Healthy Body Image with Rachael Gilbert | Dave and Ashley Willis

Hey, friends, welcome to the Naked Marriage podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis. On this podcast, we address the truth about sex, intimacy, and lifelong love. We've got a great topic and a great guest for you today. For the very first time on this podcast, we're going to talk specifically about body image issues and what a difference in an impact that can have individually and in a marriage. We've got a wonderful guest, our friend Rachel Gilbert, who's going to be sharing some insights from her own experience, her research, and her brand new book, Image Restored, which comes out tomorrow. And it's a powerful resource that's going to help a lot of people, as will today's conversation. But before we dive in, sweetie, why don't you tell us a little more about today's guest.

I will. Rachel's actually a friend of mine. We were in a Bible study together pre Covid and she's amazing, but I want to actually tell you more about her. So Rachel has her master's in marriage and family therapy. She is a wife, a mom, a counselor and owner of BBC Health and host of the popular podcast Real Talk with Rachel, which is amazing. Definitely check that out. She combines her clinical expertise and personal experience to help women overcome fear and insecurity, to walk confidently in their God given dreams. And again, you can learn more about her@rachelgilbert.com without further ado, let's talk to Rachel. Well, guys, I'm so excited about this podcast episode, not only because we are going to be talking about something that is such an important subject, not only for us personally, but also for marriage. But I actually have a friend in studio with me. This is my friend, Rachel Gilbert. Rachel and I actually got to know each other when we lived when Dave and I used to live in Texas and we were part of the same Bible study. That was so fun. It feels like that was just yesterday. But that was right before COVID hit, right, Rachel?

Yes.

Can you believe that?

I know. Yeah. And that was so. That was such a timely group too, for me. So.

It was for me too. I love that and I love being able to get to know you more. And I am so excited to have you here to interview because we're talking about body image and I'd love to just dive right in and have you kind of share why, why you want to talk about body image and a little bit of your testimony.

Absolutely. You know, body image, I knew I was supposed to write a book, but body image was probably not the topic I wanted to start with because this has been one of the topics that I've personally have wrestled with the most and had to get a lot of freedom in. And so when God called me to write about it and speak about it and began opening doors to it, I almost wanted to put my fingers in my ears and run and be like, nope, let's just not. And move on to something that would be a little less intimidating for my first book. But here we are. And I'm so glad because this is just a topic that is near and dear to my heart. And then the women I counsel and have done ministry with and friends with, I know it's not just me. And so I'm just excited that I get to speak into it.

And it is, you know, I know in the work that you do as a counselor, like, I knew you before you were officially counselor, so congratulations. Yes. I know how hard you work to achieve that, so that's so awesome. But I know that you see that this is such a need. And one, we were talking right before the program started. You know, so many women especially suffer with this in silence. And you kind of shared with me, you said, well, that was actually my story. So if you could give us a little background, kind of what your experience with body image issues was, that'd be awesome.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, my. I feel like it actually started years ago. Growing up, I was always just a little overweight and never knew anything about that you could actually eat healthy or exercise or anything like that. And in high school, I had the first and only time I accidentally lost weight because I had an injury. And I all of a sudden went from being a wallflow. All of a sudden, guys wanted to ask me out on dates and they were noticing me. And I, in that season, really associated my appearance with love and acceptance. And so in came all kinds of issues that came in the form of over exercising and disordered eating and all kinds of things. And I at that time didn't fully realize how much bondage I really was in and just really went through all that on my own. And then, you know, Matt and I got married and he didn't realize, you know, what all I was bringing to the with. You know, he saw the outer shell of me and. And I just had not let anybody into that piece. I don't even know that I'd really let myself into that. I was. Or admitted that I was struggling with that. And I remember I was in college and it was just before we had gotten married, and my college pastor had called and said, hey, I heard that you are struggling or that you've overcome this.

He.

