A Prayer for Nourishment: Honouring Hunger, Healing, and the Sacredness of Food

Hunger is universal, yet access to food is not. Around the world, we are witnessing how food is being weaponized, while many of us struggle to feel safe and connected in our relationship with nourishment. This prayer for nourishment is an invitation to honour hunger, remember that food is sacred, and reflect on how our healing is deeply tied to each other and the Earth.

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It’s become harder to show up on this social media to speak about food.

As someone who works in the eating disorder recovery field, and as a white, privileged woman who once starved herself for years, day after day, denying nourishment, talking about food and sharing content about eating has become increasingly difficult.

I acknowledge that by not always speaking openly, I have, at times, contributed to the bypassing nature we so often see in the health and wellness industry. This industry continues to uphold a “perfect” image, often speaking to nervous system regulation, health, and well-being as if they exist solely at the individual level.

But as we bear witness to wars where food is weaponized — a method of control — our individualistic approach to achieving health and healing is no longer sustainable. The health and healing of our fellow human beings and of the Earth is interdependent on our individual well-being. 

There was a time in my life when I chose not to eat, not because I didn’t have access to food, but because I felt unsafe, unworthy, and alone — at war with myself.

To even begin to fathom that there are millions of people for whom food is being weaponized, for whom access is out of reach, and for whom one of the main sources of life is used to kill — this puts my own access to food into perspective. Food can both nurture life and destroy it.

When food is intentionally used to dehumanize, to strip away the right to a dignified existence, we must remember that the memory of starvation becomes etched deeply into the body. That memory is carried forward as somatic inheritance from generation to generation, from body to body. Starvation is trauma.

Even though I’ve been in recovery for many years, if I don’t eat when I’m hungry, my body still goes into a panic. The fear of not getting food remains: a painful reminder of the harm I once caused my body, an innocent body that was only ever trying to protect me.

I share this not to compare my lived experience with the reality of those who are forcibly starved, nor to suggest I fully understand their suffering, but to share the complexity of how the body remembers. Hunger leaves a gaping hole. 

My hope in sharing this is to spark reflection.

If you are struggling with an eating disorder in the midst of wars and genocides, please know: your story still deeply matters, your journey is equally important, and your healing is needed. The world needs you nourished, resourced, and whole — now more than ever — so that together, we can support one another and care for the Earth.  

Your healing is my healing.  

Our healing is collective healing.

May we always hear our hunger.

May we remember that having food to eat is a basic human right, not something to be earned. No one should ever be denied nourishment — no matter their story, their skin color, their beliefs, or their desires.

Your hunger matters. May we have the compassion to truly hear another’s hunger.  

May we nourish ourselves, each other, and the Earth that sustains us in ways that are reciprocal, honouring, and kind.

May we offer gratitude for the clean water we drink, for the vibrant and diverse foods we are privileged to enjoy. May we offer gratitude to the animals, plants, gardeners, farmers, workers, drivers, and shopkeepers who help bring that food to our plates each day.

May we offer gratitude to the sun, the rains, the clouds, the winds, and the soils that grow what gives us life.  

May we remember to give back to our Earth Mother, who feeds us each day without judgment or prejudice.

May we never forget the privilege of being able to choose to eat.  

May our nourished bodies be strong enough to take action, to bear witness, and to care for others.

May we remember that food is sacred. That all life is sacred.

May we honour the cycles of life and death, remembering that we are forever interconnected.

May your plate become a place of peace.

This is a prayer for nourishment — for ourselves, for each other, and for the Earth.

May we listen to each other’s hunger with open hearts. May we respond to our own hunger and fill our own cups to adequately support those in need.

May we have the courage to grieve our own hungers that were never met or that we denied ourselves. May we have to courage to turn towards those who currently do not have a choice to eat.

These words are an attempt to digest what is going on in the world. Feeling the wounds of the world brings healing. I hope these words arrive gently.

I hope you find one glimmer in your day that lifts your spirit and reminds you are here, alive.

What Wants To Warm Up? Coming Out Of Functional Freeze In Eating Disorder Recovery

Change is in the air.

After living nomadically for a few years, I finally found myself on solid ground, only to watch everything I had built dissolve. What followed was a deep season of groundlessness, one that invited me to slow down, step away from being busy, and pause long enough to feel what was beneath it all.

This pause was more than rest. It revealed something I hadn’t seen so clearly before:

I had been living from a nervous system state of functional freeze.

What Is Functional Freeze?

Functional freeze is a state of nervous system dysregulation where mobilizing energy (fight/flight) gets trapped under a blanket of shutdown and numbness. You’re not collapsed or visibly in distress. In fact, on the outside, you're probably highly functional — doing, achieving, showing up.

But internally, it’s like you have the gas and the brake are on at the same time.

With such powerful opposing forces firing simultaneously, over time, the body begins to break down.

This state can insidiously disrupt everything from digestion, sleep, and mood, to immunity and hormonal balance. It’s common in people with addiction and eating disorders, and sadly, it’s also normalized by our hustle culture and diet culture alike.

Functional freeze is often linked to a nervous system that ties the need to prove one’s inner worth and value to external achievements and validation. It’s like you’re running around with an empty cup, giving to others, but unable to nourish and fill up your own cup.

Eating Disorders as Functional Freeze

In my own life, and in the lives of many clients, I’ve come to see eating disorders not just as cognitive distortions, but as somatic strategies — ways the body communicates unmetabolized experiences when words and support are unavailable.

Disordered eating became my body’s way of saying: “Something inside is too much to feel.”

This is why so many people with EDs describe feeling like a “walking head,” numb or robotic. Beneath the freeze is often a highly sensitive, intuitive nervous system that has learned to shut down in order to survive to be in relationship.

What people learn to shut down, numb, repress, block, or invalidate are any feelings that carry a charge that is too big, too much, or unacceptable — as deemed by the people around them. An icy freeze covers everything in order to maintain enough connection, cementing the functional freeze state.

It works for a while until life becomes colourless, dull, tasteless and unfulfilling, starved.

Bottom-Up Healing: Where Change Begins

For years when I was struggling with an eating disorder, I tried top-down approaches to recovery. I focused on stopping behaviours and changing thoughts. But the real shift came when I found polyvagal-informed somatic work and plant medicine.

The changes that have emerged from this healing work has been incremental, over many many years. Breaking the cycle of functional freeze is ancestral and collective, alongside it being an individual journey. The layers are deep, and it takes time to excavate, from the ground up, and to consciously choose to not live or normalize the habitual patterning of functional freeze.

A bottom-up approach is powerful because story follows state.

When we shift the nervous system into regulation (bottom up), the story of the eating disorder (top down) doesn’t need to be fixed or forced away — it begins to transform and dissolve on its own.

In a regulated state:

• Clearer perspective, thought, and rationality returns

• Eating feels more balanced

• Body image improves

• Creativity emerges

• Curiosity blossoms

• Relationships feel safer

• Life feels more possible, naturally, without trying or forcing

This is what bottom-up healing looks like. Rather than pushing ourselves into change, we titrate transformation, adding in sustainable, nourishing tools, practices, and rhythms that help us feel present, safe, and grounded in our bodies again. Rewiring and transforming can only happen when we are present and embodied.

Psychedelics, Flow, and Feeling What Was Frozen

Plant medicines and psychedelics have been an essential part of my journey because they do something very simple yet profound:

They help us feel what we were once unwilling or unable to feel.

In the presence of skilled, somatic-based preparation and integration, psychedelics can support the thawing of freeze, reconnecting us with our bodies, our emotions, and our soul’s deepest longings. This isn’t about forcing catharsis, it’s about returning to an aligned and natural state of warmth, flow, and coherence.

Being able to envision and create a life without an eating disorder-like behaviours becomes accessible as psychedelics widen our vision, soften the limiting beliefs, usher in hope and inspiration, and bring our bodies into a more compassionate and regulated state.

Their visionary capacities helps us widen our space of possibility through helping us dream beyond what we think and embody are possible.

So, How Do We Come Out of Freeze?

Start by asking yourself:

What am I unwilling to feel? (Thank you Tara Brach for this inquiry).

To dethaw the functional freeze, we are required to shift from a state of bracing to one of embracing.

Coming out of functional freeze is not about “doing more.” It’s about accepting and embracing the parts of us we’ve pushed away, especially the tender, fiery, grieving, and longing ones.

Here are some gentle ways to begin:

• Track sensation: Notice what warms you emotionally, physically, spiritually

• Follow pleasure: What brings aliveness? Laughter? Inspiration?

• Welcome parts: Practice self-acceptance towards the frozen or numb states

• Orient to goodness: Let your senses take in beauty, safety, and softness around you

As the freeze begins to thaw and you feel more regulated, digestion improves, intuition returns, relationships feel more connected, and life starts to feel more vibrant, more honest, more you.

This is because when we start coming out of functional freeze, our senses are more accurately perceiving the external environment, we are more attuned to the body and its cues (the internal environment), and we are able to listen to our internal systems that are giving us really important cues for our safety, well-being, and internal sense of balance. This is our intuition coming online.

Functional freeze isn’t a flaw; it’s a brilliant survival strategy that outlived its usefulness. And coming out of it isn’t a race. Dethawing takes time. Let yourself move at the pace of your nervous system.

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I change.” — Carl Rogers

As we embrace ourselves with warmth and honesty, we return to our natural state: regulated, resourced, and resilient.

May you trust your timing. May you listen to the subtle longings within. And may you feel held, always, by your body, by the Earth, by love.

Restore Body Trust at Home: A Somatic Practice Using a Physio Ball

Rebuilding Body Trust, One Bounce At A Time

In eating disorder recovery, reconnecting with your body isn’t just emotional, it’s a physical process. A physio ball may seem like a simple tool, but in the context of somatic healing, it becomes a powerful ally in restoring regulation, boundaries, and interoceptive clarity.

Whether you're recovering from bingeing, restricting, or body image struggles, this at-home practice can support your journey back to body trust, self-regulation, and digestion, from the inside out.

Why a Physio Ball?

The ball is both stable and responsive. When I lie on it, bounce on it, or breathe against it, I feel something solid meeting me. There’s feedback, connection, and an embodied reminder: I exist, I am supported, I belong here.

This kind of physical contact can help:

• Reestablish a sense of safety

• Awaken gut awareness and interoceptive signals

• Support the vagus nerve and digestion

• Build energetic and emotional boundaries

Somatic Practices to Try at Home

1. Yield and Be Held
Lie on your back on the physio ball, draping over it. Feel the support underneath you, especially behind your heart and pelvis.

Can you let yourself be held? Can you yield into support?
This helps signal safety to your nervous system and builds trust in resting. From here, a sense of "I have enough. I am enough" can arise.

2. Bounce to Meet Your Life Force
Sit and gently bounce on the ball, letting your spine and pelvis find rhythm. This connects you to your vitality and sexual energy in a safe and contained way, reminding your system that aliveness can feel good.

3. Define Your Edges
Breathe against the ball. Feel it push back.
This helps clarify:

• Where do I begin and end?

• What are my yeses and nos?
  This simple push builds boundary awareness, which is key for intuitive eating, consent, and emotional clarity.

4. Stimulate Gut Receptors
Place the ball or a pillow on your belly and breathe into it slowly. You might want to drape over the ball for this one too. The gentle pressure activates receptors in your gut, helping you recognize hunger, fullness, and emotional cues.

5. Regulate Before Meals
Before eating, breathe with the ball or a pillow to activate the low-tone dorsal parasympathetic system—the part of the nervous system that supports digestion and social engagement.
This prepares your body to receive food without overwhelm or shutdown.

