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Exercise and Movement in Eating Disorder Recovery: Is it Healthy?
When is movement medicine for people in eating disorder recovery?
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I have been walking my own disordered eating recovery path for many years, and a big part of healing was coming to understand what joyful embodied movement was.
I remember how I used to play spontaneously and care-free as a child, and then as I got older, movement became so warped, punishing and punitive as I become more enmeshed in diet culture and my eating disorder.
Before I dive into this topic of exercise and fitness, I want to acknowledge that I exist in a white, thin, able body, and this privilege means that I have not had direct experience with race, weight or body discrimination. I recognise that I do not know what it’s like to be in a body that is not supported by diet and fitness culture, and that I will do my best to listen to and learn from other people’s experiences.
my eating disorder and exercise addiction background
As a child, I was quite active, participating in ballet, netball, swimming and horse riding. I took ballet and horse riding competitively and felt the pressure to perform perfectly. F
rom a young age, I remember being told to suck in my tummy during ballet class and comparing my body to other girls in class. I then left the world of ballet because I felt it was dangerous for my mental health; it seems that at the age of 14 I had a sense that my already-fragile body image was not resilient enough to face the pressures of the dancing culture.
I then pursued horse riding and dove deeper into competitions, and realised that even amongst the horsey people, everyone had some kind of relationship with food and body, including the unspoken belief that one couldn’t be a fat horse rider. It was hard to escape.
By the time I got to 15, my eating disorder was full on. I was restricting my food and engaging in intense gym activities. I didn’t know back then but I was addicted to exercise. My dietician and therapist at the time would ban me from exercise when I lost weight. It would trigger and infuriate me. Exercise was my safety net; having it taken away from me was like having my whole (small) world unravel before me.
By 18, I went to an in-patient clinic, and I would still find ways to sneak in exercise by doing push ups and ab curls at night or in the corner of some empty room - little did I know there were camera everywhere so I got caught. It was awful to be caught exercising; I felt so ashamed and embarrassed.
Despite being caught and banned, I would still try fill every moment with exercise.
I couldn’t tell when enough was enough.
The exercise and the eating disorder was never enough, and similar to my weight, I could never be thin enough. My lifestyle reflected that same energy: I was driven, always busy, hard working, and based my worth on my productivity, my doing-doing schedule and being constantly active. Slowing down was a threat and could lead to rejection. I didn’t know what was enough and I wasn’t ever enough.
Then I found yoga - which became some form of bypassing. If I’m doing something spiritual, then surely I’m healed? This was my ego’s way of conveniently avoiding the problem that I was still addicted to exercise. And then I started teaching yoga; fitness was wrapped into my identity and career. I was known by students for teaching hardcore yoga asana/movement classes. There was a part of me who enjoyed being perceived as hardcore. It played into a very old narrative that I held onto from childhood: the story of being special. It was the old narrative of “dynamite comes in small packages” coming up the surface again. I so badly wanted to surprise, be different, be admired. I felt recognized for not being average for my age, ability or size. My size was wrapped with my identity and it fueled my ego. By being smaller than others yet just as strong as them, I created the story that I had some kind of superhuman strength which (I liked to think) people admired.
This false sense of pride was only covering up how low my self-worth was and how much pain I was in.
My eating disorder, exercise addiction, and body dysmorphia were reflections of unresolved self-esteem issues which I tried to manage by fixating on appearance for external validation. This is what diet culture is about: keeping us focused our bodies, weight and food - on the external – robbing us of our power, passions and purpose. And this is what eating disorders do for us too: keeping us fixated on our external appearance, weight and food instead of what is going on inside of us.
overexercise as a fight and flight response
The way I used exercise was a reflection of how exercise was a symptom of, and strategy to manage and process trauma.
What thoughts and feelings come up when you are unable to exercise? If you don’t exercise when you *should have*, what do you experience inside of your body?
Exercise can be a way to purge energy when things feel too close, too much, too loud, or too overwhelming. Whilst exercise can help us be in the present moment and get into the flow, for many of us, exercise can be used to avoid the present moment: It is a strategy employed by the autonomic nervous system (the nervous system that rules our flight/fight/freeze in response to danger) to get rid of a lot of excessive energy, or exercise can be used to try feel something, any sensation.
On the one hand, exercise can get rid of anxious energy, and it can also bring someone out of a more numb state. Either way, these are attempts to regulate; the nervous system is trying to bring the body down or up - and into homeostasis.
Sometimes we have never learnt how to slow down. Sometimes we were told to stop before we were ready. Sometimes a certain experience ended before we were ready. How does your body hold these memories of “I haven’t done enough” or “there isn’t enough for me?”. For many of us engaged in excessive exercise, slowing down is perceived as a threat by the nervous system.
Being unable to yield, slow down and pause shows up as: Binging because one cannot experience completion; restriction because one cannot finish completely; excessive exercise, hyper-vigilance; perfectionism; and over achieving.
Resting can feel like a threat and unsafe. So our nervous system tells us that in order to feel worthy and that we belong, we may have the story: “exercise is something I need to do often. If it feels difficult, I am weak. If I take breaks, I am lazy or lack discipline. If I can’t keep up with others, I am not good enough. If I am not as strong as I was, I need to fix it. If I don’t look like everyone else in this space, I don’t belong. If I don’t exercise, I’m not good enough, and when I exercise, it still doesn’t feel like enough.” Any of these sound familiar?
So excessive exercise becomes the symbol for the fear of yielding. And when you add the layer of diet culture and a good dose of hustle culture, you have a spicy soup of manic exercise that we see in fitness culture today.
the fanatic fitness culture
Perhaps you recognize this trap: you come across a new diet/cleanse/wellness plan, which promotes that you will become not just thinner and fitter but also happier, sexier, richer, more popular, and a better person. The sad truth is that in our culture today, weight loss can sometimes lead to attaining a higher status (weight stigma causes people in larger bodies to earn less money, have higher rates of depression, and social isolation than people in smaller bodies).
However, weight loss is temporary, and weight cycling puts people’s health at greater risk. And we know that people in larger bodies can and do have happy lives and successful careers without needing to shrink their bodies.
So the real problem isn’t body size, but the belief system that keeps people chasing weight loss in order to secure equal rights. The solution isn’t pursuing weight loss, but dismantling diet culture.
Diet culture and the health and wellness are not interested in your health or wellness, and here’s why:
Diet culture makes us believe that the stereotypical “fit” look is the only look, and those who fit that ideal are the only ones engaging in fitness and health right.
Fitness culture drills in the idea you have the deny or reward yourself food based on your workout.
Needing a modification for an exercise means you are less skilled.
Skipping workouts = you are are not committed enough to your goals.
Ableism is the foundation of the fitness industry that implies that those who fit the “fit ideal” are worth keeping, worth saving, and accepted, and anyone viewed as unfit are disposable, rejected, and should be left behind.
The more we try to attain these beliefs and ideals, the more our life slips from our grasp. Moving away from the homogenized fitness industry into one that is inclusive, creates spaces that are anti-diet, trauma-informed, compassionate, harm-reductionist, fat-affirming, accessible, anti-racist, and ethical. These spaces allow for people to say no; there are options in exercise classes to go at your pace, to take breaks, to lessen the resistance. This is a call to action for fitness and movement spaces to be more supportive to diverse bodies.
So how do we start to change this? Well the truth is, nobody knows you and your body better than you. Diet culture has made us believe that they know best, but really we do know, and finding our way back to hearing our intuition and body speak is possible.
The more we can be truthful with how we are feeling, the more authentic we can be with our movement choices.
When you become honest with where you are at, you may realise that exercise is taking up your creative energy and taking up a huge chunk of your life.
You may need to change movement activities that are not recognized by the eating disorder voice; you may need to investigate what joyful movement is for you; or you may need some time to rest from exercise. When we move from compulsive, guilt-based movement, our priorities shift – and that includes the people we hang out with.
In this process, make time to process any fears that come up related to letting go of a fitness community and connections; grieving the release of an fitness identity; and sitting in the unknown space where fitness used to occupy.
In an Ayahuasca ceremony in 2020, I received a download from the medicine that “I am a mover”. What I gauged from that insight was that whatever the circumstance to keep moving the energy. When things get tough, move the density. When things are confusing, move the energy to clear the pathways. When things are flowing, move with gratitude, ease and grace. I move from the inside-out.
Being able to shift and manage energy effectively, with resilience, compassion and clarity are part of the eating disorder recovery journey. The disordered eating behaviours are showing us how overwhelmed we are by the energy inside and around us, and so part of healing is learning how to resource to body so that it no longer needs to fight, run away, or shut down.
You can work with sacred plant medicines or psychedelics in helping you look at control patterns related to exercise, body, weight and food, as well as experiencing the felt sense and vibrational frequency of being completely free from the grips of exercise addiction.
Let us get real with our intentions around why are exercising.
Why would you want to move if weight loss, weight management, or manipulating body were no longer the goals?
What are you running away from? Is your body still holding survival energies from a past trauma and as such is still trying run away from something scary that hasn’t been resolved, processed, and released?
What are some intentions around moving your body that are unrelated to weight? Maybe you’re thinking about moving in nature, incorporating exercise into a work break, dancing to express yourself, or finding a more resonant community of movers who like to play.
What does nourishing exercise that contributes to your overall self-care look like? Is it possible to move for pleasure? Pleasure is essential for healing and liberation; and for many of us with eating disorders and exercise addiction pleasure, play, and desire are difficult things for us to allow.
Instead of focusing on the external, what makes you strong from the inside out? Focus on your inner strengths like vulnerability, authenticity, creativity, compassion, kindness, capacity, courage, and reliability - all of which have nothing to do with the body. Find ways to harness these beautiful qualities.
Give yourself time to question how and why exercise has served you through tough times, and what it wants to evolve into now. Eating disorder and exercise addiction recovery are inner journeys of the true self, a reclamation of one’s true essence and essential, unbreakable qualities.
Honour the rest, the pause, and the moments of stillness.
What is Orthorexia and How it Impacts the Nervous System
Orthorexia Nervosa is explained as an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating and while it is not recognized as its own eating disorder diagnosis, the struggles felt by those with orthorexia are very real.
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People with orthorexia nervosa are super-focused on the quality of their food and view their diet as an indicator of their health and worth.
They often have a list of food habits they obey, including a set of foods or ingredients they intentionally avoid out of fear for health consequences. It is characterized as an obsession with not only “pure” foods but also a belief that the body must always be a “clean" vessel - and that the food (and sometimes products) one consumes can harm the cleanliness and "integrity of the body.
characteristics of orthorexia:
Cutting out foods or food groups leading to limited variety in the diet, usually eating only fruits and veggies or organic foods
Focusing on food cleanliness and purity (e.g. “clean eating,” “whole foods” or only organic)
Reading nutrition facts and ingredient lists
Concern for nutrition, including a heightened interest in the health quality of food of others
Dedicating large amounts of time to meal planning and cooking foods that comply with their dietary restrictions; including strict behaviours around preparation of meals
Anxiety at social events where food is served
Refusing to go to social events because of the food served
Body image struggles
Getting stressed out when “safe” foods are not available
A worry, concern and/or deep fear about the ingredients in food products
Foods rituals take over the daily schedule
Isolation from others
There is nothing wrong with wanting to eat to support your health. Everyone has their individual values, medical histories, and the ability to choose what works best given the resources they have.
The main distinction with orthorexia is that one’s food behaviours jeopardizes one’s quality of life and well-being, often resulting in feelings of distress or lack of flexibility that stop one from living the life they desire.
how do you know if you might be suffering from orthorexia?
Food fear and anxiety. In orthorexia, food choices are made from a place of external influence (aka diet culture). The food rules and patterns prevent people from honoring internal desires, and making choices from a place of peace and authenticity. Fear, perfectionism, stress, or anxiety show up when in the presence of food. One may experience self-judgement in the act of trying to craft the “perfect” diet.
A lot of control and little flexibility. Individuals may experience distress when they do not have full control over the menu. Social events and travel bring up anxiety because the “safe” foods are not accessible, or don’t meet the criteria of healthy enough. With the many rituals around food preparation, people cannot enjoy foods spontaneously in the moment.
Mindset. Food takes up a lot of headspace, like with all disordered eating strategies. Reading the wellness articles, shopping for safe foods, meal planning, daily cooking and preparation, and researching restaurant and menu items time up a lot of time.
Orthorexia is a complex eating disorder to understand, especially since many of us have been conditioned to believe that food and diet are the only determining factors for our health. However, health encompasses mental, social, emotional, spiritual health, and more. Additionally, everyone holds a different definition or view of health as well, so as there are many factors that make up health, there are many ways to define it too.
the impact of diet culture
We live in a diet culture work that demonizes one way of eating and celebrating anther, resulting in hyper-vigilance and shame around food choices. This causes us to ignore what we desire, cutting up from our pleasure, as well as what brings us joy, including passions and purpose. Diet culture is sneaky these days - whilst we don’t hear about the typical Weight Watcher-style diets anymore, thinness is still very much part of what it means to considered healthy (as is whiteness, youth, physical ability, and wealth). Detoxes, cleanses, elimination diets, gluten hysteria, and clean eating all form part of diet culture today, masking the ultimate goal of weight loss behind “healthy lifestyle changes.”
Whilst some people have health conditions (e.g. celiac disease), most of us who benefit more by exploring how we eat, and how the role of disordered eating may play a role in our health, rather than cutting out foods or food groups.
The heavy mental and emotional load of weight stigma, and anxiety and obsession around food may play bigger roles in determining health outcomes rather than actual weight or food habits. Putting too much emphasis on our day-to-day food choices don’t lead to improved health, but rather to a preoccupation with food and panic about our health.
tip: Look at how you relate to food rather than what you eat.
When is healthy food unhealthy?
If you’re restricting, bingeing, over-exercising, or treating some foods as “bad” or “off limits”, you may experience certain physical symptoms because eating disorder or disordered eating behaviours impacts the GI tract; and these symptoms worsen when we feel anxious about the food around us.
Perhaps you’ve experienced this: You think about gluten and you feel constipated, bloated, or fatigued. This is called the “nocebo” effect, whereby thinking about something causes you to feel pain or sick. This is the opposite of the placebo effect, which describes how positive thinking can reduces symptoms.
Additionally, changes in routine often cause people with orthorexia to feel anxious, triggering reactions like IBS, regardless of what foods one is actually eating. In other words, it’s not always the food itself causing symptoms, but simply the fact that the food is not considered part of the “safe foods list”, prepared by someone else, and/or consuming new combinations of food.
patriarchal purity mindset
The relationship between body size and health is not so straightforward - there are many fat people who are healthy, and many thin people who are not. Being in a larger body leads to certain diseases not because of size but because of the social stigma that keeps fat people from getting the resources and health care they deserve, as well as being impacted by poverty (people in larger bodies are paid less and stereotyped as less capable than people in smaller bodies), and other risk factors.
Patriarchy keeps us busy and keeps us spending - which is key for people with orthorexia who often spend a lot of money on expensive healthy things like superfoods, supplements, and organic produce.
Part of my recovery journey included recognizing my own internalized fatphobia which came from oppressive patriarchal forces that tells people who identify as female to be small, quiet, good and meek. Dominating patriarchal values have seeped into our food choices and how we relate and control our bodies. By fixating on making ourselves small, we don’t have the time and space to go after our dreams and help to change the world.
we can’t fight patriarchy or follow our purpose on a growling stomach.
“A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history.” - Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth
The dulling of the wild, powerful woman, who is raw, wildness, spiraling, in the unfolding present moment, creative, and spontaneous is shunned, is so virtues of reason, rationality, austerity, and order are elevated. All that is neat, pure, lean, white and precise are acceptable whilst anything that is implicitly fat and feminine, flowery, lavish, and excessive are redundant.
The soft borders of our bodies mean that we don’t have enough discipline; roundness being associated with weakness of will. The human appetite is considered to lack purity and willpower, and should be tamed and shamed. Those who stick to a restrictive diet are seen to have achieved something good or virtuous. The quest of diminishing ourselves makes us feel like we are getting somewhere, and thus more acceptable, into a reasonable body.
When our bodies are palatable for society, there is a sense of belonging.
our nervous system wants us to be safe
Our nervous system is constantly on the lookout for safety and threat, known as “neuroception” (termed coined by Steven Porges, author of Polyvagal Theory), which is essentially the nervous system assessing whether we belong or don’t belong in the environment in which we find ourselves. This is an evolutionary advantage - by perceiving what is threatening and what is safe, we have learnt how to get away from or move towards situations for our survival.
