In this episode, Melissa Johnson helps us overcome body shame and choose body love. Check out Melissa's Impossible Beauty podcast. Get your copy of Soul-Deep Beauty: Fighting for Our True Worth in a World Demanding Flawless.   Show Notes: Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Welcome, everyone. This is Dr. Saundra, and you're listening to I Choose My Best Life. Today, we're going to be talking about our bodies, our temple, and how do we stay in love with our bodies and not get into a place of comparison and shame when we look at all the social media pics and all the different magazine articles. So I have joining me today, Melissa Johnson. She is an eating disorder survivor, Christian spiritual director, and author of the book Soul Deep. Beauty, and I'm looking forward to this conversation so that we can get back on track with some healthy self-talk and a healthy understanding of what wellbeing really means. Melissa, thank you so much for joining me today. Melissa Johnson: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Let me have you start by just sharing a little bit about your journey. I know that you recovered from an eating disorder. What was the scenario around that, that led to even beginning in that journey? Melissa Johnson: Yeah, that's a great question. About eight or nine years ago, I was working as a licensed marriage and family therapist, and it came to my attention via my own therapist that I was seeing. She flagged some of the behaviors that I was having around food and movement and noted that she called it an eating disorder. And to be quite honest, I was really taken aback. I think part of it probably was denial. But also, I do think we have a lot of these messages in our culture that aren't so helpful when it comes to food and bodies and what we see as beauty and uphold as beauty. And I ended up having to pause my work as a marriage and family therapist to do some intensive work around an eating disorder. The book goes into detail about how that came about and a bit more about my journey, but By the time I got into treatment, I think I had been balancing somewhere on the spectrum between disordered eating and eating disorder for about a decade. And I think that's what I'm trying to point out in this book is that I think there are likely a lot more disordered relationships with food bodies in our end movement. Because of the disordered nature of our cultural narratives around these things, and yeah, I was in intensive eating disorder treatment for about nine to 12 months. And through that journey, I started to see the depths to which these ideas around beauty and body image. Were not only impacting the women and men in intensive eating disorder treatment but also I started to see these same beliefs and behaviors and struggles in my peers, in a lot of our messaging around that I would see on commercials, this idea we should shrink our bodies and restrict our food. And so the things that we'll be calling were called Disordered in treatment, we're actually being upheld in popular culture. And on the other side of this, of my treatment journey, I became very passionate about redefining beauty and what is it that we're shooting for. My working definition in the book and currently is redefining beauty as the life of God at work in us and among us. I love Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: that. And it's so true. Our culture really does. Set us at war with our bodies and the way that it oftentimes present things. There are lots of body shame issues. And as you mentioned, eating disorders can take on various forms of what that looks like. I think too often, when we say eating disorders, we're automatically thinking of bulimia or anorexia. Can you go in a little bit more depth? I love something that you shared, which is that there are spectrums. And different ways that we have disorganized relations or dysfunctional relationships with food and well-being practices. Can you go a little bit deeper into th