From Dysregulation to Interoception

Over time, these somatic cues guided by the ball lead to better digestion, refined body connection (able to track, feel, and name sensations (aka interoceptive awareness)), stronger boundaries, clarity around wans, needs, and preferences, and greater regulation and trust around eating. They also help you access something even deeper — your gut knowing.

The more you come into your body, the more you can feel the subtle in-between, where the whispers of clarity and truth reside. The ball helps with that in a playful way. It gives your nervous system something to push against, something to connect with and trust.

This is the path of restoring body trust: one breath, one boundary, one bounce at a time.

Have You Tried It?

Have you used a physio ball or similar somatic tools in your healing journey? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear how it's helped you reconnect with your body.

To see me practicing with the physio ball, check out my IG post.

Photo by jerry chen on Unsplash

Why Body Checking Isn’t Really About Vanity: A Somatic Perspective on Body Image and Embodiment

Body checking is often misunderstood as vanity or obsession with appearance. But beneath the surface, this behavior is a signpost — a survival strategy pointing to deeper struggles with body dysmorphia, trauma, and disconnection.

In this post, we’ll explore:

• What body checking is and why we do it

• How it relates to identity, safety, and nervous system regulation

• Practices to support embodiment and healing from body image issues

What Is Body Checking?

Body checking refers to repetitive behaviours used to assess or measure one’s body, such as pinching, squeezing, feeling, or looking in mirrors. These actions often focus on areas of perceived “flaws” and can become compulsive.

But here’s the deeper truth:
Body checking isn’t just about size. It’s also about existence.

For many people, especially those with eating disorders or body dysmorphia, changes in the body trigger identity confusion — "If my body changes, am I still me?" Body checking becomes a way to anchor identity in a world that feels unstable or unsafe.

The Link Between Body Checking, Trauma, and Disembodiment

Often, the inability to “be” in one’s body stems from the nervous system’s history of survival adaptations.

When we’ve experienced trauma — particularly attachment trauma or early developmental ruptures — the spaces and people around us may have felt unsafe or dysregulating. Our bodies learned to brace, numb, or disconnect. We move further and further away from our sense of embodiment, which leaves us feeling like we don’t exist.

➡️ In this context, body checking is an unconscious attempt to feel real — to confirm, through physical touch or visual feedback, that we still exist and are “enough” to be here.

You’re Not Afraid of Your Body—Your Body Is Holding Fear

Here’s a reframe:
You’re not afraid of your body.
Your body is holding fear.

Fear that was never discharged.
Fear from moments where the body mobilized to fight, flee, or freeze, and never had the chance to complete that cycle.

When those survival energies stay stuck in the system, the body becomes associated with discomfort or threat. We begin to project fear onto the body itself, compounding body image issues and furthering disconnection.

Healing Through Embodiment and Safety

As we begin to release this trapped survival stress and establish safety through somatic practices, the need to body check naturally fades. Here's what helps:

• Proprioceptive and interoceptive practices (e.g., mindful movement, developmental movement patterns, breath awareness)

• Connecting to the midline and central channel — the core of your being

• Spending time in environments that feel safe and affirming

• Co-regulating with others who are committed to healing and embodiment

These tools help us inhabit the body not as an enemy, but as home.

A Message for the Part of You That Still Doesn’t Feel Safe

You exist.
You belong.
You are worthy of being here, just as you are.

Your life force is not too much — it’s not dangerous — it’s sacred.
Your body is not broken.
It’s asking to be met with safety, presence, and love.

As fear softens and your nervous system finds regulation, your body becomes less something to manage or fix, and more a place to live, love, and trust.

May you come home to body.

Photo by Wang Sheeran on Unsplash

Eating Disorder Recovery & Exercise Addiction: Reclaiming Embodiment, Balance, and the Wisdom of the Body

Treatment for Exercise Addiction: An Embodied Path to Recovery

Eating disorders are not merely coping mechanisms — they are profound expressions of the body’s unmet needs for belonging, safety, balance, and worth. Exercise addiction, often entangled with eating disorders, is no exception. When movement becomes compulsive, we must ask: What is the body truly seeking?

Recovery begins when we stop trying to “fix” behaviours and start listening to what they’re pointing toward. From an embodied perspective, eating disorders are messengers — revealing where disconnection or boundary violations have occurred, and where reconnection and resourcing are needed.

What Is Exercise Addiction in ED Recovery?

Exercise addiction is characterized by a compulsive need to move — often excessive, rigid, or punishing — even when the body is exhausted. It can feel like you have to run, walk, or work out, and stopping brings anxiety or dysregulation.

But what if, instead of pathologizing the movement, we approached it with compassion?

“Where are you running to? What are you moving away from?”

In my own recovery journey over 16 years ago, these were the questions I longed for — not punishment for relapsing, but curiosity about what my body was trying to communicate. Exercise felt compulsive (I just had to do it) and excessive (I didn’t know when to stop).

Embodiment: Returning to Center

True embodiment means that your consciousness and your physical form are aligned — organized around a central axis that holds your vitality, creativity, and wholeness. Trauma, especially developmental or relational trauma, can disrupt this center. It creates fragmentation — where safety, trust, and energetic balance are lost.

Eating disorders often emerge from these imbalances. They are not random. They point to unmet needs for safety, connection, and sovereignty. The same applies to exercise addiction — it often arises when we feel off-balance, powerless, overwhelmed, or unseen.

The work, then, is not to eliminate the symptom — but to resource the center. To bring curiosity to movement, to ask:

• Where does this movement want to go?

• What part of me is asking for release, or regulation?

• How can I bring more engagement, breath, and presence into the act of moving?

Movement as Medicine, Not Punishment

In somatic recovery, we don’t throw away the movement. We slow it down. We listen to it. When exercise becomes exploratory rather than defensive, it can reconnect us to our center.

Try this the next time you move your body:

• Focus on what helps you breathe.

• Orient toward something beautiful as you move your body (in your room, in your surroundings).

• Pause — and notice how you feel before, during, and after the movement.

• Allow your movement to be relational — to the Earth, to your joy, to yourself.

Rest Is Revolutionary

In a culture that glorifies productivity and the “ideal” body, rest becomes radical. Releasing the identity that’s wrapped up in discipline, control, and body perfectionism takes immense courage in a diet culture world.

Psychedelic healing — especially with intentional microdosing or ceremonial psychedelic work — can support this process by softening the inner critic and reconnecting us to our soul’s rhythm rather than society’s.

Recovery invites us to reimagine nourishment, not just through food, but through how we relate to energy, stillness, pleasure, and presence.

Recovery as Returning to Wholeness

Recovery isn’t just about stopping behaviours. It’s about coming into right relationship with your body. It’s about learning to metabolize safety, rest, movement, and love. The eating disorder — and the compulsive exercise that often comes with it — holds clues to the balance your body is craving.

Rather than seeing these symptoms as the problem, we can see them as the path — invitations to reclaim your center and live in deeper alignment.

Photo by Zaur Giyasov on Unsplash

The Surprising Gift of Fear: A Somatic and Psychedelic Approach to Eating Disorder Recovery

What If fear is your gateway to growth?

Today, I’m contemplating this potent quote by Pema Chödrön:

“Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.”

Recently, I’ve been moving through a portal of fear — not fear of something external, but the fear of fear itself. This has been about confronting and being present with the physical sensations of fear running through my body.

Being afraid of fear itself can feel like a frustrating loop. Fear feeds on itself, creating a cycle that’s hard to break. Maybe you’ve felt this, too?

It’s natural to resist discomfort. Turning toward the burning, buzzing sensations we label as “fear” can feel unnatural — like going against the grain.

If you’ve ever been taught to dismiss fear or lacked role models growing up who navigated fear mindfully, this reaction is incredibly common.

Fear Is Not Wrong

It is helpful to remember that:

• Feeling fear is not wrong.

• You are not broken for feeling fear — or even for fearing fear.

Fear is a vital emotion in this human experience 💕 It helps us:

• Decide what to move toward or avoid.

• Activate survival responses (fight, flight, freeze) when danger is present.

Fear is a necessary ingredient for our survival, one of the seven core categories of emotions we all experience, alongside anger, sadness, joy, excitement, disgust, and sexual excitement.

But what happens when we experience fear outside of serious, life-threatening danger?

The Fear That Holds Our Truth Back

Sometimes, fear shows up when we’re not in danger but in a moment of expansion. Expansion invites us closer to our truth, asking us to remove the armor and defenses that have kept us small. Stepping beyond our comfort zone can feel thrilling — and terrifying. For example, you might:

• Feel a desire to connect with someone but hesitate as fear tenses up your body, holding you back.

• Be curious to try new food at a community gathering but feel fear stop you.

• Want to speak up in a circle of friends but feel your throat tighten, constricting your voice.

In these moments, sensations like tightness, burning, paralyzing, or heaviness arise — a soupy somatic mix we label as “fear.” 😨 These feelings can be overwhelming and uncomfortable and leave us feeling out of control (especially if we didn't have appropriate role modelling).

When fear dominates in this way, we try to avoid it entirely, creating a loop where we fear fear itself.

Escaping Fear Through Disconnection

For those navigating eating disorders, disordered eating, or other mental health challenges, emotions like fear can feel too big, too much, too overwhelming.

Why? Many of us were taught to suppress or numb emotions. Perhaps you were labelled a “wimp” for expressing fear or praised for being “tough cookie.” These early experiences can lead to disconnection from authentic emotions, encouraging patterns of shame, shutting down and avoiding what arises within.

To cope with these feelings, we might turn to food or our bodies to escape — not just from fear, but from the pain of denying our inner truths by only showing "acceptable" emotions to the outside world.

Personally, I see eating disorders as expressions of unmetabolized fear responses.

The thing is, is that fear doesn’t disappear when avoided. It becomes trapped in the body, undigested, and can show up as:

• Anxiety

• Digestive issues

• Disrupted sleep

• Rigidity around food, and more

The way forward is learning to gently approach fear — to meet it with curiosity, courage, and compassion rather than avoiding, numbing out or battling.

I am sharing this theme because there is a lot of fear in the collective right now. The world is certainly at a precipice of radical disruption and change.

Almost everyone I’ve spoken to recently has expressed that they’re in some kind of transition — whether it’s related to jobs, finances, homes, health, relationships, or identity 🌓

We are individually and collectively in the midst of change. And change often brings fear.

Embracing Fear as a Gateway to Transformation

Fear is not something to eliminate. It’s something to understand, hold, and soften into.

Liminal moments — those thresholds of change and uncertainty — often bring fear. The word “liminal” comes from the Latin limen, meaning “threshold” or “doorway.” It’s the space between where you’ve been and where you’re going.

How we approach these liminal spaces determines whether we repeat old patterns out of fear — or step into transformation with grace, and become more embodied and wiser through it 👁️

Fear holds a surprising gift: it invites us into transformation and deeper embodiment.

Three Ways to Work with Fear

Rather than tightening and hardening around fear, we can be softened by its presence. By stepping through the gateway of fear, we find opportunities to feel, move, and connect with deeper truths. Here are three ways to work with the fear of fear:

1️⃣ Give Yourself Permission to Feel Fear

Fear is a natural response and can indicate that we are moving towards a more raw, naked, real version of ourselves. It’s not about removing fear but learning to walk with it.

Transitions and change feel scary because our biology craves predictability. Our brains have evolved to avoid and reduce uncertainty (it’s more energy efficient). And the change process is fundamentally uncertain.

Since we have a strong impulse to strive for stability, the unknown inherently feels uncomfortable. By understanding this about our biology, the tight hold of fear begins to loosen.

You are not weak for feeling fear — you are human 🧬 By welcoming it with curiosity, you open the door to transformation.

2️⃣ Work with the Body

Fear is a bodily experience, so moving the body helps you process and digest it.