When we are in a state of panic and anxiety around food and weight, we are activating the sympathetic nervous system which engages our flight or fight stress responses. Our bodies don’t know why we are stressed, it just recognizes that we are stressed and thus in some kind of danger. Long-term, chronic stress leads to all kinds of health issues (refer to why diets don’t work).
However, we need the sympathetic part of our nervous system to get away from danger, as well as to get out of bed in the morning, and to find food. When we get hungry, we feel agitated and that response of agitation mobilizes us to find food.
When we override these feelings, our bodies continue to simulate the stress responses, which are amplified by our internal rumination around weight and worth, and over time this impacts our digestion. The more stressed we are, the harder it is for our food to digest.
If we are in this state for a long time, the sympathetic response may go into a dorsal response which is akin to a collapsed state. The digestive system may no longer work in this state which can lead to constipation, poor nutrient absorption, and a holding onto any food that comes in (fearing it will not get food for a long time - again).
Ultimately, the nervous system must feel safe in order to digest food properly, and the proper digestion can only happen when the nervous system is in a relaxed, balanced and calm state.
we digest food when we are safe, and when we are safe, we can digest food.
This points to the importance of nervous system regulation in eating disorder recovery, orthorexia included, meaning that we see the body as a resource and that we must learn how to resource the body in and for the recovery journey (see somatic therapy for eating disorders and an embodied approach to eating disorders), especially when we are constantly bombarded by activating or triggering diet culture messaging.
All coping is rooted in wisdom no matter how much it may be getting in the way of you having a more peaceful relationship with food. The orthorexic or eating disorder adaptations did not show up out of nowhere. It may have helped you to get through some tough things and have helped you get to this point in your life - it’s part of the Hero’s Journey.
Now it’s possible that you see how these adaptations are no longer serving you in the ways they used to. And this takes time, and it is not a linear or perfect process either.
Healing your relationship with food “imperfectly” is the way out of diet culture – not being perfectly polished, expecting the “relapses”, embracing the imperfect path of healing, getting out of the rigid competitive mindset of diet culture – and instead just keep showing up as you are, and keep trying, researching, experimenting and expanding.
Freedom will not be found in another plan or program focused on “the problem of your body.” To begin the healing process, start by calling out diet culture, observing the mind patterns (aka zooming out), observing the thoughts (questioning “Who would I be without this thought”), and engaging in grounding, soothing and empowering embodiment practices, with support from a coach, therapist or community.
trust is key in healing from orthorexia work.
In orthorexia there is often the belief that the body is sensitive and fragile and can’t be trusted, and so we have to do all that we can to keep it healthy - otherwise it will collapse into chaos. Through orthorexic tendencies, trust in our bodies is destroyed and we end up feeling more disconnected, relying on the external rules from diet culture to tell us what to do, rather than listening to internal cues.
Just like when you’ve lost trust in any relationship in your life, it takes time to regain it. When it comes to trusting the body, this relationship building is reciprocal - you are working on trusting your body and your body is working on trusting you to give it enough to eat consistently.
Quick exercise: Imagine a close connection with friend or family. If you lost trust with that person in your life, what would you need in place to rebuild trust? It goes the same for our bodies.
Here are some journal prompts to keep the reflection going:
What does it mean to trust your own body?
How has your body, just as it is, helped you survive in the world?
What are some ways your body shows up just for you?
If there were to be no more judgment about your body - from yourself or others - what would you want to do to take care of yourself?
This work is revolutionary. Our bodies cannot breathe when they are overtaken by constructed and prescribed societal demands and standards. Our stories and bodies are too complex to fit into one body size, or skin colour, or gender. Our bodies, claimed as they are now, are an act of breaking free, empowering and liberating ourselves, bringing us closer to humanity, connection, and embodiment.
We are learning to reconnect with our innate wisdom, and unapologetically stand our ground, in our values and truth. Keep going.
Photo by Tangerine Newt on Unsplash
Why Diets Don't Work
Reality check: There is no correct or right weight to be.
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It can take a lot of unlearning and a huge amount of self-compassion to begin questioning the messages around food and body that we have spent most of our lives internalizing (not to mention what has been passed down generationally). Diet culture can make you feel like a stranger in your own body, in your home, in the world, and even in your mother’s womb.
Diet culture is so entrenched that it is not uncommon for parents, nurses, doctors and educators to comment on unborn babies and little kiddies who are at a higher weight. People are getting body shamed before they are even born. Diet culture is so deep in our psyches that people do not even know how to question fatphobia, let alone acknowledge it.
How many of you received some comment about what you were eating, how much you ate, or received comments on your weight or appearance as a child?
Does this sound familiar: Hold in your tummy. Are you really that hungry? You’ve eaten too much. If you are a parent, one of the most important things we can do is to let go of our need to police or control our child’s body, as well as measuring our own success as parents by our ability to do that. And who of you saw your parents comment about their own body size around you and/or engaging in diet or fitness behaviour, such as excessive exercise, portioning food, or only eating the salad whilst everyone else had pizza.
Truth: Diet culture is everywhere.
what diets don’t tell you
So many of us have gone round and round the diet culture train. And since it’s the beginning of 2022, I’m sure most of us have seen our fair share of New Year, New You diet/cleanse/detox/fitness regime/lifestyle change. So rather than hopping on the nauseating merry-go-round again, let’s take the long-term view for a moment: some people might have a few months or even a few years of seeming success on diets, however it most likely won’t last and often causes harm in the long-run.
Indeed, up to 90% of weight-loss efforts fail within 2-5 years. In fact, up to 2/3 of people who try to shrink their bodies end up gaining more weight than they lost. This means that intentional weight loss is actually taking them in the opposite direction. And on the topic of weight cycling (ie. trying to lose weight and inevitably gaining it back), it tends to increase the risk of heart disease, mortality, some forms of cancer, and disordered eating.
Additionally, if you are restricting, rebound-eating (bingeing), or avoiding certain foods, it can result in physical symptoms like bloating, cramps, poor digestion, acne, and hormonal imbalances, because disordered eating effects your GI tract and many other systems in the body. These symptoms tend to be worse in the presence of foods you’re particularly anxious about.
Despite what diet culture tells you, it is less about what you eat, and more about how you eat.
When we are in a state of panic and anxiety around food and weight, we are activating the sympathetic nervous system which engages our flight or fight stress responses. We need this part of our nervous system to get away from danger, as well as to get out of bed in the morning and play, and go out and find food. When we get hungry, we feel agitated and that response of agitation mobilizes us to find food. When we override these feelings, our bodies continue to simulate the stress responses, which are amplified by our internal rumination, and over time this impacts our digestion.
The more stressed we are, the harder it is for our food to digest. If we are in this state for a long time, the sympathetic response may go into a dorsal response which is akin to a collapsed state. The digestive system may no longer work in this state which can lead to constipation, poor nutrient absorption, and a holding onto any food that comes in.
Ultimately, the nervous system must feel safe in order to digest food properly, and the proper digestion can only happen when the nervous system is in a relaxed, balanced and calm state.
It seems like attempting to lose weight causes more pain in the long run - and that’s the physical pain that comes with it, not to mention how it can impact on one’s emotional and mental well-being, focus, drive, career, passion, purpose, relationship and social dynamics, and spiritual/deeper connection to life. The messages of weight loss are enchanting, promising euphoric feelings and great rewards, while hiding the consequences.
What is also hidden are the systems in which the traditional health and wellness model are based upon which are ableist, racist, ageist, sexist, classist, and exclusionary. It only serves to reinforce and hold up the body hierarchy that already exists. And we know over the generations that the ideal body and hierarchy have changed over the years - just like trends.
…and now for a quick historical timeline
In the Paleolithic era, the ideal body was a woman who was curvy plus more. Featuring large breasts, large hips and a healthy stomach, it is clear that a good body equaled one that could bear many children and be strong enough to survive any environmental condition.
Enter Ancient Greece where women were portrayed with largish hips, full breasts, and a not-quite-flat stomach. During this time, there was a quest to identify the perfect, mathematical, symmetrical physical form.
In the early Renaissance era women were curvy, pale with slightly flushed cheeks, and soft, round faces. Sensuality, beauty, and fertility were highlighted in the female form.
Jumping forward to the turn of the century, to the 1890's which brought about the Gibson girl. The Gibson girl was an illustration by Charles Gibson who was attempting to define a beautiful woman of the age. She was pale, wore a tight corset, and the trend towards a thinner ideal was beginning. Spoiler alert: The Gibson girl was not actually a real person.
Between the 50s-60s saw life after the depression and World War II, and America was making money for the first time in years. People were in the mood to celebrate, and with that indulgence came a slightly fuller appearance. The hourglass figure was sought after and a large bust was strongly encouraged.
Over the course of the 60s-90s, culture began to shift. People wanted more than a house and car, and to be a housewife. Young people rebelled against the constricting ways of '50s and in came Twiggy. Just when it seemed like the ideal body couldn't get any thinner, Kate Moss came along to give Twiggy a run for "skinniest model of all time". With waif, heroin chic models in vogue, the '90s presented the thinnest feminine ideal in history.
What’s important to remember is that most historical standards of beauty were based on a drawing, a painting or construction of a man's fantasy. Now, all we have to do is add some Photoshop, making already-tiny models look unattainably perfect. 100% invented. 100% man-made. 100% social construct. 100% temporary ideal.
As we challenge oppressive beauty standards and body ideals and work on our individual and collective relationships with food and our bodies, it is also crucial to understand that those beliefs didn't just spring from thin air; they are rooted in other oppressive systems that need to be dismantled.
Freeing our body from food and weight rules means an undoing of patriarchy, sexism, racism, transphobia, and ableism. This work is intersectional.
When we “fail” at diets, let us remember that diets are entrenched in systems of oppression that are stem beyond the individual. And along with that, they are designed to fail (remember that 90%).
When we are engaging in something that is inherently oppressive and ineffective, it is not a failure of “willpower,” but a failure of diets themselves.
See if you can guide your own choices and strengthen your resolve, and anchor into self-compassion and compassion for others who are caught up in the diet cycle.
the wellness diet
The Wellness Diet (coined by Christy Harrison) refers to the sneaky, modern guise of diet culture that we see today that is supposedly about “wellness” but is actually about “performing a rarefied, perfectionistic, discriminatory idea of what health is supposed to look like.”
It may seem like weight loss isn’t the goal, however thinness is essential to fitting into the Wellness Diet’s idea of health, including youthfulness, whiteness, fitness and physical ability, and wealth. It also includes eating the “right” things and so clean eating, detoxes, panic over gluten and grains, and elimination diets are all part of the package. Demonizing some foods and styles whilst elevating others is the norm and can leave people to feel ashamed and hyper-vigilant of their food choices.
The Wellness Diet can easily slip into orthorexia, a type of eating disorder characterized by an obsession with healthy eating. This indeed happened to me and thus it seems like this form of “healthy eating” can put our mental health at risk.
And as we have explored already, the increased imposed and self-judgements that people feel about their bodies and their food choices leads to weight stigma which is actually a bigger determinant of health than actual weight or eating habits. This means that when we feel bad about ourselves it does more harm to our overall health compared to eating “unhealthy foods” and feeling good, worthy and content with who we are.
Whilst some folks with certain health conditions (e.g. celiac disease) will certainly benefit from making some changes to what they eat, most of us would benefit by exploring how disordered eating may be playing a role in our health and well-being.
Placing more emphasis on our food choices doesn’t lead to more improved health outcomes but rather a greater preoccupation and anxiety around food and our health.
a note on a changing body
A changing body means a deviation from what diet culture has deemed as acceptable. It can be so hard to accept the changes in our weight, shape and size because at the core, we all want is to belong.
To deviate from the accepted norm causes a deep-seated fear within us: a fear that we will be rejected and abandoned. It is natural to want to belong. It is unfair however to feel like we don’t belong based on our external appearance.
Weight changes, body changes, appearance changes - change is a part of human experience. Body weight naturally fluctuates for a range of intersecting, complex reasons.
Attempting to keep your body at a precise weight to feel safe, okay and secure, means you will be investing an incredible amount of time and energy.
Body weight is less controllable than diet culture tells you.
When your weight changes and you perceive it as negative, be curious about it, rather than immediately attempting to take control and bashing yourself down with “It’s my fault, I’m a failure”.
And a note on double standards: The “Dad Bod” never opened up to the “Mom Bod”. And why is that?
moving away from diets results in a looking inwards
Over and above the fact that diets don’t work, they also steal our energy, focus and spark. Whilst we spend all the time that we have on planning meals, exercising, avoiding social gathering, comparing bodies and other people’s food choices, we no longer have the mental space to do things that we value and truly enjoy.
Diet culture keeps us from living in alignment with our values. It robs us from our creative energy. It clogs up our capacity to live out our purpose. Opportunities to help and serve the world pass us by.
If you were no longer dieting or wrapped up in body shame, what would you do with your time, space, money and mental energy?
As we separate ourselves from diet culture, we find that there is more time for self-reflection. There is a movement from an external orientation to an internal orientation. In this process, we may find our own internalised fat phobia and weight bias, which are crucial to face and reflect on as we free ourselves from the grips of diet culture.
The more we go inwards, we will come up against and can look at self-limiting beliefs, self-judgements, feelings towards our bodies (shame, guilt, anger), and become clear on our values and virtues, and our passions and purpose. Rather than trying to be perfect and polished, we can be human, real and vulnerable.
Like any addiction, and eating disorder is the belief in something external (something outside) can fix suffering that we feel within. We cannot solve the problem of addiction with addictive thinking. Recovery is a true overhaul of change of internal beliefs, thoughts, emotions and actions. The only way out of diet culture, eating disorders and disordered eating is through, that is the entanglements that got you there in the first place.
Connect with the Why – why do you want to recover, and what will it take for the eating disorder to let go of you?
do you feel the call to step out of diet culture?
Moving away from diet culture can be challenging especially when we are all already swimming in it. But if you feel called, with the practice of self-compassion and equanimity, ask yourself: How does your current relationship with food and body affect you (mentally, emotionally, physically)?
Can you envision a life free from fixation on food or weight? What does that life look like, and how do you feel living that life? What do you gain from letting diet culture go?
It is normal to feel uncertain or ambivalence. You may want freedom with food but worried about weight stigma, your health, letting go of control, or unpacking trauma.
We go in gently, slowly and with support, acknowledging that change happens through the stages of precontemplation (unaware change in possible), contemplation (pondering, gathering information), preparation (asking questions, trying on ideas), action (implementing new beliefs, thoughts and actions), and maintenance (doing what it takes to integrate this change). Change is a process. Stay for the process.
what to do instead of dieting
Let’s go over some grounding principles and resources that can be helpful when moving away from diet culture.
When feeling the anxiety around food or weight arise, zoom out. Pay attention to what you’re zooming in on, then relax the mind and zoom out. Say to yourself: “The story I am telling myself is…”
When you feel you’re going down the eating disorder rabbit hole, ask yourself: “Who would I be without this thought? Is this narrative true? What evidence do I have for it? How does it feel in my body to be free from this thought?”
Explore an array of self-care rituals that you find enjoyable, doable, balanced, have short and long-term benefits, and work towards the cultivation of the true self. Approach this list in an encouraging way rather than a pushy way. Allow the self-care rituals to evolve over time and meet you where you are at; hold it all lightly.
Keep in mind that body acceptance is a continuous process. We don’t have to love our bodies but we can accept them, or sometimes just feel neutral towards them.
Appreciate your body for their part in achieving your life accomplishments.
Find an individualized and holistic approach to recovery and health.
Create a daily practice to inspire, empower, and elevate you. Choose a daily practice that is grounded in genuine teachings that you resonate with.
Choose people, places, and positive activities that reflect the changes you wish to see in your life.
Open up to accepting help and support from positive people and loved ones.
Create healthy habits and rituals and make conscious decisions.
Listen to the body. Listening to the body is a skill many of us need to develop. Most of us experience the body through the mind which is less reliable. Listening to the body can be difficult if you have experienced trauma where the body is perceived as an unsafe place. Acknowledge where you are at with kindness and patience. I like to remember that the body doesn’t speak my primary language and so I listen in a different way, paying attention to sensations, senses, and shifts. You can respond to your body and its sensations by placing a hand gently on that area with a sense of nurture, warmth and care. If touch is too much, you can call to mind a comforting memory or emotion.
You don’t owe anyone an explanation for your eating or your body. Changing the subject, deflecting with a question or compliment, and/or simply leaving the room are all good ways to set boundaries.
I support and cheer each one of you who are doing this deep work. Here’s dismantling diet culture, reclaiming our bodies, finding peace and freedom with food, and committing to our heart’s calling and our soul’s purpose.
