Latest / DA CREW Podcast / DA CREW PODCAST SEASON 1_ EPISODE #158_ HOST MINISTER ALMA THOMAS

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DA CREW PODCAST SEASON 1_ EPISODE #158_ HOST MINISTER ALMA THOMAS · DA CREW Podcast

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Hey, and welcome to the Crow podcast. We are the hottest podcast rocking
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world. Aspiring Authors Magazine is an international magazine founded in May of twenty twenty
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by Queen Angela. Get featured. Tune in to all who Live Again podcast
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show with your host Amma Thomas. For God so love the world that it
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gave us only begotten son, that who should have a shall believe, shall
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not perish my half ever That's team. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the
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Crew podcast with and I am Alma Thomas, host of the Live Again podcast,
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where we empower people to live the life that God has destined out for
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them to live. Tonight we will be discussing body shaming and loving the skin
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that you're in. And before we began our discussion on tonight, we're gonna
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begin like we always do with prayer. Amen, and everything that you do,
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give thanks. So let's bow our heads for a moment of prayer.
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Heavenly Father and the precious, matchless name of your son Jesus, we come
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boldly before your throne on tonight, thanking you for waking us up this morning,
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thanking you for taking care of our families on the dangerous highways and badways.
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Thanking you God, just because of who you are. You're awesome,
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tonight provider, You're a deliverer in Jesus' name. Now we ask that you
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take control of this broadcast that it brings glory to you. In the precious
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name of Jesus, I pray a man and a man in a man,
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And we're going to start off tonight with a quote, how I feel about
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myself is more important than how I look. Feeling confidence, being comfortable in
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your skin, that's what really makes you beautiful. And that's by Bobby Brown.
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And the name of this chapter. I wrote this chapter in a book.
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And the name of this chapter is mirror, mirror on the wall,
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Mirror, mirror on the wall, Who is the fairest of them all?
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Every day the vain, wicked witch would ask the magic mirror that question,
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and every day the mirror said what she wanted to hear, Thou, all
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queen, are the fairest and all the land. But that one faithful day,
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when the mirror couldn't lie and replied, snow White is the fairest in
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all the land, she not only got angry, but was overwhelmed with jealousy
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and plotted to destroy snow White's destiny. What do you see when you look
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in the mirror? Is your mirror a mirror of truth like the magic mirror?
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Or is your mirror of funhouse mirror that shows a distorted image. In
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today's society, many people suffer from body shaming. Body shaming, according to
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Webbs, the dictionary is to criticize or mark someone for supposed bodily faults or
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imperfections. In American society, it is difficult to love your body because movies,
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magazines, and televisions constantly feed us with images of how our bodies are
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supposed to look. Society dictates what you should or should not wear, and
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bigger people often criticized for their clothing choice. Remember, as a young adult,
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I wouldn't want to go shopping with my friends because a lot of times
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people are peer pressured into wearing things that they might not like that they don't
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like the way it looks on them. Because if you like something the way
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that it looks on you, then that's your prerogative to wear that garment.
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Why would someone else be judging you on what you should wear and what you
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shouldn't wear, but if it doesn't look good to you, So sometimes you
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are peer pressured into wearing things that don't look good to you. I remember
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this one particular time that we're in the avenue and I'm going to the section
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that has the size that I wore, and my friend she gets I'm fourteen,
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and she holds it up and stresses it always out and she was like,
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girl, you gotta be able to fit this. Two people can fit
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into this. And because I was embarrassed by her holding up that fourteen,
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I was like you was like, girl, you know you can wear that.
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And then that's when I stopped going shopping with my friends because they were
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all skinny and can fit into anything anything they liked. There's certain things that
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I didn't like, well myself, not that. If you're a bigger woman,
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If you like that and it's pleasing to you, then wear it.