He thought I had, like, overcome it. Cause I had told something to a life group leader, that I was going through it and I wanted to die because I thought, oh my goodness. Not only have I. First of all, I told him, I don't speak. Like, no, that's a no. I don't speak. And then secondly, I'm still in it. And I just. That was my first experience having somebody kind of call me out wanting me to speak to it. And I just was like, no, no, I'm not speaking to this and that. You know, that season I just continued to walk through it alone. And then it was, you know, finally, once Matt and I got married and it just. As we know, marriage kind of brings all the things that we've been struggling with up and in a good way. And so that was whenever I first started to say, okay, this is a thing and I need help.

Yeah, yeah. So important.

Yeah, that's the first step. And it takes such courage as your book was such a courageous step in not only documenting your own harrowing journey to healing in this area, but doing it in such a way that it can find others can find healing as well. Because like Ashley said, there are so many that have been caught up in this and have different levels of body dysmorphia or eating disorders or associating the outward with love like you talked about. And more like really on a spiritual level. You know, we've got wounds in this area that could come from, you know, all kinds of different things. You know, it could come from feeling like we were the fat kid, or it can come from feeling like we were rejected because of, you know, how we looked on the outside. So many different levels of insecurity that people carry with them in life and then specifically into marriage and in the work we do. We've seen that how that can create such hindrances. I think people only associate those hindrances with. With maybe dysfunction in the sexual aspect of the marriage, which it can. But it really can impact every aspect of the marriage. Because if we don't have that clear view of who we really are, it can just cause so much brokenness. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about just the heart behind the book. I'm so excited for Image Restored coming out tomorrow. So we'll be talking about that. Guys. Get it, you can. Today's the last day to pre order it and get all the pre order perks. You can go to ImageRestoredBook.com and find out all the information there. And then of course, it's going to be available on Amazon and all the regular places too. But I know it's been a long journey getting to this point of launch day. So tell us a little bit about the heart behind the book and what you hope readers gain from it.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, the heart behind the book is that I want to help other women get the same level of freedom that I have gotten in this area. But here's the interesting thing about the way I structured the book was whenever I was first approached to write a book on body image, I mean, that's how cool God is. I had to be approached, hey, hey, there's this topic we think you could write to this. And it was the same thing. I had spoke about it in different churches and I always got an amazing response when I would speak to this topic. So I knew the Lord was cultivating something, going, okay, someday you're going to speak to this. And. But the thing that was tricky to me initially, whenever they wanted me to write a book on body image is I'm thinking of myself and I'm thinking of the women I've counseled. And I'm going, it's so many layers. How do you want me to put this in a book? It's not just a here's your one answer and then you're done. I know we wish it was that, but it isn't. It's very much layers. I kind of associate it to kind of like grief healing is you pull back a layer and then you go, oh, here's a new layer of freedom. And I feel like for me personally, even every season comes with the new layer of things. You know, I'm getting a little older or you have an injury or I had another kid. I mean, every season I go, oh, and I thought I was free. And we got to pull back another layer. And so that was for me initially that I really had to sit down and just pray and go, okay, Lord, what does this look like? Because I know it's much more than just one answer. And I feel like he gave me a vision for the book. And so, you know, the vision of building a home. And so we're rebuilding, you know, we're kind of tearing down everything we thought we knew to be true about our body and body image. And we're rebuilding in a way that is an inside out approach is what I call it, and a little different than what the world would tell us to, to do in healing in this way. And so I wrote it in a way that there's several layers again of that healing and that freedom. But then I also wrote it in a way where I'm telling women to view this as their body image diary. Because at the end of every chapter, there's journal prompts. There's even coloring in there. There's units where I have videos that I'm walking them through. And so it really helps the women come at it from multiple angles. So if this angle didn't get you, then this one might. You know, like, you're kind of going, okay, Lord. And even, you know, I know there's going to be topics in the book that the first. Their first time through it, it maybe spoke to them. But then even years down the road, I feel like the Lord's gonna. It's gonna be something they hang onto whenever that new season hits. And they go, oh, yeah, I might need to pull image restored back out and go back to that one chapter, because now it really applies to what I'm walking through right now.