Here’s to your body of work,
Francesca Rose
Photo Unsplash
Therapeutic Benefits of Psychedelics for Eating Disorder Recovery
Eating disorders and disordered eating affects more people than we imagine. So much of it goes unacknowledged or unsaid. Much of our normalized, cultural norms around food are rooted in restriction, competition and comparison. Many people are not even aware that they are swimming in this bubble of judgement around food and body. Diet culture is so pervasive that many of us don’t even see the authoritarian reality of how we relate to food and body. For those who are struggling, there is often a lot of shame in speaking out or asking for help. Many people keep their difficulties inside, finding exhaustive ways of hiding from others. And finally, individuals who are engaged in eating disorder treatment often don’t see the results.
An eating disorder is unconsciously employed as an attempt feel protected in the world, and to even give a sense meaning and identity. The internal world is fractured and the eating disorder is a way to try stitch things together even if it’s an unsustainable method.
Eating disorders, disordered eating, and the trance of diet culture are some of the most challenging energetic frequencies to break out from. This is why we need to look at recovery in a new way. Previous methods have just not worked. Plant medicine can be the doorway into breaking free from the trance and help us look inwards in radical ways. Psychedelics could possibly be the way helpful for those who are traversing the complex and curious road of eating disorder recovery.
how can psychedelics be therapeutic and increase wellbeing?
Plant medicine can positively influence psychological and emotional wellbeing and social harmony and cohesion, leading to greater sense of connection to the world, one’s purpose, and trust in the unfolding of one’s life. For people with eating disorder behaviours, this is a biggie because we are moving from rigidity, a narrow vision, gripping, and isolation, into embodying more expanded states.
Psychedelics promote “decentering,” or the ability to observe thoughts and emotions as transitory events of the mind without being trapped by them. We come to realize the impermanence of life, including how the eating disorder is not fixed or part of our identity. We can see things from a different lens and let go of the beliefs we once tightly held onto. In the space of non-grasping, we can lean into trust; trusting the organic, ever-changing spirals of life.
Plant medicine enhances cognitive flexibility, allowing people to contemplate events, situations and relationships from detached perspectives. We get out of our own way and see how our behaviours are influencing our lives. From a new lens, we can view things with greater objectivity and start making changes that are more aligned with our true self. We get cannot help but get radically honest with ourselves when we see our beliefs and actions in a new light. From this place, we can start to see how there is medicine in the eating disorder; that going through the hardships and suffering, we have emerged stronger, more resilient, more sensitive, and transformed. We can express gratitude to all that we’ve moved through. And with the power of gratitude, our perception of reality changes instantly. Gratitude is a master teacher and powerful catalyst for change, healing and transformation.
Psychedelics like psilocybin or Ayahuasca strengthens connections between brain networks resulting in novel and new links. These plant medicines increases the strength of the connections responsible for how we sense the world whilst decreasing connections related to how we understand signals from our environment. How we sense and understand our environment is what may cause these altered states of consciousness.
When we trip, the lines between ourselves and the world break down. This leads to feeling more connected, not separate from the world. This why psychedelics can be so helpful for people with eating disorders where there is usually such a strong sense of separation (from one’s body, purpose, essence, heart, community, and the world).
Plant medicine don’t suppress anything but rather bring up whatever strong emotion that is present to the surface to be looked at. Confronting difficult emotional or psychological content can be transformative and healing. The seeing is the healing. Psychedelics increase our self-awareness, and when coupled with the practice of self-compassion to whatever is arising, we make space for what wants to be heard and seen. We no longer hide from ourselves, including the grief, depression, anger, fear. It is all laid out on the table. By seeing it all we can reclaim the fragmented pieces and return to wholeness.
When journeying with psychedelics and engaging in post-journey integration, people can find they rely less on the eating disorder (or addiction) because there is a general sense of ease in the world and more internal wholeness. We can get in touch with our essence, and connect with our inherent worth, belonging, dignity and divinity. Psychedelics can help us embody pride and self-acceptance. We can connect to love, and feel our capacity to give and receive love.
I really do think psychedelic research and eating disorders are going to continue emerging as a safe, effective and transformative avenue for healing. What do you think?
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How to Heal Generational Trauma with Psychedelics [Eating Disorder-Sensitive]
Psychedelics have a way of connecting us to the timeless. They dissolve any boundaries of how we perceive the world, including time and space. This means we can connect with our ancestors, past lives, and the lives of our ancestors, and living family members. The nature of psychedelics is that they bring up anything that has been suppressed or repressed to come up to be seen and dealt with. Sometimes it’s our own stuff that we have been avoiding, and other times we have to see stuff from previous generations that isn’t ours but may be affecting us regardless.
Working with plant medicine can help work through and process eating disorders by offering us a unique opportunity to go to the root cause. Unlike western medicine and traditional eating disorder treatments that are mainly focused on stopping the eating disorder behaviours, plant medicine can go right to the root, and that root may not have even started in our life.
This is indicative of indigenous cultures that view the interconnectedness of all things, and that what was experienced in a previous generation can still have an impact in the next one. Indigenous wisdom also teaches us mind and body as one, and that illness and health are on one continuum, reflective of the inner and outer worlds in which we flow between. Nothing is separate and it is this precise fragmentation in our culture (especially Western culture) that is causing so many mental and physical challenges in people. Restoring our inner and outer wholeness, including harmony between generational lines are what brings healing.
Turning to plant medicine can help us restore that wholeness and look beyond the external validation and approval of diet culture, and instead turn within. Indeed, on a collective level, those who came before us, blood or not, have been up against the big energetic ball of judgement, expectation, dominance, and patriarchy that is diet culture. Diet culture keeps us from looking within; it demands us to look outside of ourselves, comparing and fighting with each other to look a certain way. We are all swimming in this and it can feel even more intense when we are trying to do our inner healing work.
When we turn inwards, what we see at first may be challenging. However these sacred plants know what’s up and are helpful allies in guiding us to look at our trauma. Plant medicine and psychedelics can help us look at painful experiences with a new perspective or from a slightly different angle. This is because psychedelics help us lower our ego defenses and create new and novel links. We are not constrained by logic or everyday thinking. With more information coming in from all angles, there is a higher resolution of perception. Thus, we can find ourselves engaging in new ways of perceiving and meaning making. Rather than avoiding the trauma or changing the memory, the plants help us redefine its meaning. These allies can help us find meaning in our suffering, see how it has impacted our growth and resulted in inner resilience and tolerance.
Additionally, when we look at the powerful medicine of Iboga, it is possible that random and harsh things can come up in the journey as a way to actually get rid of old, irrelevant thoughts, and thought patterns of the inner critic. It’s like a purging of the mindmap with a feeling of great stillness and spaciousness felt afterwards.
intergenerational trauma imprinting and somatic organization
That spaciousness could feel like a new felt sensation. This is because trauma often leads to constriction and thus narrow thinking, or what we can call “spotlight consciousness”. Eating disorders reflect this thinking too. One can obsess over the tiniest of details (like how much oil was used to cook with) rather than seeing the whole picture. We see just one tree instead of the whole forest so to speak. On psychedelics, the brain becomes more interconnected, with more input from the whole brain, leading to increased exploration. The mind can go in any direction. Nothing is constrained. This is what we call lantern consciousness. And this is what we can call the process of healing.
With an open mind and perspective that can felt when sitting with psychedelics, it is also important to prepare the body. There are increased body sensations and emotions that may be challenging to deal with, especially if one has been deep in an eating disorder – which is a strategy to quell perceived overwhelming sensations and emotions. It is wise to work somatically before a plant medicine ceremony to understand the body’s habitual patterns.
On that note, these habitual somatic patterns (aka “somatic heirlooms”) are what have been passed down from generations. Indeed, body-to-body experiences passed down and are later remembered not as visual or verbal narratives but in the form of body memories, procedurally learnt emotional, autonomic, motoric, visceral, and meaning-making states, and are reflected in actions and responses. This is what we call memory procedural memory – “what we do with one another” - while declarative memory captures “what we know about one another”. For example, when safe attachments are not available, the body must adapt. Early on, the baby’s body must make an adaptation to the quality of the attachment field, laughing and smiling while crying or collapsing and shutting down emotionally. This then becomes the blueprint for our beliefs about our self and the world. Sometimes the previous generations had some kind of eating disorder and sometimes the sensitivities are passed on which then result in the child developing an eating disorder to try process the world in ways that don’t overwhelm the nervous system.
As preparation it can be helpful to observe how your family moves around the world and engages with others. Notice their body language, how close they get to people, what they do when they get upset, their tone of voice, how they show affection – all of these are clues to what you are carrying, and what you have been imprinted with from birth.
Generational trauma also shows up as a family who are emotionally numb, don’t like speaking about feelings, and/or perceive discussing feelings as a sign of weakness. Generational trauma can show up as a family having trust issues with “outsiders” and/or are anxious or overly protective of their family members, even without signs of danger. Generational trauma can show up as unhealthy relationship boundaries and unhealthy survival behaviours. There are many ways in which generational trauma shows up and affects subsequent generations.
So what can we do to stop generational trauma from continuing?
In the words of Bessel Van der Kolk (who wrote “The Body Keeps the Score”), the ability to feel safe is “probably the most important aspect of mental health”. One of the best things we can do for ourselves is to find places of safety and people who are safe so that we can learn what it feels like. For example, working with a coach is beneficial as it is an empathetic relationship based on the coach’s unconditional acceptance of the individual’s thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
embarking on the medicine journey
In preparation for a journey it is useful to start connecting with the body and noticing your patterns of safety and threat. How do you reach out? How do you communicate with your body that you need support or help? How close do you allow people into your space? How do you create boundaries? How does your body tell you when it’s time to rest or get going again? These are generational imprints that you can bring into the ceremony and look at. In this way, you are also setting up a foundation to create and embody new body patterns of pride, compassion, empowerment, strength, and ease. Maybe your ancestors didn’t have the opportunity to embody these somatic patterns. Perhaps they had shapeshift to match society around them, betraying themselves and their unique expression in order to be safe and not hurt by those around them.
Along with observing these somatic holding patterns, one can also link it with an intention. In what ways do you want to connect with your ancestors? You can ask, “Where did my eating disorder come from”, or “What is the root cause of my ED?” You can also ask, “What are the unknown factors at play that contributed to the development of my eating disorder? “What will it take for the eating disorder to let go of me?” And, “What do I need to do to change the narrative of this eating disorder – what are my blind spots?”
It can helpful to call in other trusted allies, like power animals, helping spirits, angels and guides, and other elemental forces to weave a web of support as you dive into these questions in the journey. Singing and dancing is a powerful way to connect with our ancestors as is music making (drumming, drumming on the body). Bring in objects that represent your lineage and have them in the space. Create an environment that is welcoming and supportive for these messages to land. Working with the elements is a powerful way to connect to higher wisdom and the places where our ancestors reveal themselves.
As you continue journeying, state your intention bur release the intent. Release attachment to the outcomes. If you don’t end up receiving any information on the root cause, trust it was not the right time. It took me almost four years to make the connection with the history of my eating root cause.
I just wasn’t ready. To be more clear, I wasn’t ready for the integration that was required of me.
integrating intergenerational trauma
After receiving a download like this, there is usually some kind of integration that is required (ongoing), in order to end these generational patterns. For some people, it is a conversation with a parent or family member. For some, it is ending certain eating behaviours, no longer going to certain places, or hanging out with people. For some, it is starting a new morning practice or finding a new support system. Changes can be big or small, internal and external. The integration is where the generational pattern is finally broken.
Integration is only as useful as we apply consistency over time, practice over time, and apply mindfulness. The process of change includes, according to the The Transtheoretical Model (TTM):
· Precontemplation: Unaware of or in denial of a problem(s), not ready to change.
· Contemplation: Aware of problem, considering a change.
· Preparation: Ready to change, making a plan to change, motivated.
· Action: Making changes and seeing results.
· Maintenance: Living consciously to maintain results and continue changing.
How a person uses, applies, implements, and integrates tools for transformation into their life is what determines the level of impact. Just doing these activities may or may not bring as much value as doing them with consistency, mindfulness, introspection, adjustment (as needed), openness, self-awareness, and commitment to the process.
In my one plant medicine ceremony, it was made clear that this eating disorder and somatic pattern can end with me. It wasn’t stated HOW the pattern could end (the plants don’t do the work for us) but the medicine was certainly clear that I have the capacity to end this cycle. It was after the ceremony what was made clear what I needed to do. If this integration action piece came through any earlier in my recovery path I wouldn’t have been able to do it. This is because I have more capacity and resources now. The plants are working together in revealing pieces of information at the most perfect time. They meet us where we are at. They never overextend us. We can trust in the timing and their highly intelligent ways – which are, of course, reflective of our own growth, work, and higher and intuitive knowing.
With generational trauma, we can think of it in terms of the identified problem being something we were born into, not necessarily a problem that we have created for ourselves. Somatic therapy and plant medicine have personally been highly impactful in looking at my eating disorder and generational trauma. The plants have shown me time and time again who I am without the layers of trauma and conditioned somatic states of suffering. I remember my wholeness, my gits, my connection, and I am able to have a felt sense and embody it fully. I feel grateful for all that my ancestors have passed down to me, however complicated they may be. Even the most challenging parts are gifts because they opportunities for healing and stepping into my true self. When we are embodying and connected to our true self, the trauma pattern is broken.
And so, how do we want our children and our children’s children to remember us?
Intergenerational Trauma, Eating Disorders and Psychedelics
“The food of your ancestral lands will be the medicine of nourishment.
The songs of the ancestors will guide you back to the home of your heart.
The tradition of the ancestors will take you back to the ancient ways of the earth of your blueprint.
The healing of the ancestors will help you understand the intergenerational cycles and the medicine within.
It is the roots of the ones before us that will guide the clear path one may seek.
Back into the roots,
Into the roots that have brought you life,
That have prayed for you,
That have sang for you,
That hold the divine sacred of the Earth.
Returning to the home within,
Back to the Origin.” -Vianney of @medicinewithinspirit
Can you imagine your grandmother holding your mother? What is the quality of that holding? Can you see how your grandmother was gazing at your mother? What was reflected in her eyes?
Who we are in the world has been directly passed down through the lines of our parents, our grandparents and even our great-grandparents. We are living out parts of their lives not only because of genes that they have passed down to us, but also from experiences that they have lived through which have left its own kind of mark.
Events in people’s lifetime can change the way their DNA is expressed, and these changes can be passed on to the next generation.
This is the process of epigenetics where the expression of genes is modified without changing the DNA code itself. Tiny chemical tags are added to or removed from our DNA in response to changes in the environment in which we are living. When these tags turn genes on or off, it gives us a way to adapt to changing conditions without inflicting a more permanent shift in our genomes.
This means that experiences during your grandparent’s lifetime – particularly traumatic ones – can impact subsequent generations in the family. However, it is does not have to be just trauma. The idea of epigenetics means that the environment in general very simply influences the way in which genes are expressed.
Epigenetic influencers
There are a growing number of research that now support the idea that the effects of trauma can reverberate down the generations through epigenetics. It is not so much fear of a traumatic event that gets passed down but rather that fear in one generation leads to sensitivity in the next.
Even though epigenetic research is still in its infancy, it seems clear that the consequences of our own actions and experiences could affect the lives of our children – before they might be conceived. With this knowing, it puts a different spin on how we might choose to live.
Epigenetics and Eating Disorders
Traditional models that have looked at eating disorders have suggested that an individual with an eating disorder usually has “maladaptive personality traits”, including stubbornness, character weakness, or has a superficial concern with appearance. Research is now showing us that trauma in their lifetime as well as trauma from parents, grandparents and great-grandparents have an effect on one’s epigenetic susceptibilities that get “switched on” by a lifetime of environmental exposures. Including epigenetics improves caregiver and clinician sensitivity to their patients’ realities, and helps make treatment more palatable and humane.
Epigenetically-informed models of eating disorder development contribute positively to efforts of clinicians and caregivers in various ways:
We take the focus off the individual. It is never a single event or action that causes an eating disorder to develop. There are rather a sequence of life events that served to activate inherited susceptibilities toward eating disorder development that stem back into previous generations (e.g. great-grandparents surviving famine or war, the mother experiencing perinatal stress, the child’s school-related stresses etc.). Indeed, chronic exposure to malnutrition and dietary distress amplify psychological tendencies (e.g. compulsivity, anxiety) and metabolic adaptations (e.g. altered lipid metabolism) that help “lock” an eating disorder into place. When one finds it difficult to recover from an eating disorder, it is not about character weakness or stubbornness. Rather we can expand our understanding to include the extend to which epigenetic and biological processes anchor symptoms and behaviors into place based.
