Sunset Series: Heather Creekmore on the Spiritual Roots of Body Image

As part of our Sunset Series, I'm introducing you to podcasters I know, trust, and love — so you'll have somewhere to turn when Graced Health wraps up. Today I'm talking with my friend Heather Creekmore, host of the Compared to Who podcast and author of several books, including Aging Gratefully. Heather and her husband Eric live in Austin with their four teenagers, and she's spent years helping women stop comparing and start living through a faith-based approach to body image.

Main Points Today:

1. Who Compared to Who is for

2. Heather's own story with body image
 

3. Body image in perimenopause and menopause

4. Value and worth don't erode with age
 

5. The "Gaining W.A.I.T." concept
 

6. Rethinking "love your body" language
 

7. Everyday language that reinforces diet culture
 

8. Where to start with Compared to Who
 

9. A note of hope
 

Listen to the Compared to Who Podcast

Connect with Heather

www.improvebodyimage.com

My latest recommended ways to nourish and move your body, mind and spirit: Nourished Notes Bi-Weekly Newsletter

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Connect with Amy:
GracedHealth.com
Instagram: @GracedHealth
YouTube: @AmyConnell

Transcript

Sunset Series: Heather Creekmore on the Spiritual Roots of Body Image

Graced Health Podcast

Amy Connell, Host

Heather Creekmore, Guest

Amy: Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Graced Health Podcast. We are in the middle of a sunset series. I hope you heard the episode sharing how we are coming to the end of the Graced Health Podcast. I have invited several podcasters who I know, who I trust, whose content I love, and I'm introducing them to you so that when Graced Health is not coming through your ears anymore, you have someone to turn to.

Today, I am talking with my friend, Heather Creekmore. Heather has been on the show a couple of times, and I'll include those episodes in the show notes. Heather writes and speaks hope to thousands of women each week, inspiring them to stop comparing and start living. Through her Bible teaching, she encourages women who are trying to live in the world but not of it.

She's host of the Compared to Who podcast and author of several books, including Aging Gratefully, which we talked about here when it came out — a devotional on aging for women in midlife. Heather and her fighter-pilot-turned-pastor husband, Eric, have four teenagers and live in Austin. Heather, welcome.

Heather Creekmore: Thanks so much for having me, Amy. It's a pleasure to be with you.

Amy: Oh, goodness, I'm glad to have you back. That Aging Gratefully devotional — I mean, all of your books are great, Heather, but that one in particular just hit right at the right time, so I highly recommend it to everyone. You've been on a few times, and we've talked about different topics, but in the spirit of this series, I just wanted to introduce you and Compared to Who as an option for something else to listen to when Graced Health isn't in your ears anymore. So I'd love for us to start, Heather, with you telling us about the woman who listens to Compared to Who. Who is she? What does she need most? What is she looking for when she hits play?

Heather Creekmore: Yeah. Well, my husband once heard that you reach who you are, and I think that's very much applied to my podcast, my books, and my ministry. Who I am is a woman who kind of thought she had the God-and-Jesus answers squared away — I'm set with all that — but really struggled with body and food and fitness. Looking back, I definitely had an eating disorder that was undiagnosed. I became a fitness instructor. I did all the things. If there's a plan out there, I'm sure I tried it, because my biggest struggle was always my body struggle.

Amy: I love that.

Heather Creekmore: It wasn't until I was in my late thirties that God revealed what the root of that struggle was. So that's what I'm talking about on the show each week — what are the spiritual roots of these issues? And we're practical. I think I've got a reputation for just laying it out as it is, with grace and with humor. But let's call it what it is.

I'm encouraging women who, like me, have wanted to honor their bodies, have wanted to steward their bodies well, have wanted to have a healthy Christian approach to taking care of their bodies, but who were maybe a little distracted by culture and diet culture's messages, and maybe got off track a little and have been confused about these things. On my show, we're just trying to sort it all out.

Amy: I love that, and I love the attitude of "we're just trying to sort it out," because it is — it's confusing, it's a lot. And I think if people are tuning in to you — most of my community is a faith-based community, we want a heart for the Lord — it's so easy for that heart to get pulled in other directions. I really appreciate that.

Heather, you and I are just about the same age — I think just a few months apart. Most of the women in my community are about my age, maybe a little older: forties, fifties, sixties. I've got some women in their seventies, which I just love. I love that they're continuing to learn, continuing to steward their bodies well. I'm wondering if you can speak to this perimenopause/menopause age and stage as it relates to Compared to Who and topics you discuss that would be relatable to my community.

