A short essay sharing how I claim my power back….my story to live a powerful life that I love through food and body image.

My life was pretty good: I had food on the table, a home, a car, a great career that brought in enough money, cool friends, a supportive family.

I thought of myself as an independent fierce woman. 

But I also wondered, “… is that what life is really about?”

While by society standards I was doing all the right things I kept, wondering if every other woman was as anxious as I was about how I looked. Were they as overwhelmed as me at the thought of not losing or worse gaining weight? Is it normal to feel this frustrated with food and not being able to eat like everyone else?

Everyone around me reflected that it was all ok, but secretly, I knew something wasn’t right. So, I kept going making sure I was checking all the boxes:

        My partner: Making sure he was happy, satisfied, that he felt loved.

        The boss: I was delivering the results expected. 

        Social circle: Making sure I was there for them and was pleasant.

        My parents: Striving to be #1, working hard and making money to ensure my safety.

        Society: being a good girl and kept striving for the female beauty standards of thinness

And then the forties came along

It wasn’t one thing one moment… one day. It was a series of little things that collectively lead me to realize I was living the illusion of a happy life based on others’ beliefs. 

That’s why I was eating… 

I was years in the making. In fact, I was a pretty smart child and wasn’t afraid of speaking my mind. I played with boys as much as I played with girls. Certainly, a tough little girl. 

But at 13, the society led me to believe that I was too much. Too tall. Too big. That if I wanted to be a good girl from now on, I needed to be less. Smaller. Thinner and also quieter. To achieve this goal of being a good little girl, food was going to be the weapon of choice. Over the next few years, I learned to diet and that shrinking my body was the gateway for me to manage my “too muchness”. 

By the end of my teenage years,  I learned that my power was food because I was so into diet culture. I learned that for society to accept women, she must conform to its standards. Unfortunately, I wasn’t born with a body & spirit that naturally conform to the norm so I accepted that I would need to work hard at fitting in for the rest of my life.

That’s exactly what I did for nearly 27 years until my forties came along. I started to read self-improvement books and questioning the beauty ideal imposed on women.

Women Food and Power: My journey

Up to then, my power was food (and the attempted control of weight) all to fulfill the illusion that being smaller would deliver better. I thought if I couldn’t control my height at least I could control my weight.

It turns out that controlling my weight wasn’t an easy task. It worked and then it didn’t but I learned quickly to be a “good fat person” by at least trying to lose weight and making sure everyone knew I was trying hard. That’s when I started to eat in secret.

By the time I hit my mid-twenties, I had a strong coping mechanism in place to cope with my inability to conform to what my body should look like.

1. People-pleasing: I sought external validation so I made sure I wasn’t rejected
2. All or nothing: On and off the diet. It’s my fault it doesn’t work so try harder
3. Perfectionism: To compensate my “not enoughness” and “too muchness”, I needed to strive to achieve everything perfectly
4. Mental filtering: Life is about controlling my body, therefore, my food.

That’s what I call today Diet Brain. Diet brain was the way my subconscious mind evolved to cope with the world that I felt rejected me and my body.

But something happened in my late thirties. I had this resounding secret thought “I can’t do it anymore”. I felt exhausted and the excitement of the latest diet has vanished. Soon enough, my body followed suit and wouldn’t cooperate anymore.  I was anxious, depressed, and sick.

I couldn’t imagine that the rest of my life was going to be just another “diet”. Is that what life was about? Really just managing my weight?

I was born worthy

The truth was that my life focus had been on chasing my self-worth. I was failing at the task but always trying and I was failing because self-worth was never going to come from being smaller.

I was born worthy but somewhere along the line of my life, someone or something led me to believe that I needed to earn my worth through my body size.

Although I had chased my self-worth for over 27 years through my body size and had yet to find it, I never questioned this belief. The indoctrination from diet culture early on in my life was still creating my reality today at 40. That’s the magic of the subconscious mind.

That is until I started to question my beliefs. Could I be enough without being in a smaller body? Is it possible to be loved and supported without being smaller? Could I be successful without being quieter?