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If it comes in your size and you like the way it looks, wear
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it. But for other people that might it may not. You might not
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be comfortable, Like I'm not comfortable in a mini skirt. It might come
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in my side, but I'm personally not comfortable in it. We often suffer
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body shaming as little children from our families who tell us that we are too
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fat or skinny to wear that. Those of us who were teased or bullied
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as children because of our weight carry long standing scars into our adult life.
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As a child, we need to be accepted by families and peers. Children
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at a young age learn to internalize that they are not good enough. They
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might spend a lifetime trying to change their body image. Body shame can affect
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the way that you date. When you are shamed of your body, it
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can have an influence on who and how you date. As you heal from
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body shame, you have to learn to love the skin that you're in.
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At an early age, I learned to love the skin that I'm in.
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That yes, you want to be healthy, you want to be at one
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hundred percent, but I allowed I didn't allow people to bully me because of
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my weight. It's like when you get into a fight with someone, the
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first thing that they want to call you is fat, and I say,
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okay, tell me something I don't know. I know that I'm fat,
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So what now? What now? What you got? And then people began
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to stop bothering me because they no longer had the power over me. I
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took back that power because I love the skin that I in. That I'm
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in. You have to change your mindset as you accept your body, and
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accepting in your body does not mean that you don't work towards a healthy lifestyle.
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If you want to lose weight, do it for yourself, not for
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someone else. I had a friend that was overweight, and she lord all
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this weight for a man, and the woman that he was cheating on her
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with was triple her size. As a matter of fact, the woman was
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so huge that she couldn't fit into his sports car. He had to borrow
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his father's car whenever he would take her out on a date, and he
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eventually married her and my friend, and what was wrong with going on with
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their relationship had nothing to do with her weight. But she felt that if
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she loved lost weight, that he would love for more. And eventually the
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woman he married was bigger than her. So you have to love yourself.
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You can't change for people, because the same people that put you up on
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a pedestal tonight, they will pull you off that pedestal tomorrow. So you
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have to do things that make you feel good about yourself. There are some
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things that we can do to learn to love our bodies. We can write
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positive affirmination about ourselves and place them on the mirror. You can listen daily
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to podcasts that talk about body acceptance. You can tell yourself that you are
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more than your body size. Before I had the stroke, every morning when
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I woke up and I went to brush my teeth and looked into the mirror,
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I said, hello, b BW you big, beautiful woman. What
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are you gonna do today to make someone else's life better? But I would
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look into the mirror and tell myself that I was Yes, I'm big,
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I'm beautiful, and I'm a woman, and I'm proud of the skin that
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I'm in. Yes, we want to lose weight to be hell healthy.
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We want to lose weight to lower our our blood pressure, to get our
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diabetes, and check the things that ordinarily pledge our people because we often grew
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up on eating foods that were unhealthy for us. That are unhealthy for us.
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We love the fried chicken and the collar greens and fat back the stuff
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that is not necessarily healthy for us, and we can't eat that kind of
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food. Every day we find out, you know, we have to put
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healthy fruits and vegetables into our diet. But love your skin that you're in.
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You're more than your body size, even if you're not perfectly happy with
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your body. You are more than your weight and your appearance, and that
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you are a terrific person. And it's also important that we take the power
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back from our musers. Like I said before, when I was a child,
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in the beginning, when the other children would bully me and tease me,
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I used to cry and I would be the last one to walk home
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after school. But one day I got tired of being the butt of all
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their jokes, so I started to fight back verbally. If someone said I
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was fat, I would say, so, don't you think that I know
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that the weight I can lose, but you are ugly, and that's a
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lifetime sentence. And when I stopped crying and I took back my power,
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then they stopped teasing me because it was no longer fun because I was no
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longer crying but fighting back. Everybody's body deserves acceptance, including yours, no
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matter how tall or short, or fat or skin skinny. It is normal
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to struggle with your body image. It is important to practice self love and
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self acceptance. Self love can help you feel more confident and let go of
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some of the impossible beauty standards that the world imposes on us as women.
