Circle 31 Podcast

Note: Please note that the text below is an uncorrected transcript of the audio captured for this podcast. We pray the Lord uses these words to bless you as you seek Him!

Kendra LeGrand: All right. Welcome everybody to the Circle 31 Podcast. I'm your host, Kendra with my co-host Ellen.

Ellen Adkins: Hey, Kendra.

Kendra LeGrand: How are you doing?

Ellen Adkins: I'm good. How are you?

Kendra LeGrand: I'm doing so well. And we have two other gals around the table. We have author of Breaking Free from Body Shame, which is our April pick, Jess Connolly. Hey, Jess.

Jess Connolly: Hi. Thank you for having me.

Kendra LeGrand: Yes. We're so happy you're here.

And we have a special guest who you'll hear more from. Her name is Melissa Taylor, but she's a leader, a friend, and just an overall great person to be around the table. So, hey, Melissa.

Melissa Taylor: Thanks, Kendra. I'm happy to be here.

Kendra LeGrand: So these next four episodes, we have something really, special, I would say, because when we first got together to talk about Jess's book, Breaking Free from Body Shame, a lot of women around the table started expressing how they are dealing with their own body image or maybe how they dealt with their own body shame. And we were like, we can't just gatekeep this for ourselves as we create an experience for you in Circle 31. We want to share these stories, with the whole hope of helping you feel less alone, and then helping you find your own freedom. Yeah. And so, in each episode, you'll hear from somebody who you saw in the round table earlier this week.

And, Melissa, you're kicking us off week one.

Melissa Taylor: Yes. I am.

Kendra LeGrand: And we're very grateful. And so, why don't you share a little bit more about, what this book means to you, but how you, have experienced it in your own life.

Melissa Taylor: Yeah. And I'll just start off by kind of confessing that I have experienced a little bit of shame in revealing that I have shame.

Kendra LeGrand: You mentioned that. Shame, shame,

Melissa Taylor: …shame at the round table, I did. Yes.

Kendra LeGrand: And when we were just talking or something? I have a note.

Melissa Taylor: Yes. It's like, you know, you don't wanna say that, but goodness gracious. Y'all, there is freedom in knowing that we can be honest and we don't have to hide.

Yeah. We don't need to. And then as soon as you speak it out, someone else starts speaking theirs.

And then all of a sudden, you grow together and you get better about it and you remind each other of who you really are and it's just so good. But I wanna share two areas of body shame for me. Okay. There's many more y'all, but I'm gonna go with two that, one that started very early. It's like my one of my first memories of body shame.

And that was as a seven-year-old little girl playing on the playground, having a good old time. And this boy, this little boy, probably same age as me, saw I was barefooted and noticed that my toes, two on each foot, were stuck together. Toe number two and number three.

The twins.

Kendra LeGrand: To be exact.

Melissa Taylor: The twins. Yes. Are stuck together. And he started asking all these questions and like, come look at this. Come look at this. And I was just so I went home so crushed and sad because I guess I knew, like, other people didn't have stuck together toes, but y'all funny fact, my sister was born with six toes on one foot.

All: Wow.

Melissa Taylor: Oh, wow. Right. So when I had my first child, what did I do? Checked their toes. Count their toes. Stuck together toes. Can you even believe it? Oh. Okay. Anyway, so bless you, Blake.

We I know how you feel. But, but, you know, honestly, I kept my toes covered for, like, years and years and years. I'm way much older than you would've you would've thought I would've gotten over it. And, I was in high school and dating who is my husband now.

And I wasn't barefoot. And he's like, take your shoes off. You know, we were just outside in the grass and he said, take your shoes off. And I was like, I don't want to. And he goes, okay, your friends told me there's something wrong with your feet and I want you to know right now I don't care. And I was like so when he saw my toes, he's like, what's wrong with your feet? Oh. Because you can't even realize that. Melissa, why don't barefooted. Your feet are beautiful. So I mean, that was nice. Right? Yes.

But I kinda grew out of that. For a while, I wouldn't get pedicures even as an adult and the girl who did my toes, she goes, there are some feet that look a lot worse than yours do. I mean, like I believe it. Go with it

Jess Connolly: So are mine to be honest with you?

Kendra LeGrand: It's been a long winter.

