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Welcome back to Fierce Calling! In this important episode, host Doris Swift welcomes guest Heather Creekmore—a writer, speaker, coach, and the host of the popular “Compared to Who?” podcast—to talk about a struggle many women face but rarely speak about openly: body image. Heather shares her deeply personal journey, beginning in childhood and traveling through years of dieting, disordered eating, and the belief that changing her body would finally bring happiness. Even marriage and motherhood didn’t resolve her struggle—until a message about modern-day idolatry led to a powerful awakening in her heart.

Heather unpacks how cultural messages fuel our obsession with appearance, how comparison steals our joy, and why true freedom comes from understanding our God-given identity—not from pursuing the latest health trend or fitting into a certain pair of jeans. She also dives into her work coaching women, The 40-Day Body Image Workbook, and her devotional Aging Gratefully.

And you’ll love the story about her memorable appearance on Netflix’s “Nailed It!”—and what it taught her about real freedom.

Whether you’ve battled body image insecurities, comparison in any area of your life, or the pressures of aging in a looks-obsessed world, this honest and hope-filled conversation will inspire you to pursue joy, purpose, and your fierce calling right where you are. Get ready for truths, laughter, encouragement, and the reminder that you are so much more than a number on a scale or a face in the mirror.

We’re Talking About These Amazing Books & More!

Florida Women’s Ministry Leadership Conference mentioned in the intro:

Episode Highlights and Takeaways …

00:00 Unexpected Struggles with Eating Disorders

08:13 “Discovering Modern Idolatry Challenges”

14:37 “Overcoming Idolatry and Distractions”

19:11 Challenging Self-Worth and Body Image

22:48 Love Language Pitfalls for Women

28:05 Diet Trends Roller Coaster

38:01 Encouragement, Laughter, and Scale Reality

40:56 “Aging Gracefully Through Inner Beauty”

44:17 “Inner Beauty Over Outer Appearance”

51:51 “Wisdom through Experience and Guidance”

54:47 “Baking Show: Embrace Imperfection”

01:00:50 “Community and Connection for Women”

Connect with Heather!

You can connect with Heather through her website and social media links below:

Website: https://www.improvebodyimage.com

https://www.facebook.com/heathercreekmoreblog

https://www.youtube.com/comparedtowho

https://www.instagram.com/comparedtowho

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/compared-to-who/id1448403677

Heather Creekmore writes and speaks hope to thousands of women each week, inspiring them to stop comparing and start living. She’s the host of the Compared to Who? podcast and the author of four books, including The 40-Day Body Image Workbook: Hope for Christian Women Who’ve Tried Everything and Aging Gratefully , a new devotional on aging for women in midlife. Heather has been featured on Fox News, Huff Post, Morning Dose, Church Leaders, For Every Mom, and dozens of other shows and podcasts. But she’s best recognized from her appearance as a contestant on the Netflix hit show, Nailed It. Heather and her fighter-pilot-turned-pastor husband, Eric, have four children and live in Austin, Texas. Connect with Heather at: www.improvebodyimage.com

What Threatens to Steal Your Joy?

Check out Surrender the Joy Stealers: Rediscover the Jesus Joy in You 6-week Bible study rooted in John 15. You can find more info at https://dorisswift.com/book/

Let’s Stay Connected!

Find my free resources including Fear Fighting Bible Verses, Simple Tips for Sharing Your Faith, Surrender the Joy Stealers, Step Out of Your Doubt and Into Your Calling ebook, and more on my dorisswift.com homepage!

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Thanks for Listening!

I hope this episode encouraged, inspired, and challenged you to cultivate community, live and walk in the value, purpose, and worth God gave you, and take action where your passion, compassion, and conviction intersect.

If you’re looking for a speaker for your next women’s conference, retreat, luncheon, or workshop, reach out and connect with me on my speaker page at https://www.womenspeakers.com/florida/edgewater/speaker/doris-swift

Let’s have a chat about your next event!

Stay tuned for more amazing content and remember to check the show notes for all the links mentioned.

Thank you for being a part of our community. We are grateful for your continued support and encourage you to embrace the unique gifts that make you magnificently you.

I hope you’ll join me next time when I talk with another guest who is taking action where her passion, compassion, and conviction intersect …

Until then friend, have a blessed week, and I’ll talk to you soon.

With love and joy,

Doris

P.S. Don’t forget to follow us on social media for bite-sized wisdom and inspiration from Doris and our incredible guests!

Transcript

Doris Swift [00:01:57]:

What is threatening to steal your joy? What is it that feels so heavy right now that you could barely stand? God has a plan. And his plan is to surrender it. Surrender it to him. It might be a prodigal, it might be a relationship, a marriage, something with your job. So many things. We have so many amazing blessings, but there are so many things in our life that threaten to steal our joy. I’m Doris Swift, author of the award winning six week Bible study, Surrender the joy Stealers, Rediscover Jesus joy in you. Using personal biblical stories I share how you can identify your joy stealers, surrender them to God, reawaken the joy within and share the joy with others.

Doris Swift [00:02:49]:

You can do it on your own or with a group. Check it out, friends. Surrender the joy stealers, Rediscover the Jesus joy in you. It’s available on all the online retailers. It’s time to take your joy back, friends.

Doris Swift

Welcome back to the show. Today I’m very excited to welcome my friend Heather Creekmore. She writes and speaks hope to thousands of women each week, inspiring them to stop comparing and start living.

Doris Swift [00:03:18]:

And she’s the host of the popular Compared to Who podcast where she presents a biblical approach to body image so that we really need to hear. And she’s the author of four books including The 40 Day Body Image workbook: Hope for the Christian Women who’ve tried Everything and Aging Gratefully. And that is an amazing book. It’s a devotional on aging for women in midlife. She’s wife to Eric, who is a fighter pilot turned pastor husband. She’s mom to four. They live in Austin, Texas. And she might be best recognized for her appearance on a popular Netflix show.

Doris Swift [00:03:57]:

Nailed it. So we’re gonna maybe hear a little bit about that. So welcome to the show, Heather. It’s great to have you on.

Heather Creekmore [00:04:04]:

Oh, it’s so great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Doris Swift [00:04:06]:

Doris, I am so happy to have you here and talk about this because it’s, it’s really an important subject for women. I know men struggle with it too, actually, but primarily your, your ministry is to women. So I would love if you would share a little bit about your story and how you’re taking action where your passion, compassion and conviction intersection.