I always had a choice

Yes: It was a possibility. I could be loved, supported, and accepted at any size.

I started to notice women in my life that were “enough” without being smaller. Women who were successful, happy, and confident in non-conforming bodies. Women whose power wasn’t wrapped around food. New people came into my life reinforcing the possibility. Books, blogs, videos… over months I had plenty of evidence.

Yet I was still stuck. I had made different choices. By then I knew it wasn’t my fault that I was the way I was but it was my fault if I stayed like that.

I needed to go from wanting to change to deciding to change. The problem was I was afraid. Scared of the perceived work it takes to change. I didn’t have time. I didn’t have the resources…

The pain of doing the work appeared to be greater than the pain of staying in the “not enough”. So, I chose to stay put. I kept lurking on what was possible.

I had so many stories in my head that keep me from not making the choice to change. Let’s face it, when it came to my ability to change my subconscious mind was telling me: “You are a failure” or “ You’ll never be able to do it” or “Why would this be any different than your attempt to manage your weight?”.

My subconscious mind was on a mission to keep me safe and secure in my comfort zone. Not believing in myself was my comfort zone. I wasn’t worthy enough to believe in myself.

What if you couldn’t fail?

I believe in paying to be held at a higher standard that I can conceive for myself. So, I committed myself to have someone show me the way.

The greatest achievements I had in my life up to this point came from being taught by a great teacher or coach: sport, business, and adulting. I knew that if I was going to make it happen it was not going to be on my own…

“What if you couldn’t fail, Stephanie?” she asked.

In every other part of my life, failure was not an issue… would have learned from my mistake and tried again. Likely tried something different but nevertheless, failure wasn’t fear.

Why wasn’t it different from food and weight? I don’t have the answer just yet but it was. I think it’s because I had so many traumatic experiences in that sphere of my life that fear of failure paralyzed me.

“You are wildly capable, Stephanie. Look at yourself, you have dieted for 25 years, starving yourself, depriving yourself, overworking your physical body… you’ve done it all! You are so capable to do the work and make peace with food & your body so you can reconnect with your innate power!”

So, I got over myself and went for it.

Women Food and Power: The tools I found

I learned to think thoughts that actually made me feel good and learn tools to release thoughts that didn’t serve me. I learned to manage my emotions, process them productively instead of being overwhelmed by them. I now decide what stories play in my head.

At the same time, I learned to be present in my body not to what others think of my body. I’m present in the moment in my body. I’m no longer afraid of being with myself.

I learned to interact with my body as my best friend and be neutral. My physical body no longer is the filter through which I see my life. That’s body neutrality.

Lastly, I learned that I had the power within me to feed myself. My body and I are “good enough” to be our own nutrition expert. That was a turning point for me… through intuitive eating, I shifted the relationship of power with food.

Food was no longer about being less… food was about being ME.

That was the work and I did it.

Empowering yourself

How you engage with food is how you engage with your life. If you feel powerless around food you feel powerless with your life.
How you think about our body is how you think about yourself. When you hate your body, you hate yourself.

There’s a basic formula for life: Our thoughts create the way we feel, our feelings drive the action we choose to take, our actions forge our results, therefore, our thoughts become our reality.

If right now you think you aren’t good and/or worthy enough to have what other women have, that’s exactly the reality you’ll keep creating for yourself.

The most effective way to feel disempowered is to give your power of choice to something else, someone else than you. That’s what millions of us, women do when we decide to buy into the beauty ideal consequently, diet culture. The path of less resistance is to conform not to question.

Being empowered is recognizing that you do have the power to affect your life. It’s simply recognizing that you have the power to choose.

On the other side of fear is freedom.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” -Anais Nin

Let’s do it together

You can access all of our services on our work with us page.  We have a number of programs and service levels enabling us to serve most women:

Free Resources and Masterclasses: Get started and get to know us better!

Private coaching with Stephanie and her team Stephanie and her team of Certified Non-Diet Coaches are waiting to support you in a one-to-one setting with an individualized plan.