Here are a few ways to work the sensations of fear:

• Shake your hands and limbs to release stuck energy.

• Rock or sway gently to a favourite, soothing song.

• Walk in nature (barefoot if possible) with a friend or pet to feel grounded.

- Notice how you feel before, during and after these activities. By paying attention to how the sensations feel in your body, they become more familiar and known (see Point 1️⃣!).

It’s important to move in ways that feel within your capacity, where you can stay present to your inner experience.

Don’t be surprised if you start moving very subtly and slowly; fear needs time to come out of its shell and dethaw.

Side but important note: if you are working with fear and trauma that have been trapped in your body since early developmental years, working with it might look very different to what is described above. Working with a trauma-informed practitioner might be needed in these instances.

It goes without saying that turning towards fear requires embodied safety. You might need build a felt sense of safety in your body first before diving into it by:

• Learning about nervous system regulation and how your own nervous system works.

• Placing your hands on your heart or belly and breathing consciously.

• Pressing your feet into the ground or wiggle your toes to anchor yourself in the present moment.

• Engaging your sense — Notice what you can see, hear, or feel around you in this here-now present moment.

• Placing a weighted blanket or pillow on your body or drinking a warm beverage.

These practices build a sense of safety, containment, and regulation, helping fear soften and move.

3️⃣ Reconnect with Your Why

Why do you want to shift your relationship with fear?

Do you desire deeper connection?

More love?

To live more authentically?

These goals can feel scary, but reconnecting with your intention gives you the courage to move forward, adding radiant fuel to your inner fire.

Fear is not your enemy — it’s a messenger, pulling you closer to the truth. Ask yourself:

What is my fear trying to tell me?

What is it protecting me from?

Reframing fear as an ally that's trying to protect you rather than an adversary can help it feel less overwhelming and scary.

A Personal Reflection

Having recently celebrated my 33rd birthday earlier this month, I have finally learnt to trust that fear will not swallow me. One of my core words for my birthday this year is Trust — trusting my inner experience and letting bigger energy, like fear and love, to move through me with acceptance and curiosity.

I look back to my tender 17-year-old self when I first started my journey to heal disordered eating, body mistrust and fear of feelings (especially love) and I feel so much compassion for my younger parts that have grown and transformed.

Learning about my nervous system, working somatically, and incorporating psychedelics into my life have certainly contributed to my capacity and resiliency to hold more of myself.

I still have lots to learn but now I trust that I won’t be swallowed by fear and feel empowered knowing that I have recalibrating resources in reach to support myself in wobbly moments 🌊

Here are some simple reminders that have helped me when fear surfaces:

• Feel it in the body. Notice where fear arises in the body. See if you can also observe a place in your body that feels neutral. Shift your focus between these two places.

• Visualize it as a wave. Fear rises and falls, just like the tides. The energy will eventually subside. Breathe.

• Remind yourself you are safe. Feel your feet on the ground, take in your environment, and affirm: “Fear is a feeling. I am safe in this moment. I can feel it without being controlled by it.”

Fear is a natural response to life’s transitions and transformations. It’s not something to fix or eliminate but rather is a guide that invites us into deeper truths about ourselves.

When we learn to approach fear with curiosity and compassion — to feel it, hold it, and move with it — we open the door to resilience, growth, and evolution. We move closer to what we want and find ourselves more fulfilled. When we show up to ourselves in these ways, we inspire and give others permission to do the same.

Honouring Your Courage

Dear one, if you’ve made it this far, I want you to know: I see you, and I honour you 🙏

It takes immense courage to turn toward the challenging parts of yourself — those shadowy, uncomfortable places where fear resides. Yet, it’s in this meeting that healing, integration, and wholeness begin.

When we meet fear with compassion, it reveals its hidden gifts — courage, resilience, and authenticity.

Fear, while uncomfortable, offers us the surprising gift of transformation. It invites us to grow, to soften, and to discover truths about ourselves we might not otherwise touch. By seeing fear not as an obstacle but as a gateway, we walk the path of self-discovery with courage.

As you navigate this brave walk of transformation, remember that you don’t have to do it perfectly, and you don’t have to do it all at once. Keep going, gently, step by step.

And you don’t do it alone; remember that you are held by a force that is so powerfully benevolent beyond measure, beyond comprehension. This wider, deeper holding is what will carry you through the fear and to the other side of whatever portal of change you are navigating.

You are not alone. You are worthy of healing. You are capable.

If you need a reminder in moments of doubt, let this article be your guidepost — a small flame to light the way when fear clouds your vision.

May you carry this truth with you:

“The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.” — Thucydides

With love and unwavering belief in your path,

Francesca Rose

Is Intuitive Eating a Myth? Understanding the Body’s Wisdom in Eating Disorder Recovery

The concept of intuitive eating (IE) has helped many people heal their relationship with food, breaking free from diet culture and rigid food rules. But what if I told you that you are already eating intuitively?

We Are Always Eating Intuitively

Our bodies are constantly sending signals that shape our eating behaviours — what, when, and how we eat. These cues are influenced by:

• The nervous system’s state (regulated vs. dysregulated)

• The environment and sensory input at any given moment

• Past experiences with food, nourishment, and safety

And these factors impact how we relate to food that is entirely unique to each of us. The belief that intuitive eating is something to “achieve” can create unnecessary pressure, especially for those recovering from disordered eating or eating disorders. The reality is that our body is already guiding us, even if that guidance feels distorted due to past experiences of restriction, trauma, or chronic stress.

It is important to note that the IE movement has paved the road for thousands of people around the world to look at their eating behaviours with greater awareness. It has helped so many people recover from disordered eating through helping people shift their perspective around food. And yet, it is a frame that can keep us stuck if we miss how we are already eating intuitively.

Neuroception, a concept developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, explains how our nervous system unconsciously assesses safety and danger. This process shapes our behaviours, including eating. If the body perceives a threat — whether from past diet culture conditioning, trauma, or a dysregulated nervous system — it will respond accordingly.

When we realize we are already practicing IE in our own ways, we can begin to trust our body’s innate capacity and intelligence.

Rather than striving to “learn” intuitive eating, the journey is about trusting and refining how we listen to our body's cues while resourcing our nervous system for more clarity and balance.

Rebuilding Self-Trust in Eating Disorder Recovery

For many struggling with an eating disorder, the belief that they have lost the ability to eat intuitively can be deeply disempowering. However, recognizing that you are already engaging with food in a way that reflects your current inner landscape can be the first step toward self-trust and empowerment.

Steps Toward Nervous System-Attuned Eating

• Notice and name your body’s signals with curiosity rather than judgment

• Regulate your nervous system through grounding and centering embodiment practices

• Reframe your relationship with food as a dynamic, evolving process rather than something to "fix"

• Honour your identity beyond food and body struggles — because recovery isn’t just about food; it’s about reclaiming who you are.

Identity and Eating Disorder Recovery: Who Are You Becoming?

As we begin to listen to our body's cues and shift our relationship with food, a deeper question arises: Who am I beyond my struggles with eating?

For many, an eating disorder becomes more than just a pattern of behaviours — it shapes identity. I remember, years ago, asking myself how I truly felt about my eating disorder. At the time, my response startled me:
"I’m glad I have it because I don’t know who I would be without it."

That moment illuminated the malleability of identity. Before my eating disorder, I was a passionate, curious person. But at that time, I couldn’t relate to that version of myself. The disorder had become a stabilizing force, shaping my self-concept.

James Clear puts it beautifully:
"True behaviour change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity."

Recovery is an identity shift. It’s not just about changing behaviours — it’s about stepping into a new embodiment of self-trust, nourishment, and wholeness.

Moving Beyond Willpower: Embodied Healing

Rather than using willpower to force behavior change (which often leads to dissociation and burnout), true healing comes from aligning with who we want to become. Somatic practices, nervous system regulation, and even plant medicines can support this shift by enhancing clarity, creativity, and neuroplasticity.

By focusing on being rather than doing, food and body-related behaviours naturally evolve to reflect an identity rooted in balance, authenticity, and self-trust. This is how we shape ourselves into who we want to be that is aligned with the truth of who we are from the inside-out.

You Are Already on the Path

Intuitive eating isn’t a distant goal — it’s already happening within you. The journey is about refining your awareness, regulating your nervous system, and reclaiming your innate wisdom around food and nourishment. Over time, as you step more into your authenticity, you will find your eating patterns will intuitively evolve with you.

Through embodied recovery, self-trust, and nervous system healing, you can shift your relationship with food — not by force, but by becoming the person who effortlessly embodies the nourishment, trust, and wholeness you seek.

Healing Loneliness and Self-Blame in Eating Disorder Recovery with Psychedelics

Loneliness is often deeply intertwined with eating disorders — but it isn’t just a symptom. For many, the feeling of isolation was present long before disordered eating behaviors emerged. Let’s explore the role of loneliness, self-blame, and how psychedelic-assisted healing can support the recovery journey.

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Loneliness: More Than a Symptom

One of the most common themes shared by people navigating eating disorder recovery is loneliness. This isn’t a fleeting emotion but often a long-standing feeling rooted in childhood experiences. For some, it’s a feeling that has been around for as long as they can remember.

Common Beliefs Linked to Loneliness:

• “No one really understands me.”

• “I don’t belong here.”

• “The world doesn’t see or accept me.”

These beliefs often stem from early experiences of feeling misunderstood, left out, not feeling like they fit in, or unable to connect with others. Even within loving families, systemic oppression and societal pressures (like diet culture) can amplify this sense of isolation. Many people with eating disorders are also very energetically sensitive, which makes it even more challenging to fit into a loud, fast, overstimulating world.

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The Eating Disorder as a Protector

For many, eating disorder behaviors provide a sense of comfort and reliability in times of disconnection.

However, these behaviors often deepen feelings of isolation:

• Social avoidance due to fear around food-centered events.

• Rigid food or body rituals that limit engagement with others.

It is helpful to see that the eating disorder is the body's way of communicating about how connected or disconnected it feels in the world in ways that words cannot be expressed.

When we see the eating disorder as the body communicating with the rest of the world about its state of regulation, sense of safety and needs for attachment and connection, we begin to see a clearer path towards a more compassionate healing that is inclusive, focuses on developing a somatic sense of belonging, dignity and enoughness, and that prioritizes establishing safe, sincere connections.

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Self-Blame: A Misunderstood Protector

Self-blame is another common experience for those with eating disorders.

As you journey through processing feelings of loneliness, it is possible you might come across a part of yourself that holds an enormous amount of self-blame. For people navigating eating disorders, there are often pervasive internal voices that spin heavy narrative of self-blame and self-criticism.

When there are feelings of loneliness, blaming oneself as “the problem” becomes a way to deal with the pain of feeling alone. While these internal narratives of criticism can feel heavy, they often arise as adaptive responses to pain.

These blaming and critical parts often arose during a time of incredible, intolerable pain. For example, if a young child didn't have their needs met or were ignored in some way (why this happens in the first place is usually rooted in deeper systemic issues), they may believe they are unlovable and are completely alone in the world.

This is intolerable to bear, and as such, a protector part that is highly critical may creep in.

It is more manageable to blame oneself for not being loveable and this protective part can try to do something about it by trying to be perfect, rather than sitting in the pain of not being loved and feeling alone. It is easier to swallow self-blame than trauma.

How Self-Blame Develops:

1. Early Pain: Experiences of developmental trauma, neglect or unmet needs can create feelings of being unlovable.

2. Protective Beliefs: Self-blame becomes a coping mechanism to avoid the unbearable pain of feeling unloved or alone.

3. Perfectionism: A critical inner voice pushes for unattainable perfection as a way to regain connection and safety.

Though self-blame initially protects us, it can entrench disordered behaviors and perpetuate a cycle of disconnection.