Heather Creekmore [00:04:31]:

Well, Doris, I like to say that this is one place I never expected to take action, never hoped to take action, never wanted anyone to know the depths of my struggles with my body. I started struggling, I would say, in elementary school. By middle school, I was dieting with my mom. By high school, I had And I say this tongue in cheek and very sensitively, but I had become a quote unquote, better dieter in that I could go long periods of time without eating, didn’t recognize that I had any kind of eating disorder. By the time I got to college, I had lost my period for about 9, 10 months and was told it was just stress. And this, you know, Doris, this is back in the early 90s. And so there was only a couple categories for eating disorders back then. And I wasn’t severely underweight, so I didn’t look like I had anorexia and I wasn’t able to throw up, so I didn’t fit the bulimia category.

Heather Creekmore [00:05:30]:

And so I just was a normal girl with normal girl problems and normal girl problems being. I had this compulsion, drive, need to always try to look better. And, you know, I mean, specifically looking better meant always trying to get thinner. Right? But it was, it was more than that, especially at various points in my life. And, and what I need you to hear and your listeners to understand is that I was raised in a Christian home. I went to Christian school, I went to Christian college. So I knew the God and Jesus answers. I knew I was fearfully and wonderfully made.

Heather Creekmore [00:06:12]:

I knew that God looked at my heart and not my gene size. Right? I. I knew all the things, but it didn’t actually help me. I still struggled. I still very much kind of led a dichotomized life of, okay, I’m a good Christian. And really what the most important thing in my life is is to try to, like, fix this body of. And it really wasn’t until. So I didn’t get married until I was 31.

Heather Creekmore [00:06:39]:

I met my husband at 30. And so all through my 20s, I struggled, like, really to the point of I became a fitness instructor because I thought that would solve it. You know, my eating was severely disordered, but didn’t have anyone to tell me that was the case. And I really kind of thought maybe my problem is that I’m not married. Right? Like, maybe women who are married don’t struggle with all this body stuff because they’ve had it, man. Tell them they’re good enough now. I think that’s. Laugh out loud.

Heather Creekmore [00:07:09]:

That’s a joke, right?

Doris Swift [00:07:10]:

Lol.

Heather Creekmore [00:07:11]:

Yeah, right. But I thought maybe getting married would solve it. And of course it didn’t. And then I was mad at my husband. You were supposed to fix this. I had great hope you were going to fix this. And he didn’t. He couldn’t.

Heather Creekmore [00:07:28]:

And then I started having babies because we got married at 31. We were like, we need to start family right away if we’re going to do this. And so I was pregnant. I have four kids, four and under, no twins. So from like 31 to 37, pregnant or breastfeeding that whole time period, which, it takes its own unique toll on body image, as you understand. And so it really wasn’t until I was in my late 30s that God started to speak to me about my body image issues in a way that was so different than anything I’d ever heard before. And really, the vehicle used was my husband was preparing to go into ministry. So he was a Marine fighter pilot.

Heather Creekmore [00:08:13]:

We were, you know, doing the military thing, but he was getting out and he was going to go into ministry. And so he’s listening to a lot of sermons. And this was in the day before we all had little buds in our ears to listen privately. So he’s listening to something that’s got to be blaring through the house. And I heard Pastor Tim Keller talk about modern day idolatry. And like I said, raised in church, been a Christian since I was, you know, old enough to say the words Jesus came into my heart. But I had never heard anyone speak about modern day idolatry in a way that resonated with me. And as I heard Keller’s words, the Holy Spirit kind of whispered to my heart, heather, this is your problem with your body.

Heather Creekmore [00:08:57]:

It’s not about your body. It’s not about fixing your body. You thought a better body would save you, and it’s not going to. And, Doris, that changed everything for me. Like, I would love to tell you that. So the next morning, I woke up and I didn’t get on the scale, and I didn’t look in the mirror. And that’s not true. Okay? That’s.

Heather Creekmore [00:09:14]:

It was a process, right? But it was a step that I didn’t even know I needed to take, which was recognizing really my huge idolatry struggle and repenting of that. Because even inside the church, all that I had heard was really kind of a Christianized version of what the world was teaching. It was a Christianized version of being positive about your body. It was Christianized self esteem. Like, just love yourself more and then you’ll be free. And. And I had tried all the things. I mean, I had read every book there was.

Heather Creekmore [00:09:56]:

Like, I tried to just, you know, chant, I am fearfully and wonderfully made into the mirror. And I couldn’t get it to work. And this idolatry piece just. It made something snap. For me. And I realized, oh, this isn’t just a normal girl problem. This isn’t just something I have to struggle with because I was born female. And this is what women do.

Heather Creekmore [00:10:23]:

Women worry about how they look. And this has to be a life quest, making sure you look better. I was like, no, this is actually, at its root, there’s a sin issue here. And so once I recognized that, I kind of started doing a little local teaching around it and really felt called around the age of 40 to go ahead and write a book on the topic, just on my journey. And it’s been very unexpected in some ways, of how well it resonated with women, because there were so many women like me who grew up in church and have just been trying. Trying to kind of chant themselves better. Lack of a better word, right? Like, I know. I know I’m fearfully, wonderfully.

Heather Creekmore [00:11:03]:

I know that God loves me just the way, like, you know, trying to say these things themselves and not getting anywhere and recognizing that piece of. Well, wait a second. First, you have to kind of understand what. What was I really looking for in body improvement? What was I really looking for in my quest to be more beautiful? And really what it was I was looking for, Doris. And I’ve now heard this story over and over again with the hundreds of women I’ve had the opportunity to work with, right? But it’s recognizing, oh, that was a false salvation. I really thought that I needed God and Jesus for heaven, but for now, what I needed was, was to look better. And then I would never be rejected. I would have more friends.

Heather Creekmore [00:11:48]:

I’d have more career success, right? Like, life would just be sunshine and rainbows if I could just look a little bit more like that woman on the magazine cover. And it was a lie, right? That’s. That’s a false gospel. And we know intellectually it’s not true, right? Because you read. You see that magazine cover, and you’re like, oh, she looks too good in that bathing suit. Oh, I don’t want to see that. But then if you read the headlines around her, her life’s not perfect, right? Like, my struggle with addiction. You know, how I dealt with him cheating.

Heather Creekmore [00:12:22]:

You know, you can read the headlines around these women and see that having the perfect body according to our culture, that looking beautiful according to our culture doesn’t give you everything it promises to give you, right? We still have struggle in this life, no matter what we look like. And so for me, recognizing, oh, wait a second. I’ve been chasing this idol, it was making false Promises to me, it was distracting me from my real purpose and calling in Christ Jesus and what he wanted me to do with my life. Self improvement, getting more beautiful is not a life calling. Right. And it changed everything.

Doris Swift [00:13:00]:

It’s not a spiritual gift.

Heather Creekmore [00:13:01]:

Yeah, right, right.

Doris Swift [00:13:04]:

Yeah. Wow. Thank you for sharing that powerful story. And I know that it does resonate with so many and so many that are listening right now. And first of all, too, I want to thank you for sharing your relationship story, your marriage story, because there may be a woman listening right now who is yearning for a husband or, you know, praying for a spouse. People keep asking, when are you going to get married? Or. And that’s kind of hard because that’s sometimes a cultural issue. But, you know, getting married at 31 and then you had your children and all that.