Undiet Your Life group coaching program is for women to learn how to eat intuitively, become body neutral, and learn self-coaching at their own pace while being supported in a group setting by Stephanie and her team of Certified Non-Diet Coaches.

Non-Diet Coaching Certification for professionals ready to integrate the Going Beyond The Food Method™️ in their practice and for women wanting to become  Certified Coach and build a business coaching other women beyond the food.

Good Money Business Mastermind  A business mentorship and a collective of ambitious, driven and empowered anti-diet culture providers and coaches on a mission to dismantle diet culture and make GOOD money doing it!

Note: this article is a guest post written by Susan Sledge after working with Stephanie as a 1-1 client in 2018. 

If you are a practicing Christian, you know that one of the greatest teachings of God is selflessness. As servants of our Creator, we should be enhancing our spirituality by selfless acts like helping our neighbors, forgiving people, loving our enemies and serving God, and less emphasis on our physical body and material things in this life.

Some people think that what I impart through my works about self-appreciation and self-empowerment does not sit well with the teachings of Christianity. One might think that by following the lessons I teach about loving yourself and knowing yourself better, they are doing the exact opposite of what God wants us to do.

I’m not an expert in religion, but I think there are important connections between our methodology Going Beyond The Food Method  inside all of our programs and the teachings of Christianity.  That’s why I want to share this letter from Susan Sledge, one of the students of Going Beyond the Food Academy to all Christian women who are doing the same work inside our program as a 1-1 client.

Written to Stephanie Dodier on August 1, 2018. It is a letter of clarification from me, as a student in the Going Beyond the Food Academy, to another Christian in the program who may be questioning the Academy’s teachings in light of Christian beliefs.

Dear Sister,

We have a mutual friend in Stephanie Dodier and I’m assuming a similar food freedom journey. I have spent the last couple of years reconciling what the Bible and Spirit of God has to say about our body, soul, and spirit. I’m passing along what I have come to understand in hopes that it will encourage you and enhance your walk.

Four Bodies, One Image of God

There is an excellent study by Andrew Womack on Body, Soul, and Spirit that you can get through his website or listen to by podcast. Materials are free and I think it is an excellent place to start. If you want the summary version then I suggest watching this Youtube video. Although the study goes into great depth proving three forms of our being, I have summarized it below:

1) Body – Physical body made of up bones, muscle, tissue, brain matter
2) Soul – Includes your mind, will, and emotions; Some think of it as your personality, how you think, how you process the world
3) Spirit (with a little s)– Innermost, eternal part of you. The part that God breathed into Adam at creation. After you became a believer, your spirit (little s) was perfected and you became a “new creation”.
4) Spirit (with a big S) – God’s Spirit that was promised to you as a believer. It was fused with your (little s) spirit. They are inseparable and form the new creation. His guidance is within you and part of you. He resides in you and your spirit.

In eastern medicine, Stephanie will teach you that there are 4 bodies. It is similar to Biblical teaching, but soul is a term used in the Bible to encompass both the mind/logic and emotions/will. In Christian thinking they are not delineated but so entwined that they utilize one term. Instinctively though, we know there is a difference between our “heart” and our “head” which is more in line with eastern teaching.

Every man is made in His image which includes Jesus, Father, and Holy Spirit. We are like beautiful diamonds that are multifaceted, multidimensional as He is. We all contain aspects of Him and in glorious moments, we demonstrate to the world who the creator is. Glorious moments can include spectacular moments or simply everyday life like, smiling at a stranger, the squeezing of someone’s hand to communicate love, passing on wisdom to another, being a helpmate, or interceding for someone’s need. We all, regardless of our religious beliefs, exhibit characteristics of God because he made us in His image.

In the Godhead, you will see Jesus who represents God’s bodily form. He had a form when walking around in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3). Jesus/God wrestled with Jacob (Gen 32) and of course was born into a human body which was later crucified. His body was resurrected, and he functions in it today. Father God is representative of divine thinking, wisdom, and emotions. It is the being that loves, protects, and provides for us. He is the one who administers justice. Holy Spirit is a gift. Holy Spirit is the creative, helpful teacher full of wisdom and guidance. Our three bodies (body, soul, spirit) have a purpose and together, we are able to move through life in communion with this world (Jesus). We are able to process past, present, and future to make decisions and to act (Father). We are able to learn from our innermost being to heal ourselves and others and live an abundant life (Holy Spirit).

