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What Plant Medicine Reminds Us in Eating Disorder Recovery
Psychedelics ask us, How much more powerful could we be if we spent more time creating the shape of our lives, instead of creating the shape of our bodies?
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How much more powerful could we be if we spent time molding our dreams and visions into reality rather than sculpting our legs and arms into a constructed idealistic shape?
How much more time would we have to focus on what truly brings us joy, meaning, passion, purpose, and value? This is the shift in perspectives, values, and priorities that plant medicines bring.
How powerful are we if we have to shapeshift in order to be “worthy”?
How powerful can we be if we deny our hunger and suppress our appetites?
How powerful can we be if we are taught to question our voice, value, and worth, and disregard our intuition in favour of someone else’s opinion?
The path of healing from an eating disorder is uncovering, recovering, and discovering the power within. The power moves from being determined by external factors and takes root in the unwavering place deep within that k n o w s.
Through this quest of recovery, we question the validity of our judgements, beliefs and opinions about ourselves and others until we come to an unshakable understanding of our inherent worth and dignified belonging.
When we stand from this place, we create our lives in shapes, rhythms, and textures that are meaningful, purposeful, whole, and connected.
The power radiates from within.
This is one the teachings of sacred plant medicine: to move from the fragile, external focus to an internal focus.
Microdosing or journeying with a larger dose of psychedelics often point to this teaching: shift the need of relying on outside validation to feel powerful, loveable or accepted, and instead ground within the innate worthiness of simply being human.
Realizing that the power is in our hands, that the medicine is us and is already here, a great awakening occurs.
Inner strength often takes form in ways we don’t often recognize
From there, we remember that our power lies not in someone else’s hands but in our own, and yet, who we are today is inextricably interconnected to a larger whole. We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors and those who came before us, who left us gifts and challenges to work with. The power is in our hands.
Our bodies are bodies of the Earth, containing the same elements found in nature.
When we journey with sacred plant medicines or psychedelics, they help us break the spilt between ourselves as humans and the Earth, and as such, we open ourselves to pathways of healing and other voices who can support our growth and healing.
This means the body isn’t ours alone – we are made of microorganisms, water, air, codes and memories from our ancestors – and this frees us up to design a recovery roadmap that includes many realms, beings, and elements that inspire and speak to us in deep, meaningful and resonate ways.
When we remember that our bodies are made up of our ancestors and the Earth, we are reminded of a larger web of support that surrounds us, that we can lean into, and that we can start to trust once again.
We are so much more powerful and can go so much further together. When we expand in this way, it’s no longer just each one of us in our own bubble, and this opens us up to other ways to receive healing – none more better than the other.
psychedelics remind us that…
When I take care of my body, I am taking care of the Earth.
When I take care of the Earth, I am taking care of my body.
By receiving the goodness from the Earth, we celebrate each other’s existence.
This sense of direct connection of intertwinement means that we are never alone, and that our healing and transformation is interconnected and interdependent with the whole.
That means that your recovery is important and has a positive and powerful impact (sometimes in ways that we could never imagine or comprehend), and that there is a great network of various forms of support that can be tapped into and explored.
Photo by Brianna R. on Unsplash
The Impact of Covid on Eating Disorders
After a challenging two years, we have somehow got to the other side of Covid, with many of us feeling frazzled, tired, and unsure how to come to terms with what just happened.
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During this time of isolation, fear, separation, and change, there has been a dramatic rise in eating disorders. Eating disorders are strategies that individuals “pick up” during times of stress or trauma, that place sharp attention on food and the body, as ways to try cover up feelings of disconnection, insecurity, and pain.
A 2020 study mentioned that the COVID‐19 pandemic has created a global context that has led to an increase eating disorder risk and symptoms, decrease factors that protect against eating disorders, and exacerbate barriers to care.
For many people, the disruptions to daily routines and constraints to outdoor activities increased weight and shape concerns, whilst being so homebound negatively impacted eating, exercise, and sleeping patterns, all which increase the risk for eating disorders.
The absence of clear routines and markers of time and space - like mealtimes, or distinctions between home and work areas, or the dissolving of structures that were supporting eating plans - increase the risk for eating disorder behaviours.
In addition, the restrictions around activities like grocery shopping or eating out at restaurants, combined with perceptions of scarcity of certain food products, heighten attentional focus on food which could increase the likelihood of binge eating. Obsessive healthy eating is also a consequence of the pandemic whereby eating for one’s immunity and one’s health result in restriction.
Furthermore, the social restrictions have deprived many individuals of the social support and adaptive and protective coping strategies. These difficulties in access to care may exacerbate existing health inequities, and negatively affect those for whom the pandemic has reduced financial resources.
And of course, the increase in eating disorder‐specific or anxiety‐provoking social media and the reliance on video conferencing can negatively impact body image and other eating disorder symptoms.
How has Covid impacted eating disorder tendencies in your life?
Despite many parts of the world starting to open up again, why are eating disorders still so prevalent?
The ripples and the aftermath of Covid are still living within our nervous systems. The somatic experience is still fear, uncertainty, and mistrust because there haven’t been enough spaces for individuals to process and release the experience.
When the body is still locked in the stress of the experience, the eating disorder strategies that came in to protect during that time continue playing out because the body has not fully registered that it is safe.
