Am I operating from a place of fear or love?

This is a question that I’ve personally been leaning into quite a bit lately.

Are the decisions I’m making, the things I’m taking action on, the ways I’m flowing in my personal and professional development, are they based from a place of authenticity and care, or are they driven by seeds of doubt and scarcity?

Because body image work relational- it’s an ongoing journey, an ongoing process-, of undoing and unraveling, of curiosity, reconnection, reassessing and reaffirming compassion for your inner self and the physicality that carries you through your life.

Many of my clients are shocked when they realize that true and lasting healing from disordered eating and body-hate actually has very little to do with food and their bodies.

Sure, those are the things you project your pain onto. That you try with all your might to control to stop your unworthiness wounds from flaring up. 

But, the efforts of control are a massive distraction.

A distraction that reinforces the message you've bought into that if you don't control, that if you don't strive and grind for perfection, then you won't ever feel worthy. Loved. Beautiful even.

You have the power within you, at this very moment, to take steps to stop this cycle.

By giving yourself permission, momentary permission even, to practice imperfect action.

Disordered eating and the pursuit of thinness is so normalized in our culture that it is often dismissed and even encouraged within health and wellness fields.

My friends know that when I get excited I really love to give high-fives!

And my clients know the same... especially when they're working their assess off to understand, make sense of and move through years of struggles with food and their bodies (my clients are badasses when it comes to feeling all the feels and hanging on tight for the ride of recovery... seriously!)

And I tend to get super excited when they start experiencing the power of recognizing when an urge to engage in disordered behaviors around food and body is coming on, feeling it, and responding to it with respect and curiosity... in a way that will support their goal to kick disordered eating's ass.

So, I want to give you an online high-five! 

You might be wondering if I lost my mind by sending that in the subject line!

But, I assure you, I haven't!

No more than usual at least 😜.

I really mean it, though. It's ok to want to lose weight.

It's ok to want to follow your eating disorder's rules.

It's ok to be pushing back against the whisper of the compassionate caregiver's voice in your head that's encouraging you to loosen your grip on disordered eating patterns.

It's ok.

You can want to continue to lose weight. You can want to keep your eating disorder around to keep you safe. You can want to look like the hottest model on social media.

It's ok.

Just because you want to, doesn't mean you have to.

Have you seen that meme bepopping around Facebook and Instagram with one woman saying she feels so bad guilty for eating chocolate cake and the other exclaiming, "for f**'s sake, Sharon!..."

Well in case you haven't, for your viewing pleasure, here it is!

New article is live on Thrive Global!