That's so good.

You know, it really is like a comprehensive field manual sort.

Yes.

I mean, and I love how you did that and the way it's structured. It really is. I feel like you are hitting people kind of in their different ways. They maybe learn things or have epiphanies, because, I mean, we all are wired a little bit differently, you know, and so I love how you do that. And one thing you said to me kind of before we started record, is you said you were kind of looking back through the book and found that there were two names that kept on being mentioned. You said, number one was Jesus, and number two was your husband Matt. And you said. And that's why you knew this really deep inside your heart. But how important the role that Matt played in your healing. And I would love, with this being a marriage podcast, I would love it if you would talk to couples who are maybe. Maybe think they might be going through this, or maybe it's a spouse who's watching or listening to this, and they're like, you know, that might be my wife or that might be my husband and how to navigate that. I would love to hear more about kind of how in your marriage, how your marriage really played a role in your healing.

Absolutely. Yeah. And that is. This is something that is near and dear to my heart in marriage, because I feel like, for the most part, every marriage, somebody. Cause here's the thing about this book. It's written for women, but men do struggle with body image, too, even though this book is to. That said, this is definitely. There's at least one person in the marriage that probably is struggling more than maybe you even they realize or their spouse realizes. And so, yeah, that was interesting to me whenever I realized, oh, Jesus and Matt were the two things I talked about the most in my book. It's not a marriage book, but I talked about Matt a lot. I remember the very first time that I got honest with myself and with Matt about what I was really going through. And it was in a season where we had little baby, toddler was striving to get that baby, you know, baby weight off. I was getting up at like 4 in the morning to go to these boot camps. I was exhausted and I was so tired that even sex just felt like I'm too tired for sex because I got to be up at 4 in the morning to go work out to try to lose this baby weight, you know, which the mindset on that is insanity, you know, anyhow. But I just remember I was exhausted and so I came to Matt and I just told him, I said, I have to be honest with you, I'm exhausted. And I just told him I was like, I'm getting up, doing these early morning workouts, trying to get this body back and just really just laid my. And he of course listened and was very gracious. And he said, rachel, he said, stop comparing yourself to other women, including your younger self. She's another woman. Wow. That like set me free so much because he just, just put this thing highlighted that I was comparing myself to my body before I had had kids, you know, my body when I was 15 years old, really. And I'm, you know, at that point was down in my 30s. And it's like, what really, like I'm comparing, you know, I want to get my 15 year old. What is that about? That's just mean. And so whenever I creaked that door open, not only was he able to start speaking into my life and praying over me, it also broke down so many walls because some confusion he had over why doesn't she want to have sex. He thought it was about him. And it was not about him. It was about me and my struggles. And so that being able to open that communication was huge for us and still is huge for us in this area.

And that vulnerability too, just finally getting to that point. Like, I need to bring him more into the picture. And I'm sure Matt knew something was off. Cause he's seeing how hard you're working too, to the point of just sheer exhaustion and I do think as a woman myself, I mean, I see this, and I think I've had some experience with this, too. This standard. I don't even know where we get it from. You know what I'm saying? And it's always changing, too, it seems like. But just thinking in our minds, well, if I could only lose just five more pounds, then I would have that confidence. Then I would want sex more, then he'll desire me more. Like, there's all these things we tell ourselves that aren't even true, you know, and we're on this hamster wheel just working ourselves to death. And I just love how you said, you know, with him leveling with you and reminding you of who you really, you know, your real identity, that this isn't you trying to chase after. This isn't going to bring you more joy. It's really just wearing you out. And, you know, coming from your husband, I know that had to be so freeing, too, because I do think sometimes as wives, we think, well, he's gonna love me even more, you know, if I'm lighter or more toned, or whatever, you know. And, you know, I know, Dave, throughout the years, there's been times when I've been like, oh, I still have, like, the 10 pounds to lose. And there's been times where he's been like, do you understand, like, how you are even more attracted to me because you gave birth to these amazing kids that we had together that God gave us? And I think as women, though, I don't know why we're so hard on ourselves. I mean, do you find that in the work that you do that we do have that narrative going on, even though we can have a husband saying this? Yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

I find that a lot.

