Dance and Embodiment Healing for Eating Disorder Recovery

I had a complex relationship to movement during the darker depths of my eating disorder days.

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I would use exercise to numb, suppress, discipline, or run away from whatever I didn’t want to feel or face. Exercise and movement had become weapons that would punish my body and put me back in line. Do you relate to this?

As I started to acknowledge the layers of the eating disorder, I realised that this way of judging, comparing, demonizing, and competing with my body was just. not. working.

I noticed that I didn’t know what it meant to move my body without it being a duty, obligation, or punishment. I remembered how as a child I loved to move just for the sake of it, not for anyone else but simply to feel the fire of my own heart dancing.

At this juncture, I stood before a sea of questions:
What kinds of movements did I actually enjoy doing?
If I am only existing in my head where is my body?
Why do I need to exercise to "deserve" my food?
What scares me about going down and into my body?
In what ways are the old ways of exercising helping me feel sane?
What are other ways that I can support my well-being other than punishing exercise?
What am I truly afraid of?

My recovery reminded me that while I had not tended to my inner fire, it was still alive. My inner dance was yearning to be reignited, for its embers to be fanned, and for its warmth to glow through me. My body wanted to be felt, tended to, seen, and allowed to express.

My heart wanted to be on fire again.

And so, I reached down and held out a hand.

At first it felt awkward, sometimes scary, and sometimes confusing, but over time, bridges of communication built, and trust, safety, and connection were established between me and my body.

A large part of my eating disorder recovery has been learning how to move my body in ways that bring joy, flow, grounding, emotional release, and authenticity. It has been a long process of unlearning that I don't need to move in a perfect way, and that any and all expressions are welcome.

What a relief.

This unlearning journey has brought me to conscious dance and intuitive movement. These practices have helped me connect with my body, trust my impulses, acknowledge my feelings, and to surrender to the unknown and unfolding dance (of life).

Intentional movement spaces are like portals that support us in shedding the old ways of separation and disconnection and to step into new ways of self-trust and inner wholeness.

For many people in eating disorder recovery, there is a deep yearning for authentic, genuine, and wholehearted connection. However, there is often fear and old wounds around connection and expression that need to first be met.

Over time, the eating disorder recovery path reveals opportunities to reconnect with what resonates with the heart and how to express the soul’s deep calling. Through intuitive movement, we nourish the conditions to remember why we are here at this time, and why we inherently deserve to be here.

This is the dance of recovery.

Dance is the song of the body.

Whatever your song is, as it changes from moment to moment, I invite you into this dance journey.

When we are able to move in a rhythm and dance the dynamic dance of our emotional landscape that is sustainable, life-supportive, regulating, and containing, we are able to ride the ebbs and flows of life without needing the eating disorder strategies.

When a movement practice is built to support all emotions and the fullness of our expressions, in all of their shapes, textures, and tones, we can embody a frequency and move in ways that call in a reality that is free from destructive food and body rules.

When we dance with our bodies and with our breath, we create physical and energetic flexibility that supports the psyche to hold the most precious parts within us that yearn to be held, and ultimately joyously danced with.

Then, our dance becomes a prayer for our recovery where the body is the invocation itself.

Photo by Ahmad Odeh on Unsplash