This is why eating disorders continue to persist even when things have “opened up".
Things have not truly opened up. Collectively, what have we done to make sense of the pandemic and the imprints that it has left on our psyches and within our human history?
When things open up without proper acknowledgement or intention, the body and brain do not fully recongise that things have shifted or change, and will continue clinging onto the strategies that brought protection during the times of stress and fear.
Luckily, this points to where support and help can come in: creating safe, intentional places with the support of a loving presence for the fear to be acknowledged and ultimately moved through.
This is a process that takes two (or more) individuals coming together. Unlike during the pandemic’s signature of social isolation, the antidote to an eating disorder is social connection and co-regulation. This points to the power of group therapy, where people can come together to share stories and to remember they are not alone.
When people can come together to create an intentional and integrated healing space, the body can register the safety, and can begin to acknowledge the period of stress is over, and can start to trust again. Over time, trust with one’s own body emerges once again, as well as greater emotional resilience, and connection with the wider world
This process does take practice and time. It takes practice to learn and remember adaptive coping strategies. It takes time to comprehend, grieve, acknowledge, and grow from all the things that happened since 2020.
Things then start to open up from the inside out.
In that spaciousness, there is a chance to breathe again and live freely and from a place of inner harmony.
By restoring safety and trust with our own bodies and with the world, we can collectively and individually recover, heal, and transform.
Photo by Soragrit Wongsa on Unsplash
Can Microdosing Support Eating Disorder Recovery?
As more research studies are coming out to support how microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms can improve mental health and mood, how it can be of benefit for those navigating eating disorders and disordered eating?
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Since many people who experience eating disorders also experience depression, anxiety, stress, mood swings, social anxiety, and other addiction, it certainly seems compelling that microdosing could support eating disorder and disordered eating recovery in positive ways.
Microdosing is the act of repeated self-administration of mushrooms containing psilocybin at doses small enough to not impact regular functioning. Microdose practices are diverse and sometimes include combining psilocybin with substances such as cacao, lion’s mane mushrooms, and/or niacin (vitamin-B3).
A recent study supported by Paul Stamets and others, and published in Nature Journal, summarizes that "psilocybin microdosers demonstrate greater observed improvements in mood and mental health at one month relative to non-microdosing controls".
Considering the big health costs and ubiquity of eating disorders, anxiety, and depression, as well as the sizable proportion of people who do not respond to current treatment options, the potential for another approach to addressing eating disorders deserves substantial consideration.
As of yet, there is no agreed upon treatment for eating disorders. Individuals often know on a cognitive level that their food and body behaviours are limiting them in some way nor supporting their well-being long-term, however there may be resistance, fear, apathy, or lack of motivation to change the behaviours. Additionally, individuals are confronted by food on a daily basis, and so it’s not as easy to adopt the “out of sight out of mind” mentality.
On a collective level, there is also the added pressure of diet culture, the culture we live in right now that is fueled by body comparison, food moralisation and demonization, weight stigmatisation, competition, and discrimination. On a global scale, we are swimming in this energetic soup which and has become the way we have been conditioned to relate to food and our bodies. It can be hard to catch a break when one is navigating an eating disorder.
Microdosing may provide an opportunity for us to get out of that collective soup, question the validity of our inner thoughts, and find inspiration and empowerment to continue walking the road of recovery.
Microdosing, when combined with other healing modalities such as somatic coaching, talk therapy, dream analysis, embodiment practices, and nervous system regulation skill development, can offer a break from the eating disorder.
By working with adjunct therapies that aim to unify body and mind, microdosing has the potential to create spaciousness around the incessant food and body thoughts, allowing for new narratives to be formed.
Through this work, the veils start to life. We may notice that we exist only in our heads and are disconnected from our bodies, or that we don’t know when we are hungry or full, or what food we intuitively want to eat or enjoy eating. With support from microdosing these observations, insights, and questions start bubbling up, leading to increased awareness and choice. As so begins the process of recovery and reconnection.
Plant medicines are here in a big way at this time because we are collectively moving through a huge time of transition. We are walking through a portal that is asking us to shed the old ways of separation and disconnection and to step into new ways of connection and wholeness.
Sacred plant medicine and our own higher consciousness help us remember. They illuminate the fragmented parts within us so they can be integrated back to wholeness. Many people who experience plant medicine share how connected they felt to their bodies, their breath, loved ones, animals, trees, bodies of water, soil, mountains, the Earth.
This is the medicine of connection. And it is the medicine we are needing at this time.
Psychedelics keep us on our path of healing and transformation, encouraging and inspiring us to face our fears and allow others to see us in our process, as we are. They remind us that we are all going through the portal right now and that by abundantly being there for one other is the way forward.
As we leave the cobwebs of diet culture’s competition and comparison behind, ask yourself: What does a world without diet culture look like? This is the future that plant medicine asks us to dream into being.
The potential of microdosing for eating disorder recovery feels exciting and promising. Depending on what future studies discover, we may find ourselves understanding eating disorder recovery and creating recovery roadmaps in different ways.
Whilst these studies and approaches to microdosing research are still new, the continued progressive movement in the field has the potential to indicate how the relationship between microdosing, eating disorders, and mental health – which impacts millions around the world – can be recontextualized and transformed within the current collective understanding.