How Psychedelics Can Help

Psychedelic-assisted healing offers a powerful tool to address the root causes of loneliness and self-blame. By softening rigid beliefs and connecting with deeper emotions, psychedelics help facilitate profound healing.

Psychedelics have the ability to soften the critical, blaming voices that we hold towards ourselves, offering a new perspective. In that softening we can connect to what's underneath the inner harshness — which is usually the raw, tender part within us that holds that burden of hard-to-swallow-pain of feeling alone.

Slowly, we make contact. Gradually, we connect with that pain and acknowledge it. Eventually, it moves and digests. As the old pain gets digested (which takes time and has several layers), the protector parts no longer have to work so hard at blaming and criticizing, and perhaps they take on a new role, such as offering guidance on establishing healthy boundaries.

And the part of us that once held the pain of feeling all alone is acknowledged, witnessed and held — and begins to feel connected, loved and seen.

What Happens During Psychedelic Healing:

• Protector Parts Rest: The critical, blaming voices step aside.

• Connection to Pain: You gently reconnect with the tender parts of yourself carrying old wounds.

• Emotional Integration: Suppressed pain is acknowledged, processed, and released.

• Reintegration: Fragmented parts are reunited, creating a sense of wholeness.

This process often mirrors inner child work or reparenting, where we meet our younger selves with compassion, care, and acknowledgment.

We begin to reconnect with ourselves with acceptance and compassion and feel an increased capacity to reach out to life and feel supported by it too. Things feel less lonely. What a beautiful journey.

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The Path Toward Connection

As self-blame eases and loneliness is addressed, space opens within the body-mind for authentic connection:

• A stronger relationship with yourself, rooted in acceptance and compassion.

• Greater openness to forming meaningful relationships.

• A renewed sense of belonging to the world around you.

Recovery becomes less about "fixing" and more about reconnecting — with yourself, others, and the world.

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You’re Not Alone

I offer 1:1 coaching and group programs created to support eating disorder recovery through somatic practices and psychedelic integration. Together, we can explore a path that leads to greater connection, self-compassion, and inner resiliency.

Whether you’re just starting or looking for deeper support, I’m here to walk alongside you with care, hope, and understanding. You are welcome to reach out to me to schedule a free 20-minute call to discuss ways of working together.

Photo by Matt Sclarandis on Unsplash

Embracing the Unknown: Finding Trust and Courage in Eating Disorder Recovery

Liminality — the space between an ending and a new beginning — can feel overwhelming, especially for those navigating eating disorders. The food cycle is a powerful metaphor for this: the end of a meal and the pause before the next is often where discomfort surfaces.

For many, this space feels too expansive, too uncertain. Instead of meeting it, we might overeat to prolong the moment, purge or exercise to jump over it, or avoid finishing or starting meals altogether. These behaviours, while protective, keep us from fully experiencing the rest, digestion, and clarity this space offers.

These liminal moments go beyond food; it’s a fertile ground for reconnecting with our inherent enoughness. In this pause, we’re reminded that our worth isn’t tied to what we’ve done, achieved, or controlled — it simply exists because we are.

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The Fear of Rest and Stillness

At the core of many disordered eating patterns lies a mistrust of rest, pausing, and the unknown. Endings — whether of a meal, a task, or a chapter in life — can bring up discomfort, fear, or anxiety.

This discomfort mirrors how we approach food:

• Do you struggle to fully finish a meal?

• Does hunger feel overwhelming, making it hard to start eating?

• Do you turn to behaviours like overeating, purging, or overexercising to avoid the stillness between meals?

These patterns highlight our relationship with endings, surrender, and the idea of simply being and belonging. They invite us to explore our beliefs about rest and non-doing. What do you notice within yourself when you ask the question, “Do I trust myself in the unknown?”

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Trusting the Wilderness Within

Reconnecting with our inner truth is often messy, wild, and deeply courageous. For years, I struggled with self-doubt, often seeking external rules and validation instead of trusting my own inner guidance.

The process of listening to and trusting the quiet whispers of my inner voice has been one of profound transformation. Stripping away masks, people-pleasing, and the need to shape-shift left me raw, vulnerable, and fully present with myself.

This journey isn’t about perfection; it’s about presence. It’s about meeting the full spectrum of your emotions — pain, joy, anxiety, grief, love — and letting them belong. When we allow ourselves to feel, pause, and breathe through it all, we reconnect with the wisdom of our hearts.

Connecting to the truth of who we are is a journey into the wild, vast, oceanic human experience. So often we want to disassociate from this wild ocean that is the body because of what it contains, hold and longs for. Often, we don’t trust what we see and quickly brush over it, suppress it or change it. We don’t often pause with it.

Indeed, it can be excruciating to feel and scary to acknowledge all that we meet — and yet when we muster the courage to meet it, pause with it, breathe with it, and let all of it belong, we make a fundamental shift in our trajectory towards returning to wholeness.

When we pause, we step into presence with the wisdom of the heart. In the liminal space is a chance to see yourself clearly, soften into your inner waves and currents, and hear deep’s longing and hungers emerge.

What do you know to be true? Can you trust it?

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Questions to Explore

As you navigate your recovery, consider these reflections:

• How do you handle endings, both with food and in life?

• What beliefs do you hold about pausing, resting, or letting go?

• What arises when you face the unknown without a clear next step?

• Can you meet yourself — your feelings, your body — with compassion and courage without the need to earn or prove it?

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The Rewards of Meeting the Unknown

When we allow ourselves to rest in liminal spaces, we open the door to clarity, trust, and a sense of deep belonging. These pauses are where we learn that we are enough, not because of what we’ve done or achieved, but simply because we exist.

The more we practice surrender — whether at the end of a meal or in daily moments of uncertainty — the more we grow. With each breath, we expand our capacity to trust ourselves, to navigate the unknown with courage, and to experience the fullness of life. Let the ending of your meal be a practice of surrender.

In this open space, we can land into a sense of inherent enoughness — not based on what we’ve done or achieved but simply because we are here on this Earth. The liminal space is where we clear the canvas to allow for our inner clarity and wisdom to arise, informing us of the aligned next step to take.

You deserve to feel this sense of aliveness. You deserve to trust yourself. The journey into the unknown isn’t just about what you’ll find — it’s about returning home to who you already are.

Photo by zameel hz on Unsplash

How to Stop Blocking Joy and Embrace Happiness in Eating Disorder Recovery

Experiencing joy can be a challenge for people navigating eating disorders.

Joy, playfulness, and excitement are emotions that can feel overwhelming when your nervous system is compromised by trauma or disordered eating patterns. Eating disorders can act as "joy blockers" and at the core, they represent our relationship to joy, the narratives and wounding we hold around this expansive feeling.

Continue reading to explore why joy can feel threatening and offers insights into how to reconnect with this essential part of life during eating disorder recovery.

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Why Joy Feels Threatening to the Nervous System

Eating disorders are often rooted in a fear of emotions rather than a fear of food itself. While much attention is given to fear, pain, and discomfort, less is said about the fear of joy, pleasure, or playfulness. Emotions with high energy — even positive ones like excitement — can register as danger for a dysregulated nervous system. The body struggles to differentiate between excitement and anxiety due to unresolved trauma.

If caregivers in childhood didn’t offer attuned co-regulation, the nervous system’s capacity to handle heightened emotions remains underdeveloped. Joy can feel unsafe because the body lacks the tools to self-regulate in response to increased energy.

Maybe when you were younger, your spontaneous expressions of joy through dancing, singing, creativity, or affection were met with shame or misunderstanding. You might have even been punished for it, or your joy was weaponized against you. As such, when you notice joy, fear, guilt or shame might quickly arise as a defensive shield is put up to block the feeling entirely. It is at this point where we see eating disorders manifesting.

Eating disorders can act as "joy blockers" and they represent our relationship to joy, the narratives and wounding we hold around this expansive energy.

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The Science of Emotions and the Nervous System

Emotions are neither inherently good nor bad — they simply are. Yet, our tendency to label them as positive or negative often influences how we experience them.

Both joy and threat activate the sympathetic nervous system, which prepares the body to respond to high-energy states. To truly embrace joy, a well-functioning parasympathetic system — particularly the ventral vagal nerve — is essential. This nerve helps balance heightened energy with a sense of safety and calm, allowing us to feel energized without feeling overwhelmed.

If the ventral vagal nerve didn’t fully develop during childhood due to a lack of co-regulation from caregivers, experiencing positive emotions can feel challenging.

But this isn’t the end of the story. As adults, we have the power to strengthen our nervous system through practices that promote regulation and create a safe foundation for joy to flourish. By learning to nurture this connection, we open the door to a richer emotional life.

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Disordered Eating as a Defense Against Joy

Disordered eating behaviors such as restriction, bingeing, purging, or over-exercising often serve as a shield against overwhelming emotions, including joy. These food and body strategies create a sense of safety by numbing the body’s capacity to feel.

Within the context of eating disorders, that it is sometimes hard to feel joy because the body is in some kind of physiological deficit; and there is only enough energy to keep basic biological process going. There isn’t enough “in the bank” other than to just keep the person alive.

However, by narrowing your range of emotions, consciosly or subconsciously, these behaviours block the full spectrum of life, cutting you off from connection, fulfillment, and joy.

When we use these strategies, we create a smaller world, one where risk is minimized but so is growth. The paradox is that the safety these behaviours offer is an illusion — it leaves us disconnected from the vitality and richness that joy brings. Recognizing this opens the path to healing and reclaiming the joy you deserve.

Steps to Reconnect with Joy

Reconnecting with joy is not about forcing yourself to “just be happy.” It’s a gradual, gentle process that honours where you are and helps you expand your capacity to feel.

Since joy is an emotion — and not a state we need to work towards or achieve — we can all access it and experience it no matter what we've been through. 

This is an embodied process not a cognitive one. Here’s how to begin:

1. Notice the Spark of Joy
   Pay close attention to the moments when a spark of joy arises, however small. What sensations come up in your body? Are there stories or judgements attached to this experience? You might notice the thought: "Will this feeling keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger?" Thoughts like these are clues. Bringing awareness to these patterns is the first step in reconnecting with joy. Start where you are, not where you aren’t.

2. Drop the Storylines
   Rather than focusing on the mental narratives that might surround joy — such as "I don’t deserve this" or "this won’t last" or “joy is a time waster; it’s indulgent and frivolous” — shift your attention to the raw sensations in your body (e.g. bubbling in the chest, rush of energy through the limbs, change in temperature etc). Allow yourself to experience these feelings without overanalyzing or resisting them.

3. Practice Gratitude
   Gratitude is a powerful way to gently expand your emotional capacity. Start small: notice the things you feel thankful for in your daily life. Keep it simple. Extend your gratitude outward by sending good wishes to others or to the Earth itself. Joy wants to spread and be shared with others. Over time, this practice helps you connect with the greater world and softens the barriers around joy.

4. Expand Your Capacity Gradually
   Let joy in slowly, step by step. The suggestion to “just smile” is just as useless as “just eat”. Give yourself time. Allow yourself to feel small doses of it and observe how your body responds. As you build trust in these experiences, your capacity to hold bigger feelings will grow naturally and safely. Over time, these small moments of joy will create a foundation for greater aliveness and connection.

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Reconnecting with joy is an act of courage and self-love. As you gradually expand your capacity to feel joy, you’ll begin to experience life in a deeper, more fulfilling way. Joy awakens a sense of aliveness and embodied connection — not just to yourself, but to others and the world around you.