There is more room for self-acceptance. Some people feel shame or weak for developing or unable to overcome their eating disorder, and guilty for the distress their disorder causes relatives and friends. From an epigenetically-informed understanding, we can see that the eating disorder has been marinating and absorbing for generations, making it very sticky and challenging to “just get over it”. The eating disorder wasn’t something a person choose; it was almost given to them without a choice. Dr Richard Schwartz of Internal Family Systems calls these “legacy burdens” whilst Ruella Frank, founder and director of the Center for Somatic Studies, faculty at the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy, describes them as “physic heirlooms.”
From this viewpoint, it is easier to separate the person from the eating disorder. A epigenetically-informed model implicitly separates individuals from the factors that caused and perpetuate the eating disorder. This lens reminds us that there is an activation or deactivation of tags on certain genes due to real-life experiences. “Externalizing the eating disorder helps people overcome shame, and increases empathy on the part of family members, partners and friends. Additionally, because of the ego-syntonic nature of eating disorders, people sometimes identify positively with their disorder (particularly those with anorexia), or assume it as an identity. An epigenetically-informed perspective helps counteract such tendencies in that it indicates to the individual that they are not “an anorexic”.
Plant Medicine, Trauma and Epigenetics
Beneath all of us is such a complex, rich history. We carry deep wisdom about ourselves. We have vast knowledge about our cultures, and we have immense intergenerational wisdom from our ancestors and those who came before us. This is all carried inside of our bodies. We also carry intergenerational trauma, especially those who are descendants of ancestors who were oppressed and colonized. This is carried in our bodies too. By working through generational trauma, it is important that we do not separate ourselves individually from the larger systems that we are part of. It is important to keep the big picture in focus as those larger systemic factors influence the challenges people experience individually. This kind of healing, with the support of psychedelics, can help us connect more deeply with who we are as individuals and help us explore who we are in relation to one another and the world.
Dr Simon Ruffell and his team are currently epigenetic research on the effects of Ayahuasca and the healing of trauma and mental health disorders. Ayahuasca may impact the genetic expression of our DNA, relieve suffering from depression, and may be able to decrease emotional charge around trauma by helping us rewrite our narratives around what happens. Again, it is not about changing the actual genes but just the way in which the DNA is expressed. They have looked at a gene called Sigma One which is involved in many things, including neuroplasticity - the brain’s ability to make new connections- and it is also hypothesized to be involved in traumatic memory recall. This has lead the team to dive into the idea that Ayahuasca might allow people to access their very difficult memories and to frame them in a slightly different way that also decreases or changes the emotional charge attached to the event. Thus, the traumatic memory itself changed, but the perception of the emotional content seems to change.
There is also embodied stress that is part of one’s experience due to living under oppressive systems. Psychedelics can help us see how our bodies hold tension and stress, and help us deepen our capacity to be with what is difficult, and to connect more deeply with ourselves. This can change how we hold ourselves and tend to our bodies, redefining our somatic narrative, and ultimately our reality.
For people with eating disorders, they might view themselves through a lens of compassion for the first time. By processing things in new ways or seeing it from a different perspective, we can find new meaning in our lives, in relationships, with our communities, and with the world. Moving from patterns of avoidance to acknowledgement is the pathway to healing.
We must also remember the process of integration (aka the ceremony after the ceremony). Weaving insights gained from a medicine journey is how we can start engaging with the world in new and soul-supportive ways. After a lifetime or lifetimes of emotional injury, integration that include processing the information, making new actions, releasing of ways of being, and practicing these new patterns are how we can catalyze change in our life and beyond.
What could this mean for people with eating disorders? It seems highly possible that by working with Ayahuasca or other plant medicine, people will be able to access suppressed, repressed or painful memories (from their own life or from the lives of their parents or grandparents) that may have contributed to the development of the eating disorder and find a new perspective and relationship to it, finding empowered avenues of healing.
How Intergenerational Trauma Affects Child Development
People cannot consciously recall what they “learned” in the first few years of life because the brain structures that store narrative memory are not yet developed. But neuropsychological research has established that human beings have a far more powerful memory system imprinted in their nervous systems called “intrinsic memory”. Intrinsic memory encodes the emotional aspects of early experience. These emotional memories may last a lifetime but without a narrative. Without any recall of the events that originally encoded them, they serve as a template for how we perceive the world and how we react to later occurrences. The procedural (body) memories can result in someone being held hostage to these imprints and stress responses long after the early events have happened. Where there are no memories, we have to work with the body where the trauma is stored and impacts the person’s life unconsciously.
Is the world a friendly and nurturing place, or indifferent or hostile? Can we trust others to honour our needs, or do we have to shut down emotionally to protect ourselves from feeling vulnerable? These are fundamental questions that we resolve mainly with our implicit memory system as very young children rather than with our conscious minds. Psychologist and leading memory researcher Daniel Schacter has written that intrinsic memory is active “when people are influenced by past experience without any awareness that they are remembering.”
Despite best parental intentions, it’s not not their intentions that a baby integrates into their world view, but how parents respond to them. We are shaped by recognition or lack thereof by our attachment figures and society. So when a child falls asleep after a period of frustrated cries for help, it is not that they have learnt how to fall asleep, but rather they have escaped the overwhelming pain of abandonment, and the brain shuts down. The baby was expressing their deepest need: emotional and physical contact with the parent. The exhausted parent now has some quiet for the time being, but at the price of potentially harming the child’s long-terms emotional vulnerability, encoding the belief that the universe does not care about them.
For any person to stay emotionally open and resilient, young people must feel connected to adults from a young age. Supporting stable relationships with caring adults from birth through adolescence is a priority for the next generations to redeem their future.
In our Western culture, we tend to see people’s illnesses as isolated, accidental and unfortunate events rather than as the outcomes of lives lived in a psychological and social context. The body expresses our experiences and beliefs relating to self, to the world, and that date back to generations before us which have been somatically passed down. Indeed, it is not just stories and words that are handed down, but non-verbal cues including gaze, prosody, breath, proximity, gestures, facial features and movements. These cues can become habitual and incorporated into a family structure, creating a non-verbal narrative of how to be, act, and relate in the world. If not questioned, these elements get passed down and adopted from one generation to the next.
Indee, we all have thus learnt states of suffering. Habits of posture, expression, movement and gesture all reflect our personal and sociocultural history (trauma, attachment failures, relational strife, privilege/oppression, positive experiences etc.). Body postures prime certain emotions and so the habits of the body form habitual emotions. Even long after environmental conditions have changed, we are still are organized somatically in ways that were adaptive in the past. Once they become automatic tendencies (historically passed down), we no longer use cognitive, top down processes. These somatic blueprints anticipate the future, determine behaviour, communicate with others, and influence sense of self.
Such a holistic understanding informs many indigenous wisdom teachings. Indeed, the use of Ayahuasca arises from a tradition where mind and body are seen as inseparable. The plant spirit puts people in touch with their repressed pain and trauma, the factors that drive dysfunctional behaviours and that cause illness. By consciously experiencing, acknowledging and witnessing the pain, it loosens its hold on us. Plant medicine can help us get back in touch with our inherent goodness, wholeness and love. The sacred plant allies help us remember ourselves.
Viewing Generational Trauma is Energy
Generational trauma is energy that is passed down from generation to generation that builds and builds over time, increasing in size and potency. We are already swirling in collective trauma that is based on separation and so an eating disorder is a strategy or adaptation to try rectify that wound in order to feel like we belong in this fragile world. We can see this huge energetic mass of diet culture that dominates our society which has caused many individual trauma.
Additionally, generational trauma is something that is modeled in the household. What patterns did your parents and grandparents value and engage in around food, exercise and body image that you may have picked up on? There are patterns around food and body that they may have used to manage their own energy which could have been normalized in the household and by society but were actually harmful. There is an energetic signature to obsessive exercise compared to a more neutral approach exercise, and there is an energetic signature attached to healthy to unhealthy body image. These signatures get passed down and through. It is like the eating disorder increases in energetic size, gaining speed and weight over time, demanding to be heard and seen. It then carries over into an individual’s life in such strong ways that it can no longer be ignored, and because the energetic size of it is so large, we have to see it, and so it is then our responsibility to finally look at it in eye. We then have a conscious choice to break the pattern.
The generational trauma indicates enmeshment with a certain energy that gets passed down from one generation to the next, with the past influencing the present moment. Ask yourself, how has the fear of rejection/abandonment/not enoughness been passed down? Somewhere, it was learnt in our ancestral line that we can only be accepted if we are small. That is the injury and the belief that are passed down.
Finally, an eating disorder is also a way to protect and create safety; a way to block out dangerous energy from others and the world. It is a way to avoid judgement, expectation, rejection and betrayal from the world. And so we can also send compassion to the eating disorder that has manifested across time and space, and through generations, as way to numb out overwhelming feelings, soothe pain, and provide relief. The eating disorder can help us create boundaries and be with ourselves, and ourselves only, when the world has felt too much.
Healing from these eating behaviours takes time especially when it has been swirling in familial psyches for generations. Psychedelics and body-based, bottom-up approaches can help us get to the root and travel beyond time to access to wounds that want to be seen and transformed.
Dropping Out of Diet Culture this 2021
It's that of time of the year where all the conversations seem to funnel into the classic end of year weight talk and body commenting.
As we approach the end of 2021, many of us will engage in gatherings with festive meals. During these festivities, it can be challenging, especially if you have working on making peace with food and your body, as comments around what to eat, not to eat, weight gain, weight loss, and everything in between swirls around the table. It can be super hard if the comments are directed about your body. This can leave us feeling objectified, judged, and shamed.
If you are concerned about how your body may be perceived and received, especially when the are passing comments are about your body, here are four tips you can use in these situations:
1. Visualise the other person is in a trance. When I remember what is was like before I started this journey and ED recovery, I used to judge people's bodies all the time and would project my fears onto them. And so, in a way it is really not about you, but about them. When we judge others, we are really judging ourselves. Those who comment the most on other people's bodies are usually those who are the most concerned about theirs. It is only when we start engaging in this work that we see the trance of diet culture for what it is. We don't know what we don't know. And so if the other person genuinely does not know any other way, we can practice some compassion.
2. Do not engage. You can walk away from any conversation you do not wish to have. A conversation can only happen when both people are engaged. A conscious conversation can only happen when both people show up with an open heart and mind, and a willingness to be changed. You are perfectly entitled to walk away, stay silent, or change the subject.
3. Create boundaries and call in support. It can be helpful to make some time before entering into a space to create some energetic boundaries and call in any supports (kind and healed ancestors, your spirit guides, and power animals) to be with you, protecting you, providing you with a specific quality that you want to embody (e.g. courage, patience, tolerance, empowerment, pride etc.). You can also set a boundary by asking that your body not be commented on or that diet talk is not spoken about around you. You can do this if comes up in a conversation or as a preventative measure beforehand.
4. Address it. If you feel it is needed to counter what is being said and address it, take a breath and practice non-violent communication: "When you said...[state your observation]...I felt...[state your emotion]...because I need/value...[state your needs]...Would you be willing to...[state a concrete action]...? This is a powerful way of expressing yourself honestly and standing up for yourself, and owning your feelings (no-one can take that away from you).
This path of recovery is an inner journey that leads each of us to our true self. Whilst it's great to have support around us who "get it", we also have to remember that everyone is on their journey. Part of the healing process is also making peace with the fact that some people may never realize this ocean of diet culture that we are swimming in. Indeed, fish did not discover water. When we are enmeshed and immersed in an environment, we do not realize the dominant cultural environment. It has become normalized to the point of it being invisible.
And so we have compassion for our process and everyone else's without taking it on.
Projection, Resistance and Entitlement in Psychedelic Journeys
Plant medicine journeys are ripe with lessons, opportunities and waves to ride. Navigating a ceremony can be a fruitful place to look out our relationship patterns and where we unconsciously project our fears and attractions onto others. Psychedelic ceremonies can show us how we react to challenging experiences and what our tendencies are when in difficult times. It is also important to consider how we relate to the plant medicine we have chosen to journey with and how we can improve our relationship and connection with these sacred plant allies.
Projection vs Ownership
Projection is a control pattern to keep ourselves from fully seeing the parts that are uncomfortable to acknowledge. Anything repressed or disowned within ourselves are projected onto other people or aspects of nature. This draws the attention outward, away from the inner space where these parts reside, wanting to be seen, and integrated with our core essence. Projections can be repulsing or alluring, sometimes with the projection containing both elements. Ceremony facilitators and group participants can be sites for such projection. However, the process of owning projection can be a powerful way to reclaiming aspects of our soul as we navigate a plant medicine journey. It is an opportunity to both see and own disembodied aspects. When we acknowledge and reconsolidate all that we have projected to others, we heal, by becoming more whole, more human.
Notice what in others (or in nature) repulses and allures you, and can you identify these qualities inside yourself? Projection is part of the path of growth. And it happens in ceremony all the time. We can start with this integration work whilst the ceremony is happening if we can stay aware of our triggers. We are asked to befriend these moments as best we can can.
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” - Carl Jung
Resistance vs Acceptance
It can be helpful to look at what is going on in these expanded states of consciousness as energy rather than labeling an experience as “good” or “bad”, and giving it a story. When we drop the story and connect with the energetic frequency and body sensations, there is less space for judgement. Thus, it can be helpful to regard whatever is going on internally as “light” or “dense” in energy. Both dense and light emotions are essential along the journey of healing and transformation. However, we have become accustomed to avoiding dense emotions. The healing journey is always characterized by the presence of dense, difficult and uncomfortable emotions, as well as with the light. Remember the story of the Hero’s Journey? When we avoid or deny our true feelings, we end up with psycho-emotional issues including depression, anxiety, disordered eating behaviours/adaptations, over-exercise, hyper-focus on how the body looks, or any other form of control pattern, addiction or distraction that cause numbing or disassociation. When difficult emotions are avoided for a long period of time, physical illness can arise.
In a psychedelic journey, difficult emotions and memories often emerge. In these moments, as challenging as it can be, we are asked to do what we have been conditioned against: to turn towards the emotions, instead of running away from them. In order to heal these wounds, that come with the denser emotions, we have to face them, and see them as teachers that have medicine and messages for our growth. Indeed, “healing is about better feeling, not feeling better.”
By allowing ourselves to face and integrate difficult emotions, we are able to live more fully and deeply and experience more joy, pleasure, and ease that are also part of being a human. By embracing this process in ceremony and outside of the journey space, reactions to life’s challenges will have less of a grip on us. Things will feel more manageable, as there is a knowing how to handle difficult situations more effectively and a trust that the dense will eventually and ultimately move into light. As a result, self-love, presence, compassion, harmony, connection, trust and self-honour become more frequent in daily life.
Reciprocity vs Entitlement
Honour for self, the body, the ceremony space, and the medicine is a key guide in the journey space. When we observe our language, notice if the words “taking the medicine” vs “receiving the medicine” are used. Language carries meaning, and a history of meaning, orienting us towards certain implications and consequences. “Taking” may imply overt or covert entitlement - a belief that one has an inherent right to something. “Taking” is not a sacred act. “Taking” is treating the substance and its spirit like something consumed for pleasure and recreational use. In this instance, “taking” does not leave room to establish and develop a relationship with the plant ally.
When we call plant medicines “tools” we are inferring that they are extensions and creations from humans, with the human as the source of its use, and value (usefulness). When we use “tool” to describe a living being, we are subjecting it beneath humans in value. How we language something reflects our relational orientation to it. Possibly we don’t even intend to do this. Perhaps we have simply picked up this language from those around us, people who also want to help other people have meaningful experience with psychedelics. So let us observe our words, the energy attached to the words we choose, and if there is room for change - with self-compassion, patience and forgiveness.
Experiences with psychedelics are beyond what we can control, whereas tools are things we can control, manipulate, improve, and use. Often our attempts to control psychedelics can lead to resistance and more pain. Psychedelics then are not tools.
Rather than “using” or “taking” how does “being in communion with” or “working with” change our relationship to the plant teacher, how we learn and relate, and how we engage with the world around us?
“Working with” these medicines is like an apprenticeship, that is, the act of learning from a master. “Working with [insert medicine of choice]” is a different approach where there is interaction, and where the sacred plant ally is a master and soul guide, and is well-equipped to guide us through this soul encounter experience. From this perspective, the plant spirit is recognized as a conscious being and highly evolved, and from whom we each have our unique lessons to learn during and after the ceremony.
“Working with” also points to reciprocity. Reciprocity is a worldview that connects us within the web of life, within living energy. A beautiful example of this are trees who inhale our carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen, whilst us humans do the opposite. Reciprocity is about cooperation, mutuality and interconnection. The orientation is circular rather than linear. There is an ongoing flow of energy and maintaining balance rather than being goal-oriented, power-over, scorekeeping, competition, focused on tangible outcomes that we are so used to in Western cultures.