Doris Swift [00:13:42]:

So I think that right there is going to encourage someone listening, but, you know, definitely to bring out the point that that didn’t fix what was the problem. And when you heard what was the problem that day, when God opened your ears and your heart to what the real true struggle was, I. I feel it so powerful because naming it is so important. When we can put a name to something that is the struggle, that’s the underlying issue. You know, it’s not necessarily the symptom that it’s kind of like when you go to the doctor and, you know, you hate when you go to the doctor and they just want to give you a prescription to mask the symptoms or get rid of the symptoms. And it’s like, no, I want to find out what is actually wrong, you know, what is causing these symptoms. And so that was pretty golden right there. To look at it from the biblical perspective of it actually being a sin issue.

Doris Swift [00:14:37]:

Because once we uncover that God helps us uncover these things, then it can be dealt with in a biblical way and to take care of it God’s way instead of our own way, because we try to make it our own way all the time, you know, try to take control of things and basically we can lose control, but also bringing out the fact that it’s a form of idolatry when we have so much focus on something and it just distracts us from the word, it distracts us from God. You know, it distracts us from our calling, from our purpose, from what God wants to do in and through us, and keeps us also isolated. Because I don’t know if you’ve experienced it, but I have. I mean, in certain times where I don’t really want to go anywhere because, oh, I don’t look a certain way or, you know, in those images that are airbrushed anyway. Okay. And all the filters and all of that, it’s kind of crazy, but I. Yeah, I just love that. And I would love if you would expand a little bit more about how this connects with your books that you have writ

Doris Swift [00:15:48]:

And. And it was also important for you to bring out the fact that sometimes we’re giving given, like, I don’t want to say, like, biblical truth is a catchphrase or something like that, but sometimes we try to give canned answers and try to, like you say, almost chant things to ourselves, which. That doesn’t sound biblical to me. And so how do you help women in actually receiving that and uncovering what’s truly the issue?

Heather Creekmore [00:16:17]:

So, like I said, I wrote my first book at 40. I’m now 51. I’ve been this journey for 14, 15 years now. And, you know, in writing my first book, I realized that, you know, this idolatry piece was key. But, Doris, I just was going to write a book. I wasn’t actually going to work with women. I was going to write a book, put my story out there, and then, like, you know, go hide in a cave or something. Yeah.

Doris Swift [00:16:44]:

Do with it what you will.

Heather Creekmore [00:16:46]:

Yeah, right, right. And. But what happened was I had women reaching out to me saying, can you help me? Can you help me? And so that was kind of my journey into coaching by accident, really. But what I do is I really walk women through finding the spiritual roots of their body image issues. And so that. That led to my book that my. It’s really my most recent book, the 40 Day Body Image Workbook. Which workbook might make it sound like there’s a lot of empty space, but it’s really a book.

Heather Creekmore [00:17:17]:

It has as many pages and words as a real book. It just has some spaces throughout for you to answer some questions that’ll really challenge you to think about where your body image issues came from. And so the process that I use with women and the process that’s kind of laid out a little bit in that book is digging into, like, why do I believe the things I believe? And really, I like to say that body image issues are more a problem of theology than biology, because so often we believe and what the marketers have tried to sell us, right. That if you can just fix your skin, fix your weight, fix your hair, fix your muscle tone, if you can just fix all these things and then get the Right. Clothes to wear on this new body of yours. You won’t struggle anymore. The. But I speak to women every single week who have reached their goal weight, who have gotten the look they thought would make them happy.

Heather Creekmore [00:18:16]:

And not only is there the challenge of you have to stay there or you have to keep improving, right? Because people stop complimenting you. You know, you lose a bunch of weight. The compliments stop after the first three weeks, right? Like, everyone’s noticed, okay? Now it’s just your normal. And you don’t get that same buzz from their attention anymore. And then it’s like, what do I have to do next? What do I have to do next? Or you’ve got all this pressure. I’ve got to there. I’ve got to stay there. They don’t accept me.

Heather Creekmore [00:18:42]:

Otherwise, I’ve got to stay there. Right? And so in some ways, when we pursue a lot of body change and there’s. There’s actually studies out there that prove this. People who have lost a bunch of weight or. Or undergone, you know, significant physical changes, they actually become more body focused instead of less body focused. So the lie from culture is you just fix it all. Then you don’t have to worry about your body anymore, and it doesn’t work out that way. You try to fix it all, and you end up more focused on it all.

Heather Creekmore [00:19:11]:

It becomes even more important to you. And so I try to just walk women through a process of, like, understanding, like, what they’re believing about themselves, what they’re believing about their value and their worth, where those lies came from, and then really trying to help them get to better, meatier answers. Because like you said, Doris, like, when. When a friend comes up to you and is like, oh, I just look so fat today, or I look so old today, or just don’t u. Oh, I just hate this about my body. What do we often say? We either kind of dismiss them, like, oh, what are you talking about? Or we play this little game which I like to call who’s the most hideous ogre? And instead of saying, you know, you look fine. Have you seen my stomach? Have you seen my wrinkles? Right? And we try to, like, help them by comparing ourselves to them, and it becomes this weird, like, who’s ugliest? Like, contest. And it doesn’t work, right? No one leaves that interaction feeling better.

Heather Creekmore [00:20:11]:

Like, oh, you’re right. Look awesome, right? It’s completely ineffective, right? And then there are some things, like in the church even, that we’ve said to women, you know, like, well, God loves you just the way you are, or God made you beautiful. God made every woman beautiful, Right? But deep down, Doris, you hear that and you’re like, God made everyone beautiful. Well, then, man, God kind of cheated me because I don’t look like Heidi Klum. Like, like, how, like, how is this fair? Like, beautiful is very subjective in this context, right? And so. So what are the answers that our hearts need to hear? And so I talk to women about, like, you know, really getting to the truth of, like, you are more than a body. You were made on purpose for his purpose. God is not surprised by what you look like.

Heather Creekmore [00:21:08]:

But you know what? How he made your body and what you look like is not stopping or inhibiting your calling and purpose one bit. I use the illustration of, I got really short, stubby fingers here, hold them up for your YouTube audience. I’ve got short, stubby fingers. Always have. I would never be a hand model. Just they would not take me, okay? But the kind of cool thing now as I recognize, okay, how did God make my body on purpose for his purpose? I type super fast imf, super fast typist. So although he didn’t create me to be a hand model, perhaps he did create me to do the writing and the typing that I do. And similarly, everyone listening today, like, God has equipped you fully for whatever he has for you to do in this life.

