Discovering your value in the midst of a dangerous obsession with perfection | with Sarah Tyau of Life is Beautiful (TLBP #37)

Today Sarah Tyau, blogger and YouTuber at Life is Beautiful, openly shares her battle with an eating disorder and self-loathing that originated with her lack of self-confidence and her desire for a perfectionism that is impossible to attain. She begins by sharing her experience of growing up as a minority and the positive and negative effects that had on her confidence. She shares a series of circumstances and events that contributed to her struggling unhealthy mindset about the way she looked, including the misinterpreted words from friends, the lack of knowledge on the development of a young girls’ body, and the comments of a college boyfriend that led her to become obsessed with losing 7 pounds. Sarah shares the night her eating disorder began as she sat in a Wendy’s parking lot and force fed herself as a punishment for ‘being so fat’. She shares her darkest moments and how through coming to know her worth through God she was able to finally experience hope and change through forgetting herself and serving others. She passionately shares the message that you are of worth not because of what you look like or what race you are, but simply because ‘you are’, ‘you exist’, ‘you have infinite value’. She openly shares her continued struggle with a pattern of perfectionism and an ‘all or nothing’ mindset. I love how honest she is to quickly tell us that she doesn’t have it all figured out, that this is an ongoing struggle. She explains her reasoning for being so open on her blog and social media is so that no one will ever feel alone and know that their feelings of overwhelm and struggle are normal. Listen and be ready to take a hard look at the patterns in your life and the way you view yourself, and see if they are leading to a healthy or unhealthy self-image. Be inspired to serve others as a means to see your own value.

Want to know if this episode it for you? This episode is perfect for someone who struggles with the pursuit of perfectionism and an “all or nothing” mindset. It is also perfect for someone who may suffer from an eating disorder or looking to understand the pattern of thinking from someone suffering from one. It will also a great episode for a mother who struggles with getting burnt out.

What is this episode about? In this episode you will learn about:

how growing up as a minority was positive and negative for her self-esteem
how the question “where are you from?” can make someone feel like they don’t belong
why she cried every time she went clothes shopping as a young girl
how some Koreans greet one another and how Sarah misinterpreted their words
why she went on her first diet to lose 2-3 pounds in high school
what a college boyfriend said to make her obsessed with losing 7 pounds
her first time binge eating in a Wendy’s parking lot as she force fed herself as a punishment for ‘being so fat’
what she would say to herself if she could go back to talk to herself that night
how your ego is not really who you are, but who you are at the core
why she is grateful for going through this experience
her cycle of dieting and gaining weight
how this affected the way she viewed others
what she did on her darkest night in her desperation to starve herself
how the light returned
her belief in God and the way he thinks of her
how serving others helped her to forget about herself
the guilt she felt when she had moments when she regretted being on a mission or being a mother
how she battles with an ‘all or nothing’ mindset and a pursuit of perfection
she honest answer that she is struggles with this but how she is learning that a true failure is not trying
when she feels the most confident in herself when she’s closest to God and can look through his eyes at how He sees her
she talks about bodies to her own children
how serving others helps her to be happy
the people in your life that really matter don’t care about what you look like