Yeah. Cause Matt would tell me the exact same things. And what I love about that is it's helping us reframe our thought process. You know, in the book, I actually have a chapter and then a whole unit where I teach women how to really look at their thoughts and break it down and then reframe, look at how those thoughts are affecting their emotions, and their emotions are affecting. Affecting their behaviors. But the thing about thoughts is if we don't say them out loud, sometimes we don't fully realize what we're meditating on all day until it actually gets a voice. And even sometimes, I don't know about you, but those times I have said those things out loud, I'm like, that's ridiculous. Like, just even hearing it come out. But even if I don't, having Somebody who you know and love and trust help you reframe that thought and go, is there any truth to that? I don't. I don't think there is. And really. But it is. It's a constant renewing of the mind. I think that's the other thing we get hung up on. We think, oh, I should be able to renew my mind once, and yay, I'm done. It's not how renewing the mind goes. It's a daily thing.

Yeah, that's a good reminder.

It's a really good reminder. What would be your advice to the spouse? To a husband out there, and he sees these warning signs in his wife, and maybe she hasn't recognized or admitted that she has some body image issues and insecurities. He wants to help her, but he doesn't know how to go about helping her because he's already encouraging her. You know, it's a whole separate issue if, like, the husband is potentially perpetuating some of these body image issues by being critical and by those sorts of things. And husbands never, ever do that. But let's just assume this guy's trying to do the right things, he's saying the right things. She doesn't seem to be receiving those kind words, and the problem persists. What could he do to help her in that season?

Yeah. Well, first of all, I love that you said that the husband is already encouraging, because that is huge, even sometimes. You know, Ashley, you mentioned that we hear our husbands say these things and we don't always receive them. I still think they're making a difference. Even when we're not necessarily going thank you or thank you. I received that because that's something I started to do. I would just. I would not argue back if, you know, first you want to argue, but that's not true. Did you see this? And did you, you know, you want to argue And I made myself stop arguing and go, thank you. I received that. Even if it was like, you know, like, I receive it now, it's easier to do. So. So that's. I mean, that's the biggest thing that they can do is keep. I know sometimes it's easy when you think somebody's not receiving something to stop giving it. Right. You think that, well, she's not receiving those compliments anyways. Should I keep speaking to it? Yes, you should keep speaking to it. Keep encouraging. But then, just like anything that we see in our spouse, at some point, we have to call it out lovingly. And I say lovingly, you know, just, hey, I would like, you know, can we have this hard but good conversation of, I'm seeing this. I'm feeling like you might be struggling in this area. If so, what can I do? You know, like, just creating that safe space because that's the biggest thing. If both. This goes both ways. But talking about body image with women and her husband, she has to feel safe. You know, there's something that has in her lifetime has made her feel like this is not a safe place to bring this up. Because I know for me, I did have a past ex boyfriend, that it was not a safe place. He was, you know, doing the opposite of what I needed to hear. And so unfortunately, my poor sweet husband, you know, I brought that into marriage and put on him that he wasn't safe too. Well, that wasn't true. But the more he loved on me, even when I wouldn't receive it, even when I would, you know, say comments back or whatever, and he kept pursuing me and kept just showing me, hey, I am safe. I'm not going to, you know, if we talk about this, I'm not going to tell you you need to lose £20. I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going shame you if you do open this up to me. So that would be. I hope that helps.

That's really good.

Yeah, it's really good. I want to say this too. You know, some people listening and watching might be like, well, this might be an issue for my spouse or for myself, but I'm not sure. Could you give us just some of those telltale signs to be looking for?

Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting and tricky about this topic is we live in a society that actually really accepts and applauds disordered heating behaviors and body dysmorphia because it's just kind of the norm, if you will.

We celebrate it like, oh, they're just disciplined. Look how, like, how focused they are, you know, and even if it's way out of balance, we could be praising unhealthy behavior or at least behavior that's rooted in unhealthy thinking.

Absolutely, absolutely. And that's where you do. You have to be careful because you don't know what people are going through and different things. I mean, because I've even, I've looked back on different seasons of my life, and sometimes people, when they would compliment me about, man, you're looking so good. I was actually in the deepest trenches of my disordered eating and things, you know, so they were almost just kind of giving me a little more Fuel for, oh, okay, this is a good thing. So we do have to just start by addressing that. A lot of the things that we see people don't even view as red flags because it's just the norm. But the thing I would say is really just listening to your gut on you. Look for things where people feel like they have to be secretive or they're. If they feel embarrassed about something or shame about something or they want to. There's a lot of hiding that takes place with disordered eating especially. For sure, eating disorders are very secretive, very hidden, and then even body dysmorphia is body dysmorphia really. You'll see a lot in lots of mirror checking, you know, obsessively weighing in. Like anything that feels obsessive, feels hidden, feels. If I do bring it up to you, you kind of respond with a reaction, defensive, just that kind of thing where they just want to keep a wall up and they don't want to let you in. Because there's a lot of control around these types of things too.

Yes. I'm glad you mentioned control because. And I know you're the expert in this area, but a lot of it goes back to control, right?

Oh, yeah.

Feeling like things are a little bit out of your control. This is something you can control.

Absolutely.

And, well, I think that those are such great tips. Cause I do think there's gonna be some people where maybe they've had the thought, like, man, something's off with my spouse's eating or with my own eating. And I think I'm hoping that today is the day where they're like, you know what I need to pick up. Image restored. I need to work through this. And I do think there's varying degrees of this, would you say? I mean. Cause some people, it might be just they're at the beginning of this, and this book could help save them from a deep dive into eating disorders and body dysmorphia. But I think that there's probably others that have been in this for. I mean. Cause this can go on for years, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

And it can start to feel normal even.

It's no respecter of age or gender. I worked in an eating disorder clinic, actually for an internship. And that was something that was very eye opening to me. Because you would think it's kind of just one age or just since, like. Nope. Yeah, it's definitely something that spans across the life, lifetime, for sure. Yeah.

I want to ask this too, and I know it's a really important question that some People listening, they know they themselves are. They are in the bondage of this. You used the word bondage earlier. And that's what it is. That's what, you know, when we get caught up in these things and we have a hard time getting out of it and their spouse knows, like, maybe they've even let their spouse know they're in it, but their spouse is not being supportive. You know, that is a devastating circumstance to be in. You know, whether. And I don't know, it could look a lot of different ways. It could look like their spouse cutting them down and saying, yeah, you're right, you do need to work harder. You do need to lose that last, you know, 10, 15 pounds or whatever. Or it could be that they just, you know, are never really emotionally available. I mean, have you kind of seen that? And what would you say to that, that person who's experiencing that?

Yeah, first of all, I would say, I'm so sorry, because that's heartbreaking. That's been the most heartbreaking thing. As I've counseled women, the things I've heard them tell me that their husbands have said to them, it's just heartbreaking, you know, and you would think. Think your worst enemy wouldn't say those kinds of things to you. Yet here, your person who you're supposed to trust and love and be safe the most with is really tearing you down and in a hurtful way. And so speaking to though, the. If you're in a marriage that is not abusive, because that's a different thing and that needs professional help, you know. But if you're in a healthy marriage and your spouse is doing this, this comes back to the communication thing of, really, I'm a big believer in marriage. Communication is like the foundation. And if you can't talk about just simple things and have good conversations about them and come to some resolution in that way, it's going to be very hard then to come forward and have that conversation, maybe with your husband, to say, hey, I want you to know that when you say those kinds of things to me, not only are you hurting me, you're actually driving me deeper into that bondage. You're confirming those thoughts that I'm having. You're just confirming that they're true. You're giving, you know, so they're just really getting even deeper and entrenched in my being and my identity. And so it does. That would be the encouragement, I would say, is that as long as, you know, assuming you're in a healthy relationship, that you can say to Them we've got. We've got to talk about this. And if you need to go, go do it with the counselor. Let them help you get some verbiage to do that. Yeah.