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One of my pet peeves is when someone says, you have a pretty face,
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but you need to lose weight. And I wonder, what does a
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pretty face and weight have to do with one another? If your face is
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pretty, it's just does weight overtake your looks? Does weight overtake your faith?
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But I hate it when people say, oh, you are a pretty
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girl, but you need to lose some weight. But why did it quit
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both of them together? One of them have nothing to do with the other.
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When you are a plus sized woman, people say, yeah, she's
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chewing her face, as if being full figured is a disgrace. Honey,
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I'm cuting the face and I'm thinking of waste. I'm beautiful, vibrant,
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and above all smart. There's more to me than my weight. I also
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have a heart. Yes, my clothes may be bigger, and that means
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you have access to a bigger prize. We are all not self conscious about
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our weight, and we never have a problem getting a date. So don't
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think. Have you ever watched them show six hundred pounds life? We find
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that every one of those women or men, they have mates, They have
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boyfriends or husband in their life, so evidently their weight doesn't hinder them from
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getting a man or a woman. It's how confident you are. If you
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believe in yourself, you believe that the man is getting a prize. A
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lot of times people think that because you are a larger size, that you
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are vulnerable and you'll take anybody just to have a pair of shoes under your
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bed. Baby, you gotta come with more than that a man. You
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gotta love yourself, so don't think a small frame gives you more pull.
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I'm a super curvy woman with a figure that's full. Society says that being
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thin is beautiful, and that your beauty is connected to your dress size,
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and that you cannot be beautiful in the skin that you're in. Many overweight
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women are insecure and ashamed of their bodies. I hated to go clothes shopping
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with my skinny friends because we were looking for the same color clothes to wear.
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We would be in the regular size store and they would pick up the
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largest skirt and stretch it out and say, girl, this skirt is huge,
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you can wear this. Meanwhile, it was a fourteen and I needed
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a woman. I am convinced that many an overweight woman has squeezed into a
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skirt five sizes too small because the skinny girl pulled it out as far as
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it can go and convinced her she could wear it. Women have become conditioned
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to believe in the unrealistic standards of beauty set by society. Their self worth
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is so very often decided by others perception of them. Many times in my
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life I have been teased and made fun of by my peers. I hated
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jim Days because I would always be the last one to be picked on any
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team, and I would stand there trying not to cry as each child was
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picked one by one, waiting in for my name to be called, but
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knowing in my heart that I would be the last one. I would be
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the last man standing. If you are slam or not, never be,
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never be considered only only a model for being beautiful. Beautiful is in the
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eye of the beholder. Every body type in shape is beautiful. Real beauty
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is not on the outside, but it's on the inside. The Bible says
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and Samuel, but the Lord said to Samuel, do not look at his
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appearance or at his physical statue, because I have refused him. For the
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Lord does not see as man sees. For man looks at the outward appearance,
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but the looks at the heart first Samuel six and seven. In this
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scripture, God understands that man looks at how you look. Man looks at
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the way you look to judge whether you should be a doctor lawyer. They
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assume because you're overweight, that you are unintelligent, not smart. All you
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do all day is eat. What really gets my gets me is when they
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show on TV these larger people just eating seven whoppers and five cokes, and
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I'm saying I'm a big woman, but I on look and eat one whopper
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if I can finish that. If I eat one whopper, I'm full.
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So how these people eating seven whoppers? And people look at you and they
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assume that all you do is eat, and that's not true. There's some
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people that have conditions that make them larger than others. In this scripture,
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God understands that man looks at how you look on the outside, and oftentimes
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we are judged by our looks. It is important to remember that we must
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not judge a book by his cover. In order to get to know all
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you can about that book, you must read it. It is the same
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way with people. We should never judge a person by the way they look.
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What's more important is what's on the inside. But the Lord said to
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Samuel, don't judge by his appearance or height, For I have read the
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Lord doesn't see things in the way we see them. People judged by outward
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appearance. But the Lord looks at the heart. What God is saying in
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essence is that I'm not looking at how tall, dark and handsome he is.
