Can we talk about a phrase that makes a lot of Christians squirm? Self-love.

I'll be honest, for most of my adult life, I thought self-love was worldly. Anytime I entertained the idea of self-love, I felt guilty. I wanted to nourish myself, and yet I thought the holy thing to do was the opposite: push myself aside, keep myself small, and call it humility.

Only recently, while reading the Bible through God's perspective, did I start to see things differently. I realized self-love is not only biblical. It's foundational. That opened the door to rethinking what humility means. In my latest podcast conversation, I unpack that with Blake Guichet, host of The Speakeasy podcast and author of Confessions of a Crappy Christian.

Blake is one of my all-time favorite people to talk faith with, because she goes straight to the questions most of us are scared to ask out loud. This one hits home.

Read the full post: https://thelivingwell.com/373

Ready to edit your story? Join the next Freedom Story Workshop: https://thelivingwell.com/freedom-story

Also, be sure to subscribe to The Weekly Fill Newsletter. Inside the newsletter, you'll receive weekly reflections, practical health frameworks, and invitations to exclusive live conversations. Join here: https://www.thelivingwell.com/the-weekly-fill

Say this out loud: "I can't handle this. I'm so tired. Everything is falling apart."

Now notice your body. Did your shoulders creep up? Did your breath get shallow?

Now try this one: "This is hard, but I can handle it. I can let this be easy."

Feel the difference?

We spend so much time talking about what we eat, how we sleep, and how we move. But there's one thing running underneath all of it, every single day, that almost nobody is tracking. Your vocabulary. I call it the missing nutrient, because like food, your words either fill you up or drain you.

In this episode, I walk through what the research says about how language and your body's stress response are connected, what God says about the power of our words, and why so many of the things we say over ourselves are labels instead of descriptions. I also share 15 simple swaps to start speaking life over your body, and a five-step way to make them stick without faking positivity or pretending you feel great when you don't.

Your words won't override biology, and they won't replace your doctor. But they do shape your stress, and your stress shapes your body. And this is one of the few places in that chain where you get to choose.

Grab your coffee, press play, and let's start editing the story you're speaking over your life.

Read the full post with all 15 swaps: https://thelivingwell.com/372

Ready to edit your story? Join the next Freedom Story Workshop: https://thelivingwell.com/freedom-story

Also, be sure to subscribe to The Weekly Fill Newsletter. Inside the newsletter, you'll receive weekly reflections, practical health frameworks, and invitations to exclusive live conversations. Join here: https://www.thelivingwell.com/the-weekly-fill

Roughly ten years ago, I had a massive life crisis. I lost my health while doing everything right.

I'm still not sure whether the fall was more about the pain of trying so hard and ending up worse than I started, or the pride of working in a health space I apparently knew nothing about.

Of course, there were a lot of things at play. And somewhere in the middle of it, I started to realize I didn't even know who I was. I had been chasing ideas, places, and situations the world told me I needed to be, do, and become, with little regard for who I really was.

I'll be forever grateful for my counseling experience. But the point of therapy didn't really land until my last therapist.

Yes, I fired the first three, for reasons you may be familiar with. They weren't giving me what I wanted. Which was a completely new story. I did the work, but I expected the fix. And truthfully, I didn't know they weren't in charge of my fix. I was.

I hope that lands as hard for you as it did for me. If we're ever going to be different, live differently, or transform in whatever area we're longing for, the most important thing is self-responsibility.

Our healing is ultimately up to us. I see this play out all through the Bible. The people who received healing and miracles sought them out. The woman who pressed through the crowd to touch the hem of Jesus' garment. Blind Bartimaeus, who kept shouting even when people told him to be quiet. The friends who lowered a paralyzed man through a roof. They didn't sit back and wait, and they didn't put it on someone else. They wanted it, they chose it, and they believed it.

One of my favorite examples is a woman whose whole story changed in a single conversation at a well. I unpack her in Four Lessons from the Woman at the Well.

If you've ever waited on someone else to hand you the fix, today's podcast is for you. I go deeper into what finally shifted for me in that fourth counselor's office, why self-responsibility is the first step in changing your story, and how to stop outsourcing your healing without carrying it all alone. Grab your coffee, press play, and let me show you how to rewrite your story.

Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/371

Also, be sure to subscribe to The Weekly Fill Newsletter. Inside the newsletter, you'll receive weekly reflections, practical health frameworks, and invitations to exclusive live conversations. Join here: https://www.thelivingwell.com/the-weekly-fill