81: Marie Kondo Your Closet and Your Brain
I think a lot of us blow off “mindset” work as something for hippies or people with too much time on their hands. But have you ever noticed how often the Bible tells us to guard, protect and renew our minds? I work with so many people who can’t break out of their self-sabotaging habits and don’t realize that it’s because of the way that they’re thinking. You can’t transform in the body unless you first transform in the mind.
In this week’s podcast we’re using God’s Word and some practical life coach tactics to “take captive” thoughts that don’t serve the body we want to be in. Learn how to achieve your health and body goals better and faster by spending 5 minutes a day reframing your mind.
EPISODE 81: Marie Kondo Your Closet and Your Brain
SHOW NOTES
(0:00) Intro
Welcome back to the club!
October is the month in The Christian Health Club that we overhaul our brains. Just like your closet needs an overhaul from time to time, so does your mind.
(2:08) Mind Management:
Have you ever noticed how many Bible verses there are about mind management? Cuz there are a lot.
More than anything you guard, protect your mind, for life flows from it. -Proverbs 4:23
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. -Romans 12:2
You cannot transform in your life, in your body without first managing your mind. This comes up SO much in what I do because people want to change, they know HOW to change but they don’t change. That’s all because of what’s going on in the mind.
I dedicate the month of October in the Christian Health Club to working on this. Listen, you can’t do Spirit, Mind, Body without the mind part, but so many people want to skip it. I will not let you skip it.
So I’ve gathered up a month’s worth of Bible verses and quick 5-minute brain rewiring activities that we put into practice as it says in the book of James - if you’re not putting into practice you are deluding yourself - and we’re going to do them together in the group.
(4:09) Self-Coaching Scholars:
I’ve based this off a technique I learned from a life coach I follow named Brooke Castillo. She has a podcast and she has a private group that meets only through zoom called Self-Coaching Scholars. She teaches people how to coach themselves, to work through their daily BS, by using a tool called The Model which she came up with and which is simply a format that shows you how to process your thoughts to get better results in your life. It is the most practical, tangible way that I’ve seen for someone to work on mindset.
A lot of people meditate and do affirmations and I think those are fine but sometimes affirmations are kind of like slapping on happy bandaid thoughts over deep painful cuts - that can help stop the bleeding but it’s not airing out and addressing the wound.
What I have done is taken her concept of The Model and infused it and wrapped it in the context of God’s Word and created this month long course we do in The CHC called Self-Coaching Christians.
(8:45) Self-Coaching Christians:
So we spend the whole month of October on this and even though you can apply the technique of the model to any area of your life like career or relationships or time management, for our purposes we spend the month zeroing in on body and health. Because the body that you have right now is the product of the way you’ve been thinking. We have to heed this Biblical advice when it comes to every part of our lives including the physical health of our body - to manage our minds.
It is 100% our responsibility and privilege to do so. The more we purposefully align our thoughts with who we are in Christ, the more our reality reflects His abundance and glory. Kingdom living starts with Kingdom thoughts.
Christian Health Club: The way I have it set up in The CHC is that we’re working on mind management around a different health related topic each week. To start the month I’m asking everyone to pick one major health goal to focus on.
Week 1 is all about fleshing that out and getting our minds right around it so we can accelerate the results.
Week 2 we are going to work on body image.
Week 3 will be about overcoming emotional eating and overeating in general.
Week 4 will involve the belief scale and overcoming excuses.
(13:47) Marie Kondo-ing Our Minds:
So we are going to take a week and clean out our minds of everything that we’re thinking about our bodies and reframe it in a way that gets us better results. Like I said, it’s like a closet overhaul. And if you’ve read the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up you know author Marie Kondo says you must first take everything out of the closet so that you can see what you have and examine what Is worth putting back in.
The first step is, just like in cleaning the closet, is to take all the contents out. You can’t fully clean and organize a space until you’ve totally purged the contents. So with our minds, we’re going to do a brain dump - Brooke Castillo calls it a Thought Download - but whatever you want to call it it means getting all of your thoughts out of your mind and onto paper so, just like your closet, you can see what’s in there.