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I'm looking I am not looking at his fine clothes, but I am
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looking at his character, his integrity, and his motives. This culture puts
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so much emphasis on the way that a person looks. So many times we
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are ugly on the inside. We might look good on the outside, but
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our heart is dirty and filled with deceit, vainglory, un forgiveness. Our
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heart is so dirty. Amen. The outside is all cleaned up, but
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our insides is dirty and filthy. I have been overweighted my whole life,
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and in my early years I suffered from low self esteem. Low self esteem
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can affect all the areas in your life. It will affect the way that
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you view your future. If you do not believe that you deserve better in
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life, you will accept anything. At the very core of low self esteem
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are your personal feelings of being inadequate or not being good enough. You feel
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like you are worthless because you do not look like what people think that you
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should look like. There are a lot of stereotypes about overweight people. That
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all we do is eat all day. Do we make unhealthy food choices?
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Yes, and sodas half of America. They believe that all oh boy,
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people are lazy and stink. Also not true. Anyone who does not bathe
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will stink. But these are things that most people believe. Another stereotype is
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that overweight women are desperate and will sleep with anyone that will sleep with them,
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or that they do not like sex because they are ashamed of their bodies.
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The fact that it's had on me is that I went after guys that
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people thought I couldn't get because of my size, and I didn't date guys
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that specifically said they like big women. And because I was trying to prove
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the stereotype row, I started looking for love and all the wrong places we
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look for love and food, alcohol, drugs, sex, or in the
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arms of someone who doesn't really value a love them. There's a sickler song
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by Candy Satan that said and I used to sing all the time. The
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title of the song is young Hearts Run Free. The words that resonated with
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me are young hearts to yourself, be free, don't be no fool.
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When love doesn't really love you, you will count up all the years and
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they will be fied with tears. In my life, when I was going
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to bars and clubs trying to find mister Gutbar, I kept coming home with
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a snicker or a three muster tear, but never miss the right. Sometimes
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it was mister right now. When you do not love yourself, you are
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not in any position for anyone else to love you. You are only setting
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yourself up for disappointments when you are looking for others to validate you and love
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you. I was living alive day after day. I would paint on a
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phony smile and pretend that everything was all right and that I was all that
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in a bag of chips, But inside I felt like the crumbs and the
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bottom of the bag. But need our turf girl exterior is a tiny,
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insecure girl hiding in the corners of our hearts. When as women we do
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not know our work, we go from one unhealthy relationship to another unhealthy relationship.
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We look for things to be different this time, but if we examine
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our patterns, we will see that we continually pick the same type of man,
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just with a different name. Truth be told, some men are like
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dogs. You know how a dog can smell when you are afraid of them,
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and they will attack just on your vulnerability. Well, some men can
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smell that same thing that you're insecure, you don't feel good about yourself,
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and they think that then you will accept any type of behavior because you are
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just looking for someone to love you. You just looking for somebody to validate
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you and say that you are pretty enough. In my pursuit of love,
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I attach myself to men who do not know who they were, so in
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actual reality, how could they love me? And I was already wound and
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not healed. I carried a large suitcase packed with all my issues from one
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relationship to the next. The first step to healing is that you have to
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learn to love yourself and accept the fact that God created us in all different
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shapes and sizes. The first step to loving yourself is overcoming the negative things
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that you think about yourself. The negative thoughts that we have about ourself,
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orphan staying from one others have instilled in us. That's why once I had
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children, I spoke positively to them. I spoke, you are beautiful,
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you are smart, you are the bomb dot com. Amen. Think of
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yourself as being good enough. You're good enough, You're worth something, you
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are worthy. Amen. I wanted my children to feel good about themselves,
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and I didn't want them like I did at a young age until I learned
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to accept who I was. I didn't want them to be looking for love
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and all the wrong places. I didn't want them there outside to be immaculate,
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but in the inside they were silently hurting because they did not love themselves.