Eating disorder recovery with the support of psychedelics (and somatic awareness), presents an opportunity to reconnect with what resonates with the heart and aligns with the soul’s deep calling. It gives us the chance to remember why we are here at this time, and why we inherently deserve to be here.
How do you think microdosing can support eating disorder recovery?
New growth can be supported by microdosing in eating disorder recovery
Photo by Justin Dream on Unsplash
Finding Ground Within
Have you experienced a moment (or many moments) in your life where it seems like almost every aspect of your life is changing?
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And there's no way to stop the process nor turning back?
I am finding myself in one of those moments. It's like I am standing on the edge of a cliff and the only available next action is to jump - to fly through the air and at some point land at the foothills of yet another mountain.
My body often feels like it's moving forward and backwards at the same time, demonstrating to me that I feel both ready and scared to take the leap. My day is filled with rollercoasters of freedom and withdrawing and with spaciousness and contracting. Oh, the highs and lows, ebbs and flows!
As my concepts of home, work, relationships, ways of showing up in the world, and sense of self are being challenged to grow and evolve, I am also observing how the old imprints are resistant and sticky to shift. And at the same time, the new patterns are excitedly calling out to be set free.
Being compassionate and patient with myself is the only way to navigate this internal tug-of-war. In offering myself warmth, gentleness, and softness, there is an atmosphere of nurturance and openness that is inherently conducive for these new patterns to encode.
And so when I meet the resistance, judgement, rigidity, or hardness, I open my inner and outer vision, relax areas of tension in my body, take a longer exhale, and bring out the big mumma bear from within me so I can hold myself.
I remind myself that it's ok to be scared of change and of expansion.
I remind myself that it's ok that the old imprints of protection and survival still show up.
I remind myself that it's ok to go slowly and take small steps when facing the unknown.
I remind myself it's ok for the process to be messy and confusing.
I remind myself to enjoy the process of leaping through the air rather than worrying about the landing.
I remind myself that it's ok to fear change because it almost always leads to a more deeply aligned truth and fuller embodiment.
Whatever you do, find the ground within
This pendulation motion of expansion and contraction are the growth edges that change stirs up inside of us.
An eating disorder is an attempt at trying to find some kind of ground in and amongst this changing sea of emotion and growth.
When we are able to create a foundation within ourselves that is sustainable, life-supportive, regulating, and containing, we are able to ride the ebbs and flows of life without holding onto the eating disorder strategies to get by.
When that foundation is built to support all emotions and the fullness of our expression, in all of its shapes, textures, tones, and rhythms, the eating disorder can eventually let go of us.
Recovery is about building a sacred foundation within the psyche that is robust and flexible and is geared towards holding the most precious parts within us that yearn to be held.
Paying attention to how the body makes sense of change through how it holds on in some places and where releases in other parts can give us clues where additional support is needed as we move from the shores of the known into the waters of the unknown.
When the inevitable groundlessness of reality beneath us starts to shift, morph, and change, it's time to find the ground within.
It can no longer be the eating disorder behaviours that try rigidly hold everything together.
We are being asked to find other ways to move through change that are more life-supportive, flexible, and sustainable that also include the body - indeed, it is the body that helps us make sense of change, release old stories, and prepare us for the next embodied upgrade.
We are also being asked to be intimately present with each moment so that when change does come, and things do reach an end, we can say we allowed ourselves to fully experience, receive, and embrace life.
Photo by Daniel Newman on Unsplash
Holding and Being Held: A Somatic Journey for Eating Disorder Recovery
When we are radically brave enough to let go of the eating disorder patterns and allow our intuitive eating and intuitive being to rise, there is an awakening.
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We cannot talk ourselves into eating disorder recovery. It is a somatic process. There is a beautiful dynamic of holding and being held, and is the embodied journey that those in eating disorder recovery experience.
When we hold ourselves with an energy of unwavering stability, committing to love ourselves no matter what, there is safety to go deep within, listen, and live from an authentically aligned and embodied place.
When we offer ourselves an inner ground and stable framework to move from, we are free to soar, infinite possibilities blossom and rise.
For some, inadequate support was given as a child; there may have been too much or too little. And so, to reconcile this misattunement, they had to learn how to hold themselves without receiving a clear reflection for how to go about it. This is where eating disorders, substance and other behavioural addictions, somatic patterns of tension or collapse, and beliefs around unworthiness or not enoughness develop to provide protection (or holding) for the psyche.
Eating disorder recovery is learning how to hold ourselves differently and start to acknowledge, with a kind gaze, what it is that we are holding – which is often something sacred, vulnerable, and so deeply precious.
And those sacred, precious, and sensitive parts of us desire and need the most tender holding and support.
Not only do we need to learn how to support ourselves in a new light, but we also need to believe that all parts of ourselves deserve and are worthy of the deepest care and love.
What are you holding and who is holding you?
We can only hold these precious parts when we have taken the brave step of going into the metaphorical forest. When we enter this place, we enter the process of initiation. Only by going into the depths of the dark forest can we view our stories, traumas, intergenerational and collective wounding, limiting beliefs, and blind spots. This is the shadow work that we all must do to step into an integrated, expansive, grounded, and authentic embodiment.