This journey also eases the reliance on food or body-focused behaviours as a way to suppress emotions. Instead, feelings are allowed to flow freely and safely through your body, creating space for holistic, inside-out, body-first healing.

Allow yourself to be fed and nourished by joy. You deserve to feel the full range of life’s beauty, including the warmth and vitality of joy. By embracing it, you open yourself to a world of possibilities and reclaim the wholeness that has always been your birthright.

Further reading:

Smiling Is The Key For Eating Disorder Recovery

Eating Disorder Recovery Is A Process Of Relaxing

Photo by Daniel Schludi on Unsplash

Somatic Healing and Embodiment: How Intuitive Eating Supports Nervous System Health

Transforming our relationship with food doesn’t start in the mind or thoughts — it begins in the body. By deepening into embodiment, we cultivate a sense of trust, empowerment, and discernment, not only in our approach to eating but in how we live our lives.

Keep reading to learn how to deepen into embodiment and how this supports our relationship with food. Explore the importance of somatic healing, intuitive eating, and nervous system health in the context of embodiment, along with common factors that disrupt this process. Let’s dive in!

What is Embodiment?

To be embodied means to:

• Connect with your felt sense and body's signals.

• Experience an organized sensory system that promotes clarity and flow.

• Trust and respond to your body's biological impulses and needs.

• Move and inhabit your body with congruency — what you say and do align.

• Discern when to engage with or disconnect from external influences.

In essence, embodiment creates a foundation of agency and clarity, enabling you to nourish yourself in ways that feel intuitive and aligned with your body's needs.

Supporting a sense of embodiment allows you to feel more yourself. When consciousness merges with physical form (i.e. the body), there is a feeling of coming home to yourself.

What Disrupts Embodiment?

Certain life experiences can disconnect us from our bodies, making the process of eating and nourishment feel challenging. Below are six key factors that interfere with our ability to stay embodied:

1. Birth Trauma

The birth process plays a foundational role in our embodiment. A traumatic birth can lead to developmental interruptions, affecting our ability to fully inhabit our bodies. Interwoven in this is generational and ancestral trauma that influences home life within the womb from conception through pregnancy.

2. Injury, Illness, or Chronic Pain

When the body feels unsafe due to internal threats like pain, injury or illness, inhabiting the body can become distressing. This disconnect makes it harder to trust and care for our vessel.

3. Physical Safety Risks

External threats, whether real or perceived, activate the autonomic nervous system into hyperarousal or hypoarousal.

• Acute trauma, in the form of a boundary violation, often causes dissociation as a survival mechanism.

• Pervasive external threats, such as toxic relationships or societal pressures (e.g., diet culture), can result in chronic disembodiment.

4. Attachment Injuries & Early Developmental Trauma

When caregivers provide inconsistent or misattuned attachment experiences, we may hold back parts of ourselves to avoid rejection or abandonment. This leads to dysregulation and a diminished sense of embodiment.

5. Sensory Processing Issues

Sensory processing challenges can disrupt our ability to feel connected to our bodies. These issues may stem from:

• Birth trauma or early developmental trauma.

• High levels of energetic sensitivity, common among those with eating disorders.

Learning to work with these sensitivities (as superpowers!) can support deeper embodiment and healing.

6. Gender Dysphoria

For individuals whose bodies do not align with their gender identity, the disconnect can impact their ability to feel fully embodied. The body may not feel like a safe or affirming space to inhabit.

How Embodiment Supports Intuitive Eating

As we deepen into embodiment, we naturally strengthen our ability to eat intuitively. When we are connected to our felt sense, we can discern:

• How to hear and honour our hunger and fullness cues.

• What nourishment our body needs.

• What food preferences we like and dislike.

• When to eat, rest, or move.

Embodiment fosters nervous system regulation, which is essential for normative eating, and digesting food and life experiences.

Reflective Questions for Embodiment Practice

• What does “embodiment” mean to you?

• How do you recognize when someone is embodied?

• What practices or environments help you feel more connected to your body?

Practical Tips for Deepening Into Embodiment

1. Engage in Somatic Practices: Yoga, mindful movement, or body scans can help connect you to your felt sense.

2. Work with Your Nervous System: Practices that support vagal toning and regulation like sounding, grounding exercises, or co-regulation with a safe person can promote nervous system health.

3. Explore Sensory Processing: Understand your sensory needs and integrate tools (like weighted blankets or specific textures) to support regulation.

4. Seek Safe Spaces: Surround yourself with environments and relationships that feel safe and affirming to your identity and needs.

By understanding and addressing the factors that disrupt embodiment, we can move closer to a state of balance, where food and nourishment feel natural and intuitive.

Transforming our relationship with food doesn't have happen in the mind or in our thoughts but it happens through the body. 

Embodiment is not a destination but an ongoing practice — a journey of inhabiting your body with compassion, curiosity, and trust.

Photo by Jamie Brown on Unsplash

Belonging vs. Inclusion: Finding Connection in Eating Disorder Recovery Through Somatics and Psychedelics

Do You Feel Like You Belong or Are Just Included?

Understanding True Belonging in Eating Disorder Recovery

If you’re on a journey of eating disorder recovery and curious about psychedelics and somatic therapy, the concept of belonging might resonate with you. True belonging goes beyond just feeling included — it’s about embracing your authentic self without needing to conform.

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on this, facing some of my own edges. You know that feeling like an unseen authority is waiting for you to perform or deliver? I felt it, too. Rather than forcing myself to create something just to "keep up," I paused. I allowed myself to soften, tapping into deeper, authentic truths.

Learning to Honor Your Natural Rhythms

In eating disorder recovery, you may discover how your body mirrors the natural rhythms of the Earth. These patterns of peaks and valleys remind us that we are inherently connected to a greater whole. For a long time, I struggled, fighting against my body’s natural ebbs and flows, trying to be "perfect." But as I began honoring these rhythms, I found peace. This realization became a pivotal part of my healing journey and somatic therapy practice.

Reconnecting with Belonging Through Psychedelic Integration

For many, plant medicine and psychedelic therapy offer profound insights, helping us remember that we belong to the Earth just as we are.

This has been one of the greatest gifts psychedelics has given me, and from what I hear from others too: this deep in-your-bones remembrance of how we are the Earth and each one of us are interconnected in this greater web, made up of the seen and unseen.

In eating disorder recovery, where feelings of isolation and shame are common, this remembrance of our inherent worth can be transformative. We belong — not because of what we do or how we look — but because we simply exist. Just like every tree, animal, or body of water, each of us has a place in this world.

As Brené Brown beautifully says, "True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are."

In recovery, learning self-acceptance and compassion is vital. When we truly accept ourselves (and belong to ourselves first), we connect authentically with others and feel safe in our own bodies in the world.

Indeed, the journey of eating disorder recovery is a process of becoming radically, courageously, compassionately accepting of ourselves. Self-acceptance is a direct pathway to belonging because when we believe that who we are is enough, worthy and deserving - unconditionally - we have the courage to show up to ourselves and in the world authentically and vulnerably.

The Difference Between Inclusion and True Belonging

For those struggling with eating disorders, this distinction can be crucial. Inclusion often means conforming to fit into society or certain groups (hello diet culture!) — through appearance, achievements, or social behaviors. Many of us adapt to these expectations, sometimes at the cost of our mental and physical health, to feel connected.

As mammals, we cannot survive without connection as such, will seek out any way to feel some form of connection even if it’s a crumb.

And as we all know, diet culture and hustle culture play into this big time! In these realities, inclusion is achieved through output and outward appearance. If someone choses to not subscribe to those rules, there are sometimes very real repercussions, where one’s sense of belonging is threatened.

So, it takes courage and the support of resonant community to stand up against these outdated and disconnected paradigms, and to shift the attention to the medicine that resides within each of us and celebrating that together.

True belonging doesn’t depend on external validation. It’s an internal state, grounded in self-trust and a sense of worthiness. It’s a powerful realization that you don’t have to perform or change to be valued.

Somatic Therapy: Building Connection with the Body

Somatic therapy is a powerful approach to healing that helps reconnect the body and mind, especially for those navigating disordered eating. By tuning into our bodies, we can shift from a state of anxiety and vigilance to one of ease and groundedness. This process helps restores our nervous systems from a defensive state to a more socially connected state.

When we are in a “social engagement” state, we are able to experience genuine connection, safety and overall regulation.

In eating disorder recovery, many find that somatic therapy helps them reframe their understanding of self-worth from a body-first, bottom-up approach, enabling a healthier, deeper relationship with both their bodies and the world around them from the inside-out.

How to Cultivate Belonging in Eating Disorder Recovery

1. Recognize When You’re Seeking Belonging Through Inclusion Tactics: Notice when you feel the need to "fit in." Are you changing parts of yourself to gain approval?

2. Connect with Nature: Ground yourself in nature. Yielding to the Earth’s rhythms reminds us of our inherent place in the world.

3. Embrace Your Authentic Self: Cultivate self-acceptance. As you embrace your unique identity, you’ll feel more connected and at peace.

And to each one of you reading this, I see you. We are here together, and we are doing it with each small step, focused and clear on the future we dream for ourselves, for our beloved future generations, and for the Earth.

May this future be a future where all begins feel and know that they belong.

Reflect on These Questions

• How does your body respond to the statements “You belong here” vs. “You are included here”?

• What parts of you feel included but not truly belonging?

• How can you cultivate a sense of belonging without compromising your true self?

It’s important to remember that belonging and inclusion are different, and both are necessary parts of being human. It’s about knowing which one we are seeking and observing whether we are trying to have a substitute for the other. Sometimes we have to strategically leave parts of ourselves at the door to be included and accepted into a certain field or profession. But this doesn’t detract from your innate wholeness.

The issue we run into is when we rely on inclusion-based tactics to feel a sense of belonging, such as malnourishing ourselves to fit into cultural or familial standards. We hold back or over-amplify parts of ourselves which can lead to feelings of misalignment.

Belonging is inherent to all of us. It can never be lost. We can never be cut off from the wider web. Through it all, may we remind one another of our enoughness and be clarifying and resonant reflections for each other, allowing us to remember our innate belonging

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Let’s walk this path of recovery and self-discovery together, remembering that true belonging lies in being unapologetically ourselves.

Here’s to embracing our innate belonging.

How the Nervous System Influences Eating Disorders: Understanding the Mind-Body Connection for Recovery

Understanding eating disorders goes beyond food — it’s about how the body signals its sense of safety, regulation, and survival.

Our nervous system communicates essential information, guiding us to recognize when we feel safe, secure, and thriving, or, on the other hand, stressed, unsafe, and struggling. By tuning into these signals, we can uncover what our bodies need not only to survive but to thrive.

Eating disorders often reflect deeper nervous system dysregulation, rooted in survival responses to chronic stress or early developmental trauma. Understanding how the nervous system influences eating behaviors can guide us toward compassion and healing.

Understanding the Role of the Nervous System in Eating Disorders

When someone faces an eating disorder, their body is frequently in a state of survival—flight, fight, or freeze—due to accumulated stress. This response arises when the body feels unsafe or lacks the secure attachment needed to feel at ease.

• Fight Response: The body prepares to confront perceived threats.

• Flight Response: The body feels the need to escape.

• Freeze Response: The body shuts down to avoid overwhelm.

