini series on my Instagram page called Body Theology.

Now, for those of you who might be listening who aren't believers or don't consider themselves Christians, I pray that you just consider listening to this episode and maybe the course of the other episodes, because I think it will help you still learn to develop a relationship with your body and understand its wisdom, and how to determine whether something is from your mind, where your mind is asking you to do something because it's a preference or because it's a habit or because it's something you've always done, and really getting down and tuning into your body, and is it your body seeking something? Because we can learn from so many different things.

Me personally, as a believer, I'm going to be really taking this into a biblical perspective. But again, I think you can really learn something. And I just want to say to those who might be listening right now that are like quickly jumping off and wanting to give me a one-star review.

If that is you, by all means do what you need to do. If that makes you feel good in your spirit, you will not hurt my heart at all because I am being obedient to what God has called me to do. And I can stand firm in that knowingness that it is okay if people want to throw hate at something. But again, if that is you, go ahead and do what you need to do. For those of you who are still listening, I know that you are going to be greatly encouraged by this episode, and you will get a lot out of it.

That being said, not to start on a very rough note, I do want to say that in the Christian faith, Jesus is speaking to His disciples in scripture. And one of the things He says is, deny yourself and take up your cross. Now I heard an amazing Philip Anthony Mitchell sermon not too long ago, and I keep listening to it over and over because it's just so encouraging and really speaks to a lot of things that I've experienced in my own life.

And you know, sometimes you just need an influx of encouragement in your life. And I'm so grateful that he is standing firm in his belief and doing what God has called him to do, because in turn, he is encouraging other people to do what God has called them to do. That being said, deny yourself, take up your cross. In simplistic, most basic meaning, what that is saying is, basically, to deny your own desires and go after what God's desires are for your life.

Now, scripturally, Jesus is speaking about our calling and what we're doing in life and those kind of things because He was existing in an era where Pharisees, Sadducees, the religious leaders of the land, had all these things going on and they made it look like they were puffed up in doing all the good things of the law, keeping the law. And Jesus was basically saying like, they're hypocrites. Their heart is not where they need to be. And so we can be doing all these things that we believe in our mind that God is calling us to do, but in our heart of hearts, we know that we are out of alignment.

So, how does this relate to listening to your body? Because this is not a theological podcast. It actually sits right next to everything that I teach around listening to your body. So denying yourself, taking up your cross, denying yourself, listening to your body. We live in a wellness culture that will tell us to deny ourselves. Like we do hear that.

Maybe you don't hear it as forthright in those actual two words being said, deny yourself. But think about if you've ever worked with a weight loss coach or a trainer at the gym or a nutritionist, deny yourself these things and do these things. Do this and don't do that. Right. We're we're constantly inundated with a lot of different information coming at us that's telling us these kind of things. Essentially what it is saying is deny yourself, listen to me.

What are we supposed to do? Are we denying the body? Or are we supposed to listen to it? Well, you know from everything I talk about, I'm gonna tell you that we have to listen to it, but we need to settle the tension of all of this for good. And we're gonna spend some real time in scripture doing this because the question actually deserves more than just a quick answer.

As I mentioned in the beginning, this is the first episode of this four-part series of body theology. what we're going to be doing over the course of these next episodes is building a full biblical foundation for why the way you treat your body actually matters to God. Why the way you actually treat your body matters to God. I needed to say that again. And today we're gonna start at the very beginning to understand if our body was even a problem to begin with in the first place.

See, our bodies were designed with intention, not defaulted into existence. Genesis 1:27 says, You were made in the image of God. Not an afterthought, not a flaw to manage. But think about what that actually means. You were made in the image of God. The very first description of a human being in Scripture is not about sin, or brokenness, or anything that needs fixing. It's about being made in His image. Another verse, Psalm 139:14. Fearfully and wonderfully made. It's not a poetic compliment. It's a design claim.

The Hebrew language behind that verse carries the sense of being set apart with skill and intention. The way a craftsman builds something with care. Do you see? Genesis 127, we were made in His image. Psalms 139:14, fearfully and wonderfully made. Fearfully doesn't mean fear in the sense of, like, my gosh, I'm so scared, but fearfully to be reverenced. To hold value and honor and all of these things.

Because your body carries intention and wisdom. Period. This has been long before trackers existed, protocols, wellness plans, biohacking, supplements, all of these things, before anyone told you what your macros should look like, your body already knew how to heal a cut, regulate its own temperature, and signal when something needed attention.

That wisdom was built at creation. I say all of this because so many people, my clients and patients included, walk into wellness with a quiet, underlying belief that their body is the enemy, that it's attacking them, that something needs to be managed, corrected, or overridden. And I really want to challenge the belief at the root because it doesn't hold up against what scripture actually says.