Heather Creekmore [00:22:01]:

And so stop looking at her or her or her and saying, I wish I was more like that. Then I could do that. I wish I was more like that. Then I could do that and say, no, God, how did you make my body? What did you make me for? Show me what you want to do with me.

Doris Swift [00:22:16]:

Yeah. Wow, that is so powerful. And I love how you were talking about it because it. It almost can become like a drug that we need affirmation all the time. Like hearing what people say and then it goes away. So we’re basing our worth and our value on what people say about us or to us. Because I know, I’ve often talked about it too. Like, I have really come a long way, and I’ve worked through my issues with people pleasing and words of affirmation.

Doris Swift [00:22:48]:

Because, yes, it’s one of the five love languages, okay? But I always caution women, Women, because we can take that to an extreme, like, of thinking, well, if they didn’t say, I look nice today, then I must not look nice because they didn’t say it. And, you know, they’ve learned from their mom, if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. So I figured, you know, just the quietness is like affirmation of, oh, I didn’t. I don’t look good, or, oh, I didn’t do a good job. Because they didn’t say, I did a good job, so I must not have done so. You know, those kind of things can really play on our minds and also become idolatry. But as you were sharing that, none of this really is going to fulfill. And those statistics are startling that you talked about that even once women maybe achieve their goal weight or get to where they think they should be, they’re not still happy.

Doris Swift [00:23:41]:

I mean, there’s still something to pick apart. And when we do do that, we are guilty of doing that, where we try to make someone feel better by making ourselves seem like we’re worse than they are. It’s like, what’s that about? Like, where did we learn that? And I know it’s. It’s culture, right? So women battle with culture. And plus, what are the younger women seeing and hearing from us? So if you can also expand a little bit about that, because that is a powerful thing. We forget that our daughters, our granddaughters, our. Our girls that we’re leading in youth group, you know, are looking at us and hearing what we’re saying.

Heather Creekmore [00:24:21]:

They’re hearing what we’re saying, Doris, but they’re also watching what we’re doing, right? And I think sometimes that speaks much louder than what we’re saying. I remember my daughter was very little, and I was putting on makeup, and I remember her saying, mommy, why you always frown in the mirror? And that was huge conviction for me because I was like, she’s watching how I look at myself in the mirror. And at that time, we had a struggle with her. She was probably. Let’s call her three or four years old. We had a hard time getting her to brush her teeth because she would smile at herself. So fear would be like, come on, you gotta focus. You know, brush those teeth.

Heather Creekmore [00:25:02]:

We gotta get to bed. So we teach them to stop smiling at themselves in the mirror, right? We show them that real women obsess over these things. Real women nitpick their bodies. Real women, you know, objectify other women and believe that we should look like women we see in the media or on our screens, right? Like, it’s. It’s horrible lessons that we’re teaching them, Doris. I mean, and I. So I wrote a book called Aging Gratefully. And it’s really just speak.

Heather Creekmore [00:25:38]:

It’s a devotional. So it’s speaking to women about aging and how we can kind of change our attitudes towards aging. Right? Because culture’s attitude towards aging is. Aging is awful. Aging is a death sentence. Right. And so more data coming at you. Did you know that 25 year olds struggle with aging more than any other age group? It’s a phenomena called Jurassic phobia, and it’s fear of aging, and it’s 25 year olds that have a bigger fear of aging than any other age group out there.

Heather Creekmore [00:26:07]:

Right. And of course, we know now Botox use is highest amongst those women really ages 25 to 40. Right. So Botox to take care of the wrinkles we get after age 40 for most of us, right. We’re trying to prevent those. Like, so it’s, it’s interesting what we’ve done, and I’m not proud of being a part of that. Right. But it’s interesting what we’ve done as a generation to show the generation behind us that the worst thing that can happen to a woman is that she would you lose her youthful look, that she would lose her beauty as she ages.

Heather Creekmore [00:26:44]:

Like, we’ve believed all those lies and reinforced them. And so my book, Aging Gratefully, is to try to encourage women to take a new twist on looking at aging the way the Bible looks at aging. Right. Because aging is a gift. But, but yes, in terms of how we show that next generation what, what’s truly valuable. I mean, I think, I think we have work to do, especially Christian women within the church. We have just, just gone in tow, in step with culture, trying to do all the same things they’ve done. I mean, Doris, I like.

Heather Creekmore [00:27:18]:

So this is my little funny, this is my little funny bit here. But it’s embarrassing at the same time. But you know, in 1991, culture told me that I should just eat plain bagels, right? And I couldn’t eat butter. I had to eat margarine if I ate any kind of fat at all, right? And avocados were going to kill me because they were so full of fat, right? That’s how we ate in the late 80s, early 90s. We ate Special K cereal four or five times a day as the Special K diet. That was how you lost lost weight, Right? And then let’s fast forward about 12, 13 years to the early 2000s. We stopped eating so many carbs and we started eating protein, right? So you’re only eating nuts. Avocados are still meh.

Heather Creekmore [00:28:05]:

Probably don’t need any bread, Right. Eggs are now labeled gluten free. You know, all the silly things, right? And then fast forward a Couple more years, right? And enter the age of keto and Atkins diet. Right? And, and, and so in my lifetime of dieting between 1991 and let’s call it 2018, I’m standing in my kitchen with a jar of coconut oil, a mound of almonds, you know, a pound of ghee, and I’m supposed to make something called a fat bomb, because now I’m supposed to only eat fat to get skinny, whereas just 20 years earlier, I was supposed to not eat fat to get skinny. I mean, it’s a roller coaster that we have been on with diet trends and the way we. Cultural trends around the way we eat. And it just keeps changing, right? Like carbs are back in style, like, not fully yet because there’s too many people still avoiding them, but they’re coming. Just bark my words, right? Because there’s only three macronutrients that God created our bodies to live on.

Heather Creekmore [00:29:08]:

Fats, carbohydrates, and protein. You need all three, right? And so when you deprive your system of one for too long of a period of time, that’s all you’re going to want. And the marketers know that. And so that’s going to come back. And. But Doris, to my point is we just followed along. We just followed whatever they tell us we follow, whatever the newest sciences we follow. Right.

Heather Creekmore [00:29:34]:

And I’m not. Science is not bad. There’s a lot of useful things that come out. I’m not, I’m not saying anything like that at all. But I’m just saying, as Christian women, right, when are we going to stop just blindly following? When are we going to get off the roller coaster that we’ve been on around taking care of our body and go back to the one who designed our bodies and say, hey, God, how. How would you like me to take care of this body? Show me what’s best for this unique body you made for me. Show me how to take care of it. Right? Versus, like, oh, that influencer did that and that influencer.

Heather Creekmore [00:30:08]:

I mean, we can drive ourselves crazy trying to follow these different influencers.

