Impossible Beauty

Our society is sick. Diet culture, the beauty industry, and the media have sold us a narrowly defined ideal and it has warped our views on food, our bodies, and beauty. In this week’s episode, I had the privilege of speaking with the incredible Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani all about the fallout of these warped cultural messages.

Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani is an eating disorders expert physician and the Founder and Medical Director of the Gaudiani Clinic in Denver, Colorado. Dr. Gauidiani completed her undergraduate degree at Harvard, medical school at Boston University School of Medicine, and her internal medicine residency and chief residency at Yale. In 2008, she was one of the founding team members of the ACUTE Center for Eating Disorders at Denver Health and, after seven great years there, she left as its Medical Director to pursue her vision of outpatient care, founding the Gaudiani Clinic. During her years at ACUTE, Dr. Gaudiani became a nationally recognized internist for her work on the medical complications of eating disorders. She also wrote a book on this same topic, released in 2018, Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders.
Dr. Gaudiani has lectured nationally and internationally and is widely published in the scientific literature as well as on blogs. She is one of the only outpatient internists in the US who carries the Certified Eating Disorder Specialist and Supervisor designation and has received the honorable designation of Fellow from the international organization Academy for Eating Disorders.

In our time together, Dr. Gaudiani covers so many important topics, including the shocking percentage of people whom she believes have a disordered relationship with food, how diet culture has impacted the medical field, and how most doctors don’t understand eating disorders. She also talks about thin privilege, weight stigma, weight-inclusive medical care, and what a balanced relationship with food and our bodies looks like. Dr. Gaudiani’s wisdom and compassion are palpable in her work and in this episode. My hope is that her experience and insights might help us identify and shed the harmful messages we have absorbed, so we might move into a more peaceful relationship with food, our bodies, and ourselves.

What would it be like to not just admire nature from a distance, but treat creation as a relative, a teacher, and an expression of the love of the Creator?

On this week’s episode, I talk with Randy and Edith Woodley. Rev. Dr. Randy Woodley is an author, activist, farmer, scholar, speaker, wisdom keeper, and a Cherokee descendant recognized by the Keetoowah Band. In his work, Dr. Woodley addresses a variety of issues concerning American culture, faith, justice, race, and our relationship with the earth and Indigenous realities. He currently serves as Distinguished Professor of Faith and Culture and Director of Intercultural and Indigenous Studies at George Fox University/Portland Seminary. Randy has written numerous books, including his most recent title, Becoming Rooted: One Hundred Days of Reconnecting with Sacred Earth. His expertise has been sought in national venues such as Time Magazine, Christianity Today, and The Huffington Post.

Edith Woodley is a mentor/speaker on issues concerning Indigenous Spirituality and Creation. She is a full-time mother, grandmother and farmer, and has developed a unique relationship with the land and insights concerning how to raise a family on a small farm. Edith is an Eastern Shoshone tribal member and enjoys carrying on the tradition in her family of Native American beadwork with her jewelry. Together, Randy and Edith are co-creators and co-sustainers of Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice and Eloheh Farm & Seeds. Through an Eloheh experience, they invite people to a deeper spirituality and new relationship with creation while modeling regenerative Earth-tending practices and Earth justice.

In this episode, Randy and Edith, invite me to see beauty and creation through a completely new, counter-cultural lens. What if true beauty has nothing to do with being flawless and everything to do with what indigenous cultures call the Harmony Way? What if we laid down our striving and rested in a more beautiful reality, one that says that we are loved by the great Creator just as we are, that we have each been created with a unique beauty and identity, and that we are a part of something much bigger than we are.

Victoria Myers is a non-diet registered dietitian and owner of the virtual private practice and online education center, Nourishing Minds Nutrition. Victoria and her staff specialize in empowering women to ditch diets, regulate hormones, heal digestion and learn to practice wellness without obsession. She is also the host of the popular intuitive eating and wellness podcast, the Nourishing Women Podcast. Her mission for her community is to help women let go of the unhealthy obsession with eating healthy, make peace with their body, and live their lives to the fullest.

In our time together, Victoria helps us understand what orthorexia is, or the unhealthy obsession with being healthy. She also unpacks the concept of fatphobia, why it matters, and how diet culture has skewed our relationship with food and our bodies. In short, Victoria highlights how pursuing “health” so often gets mixed up in diet culture, often becoming a perfectionistic or obsessive pursuit. She then helps us get diet culture out of the way, so we can re-establish a harmonious relationship with food and our bodies. I hope that Victoria’s insights and this conversation take you one step closer to doing just that.

Dr. Carol Peters-Tanksley believes that we can live fully alive in the way God created us to live- physically, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. She believes we can thrive. Dr. Peters-Tanksley, or “Dr. Carol,” as she is called, is a licensed OB-Gyn physician and Reproductive Endocrinologist, an ordained Doctor of Ministry, an author, speaker, and personal coach. She also produced a regular radio program, “The Dr. Carol Show,” with her husband, Al, from 2009 until his death in 2016. Dr. Carol has seen how many people struggle to find the help they need in the church for the struggles they encounter: broken relationships, mental or emotional struggles, or toxic religion. She desires to come alongside those undergoing such brokenness to find healing and transformation so they can live more fully.

In our time together, Dr. Carol shares how God transformed her own mental/emotional struggles and grief into growth, meaning, and joy. She also talks about the common struggles around beauty and body image she encountered as an OB-Gyn and tells the story behind why she chose to pursue ministry, in addition to being a physician. Dr. Carol also deeply encouraged me by talking about finding purpose in midlife and beyond and reminded me, and us, that “God will not stop until everything is made right.” My deep hope is that Dr. Carol will encourage you as much as she did me.