By digging into the forest soil, we begin to clear the old wounds and churn the soil. The parts of us that were hidden deep in the ground come to the surface to be seen and held. At their core, they want to blossom and soak in the warmth of sun and the freshness of water.
Through the conscious creation of an inner soul garden, we plant seeds of humble and good intentions, watering and tending to these precious seeds with care. When the right conditions have fallen into place, the seeds grow into treasures.
The treasures are found in the wounds.
Plant medicine and Psychedelics helps us see, hold, and be held by own our treasures.
We see ourselves on a deeper level and the truth of our inner beauty is revealed to us. When we recognise (and remember) the medicine that resides within, we perceive the outside world in the same way, leading to an increased sense of interconnection.
Through the support of sacred plant medicine, microdosing, and psychedelics, they reflect back to us reminding us of why we are walking this path, our value, and our potential.
When we develop the capacity to embrace ourselves and believe that we are deserving to be embrace, we from a secure attachment within ourselves based safety, integrity, connection, contribution, and love.
1. CLEAR YOUR INNER OBSTACLES
The first step toward finding the balance between holding and being held is to attain a state of openness. That requires observing all the moments when you put yourself down, spin into a shame or guilt spiral, or judge yourself. This is the first step: noticing the patterns of inner obstacles, “hidden enemies”, or negative self-image.
It is possible however you may fear that without your old, familiar sense of ED-identity, you are nothing. I know the thought all too well of “I don’t know who I am without the ED” - but as we observe our negative self-image, we start to see the illusions and veils of untruths (which is a process that plant medicine and microdosing can support us in) and notice how the eating disorder is holding us back. Over time, a new way of perceiving and relating to ourselves arises that is rooted in worth, connection, and freedom.
2. OPEN TO YOUR POTENTIAL
By observing the clouds of negative self-image and becoming more familiar with this new sense of self-worth, you will begin to feel an even greater opening and sense of peace. The ability to move from a spacious place where there are feelings of inner harmony, worthiness, and clarity, a sense of unlimited potential arises.
3. NURTURE A SENSE OF WARMTH
Once you have realized a sense of openness, confidence, and unlimited potential, then a feeling of warmth of emerges. Unlike the eating disorder that is cold, distant, and rigid, the embodied self is warm and joyful. From this warmth, flexibility, softness, and creativity can manifest. Once the clouds have dissolved, revealing the clear, vast sky, that the warmth of the sun’s rays can nourish the inner garden. Warmth is the place from which love, kindness, compassion, expansiveness, and creativity arise. Warmth is the language of the heart and when we reside in this space, we can hold ourselves and be held wholeheartedly and unconditionally.
This is embodied recovery. The process of holding ourselves and allowing ourselves to be held is a somatic healing journey that changes the ways in which our body supports itself and how moves through the world.
This somatic process shifts how we relate with others, communicate boundaries, processes emotions, create structure and flow in our daily lives, recognize safety and danger, and integrate beliefs about ourselves and the world.
When we hold ourselves differently, and allow ourselves to be held, we nurture and value ourselves in a new light, and we remember why we came to this Earth, our purpose, and the medicine within.
Healing the Wound of Separation
How do you think eating disorders try to support, remedy, bring into balance, defend against, protect from, symbolize, or embody the energy of the world that we currently are living in today?
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Disordered eating can often get unnoticed because we live in a world where the ways that we relate to food and our bodies are somewhat disordered.
Things like dieting, over-exercising, or leaving out whole food groups are promoted and not questioned. A particular body type - that cannot be achieved or sustained - is idealized and accepted in our culture.
We can call this culture that we live in “diet culture”, whereby a certain body type is idolized, some foods are demonized whilst others are idealized, and places the pursuit of thinness as a moral virtue. On a baseline level, we are swimming in big collective soup where restriction and the obsessive pursuit of thinness as considered ok.
And it’s not ok.
Underneath all of the restriction, dieting, leaving out certain foods, clean eating, bingeing, over-exercising, purging, and over-eating beyond fullness are deep cries and yearnings for connection.
Eating disorders symbolise the imperative need of finding our way back to whole connection.
When we see beyond the food, we see what it takes for us to truly recover and disentangle from the rigid and sticky food and body rules.
To recover and transform is to heal the wound of separation - the separation from our own bodies, from our communities, from the Earth, from our hearts, and from our authentic embodiment.
When we notice how the food is a symbol for where there has been a severance, we can start laying down the pathways back to connection.
Embedded in genuine and supportive connection are safety, belonging, and integrity. We have the right and the innate capacity to feel safety in our own bodies and within the world. We have the right and the innate capacity to feel a sense of true belonging on this Earth, home in our own bodies, and a belonging with a resonant tribe of people. We have the right and the innate capacity to feel a sense of enoughness, wholeness, and integrity simply because we are alive.
And with the right supportive, containing conditions with others, we have the capacity to transmute limiting eating disorder imprints into empowered blueprints, whereby we can live from a whole, heart-centered, and connected embodiment. This is recovery. And we cannot do it alone.
When we step into a more authentic embodiment, we are essentially widening our toolbox to deal with the inevitable ebbs and flows of life.