Let us also consider the indigenous tribes who pioneered and paved the way for psychedelic medicine, and whose practices provided frameworks for set, setting, integration and spirituality. For psychedelic companies, reciprocity and partnership should be built into their foundations, ideally it should be the intention, along with serving consciousness expansion and healing. If these companies take without giving back, there may be consequences due to a lack of balance.
How can we do better? How can we give back without really know how we will benefit? Reciprocity is about energetic giving and receiving without expectations extending between humans, all beings, amongst the natural world, and beyond. What is given is less important to how it is given. Reciprocity is of the heart. Reciprocity is true kinship.
Plant Medicine Navigation For Eating Disorder Recovery: The Hero's Journey
We sit in ceremony to remember that all of life is ceremony. We sit in ceremony to remember the sacredness of all things. We sit in ceremony to remember we are the medicine. We sit in ceremony to practice how to live the teachings of the medicine. We sit in ceremony to reclaim, reconstitute and restore. We sit in ceremony to repattern and rewire ways of thinking, feeling and being, rather than suppressing, dampening or avoiding. We sit in ceremony to truly see, to truly hear, to truly feel. We sit in ceremony to be with the confusion, the trepidation, the discomfort, the awkwardness, the grief, and the anger. We sit in ceremony to learn how to breathe through it. We sit in ceremony to feel our feet on the Earth, our bones stacked, our hearts rhythmically beating. We sit in ceremony to remember the miracle of being alive, and the gift to be moving through it all in this body.
Navigating a plant medicine or psychedelic journey, like life, comes with its ebbs and flows of challenge and ease. Each psychedelic journey is different and some may be more challenging to navigate than others. However some of our most challenging moments can also be our greatest catalyst for growth and transformation.
The parts that feel the most challenging are where the medicines are pointing us to, amplifying an emotion, a thought, a sensation, or a memory that has been begging for our attention for all this time.
For the moments that feel difficult, it can be helpful to remember that there is something to be gained by sticking with it. When these moments bubble or erupt to the surface, you can remind yourself that they are expected, they are normal, and you are and will be ok. By welcoming in these chapters within the larger journey arch, and exploring how the challenge is rather a gift, there is an opportunity to deepen the healing process in profound ways. Spoiler alert: The gift is that there is something to be learnt.
the plant medicine hero’s journey
The psychedelic journey is akin to Joseph Campbell’s famous “Hero’s Journey”: a challenging portal through which we claim our authentic selves and share our soul gifts with the world. It is a journey meant to help us come to our full, true human selves and to take our place as world servers.
We are called to this journey when we feel something is off in our lives. There is discord, dissonance or distress. And so we hear the call to adventure, and so begins a process of change, sometimes with reluctance, sometimes with excitement, sometimes with fear. As we begin this journey, a mentor appears to support us, or we find the resources within - and with this support, we leave the known and enter the unknow territory. Along we trek, we reach the underworld where our greatest challenge - our ultimate fear - awaits. Here we are tested in the depths of the descent. Out of this moment of death there is a rebirth and a soul gift is granted. We then leave the underworld, bringing the treasure back with us but just as we are about to reach final completion, we are faced with one final moment of death-rebirth, taking us to an even higher level of transformation. The discord at the beginning of the journey is resolved. Purification, healing, and whole-ing have taken place. We return - transformed - bearing gifts of service that have the power to transform the world.
When we enter the underworld, of which we have agreed to do upon committing to journeying through this Hero’s Journey passage, we may experience:
Any and all emotions, including fear, anger, grief, and hopelessness.
Our eating disorders for what they are, including the ED thoughts, how the eating disorder manifests, and how it affects our life, and our souls.
Our addictions and obsessions, related to food, body and anything else, both obvious and subtle.
Facing deeply-held fears and work through the barriers that have kept us from being our true self.
Releasing anything that does not serve our soul’s purpose and our path.
Healing aspects that have been shamed, hidden, abandoned or mistreated.
Claiming our soul gifts in service to something greater than ourselves.
Diving into these depth, we are investigating what fears have held us back from pursuing our most valued, yet unrealized dreams, as well which aspects of ourselves need to be retrieved and integrated. Within your own personal healing context and within the framework of eating disorders in general, you know all about what this means.
Eating disorders are smart survival adaptations to help an individual feel safe in the world. They are strategies that are unconsciously adopted, learnt and refined as protective behaviours. Often the individual with the eating disorder is carrying and manifesting the trauma of the family, such as attachment wounds, through unsustainable food behaviours. The process of healing from an eating disorder (which I do believe is possible despite it having one of the lowest recovery rates of any “mental” condition), requires the individual to recognize something is out of balance and that something needs to change. With this intention and awareness, so begins the journey. sometimes with the help of psychedelics. A plant medicine journey can sometimes feel like years of eating disorder therapy in a single session. Of course, the work thereafter to integrate these changes is where the meat lies. Possibly the integration phase after a psychedelic experience for eating disorder recovery is the phase in the classic Hero’s Journey where we are leaving the underworld, and we are faced with tests to prove to ourselves and the world that the changes have indeed been consolidated. Eating disorder recovery can be a beast at times. But the journey is worth it.
Eating disorder recovery is indeed a long Hero’s Journey, with multiple adventures along the way. The more we commit to our recovery, the more initiations we will face… that result in transformations beyond our wildest imaginations. Are we willing to take the next step?
Below are a few tips you can practice whilst navigating a psychedelic journey:
Focus on the breath. Follow each inhale and exhale, noticing the pauses. Allow the breath to fill the belly, chest, back, front and sides of the lungs, and nose. If possible, lengthen the exhale or make an audible sigh for a calming effect on the nervous system. Count your breath. Make this your single point of focus.
Place a hand on your heart and your belly. Feel the contact of the hands resting your body. It can be helpful to lightly palpate, push, tap with the fingertips, stroke, rub, or massage the heart space, arms, belly, head, or legs as ways to ground, and make contact with the realness of the body.
Center your attention to your heart. Focus on feelings of love and compassion. Breathe in and out from the heart space, envisioning white light. Meditate on all the beings who may be suffering right now, feeling the same pain, fear and anxiety you may be feeling. Send them your love. Connecting with positive emotions can be a powerful way to break through fear and anxiety.
If you feel physically sick or in pain, see if you can explore it. What is its source (where is its origin, how deep does it go, and in what direction does it want to move to)? What is it here to show you? Can you embrace it exactly where it is? What is the medicine for you in the discomfort?
Move the energy. If you are laying or sitting down, get up slowly and gently move your body to release stuck energy. Moving the spine, light shaking, forward folds, legs up in the air, or child’s pose can be useful. Stick to simple poses.
Drop the storyline. If you are mentally spiraling, try let go of the narrative or story and just focus on the sensations and feelings in your body. Release what is bad or wrong about what is happening, and be with the body. Allow the sensations to be there as you let go of trying to control or change what is happening.
Surrender and trust. Whatever you are experiencing will pass. Believe in this. Where in your body can you relax more? Can the eyes, tongue, jaw and belly soften? How much more can you let go into the experience? Slip into the moment.
Be curious. Replace judgement with curiosity. Blend the contrasts, releasing the labels of what is good or bad, and be curious as to what you are experiencing.
Pray. Focusing your mind on prayer can also help shift the experience of overwhelm. Your prayer can also summon the assistance of your spiritual allies to support you as you navigate the journey.
Ask for help. If you feel like you are unable to ride out your experience and make it through the intensity, call for a facilitator to assist you. The shaman may perform a blessing or purification ritual over you, to support you in healing process.
Trust the wisdom of the medicine.
This process is a resurrection of our truest essence. Along the winding road, there will be opportunities to meet, learn from, and embrace our deepest and most authentic selves as we look at aspects of our lives that we may have been avoiding, consciously or unconsciously, including limiting beliefs and patterns. It requires courageous vulnerability and self-compassion. Navigating the path of healing unlocks unconditional acceptance and love. It is a stepping into our own skin. It is embodiment.
For more on Journey Navigation, head to my #4 Podcast Talk.
Photo by Anastasia Petrova on Unsplash
Somatic Sync for Eating Disorder Recovery
My eating disorder did everything it could to get me away from my body. Feeling the weight of my legs, the breath in my belly, the fluttering of my heart. I could be with none of it. Everything movement triggered me. With this extreme separation from my body came an enormous amount of obsession. I was constantly weighing my body; tugging my skin around my arms, belly, and thighs; prodding on bones; staring with disgust in the mirror. I wanted to run away from my body and yet every moment was filled with me observing, berating, shaming, punishing, and hating my body. The more I ran away from it, the more I ran into it. I was stuck. I had nowhere to turn to. Every direction was met with a wall of resistance and judgement… and with my body.
My body was an obstacle that had to be overcome, and to be overcome with great force.
13 years later into recovery, I no longer push my body away, cast it aside in a corner, or ridicule it into silence. Yes, there are moments where I struggle to be in my body, but it is less painful, and the moments come and go with more ease. I now see my body as a vessel, a temple, made up the elements, part of Nature, Nature itself, a mystery, a house of forgiveness, my story, a gift.
I have come to relate to not just my body but my soma.
According to Dr Arielle Schwartz, one of my somatic teachers, says that the soma is the interconnected thinking, emotions, actions, relating, and worldview, all embodied. When we relate to our soma, it is not just the physical structure but all these thoughts, stories, beliefs, and emotions that live in, through, and with the body.
For those of us in the world of body phobia, body dysmorphia, disordered eating, food rules, and exercise as control and punishment, the body is generally related to in an objectified and utilitarian way. And let’s be honest, the culture in which we live encourages this way of relating to our bodies. From this lens, the body is seen in parts, for its physicality, separate from the self. It is seen as something to manage, steward, control, keep healthy, or feel ashamed about. From the lens of somatics however, the body inseparable from the Self and is part of how we choose to live, act, and relate.
This means that our beliefs, reactions, patterns, and survival strategies live in our somatic structures, that is in our neuronal pathways, cells, tissues, muscles, and organs. These embodied patterns, which are carried out by our habitual practices, are reinforced by the social structures and systems in which we operate. We cannot change these survival-based habits through conversation, thought, or willpower alone. This is because the language centers in the brain have little influence over the survival centers in the nervous system and the brain. This is why eating disorder recovery through talk therapy alone often does not lead to long-term change. Of course, language and thoughts are important, so in the big picture we want to align head, heart, gut, and movement. Body-brain. All connected.
Our bodies tell our stories probably more honestly than our minds. Our bodies hold it all. They tell our life stories. Our bodies are shaped by our stories, and our stories shape our bodies.
In this way, the body is speaking about its survival. The eating disorder symptoms and behaviours are the ways in which the body is speaking about how it makes sense of life, what it takes to survive, what it means to be alive, and what the soul needs to thrive in the world. When we begin working with a mentor, coach or therapist who is somatically-trained and eating disorder sensitive, the body takes center stage in the therapy room. Here the body is not an obstacle to overcome, or something considered last in recovery, but rather what helps us recover. It is a resource in the healing path, and we learn to resource the body as a tool in healing. The body is a source of wisdom and needs to be understood. We explore the body experience (in, down, through) rather than focusing on body image or how it looks on the outside.
For someone to be somatically aware means that they are respectful of the core connection between cognition, affect and soma. They understand the difference between top-down and bottom-up processing; “bottom-up” means that our body is the first in line that experiences life, which then impacts our feelings and finally our thoughts and reflections. You can imagine the frontline of an army who react first to whatever is happening as the body, then whoever is behind the frontline responding to whatever just happened as the emotions, and then whoever is behind all of them - as those most removed from the experience – as the brain. Top-down sees it in reverse. The most removed (or with most “rational perspective”) decides what emotions to feel and how the body should react. However, the body operates at different pace than the brain as it rooted in the present moment, which is an important function of the nervous system in keeping us safe from micro-moment to micro-moment. For people with eating disorders, starting with the body and the nervous system is crucial in orienting feelings and thoughts towards recovery.
Nervous system regulation can be accessed through somatic resources such as grounding, centering, breath, orientation, and working with posture, movement, facial expression, and gestures. With the body we learn how to build trust and rapport, safety, self-worth, and a sense of self.
Indeed, recovery is a process of deepening embodiment – with the body you already have. You can read more in depth about embodied eating disorder recovery here. Embodiment is awareness of the body and awareness of the world through the body. We build embodiment by expanding what we are aware of (mindfulness) and expanding the seat of consciousness, that is where we are aware from.
So why should we start with the body first? Our nervous system needs to be regulated first. Our body influences our feelings, thoughts, and how we see the world. When we are regulated inside of our own bodies and know how to move in and out of spaces of connection and disconnection with understanding, we start to see and act with the world differently.
Polyvagal theory, developed by Stephen Porges tells us that when our nervous system is regulated, we feel safe, connected, and live in a reality where there are endless possibilities. This is creates a positive feedback loop of inner and outer perception. What Polyvagal theory has also shown us is that a regulated nervous system correlates with better digestive functioning.
For those of us in eating disorder recovery, we may have experienced some challenging digestive issues. And when our digestion is not working well, we don’t feel good about life in general, right? And this does not only apply to people in recovery. Think about, when we get anxious, we may have a runny tummy. If we have experienced some kind of depression, our digestion works a lot slower. If we are hyper-mobilised, where there a lot of racing energy, our digestion gets impacts. If we are immobilised or lethargic, our digestion reflects that. This is because our vagus nerve (hence “vagal” in Polyvagal), which is highly myelinated, runs from the brainstem all the way to the gut influencing nervous system and digestive functioning.
Our nervous system is constantly listening inside the body, out into the environment and between other people for cues of safety and threat This is called “neuroception”, the internal surveillance system that looks for cues of safety and danger 24/7.
If for whatever reason we no longer feel safe, we move into our sympathetic nervous system where we experience increased blood pressure, rigid muscle tone, and heightened arousal to fight or run away from the threat. This tension and constriction don’t support our capacity for digestion when we are in the fight or flight mobilized state. And many of us are living in this state constantly. With this raised cortisol, higher levels of inflammation, and tension, our digestion and ultimately worldview is impacted. Sometimes we find ourselves in an immobilised state, where the threat is so big that all we can do is go into shutdown. This dorsal state, which when is functioning well, helps with rest and digest as this is where the vagus nerve finally reaches the stomach, spleen, kidney, intestine and colon. However, when there is a whole system freeze (the extreme function of dorsal), this impacts our digestion in the same way too.
So, it seems like we need to feel safe to have good digestion, and good digestion to be connected in the world. For those with eating disorders, this can seem like a chicken or the egg scenario.
To begin working with the soma, we come to work with its rules, not how we think it should. If we are still engaging with eating disorder patterns (big or small, conscious or unconscious), we must remember that the mind is not a reliable place on how to engage with embodiment processes. The soma has its own intelligence, and we must follow its rules. We understand adaptations and shaping have happened on there own terms as ways of survival (indeed, eating disorders are more survival adaptions than disorders).
To be with the soma, we slowly go into those places that are contracted, holding and touching in the way that is moving with the energy rather than willing it to move any differently. Focus on how this part as you find its location, the sensation, how widely it spreads, and how deeply it runs. We can connect more resilient places in the soma with more stressed or numb places, and allow the aliveness to move through the soma, opening spaces for sensations to move and aliveness to flow, thus allowing our whole Self to move with purpose and connection. We allow movement, we allow change, and remember (which is probably something that people with eating disorders fear to face), that the only constant is in fact change.
Through working with the soma we develop adaptability, capacity, tolerance, fortitude and flexibility. Through this somatic work we develop resilience and ways to navigate the world with safety, assurance, and empowerment. We learn to trust our bodies. We learn to be with our Soma.
Microdosing for Eating Disorders
After a ceremony of jaguars, holding onto another female participant for motherly support (I didn’t know about transference then), lots of tears, even more laughter, and heart-opening sensations, I had a sense that after my first hero’s dose of psilocybin in 2017, a lot of work was needed. After that journey, I started microdosing with psilocybin. The intention behind it was wanting to continue working with the medicine in a slow, steady, sustainable way after the huge opening I experienced in the ceremony, specifically to continue integrating and nurturing these new, wide-open spaces within my heart, body and mind in the name of my eating disorder recovery.
Over many journeys with plant medicine, and with the most profound teacher - time - I have come to understand an eating disorder as process one goes through in order to understand oneself in the world. An eating disorder is the body’s smart survival adaptation to regulate one’s nervous system. It is a solution for the now-moment, and is an attempt at restoring balance by relying on something external (i.e., food or exercise) rather than turning inside. Of course when we look inside, there is often a lot of pain and discomfort, and so it makes sense that we look away.