Doris Swift [00:30:14]:

Yeah.

Heather Creekmore [00:30:14]:

And we’ve got access to the one who created us. Why don’t we use it?

Doris Swift [00:30:18]:

Amen. You know, and, yeah, the messages are so confusing and conflicting. So we live in a. In a state of like, what do I do? What do I not do? And it, it can be just, like, crazy with how it messes up our system and our gut and all of that stuff. And just going by whatever the fad is, the latest fad, and, and it may not be healthy for everyone. And then you see all of these ads, okay? So when I was growing up, we didn’t have social media. We didn’t even have the Internet, okay? So, hey, I am aging gratefully, okay? So that kind of shows my age. But it was, you know, we still saw the magazines, we still saw the TV shows and what the image was supposed to be like, this is what a woman’s supposed to look like kind of thing.

Doris Swift [00:31:08]:

And comparing ourselves to that. And now though, with social media, it’s just everywhere. And the ads that I know I get pushed all the time, like on Instagram is like, you know that doctor that talks about the crepey skin and they have celebrities talking about all of that. And you just, you know, and you, you’ve kind of grown to trust these people because you know them from TV and whatever, or if someone’s a doctor, they must know what they’re talking about. And you just wind up spending all of this money on things that really don’t fix the actual problem. So financially, I mean, we have to be good stewards of the body God’s given us and the finances he provides. And so getting to the root of it is what really is going to help us be free. So really what we’re looking at here is we need that freedom, freedom in Christ, because we are following all these false, false teaching.

Doris Swift [00:32:09]:

I mean, it’s just like if you went into your church and you heard all of a sudden this off the wall message and going, wait a second, that’s not in the Bible, or that’s not the gospel, that’s a false gospel, you know. And so we try to educate ourselves by reading the Word and knowing what the Word says and comparing the word that we hear to the word of God to make sure it lines up. And it’s the same with this body image stuff. And you know, I don’t know about you, but mirrors and scales, like, was that from the devil?

Heather Creekmore [00:32:43]:

I don’t know. Let’s talk about that a second. So in the book of. Oh goodness, I think it’s an exodus, but it might be in Deuteronomy. You know, that’s the perimenopause brain I’ve got going on right now, Taurus. But, but when they built the tabernacle, the Israelite women melted down their mirrors to make basins for the entrance to the tabernacle. And as I’ve studied this a little bit, it’s kind of interesting because mirrors were like a super big deal to the Egyptian women whom The Israelite women would have learned from. Right.

Heather Creekmore [00:33:21]:

And they believed they were kind of, I don’t know, connecting with the sun because of the way the mirrors would reflect. And so there was some, you know, idol worship, false God worship involved there. Right. But the Israelite women cherished their mirrors because they were such a prized possession of the Egyptian women. Right. But they had to melt their mirrors as a symbolic sacrifice when the tabernacle was built. I thought that was fascinating. Second thing, wow.

Heather Creekmore [00:33:50]:

People didn’t have scales in their homes until about 100 years ago. Think about that. People didn’t know how much they weighed. For most of history, people had no idea how much they weighed. It wasn’t a thing. Right. And so it’s fascinating now it’s a thing. Well, it’s not just a thing.

Heather Creekmore [00:34:13]:

Right. It’s a very important thing that’s put in front of our faces as one of the key attributes about ourselves. Right. Because. And then it’s linked to all these health things, which some. Okay. Of course there are some things we can do to promote health for ourselves. Of course there’s wise decisions we can make, but we don’t have complete control over that.

Heather Creekmore [00:34:34]:

Right. And so for me to even chase health as my primary purpose in life, or chase getting that scale to read a different number so I can be healthier. And oh, by the way, there’s data around that too, that’s kind of interesting because really the most dangerous thing for your body is going up and down, up and down, up and down on that scale. Not staying at a number, even if it’s a heavier number. There’s all kinds of interesting data around about that. But. But it’s just, it’s a fruitless chase. Right.

Heather Creekmore [00:35:01]:

We know, we know we’re aging. We know we’re changing. We know these bodies are. What’s the word? Decaying. I’m trying to think of how Scripture says it, right? Like it’s not very positive the way it’s phrase. Right. But like, you only have one option and that is to die.

Doris Swift [00:35:21]:

Right.

Heather Creekmore [00:35:21]:

At some point that is inevitable. Yeah, right.

Doris Swift [00:35:24]:

Continue to decay.

Heather Creekmore [00:35:25]:

Right. So, like, this is super upper for your audience here today, but the reality is, Doris, as I think about my life. Okay, so you talked about how much money we’ve wasted. Right. And being good steward. But I just think about how much time I’ve wasted and it makes me sad, the decades and all the money, but the decades I spent thinking that one of my primary purposes was to try to have a smaller or healthier or better looking Body. It was a waste. It really was.

Heather Creekmore [00:35:58]:

Like, I wasn’t. You know, I mean, goodness. Every woman that’s been on a diet knows you’re not your best self when you’re on a diet. Like, you might feel a little better, but it takes so much energy and brain power. How many invitations to actually be hospitable or be with other people in community do you have to sacrifice because it’s not on your diet, Right? Like, it costs us something. And I think when you actually look at what it costs and okay, if you’re. If we’re talking about just doing it one time in your life for six weeks, that’s one thing, but that’s not what most of us are talking about. The average woman has been on more than 30 diets, right? That’s average.

Heather Creekmore [00:36:39]:

I think most Christian women that I have interacted with have been on two or three new diets every year for decades. Right? How much has this cost us? And like you, I love the way that you use the word freedom. That’s the word I use all the time, right? What we really need is rest. So what we really need is freedom, the joy, the peace. The rest we’re looking for from that next diet or from that next health plan is not going to come from that next diet or next health plan, just like it didn’t come from the one before. There’s no golden ticket. There’s no magic unicorn, right? It’s. It’s coming back to know Jesus like, you’re the only one that can offer me true rest and true peace and true joy and true fulfillment.

Heather Creekmore [00:37:25]:

Help me, Lord, to see who youo made me to be. Aside from seeing myself as just a body or just a body that needs to change or just a body that needs to be improved. Prove before you can use me. No, it’s. Lord, show me what you have for me to do right now, today and what I found. I love that your podcast is fierce calling, because once you can figure out what that purpose is, it’s amazing how your body and what it looks like doesn’t seem to matter quite as much. You find the freedom in pursuing what he made you to do, not in pursuing getting a certain kind of body.

Doris Swift [00:38:01]:

Yes. Wow, that is awesome wisdom right there. And just sharing that message of encouragement. And it is good. I mean, we can laugh at some of these things that we were talking about, because, hey, the Bible says, you know, a merry heart is good, like a medicine, right? And so it’s good to laugh about these things, but you know how you Were just talking about it being such a focus and how women, the average woman has been on 30 diets. Now I have to say I’m guilty of, like, worshiping the scale. Okay? I have one of those that read whatever, and it gives you all the readings and all that. But then when you think about it, what’s the first thing you do when they call you back from the waiting room at the doctor? You go right to the scale.