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So I learned how to love myself. I learned that I kept telling
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myself that everything God made is good, that you are made in the image
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of God. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. And if you don't like
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the skin that you're in, then do something to change that for you start
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living. And I started, especially after the stroke. I started eating healthier,
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eating more fruits and vegetables. And even though I can't exercise in this
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bed, I move my limbs every day. I lift my legs, I
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do sit up, try to sit up as far as I can in the
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bed because I love the skin that I am in. But I want to
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be the healthiest virgin, virgin of myself that I can be. I love
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that song by Mary J. Blige, just fine, that when she looks
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into the mirror, what she sees is just fine. It doesn't need anything.
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She's confident in who she is a man, and that's what we have
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to be confident and we'll win. And we have to be careful not to
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judge other people. Keep your opinion to yourself. If you think. I
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remember there was a little girl in my class and I used to teach three
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year old and every opportunity that I got, I would teach them life lessons
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that they need as they get older. So this little girl, she came
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in with something on that she loved. She was so happy. She was
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parading around all day showing off her outfit. Then about lunchtime, another little
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girl said to her, I don't like your outfit. And she began to
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cry. And she said, why why are you crying? And she said
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because my outfit is ugly. So I said to her, when you came
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to school this morning, you were very proud of your outfit. What happened?
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And she said, both so and so said that my dress was ugly.
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I said, well, do you think it's ugly? She's like no,
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I said, why are you crying if you liked it this morning when
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you put it on. No matter what somebody's opinion of it is, no
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matter what someone is saying about it, you have to say, well I
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like it. It's not for you. You're not wearing I am. I
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like it, so you. I used to teach that to my little kids
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at a young age, that if you like something just because someone's opinion.
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It's just like if you eating peas and you like peas and someone said peas,
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and then you push your peas away. No, you were eating your
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peace. You like peas. Don't let someone's opinion of something stop you from
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liking who you are that we see a lot of shaming with Lizzo. A
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lot of people are talking about her body and what she wears and what she
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shouldn't wear. Well, if she's comfortable in that, she thinks she looks
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good in that, who are we to judge her? Who are we to
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say that doesn't look good on you? If she thinks it looks good on
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her. If you like it, I love it. I'm not the one
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wearing it. So I shouldn't have an opinion on what you wear. We
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shouldn't have just put stereotypes on people and exume that just because they're bigger,
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that they're lazy, or they stink, or they can't do this and they
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can't do that. Don't put your stereotypes on people. Get to know them.
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Just don't judge the book by the cover, but O in the book
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up, read through the book, see what really is going on and I'm
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going to end with this. God made you for a reason and a purpose.
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So God knows your heart, your fears, your thought, your motives,
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your dreams and frustrations before you even think or act upon it. We
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cannot hide anything from God. He knows your past, your present, and
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only he knows our future. God speaks to our self image in his word.
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He declares that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, with all our curves
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and imperfections. God made me and I am beautiful in his sight. But
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like many women, I didn't always realize that I was beautiful and precious in
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the sight of God. It was a process to grasp the concept that I
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was beautiful. These issues of low self esteem, lack of self confidence,
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and discouragement cannot be just wished away. I suffered in silence for money.
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Ye many years on the outside I had on a massive happiness in life.
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We wear many masks. No, you got it wrong everything. According to
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the Dictionary, mass means a manner or expression that has our true characters or
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feelings. We often wear masks to disguise who we really are. We change
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as our masks as we go through different stages of life. Wear the mask
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that gives us the most protection from people discovering who we really are. So
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on tonight, I thank everyone for listening, like, comment and share.
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Amen. Share to your friends, Amen, because remember be confident in the
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skin that you d God made you fearfully and wonderful, and you are just
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fine. Good Night, good night, good night. See you in December,
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the first Wednesday in December. Everybody, have a good night. God,
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bless you, bless you, bless you, good night. Tune in
37:57
to a podcast show with your host, Emma Thomas, for God so loved
38:02
the world that it gave us only begotten son that who's