Heather Creekmore: Yes. I think my people are the same age — we've got a few younger ones, which I love because maybe they'll get a head start on all this. But most of my listeners are in their forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies. This perimenopausal stage — I don't remember if it's the greatest or the second-greatest risk season for eating disorders —

Amy: Second greatest, yeah.

Heather Creekmore: — maybe you made it through your teens or twenties without it, and then you get to this place where hormones are changing, your body is changing. I've had that look in the mirror where I'm not sure who that is anymore.

Amy: Mm-hmm.

Heather Creekmore: I've also had the look in the mirror like, "Why is my mother staring back at me? When did this happen?" It's confusing, it's stressful. I don't know if you had Dr. Mikaela Albertson on your show — she's fantastic. I did an episode with her maybe six months ago, and we talked through the perimenopausal stage of life. I've had several guests on to talk about this season. But the important thing for those of us in this season is not to abandon everything we've learned just because our bodies are changing.

As it pertains to my top issue, body image — what does it mean to really still believe that you have value and worth that comes from God alone, even in a season where maybe you feel like your value is eroding because you don't look like you used to, or your worth is eroding because things are changing? Your kids might not be at home anymore. Maybe you're aging out of a career you've had. What does it look like to truly lean into the truth of Scripture — that as we age, we're not getting more irrelevant, but God has something still for us to do? That's the kind of encouragement I'm trying to give listeners in our season of life and beyond.

Amy: That's so needed. That's something I really struggled with in my second book, Your CORE Strength, because I felt so called to write it even though I wasn't necessarily consistently serving that age group — it was for teen girls. But I had so many women come to me after Your Worthy Body and say, "I need something like this for my daughters." I'd been teaching teen fitness classes, so I was in it.

Heather Creekmore: I almost felt inadequate going into those schools and groups of young women, because I felt like I had too much gray hair covered up by color, and wrinkles, and all of that.

Amy: And all of a sudden I'm not only looking older — I look older than a lot of their moms — and I'm thinking, "They don't want to be learning from me." So all of a sudden I'm just like, "Golly, I feel like I've aged out of this group I care so much about." That's a little bit of a tangent, but I totally know what you mean — women who have gone through all these ways their bodies have aged, gaining so much wisdom at the same time, but then still feeling like that doesn't necessarily translate well to who they're trying to serve. That's tough.

Heather Creekmore: It is. I have a chapter in the aging devotional called "Gaining Wait" — but "wait" spelled W-A-I-T — because don't we, in this season of life, focus on the pounds that are coming on and getting those pounds off? That can easily become our focus. But God has something for us to do. We are still called, we are still here on purpose for His purpose. What if instead of focusing on the pounds, we could focus on, "Okay, God, what do you have next for me?"

Amy: Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, that's the whole reason we're talking today — because God has said, "All right, we're going to step out of this, and I'm going to tell you what you're going to do next, because I did not design you to sit idly by. But you've got to be still, and you've got to spend time with me." I can't tell you how much I've been meditating on this concept of Sabbath and shalom and stillness — there's an "S" theme in there somewhere — but just waiting on that. Sorry, tangent again.

Heather Creekmore: Good stuff.

Amy: But yeah, that's the season we're in, I think. We've had conversations on the show about what we do when we turn sixty and all of a sudden start thinking differently than we used to — and the answer is, you have permission to change and to do new things. So, going back to Compared to Who — sorry, I keep taking these little tangents, like we're skiing between the trees and doing little jumps. I'm not landing very well, but that's okay.

Heather Creekmore: Love it.

Amy: We've had that happen at my house too. I don't do that anymore — not brave enough.

Heather Creekmore: Me neither.

Amy: Okay, so back to Compared to Who. I'm wondering if you've had any topics on your show that surprised you — maybe the topic took a turn while you were interviewing someone, or landed differently than expected. Any surprises, good or bad?

Heather Creekmore: Oh boy, all the time. One issue I've wrestled with for a long time is the "love your body" concept. When I first started this work, I was pretty much anti–"love your body." Let me explain: it felt like, in culture, that was supposed to be the answer. For anyone who's had body image issues as long as I had, it fell on deaf ears — like, I'm supposed to just flip a switch and go from hating my body to loving it? That's not possible.

What I saw in culture — on Instagram, and things have changed since I started this seven, eight, nine years ago — "love your body" as a mantra seemed to really be about pride. It was body pride: taking a picture of your stretch marks and cellulite and posting it because you're proud of it. We're not there anymore as a culture, but that's where we were when I started. So I was like, "No, I'm not saying love your body" — I avoided all that language because it just didn't resonate.