As psychologist, eating disorder specialist, and psychedelic researcher, Adele Lafrance says about eating disorder behaviours, “Starving can numb distress, binge eating can soothe, and purging can provide relief.” People with eating disorder (or eating adaptations as I like to refer them to) often struggle with low self-esteem, self-judgement, guilt, shame, disconnection, and disembodiment, which often stem from trauma to the attachment or defense system.
Trauma is somatic contraction resulting from anything that overwhelms a person, usually where there is inadequate or no support, causing fixed reactive sate in the mind and body. It becomes like an inflexible wound with a lot of scar tissue and is sensitive to touch, meaning that the past is constantly tainting and influencing, informing the present moment from that wounded place.
Trauma impacts us as a whole, including our minds, bodies, behaviour, self-identity (who we think we are), spirits, relationships and communities. Because trauma impacts us holistically, we must heal holistically. We are living a traumatized society – and diet culture reflects that. Trauma is not an individual experience; it impacts and is reflective of the greater society in which we live. Collective survival strategies “shape” communities and are passed down through generations.
When I think about eating disorder recovery and think about the many forces that are in opposition to healing, it can feel overwhelming. But the plants remind that it just needs to start with me. One person can and does make a difference. Microdosing with the generous, benevolent, kind mushrooms over the years have assisted me returning back to myself. To be present with my body, its sensations, its rhythms. To look within and observe what wants to be seen, heard and brought to the surface. To open up my heart and clear my mind so that I can see and feel more clearly, with perspective, and with grace. Raising the vibration within my own temple. This is where it starts.
It has taken some time for me to find my groove with my microdosing practice. It started out with little understanding - I would pop it like a pill, very much still stuck in the Western medicine mentality, that is, taking something and putting all my trust in it, thus disempowering myself, separating myself from my body’s wisdom and not taking responsibility for my health. Nonetheless, it was a start. And my microdosing practice had to start somewhere.
Over time (and I have huge thanks to give to Laura Dawn, my microdosing mentor), I have a flow that took me beyond the medicine. I realised like everything, it is not about the medicine. It is about intention, and presence. The medicine are tools in helping us sit, pray, set intentions, cultivate presence, become clear on values, and the person we want to become. Important to sitting down with the mushrooms is asking them how I can be of service to them - these ancient elders of the land - and represent them in ways that serve this Earth. And seeking how to be in right relationship with the medicine and the Earth, I realised I am serving myself. This has been the biggest insight (as simple as it sounds) through my microdosing practice: the interconnected web of service, and the more that I show up for myself, I give permission for others to do the same.
My microdosing practice is a daily practice of presence, setting intentions, and working with the nervous system. Through somatic process, I am train myself to hold bigger or challenging sensations and develop capacity and tolerance to be with them rather than starving, binging or purging them away. In this way, I am building resilience and practicing holding awareness. These are inherent within each other us and we can cultivate it.
Microdosing amplifies whatever is going on inside the body, and so for me working with mushrooms on a regular basis is essentially just the practice of learning how to be in my body. It’s an opportunity to return back home to the body, to be embodied.
Just to switch gears, I would like to talk about this question that comes up in the microdosing communities…
Can microdosing help me with weight loss?
Mushrooms are literally decomposers and so when we ingest psilocybin, we end up decomposing limiting thought patterns that tell us that in order to feel happy, in control, valued, appreciated, successful we need to lose weight to be validated and loved. Again, this is another act of looking outside of ourselves to feel worthy. The mushrooms however are here to support us in our expansion of consciousness, liberating us from external crutches and attachments that we hold onto so tightly. And in my journeys one thing has been clear: in that high vibration state where the plants are helping me see and feel clearer, that there is no space for shrinking and controlling our bodies to feel safe. So rather than trying to suppress the food, try find out what is the suppressing belief. How is it suppressing you? Where does it come from? Does this belief serve you in your growth and purpose in this lifetime, and how do you want to live your life?
When we try suppress our food, we fall into the restrict-binge-purge pendulum. Not only are we suppressing our food but also thoughts and emotions. When we lean too far to one side, the body has to rebound back to balance. This is where binging comes in.
Binging is the body’s smart and adaptive way of quickly getting nutrients in after a period of restriction. This is the body just doing its thing. It’s survival-based. When the body starts to notice a pattern of restriction, it will do whatever it can to get food in. The “overeating” comes in because the body doesn’t know when it will get its next meal. So when you are in a binge period, recongise that what your body is doing is extremely adaptive and smart.
To get off this pendulum is to start listening to the body and become aware of what your hunger cues are. For me, recovery is an additive process, so it’s not about stopping a behaviour and rather adding to what is already here. And what we are adding in is simply more awareness.
The mushrooms take us into our own bodies, and it becomes harder to ignore the moments where we betray ourselves and attempt to override the body by ignoring signs of hunger. Through this process of working with the mushrooms, and becoming more aware, we actually start to notice WHY we are trying to suppress our food in the first place. What are we trying to run away from, numb, suppress, soothe, get relief from, or cover up?
I have some relief through the plants offering insight, reflections, shining light on the shadows and encouraging me to let go of the controlling, dense, heavy layers that kept me small, inauthentic, suppressed, oppressed by the many limiting thoughts – which have been absorbed through my family network, generations, our culture, historical forces, and social norms, institutions, and media. Indeed, the kind of change we are after is cellular as well as institutional, is personal and intimate, is collective as well as cultural.
This work is multi-layered – it’s individual and collective and transcends time. As with the nature of healing, it is not linear and so through all of these layers, we move in circles of continuum. As we reach a level of natural maturation, there is a letting go which can be painful, and so this cycle goes on and on.
This is what I have been learning from the mushrooms – really see what is here, train up the nervous system to hold the challenging, contrasting waves that come with this work, and then hold the big vision: a world that is embodied, where all bodies are valued and loved and welcomed, where people are connected to their bodies and thus with the land, where food and our bodies no longer dictate our lives, a world we can be our full expression.
And let us remember that we are living in a diet culture world where there are very real pressures of looking a certain way and eating a certain way. It is a courageous radical act to go against these hefty systems.
The more we are able to step out of diet culture, tune in ourselves, our heart and see what is needing to be looked at – what is the pain about and how is it trying to make itself know, and can we tend to it, see it, hold it – that is the way we find calm, joy and peace with food and our bodies. And the mushrooms are supporting us in our awakening, and in our paths to reclaiming our inherent freedom and liberation.
Image by by Hailey E Herrera
What Plant Medicine Taught Me About Eating Disorders And Attachment
In all of my medicine journeys, I have never been shamed by a plant. But have they given me the honest truth? Yes. Whilst I’ve never been punished or shunned by a sacred plant ally (which is something I am often on the lookout for… a deep conditioning), I have been brought to my knees at the amount of work that still needs to be done and that the work must be done; and I have been reminded that this work is the most rewarding work there is - and that the plants are there cheering me on.
Fun fact: I have gone into many psychedelic journeys thinking I would be punished for not doing my integration “homework”, or for showing up unwelcomed.
Fun fact: I have never been put into the naughty corner or told to leave.
The plant world is filled with beings who are pure. And with this purity, they are of course honest. So they have shown me the hard facts of how I am living, but always delivered with unconditional love. I have learnt so much through plant medicine about attachment, bonding and boundaries. I am grateful for these beings for sharing this wisdom so generously in the name of consciousness expansion.
When working with the plants, I almost always come up against some part of my eating disorder behaviours that needs to be examined. I used to think that since I often am working with eating disorder-related stuff, I would be punished for “not having done my homework.” This pattern is based on fear, specifically fear of not being good enough, and that in order to be loved, and in a safe attachment, I have to perform in a certain way - otherwise I am not loveable.
This is a classic trauma response: we have to adapt, suppress, reject a part of ourselves in order to comply with what we perceive our caregivers to deem important. And so, throughout my life, I have morphed myself to perform in an acceptable way - even if it went against what I valued, cared about, or felt I had the energy for - in order to stay connected to loved ones.
Attachment style lives in our nervous system. It’s not something that can always be rationalized. It is development through a co-regulation feedback loop with our caregiver. Based on the feedback we receive, we develop secure attachment (like an anchor), or become an island (aka avoidant), rejecting connection out of fear of being swallowed, or we become the wave that easily and ambivalently merges, fears being abandoned, and does not know where they stand (thank you to Kimberly Ann Johnson for imparting this metaphor).
When with the plants however, I have shown that however I show up, I do not have to fear punishment for not being perfect. The plants can see that I have been putting in the work, because they see the smallest of steps, including the big ones. Whilst the urge me on, they are content to go along at my pace and meeting me where I am at.
These experiences have been powerful in helping me reevaluate how I am in relationship, and how the conditioning from my parents and the environment around me have shaped how I am when connecting with others, especially in those more intimate spaces.
The connections we have with our caregiving attachment figures shape the structure of our brain in ways that can free us or imprison us. Indeed, the emotional quality of our earliest attachment experience is perhaps the single most important influence on human development.
There is enough empirical support now that early childhood experience is powerful in shaping and impacting development. Infants are attached to their caregivers not because caregivers feed them (whilst that is of course nb), but because caregivers trigger the unfolding of infants' inborn disposition to seek closeness with a protective other. We are wired for connection. According to leading neuroscientist and mindfulness teacher, Dan Siegel, he says that before we even had language and conceptual tools to process what we were experiencing as children, patterns of interaction were incorporated in the brain. These patterns - positive, negative or traumatic - impacted our psyches and even the molecules that control the expression of genes. He continues to say people can get "lost in familiar places" as they continually recreate their earliest patterns of interactions across the lifespan.
Indeed, these early relationships provide the foundation for personality development, but they do so by affecting the child's capacity for emotional regulation and the formation of mental representations of self and others, impacting one’s worldview and beliefs. For example, a child who has been rejected is likely to interpret the behavior of others as rejecting and behave in ways that lead to further rejection, continuing the pattern. It also seems that people end up treating those with secure attachment with warmth, whilst those with avoidant attachment are treated with more hostility and those with avoidant are controlled more and unduly nurturance. It seems then that the reflections happen in many directions.
I have come to understand that when working with psychedelics, we are able to change these structures through neuroplasticity. Psychedelics have the possibility to bring awareness to these patterns and alongside an integration coach, create new pathways for people to take as they unlearn long-established habits.
Research now is also telling us that the brain isn’t fixed after a certain age. It is remodeling itself in response to experiences throughout our lives. There is in fact huge capacity for change across our lifetimes and as such, it is possible to develop a secure state of mind as an adults even after a challenging childhood. Psychedelics and integration support can help with that by shining light on what these patterns are, and what steps can be useful in forging a new way forward. With the plant medicine teachers modelling that unconditional, loving, secure attachment, with the support from an integration coach who is sensitive, paying attention, tuning in, and responding in a timely and effective manner, a healthier attachment state of being can be investigated, practiced and embodied. This speaks to the what attachment theory calls “attunement”, or sensitivity, which is the caregiver’s ability to perceive, or make sense of, and respond in a timely and effective manner, to the actual moment-to-moment signals sent by the child.
Indeed, practice and embodiment is key. The brain is open to responding to experiences with change in its structure and function, however it’s not just a one-off event. Just like how reading this article won’t magically change your brain, we need to practice this new knowing 300x and up to 3000x for embodiment - this is according somatic practitioner, Staci K Haines, specializing in intersecting personal and social change.
Dr Dan Siegel shares that neuroplasticity is showing us that relationships can “stimulate neuronal activation and even remove the synaptic legacy of early social experience.” It is possible that “islands” of positive relational experience can grow and expand until they become larger landscapes or even continents, until our whole experience of relating is one that is positive, whilst the largely negative histories have less influence over the present moment.
Psychedelics are aware that who are is influenced by genetically-shaped temperament and the experiences we’ve had (especially those early ones), and are willing to work with us in changing our genetic expression (yes, Ayahuasca is showing capacity to have influence on our epigenetics!), deconstruct no-longer-helpful attachment patterns, and help us build new neural networks of connection - literally.
Looking at attachment studies, interpersonal neurobiology, and psychedelic research, what emerges is a fascinating Venn Diagram of how relationships, the brain and plant medicine shape who we are.
For more reading, check out the following articles:
PSYCHEDELICS AND EATING DISORDERS: WHAT HAPPENS IN THE BRAIN
PSYCHEDELIC RESEARCH AND TREATMENT FOR EATING DISORDER RECOVERY
What Psychedelics Have Taught Me About My Eating Disorder
It's becoming more and more imperative to share our authentic presence. Each one of us has unique and important gifts based on our internal make up and experiences that life has bestowed upon us. From my own dark journey with eating disorders to stepping into the light of recovery, I recognize how much of myself I have dimmed, hid, masked and suppressed. Over the years, I have started to question and reflect on my unique expression and how can I make space for it, without shame, doubt, or fear.
As this is just a deep process for me, I too am fascinated witnessing people come more into their true self, expressing themselves creatively, identifying their triggers and dearmoring the layers that previously held them back. At the same time, seeing other people free themselves and be unapologetically themselves, has triggered me. These triggers just directed me back to my own self that so badly wanted to express too! Indeed, I used to feel fear when those around me would step into their light. I would feel judgement and comparison and resentment. For my astrologer friends, can you guess my Chiron is in Leo in the 7th house?!
In one of my plant medicine journeys, I was able to look at and deconstruct a pattern that pertains to this particular layer that was holding me back. I compassionately call this pattern "hide-and-seek". This pattern would show up whenever I needed some form of validation or approval from another person - which was all the time. In my quest to express, I was constantly looking outside of myself to ensure that others still approved and accepted me. Through this psychedelic experience, I came to see how deep I did not trust my authentic expression. I was quite flabbergasted at how deep and automatic this reaction was.
In this medicine journey, I realized this habitual pattern and quick-to-judge reaction was projection onto others for I so badly wanted to step into my own power as well, but was afraid of perceived backlash, rejection and criticism that I would receive if I took the leap.
This particular pattern showed up in the ceremony as a younger version of myself (probably five years old) who just wanted to be seen, accepted and loved. I have compassion for this part of me who was only trying to look out for me and to protect me. This part wanted me to be safe, encouraging me to play small, for in stepping out, I would be too big, too much, over-spilling, disrupting others and causing harm.
This innocent younger self wanted to be held and soothed so I spent a large chunk of the journey tending to her, and the other part of the journey observing all the times she would show up like a shadow, evaluating if anyone around me had given me the stamp of approval. We ended up playing a game of hide-and-seek. I would carry out an action and *boom* she would show up, looking around to the environment for a pat on the back. I had to laugh.
She showed up. all. the. time.
Somatically, she showed up as an anxious, wide-eyed scan around the room, quick head turns, contraction in the belly and jaw, and slumping of the shoulders in towards the core.
This pattern was very deep. The guidance from the medicine was to just compassionately observe and be aware when she would pop up, essentially bringing the unconscious to the conscious.
And this is of course the essential first step in healing.
I sometimes like to ponder when the eating disorder triggered within me. This hide-and-seek pattern is linked to food as I have used eating disorder behaviours to try to stay small (in all senses of the word), for my expression to be not too much, and to hide my authenticity. In addition, by trying to fit into the idealized thin body type, the external focus on my body was another way of looking outside of myself for that same kind of approval. Indeed, individuals with eating disorders often struggle with self-worth and lack of self-love, low self-esteem, self-rumination and self-judgment, and the eating disorder behaviours can numb, soothe and provide relief to what is going on internally.
If I consider this little girl who showed up in my psychedelic journey, it is possible it began when I was five years old. But maybe even earlier. Perhaps that was when the eating disorder behaviours began.
After that ceremony, I had to find ways to integrate this new understanding. It is through the practice of joining with this habituated shaping, rather than trying to break it up or unlock it. This little girl is inherently intelligent in the protective patterning that she performs. The integration work is further inquiring in what has this somatic pattern been taking care of? What has it served? When did it get established, or how long has it been around? How does it work? In supporting the contraction—physically and verbally—the soma will begin to tell its story. We can discover how the somatic pattern works and what its key purpose has been. This then leads to authentic movement, speaking and being.
Image by Andrea Strongwater
Somatic Therapy for Eating Disorders
Finding ways to connect,
Rather than trying to be oh-so-perfect.
Remembering to listen to my body’s signs,
As direct guidance for my life’s design.
Always empowered to choose what I allow into my space,
And this takes practice, patience and pace.
Sometimes the feelings were just too much,
So my body disconnected and went out of touch.
My body has and will always know what to do;
It has carried my trauma so I could just get through, and this it will continue to do.
There is deep wisdom in these inherent workings,
I am grateful for my body’s constant ability to be adapting, assessing and reworking.
The somatic movements that my body makes
Is for the sake of my safety and so I welcome it all like a bird song at day break.