An eating disorder, in whatever shape it looks, is a tool that tries to help someone move through a challenge. The concern is that when it is the only tool to move through that challenge, then food and the body are compromised, and someone can put their health and their vitality in danger.
Thus, recovery is actually widening that toolbox, so that we don't have to keep gripping onto food, or onto the body to try feel a sense of safety, belonging, or integrity.
These additional tools, when practiced regularly, reeducate the nervous system how to establish grounding, safety, and holding; support feelings of wholeness and integrity despite what has happened; and encourage healthy boundaries and the seeking of welcoming belonging.
When these tools are added to the toolbox, and the stresses and unknowns of life come, there is greater tolerance to be with the discomfort and increased capacity to move through the groundlessness of change and challenge with an inner holding and inner grounding.
Rather than escaping and moving away from the discomfort, there is an ability to actually be with it - connected to it - and to move through it to the other side. If the challenge is actually too overwhelming however, and all that feels accessible is to go into ED patterns of numbing or pushing away, we can choose to go into it consciously into them, but with an expanded awareness of what is happening and how the nervous system is perceiving the experience.
In this way, we are consciously adding, practicing, and implementing tools to the toolbox that are conscious, sustainable, and supportive in the long-run.
On the other hand, an eating disorder is unconsciously picked up as a tool during a time of challenge when there were no other effective tools at hand. The behaviour (whether it be restriction, binging, purging etc.) is understood by the psyche as an efficient way to push through discomfort.
This eating behaviour forms a very deep imprint/pattern within the psyche. And this pattern is in the driver's seat, ruling the show, driving actions, thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. This imprint can become pervasive, infiltrating the whole root system within the psyche, touching on almost every part of an individual's life.
By focusing on the food or on the body, we don’t have to look within. Like any addiction, the focus is placed on the external to help solve or alleviate the problem - in the short-term.
As such, recovery - as painful as it can be - is learning to go underneath and dig up what isn’t being faced, with the sturdy support of a wider toolbox.
By connecting within, we start the process of learning how to trust ourselves, and this is how the imprints that keep us focused on the external start to shift, affecting the way we think, feel and act - that is, from the inside out.
Through diet culture’s promises of saving us and making us better people through diet and fitness programs and detox cleanses, we learn that we cannot trust ourselves or the voice within.
They lead us to believe that we have to place our power, hopes, dreams, and aspirations in the hands of the products they hope to sell us and pocket from.
So when we choose recovery, it is about listening within - to trust the inner voice, and to move from that place, guided by intuitive impulses and somatic knowledge.
Recovery is about coming back home, bringing this fragmented and external orientation back into wholeness.
This is what trauma healing is about: bringing the truncated parts back into the whole. And this is how psychedelics, microdosing, and sacred plant medicine can support eating disorder recovery - they inherently supporting the healing, remembering, reclaiming, and restoration of the true, core self.
Indeed, at its core, an eating disorder symbolises the disconnection from the essential, whole self.
It is a symbol of separation from the actual body. It is a separation from food that brings nourishment and life force. It is a separation from being close and in connection with the world. It is a separation from pleasure and play. It is a separation from the body of this Earth (how we treat and relate to our bodies is a reflection our relationship with the Earth).
And it seems that eating disorders are more prevalent than ever. This is because we are in such a deep time of separation where there has been a huge severing across our entire world. This time has reflected back to us and impacted how we feel safe within our own bodies, and with others, as well as our sense of belonging. The current state of the world is asking us what it takes to move from the generational and collective imprints of separation into embodying blueprints of wholeness.
Think about times in the past where you have felt a shift from separation to connection.
What were those nourishing conditions that positively supported you to come home within yourself? Who or what provided a safe container for you to express your authentic embodiment and your voice? What was needed for you to feel a sense of inherent belonging, integrity, and safety to simply be?
I invite you now to imagine a world that is whole, connected and free from eating disorders.
Bring to mind ways of how people relate to each other, how people value their bodies, how people eat, and what foods they nourish themselves with. You can notice how people relate to younger or older generations, people of colour, transpeople, people from different social classes, people with different physical or mental abilities, and people in any and all body sizes. What do you see? What systems and institutions would change, shift, or completely fall away? How would we be educating our children? What would the schools, health systems, media outlets, or governments communicate? What is the energetic frequency of this vision that you see?
And finally, think about what it would take for the eating disorder to let go of us?
Who do we have to become for it to let go of us? What do have to embody so that the eating disorder can no longer hold on.
This is a vision of freedom. This is a vision of connection and wholeness. And this vision is possible - and it starts within.
Recovery starts with connecting with and acknowledging the body (which can often the hardest part), and can be done through developing regulation tools for the nervous system and for emotions.
It starts with encouraging dance, movement and creative expression, play, pleasure, joy, spontaneity, and flexibility.
It starts with turning within and listening to the inner guidance, allowing and following intuitive impulses rather than restricting them.
It starts with supporting healthy boundaries, agency, choice, and authentic expression rather than silencing.
It starts with acknowledging the wound of separation within ourselves, within our family and within our culture. It starts with recognizing the diet culture mentality, to stand up against it, and to no longer perpetuate it.