See, here's where most of us get stuck. Scripture says to deny yourself, and wellness culture says you've got to do all of these things in order to maintain any level of health and vibrancy. And honestly, I'm saying, listen to your body. Listen to your body.

And all of these sound like they're in direct conflict with each other, but I'm gonna tell you that listen to your body and denying yourself are actually not in conflict.

The reason comes down to two different Greek words that get flattened down into one word in the English language. And I want to break that down for you today. The first word we're gonna break down is called sarx. S-A-R-X. The flesh. Biblically in Greek, the word sarx was translated into flesh.

That is the sin nature. That is the self oriented against God. Romans 8 and Galatians 5 both use this word for what we are told to deny, crucify, and walk away from. See, we're denying our flesh. Paul lists what comes from the sarx in Genesis 5, like strife, jealousy, self-indulgence. Notice none of those are physical body functions. Do you see that?

They're not physical body functions, they're patterns of our heart. Where the second word, soma, the body, that word is translated as good throughout the entire New Testament. Romans 12:1 asks us to present our bodies, the soma as a living sacrifice. Corinthians 6:19-20 calls the body a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Paul even uses the soma language to describe the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. You don't resurrect something that God intends to discard. You resurrect something that He intends to redeem, right? So when Jesus says to deny yourself and Paul talks about crucifying the flesh, they are talking about the sarx, the sarx, the thing that is outside of God's will, the flesh, the sin desire.

That old sin nature, not your physical body's need for rest, food, water, or care. That's not what we're doing. We're not denying our physical body for rest, food, water, or care. See, scripture never asks you to war against your physical body. It asks you to war against sin, operating through disordered desire.

So body-led healing listens to the soma. It does not indulge in the sarx. Those are two different things, and collapsing them into one is where the confusion and honestly, a lot of the unnecessary guilt comes from. I want to give you a clear example here. When you feel exhausted, and I know a lot of us listening, even right now, might be feeling super exhausted in our skin, and our body asks for rest.

The soma part of our body asking for rest, that's a legitimate, God-designed signal. That is the wisdom that He put in the body. The body is saying, please rest. Don't try to push me beyond what I can handle. And when you feel entitled to bypass every boundary, every responsibility, and every relationship because you deserve it and you're tired of trying, that's the sarx talking. Same tiredness.

Two completely different responses being asked of you. One is listening to the outside opinions or the gurus or all of the things telling us to do this, push harder. You can't be tired. You've got to get all these workouts in. And the other is saying, please, for the sake of my health and well being, I can perform better if you just take a rest. It's the same body.

Two very different voices. Two very different voices talking. Have you guys ever seen, and I'm sure you have, the the little angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other, and it's speaking into the person's ear and they're trying to make a decision? I'm not saying that one is an angel and one is the devil, but it can be, right? Like The soma being the body, the angel body, and the the sarx being the devil body, and it's telling you push, push, push.

Do that. You gotta do more, more, more, you know, all these things when the body is telling us one thing. See, the confusion when I'm telling people and teaching them how to learn to build a relationship with their body in such a beautiful way is because they get caught up in trying to understand what is their body talking. Learning to tell them apart is honestly one of the most useful skills that you can build spiritually and practically.

Before I get into talking about that, and again, we're going to be unraveling more in the next three episodes. So just stick around, submerse yourself in this. The more repetition, the more you're going to get it. But right now, I want to talk to you about a woman that I worked with that carried enormous guilt every time that she rested. I'm talking this is like type A, doing all the things.

She was taught and somewhere along her journey, that comfort was self-indulgence, that she could not take a rest because she would be lazy. And she dressed that up in spiritual language. So she pushed through exhaustion for years, convinced herself that ignoring her body was the same thing as denying her flesh. I hope you can see that that's not the case.

When her and I walked through this very same distinction together, something shifted for her. And it was almost immediate. Now I say almost because it took a little bit of time, but once she got it, it was like suddenly. She realized that she had been treating her body's legitimate need for rest as though it were a moral failure.

Once she could name the difference between the soma, the angel body, asking for rest, or the devil body, the sarx, asking for an excuse, she could finally rest without guilt attached. And that guilt had never been from God to begin with. It was a misreading of what denying yourself actually meant.

Now I have my own version of this story too, and I don't share it for accolades. I share it because it might set something free in somebody listening right now. I've shared this on the podcast before about gaining an additional 38 pounds. I say 40 pounds more to be on the exact side, but it was 38 pounds that I gained in chiropractic school. And I hated myself.

I despised what I look like. I tried to hide it in clothes. I tried to do all of these things to make myself feel okay. And I thought that I was going to be able to get this weight off easily, like I have done in the past before. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time in this story just because I have shared it a lot, but basically what had happened is over the course of a couple years, I found myself living in a body that I absolutely despised.