I take a breath. I offer my body nourishing rest, wholesome food, soulful community, and play so the signs I receive are clear and lead my on path’s highest way. I give thanks to this temple.
As a person who has experienced an eating disorder, learning to trust my body has been one of my greatest challenges. There was a point in my recovery journey where I realized that I had done all of this talking and cognitive analysis in therapy but was unable to just be in my body. I came to accept that if I wanted to heal from the eating disorder, the body (which I so feared), had to be included in the recovery process.
This insight propelled me into the world of somatic therapy. I started learning how the body, along with supportive external resources, has inner wisdom that is self-directing, self-connecting, and helps us unfold towards wholeness. By coming into contact with the body, breath, energy, emotions and thoughts, we can begin to see how we are doing moment to moment. And if done carefully, it is not as scary as one may think.
By bringing this information into the now, and holding it with compassion, healing can take place; indeed how the body is a resource and can be resourced is part of the the healing process from a somatic perspective.
From a somatic therapy lens, difficult life experiences contribute to patterns of tension in the body, whilst developing body awareness helps us access an internal source of wisdom that guides the healing process. And we engage more body awareness and healing movements at a pace that can be tolerated.
For people with eating disorders, the body is a scary place to be, and so the pace is slow so that one does not feel overwhelmed. I remember how I couldn’t even practice mindful breathing - it was just too triggering and upsetting. And so I see with my own clients, the body is a sensitive portal to enter. For some, there is a numbness or there isn’t a big enough language to describe what is going on.
By creating a safe space together, we learn how to build up our tolerance to hold and describe bigger emotions. But there’s no rush in this work. When there is trauma, there is a fear of what emotions are stirring beneath the surface and of one’s inner experience. To face trauma, we have to face what is uncomfortable. Everyone is ready at different times as resources, support and stability are built in accordance to the individual. Only once stability and safety are built internally and externally, can the trauma be processed.
First and foremost is creating the space between client and coach/therapist/mentor/loving human who is offering their attuned presence and an opportunity for the client to borrow their nervous system to practice co-regulation. From there, we develop conscious awareness of the somatic experience by paying attention to what the five senses, proprioception and interception are picking up on as it’s happening in the room, between the two parties, and inside oneself. This is the first step to deepening one’s embodiment.
As we strengthen the somatic resources through body awareness, conscious breathing, co-regulation, grounding techniques, empowerment, receiving support, building affect and sensation tolerance, and developing boundaries, we can come to understand the impact that the trauma had on the body, reclaim healing movement, have a somatic release, and then work on integrating this new body into the world.
For my own life, I cannot pinpoint a moment when there was a traumatic event in my childhood, but I can assume that there something (or multiple things) that contributed to my body picking up eating disorder behaviours as a way to cope. These behaviours kept me safe and in a state of defense against feeling my body and internal landscape, being present, and connecting with the world around me.
Over time, by building tolerance to hold bigger emotions and sensations through developing my own supports and resources; trusting that it’s safe to pause and feel what is going on inside of me and sense into sensations and emotions; and allowing myself to receive the messages from these emotions and sensations, my reliance on eating disorder behaviours organically faded as I have naturally matured out of them. This is because new tools, resources and ways of being in the world have been built, practiced and integrated into my life.
Ultimately, we learn how to become good at change. Eating disorders - and addictions - are perceived ways to control and keep things the same as a way to protect the individual. When we accept that the body is always changing, from a physical sensation to an emotion, we are able to ride the waves of changes that life fundamentally brings with greater ease.
Psychedelics, plant medicine and microdosing have been key allies in helping me get more in touch with what my body is trying to communicate with me. Since I have the pattern of numbing out or avoiding uncomfortable body sensations through the conditioning of the eating disorder, it is sometimes too easy to fall back into that way of existing. The sacred plant allies, Psilocybin and Ayahuasca, who I enjoy working with in small and large doses have been immensely helpful in getting me out of this particular rut and into feeling, honestly and compassionately.
Working with the body is an honour. It is the portal that remembers and transforms. Our body is our greatest work.
For those who are interested in working with me, I offer 1:1 sessions that focus on movement, mindfulness and/or medicine for greater embodiment, eating disorder and addiction recovery. Feel free to check out my offerings or contact me.
Photo by Maria Duda on Unsplash
Transformational Eating Disorder Recovery
“I don’t regret my eating disorder”, I say genuinely.
Even in those hard, painful, confusing, straining moments, for me, eating disorders and addiction are transformational experiences that hold enriching value.
The word “transformation” means change or conversion. When thinking about recovery, it is not about stopping or restricting a behaviour but rather allowing it change and transform, taking us along for the ride so that our beliefs, feelings, thoughts, behaviour and action take a new form. Grounded, sustainable change does not happen overnight.
For me, recovery is about inner personal and spiritual growth, and incremental daily, positive changes. My experience with eating disorders and addiction has lead me to believe that they lessons and offer advantages, transforming me into more of who I truly am, alive, free, appreciative, and connected.
Eating disorders are opportunities for meaningful change to occur, to discover one’s true self and to heal core wounding.
From this lens, it also means that the medicine is already inside of us. We are the medicine we seek. And that we are not broken and or need fixing; everything is already inside and we have the power to heal ourselves.
We then have the opportunity to heal ourselves in this very moment.
Have you ever imagine a life without “your” eating disorder? Have you considered the possibility of training for that day?
We never know when that day will come when we are completely released and free from the ED thoughts, behaviours and addictions. But it is possible to train for that day – whenever it will come – now.
By envisioning and embodying a life without addiction in small increments (in coaching sessions, psychedelic journeys, and in meditation, and through journaling, dance, mask work, painting, and role playing), we can train the body and mind to align to this new reality. Indeed, the well-known quote, “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail” encapsulates the importance of preparation for a new chapter. Using this time to prepare gives a window of opportunity to look at where one is at in the recovery process, and thus what is achievable in the short and long-term.
This is a chance to strategize and prepare the mindset and lifestyle through identifying resources and skills needed to transition out of addiction. There are also opportunities to prepare for what would happen should there be a relapse. Being aware of all outcomes means that one is well prepared for the journey ahead.
The idea of training for a life without an eating disorder means that we are priming the brain (the reticular activating system specifically) to start paying attention to look out for information related to recovery. This initial awareness is fundamental to the recovery path.
The quote, “the seeing is the doing” reminds us that an important aspect to starting the road to recovery is to see and observe, with compassion, what beliefs and behaviours need to change without actually having to do anything tangible. This is first step to getting to THAT day. And that day is possible.
“The seeing is the doing".”
We awaken to that day through consistently showing up. As we train more and more, it becomes easier as we lay more foundation through practice, trying, testing, evaluating. We start to see how healing is something within reach.
Psychedelics can provide a huge springboard for healing. It can take us right to the core wound or to the top of the mountain in a very short space of time. However, without solid foundation underneath this catalytic experiences, we can fall back down, and hard. Sacred plant medicines are not here to solve our problems. They are here to shine light on things we cannot see or are in denial about. When jump from one psychedelic experience to the next, chasing that rush we felt when we were at the top of the mountain, we are avoiding the integration work and using these powerful medicines as a crutch.
There is no quick fix. The work of continuing whatever was illuminated during a psychedelic or plant medicine experience is the integration.
The question is not “Can psychedelics heal eating disorders?” bur rather “What conditions can I create alongside these powerful sacred plant medicines to keep me on the road of recovery”? It is about continuing to nourish the conditions for change, whilst balancing between being present, getting out of our own way, allowing things to mature, and taking positive action steps. Life is one big integration process, peppered with small and big catalysts that spark new realisations. Psychedelics can be those catalysts and portals, but so can a relationship, a conversation, a book, a retreat, or traveling. The work is then to align with these insights through a daily, humble (sometimes challenging and mundane) integration practice. Turn the downloads into daily action.
What does integration mean to you and how do you ground insights into everyday life?
Photo by Sagar Kulkarni on Unsplash
Guided Yoga Nidra Meditation
So much of my own personal eating disorder recovery has been about slowing down. To try manage the energy inside of myself and the world around me, I used strategies like over-exercising as a way to purge and to run away. It lead to behaviours like restricting my food so that I could stop things from coming at and into me which oftentimes felt too fast and too much. I have come to realise over the years, one of the hardest aspects of my recovery has been to soften, open up and slow things down.
In February 2021, I was in a motorcycle accident in Nicaragua and fractured my tibia; I knew immediately in that moment that this was the way I was finally going to slow down. In fact, I intuited something like this was going to happen at some point many, many months before this specific incident. Something outside of myself had to come in to bring me to a halt - I knew I couldn’t do it all by myself.
And so I am grateful for this experience.
It showed me how I’ve used movement over the last 13 years, sometimes excessively and damaging, to suppress, neutralize or avoid overwhelming energy. When I was in the early stages of my recovery after my leg surgery, I finally got to experience the waves of energy, emotions, thoughts - the whole banquet of my human experience - without the hiding, distracting and altering. I was in all of it it and had to face all of it. I got to understand how so much of the movement I do in a day is to manage feelings of anxiety and fragmentation - but without giving myself time to really feel it, question it, or see it so that it could be transmuted.
During this potent time of healing, I found other ways to be with these feelings through breathwork, meditation, massage, sound and vocalization, painting and being in nature, allowing the winds to wash, cleanse and move through me. My understanding of how to find my center, to reground and regroup, expanded over the course of my injury recovery.
One of the ways of settling back into myself was with yoga nidra, a style of yoga that induces “non-sleep-deep-rest”, as Andrew Huberman likes to call it, where we find ourselves in a state of consciousness that is between being awake and asleep. Practicing yoga nidra induces the parasympathetic nervous system to come on and allows the sympathetic nervous system to take a chill. Our sympathetic nervous system governs our flight or flight, which many of us are in too much of the time, leading to chronic stress and subsequent health conditions. While we need this system to get out of bed, stay motivated, play and accomplish tasks, when used for extended periods of time it can cause issues with digestion, sleep and immunity. When we practice yoga nidra, we shut this system off and enter into the parasympathetic nervous system - rest and digest - thus calming the nervous system, improving immune function and deep cellular healing, supporting digestion and stress management, decreasing anxiety, blood pressure and cortisol levels, and inviting all of ourselves into the present moment.
And all you need to do is lie on your back on a mat or in bed, and allow yourself to be guided. There are many ways to be with the body, to move and transmute energy, and journey back to inner peace.
It’s now been seven months since my accident and my healing has been smooth and swift. To celebrate this little moment, I have decided to share a guided yoga nidra meditation with you which I actually created when I was still in Nicaragua in the first three months of my recovery.
Feel free to listen to this before you go to bed, in the middle of the day as a break, or before, during or after a plant medicine or psychedelic journey as preparation, support or integration .
Ground down, relax back, be transported, be transformed.
Photo by Anna Rozwadowska on Unsplash
Why I am Training as a Psychospiritual Integration and Addiction Recovery Coach
I must have been around ten years old when I wanted to become a child psychologist. I had a deep desire to work with children through healing play and creative therapy. I believe that this was my own inner child seeking healing at an already young age. Through my eating disorder, I have journeyed far away from my inner child and have slowly, over the years, come back to her. She was buried deep underneath harsh, critical, punishing orders from my eating disorder voice. There was no colour, no laughter, no carefree play. Play meant following a spontaneous impulse, a creative strike, a surprising improv, and that was too risky. I would risk making mistakes, loosing control, not getting it right, or having “too much” fun. All of these fears kept my inner child repressed and ignored.
As I grew older, I became disillusioned and believed I wasn't good enough to be a psychologist. Additionally, as my ED became stronger and stronger, I had no more passion or life inside of me. I didn't know what I enjoyed doing or what my talents were. I also couldn't envision a future for myself for all I could think about was food. So, I willy-nilly I decided I would be good at something in advertising. I didn't really know what exactly but I gave it go for a few years only to leave the industry completely empty and further soul-sucked.
Now after all these years, it is interesting to hear reflections from people I meet who often say I bring lightness and play into the dynamic. I notice too that I have been a catalyst for people to touch back into their innocent inner child or their creative side. I can see the inner child in people and love encouraging the child within to come out to express and play.
The inner child theme comes up a lot in eating disorders and addiction and in psychedelic and plant medicine journeys. Since leaving the world of advertising and corporate, and stepping more fully into the role of supporting others through eating disorder, I have been searching for a training that will assist me holding space for all parts of my clients, including their inner child.
And I managed to find a training that ticks those boxes, which is Addiction Recovery and Psychospiritual Coaching program by Being True To You, which begins September 2021. Note: this is not a paid post nor was I asked to share this program. This is me just wanting to share resources.
In the last few years, the media has been all over psychedelics and plant medicines, like 5-MeO-DMT, Ibogaine, Psilocybin, Ayahuasca, and MDMA. This has led to a tidal wave of interest in these substances for supporting and improving mental health. Side note, I sometimes wonder where we would be if these substance didn’t become illegal in the 60s.
This is great news that there is this resurgence. However, after reading story after story about how effective and transformative a guided session with a trained psychedelic therapist is, people want to experience this medicine themselves. There is an issue with this: the only legal psychedelic therapy available, other than ketamine, are occurring inside small clinical trials in select parts of the world, with a limit on the amount of participants able to join. This leaves thousands of people either waiting for who knows how long for these psychedelic therapies to legal, traveling to a foreign country where they are legal (like Jamaica), or seeking out these substances underground. Which option do you think is the most likely?
So many people all over the world are in urgent need for healing from addition, depression, eating disorders, and trauma, and are not in the position to wait around for x amount of years, or invest in a significant amount of time and money into an overseas retreat. So what happens is that people seek out these medicines themselves, with no guide or sitter, little information on what to expect, and are not adequately prepared or have the integration support; the integration is as important as the journey itself.
Even as psychedelic clinics emerge, there will be challenges for certain communities and income groups, as well as difference in choice of how people want to receive support. I know many people who prefer working with coaches over therapists, and some people who enjoy groups instead of 1:1. This is why integration coaching can be a pivotal antidote to the mental health system, and when you layer that with affordable coaches who specialise in addiction recovery and psychedelic preparation, navigation, and integration, their experience has high potential to be safe, positive, and transformational.
Integration coaching can also work in conjunction with psychedelic therapy or traditional ceremonies for those who are able to find it. Indeed, healing takes a village and so having full-spectrum support leading up to a journey, and having the support in the weeks or months after the session, can help someone really get the most out of their experience and give people the fortitude to make lasting change.
Transformational experiences that psychedelics can offer help people heal from past traumas on a core level, and see the world with fresh eyes. With the proper support to integrate these experiences with a coach who specialises in this kind of process, they can release the rigid patterns of behaviour that hold them back (aka addictions), and open up and free channels of energy that allow them to reconnect with their whole self, their play and creativity, and rediscover their passions… their light.
The number of people who are turning to psychedelics right now exceeds the number of therapists and clinical trials. This is where psychospiritual coaches come in who are dedicated to the preparation and integration, and who aim to make this work accessible and sustainable for all involved.
And to further drive this point by tying in eating disorders, which is a form of addiction, an article in The Guardian has recently stated that there is a record number of young people with life-threatening eating disorders, waiting for treatment as psychiatrists, psychologists and in-patient clinics are overwhelmed with how many they can help. Since the Covid pandemic, more people are needing treatment than ever before. As quoted by Agnes Ayton, chair of the faculty of eating disorders psychiatry at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, “Delays to treatment can put lives at risk. Services are struggling with soaring demand, fewer beds because of social distancing, and an ongoing shortage of specialist doctors.”
We need more people who can support others. There may not be time to studying six years before being able to officially work with people. I believe it is time we relook at the medical and mental health care model and adapt to the needs of the time, which are urgent. Those of us who are far along in our own journey, not only have the personal life experience to authentically relate with others, but there are many relevant courses out there that do not take years to complete, so that we can be of service immediately. If I look at my own healing journey, it is a rich tapestry of modalities from talk therapy, to in-patient treatment, art therapy, mindfulness, plant medicine, dance, CBT, breathwork and more. As supporters and healers, that means we too can have a number of tools that we can offer our clients. There is no one way to help someone. If there is intention, presence, compassion, and integrity, along with practical skills that you are genuinely interested in and have experienced yourself, you can show up to any session. My approach is to hold the person I am working with in the Highest light, the belief that they have the power to heal themselves and that they have something to teach me. With this attitude, healing for all involved (and beyond) is possible.
I am excited to continue supporting people psychedelic healing experiences and eating disorder/addiction recovery over the years to come.
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Eating Disorders or Eating Adaptations?
Our bodies are what will help us recover. The body is a resource in the recovery process and must be resourced effectively within the recovery process.