It starts with connecting to this great body of the Earth as a way to care for our bodies in nurturing and compassionate ways, that also support the expansion of our perpetual lens, and feeling more interconnected and at home in the world.
It starts with establishing a baseline of deservingness and worthiness that stands in the belief that we deserve to heal. We deserve to transform, to be in our fullest authentic expression and embodiment in ways that feel safe and that are celebrated.
Recovery and transformation start with love - to give and to receive love, and ultimately to hold love within. This process brings the fragmented parts back into wholeness and into connection, held in safety and integrity.
Recovery is whole-ing embodiment process whereby we come home to our bodies, and are able to fully embrace the world around us.
Photo by Jon Flobrant on Unsplash
A Prayer to My Body
Dear Body,
You receive my mental imprints of worry,
Squashed into your tissues, fascia, and bone.
And so you structure yourself
Into small and contracted ways because it’s all you’ve ever known.
But some point you tell me you’ve had enough -
Of walls, and amour, and all that defensive stuff.
And so, you ask me to move,
To melt away the rigidity and cold grooves.
The movement starts off tiny, awkward, and unsure.
But then something happens, and you feel open, grounded and secure.
You start to flow and change,
And my mental imprints begin to rearrange.
And is there dear Body,
Where we live in harmony.
This is where we will meet as often as we need,
Until we are free, mind, heart and body embodied.
This poem was inspired during a moment of integrating a number of macro psychedelic and microdosing experiences whereby I connected dance, words, and nature together as a prayer for my body and my own recovery, as well as for the body of the Earth. You can watch the dance piece here.
Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine for Eating Disorder Recovery with the Help of Psychedelics
In eating disorder recovery, reclaiming the divine feminine within is a personal initiation and the retrieval of one’s intuition.
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For many people navigating eating disorders, disordered eating, or dieting, there often has been a rejection of the sacred feminine. Many of us, whether we are female, male or non-binary, have not gone through this process of learning how to connect with and live from the seat of our intuition - and psychedelics can help us reclaim this inner power.
When I was in my own eating disorder, I feared this energy, because she associated with power, vulnerability, and existing in the liminal of the unknown.
I was afraid of taking responsibility in my life (no longer a child), where I would be required to take up space and speak my truth. I didn’t believe I was worthy to stand in the center of my circle and claim my right to be here.
The thought of coming into my own power and my authentic embodiment felt like a threat - I feared if I came into myself, I would shift collective dynamics and societal structures - and I was threatened by the possibility of being rejected by the collective.
For many, there may be a sense of feeling powerless in a patriarchal system (of which diet culture is built upon), which leads to the embodiment of submission, resulting in a fading into the the background, letting others take the lead, and a desire to not be seen.
This may cause a felt sense of helplessness, or feeling helpless, which in order to compensate leads some to become overly independent - a desire to do it all alone. As such, helplessness can manifest as being hyper-independent, which in a way, is getting stuck in the unhealthy masculine, which is symbolized as doing things alone and in a rigid, cold way.
The Sacred Feminine is lost when we stop listening within. She is lost when we try to be good and perfect for the outside world. She is lost when we fear the world coming in too closely, or when we are unable to hold our own boundaries. When we cannot safely find our way to the Sacred Feminine with the support of elders, and community, we find ways to shut her off.
The armour of the eating disorder is a way to try feel safe in a world that doesn’t support the power of the Feminine.
The root of my eating disorder was a disconnection from the body of the Earth and her cycles, as well as my own. Recovery includes remembering and reclaiming nature’s cycles, and our inner cycles - and that they are not something to fear but rather can be harnessed for healing and creation.
At her core, the Feminine energy is about cycles and is connected to nature.
For women, coming to accept our menstrual cycle is part of reclaiming the Feminine. The female cycle of the bleed is an intimate reminder of the Moon cycles, as well as the Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring seasons in nature and within our own bodies.
Cycles teach us about life, death, and rebirth, impermanence, letting go, surrendering, and releasing.
Embracing the Feminine means embarking into the void space. She is comfortable with the unknown - and she flows in it graciously and strong. This, of course, is opposite to eating disorders which want to keep everything organized, structured, and under the illusion of certainty. Yet, the Feminine is cultivated when we start the process of rebuilding the ground within, and move from a linear to a cyclical orientation.
As such, she knows that all cycles are liminal in essence; transition are ever-present, and nothing is ever solid. The liminal, in-between space is where anything is possible.
It is the space of possibilities, new growth, birth, manifestation, regeneration, change, transformation, and creation. In these spaces, she turns inwards rather than penetrating the outside world for answers, and listens inside.
Stepping into the embodiment of the Feminine, is a pathway out of an eating disorder, because it's a process that requires inner seeing, hearing, and knowing - rather than looking outside for answers. This cultivation of intuition is our sixth sense that first disappears when we starve, binge, purge, or get wrapped up in diet culture.
Intuition is a sensitive and subtle sense that can easily get numbed out by the dense energy of the eating disorder. And it's a skill that we all have, can redevelop, and can all learn to trust by tuning into our senses (our five senses), and our interoception (feeling into the body).
Our body is our greatest portal into the Divine Feminine.
This is why an embodied approach to eating disorder recovery, where we work on developing the body as a resource for healing is such a powerful approach. When we connect with the body, intuition and hidden gifts emerge.