How Nervous System States Influence Eating Disorder Behaviors

Based on past experiences, personality, and environment, each person’s nervous system may respond uniquely. Here’s how different states manifest in thought patterns and eating disorder behaviors:

Freeze State (Shutdown)

When in a freeze or shutdown state, the nervous system sends messages like “I feel helpless, hopeless, and numb.” This can lead to:

• Digestive issues, such as inhibited digestion

• Binge eating to induce a shutdown feeling

• Excessive exercise to combat numbness (aka to feel alive)

• Restricted eating due to reduced hunger or fullness cues (cues are hard to detect, heard or perceive due to muted interoception)

• Emotional and physical disassociation

Fight State (Confrontation)

In a fight state, thoughts may include “I feel irritated, restless, and mistrustful.” Related eating disorder behaviors might include:

• Bingeing or purging

• Compulsive exercise

• Chewing and spitting food

• Restricting others from controlling or preparing food

• Nail-biting or gum-chewing

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Flee State (Avoidance)

In the flee state, individuals may feel “anxious, fidgety, and fearful.” Associated eating disorder behaviors include:

• Rigid dietary restrictions or food rules or specific food rituals

• Avoidance of eating in front of others

• Compulsive exercise

• Food phobias

• Constipation due to high stress

Finding Safety and Healing through the Nervous System

Healing begins with recognizing where the body currently operates within these states. By listening to the body’s signals, we can introduce supportive resources that address these needs and gradually move towards a state of safety. Safety is experienced in many different ways, primarily through connection and co-regulation with other people.

Ventral Vagal State: The Nervous System’s Safe Zone

When in a ventral vagal state, thoughts shift to “I feel open, safe, and curious.” Here’s how a ventral vagal state changes our relationship with food:

• Eating and digestion become smoother and more effective; there’s a reduction in GI issues

• Greater clarity on hunger and food choices

• Feeling satiety becomes a more regular experience

• Reduced focus on disordered eating behaviors

In this state, the eating disorder’s influence softens, allowing for a sense of grounding and connectedness within and towards others. As the body finds homeostasis, food becomes a nourishing experience rather than a battleground.

In this state of ventral vagal connection when our nervous system feels safe and connected to the world around us, there are very few eating behaviours and thoughts that exist. When we land in this place in our nervous system, it is like the eating disorder can naturally let go of us - because less defense responses (fight, slight, freeze) are needed.

Connecting with Safety in the Present Moment

By establishing a safe, supportive environment with others, the nervous system can let go of protective behaviors. Feeling safe, connected, and embodied allows the eating disorder to release its hold, making way for a renewed sense of self.

Decoding the nervous system’s messages reveals that eating disorders aren’t just about food—they’re about safety, connection, and understanding our body’s needs. By embracing supportive relationships and fostering safe spaces, we can gently guide our nervous system back to balance.

Key Takeaways:

• Recognize the nervous system state: Understand how fight, flight, freeze, or ventral vagal states influence thoughts and eating behaviors.

• Listen to the body: Decode its signals to address underlying needs and emotions through refining interoceptive awareness.

• Seek relational support: A trusted connection helps the nervous system feel safe, reducing disordered behaviors over time.

No longer needing to protect and in a place of relational safety, the nervous system can fully land in the present moment. This is when we feel embodied - and at home in our own skin.

Ready to Take the Next Step in Your Journey?

If these words resonate with you and you’re ready to explore a deeper path to healing, I invite you to reach out. Together, we can work to unlock the messages your body holds and gently guide you toward a place of balance, safety, and self-compassion. For details on my one-on-one eating disorder recovery coaching, contact me here.

Photo by Scott Carroll on Unsplash

Connection Is Our First Form Of Nourishment

Many people with eating disorders experience a deep yearning for connection. This stems from not receiving the warmth and safety of healthy attachment. Connection is not just a want—it's a fundamental need, especially for those struggling with disordered eating.

Why Connection Matters for Eating Disorders

When thinking about eating disorders, it's essential to look beyond food. Our primary source of nourishment is relationships—how we connect with others shapes our experience of nourishment in all forms, including food. Humans, as social beings, need connection to survive and thrive.

The way we relate to ourselves and the world around us is heavily influenced by our early relationships with caregivers, societal norms, and cultural structures. These relationships not only shape our emotional well-being but also impact our relationship with food, another crucial form of nourishment.

How Relationships Influence Our Connection with Food

Food provides the physical energy and life force our bodies need. Just like connection, eating is an intimate act—taking something from the outside and bringing it inside us. Our relationship with food often mirrors the way we connect with others.

For those with eating disorders, this relationship can be distorted. How we were taught to relate to food is often tied to the attachment patterns we developed in early life. If we didn’t receive the care we needed from caregivers or society, it can affect our nervous system and lead us to believe the world is unsafe and nourishment is scarce.

The Role of the Nervous System in Eating Disorders

Over the course of our first seven years, the development of the ventral portion of our autonomic nervous system forms. This is established via the act of co-regulation, which is the quality of connection that primary caregivers offer their children.

By “borrowing” our caregiver’s nervous system, our inner source of regulation, how we deal with stress, and how we relate to our emotions is developed. The primary wiring of the autonomic nervous system shapes and molds how we connect with the world and others, and how we connect with ourselves.

As children, when we don’t receive the emotional nourishment we need, it dysregulates our nervous system. We may develop beliefs such as, "My needs don't matter," or "I can't trust others to meet my needs." In response, we find ways to survive, even if they are unhealthy.

This is where disordered eating comes in. The behaviors associated with eating disorders are often the body’s way of communicating unmet needs. They are attempts to find the connection, safety, and regulation that were missing in our early attachments.

Healing Through Connection: A Path to Recovery

Recovery from an eating disorder involves adding the support and resources that were missing in the attachment system. By creating safety in the body, we can begin to heal the parts of ourselves that are holding on to past traumas. This helps the body grow its capacity to hold the fullness of our emotions and experiences.

Connection is hardwired into us, and it's through safe, nurturing relationships that we develop a sense of self and learn how to relate to the world. Healing from disordered eating involves reconnecting with our bodies and learning to trust again.

The Impact of Early Trauma on Eating Disorders

For many people with eating disorders, early developmental trauma plays a significant role. Misattuned co-regulation from caregivers during childhood can lead to feelings of shame, confusion, and disconnection from the body.

When our caregivers fail to reflect our emotions accurately or meet our needs, we start to doubt our own experiences. This can lead to looking outside of ourselves for validation and disconnecting from our true feelings, bodies, and intuition.

Eating disorder behaviours are simply the body telling us what is missing in the attachment system, and the behaviours are in some way an attempt to meet those needs and wants in the ways that the body knows how.

Understanding Eating Disorders as Survival Mechanisms

Disordered eating behaviors are not dysfunctional strategies but are strategies of survival. They are ways to avoid the pain and fear associated with intimacy and connection. Many people with eating disorders have been hurt in relationships, and these behaviors act as protective mechanisms to prevent further harm.

However, these survival strategies prevent us from fully connecting with ourselves, others, and life. Recovery is about bringing compassion to the body and relearning how to connect in safe, nourishing ways.

Reflecting on Our Relationship with Food and Connection

Eating disorders mirror one’s ability to connect with oneself and with others.

Take a moment to reflect on your relationship with food and connection:

• How connected do you feel to your hunger and fullness cues?

• How attuned are you to your needs, desires, and emotions?

• How do you digest your emotions?

• Do you feel any shame around wanting?

• How comfortable are you with intimacy and allowing others in?

• Complete the sentence: When I feel connected, I am…

  Complete the sentence: When I feel connected to the world around me, I notice in my body…

  Complete the sentence: When I feel safe, I connect to…

These questions can help bring awareness to the patterns that shape your relationship with food and connection.

As we restore capacity, trust, and safety with our bodies and with others, the eating disorder strategies soften.

Connection becomes available within and with the outside world, and with that a source of regulation, empowerment and nourishment.

Creating Safety in the Body for Healing

To heal from an eating disorder, it's crucial to create safety in the body. When the body feels safe, the protective layers begin to soften, and we can open up to connection. Safety allows us to experience the present moment, which is where healing happens.

By connecting to the present moment and the sensations in the body, we can start to heal the underlying wounds.

In order to access a sense of connection with our bodies, in relationship, and in the world at large, it requires enough safety.

Opening to connect is vulnerable. This is why safety is key to support this process of softening and opening up.

Reflect on a time when you have felt a sense of safety. Who was with you, where were you and what were you doing? How did you feel? How did you relate to food and eating and your body? How present was the eating disorder voice?

When the body recognises safety in the external environment and feels that internally, there is an embodied alignment between the outside and the inside experience that registers “I can put the guard down”.

When we feel safe, there is an opportunity for the protective layers to slowly dethaw, including the defensive walls of the eating disorder - and we can let in the nourishment of connection.

The ruminative, looping mind that is associated with a nervous system that is in fear and dysregulation quietens, making space for the body innate intelligence towards healing to guide.

An eating disorder cannot exist when we reside in the present moment.

The eating disorder feels most protected when we are focused cognitively on the past or future (e.g. thinking about a meal from the past or what we will eat in the future) rather than the present - which is where the body lives.

To connect to the present moment means we have to connect with the body, which includes all of the feelings and sensations that it holds.

Connecting to the body is the gateway to recovery. And opening to this connection needs to be done slowly so that trust and safety can be firmly established.

The Role of Connection in Thriving Beyond Eating Disorders

True recovery is about learning to receive (rather than restrict) nourishment in all forms—through food, relationships, creativity, and love.

We are allowed, deserving and worthy of these forms of nourishment.

Part of eating disorder recovery is learning how to deepen our embodied presence, to safely grow the capacity to let more of life in whilst staying regulated and connected to the body and the environment around us.

We need connection to not just survive, but to thrive. Attuning to our bodies with self-compassion and forming healthy, supportive relationships helps us build the safety and trust we need so that the eating disorder can let go of us.

Photo by hui sang on Unsplash

We Can't Eat If We Don't Feel Safe - And How Podcasts Can Restore Regulation

The same part of our nervous system that governs our ability to eat in regulated ways is the same part of our nervous system that allows us to socially connect with others.

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By supporting the nervous system to find regulation through human connection, we inherently support the overall workings of the digestive system. If we live alone or don't have access to social interact, podcasts can be an amazing recovery resource.

If our nervous system is in a state of dysregulation and disconnection, our body is In defensive mode. This makes for digesting food challenging.

A lack of safety in the nervous system can show up troubles with digestion, sensory sensitivities, or challenges around detecting fullness or hunger cues, or around food preferences.

And it makes connecting with others challenging too. If we are in defense, we will see those around us as a threat in some way. This can show up as social anxiety, depression, aggression, numb affect, or disassociation when engaging with other people, in intimacy, or in moments of conflict.

When our body is recruited to defend rather than connect, it becomes hard to take in the nourishment of food and of connection - because on a neurological level, they are linked and affect each other.

Eating disorder recovery is the body communicating to us that it is longing for safe connection.

The body is in a defensive state because we haven’t yet landed in the presence of safe and trusted other.

There is a difference between feeling protected and feeling safe.

When we are protected, the danger may be gone but the nervous system is still on the run or ready to fight. When we are safe, the danger is no longer present and we have a safe environment to put down the armour and rest.

For people with eating disorders, they are still in protection mode.

This means that we can approach eating disorder recovery by becoming curious about what is missing within the attachment system, by adding in resources that aid social engagement and connection.

When we feel connected to another, our nervous system can soften in a sense of “I am safe now.”

But what happens if we live alone or don’t have access to regular social interactions? What if we want human connection but don’t feel quite ready to reach out just yet?

This is why listening to a podcast or music whilst eating can be super regulating.

Especially for folks who live alone or who have a lot more time by themselves, eating in silence can be deafening and can increase nervous system activation.

To support the part of our nervous system that helps us connect socially to turn online, we can either be in the presence of another person, but simply hearing the voice and resonance of another can bring us into a more socially connected space.