In traditional eating disorder treatment, the body is almost completely ignored. Indeed, most therapy is top-down, talk therapy, leaving no space for the bottom-up communication of the body to be included in the dynamic. And in the ED space where there is so much body phobia, it is understandable that perhaps both the therapist and the client with the eating disorder don’t know how or desire to venture in the void of the body. And the body can feel like a void: An unknown landscape with an infinite amount of big and small feelings, desires and impulses. And yet it is also filled with intuitive wisdom and an inherent capacity to restore inner homeostasis and heal.
The body is carrying heavy imprints of the past, the trauma, and the pain of childhood in each present moment, if unacknowledged, repressed or unresolved. By working with the body we can untangle these imprints into more coherent, congruent patterns that are more life-giving, supportive and sustainable.
The eating disorder shows us where there is dysregulation or where there is a place of stuck energy. As my teachers from the Embodied Recovery Institute say: An eating disorder is a process of trying to make sense of the world, and what the body needs to survive and thrive. Eating disorders are metaphors of what is missing or what is dysregulated, and food and the body are unconsciously used to attend to whatever deficit there is in the system. And since the body is always trying to find a balance, these behaviours come into play to try rectify the imbalance.
Dysregulation implies that somewhere along the way there was a rupture in the attachment system, defense system or in the sensory process. This rupture can look like a lack of secure and consistent attachment, an inability to defend oneself or reach out for safety, or being misunderstood. I speak about this in more depth here. One can argue that an eating disorder is a coping strategy, but beyond that it is a dysregulated coping strategy, and so the eating disorder is a symbol or expression of dysregulation.
With this in mind, it’s not about the food. The food just happens to be there and is being used to signal that there is a dysregulation in one’s life. So we approach eating disorders with a lot of curiosity, and we can ask: Where on the path are you stuck? And what can we include to help support you?
An eating disorder is a smart, adaptive strategy to try get through and make sense of life. I don’t view it is an disorder. I see it as a process and clues for where help is needed. This is why I am getting all hung up by describing it as “my eating disorder”.
Having been in eating disorder recovery for 13 years, I still have yet to find the right language of how to describe what an eating disorder is. It just does not feel quite right to call it “my eating disorder”.
“My” implies that it is mine - and it’s not. On a cognitive level, I don’t want to be attached to it. It’s not part of my essence, or my Self. I didn’t consciously choose it either; it was something I unconsciously absorbed many years ago as a strategy to survive.
The words “eating disorder” also feels less resonate in my system these days. “Eating adaptation” makes more sense to me because these behaviours have over the years helped me adapt and balance out the dysregulation. When the dysregualtion was really intense and I was unable to manage the energy in and around me, the ED behaviours of restriction (anorexia), healthy eating obsessed (orthorexia) and over-exercise (exercise addiction) were fast, strong, and all-consuming. As I have discovered other regulation tools for my nervous system, the ED behaviours have naturally faded as I have learnt how to regulate and balance out my nervous system, from the inside-out. There are less adaptations I have do with food because I now implement other strategies that are more sustainable. With these new supportive foundations, the ED can rest and does not have to do so much work to manage and cope as these new tools are now doing the job.
I have found that the word “disorder” is quite stifling and implies I am out of order (something is wrong with me). And for me, my ED had its foundations in me feeling like I was wrong, or bad, or not good enough. Whilst “adaptation” on the other hand feels a lot more freeing and empowering without negating the seriousness of an eating disorder. It is a lot easier to adapt and change rather than trying to overcome an disorder.
Eating disorders (or eating adaptions) are complex and nuanced. Each person experiences them differently and at different degrees in their life. I encourage you to look at where there many be dysregulation in your attachment system, defense system and sensory processing, and find support from a group/therapist/coach who have an understanding of somatic practices from an eating disorder lens so that you can come into relationship with your body, the ultimate resource in the recovery process.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this reframe and new language. What do you think of this change in language? Do you think it could help you in your recovery path?
You deserve to be free. You are worthy of what you want. May we all rise.
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Psychedelics and Eating Disorders: What Happens in the Brain
How do psychedelics or sacred plant medicines wok on the brain with individuals with eating disorders? The more I learn about the underlying mechanisms of the brain and psychedelics, the more and more I believe that it is possible to heal from an eating disorder (or eating adaption as I like to call it, but more on that in this post).
My eating disorder developed as my body’s smart and helpful survival adaptation to help my nervous system feel safe. That was in 2007, and over time the adaptation became more rigid, limiting, and oppressive. For a long time I believed these behaviours, that took over all aspects of my life, would control me forever. Indeed, I believed there was simply no recovery. I thought I would be living with it for the rest of my life. I held onto this belief tightly and it actually restricted my recovery process. The belief led to me think “well what’s the point in trying to recover if I never will” which led me to carry out certain actions that weren’t oriented towards recovery and kept me stuck.
However, number of times I have been completely and utterly free from my eating disorder - and I have the sacred plant medicines to thank for this. It were the plants medicine teachers, many guides and special human souls over the years who showed me it is possible for full recovery. And with this new belief, I think and act differently in line with recovery. Boom * new reality made *
Plant medicines and psychedelics lower my ego defenses, showing me that just as these behaviours were adopted, learnt and refined, they can be let released, unlearned and replaced. These powerful plant teachers have shone the light on anything that isn’t true or part of my essence. The addictive habits, the self-imposed limiting patterns, the rejection of emotions, and the repressed root traumas are revealed with the help of these powerful teachers.
Additionally, plant medicines have revealed time and time again the illusion of separation; it’s all connected, including my own body-heart-mind, and in this space of Divine connection, there is simply no place for my ED to exist, for it is something that wants me to stay separate and disconnected from the world. In that dark eating disorder space, the world is scary, dangerous and cut-throat, and so I withdraw and go into shutdown.
Being in my body without an eating disorder after so many years, even for a few seconds during these journeys, have felt liberating - and at times scary. In this space of expansion, surrender and openness, I have been shown that life is flowing through me and for me, a co-creative dance that pulsating with my unique rhythm.
So how does it all work?
Psychedelics and plant medicine, like psilocybin and Ayahuasca, have the potential to regulate serotonin functioning, enhance cognitive flexibility, and increase connection between neuronal networks creating opportunities to move beyond the rigid patterns - which is key for people who are dealing with any kind of eating disorder, or addiction for that matter.
Why serotonin functioning is important is that it helps moderate anxiety and stress, and promote patience and coping as well open a window of plasticity for greater adaptation through the 5-HT1AR and 5-HT2AR. Together, they mediate stress moderation and neuroplasticity-mediated adaptability in response to different levels of stress and adversity. The 5-HT2AR (aka serotonin 2A receptor) in particular is involved in increasing the connection between neurons, expanding synaptic connections. One could say that this particular receptor switches on plasticity, creating changes in neuronal properties and connections.
This results in a brain state that is “entropic” which means that it is more complex, chaotic, and unpredictable, specifically in the brain region of the prefrontal cortex (where all the mind chatter and monkey mind goes down). In this shaken up state, new connections are made, and the overly-refined and habitual thoughts are relaxed so they can become more amenable to change.
Psychedelics go beyond the symptom and dive into the root cause. They lower ego defenses (which are held in the cortex part of the brain), allowing anything repressed or unnoticed to come to the surface. Many eating disorder treatments try get rid of the symptoms (e.g. stop exercising) rather than investigating what caused these behaviours/adaptations/strategies to develop in the first place.
Individuals with who have been living with the oppressive eating disorder commands finally have space between themselves and the ED voice, allowing them a chance to consciously create a reality that isn’t dictated by the eating disorder’s rules, regulations, thoughts and urges.
Alongside complementary healing modalities like somatic practices, family therapy, nutrition support, art therapy, mindfulness, breathwork, and integration coaching, psychedelics and plant medicines are showing promise for eating disorder recovery support and treatment.
Of course we also have to acknowledge that we are also swimming in a culture that does not support this kind of work and transformation - we are living in diet culture after all. And so we have to be like the salmon: We have to go against the gluten-free, sugar-free grain and empower ourselves! Each day I have to remind myself to not fall into the trap of keeping myself small in someone else’s expectations of what I’m meant to look like, be like, achieve, speak, behave… rather, expand expand expand.
Healing is possible with the right support, and support comes in many shapes, sizes, forms and frequencies. And this takes time. So we take one step at a time and feel into it slowly, with support, with the breath, with guidance, and find our flow.
Some questions that you can journal about to get this flow going:
Is “my” eating disorder ready to let go of me?
What will it take for my eating disorder to let me go?
What is my eating disorder giving me?
What is it not giving me?
How do I feel towards my eating disorder?
Healing is a process, just like an eating disorder. Through it all, we are simply finding our way through life, learning how to be in and relate to the world, and finding and accepting our unique expression - our special energetic signature. I can celebrate the journey with my eating disorder as a smart and adaptive strategy for survival. While painful, it has led me back to myself, whole, mind-body-heart connected, and on this fascinating and curious journey with my plant allies.
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How Plant Medicine Can Treat Eating Disorders: Neuroscience, Psychedelic Science and the Science of Healing
We need a new way of treating eating disorders. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that we need a way of treating eating disorders, full stop. At present, there is no agreed-upon way of treating EDs, although there is usually some combination of biological, pharmacological, and psychological interventions that include nutrition, medication and some kind of talk therapy with or without the family or primary caregiver.
Eating disorders are also sometimes laced with other mental health conditions like anxiety, OCD, depression, and other forms of addiction (such as substances, exercise, or work). Additionally, when we consider the impact of cultural pressures, media messages, suppressing gender norms, sexism, ageism, ableism, racism, fatphobia and weight discrimination, we see that what we are swimming in is super complicated, complex, nuanced, and tender. It is important to consider the intersectionality of all these factors on an individual and collective level that fuels internalised and externalised oppression. Oh, how about adding in a dose of intergenerational trauma too. What a stew we have!
Recovery is thus a multi-layered journey that calls for a multi-disciplinary team to work through the many threads that have woven together as the reality of an eating disorder.
With the highest death rate of any mental disorder, and around 50% of people never fully recovering, we must ask, what now?
Phew, ok there’s a lot going on! Let’s take a breath together. It’s going to be fine, and we will get through this together. And it all starts with giving ourselves permission to acknowledge the grief, the anger, the confusion, the hopelessness, the fight, the flight, the freeze. By acknowledging the feels, we give them space, and with this extra breathing room, we give the feeeelz room to move. But there’s one thing about those of us with eating disorders: we don’t like to feel. We don’t like to feel our emotions and sometimes we can’t even recognize or name them (tip: start developing a language of these sensations. You can literally search “body sensations” on the web, find a list and start incorporating them in your day).
Being out of touch from our feelings keeps us floating outside of our bodies – a kind of dissociation, or disembodiment. This is quite convenient for the eating disorder as this is exactly what it wants. Yet, by walking the road of recovery, there is the inevitable moment where one has to come face-to-face with the body. There is a point where the talk therapy ends and the meeting of the body begins on a very raw, somatic, tangible “this is my body” kinda way. Starting to feel somatic sensations of emotion can be one of the hardest parts of recovery because feeling the emotions can be scary and overwhelming - like everything is spilling over. And this is sometimes messy but rewarding phase of embodiment.
There are many ways to start this process of re-embodying. You can read my article on Embodied Eating Disorder Recovery here where I go into greater depth on this subject. For now, I would like to talk about one of my favourite topics: the intersection of ED recovery, plant medicines (or psychedelics) and embodiment as a way of approaching eating disorder treatment.
Psychedelics and eating disorder recovery are still very much in the early days, however what we know about psychedelic therapy is that it shows a promise to address a broad range of mental health conditions, indicative of psychedelics’ transdiagnostic action. Curiously, psychedelics and plant medicines seem to go beyond focusing on the symptoms and go straight to the root cause through their abilities of relax higher-level beliefs and liberate bottom-up wisdom to flow. Literal ninja magic!
This provides beautiful relief for individuals with eating disorders. More on this in a second, so hang in there, and let’s keep exploring.
Let’s cue in some neuroscience basics for this next section. I found that understanding “what is under the hood” (aka the underlying mechanisms) I feel more empowered to take inspired, educated actions towards my recovery, along with feeling confident to choose which healing tools would be best suited for me based on my current circumstances.
Brain scans show those with EDs have decreased neural activity in ventral reward regions and increased neural activity in prefrontal control regions. These imbalances may speak to the rigid, controlling diet and exercise regimes that we see in individuals with eating disorders, that is excessive behavioural control and diminished cognitive flexibility (this seems to be prevalent for those with anorexia nervosa).
Studies done on the reward centers in the brain in people with anorexia shows both hyporesponsiveness to reward and different ways of relating to reward, for example: positive stimuli become aversive and vice versa, such that the feeling of hunger becomes rewarding. This speaks to the chemical, dopamine, that if disturbed causes repetition of behaviour (eg. food restriction), hyperactivity (eg. excessive exercise), and anhedonia (aka decreased sense of pleasure).
There also seems to be links between people with EDs and abnormal serotonin levels which is associated with anxiety, depression, impulsivity, insomnia, low self-esteem, and poor appetite. For people with bulimia, there is a tendency for lower levels of serotonin while people with anorexia, there may be higher serotonin levels resulting in anxiety. This is why some people actually experience a sense of calmness when they starve: as one reduces calorie intake, serotonin levels decrease too.
Phew again! Let’s take another breath as we acknowledge all of the complexities that make us the humans we are, just trying our best to navigate this psychedelic experience we call life.
Recent clinical trials are showing us how psychedelics, like psilocybin (magic mushrooms) have a therapeutic potential for many mental health conditions. With ED’s neurobiological and behavioural signature of modified serotonergic signaling and cognitive inflexibility, it positions eating disorders well to be impacted by the healing effects of psilocybin mushrooms.
Psychedelics, like psilocybin, may help people with eating disorders by alleviating symptoms that relate to serotonergic signaling and cognitive inflexibility and help lay a foundation of desirable brain states that assist in accelerating the healing process. Exciting!
Plant medicines like psilocybin and ayahuasca, along with with the other cool kids, LSD, MDMA and ketamine, are all showing their therapeutic benefits in their own ways. One of the ways that psychedelics lend a helping hand is that they interrupt the default mode network (DMN), which is a network of interacting brain regions that is active when a person is not focused on the outside world. We can view it as the part of the brain that runs the show when we are on autopilot, or the “ego” in the brain. It governs our self-image, deeply ingrained beliefs and thought patterns. These patterns are so deep that we can’t even see them, hence they are automatic and form the foundation of our feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. When the DMN takes a break and is downregulated, thanks to psychedelics, there is a pause. The eating disorder behaviours can be seen in a new light. All of the rumination over food, calories, food rules, exercise, and body checking are shaken up, leaving a blank slate for new patterns to be laid down. There is a chance for new neural networks to connect, creating potential for a new reality, quite literally.
Additionally, sacred plant medicines and psychedelics can heighten our emotional state. Our near and far senses are increased, and we can feel so much more. Why is this a good thing? Well, our brain remembers experiences that have a higher emotional quotient. This is why traumatic events have such high stickiness in our brain and our body. In psychedelic experiences we can leverage this higher emotional state along with visualisation techniques to embody the person, free of an eating disorder. We can visualise ourselves as healed and transformed in our mind’s eye and feel it in our body too; that is, embodying the felt sensations of someone who is completely free of an eating disorder. Holding that vision in a journey is a powerful healing technique. This is a superpower, promise. Practice this in your meditation or journal practices so that when the time comes to journey or sit in ceremony, you have practiced these visualisation and mental rehearsal skills. This type of focus requires practice (I’m currently working on this myself in my daily practice and microdosing morning flows), so practice, practice, practice!
All of this is super exciting for me. Knowing that there is hope for one of the hardest mental disorders to treat inspires me to keep walking on my own path of recovery. For many, many years, I believed there was simply no full recovery from an ED. I thought I would be living with it for the rest of my life. I held onto this belief tightly and it actually restricted my recovery process. The belief led to me think “well what’s the point in trying to recover if I never will” which led me to carry out certain actions that weren’t oriented towards recovery. It were the plants who showed me otherwise. I now believe it is possible for full recovery. And with this new belief, I think and act differently. Boom. New reality made.
Psychedelics are showing us that there is hope for eating disorder recovery. Wooohooo! While we are still in the early days of research for eating disorders specifically, there is a large amount of evidence from other studies as well as thousands upon thousands of personal anecdotes of how this medicine has improved the quality of people’s well-being and psychological health. I am so excited for what is it come.
Big thanks to researchers Adele LaFrance and Meg Spriggs who I am honoured to have met personally and whose work is trailblazing the way forward with ED and psychedelic therapy and research.
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