Hello Beautiful.
If you are struggling with diet culture, body image issues, body hate, self image issues, weight loss/weight gain struggles or low self esteem - This is the place to be for resources on your path.
Moving forward from this place of self hate is possible - but it is going to take time and effort.
YOU ARE SO WORTH this time and effort.
Recovering from diet culture is something that we must realize is a commitment we are making.
At its roots, body obsession is something we are using to help us repress, deny, ignore and otherwise keep from expressing aspects of ourselves, our desires and our natural way of being. We are also using our focus on food and the body as a way of trying to cope with and manage the many traumas we have faced in life. It's part of how we are conditioned to turn against ourselves and our humanity, to try to fix and change ourselves, to try to be what we think others want us to be to try to find safety - and it's NOT your fault on ANY level.
A trauma is something that happened to us that we didn’t understand.
It was an event that we thought should not have happened, or an event that didn’t happen hat we expected too.
Much of this took place in our childhoods and a lot of the time we are not even consciously aware anymore of what happened. However in this, because we did not learn how reality works, we are going to face the same trauma over and over again in our lives today as adults, as this is what we have yet to learn and understand in order to enable us to express who and what we are.
This learning about how reality actually functions through integrating our traumas and understanding why they happened is what gives us the ability to understand the nature of reality.
With this understanding we can create what we wish to create!
Without this understanding, we cannot because if you don’t know how something works, you can’t use it to create your visions.
We were also all told that we are not ok to be who we are - that love will get taken away if we express our truths, and we have deeply believed that love = survival. We are not going to feel whole and complete until we are able to express as our true selves, having integrated our experiences, understanding how reality works and thus able to create what we want to create but at the same time we are scared to ever express anything that may get us rejected, because we are afraid that if we do we will die.
As you can see, this is no easy or quick work.
Looking at our food and body image issues as being ‘the issue’ is an excellent place to start - and it is through learning to love the body, love the one who feels inadequate, the one who wants to lose weight, the one who wants to control their life and food that we start to learn how to love these deeper, truer, more traumatized parts of ourselves.
We start on the surface loving the body we have, loving the one who does not accept the body we have, loving the one who wants to binge/purge/restrict - everything that arrises - as a way of getting information from these aspects. This will take you deeper and deeper, but it is a journey.
Please be willing to use the resources listed below over and over again. Moving forward is a JOURNEY and a PROCESS - there won't be a single revelation or tool that is your great 'aha' moment that fixes everything. This will happen in a spiral. This will happen in waves.
Commit to doing this work daily. Commit to doing this work for the rest of your life. It will evolve far past body image work if you allow it to do so.
**Also, if you are struggling with a true eating disorder or if you are in need of more one on one help, please seek that. These tools are not meant to be a replacement for treatment or therapy. They can be an addition to your work with someone who is qualified to support you in the way you need, or tools you can use when you are in a state of being able to support yourself. Please get the help you need when you need it, and don't try to do this on your own when you need that support. YOU ARE WORTHY of support.**
Start where you are, get committed, work the tools. Over and over.
You are worth it.
Tools, Resources, Guides:
Blogs To Read:
Body Positivity Isn’t Only About Diversity
Body Positivity Is About Body SAFETY
Do We Have A Body Positivity Movement?
Why Loving Your Body Is A Tool For Changing The World
Why Embracing Your Body Is KEY To Building The New World
Health Is NOT A ‘Personal Choice’
Health Is About COMMUNITY And Choice
Diet Culture Is Part Of The Machine
Influencer Culture IS The Toxic System, Not The Solution To The Toxic System
How Do We ACTUALLY Break Free From Diet Culture?
Your Body Is On Your Side 6 Week Program
The Eating Disorder/Body Image/Self Worth Playlist On Youtube
If you are looking for one on one coaching, my dear friend Rande Moss has many resources as well as spots for coaching clients through her website, which you can check out here:
Rande Moss Free Spirit Academy
Also if you feel that any of the above resources would serve you but they are out of your price-range just send me an e-mail to [email protected] and I will help you out 🙂
Go slow, be kind to yourself and use your tools daily.
<3
[…] and body image/diet: Full stop. This is tough work, and I have a LOT of resources to help you – check out this page here for all of them. The more we do this in ourselves, the freer we become. The less we are going to be manipulated by […]