When we reside in this part of our nervous system we are more regulated, grounded, and present. We are mammals and as such need human connection to both survive and thrive - and it’s in this part of our nervous system where eating disorder behaviours don’t exist (because we feel so much more resourced through co-regulation).

if you find yourself eating alone and reaching for things that have another human talking (podcast, music, TV etc), you are naturally activating the social engagement system that supports your ability to eat.

We can often demonize the use of technology when eating but for some people, it brings greater regulation and more capacity to eat. Asking people to be “mindful” when eating by switching off technology can actually bring dysregulation and ironically less mindfulness!

As the part of the nervous system that governs social connection turns online, our capacity to eat becomes more accessible.

This is because the same part of our nervous system that governs our sense of safety is linked to our ability to resonantly ingest and effectively digest.

Through working with this part of the nervous system, we inherently support the overall workings of the digestive system, which when it returns to a place of regulation, the body’s inner cues (such as fullness, hunger, preference, satisfaction, and need to rest and digest) begin to become clearer.

The more we can bring in connection, love, and community to the eating disorder recovery roadmap, the greater the ability to heal.

This brings greater capacity to the complex process of eating and taking in nourishment - from both food and loving connection.

Photo by Pavel Anoshin on Unsplash

When You Reach The End Of A Meal

Living nomadically taught me a lot about eating disorders. This is what I learnt…

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coming home after eight months of travelling has left me feeling like I’ve reached the end of big meal. I can finally lie down by the fire and rest - and let the food digest.

And whilst I’m digesting my experiences from Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, the States, and the UK, there is also certainly a lot to digest on a collective level from this year which I am sure many of you acknowledge, sense, and feel.

The ability to digest our food, emotions, and experiences is a deep and complex process.

Our digestive system is governed by our autonomic nervous system which is like our inner surveillance that oversees of all of the automatic processes in our body, including our ability to perceive and scan for safety and threat.

Being on the lookout safety and danger is something our nervous system does behind the scenes and influences what we move towards or move away from, or if we stay neutral.

The ability to do this is essential for our survival. It is quite mind-blowing when you think about it!

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If there’s a history of developmental trauma and chronic daily stress, what we perceive as safe or dangerous isn’t always accurate. It’s like the dial is tuned into the wrong station.

Stored trauma energies (aka fight, flight, freeze) and accumulated stress send constant signals to the body that it needs to be on guard and in protection mode.

We might feel afraid to face the stored stress survival energies (they are indeed powerful energies - they are here to keep us alive after all!) within us and as such, put up walls and armour to ensure these feelings stay hidden out of sight - from ourselves and others.

And if we internally feel fear, we begin to see the world through a similar lens as a scary place. As within so without.

This occurs because we always looking to establish and maintain a coherent sense of self. If our internal world is filled with fear, we will find evidence and data from the outside world to keep this inner narrative of self coherent.

It is very discombobulating when our internal narratives of who we are and what the world is like are shaken up - either through big life transitions, psychedelic journeys, or confronting changes - because we are forced to find new information as a way to update our story of self, along with rewiring the nervous system to reflect this new version of reality.

This is embodied change from the inside out.

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Polyvagal Theory points to the neurological link between regulated eating with our sense of safety. We now know from a physiological standpoint that to effectively take in food, we have to feel safe.

So, it makes sense why we can’t really sit down and have a meal whilst trying to run from a bear!

But for many of us, experiencing urgency, anxiety, or armoring (aka running from the bear) is often the state we find ourselves in when we eat, and which later leads to issues like IBS, constipation, or inhibited digestive functioning.

This occurs when survival energies of flight, fight and freeze from past traumatic experiences accumulate and get stuck in the body causing dysregulation - which shows up as rigidity, narrow perspective, anxiety, depression, chronic pain, addiction, and eating disorders.

Over time, this dysregulation becomes the baseline or the new normal. We simply get used to it even if it doesn’t feel all that great.

And it’s from this (dysregulated) baseline of how we feel on the inside that influences how and what we perceive the world around us, how we engage with the others, the decisions we make, and the choices we take.

As such, Polyvagal Theory states that when we feel safe we can effectively digest our food when we reach the end of a meal.

Me looking out to the sunrise in Tulum, Mexico

So what we do to begin to quiet the inner storm, put down the armour, widen our perspective, and Notice Safety that is around us? How about we practice together:

First, let’s take a breath.

Feel your feet on the ground, allowing roots to grow from the soles of your feet into the soul of the Earth.

Orient to your surroundings, taking in light, shadows, colours, shapes, sights and sounds in and around your space.

Notice where you are, right now, right here, in this present moment.

I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this right now that your environment is safe, your body is safe, and you are safe.

Recognize the safety there is here right now by attuning to yourself and yourself in your environment and check in with your body and see if there’s any part of you that wants to soften in this recognition.

Perhaps your eyes, jaw, chest, shoulders, fingers, or lower belly can release a little bit of tension by leaning into and receiving the support of the ground and the containment from your environment.

This ground that is underneath you isn’t going anywhere, and it has the capacity to hold all of you, including mixed feelings, contradicting thoughts, and opposing parts. All of you is held.

There is nothing to prove, achieve, fix, or get right. You are enough as you are and you are held in that.

Check in again. Is there anything else within you that can drop, release, or open into this support - this support that is right underneath you?

Notice how your ability to soften and put down a little bit of armour (aka tension) is relational. It is through relationship - in this case, with the stable, unwavering support of the ground and the holding container of your space - that we have the space to shift from protection to safety.

And one last time, notice your breath.

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Our sense of safety doesn’t come from just the absence of threat, but when we land in the presence of a trusted, accepting other.

On a nervous system level, safety comes from sensing that there is something reliable and trustworthy with us. This is something we can play with by noticing the ground underneath and connecting to the environment around us.

as mammals we are hardwired for connection, and our sense safety and ability to establish self-regulation comes through co-regulating - which is the process of grounding, balancing, and centering ourselves through having the presence of someone else with us.

When we are with another human who we trust, our body can finally let out a big sigh.

The armour can be put down. On a nervous system level, we move from dorsal vagal parasympathetic shutdown (freeze) and sympathetic arousal (flight or fight) into ventral vagal connection (social engagement).

When we are in ventral, we feel expansive and grounded, connected within and to the world around us, curious and creative, present and regulated.

Internally, the chaos subsides, and we can perceive the world as more welcoming and inviting.

How we feel in our bodies improves and we feel less of an urge to critique, harm, or judge our bodies.

As we feel more regulated inside, our capacity to eat widens naturally. Our digestive system also smooths out, leading to better nutrient absorption and excretion.

Emotions can flow more easily, and we can let go with greater trust.

The pervasive narrative of “I don’t know who I am without this eating disorder” has less grip and we begin to explore and embody a more aligned story of self.

As we start recognizing moments of safety, noticing how it feels in the body, and orienting to those people, places, and things that support our nervous system, the eating disorder can naturally let go of us.

This, for me, is the true process of recovery, that is sustainable, long-lasting, and deeply authentic. Recovery is a natural process that works with the capacity of the nervous system. It doesn’t require fear tactics, will, grit, or more sympathetic force or rigidity. It is an organic unfolding.

Recovery is a practice, not perfect.

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Making my way back to South Africa, I am filled with appreciation. These eight months weren’t always easy. There were ebbs and flows, ups and downs, shadows and light. There were several hard-to-swallow moments and digestive challenges, so to speak, and also a lot of beauty, expansion, and discovery. And through it all, it was all held.

I am now sitting at my metaphorical dinner table and looking at my plate. I feel complete. My tummy communicates to my brain, “we have had enough”. And with that, I wash the plates and cutlery. I go sit by the fire and let my body rest so it can process this eighth-month meal. Patience and gentleness are my allies right now as I digest and integrate.

By the warmth of the fire, I remember that there is enough for me, I have done enough, and I am enough.

I invite you feel into and explore your own sense of enoughness.

There is enough for you, there is enough for everyone, you have done enough, and you are enough.

This is the pinnacle expression of the digestive system.

I am wishing you all a smooth and nourishing last month of 2023. May this year and all that it contained integrate with ease so that you can step into the new meal that is 2024 with refined clarity.

The Ingredients For Eating Disorder Recovery

Eating disorder recovery is a creative process, unique to each person.

It’s a process that organically unfolds. It is the process of breaking out of habitual ways of thinking, feeling and believing and trying on something different, connecting new dots, and making fresh associations.

Like a creative process, recovery cannot be rushed or forced as it moves at the pace and capacity of the nervous system.

It is useful to know what the basic, overarching ingredients are as we enter the recovery journey. Similarity, like in any creative process, it is useful to have a framework or a scaffolding to hold and trust the unknowns that come with the territory.

The four foundational ingredients include social connection, sensory nourishment, interoceptive awareness and resting and digesting.

With these four ingredients to form the base, there is a lot that we can explore in eating disorder recovery.:

Social connection, established through co-regulation, is the process of regulating our nervous system with the support of someone, either through trusted friends, a therapist, attuned group support healing spaces, and even pets.

When the nervous system is in a state of regulation, the process if ingesting digesting is more neurologically accessible, and the eating disorder voice is quieter.

You can read more about the impact that co-regulation has in this article. Whilst it is focused on the importance of psychedelic guides, it has relevant gems pertinent to this first ingredient.

Sensory nourishment is the exploration of resourcing the body in different ways so that it feels regulated enough to engage in the complex process of eating.

Some people with eating disorders have sensory sensitivity so when we support from a bottom-up, body-first approach we integrate the sensory system in order to take in food in a regulated way. Supporting what is either overwhelmed or underwhelmed by adding in nourishing sensory-based resources, fortifies the whole body-mind, softening the edges around eating in general.

There are many ways to resource the body that doesn’t only involve food. Working with the far senses (sight, touch, smell, hearing, taste) and near sense (vestibular, proprioception and interoception systems) are ways to support the modulation, discernment and responding processes that happen when someone comes into contact with information/input from the outside and inside world.

To read more about how recovery is an additive process, head this article for further reading.

Since there is often a disconnection from the body and often a focus on the outside image of the body, practicing interoceptive awareness is fundamental to reconnect from inside-out.

Many people with eating disorders are often energetically sensitive so the boundaries between self and other are blurred, making it challenging to distinguish what is theirs’s and what is someone else’s stuff. Practicing different ways of clarifying one’s own inner cues is part of establishing healthy boundaries.

If you are curious about the link between interoceptive awareness and recovery, this article on cultivating self-intimacy goes deeper into this fascinating topic.

Resting and digesting includes exploring our relationship with rest (not always easy in a world of diet culture!) and our sense of worth that is not based on achievement or performance.

Spending time in Nature can remind us that there are cycles to life rather than one monotonous hustle culture drumbeat. Mother Nature can invoke a deep remembrance of our enoughness, belonging and worth.

This article on slowing down and this article that goes into my personal journey with relearning how to rest speaks further to this ingredient.

These four ingredients when added appropriately provide a delicious scaffolding for creative, sustainable eating disorder recovery, allowing for greater cognitive flexibility, emotional intelligence, somatic safety, nervous system regulation, and a sense of hope, possibility, clarity and direction.

What ingredients or elements have helped you in your journey of shifting out of rigidity to greater flexibility, and exploring new patterns or trying new things? I would love to hear from you!

Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash

Why I Travel The World For My Eating Disorder

Traveling has been one of the most important tools I have utilized in my eating disorder recovery journey.

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Along with the Inner journeying with psychedelics, traveling has expanded My awareness.

I have always loved traveling. I remember my first-ever solo trip when I was 25.

It was the first time I felt mentally stable enough to travel alone. Unlike many people I knew who went traveling after school, I needed a few years to work through my eating disorder to feel capable to meet the wider world on my own two feet.