Love Our Neighbors by Loving Ourselves

In my religious background, loving myself was a selfish act. I’m not sure if you can identify with that or not, but the higher calling was to love others and not to focus on self. I have come to believe that message is skewed.

When Jesus speaks of the Father and Spirit, it is with great love and adoration. When the Father speaks of Jesus and the Spirit, it is also with love and adoration. The Spirit also testifies of the same with regards to Father and Jesus. They love each other AND they are one being. So, it is fair to say that God (Father, Jesus, Spirit) loves Himself. Out of that love, He created man.

Jesus said the greatest commandment was to “love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind (Matt 22:37)”. The second commandment is similar, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:39). Jesus was answering a religious lawyer who was trying to entangle him in legalistic, right/wrong thinking. Jesus knew the hardest part about keeping a law was that which the soul processes (heart, soul, mind) and if we focus on loving God, our creator/father/friend/savior then everything else falls into place in due time.

When Jesus told us to love others as ourselves, there as a HUGE assumption on His part that we love ourselves. That sentence can be rewritten to say “as you have come to love yourself, love others in the same way”. What does that mean?
It is what Stephanie teaches in the form of self-compassion, body neutrality, meditation to calm the mind, mindful movement to honor the body, nutrition to feed our body, and spiritual practice to nurture the spirit and commune with God.

Self-Sabotaging Behaviors Shut Spirit Flow

Womack’ study speaks of the body, soul, and spirit being a pipeline. He uses the analogy of a valve between the spirit and soul that we control the flow. We can either shut it off completely and not interact with the spirit’s wisdom or we can let it flow like a raging river. When spirit knowledge comes into contact with the soul there is a renewing of the mind (mind, will, and emotions) that takes place and when it is complete, it will be demonstrated in the body. So, the flow goes from spirit to soul then to body.

Sometimes, when we don’t see God’s promises manifest in our bodies, it is because we have turned down the flow or our minds haven’t yet fully embraced it as truth. Stephanie’s work is about helping us evaluate our valve control or belief system in the renewing of the mind. When she talks about the subconscious or self-sabotaging behaviors, I liken it to the pipeline analogy. Sometimes we know we are limiting the flow and other times, our soul is acting on our behalf because of what it believes to be best.

There are inner healing ministries dedicated to uncovering the lies we have believed and asking God to heal them. Beyond the Food program is about finding the lies we are believing about ourselves and being open to healing from different sources (self, food, higher power, breath, mindful movement). For me, I am able to easily transform the imagery from the different tools Stephanie presents to God’s provision and all the tools He has provided me on this freedom journey.

When God created Adam, He commanded Adam and Eve to take dominion and rule over all they had been given. Believers are given authority in spiritual matters. We are entrusted with the care of ourselves and His people. I think I understood it well when ministering to others, but I don’t know that I took dominion in my own life when it came to self-care. I placed others need above mine and I had come to believe that I was incapable of permanent change and because of past performance, I might not be worthy of it.

Of course, they are lies, but when we believe a lie, it becomes our truth, in a sense, and it’s not until the renewing of the mind that we have an “ah-ha moment” and the lie is replaced by truth and the valve opens up the flow a little bit more. It is difficult to stop moving water. As we get truth flowing through us, it is hard to stop the healing that transpires. When we know better, we do better whether we really intend to or not.

This is why Jesus is called the truth and because of it, He is the way, the truth, and the life. When He (Jesus, Father, Spirit = God) flows in us things truly change. When we see a dry, barren area (because of the exercises, reflections, journaling, meditation, etc), we can signal to Jesus that we have a dry spot. He will reroute the truth flow over that spot. Old will pass away and the new is now in the current. This is dominion.