And I did everything despite having some understanding that the body does speak. Okay. Now, in this journey, I was doing all these crazy workouts. I was doing two workouts a day. I was getting up at 5 a.m. to do a fasted workout. I was doing intermittent fasting. I was trying the raw food diet.

I was doing Mediterranean. I was doing paleo. I was buying all of these programs for $27, 30-day weight loss program, all these things. I was doing everything. And essentially what I was doing was metaphorically throwing my body, taking my body and throwing it up against a wall and asking it to perform based on what I wanted it to do. I didn't ask it. I didn't say, hey body, what do you need?

I was forcing it to do what I wanted it to do based upon all of the information outside of me. This person says this, this person says that. You get toned abs here, you just need to do beach body, you just need to do all these things. I did it all. I did it all. And nothing budged. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. It was insane.

What finally shifted was the moment that I stopped forcing everything and said, okay, body, what is it that you want? And I started simple questions. This or that. This or that. And I started to really listen. I developed a muscle, not a physical muscle in my body, but I developed a muscle of learning to listen to its voice. And not the voice of everything outside of me, not the voice of my mind that was saying, do not eat granola because it's going to make you extra puffy.

I was listening to the voice of my body. And the more that I tuned in, the more that I listened, the more that it got louder and louder and louder. And that is my encouragement to you. Do not Right now, I need to say this. Do not feel like you are behind or that you will never get this if you feel like you're doing some of these practices that I share in the podcast and you're not hearing clearly.

This is about intentionality. This is about building a muscle. And it's not about getting the answers right. It's making a right choice in the moment, not from your mind, but from your body. And I'm gonna talk about that in in just a second as I go through some of the bodyOS framework. But in wrapping up this story, what I want to tell you is if you believe your body itself is the enemy, you're going to approach healing with suspicion or with force.

You're going to try to do all of the things that I was trying to do in order to lose that weight. Now that might not be your story, and that's okay. I don't believe we all have the same story. And this is not about weight loss. This is also getting people out of the the traps of wellness culture where they believe they are doing the best thing for their health by making their body an idol. And that's a whole different topic we're going to be talking about. But you cannot believe that your body is the enemy and approach healing with suspicion or with force and expect to get results.

Because what's gonna happen is you're gonna treat every craving, you're gonna treat every ache, you're gonna treat every need as something to fight against. Your body starts showing signs that immune system dysfunction is kicking in and you are denying it all the things. What? Why? Why? Don't do that. This is gonna leave you in a constant state of internal war with your body. And if you understand your body as good and something that is intentionally designed, you can listen to it without fear of being "unfaithful."

You can rest without guilt, you can eat without shame, you can pay attention to pain without assuming you're being weak or self-indulgent in the process. This completely reframes body-led healing as an act of faith, not a departure from it. Listening to your soma is not competing with the devotion you have to God. It is one expression of it.

Going into the bodyOS framework, the first step is to pause. Pause before assuming your body signal is a temptation or a weakness. Most signals are neither one. Next step, you're gonna connect to whether what you're feeling is the soma, the angel, a legitimate need, or the sarx, that little devil, a disordered desire. This takes practice, as I mentioned, and you will get it wrong sometimes, and that is okay.

Maybe you pushed through when your body genuinely needed you to stop, or you rested when you actually needed to have a hard conversation or go for a walk. Either way, you are building the discernment muscle every time you ask the question.

That brings me to the third step: is you are going to ask your body what pillar of health does it need support in? Physical, spiritual, emotional, or mental. What is actually being asked of you right now? And then the fourth step is you're going to adjust by responding to your soma with care and responding to the sarx with surrender.

Your body was intentionally designed, and not defaulted into existence. It was formed with intention by a Creator who calls it good. Learning to listen to it is not a departure from your faith, but it is an extension of it. So next episode, we're going to be looking at what happens when caring for that design tips into worshiping it instead. And that is where we're headed for episode 58.

If you need some support in walking through some of these signals, go ahead and use the Body Signal Decoder, which will walk you through eight of the top body signals the body gives off and gets you through that bodyOS framework, the pause, connect, ask, and adjust, and provides training wheels as you are developing these skill sets. Have a very blessed week, and I will see you on the next one.

Friend, thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I know your body is grateful that you listened to this episode as well. If this conversation supported you in any way, please share it with someone who feels overwhelmed by their health, or quite possibly stuck in that wellness spiral. And leave a review on Apple Podcast as it means a lot to know this space is supporting you, and helps this message reach the people who need it most. Alrighty, let’s close those tabs, exit the apps, and let your body do what it already knows how to do. I’ll meet you back here every single week. Bye for now.