I had a guest on — she's not podcasting anymore either — her podcast was called Love Your Body, and her name was Amy too. We had a fantastic conversation, because it was basically semantics — she was using "love" like how we love our children: you care for them, you help them. She really challenged me not to be so afraid of that term. I've come a long way on that.

Recently I did a series — I guess it'll be a few months in the past by the time this episode airs — on the religious language we use around dieting. Amy, have you ever thought about the fact that we say certain items of clothing are "forgiving"? Forgiving us for what, exactly? Does my dress have the ability to actually forgive my body? So I took a couple of episodes to go through — do we even notice the language we use? Like, "this food is sinful," or "I'm tempted." There's so much nuance there that we've just come to accept. That's one I've had a lot of fun with recently — just exposing some of that.

Amy: Sure, yeah, I love it. I love thinking about — we were talking before we got on about awareness in general of different things, and I think that's a good awareness. To me, the whole "guilty pleasure" thing falls into that too — why does something have to make us feel guilty for having ice cream, or chocolate, or whatever it is? In whose court did we — right, exactly. I love it, I love it.

Okay, so if someone hasn't tuned into you yet — which I can't believe, I can't believe there hasn't been more crossover between my community and yours — where would you have them start if they haven't yet listened to Compared to Who?

Heather Creekmore: Yeah, on Spotify and Apple, the first episode is the trailer episode — I'd say listen to that first. In that episode I give my story and talk through the heart behind the show and who we're trying to reach. Then I'd say you could start with — I did a series you can find on my website, improvebodyimage.com, called "30 Days to Pray for Your Body and Your Body Image." I've gotten great feedback that it's a great place to begin. The episodes are short, ten minutes or less. You can just get your pump primed, I guess — does anyone prime a pump anymore? — just start to think about, "Okay, what am I really worried about or obsessing over when it comes to my body, and what should my prayer be around these things?" Most of us have prayed, "God, can you just zap me skinny before the event this weekend?" And we know how well that works out, or doesn't.

But what can we be seeking the Lord for around our bodies in a more spiritually healthy way? So that series might be a great place to start. I really love some of the interviews I've done over the last couple of years — I don't think you need to go back to the beginning. Like you, Amy, I think I have more than five hundred episodes now. And I love how you said a minute ago that we have permission to change — that's an interesting phenomenon when you have a public platform. I wrote a book in 2017, and there are things I'd probably take out of it if I were writing it today, ten years later. So you don't have to go all the way back to the beginning, or you might be confused. But there's good stuff sprinkled throughout.

Amy: Yes, that is good. I actually ended up putting some dynamic content at the end of every episode saying, "Hey, we're always evolving — episodes before November or January '24 may have hints of diet culture, so be forgiving." I totally get that.

All right, Heather, as we wrap up, I'm wondering if you could leave my listeners with a little bit of hope for their body image — just a little nugget from the beloved Heather Creekmore. No pressure.

Heather Creekmore: Oh boy. You know, the hope I would give — because what I find over and over again is a loss of hope. Most of us who have struggled with body image for most of our lives, for decades, have believed the lie that we'll always be this way, always feel this way about our bodies, always obsess over them. Maybe you've gone the route of, "Well, I'm trying to lose the weight, I'm trying to do the exercises, I'm trying to get my body to a place where I'll like it more or be happy with it," and it just doesn't work the way you thought it would. Maybe it worked for a week, a month, a year, but it doesn't stay — you bounce right back to, "Oh, now I need to change this, and now I need to change that."

So the hope I would give is: you don't have to stay there. There is absolutely a way out of obsessing over body image. I did a workbook called The 40 Day Image Workbook — help for Christian women who've tried everything — and I walk women through it every season in a group coaching program called The 40 Day Journey. Most women who come in are like, "Nope, there's no hope for me." The first thing we have to establish is, "No — there's hope." Because this isn't your thorn in the flesh, the cross God's asked you to bear, feeling bad about your body — that's not good theology. It's changeable, and it doesn't require you to change your body first. It's a heart issue. And so, there's hope.

Amy: Yeah, that's great wisdom. All right, Heather, thanks for coming on for this — one of these last episodes.

Heather Creekmore: Amy, let me just say publicly — thank you for shepherding your community well. It shows your kindness and your character to want to lead them well as you finish. Kudos on a fantastic run. What a great podcast you've had, and I know your women have been blessed by it.

Amy: Thank you. I care a lot about them, and I'll definitely miss them. Okay, that is all for today. Go out there and have a graced day.