Doris Swift [00:38:43]:

Like, that’s exactly where you go. And then you stand there and, you know, it’s like, oh, I. Maybe I won’t eat as much before I go to the doctor, so it’ll. It’ll be a lower number. Or maybe I. I’ve literally said to myself, I’m not going to wear those shoes because those definitely weigh more than these shoes do. I mean, I’ve said that and I have, you know, been guilty of it. Now I will say, like, when I’ve actually lost weight, it has helped, like my liver enzymes and those kind of things.

Doris Swift [00:39:15]:

But. And we’re not saying that it’s evil to lose weight, but it’s, It’s. It’s a sin to kind of focus on it as an idol or as the end all of everything and taking us from what God’s called us to do. I mean, we can look at it from a biblically healthy perspective and, yeah, be in shape, but don’t, like, obsess at the gym for hours. You know, that’s not healthy, really. I mean, it may seem healthy. Healthy to be at the gym for hours, but, you know, just do what God has called us to do. And like you said, when we are serving and operating in our gifts, in our wheelhouse, when we’re looking outward and serving others, it takes so much focus on our inward, you know.

Doris Swift [00:39:59]:

But I was thinking earlier, it’s kind of funny because, you know, we see. Even in high school, I’ve kind of. I remember this. It’s like you might see a really pretty girl and she’s like. Seems beautiful and, oh, I wish I looked like her. And then she kind of opens her mouth and not so beautiful stuff comes out. So it’s like all of a sudden it kind of morphs her actual image of. Of that.

Doris Swift [00:40:21]:

So, you know, the inner beauty. I know we hear a lot about that. So if you might talk a little bit about that. And then. Yeah. Any other encouraging word from your aging gratefully? Because, you know, we’ve heard aging gracefully, which is. Which is beautiful. But aging gratefully is such a twist on that.

Doris Swift [00:40:41]:

And that this book is not just for women who are aging. We’re all aging, basically, so not to look at it, you know, I mean, these girls that are teenagers need to read this book. I mean, you know, so maybe talk a little bit about that.

Heather Creekmore [00:40:56]:

Yeah, well, you know, the. One of the main themes in aging gratefully really is that no matter what culture is telling us about the downside of aging, the Bible has a different. A different answer, right? The Bible says that. That those years are a gift and he has something for us to do as we age. And I often wondered, you know, as our outsides change and dare I say change, so we’re not as culturally beautiful as maybe we were when we were younger or maybe the standard of beauty that’s set before us, right? We kind of only have one choice, and that’s to increase our inner beauty, right? Because we can continue to try to chase the outer beauty, right? But, you know, like, you can get all the surgeries and stuff that doesn’t normally end up looking very good, right? I mean, you know, sure, you can get away with a couple things, but we’ve all seen the Hollywood illustrations of the woman who got too much surgery, and you’re like, oh, why’d you do that Overboard?

Doris Swift [00:42:07]:

But, yeah, unrecognizable.

Heather Creekmore [00:42:09]:

But I say that not as criticism, but with complete empathy and compassion as someone who struggled severely with her body image. Because if I had had the resources to do that, what I would have money to fix over the years, right? So. So I have a lot of grace and understanding for the woman who does that, right? But. But I think for. For us as Christian women, right, like, we’ve been told, inner beauty is what’s important. Inner beauty is what’s important. And maybe as we age, that’s our opportunity to actually believe it, right? To actually believe that we’re more than bodies, to actually believe that we have something to offer, more than just showing up and looking pretty, that we actually have something to teach the next generation of women, we have something to do that will make us feel alive in a way that looking pretty never could, right? So. So I think.

Heather Creekmore [00:43:04]:

I think there’s a lot of. A lot of opportunities for us to grow that inner beauty as we age and aging gratefully offers. So it’s 30 devotionals. At the end of each devotional, I give you something, like, super practical. Like, I ask you to be great. Like, I. There’s a little prayer to be grateful about a specific thing, but then I give you something super practical to do. Like, there’s A one day where we’re going to talk about your clothes, what’s in your closet that doesn’t fit you anymore that you’ve been optimistically hanging to for 25 years, thinking someday those jeans are going to fit again again.

Heather Creekmore [00:43:38]:

What is that really doing to your mental health way that maybe getting those jeans out of the closet could help you feel more grateful for the season you’re in now without the distraction of remembering that old season. And so there’s just things like that throughout to kind of help help you live out aging gratefully.

Doris Swift [00:43:59]:

Yeah. Wow. That. That is really powerful. And the tip about taking certain things out of your closet that you’re just hoping to fit back in, because I think we’ve all done that. I mean, obviously. And I mean, you know, and we don’t have to worry about, oh, I don’t want to throw out these bell bottoms. They’ll come back around.

Doris Swift [00:44:17]:

They’re back, you know, and so things that we used to wear or the size we used to be, we kind of say used to a lot. And maybe women have never been the size they’ve wanted or, you know, and trying to achieve that. But this, this is really encouraging in a conversation that needs to be said because. And heard because of the, the fact being that, like you were saying, inner beauty. We’re. We’re spiritual beings. Like, you know, this is a tent that we’re in. Like, we’re, like, we’re in this tent that is just the outer shell and to, like you say, God looks upon the heart and just the inner beauty because we just have a lot to offer because of who Christ is in us and what his call is on our life.

Doris Swift [00:45:05]:

And we are missing the boat. And really, we don’t want to waste any more time like you were talking about time. Waste any more time doing the things that he’s not calling us to do or focusing on things that distract us, you know, or. Oh, I don’t, you know, I don’t want to be on the worship team because I don’t like the way I look. You know, I mean, I’ve had that thought myself. So it’s like, you know, to be following Jesus and keeping our eyes on him and just to, like you say, age gratefully, grace gratefully, but also the gracefully thing. But what about. Because, you know, we talk about gray.

Doris Swift [00:45:43]:

Gray hair. So if you could talk a little bit about that, because also we’re seeing a big trend in younger women going gray purposely. So if you want to speak to.

Heather Creekmore [00:45:54]:

That a little bit, I Don’t really know what’s going on with the younger women trend. Honestly, I don’t know if there’s anything deep there or if it’s just kind of a rebellion against, you know, maybe, maybe the, the burden of the past. But it’s fascinating. You know, Doris, in the 1930s and 1940s, the only women who colored their hair were women of the evening. Okay? So to color your hair was a sign of harlotry, to put it in a very polite way, because gray hair was a sign of wisdom. Remember, you know, the congress of the early 1900s and even, you know, Parliament, British Parliament, right. Those young guys would put on a gray powdered wig so they would look older and more respectable. Right.