Because our spirit and God’s Spirit are fused together and perfected, this search and rescue mission is symbiotic. It may feel like He is pointing out the dry spots while other times we are doing the excavation. Either way, spirit/Spirit are working in tandem to provide healing and life abundant.

Reaching God from Within Ourselves

Let’s talk about meditation and yoga. In Christian circles, we are taught to not go inward because we are taking our focus off God and onto us. I subscribed to this thought for many years because of the amount of scriptures speaking to focus and reliance on Him. I have had a few “a-ha” moments over the last couple of years that have changed my thinking.

First, if God, through His Spirit resides in us, then wouldn’t we go inward to seek Him in addition to other ways to access Him? Second, have you ever done a “soaking” session or silent retreat? The whole point of these sessions are to quiet the world, quiet the mind so we can hear from Him. Having this internal navigator was the miracle of the cross.

Old Testament believers couldn’t fathom the concept of God residing within us….actually taking up residence. Meditation, which can also be a part of yoga, is a prayerful act of calming the body and soul so that the spirit can speak. This includes your little S spirit and His big S Spirit. If the word meditation wigs you out, then try substituting the word prayer. If I recommended 10 minutes of prayer every night, you wouldn’t argue with it, would you?

In worship, there is a release where your mind is not racing around but focused on God. You release your cares for one moment (soul), let your body experience the movement (body), and your spirit has a moment to connect with the body/soul and God. Sometimes in worship, we get moments of clarity because the mind is focused and released for all other obligations, much like the act of meditation. If you speak in tongues, you have experienced how your spirit by-passes your mind to commune with God. It is a release, encouragement, and “reset” much like meditation.

He made us Capable of Self-Healing

Healing breath is another topic for discussion. When Stephanie says to send your breath to an area to break up anxiety, I say try it and see what happens. It is nothing short of a miracle. Scripture says that every good thing comes from God. Holy Spirit is described as a wind and fire. Breathing stirs up something in us. It purifies within us. When we circulate breath, we are circulating a healing power that God breathed into all men.

So God’s gifts are for everyone and not just us Christians? Whoa, now! I’m probably stepping on some toes. When He created man, he created them and said it was “good”. His relationship to them was perfect and the world was created for them.

After sin entered the world, there has been a continual process on behalf of God to restore us back to original design and relationship. Through Jesus, he took care of the relationship piece. Your spirit is in perfect unity with His but your body and soul are still in process of being restored back to perfection.

Think of it this way…..if you were stupid before believing in Jesus, you were stupid after, but over time, you learned more and got a little less stupid. If God is the creator of all good things, then He created them for all people not just Christians. Some people are able to recognize God’s gifts better than others and believers should be quicker at it because of the relationship they have with the Godhead and practice over time.

Wisdom is a God-given Gift

Wisdom is something that God gave the world and to every man. Wisdom is personified in the Bible as “she”. She cries out in the marketplace meaning she speaks in the busiest of places. This could be the nightly news, your business, your children’s school, a friend, and cultural trends. Wisdom has always been here.

I imagine wisdom was shouting at Eve when she started talking with Lucifer in the garden but with free will, she chose to ignore it. Wisdom wasn’t just in the middle east, it was everywhere. Could a man in China hear wisdom and apply it to his life in 1000 B.C.? If you have ever visited a museum of ancient cultures, you would have to confirm that wisdom must have been present and the people grabbed it.

What about eastern medicine and integrative medicine? Could it be that they have had their ears attuned to wisdom and picked up what she has been putting out? I believe this is why you see nuggets of truth in every world religion. They are picking up wisdom from God.

Jesus is the issue, however. Who we believe Jesus is….Son of God/God Himself removing all barriers between Himself and man….is the core issue of our belief and the monumental divide with other belief systems. Wisdom, however, is God’s gift to all of mankind.

I have gone on and one, but felt the need to share this with Stephanie in case she wants to pass it along to another curious, Christian mind. Feel free to reach out to me if you want to discuss this further.

Hugs,

Susan Sledge
[email protected]
817-219-7801