On this week’s episode, I talk with enneagram coach and co-leader of the non-profit, 40 Orchards, Stephanie Spencer. 40 Orchards creates safe spaces for people to learn about and wrestle though biblical texts using the ancient Jewish concept of Midrash. Stephanie had a first career as a pastor and now facilitates Scripture Circles in the Minneapolis area and, remotely, around the world. She currently lives in Minneapolis with her husband and their two adolescent sons.

In my time with Stephanie, we talk about how reading the Bible in a new way “opened up the world” to her. She also discusses how we have been made to delight in the world around us and highlights the common thread of feeling like we don’t measure up when it comes to beauty standards and so often in the life of faith as well. Perhaps most importantly, Stephanie reminds us that God is not a God who stands far off but is, instead, intimately involved in each of our stories and that He sees us as beautiful, good, and rejoices over us, even now.

Katy Rose is committed to creating “art to reflect the beauty of light illuminating the darkness.” Trained in psychology and art, Katie desires to bring depth and meaning to each of her paintings. She is also a contributing author for the “Love God Greatly Bible” published by Thomas Nelson in 2020 and has illustrated and written upcoming projects in children’s literature.

Katie lives in Texas with her husband and four children. She and her husband have made it their mission to serve foster children and under-served populations around the globe. Her fine art business was originally launched for that purpose and continues to exist with that guiding principle.

In our time together, we talk about how creating beauty and reflecting light in the world is actually an act of rebellion against the darkness that we so often encounter. Katie also talks about why she believes creativity is pivotal for children, how art has brought healing and redemption in her own life, and she encourages us to step outside of our comfort zones to experience unknown beauty on the other side.

As you listen today, I hope you are encouraged to see more beauty around you, feel any nudges for using your agency in your own corner to bring about more light, and, to be reminded that whatever we are invited into, we don’t go alone.

This episode is all about beauty ideals, our relationship with our bodies and food, and social media. I can’t think of better conversation partners for this one than Lisa DeKam and Jacquie Danz, the founders of the Axia Project. Lisa is a physical therapist who works in the field of eating disorders and Jacquie is the mom of two teenage girls, who is committed to changing the narrative that a females’ appearance is the most important thing about her. Together, Lisa and Jacquie have founded the Axia Project, an organization seeking to teach women that life is more than your appearance and help women build skills to actively live their God-given worth.

In this episode, we talk about the prevalence of disordered eating and body image struggles, tips for bringing up the next generation in an image-saturated world, and why beauty ideals are not only damaging but get in the way of living out our purpose in the world. This is a must listen episode, calling out the breadth and depth of the fallout of cultural beauty standards, impacting females’ mental and emotional health, their relationship with food and their bodies, with others, and so much more. We also highlight how we go about making change. Please listen, and then, help us change the narrative!

Haejin Shim Fujimura is a seasoned lawyer and the founder and managing partner of Shim & Associates, located in both New York and New Jersey. Haejin is also the CEO and co-founder of Embers International, an organization committed to protecting, restoring, and empowering victims of injustice with the goal of ending intergenerational exploitation and preventing human trafficking. She also serves as the Team Leader of NYC Advocacy & Mobilization Team of International Justice Mission, the largest anti-slavery organization in the world.

Haejin is married to renowned contemporary artist, Makoto Fujimura, with whom she leads the “Beauty + Justice” movement. One initiative within that movement is Kintsugi Academy, of which Haejin is the President.

In our time together, Haejin reminds me that we are all artists, with the power to create beautiful things in our own corner of the world. She also helps me see that justice is ultimately about creating beautiful relationships, that love is generative, and that we can all create something new amid broken realities. This is a powerful episode, reminding us that we are not helpless onlookers of the brokenness in the world or in our own lives. Instead, we are all artists, empowered to infuse more beauty, love, and goodness into the world and into the communities we are a part of.

In this week’s episode, I had the privilege of interviewing renowned author, Philip Yancey. In his books, Philip has explored the most basic questions and deepest mysteries of the Christian faith, including award-winning titles such as The Jesus I Never Knew, What’s So Amazing About Grace? and Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? He currently has more than 15 million books in print, published in over 50 languages worldwide, and his books have garnered 13 Gold Medallion Awards from Christian publishers and booksellers.

Philip began his writing career as a journalist in Chicago, where he worked for about twenty years, writing for a wide variety of magazines including Reader’s Digest and Christianity Today. As a journalist, he interviewed people such as President Jimmy Carter, Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller, and Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the modern hospice movement.

In my time with Philip, we talk about his new book, Where the Light Fell, and why he believes it is the one book he was put on earth to write. We also talk about how his life story has shaped his writing, how beauty transformed his faith and relationship with God, and how his experiences around the world have shaped his views on beauty. This conversation was such a gift to me. My hope is that Philip’s wisdom and words might bring so much light into your life as well.

For months I looked forward to my interview with author, hospital chaplain, and former atheist, J.S. Park. When it comes to the tension of beauty and brokenness, what better person to talk to than someone who literally sits at the precipice of life and death, crisis, and suffering every day? Furthermore, J.S. is an honest voice, speaking candidly about his own struggles with depression and his journey from atheism to faith. He is a suicide survivor, Korean American, and loves Jesus. J.S. also recently released his book, The Voices We Carry: Finding Your One True Voice in a World of Clamor and Noise.

In my time with J.S. we talk about the idea of calling and what inspired him to become a hospital chaplain, his journey from atheism to faith, his experience as a chaplain, and how even in the midst of so much suffering, he believes beauty exists and still wins. I can’t wait for you to hear from him today.