Right after finishing school, I went into an in-patient clinic, and thereafter spent a number of years finding safety and trust with food and my body. 

When I decided to go traveling, I knew it was time to meet another layer of my eating disorder. I was ready to break down the routine, familiarities, repetitive patterns, and all what I knew in order to connect with the part of me that deeply feared change. 

The eating disorder part of me didn't like change. It didn't like my body changing. It wanted food to be predicable. It desperately wanted certainty. It wanted to cling to the shores of the known.

When I decided to go traveling, I took a breath and consciously chose to push off the shore and figure out how to swim in the middle of the river. 

When people ask me what helped me in my recovery, traveling is one of the things I mention. 

By moving the literal ground from underneath me, traveling requires me to develop resources and practice tools that support in finding my inner ground and that help me keep my head above water regardless of where I am in the world.

Traveling is a tool that helps me clearly see where I am still gripping to the shores of the known. 

It is a light that shines on the places that fear change - these places can often hide when I am in the routine of everyday life but are hard to ignore when I'm in the constant change of travel. 

Through traveling, we meet our most tender parts. We also have a chance to meet our hearts in a new way. We can step outside of the habitual ways of perceiving ourselves and reality and connect with our deepest longings and what we care about on a soul level.

Traveling acts like a compass that helps us excavate our values and find our centered alignment that offers direction on how to move forward on the recovery journey.

Along with plant medicine, which is a journey within, the literal act of traveling expands awareness.

Since eating disorders and disordered eating are in a sense a narrowing of awareness by hyper-focusing on food and the body, inner psychedelic journeying and outer travel become tools for recovery because they help widen our focus and help us seeing wider, deeper, higher, and further.

Throughout all of my travels over the years, I am always reminded of this potent medicine of travel.

It hasn't been easy - I have been stretched in more ways than I could have imagined, but I am emerging with new perspectives, fresh eyes, refined resources, and a newfound compass, guiding me towards what I deeply care about. 

Moving closer to what we care about brings us deeper into our aligned embodiment. And this is what eating disorder recovery is all about. 

Download my free ebook, One Way Ticket To The Soul! It’s an eating disorder recovery handbook that was created for folks who are navigating an eating disorder or disordered eating and who desire to travel in a way that supports their recovery journey. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to download it.

Photo by NEOM on Unsplash

Orthorexia And The Fear Of Death

Orthorexia is the expression from the body sharing its fear of dying.

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Orthorexia is the obsession with super healthy or clean eating. People may restrict certain foods or food groups and be particular about how meals are cooked. They may choose to not eat out at restaurants or at social events or have set Meal times.

These rules are created to support someone’s personal idea of health. Whilst there is nothing wrong with choosing health, people navigating orthorexia experience extreme guilt or shame when they “break” their rules, which usually results in self-punishment.

The healthy eating rules are often very rigid, and if people don’t seek support, these rules become narrower and harder to get out of.

Orthorexia impacts many people, in subtle and extreme ways, especially in diet culture where certain foods are moralized and others are demonized (to read more on diet culture, I highly recommend the extensive work by Chrisy Harrison). Diet culture can make orthorexia hard to identify since we live in matrix where many orthorexia tendencies are normalized or championed.

When I came across the term “orthorexia” a many years ago, I started to see how I was also struggling with it.

I could trace Orthorexic tendencies to my childhood where being seen as healthy by those around me gave me a sense of “I’m doing ok and I’m a good human.”

Seeing where this restrictive form of eating came from made sense, but it didn’t explain why I still felt terror when eating “unhealthy” foods in the presence of others who loved me for me and who thought I was a good human regardless.

When I went underneath the fear of eating “unhealthy” foods, I met a deeper fear.

I started to see how much fear I held around dying.

The orthorexic voice was trying to keep me alive by having me eat only the cleanest of clean foods.

Little did I know at the time that my obsession with healthy eating was actually killing me due to restriction I was placing on certain kinds of foods.

I don’t think death is spoken often enough in eating disorder recovery.

I don’t think death is spoken often enough. Period.

At the core, I think this what many of us are afraid of - and all of the maladaptive behaviours and addictions are in some way attempts to push away the reality of death.

This fear is totally understandable in a world that tries to defy aging, ignores wisdom from elders, vilifies the season of winter, leaves out any rituals that signify the ending of something, runs away from grief and forgets about the exhale.

Our culture doesn’t support death. And diet culture certainly doesn’t. We are instead filled with fear when we are reminded of impermanence.

Orthorexia is an expression of the fear of death. This means that the body and the nervous system are in a state of fear - and so how we go about supporting folks who are navigating orthorexia should be done with a lot of kindness, compassion and safety.

Any eating disorder recovery treatment that instills more fear, shame or pathology only leads to the nervous system putting up more defense and protection.

For a nervous system to come out of fear, we have to greet it with safety, containment and attunement.

As such, eating disorder recovery is the process of allowing the feelings of fear be authentically felt whilst held in a safe way. We don’t have to ask the body to do anything else than what it is authentically experiencing.

Over time, we learn about what it means to accept change and impermanence in day-to-day life, and preparing the nervous system to hold the diversity of feels that arise in that process of accepting that things end.

Recovery is allowing the old body to evolve so that our new body - that can hold more of life with greater capacity - can be embodied, carving the way forward for our greatest aspirations and dreams to come to life.

Eating disorder recovery is about exploring nature’s seasons and the seasons within, giving permission to the body to move through its inner cycles of change.

Eating disorder and Orthorexia Recovery Are about noticing what things we grip onto for stability and familiarity, and to practice being curious about th things that we hold onto so tightly, whilst learning how to adapt, change and be in the ever-changing landscape of life.

Recovery is practicing making space internally rather than constricting when the opportunity to transform arises.

Recovery is learning about making peace with the fundamental nature of reality, which is inherently impermanent.

It’s about slowly developing capacity to step more and more into the vast unknown with grounded presence.

It’s about accepting that at the end of the day, we don’t know and that the only thing that is for certain is that all of this majesty and chaos, and tragic comedy of life, is all impermanent. 

Are Eating Disorder Coping Strategies or Strategies of Regulation?

Are eating disorders regulation strategies or coping strategies?

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Rather than trying to think about makes sense cognitively, can you sense into your embodied wisdom to land on what makes sense for you?

When you read this question, “are eating disorders regulation strategies or coping strategies?”, do you notice a difference in your body between these two different ways of describing eating disorders?

There’s a slight difference between perceiving eating disorders as strategies of regulation versus coping.

Over the years, my perspective has shifted from seeing eating disorders and disordered eating tactics as ways of coping to attempts at regulating.

When we consider an eating disorder as the body’s attempt at regulating the nervous system, we begin to see these food behaviours as strategies of survival rather than dysfunction.

And that ultimately someone has developed these strategies as a way to survive and meet life in the best ways they know how, which is connected to what kinds of rules they learnt around what’s acceptable or unacceptable to be seen by the outside world.

These rules are often transmitted to us way before our language has even formed by our attachment figures, from our caregivers to greater societal and institutional forces.

We inherit these rules before we are able to string coherent sentences together on just how much of who we are we can bring into the world.

These rules impact our sense of embodiment because on some level we have to tuck in and suck back aspects of our authentic self in order to look acceptable and stay in attachment with those around us who set the rules and standards.

This impacts our relationship with other humans. If we cannot show up authentically in connection with others, there will be a sense of something is missing within us.

Either we will have to hold back an aspect of ourselves, become tight, or withdrawn, or we might overdramatize, take up space, or conflate.

If our sources of connection growing up were not enough or too much or not attuned, it affects our nervous system development and ability to self-regulate.

And it is this exact same neural pathway that allows for attuned, safe connection that allows for regulated digestive processing.

This is what Polyvagal theory brought to light: Our ability to nourish ourselves physically with food and through relationships is neurologically linked.

Our relationship to food reflects our relationships. Like food, we need connection and attachment to survive - without it, we can’t survive.

Needing connection is hardwired into our system and it is what helps us develop a sense of self and a self in the world.

Connection is our first form of nourishment and one that we need throughout our lives.

Since food is a primary form of receiving and taking in physical nourishment, how we learnt to relate with others - our first form of nourishment - shows up most acutely with food.

If we didn’t receive the kind of nourishing care we needed from our caregivers and greater societal forces from a young age, the state of our nervous system gets impacted.

For young developing children, it is super dysregulating for the nervous system to have to stay in attachment with another who cannot safely provide us with our needs and wants.

As such, we find really intelligent ways to stay in connection (in order to survive) through disordered eating behaviours, whilst having a semblance of our needs and wants to be provided for in a way that doesn’t totally overwhelm us (this is inherently a regulating tactic, at least in the short-term).

However, when it’s not our authentic needs being met, it is usually not a particularly satisfying experience.

Eating disorder behaviours are the body telling us what is missing in the attachment system, and the behaviours are in some way an attempt to meet those needs and wants in the ways that the body knows how. This is an attempt to try regulate and bring things into balance.

Looking at eating disorders from this perspective means that we need to add in support and resources to meet whatever has been missing in the attachment system that speaks at the level of the body, so that there is an overall sense of regulation in the nervous system.

When we look at eating disorders as strategies of regulation, we start to bring in resources and practices that speak to the nervous and the body, from them bottom-up.

An eating disorder is the use of the senses and the body to try find regulation. It is a bottom-up strategy in and of itself, and as such, adding in support that works in a similar bottom-up way means that there is a greater chance for healing compared to a top-down, cognitive approach.

Indeed, the brain and the nervous system are geared to survival and are in a place of fear. This means, that along with lack of physical nourishment, the higher brain isn’t online.

Top-down processes require the brain to be fully optimal in order for cognitive-based therapy to work. For people with eating disorders, due to their physiology and nervous system capacity, CBT and other top-down therapy processes simply don’t land.

We have to work directly with the body.

When there is a robust regulation that is sustainable and supports overall well-being, the capacity to eat becomes easier.

When we see an eating disorder as an attempt to regulate a nervous system that is in need for safe connection, we can begin to add in supportive elements that don’t shame or pathologize (which creates further defense and disconnection), and instead invite warm and welcoming resources that attune to the part of the nervous system (and the soul) that yearns for love.

Indeed, we all know by now that eating disorders are so much more than just the food.

We know it’s never about the food at the end of the day.

So what are eating disorders actually about?

When we choose eating disorder recovery, what we are practicing is relearning and rediscovering how to receive nourishment.

Nourishment comes in many different forms, the most important one being relationships. As mammals, we are inherently wired for connection. We cannot bypass this - we very literally need it for our survival. Co-regulation with another is the most natural way for our bodies to ground, anchor, settle and regulate.

Rediscovering how to take in honest, supportive and loving connection is at the heart of recovery.

Since most eating disorders represent ruptures or deficits in the attachment system, I see disordered eating patterns as a representation of how one has learn to restrict intimacy from a very young age. Eating disorders symbolize a starvation for connection.

As we continue to walk the recovery road, we start to allow the nourishment of relationships into our lives; our cup feels fuller as our lives take on more meaning. We feel fed through the nourishment of connection.

As we take in more nourishment in this way, our autonomic nervous system is supported through co-regulation, shifting our bodies from a state of protection to a state of connection.

This state of connection is closely linked to the ventral potion of our parasympathetic nervous system, which is exactly where we want to be, on a nervous system level, to ingest and digest food.

When we embark on the journey of rediscovering how we want to be in relationship in a way that regulates, feeds and supports all parts of ourselves, we can naturally be nourished by food too.

By adding in support that speaks to the body and nervous system, we offer scaffolding for the parts that are holding back or holding in from an embodied perspective so that the body-container-temple can grow its capacity to hold the fullness of the soul.

Photo by Jon Flobrant on Unsplash