Recovery asks us to slow down in order for the sensitivity to build by paying attention to the world around us and the world within. The sensitivity can then be transmuted into one’s power, and used as a way to attune and discern the world around us.
Indeed, psychedelic medicine, like psilocybin, Ayahuasca, Iboga, MDMA, or ketamine, support us in unveiling the truth of all the external constructs we have to believe, and the walls that we have built up in within ourselves.
Psychedelics and plant medicine help us bring us back to the truth of our power, and reconnect us with the body, with feeling, and ultimately with this deep, dark inner knowing, which is our intuition.
When we enter a plant medicine experience, whether it’s a macro or microdosing journey, we move from the known to the unknown. Our brains under psychedelics become “entropic”, meaning new connections are made, and we are able to think more flexibly and perceive in alternative ways. We see and feel things anew. Working with plant medicine takes us into the deep recesses of our mind, body, and heart, to reclaim the forgotten or repressed parts, in order to integrate, expand, and create something aligned and new. We can only do this by entering the void space.
Indeed, eating disorder recovery is about going into those void places, reclaiming the ignored parts, holding ourselves with nurturance and care, and ultimately coming back to our true self.
When we step into the portal of reclaiming the sacred feminine, we are asked to let go of the dependent child role, as well as releasing the once-necessary structure and guidance from our caregivers, especially the Mother figure, seeing that she is no longer the central guide for our future and for our instinctual life. It’s like learning how to hunt and fly on our own (but not alone).
Parent-child dynamics start to shift and change to allow a new woman to be birthed, where she's able to take more risks for her own life, and to become clear on her own values, not the standards fed to her by previous generations.
The more we step more into who we truly are by releasing old or generational imprints, the more we are asked to examine the shadow aspects of ourselves. We have to let the pressure build between the false self and the real self, in order to find home within.
In seeing and accepting the shadow - warts and all - we learn to accept the full spectrum of life, which is of course is the opposite of diet culture, which wants us to accept only one way of being and looking in the world.
We need to incorporate otherness to heal. We need flexibility to heal. We empathy to access safety and no longer move from a place of shame. We need self-acceptance for recovery.
Stepping into the sacred feminine means integrating some kind of otherness, wildness, or earthiness that is not always accepted by society.
People may raise their eyebrows and react. Thus, to stand in recovery is an act of rebellion. It takes a revolutionary stance to go against what society tells us.
When we incorporate the full spectrum of human expression - through acceptance and flexibility, healing takes place. And when we can turn that same gaze of compassion onto ourselves, we recognize the great power within, trust develops, there is space for listening, and our intuitive gifts emerge.
Photo by Poppie Pack on Unsplash
Plant Medicine: Psychological Flexibility For Eating Disorder Recovery
People with eating disorders often have a fixed way of thinking - and psychedelics seem to help break the pattern of thinking that repeats, ruminates, and rigidly obsesses on food or the body.
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During a plant medicine journey, if fully surrendered to and not resisted, psychedelics can soften the day-to-day control and avoidance strategies of the eating disorder.
People with eating disorders get stuck in mental loops, replaying the same mental content, often with a highly negative and self-critical tone. This perpetuates worry, rumination, anxiety, and obsession over food and one’s body. These thought patterns also influence the nervous system that gets the message that there is danger, switching on heightened arousal states and stress responses.
The more stressed and in danger we are in (whether it’s real or perceived), the narrower and more rigid our focus. Eating disorder recovery is about opening up the focus and seeing the whole forest rather than fixating on the single tree. It is like we are loosening the rigid scar tissue of our psyches.
Psychedelics can massage the defenses of the the eating disorder. The usual mental loops are interrupted and when not resisted or controlled, the eating disorder and what lies underneath it are faced, felt, and processed during a plant medicine journey.
Neuroimaging research shows that psychedelics alter the activity in the default mode network, which are the brain regions that appear to be most centrally related to the sense of self, worry, and rumination.
When in an altered state, this part of the brain is reduced, meaning the ongoing mental chatter and eating disorder voice becomes less dominant for a time, leaving the person more present, and open to new possibilities.
People who experienced a psychedelic experience, describe experiencing mental freedom and clarity. They were released from mental traps, and thoughts were more free to flow and were less ruminative and repetitive. Life becomes flexible, spontaneous and full of possibilities.
Like a psychedelic journey, when we choose eating disorder recovery, we never know exactly where our path will take us.
Eating disorder recovery is a completely creative process, unique to each individual. There is no correct way to heal. There is no one way to heal. And if we can open up to the possibilities of change and healing within, we will be taken on a journey we could have never planned for or anticipated.
We have leave the shores of the known, and dive into the depths of the unknown in order to recover. We have to let go the habitual behaviours and automatic thoughts, and choose something different and new.
And it can be scary to let go of what once gave us a sense of protection, identify, and focus. But if we desire change, this is the path.
Birthing is never easy or without pain, be it a universe, a child, or a fresh start in life. Contraction precedes expansion. Darkness comes before dawn. Joy follows pain. This is the way of things. ~ John Mark Green ~
When we think about a tight muscle becoming loose, there is ultimately greater movement, flexibility, and ease. Our psyches are the same, and we can practice our flexibility through engaging in art, meditation, connecting with others, dancing, processing emotions, being in nature, and rekindling connection with something greater than ourselves.