Melissa Taylor: But I feel like I grew out of being ashamed of that. I was like, this is okay. But it really was it hurt at first and I was hiding part of my body growing up. The issue later in life was one I really didn't ever come to peace with. I didn't ever come to peace with it.

My mother had had psoriasis for as long as I can remember and that's an autoimmune skin disease. And so I had seen the patches on her. She was on some medication. It was kind of in control, but then in 2010, she got cancer and, I was with her almost every day caring for her. It was a really hard battle that she lost, but I started noticing some patches on my skin during that time on my elbows, and they started flaking.

And, I went to the dermatologist, and he said that a lot of times, stress is what brings on psoriasis. And it's in my family, but I was going through a really stressful situation. Over the next few years, the patches on my elbows went to being patches on my wrist, and then just a whole but the fronts of my legs just completely covered. There was not a space below my knee that was not covered in scales. And, it was ugly.

It itched. It hurt. There was constant flaking. I mean, you could tell where I had been because there were flakes right there, and it was really embarrassing. I wouldn't wear shorts.

I wouldn't wear skirts. I was so glad that, there were cute pantsuits, you know, that had come to be. That was, wonderful, but I wouldn't get in the pool if there were other people around. And, you know, I was worried it would freak people out.

And I didn't really blame them because it looked disgusting. It looked contagious. Right? And, anyway, that was that was hard. I don't know if I would have ever come to peace with my psoriasis, but over the years I tried various treatments, oils and creams, made it feel better but didn't make it go away at all.

And then I tried light therapy for a while. If someone even suggested, here, try putting this mud on you. I would do it. Yeah. I would try anything.

I mean, one time I was eating dirt. Like this some person's It was supposed to be special dirt. I don't even know what it was but I mixed it in a glass and drank it. It didn't work either.

Kendra LeGrand: You gave it a try though.

Melissa Taylor: Yeah. But it just shows you're gonna go to whatever lengths to try and fix this thing that I was embarrassed to for people to see. Eventually, I started a medical injection that I gave myself every two weeks. And after a few months, it started working. Wow.

And I'm still on those medical injections today that I give myself. It's been, like, probably twelve or fifteen years. But I'd like to think, gosh, y'all, the God in me knows I could have come to peace with this because with him all things are possible. So, when I say there's shame in the shame, I'm like, what kind of Christian am I that I had to find the medical cure in order to find peace with my body. And, so, okay. Fast forward. I pick up Jess' book.

This is great because she wrote about me on page four. So right out the gate, you guys, if you're starting to read your book right now --

Kendra LeGrand: Yes, it's week one. Yeah.

Melissa Taylor: Yes. Right out the gate on page four, there is gold coming your way, people, and that's only the beginning.

But, Jess, you wrote, Somewhere along the way, shame became a lens through which we experienced our bodies. Many of us might feel like we should be over this, like a spiritual and emotional maturity should have enabled us to move past this place by now. And yet we're still out here, all of us, overly exposed to a light that is not warm with grace, but rather judging what is not right about us. We can believe the best parts of us are unseen and eternal and still deeply desire for the visible portions of us to be signed off on by the world as okay. And when I read that, I was like, okay, I'm feeling shame over my shame, but we can believe the best parts of us are in here. I knew.

Jess Connolly: Come on. Yeah.

Melissa Taylor: I knew what I had in here, but still desired for the visible portion to be okay with you, okay with you, for you not to be afraid to touch me, for you not to look at me and think, oh.

You know what I mean? And you can see people when they're doing that, you know? And I don't blame them. I mean, they're seeing something that's foreign to them. They don't understand.

But, that is that is me a hundred percent. And the thing is, I never blamed God. I wasn't mad because I had psoriasis. I was just really sad that it was there.

And, and I was embarrassed. And I love the Lord, but, and I hate to even say, but right after, I love the Lord, you know, but, I wanted others to like what they actually could see of me. And so my problem was a me problem.

And in some ways, it's still a me problem. But since he made me, it's deeper than that. It is a spiritual issue. Yeah. You know, it's not part I mean, I guess being vain is a spiritual issue.

You know? Just, but God gave me a great circle of friends, a great team that I work with. So I'm I feel like I'm so blessed 24/7. I have people around me who I know love me. My kids and my husband, they still love my husband, would still, pardon, would still touch me even though I had psoriasis scares all over me. Right. I'm married. Okay. So, anyway.

