Ever wonder why food can feel like the ultimate comfort?

It’s like nothing takes the edge off of a long, stressful day like (*insert your fave comfort food here*).

And sure, eating a cookie dough ice cream with abandon can certainly take the edge off... But, does eating in response to your emotions make you feel truly comforted?

Think 20, 30, 60 minutes later.

Break up with MyFitnessPal and take a Mindful Journal for a spin!

“How can you respond to your body with kindness and compassion?” is a question I ask many of my clients.

Most times, I get blank stares and shrugs in return, communicating, “I don’t have a clue!”

Do you know why that is?

This film is based on the story of a young woman struggling with anorexia.

On the heels of the release of Thirteen Reasons Why, there has been quite a bit of controversy around how this film will serve the community, people who are struggling with eating disorders.

As I planned the move I decided what I absolutely needed was a farmhouse table for the new space. After doing some research, Google and Pinterest told me that building a table wouldn’t be all that hard (ladies, why does Pinterest always do this to me!?).

Naturally, I set my mind on building one. I reassured my husband that it’d be a super quick project and that with our brains combined we could totally do it.

Well, we did it (enter fist pump here)!

“I LITERALLY CAN’T GO ONE MORE DAY JUST BEING WITH MYSELF!!”

I remember saying this more times than I can count.

And when we use food and exercise to cope, to feel better, to numb, we’re not able to actually work through the emotions. We simply mask them, cover them up and hide from them.

Which leads to them coming back with a vengeance.

Here’s the cycle that can result…

Feel—> Food—> Temporary Relief —>Feel —> Food... and on and on.

What’s at the very foundation of healing your relationship with food and your body?

Acceptance.

How long have you grappled with ‘emotional eating?’

Right.

A long time.

You’ve coped with stress, sadness, overwhelm and even celebrated your greatest victories with one common factor: food.

Food is your go to way of coping.

Because you’ve become accustomed to turning to food (it’s your comfort, your friend, your enemy, your secret love), you likely haven’t developed many other effective coping mechanisms.

If you suspect your daughter has an issue with food or her body image, it's important to reflect on the messages she has inadvertently been taught, your own experience with those messages and how they may be showing up in your own life. It's never too late to model a healthy and balanced relationship with food and your body.

Take a minute to think about your bestie. The love you have for him or her, the experiences you've shared, your ability to laugh hysterically at nothing for minutes on end... even that knowing that you should call them when something tells you that something just isn't right in their lives.

Take a minute and imagine if you had that relationship with your body.

Because self-care comes from a place of love. Dieting and improvement comes from a place of loathing.

See how those basic facts can plant seeds of beautiful badassery vs self-loathing?

It happened...

The easter baskets.

The chocolate filled eggs.

Those damn chocolate bunnies!

You binged.

"I feel fat"

A comment so familiar to women teens and young girls.

But, fat is not a feeling.

How many times have you said that phrase in the past week? Month? Probably countless.

What did you really mean in those moments, though?

In order to make shifts in the way we interact with our bodies, we need to remember what it feels like to be in our bodies.

Come home to your body.

Today, I want to give you a simple and quick tool. A mindfulness exercise to help you do just that.

I created a checklist for you and/or your daughter use to evaluate her relationship to, and her behaviors around, food and her body.

Diet-culture and the thin-ideal manage to give us permission forget the woman inside the body and shifts the attention to her success or her failure to maintain or achieve an ‘acceptable’ appearance. It shifts movement and exercise from a form of self-care to a necessary evil to make us smaller.

There’s power in getting super clear about how your mindset can shift from a place of hate, to neutrality, to acceptance, to love.

Today, let’s start doing just that.

It felt a bit warmer out (high temps of 38!) on Saturday morning. It didn’t even cross my mind that there would be ice. We turned the corner, down a slight hill, and just like that, my feet were completely out from under me. I slammed down on the pavement. Yup, straight on my ass. Andddd it hurt.

Insularly focusing on weight and appearance does not lead to healthier bodies, it causes significant damage. Damage that isn’t easily undone. Damage that increases obsession with food and body and decreases attention to true health markers. Damage that causes lowered self-esteem, the rising prevalence of eating disorders and only adds energy to weight stigma and discrimination based on size.

You don’t have to suffer in silence. There is nothing wrong with you. Healing is possible.