(16:07) Thought Downloads:
Get a piece of paper and write MY BODY at the top of it and then absolutely let it rip with everything that comes to mind, I mean everything - the good, the bad, the ugly.
Give yourself plenty of time and even when you think you’re finished, squeeze out some more , let those deep deep thoughts that have been in the back of the closet, come to the surface. We’ve got a lot of things stored up in there that we’ve forgotten about or become totally unaware of.
I’ve done this with some 1:1 clients when we’re at a point that we’re stuck - like the person knows what to do but finds herself in a self-sabotaging pattern. We have to take captive these thoughts but you can’t unless you are aware of them which is what all of this is about.
Once you see them all on paper, you’ll have a better understanding about why you’re showing up the way that you are in your body.
The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. -Matthew 6:22-23
The way you see yourself, the way you think about yourself and the way you talk to yourself will all affect the actions you take and the results that you get. You can’t constantly berate your body and expect positive change.
Look at these words that have been in your brain - that’s how you’ve been speaking to yourself. Are you ok with that? And then the question I would ask is - if Jesus looked at that list - would He be ok with it?
One of the other activities we do as part of this week is to write ourselves a letter from Jesus. Like if he looked at that list and then looked at your sweet face - what do you think he would want to say to you?
(22:26) Sparking Joy & Heck Yeahs:
Marie Kondo says that after you have everything out of the closet you need to go through each article of clothing one by one and only keep it if it “sparks joy.” You could also say if it’s a Heck Yeah.
That’s what we use in F2F when we’re being discerning about what carbs we like enough to keep in our diet but it works here well too. If it’s not a Heck Yeah, it’s a Heck No- get rid of it. If you really want to cultivate your closet you have to be a little ruthless. You have to get rid of the things that don’t align with the body and the style of how you want to show up in the world.
And it’s the same with our thoughts. You don’t want to keep thoughts around that don’t serve the body you want to be in. You’ve got to cultivate the thoughts that do lead to the body you want to be in.
In John 15:2 Jesus says:
Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
This is how we use God’s word to prune us into our best selves. We get better results when we align ourselves with the Word of God.
(27:01) Thinking New Thoughts:
You can decide on new thoughts that you WANT to think about your body - remember that thoughts are a choice. It can feel weird and self-indulgent to think bold, complimentary, positive thoughts about ourselves.
You might be thinking - Me? beautiful, capable, strong, intelligent, worthy, self-disciplined and lovable? But that’s what your Creator says and, therefore, you have full permission and cause to wear these Words.
It reminds of a time I took my sister in law shopping. I might have told this story on the podcast before, I think I did last year in the Don’t Bargain Shop your Body podcast so forgive me if you’ve heard it but it’s relevant here.
(32:05) I AM:
I tell the self-coachers to write down their new thoughts as I AM statements.
I AM perfectly made.
I AM a precious vessel of the Holy Spirit.
I AM meant to have a body that is healthy.
I AM fully able to take control of myself and my health. I AM smart enough to figure this out.
I AM able to stop when I am full.
I AM worthy of the time it takes to meal prep, workout and rest.
When we write down our new thoughts starting with capital I AM we’re putting God’s power with it.
(35:07) Closing Thoughts:
Matthew 7:16 says, You will recognize them by their fruits.
How do you want to feel and be recognized? You know how good it feels when you’re done cleaning out your closet - it’s so rewarding and you have a renewed sense about yourself and your style and how you’re showing up in the world.
I promise if you will dig in to some of these exercises I talked about today and learn how to use the model to process your thoughts you will get better and faster results in your health goals, your weight loss goals, honestly any goals.
If you are in the Christian Health Club, get ready with your October goal and get ready to clean out those closets. This month is going to blow your mind.
(41:41) Outro & Disclaimer
Thanks for listening! Have a healthy and blessed week!