Heather Creekmore [00:46:44]:

Gray hair used to mean something really wonderful. And you know who changed the meaning of it? Clairol. In the 1950s, they invented the first safe to use at home hair color. And from the 1950s through the 1980s, 1990s, they spent thousands, millions of dollars advertising to women that gray hair would ruin their marriage, gray hair would ruin their love life, gray hair would make them look drab and dull. Gray. They changed a centuries old narrative around gray hair. Why? Because they wanted to sell us something. Right? And so you know the tunes I gotta wash that gray right out of my hair.

Heather Creekmore [00:47:31]:

Right? Like, like we’ve, we have been perfect subjects for these marketing campaigns. And again, please hear me, there’s. I color my hair. I don’t have a ton of grays yet for some reason. But coloring your hair is not a sinful, evil thing to do. We are free under Christ to color if we want to color. Right? But what I think as Christian women, we need to be reminded of is that gray hair is not what the marketers have told us it is. It is not a symbol of anything shameful or, you know, drudgery of getting old.

Heather Creekmore [00:48:06]:

Right? Gray hair is a crown is what scripture says. Right. And so one of the other suggestions I make in the aging book is if you see a woman with gray hair, compliment her. Because that’s going to change the way you feel about gray hair. If you see them like, oh, I love your hair, your hair is beautiful. Wow, what a beautiful color. That white is stunning. Or that that silver is stunning.

Heather Creekmore [00:48:26]:

Right? To change the way we think about these things. Because. And just like with all the body image things, we have been sold a specific message our entire lives. Why not to bring us closer to Jesus? Why? So that someone will make money off of us. Right? Like every single person has tried to sell you something has A motive. It’s financial gain. Not that everyone is. You know, there’s certainly altruistic people out there selling products they believe in.

Heather Creekmore [00:49:01]:

Of course there are. Right. But at the end of the day, like, God is the only one who’s not trying to sell us something with a motive. Right. We can trust him completely. Right. So, you know, another. You were.

Heather Creekmore [00:49:14]:

You were mentioning about investing too much in our bodies, and it just. An illustration that I like to use came to me. Right. When you go to a hotel room, do you go out and spend money on redecorating it? Like, would you go, you know, oh, I think we can put up new pictures and get new beds spread? Like, you wouldn’t. Right. Because it’s a temporary place that you live now. Do you need to take care of that hotel room? Of course. Right.

Heather Creekmore [00:49:41]:

If you trash the hotel room, you’re gonna have to pay for it, send you a bill. Okay. So you take care of the hotel room. But if. If you all of a sudden make redecorating this hotel room, trying to make this hotel room perfect and beautiful and the environment that you just want it to be, make it look like HGTV did it. That’s ridiculous. Right? Similarly, like you said, these are tents. You only live in this body for 80, 100 years max.

Heather Creekmore [00:50:12]:

Right. Why do you want to spend your whole life redecorating your hotel room? Right. Be a good steward of it. But. But don’t make that your life’s purpose.

Doris Swift [00:50:22]:

Yeah. Wow. What a great illustration. You know, that makes so much sense when you put it into perspective like that. It’s like, yeah, that would be so dumb. And then, like, why would you do that? Waste money and time and. And then you just walk out and leave it all because, I don’t know, I guess you could take it with you, but I don’t know if you could. But anyway, yeah, that.

Doris Swift [00:50:43]:

That is so great to think of it in that way, because it’s so true. And the thing you were saying, too, about complimenting women who have gray hair, and I just recently did that with my friend Linda. She was in the office at the church because I’m on staff there. And, you know, I was just, oh, you have the most beautiful hair. You know, and I think women are just more and more like they’re embracing it, and, like, it’s freedom from having to go to the hairdresser. And, let’s face it, like, that’s expensive, you know, to get your hair done. I mean, and it takes hours. Yeah, it’s.

Doris Swift [00:51:18]:

It’s so expensive and hours and just. And so I’m, you know, I’m thankful there’s no Clear all in Heaven. I mean, there isn’t, but we’re keeping it on the shelves. I mean, obviously there’s a whole row and a whole aisle of hair coloring products and I do get my hair colored and. Yeah, so, so that’s okay. But when the gray comes in, it does really mix with the highlights. So. And I’m not as opposed to it or as freaked out about pulling them out or anything because they’re a crown and.

Heather Creekmore [00:51:50]:

Right. So.

Doris Swift [00:51:51]:

And just sign of wisdom and, and you know, when we want to go for wisdom or advice in other areas of our life, we’re not wanting to go to someone who hasn’t experienced a whole lot yet. You know, we want to go to someone maybe who has experience. Not that someone younger than us couldn’t share or speak wisdom into our life or truth into our life, because that’s true, they can. But women ahead of us who’ve been through more, who’ve experienced more, that’s what is so precious too. Like the Titus 2 women, you know, to kind of teach the younger women in that kind of thing. But, but yeah, I just, I enjoy this so much and I think it really, you’ve made so many powerful points and reminders for all of us and I really appreciate that so much. And if, if we could take maybe the last few minutes of our time together, if you could share a little bit about when you were on that Netflix show, because a lot of the listeners may be familiar with that show. And I think too, it kind of all ties in to what we’re talking abou

Doris Swift [00:53:05]:

Netflix. So if you could share a little bit about how. How did that come about and how did that go?

Heather Creekmore [00:53:11]:

Yeah, so I am contestant on season one, episode one. So this was the very beginning. The show had not existed. I did not know what I was signing up for because it was the very first season and we weren’t supposed to be the first episode, we were supposed to be the third episode. But my cake was actually so bad that they moved our episode up to be the first episode and they used a picture of my cake as the thumbnail. You could see my red fondant stained hand. Actually, a friend of mine just sent me, she got an error message on Netflix the other day and it had a picture of my cake with my red fondant stained hand on it. It said something went wrong and then I had my cake there.

Heather Creekmore [00:53:56]:

But you’re right, it does perfectly tie in with what I’ve been talking to women about. So I did that back in 2017 is when we recorded, I think it. Or maybe we recorded in 2016 or released in 2017, but. So it’s been a little while now. But they found me because I had bake fails so many things on my, on my blog Facebook page, on the Compare to youo Facebook page. And they reached out and asked if I’d be interested. And the God story here is that I’ve always loved baking shows, Food Network shows, but I’m obviously not that great of a baker and not perfectionistic enough to be a good baker or cook. And so this is the only baked show that like God could have ever gotten me on.