Cause sometimes I do think sometimes spouses don't realize how deep it is or how dark it is, you know, and they may think what they said wasn't even a thing and how it was taken. You know, we have to stand up for ourselves and say, listen, that was out of bounds. That really hurt me. You may not. Maybe you were meaning to hurt me. I hope you weren't. But it did hurt nonetheless. You know, I think that that is. That's not only necessary, but that's also empowering to the person going through it, you know?

Absolutely.

And I love how. And, you know, gosh, we're huge proponents of counseling, too, but going to a Christian counselor to unpack this, and especially when it's been going on a long time, it takes that professional to kind of move in there and give that professional advice, don't you think?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, one other thing that came to mind when we were talking about this, I was thinking another reason that someone might have a hard time coming to their spouse to bring this up is because if you think about it, that's you starting to stand up a bit for yourself and just saying, hey, this is hurting. Okay, well, when you think about body image, dysmorphia, disordered eating, we're not being very kind to our bodies in those moments. And so a lot of women don't even know how to be kind to their body. So, again, that's why, you know, even as married couples, if they were to get the woman was to get my book and go through it, that's her starting to be kind to her.

Yeah.

So that then she can go, okay, yeah, yeah, we do need to. This is a thing, and we do need to talk about it. But that's why, I mean, to stand up for yourself, you do have to actually believe you're worth standing up for.

So true.

You know, so you gotta have some worth there. And that would be something I would even encourage. That would be a great place for them to start. If the woman is reading the book, those body image, the, you know, journal questions that I give would be awesome for her to let her husband into that with her and go, hey, this is what I just read. Here are my answers. Just letting you know where I'm at in this journey and let him into that in that way.

And it might be just like A huge epiphany for that husband, you know, and. Cause we do, you know, if they, they only know what they know.

Right.

And what we've allowed them to see or what we've spoken to them. And so definitely, you know, bring, bring your spouse into whatever you're facing and even when it comes to eating disorders and, and how we are viewing ourself and, and I'm telling you, we're gonna fare so much better when we do it together. And in marriage, like we always say here on the Naked Marriage podcast, it's never his problem or her problem, it's always our problem. And that even includes individual things like disordered eating and facing the trauma that we've been going through. And so we definitely need to bring our spouse into the picture. And, you know, I love this conversation. Rachel, thank you so much for just putting yourself out there and for. I mean, this resource is needed. It's just so needed and it's so timely. I feel like it's so timely and it's gonna get in so many hands and I know it's gonna change lives. And so before we go, I wanna make sure that you tell people kind of where they can get in touch with you and where they can get the book.

Absolutely. Well, thank you guys for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah. So you can. The main hub for me, you can go to my website, rachelgilbert.com I do have a podcast called Real Talk with Rachel and we talk about all kinds of just these types of things there. And then the book, you can go to ImageRestoredBook.com We've got some good pre order bonuses there. And if you're watching or listening to this after the fact, there's still going to be lots of goodies for you. So I'd love to connect and I really believe in doing community with this body image. Like that's my heart for this book, is that you don't just read it alone, that you bring people into it. Your spouse, other women. And that's what we'll have for you there too.

I love it. Yeah, it's truly going to change lives. Thank you so much, Rachel.

Thank you.

And just so you know, that is Rachel spelled R A C H A E L. And Gilbert is G I l b e r-t.com and we are just so glad you guys joined us. We'll see you next time on the Naked Marriage Podcast.