I want to validate all of the things you're feeling, .

As we navigate the coming weeks it feels important to have some tools readily available to soothe ourselves.

If you're feeling tight with anxiety, I want you to know that your body, your nervous system, is doing its job.

When we feel our safety and security is threatened, our body's natural response is to move to fight or flight mode. Enter worrisome thoughts, irritability, spiraling thoughts and tension throughout our bodies.

We need this anxiety to activate to help protect ourselves from danger. But, when the intensity of it becomes overwhelming, it can be very hard to make grounded decisions, be with what matters most to us, plan ahead and mobilize to act on those plans.

Because every body has a natural set point weight range.

This is the weight range where your body naturally settles when you’re eating in response to hunger and fullness and moving your body in ways that feel good.

The body is smart. It wants to be where it is genetically comfortable. It wants to maintain its natural weight range, despite our cognitive and cultural desires to be a different weight, or body shape and size.

To be embodied is to fully inhabit your body. To be awake and attuned to the pulses, the sensations, the FEELINGS, the intuition, that is alive within your body. 

To be embodied is to care for the body subjectively, instead of objectively. To engage in self-care from a place of compassion, driven by your values that are attuned in mind and body, instead of the cultural values of fixing, working toward thinness and "health".

To be embodied is to live your life in your body. In the here and now. Compassionately connected, regardless of the image. And beginning to trust and believe in your body.

Do you know what YOUR voice sounds like? If you're anything like me, I'm sure you know what your inner-critic sounds like if she/he/they're spouting off at the mouth all the dang time. 

Something I want to encourage you to consider is that you are not your inner critic. 

Yes, your inner critic is a part of you, but your most healthy, authentic and compassionate part also exists. It may just need the grace and space to join the party.

How do we start getting to know OUR voices?

Happy international no diet day!

Now, some people will see the hashtag #internationalnodietday and share about their epic cheat day from their keto diet, going ham on FroYo because #yolo, or breaking whatever fad it is they've jumped onto. 

But, really, today is a day to honor and celebrate that each and every one of us have the right to live freely and authentically in our bodies- in the here and now- without manipulation, without stigma and without oppression.

When it comes to healing from years of body shame and body loathing it can feel counterintuitive work toward this one thing...

Decentering your appearance.

And do what instead, you ask?

Centering your in the moment experience of living and feeling in your body.

"I want to lose weight because I want to get healthy."

"I need to lose weight because I need to get healthy."

"I'm not healthy in this body."

Sarah, have you ever had similar thoughts?

I'm sure you have! Because most people I chat with everyday have them, have had them and are bound to continue have them!

Can we talk a little bit about why?

*This blog contain a brief discussion on loss and death*

Last week 2 people I knew and deeply respected throughout different seasons of my life died.

Now, these folks weren’t active participants in my current life, but both of these deaths seemed quite sudden, untimely and unexpected.

The shock and waves of sadness for them, their families, their friends and their communities were palpable in my mind and in my body as the week closed out.

And it really got me thinking about legacy.

The decision to take steps to recover from disordered eating and body shame is a difficult one. It’s a decision that many people make because they really have no clue what else to do.

Diets? Tried them. ALL.

Clothing sizes? Got them. ALL.

Self-judgement? Done it. ALL.

Realizing that you’ve been caught in a seemingly endless trap of restriction, binging, judgement, shame and blame can leave you feeling helpless and hopeless.

Healing from dieting cycles, binge eating, disordered eating and body shame is hard work.  

It’d be hard work if we lived in a vacuum! But what makes it even harder is living in a culture that glorifies and praises dieting tendencies and intertwines our worth with our bodies, our nutritional intake and our even health status.

In my work with women and in my writing, I bring up the concept of diet culture often. I wanted to dive into the concept a bit to provide you with context and some food for thought that I’m guessing could be needed, especially around this time of year (hello resolutions!).

Bad body image days, they happen to all of us. 

This time of year can bring on all the feels. Which, in my experience, can significantly amplify how we feel in, and about, our bodies.

So, as we move through this stressful season of the year, it's important to be reminded of and armed with ways to cope with those tough moments, or days.

Between complex family relationships, a layered and vulnerable relationship with your body and food and a seemingly boundless feast filling your field of vision, it’s no wonder why the thought of the day can insight anxiety (dare I say dread?!).

And to top it off, for many women struggling with binge eating, this is just the beginning of a long, quite possibly painful holiday season.

If you’re tempted, or are planning to rid your house of the goods while your kiddos are sleeping, I want to encourage you to take a deeeeeep breath and consider an alternative.

Sugar doesn’t have to be that scary

You might be thinking, “NO, Sarah, you don’t understand! I’m ADDICTED to sugar! I’ll house everything from the trick or treating bags if I don’t get it out of here!”

I want you to know I hear you. I totally appreciate why you feel like you’re addicted to the chocolatey goodness. In your lived experience, it’s probably brought about certain can’t stop won’t stop thoughts and behaviors.

Something that one of my clients recently shared with me was that body image work is like an endless marathon. As you move into healing, the end point seems to get further away. But, over time you build up endurance to keep going, to keep moving, to keep believing in yourself. So much so that your initial anticipated destination doesn’t seem all that important. It’s process and the journey that really heals and truly sets you free.

Body Positivity is a buzzword these days. In mainstream media and within the diet and wellness industries folks are jumping onboard to try and help women feel better about their bodies.

I’m thankful that these conversations are taking place, because it can be an entry point for people who have struggled with their relationship with their body for years

In tough times, it's so easy to identify with a label. To identify what's happening for you emotionally or behaviorally and many times to justify how you're showing up the world.

You're depressed.

You're anxious.

You're a binge eater.

There's nothing wrong with understanding what's driving your mood and your behaviors. But, if you get caught up in a label, enmeshed with the meaning you *or society* makes of that label, it can be difficult to identify with much else, or to make space to feel a different way.

If you are in need of emergent mental health support, text "HOME" to 741471 or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

If you need assistance finding a therapist in your area, please don't hesitate to reach out. I would be happy to help you find the support you are SO deserving of.

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.