Heather Creekmore [00:54:47]:

So it was really an amazing opportunity for me to do something that I just always had a passion for and loved. But yes, it’s a funny show. They are kind of making fun of people who really are poor bakers. But they’re giving you an impossible task to do. You can’t possibly make a Sylvia Weinstock four tiered wedding cake in two hours, but they ask you to do that. And it helped me remember that it’s okay to laugh at yourself, that you don’t have to take life so seriously. I could tell in, even in, like you said, in filming this show, I knew God had done a tremendous work on my body image because had I tried to do that same thing, you know, five, seven years earlier, I would have probably not eaten for, you know, the weeks leading up to it. You know, I would have obsessed every minute of every day about what I was going to wear on the show, that sort of thing.

Heather Creekmore [00:55:46]:

And doing recording that show really helped me see how free God had brought me. You know, I wasn’t stressing over, over food. I didn’t go back to my eating disorder ways. I picked out a couple outfits. Of course I went shopping for some new things, but picked out a couple tops and. And that was it. And so it was a symbol of my freedom and a gift from him.

Doris Swift [00:56:08]:

Yeah, that’s why, you know, I wanted you to share about it because it is so important and it does all tie in. And plus you’re making a cake which is like, you know, in the weight loss thing, it’s like, that’s like no cakes. You know, cakes are evil. Go away cake. You know, but it’s, it’s but having fun with it and being able to laugh about things and not being so obsessed with things and perfection, because that’s the whole thing. Like, we’re striving for this perfection that doesn’t really exist. You know, only Jesus is perfect. So it’s like, you know, it doesn’t really exist.

Doris Swift [00:56:41]:

I remember writing a piece calling myself a faker baker. Okay, Because I. I take colorful packages from the grocery store and I make my cakes from boxes. And I was always the one that felt guilty because I wasn’t the mom that was spending, like, hours in the kitchen at Christmas time baking 50 different assortment kinds of cookies and all of that. I never did that. And I always felt like I was less than because I wasn’t the baker mom who did that kind of thing. And then I kind of. I wrote that piece about it, and it’s like, you know what? It’s okay.

Doris Swift [00:57:16]:

And it’s okay to do that. It’s okay to give love. I mean, you’re cooking, you’re baking with love, whether it’s something you’ve created from scratch or not. And honestly, if you’re not. If you’re not gifted in that area, people aren’t going to want to eat your cookies and your baked goods if it’s not, like, good. So, hey, you know, I mean, our grocery store, Publix, makes amazing bakery goods. It. So that is.

Doris Swift [00:57:40]:

That’s the ticket there for me. But I remember writing about that, and I thought, oh, that’s kind of fun. But, you know, the thing about this, this episode is it’s so easy to find. Then it’s the very first one, and that is cool. I was. I was gonna try to find it before we did the recording, but I know I’m gonna try to find it now.

Heather Creekmore [00:57:57]:

So.

Doris Swift [00:57:58]:

Yeah, it’s so fun.

Heather Creekmore [00:57:59]:

Easy to find, because I think they’re on. I know they might be on season 12 or something slowly like that now. But this is. This was the early days. Yeah.

Doris Swift [00:58:06]:

And you probably can find it even on, like, YouTube and stuff. So I can look on there. But. But this has been so amazing, and this conversation has just been so rich and deep and filled with truth and encouragement for the woman who is struggling with her body image. And this can also branch out into other ways that we tend to compare. Like, we tend to compare ourselves with, you know, what. What size house do we live in? What kind of car do we drive? This woman is farther ahead than I am at this time. And why aren’t I that far ahead? And why is her book doing better or why, you know, all the things, you know, why is that mom always, like, have it all together when she comes to the PTA meetings? I mean, you know, like, this is, this is important to think about in all areas of our life.

Doris Swift [00:58:57]:

What is the root of that and why? But I love that you’re. You’ve kind of niched it down into the body image because that is a powerful thing that’s obviously resonating with a lot of people.

Heather Creekmore [00:59:09]:

Doris, my book, the Comparison Free Life, that whole list of comparisons that you just went through, my book, the Comparison Free Life, speaks to that. So it kind of deviates a little bit away from the body image issue, although there’s a little bit of that in there. But it talks about just what is the root of our comparison and what’s the biblical way out of comparison? Because we’ve all been told, oh, just don’t compare your behind the scenes to their highlights reel. Which I think is a horrible thing to say to someone. I don’t think it’s very. It’s fine, but it’s not effective. Right, right. Because there’s a, there’s a real possibility that even my highlights real might be worse than your highlights real.

Heather Creekmore [00:59:45]:

So how does that help me? But yes, that book talks about the biblical way to answer the comparison problem and how you can stop comparing and start living.

Doris Swift [00:59:55]:

Yeah. The thief of joy.

Heather Creekmore [00:59:56]:

Right, Right.

Doris Swift [00:59:58]:

So, wow. So thank you so much. And I would love if you would share with the listeners how can they connect with you? Find out more about your books, your coaching, and all the things that you have to offer. Heather.

Heather Creekmore [01:00:07]:

Yep. Yep. So Everything is@improvebodyimage.com and the podcast is called Compared to who? And you can find all of my books. You can find a tab around how we coach people. We actually walk a group of women through my 40 day body image workbook. We do that once a quarter. It’s super, super affordable. It’s the cheapest six weeks of coaching you’ll ever find.

Heather Creekmore [01:00:33]:

It’s a Group Zoom call 50ish women and it’s just a really powerful time. If you’re just looking to start a body image freedom journey, I’d say grab the book, sign up for the next 40 day journey and get started because freedom awaits.

Doris Swift [01:00:50]:

Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And I’ll be sure to put all that in the show notes so the listeners can find you and reach out to you and connect with you, because that is something that a lot of women were probably drawn to, you know, and want and want help. Just like the women who read your books when they came out and you were like, I didn’t expect people to reach out to me and want me to kind of coach them and help them through it. But we do. We need community. You know, it’s just. It’s a powerful thing to have community and have women who can understand and to know that we’re not alone in that.

Doris Swift [01:01:21]:

And I just want to just give a shout out to all the women who are embracing their gray and even the younger women who are allowing the gray to kind of come through, because I feel like, you know, we can own things. We can own it. Like, this is who I am in Christ, and I’m a child of God in all of that, and I’m gonna just own that and not focus so much on this. And it’s really freeing. It’s just so freeing. So thank you again for being on the show, Heather.

Heather Creekmore [01:01:49]:

My pleasure.

Doris Swift [01:01:49]:

I’d love to have you back on again.

Heather Creekmore [01:01:52]:

Sounds good. Yes, anytime.

Doris Swift [01:01:55]:

Because you have more things to come, I’m sure. So God is doing a mighty work through your ministry, so I love that. And, friends, thank you so much for joining us today. And I hope you’ll join me next time when I talk with another guest who’s taking action, where their passion, compassion, and conviction intersect, their fierce calling. Until then, friends, have a blessed week, and I’ll talk to you soon.