That's right. So, you know, it's those little golden treasures to hold on to. But I said this to someone earlier today. People can say, well, at least you don't have this. Mmm.

You know? A lot of people have it worse and that is so true and I'm so grateful that I didn't and I'm so grateful to God that he used medical treatment to get this rid of me and now I'm not worried about it anymore. But, I still go back and I will say this, but if God brings it back, if it happens, if treatment quits working, I know he's not gonna leave me. My relationship with him is not gonna falter. And I'd like to think I could get through it better.

Jess Connolly: Yeah. So encouraging. I'd I wanna give you, like, a few extra encouragements, and most of them, I'm sure you already know. So I'm just gonna tell you what you already know. Number one, I don't think there is any shame to be had in trying to help alleviate pain.

Actually, I had a therapist one time say it like this that I thought was so beautiful, and she said, there's nothing wrong with trying to help yourself feel better, comma, until you know it's not working. And I would say that is that is actually a kingdom principle. The God who created your body does not, like, long for you to be in pain. So I don't think anybody should feel any shame about saying, like, I'm having extreme itching and pain, and I and I want it to be better.

I don't think I don't think we're supposed to be I don't think it's so spiritual to be removed from pain, to pretend like we're not in pain. That that that doesn't make us mature. So that you noticed and felt pain and discomfort in your body and wanted to alleviate it is good. Yeah.

That's good. That's beautiful. That that means you long for the healthy. You long for the whole, and that is good and beautiful. And so I just wanna encourage you with that.

And then the second thing I just wanna share with you, I don't I am not a medical professional in any way, shape, or form. So no one is gonna be confused about that. No one no one is shocked there. That being said, I also have an autoimmune disease. And the best I can understand my autoimmune disease is that when I'm experiencing stress or pain or sickness or illness, when I have a flare up, my body is trying to protect me.

And so if even maybe the goal wouldn't be to have peace with a flare up when you're having it, if it ever comes again, which I pray it doesn't. But maybe to even look back and bless your body and say, when your mom was fighting cancer and you are using every ounce of your emotional, mental, spiritual strength to love her and to serve her to the glory of God, that your body said, like, I'm trying to help you right now. And because it was trying to help you, it went into overdrive and caused you pain. Like, even that to be able to bless your body and say, my body tend to this in the right way, but it was trying to protect me.

Oh, wow. It was trying to take care of me. That's why autoimmune we have autoimmune flare ups in the midst of stress because our body is responding to the pain we're going through.

Melissa Taylor: I have never had anybody say that to me before.

Jess Connolly: Yeah. You I mean, your body was just trying to take care of you, and it was wrong. And it got the wrong signal, and it went too far.

Melissa Taylor: But, like, Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much.

Jess Connolly: Because you were giving God glory, because you were loving your mom, because you were taking care of yourself. And so, yeah, I just I would say shame off you about the shame about the shame. Uh-huh. Thank you. Like Thank you.

I and I and the only other last thing I would say is that that sentence you said, I love God, but I care about what people think about me. I would think we can we can also, just as honest kingdom minded women, replace the but with an and I love God and Yeah. I care about what people think about me.

And that to me feels like the beginning of healing.

Melissa Taylor: Yeah.

Jess Connolly: You know?

Melissa Taylor: Yeah.

Jess Connolly: You are so free.

Melissa Taylor: Yep. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much.

Kendra LeGrand: That was beautiful.

Ellen Adkins: Yeah. Melissa, thank you so much for sharing that. I know there's a lot of women in our community that are dealing with any number of, health issues. Some are visible, some are invisible, some they, wear very publicly, and some they hide. And so I just know that your story will resonate with Yeah.

A lot of women, and how amazing that we worship a God who cares deeply about our body. Yes. And so I know that God cares for you. He cares to for each and every one of us, and I'm just really thankful to you for sharing our story.

Melissa Taylor: Thank you, Ellen.

Kendra LeGrand: That was great. Alright, everybody. We'll see you we'll drop another episode next week. So, Melissa, thank you so much for kicking us off.

Melissa Taylor: Thank you.

Kendra LeGrand: Bye.