Psychedelics offer a burst of flexibility, however it is up to the therapeutic support thereafter to help ground and establish lasting new mental and behavioural habits. Integration is the practice of keeping up with flexibility.
It is powerful to experience an embodied felt sense of being totally free from an eating disorder, to be in the present moment, and engaged with life in a connected, intimate way.
Like plant medicine, disordered eating recovery asks us to be open to change, to wipe the slate clean and try something else.
Like plant medicine, eating disorder recovery asks us to find the ground and foundation within ourselves, despite the groundlessness of impermanence that is all around us.
Like plant medicine, disordered eating recovery reminds us it is ok to not know; but it is how we hold ourselves through these unknown spaces that matter.
Like plant medicine, eating disorder recovery asks how we can trust in our essence, our core self.
Over time, with less focusa and energy on the eating disorder, there is space to dream, to create, to envision, to redirect, to make decisions from an aligned and wide perspective. This is flexible living.
Photo by Richard Horvath on Unsplash
What is the Best Psychedelic for Eating Disorder Recovery?
Is there a recommended plant medicine or psychedelic for eating disorder recovery?
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Psychedelics and plant medicines are “non-specific amplifiers”, meaning that whatever is at the forefront of our mind, or whatever is holding the strongest emotional charge at that moment, often comes up to the surface during a psychedelic experience.
Whatever arises may be in our conscious awareness, or maybe it is deep within our subconscious but impacts our actions, reaction, and decisions without us even realizing it (this is how trauma works).
Additionally, psychedelics and plant medicine are able to also work in a transdiagnostic way.
This means that they can attend to and shine light on eating disorder behaviours, addiction, OCD tendencies, ruminating thought patterns, depression, anxiety, any kind of maladaptive control pattern, or chronic illnesses because they go to the root of where these behaviours and adaptations developed, rather than putting a band aid over the symptoms. This root can go back before we were even born, shining light on generational patterns and traumas.
With this overview, it seems then that any psychedelic could be supportive to catalyze an individual on their recovery path. However, the main question is, which medicine do you feel most drawn towards?
Why do you feel drawn to this plant? What is fueling the desire to journey with the specific medicine?
Which sacred plant medicine do you feel in resonance with?
Where is your curiosity leading you?
Where is your inner compass pointing you towards?
How can you make space within yourself to drop from your head and into your body, and hear what is the most aligned path for your highest healing?
This process asks us to look within and trust ourselves that what we are drawn to is right for us. Of course, we can receive input and guidance from others, but ultimately this is a process of trusting the core self, the voice within, and that sometimes strange yet magical intuitive pull.
It is trusting in the unknown. It is trusting the body’s wisdom. Being in this process is representative of what eating disorder recovery is about as a whole!
Each medicine has their own “personality” and their own ways of working with individuals, allowing different parts within the psyche to be opened and worked with. Some people are attracted to a certain medicine because the plant medicine’s energy is speaking to the energetic signature of that person.
No medicine is better than the other. They are just different. And each and every journey will be different, even if you sit with the same medicine multiple times.
Sometimes we need a certain medicine for a certain moment or period in our lives to move through a particular chapter, and then we feel pulled to another kind of psychedelic (or pulled to no medicine at all).
what plant medicine can best support eating disorder recovery?
For those who are in early phases of recovery, working with a medicine that doesn't a require specific diet/dieta is important to consider. If you know (aka deeply know) that you are in a fragile place in your recovery, it can be triggering to restrict your diet for a plant medicine ceremony/journey. Please be mindful and honest with where you are, what you have capacity for, and what your intentions are for working with plant medicine. Sometimes it’s better to place the importance on maintaining stability with food and your well-being/mental health than on a pre-ceremony diet.
This means that perhaps exploring altered healing states with psilocybin (magic mushrooms) or MDMA, rather than Ayahuasca or Iboga. Again, this is very much according to the individual.
Mushrooms and MDMA can support us in feeling the interconnectedness with life, play, and openness. These two medicines do not require a strict diet.
Ayahuasca can aid in helping us release traumas and clear any old physical, emotional, mental, and energetic space.
Iboga can catalyze a break in the habitual and addictive eating disorder patterns.
There are many psychedelics and plant medicines that can support disordered eating recovery. it depends on where you are in your healing journey, your physical health condition, and what medicine you feel called to at this time.
It is also important to consider dose, who will support you (ie. guide/shaman/facilitator/friend), and the space you will be journeying in.
These factors impact the relationship you will have with the medicine itself in the actual psychedelic experience.
For non-psychoactive medicines, cacao medicine is gentle and soft, and can help people open the heart and feel more enlivened. Hapé (rapé), a snuff made out of sacred tobacco and tree ash, helps with grounding and lengthening the body, supporting individuals to stand their power and take up space in dignified ways. These two medicines represent sacred feminine and masculine plants and when combined can help unify and balance the yin and yang within, bringing a sense of wholeness and integration to the system which is so important in eating disorder recovery. Including medicinal mushrooms, like lions mane, reishi, and chaga with cacao or a microdose of psilocybin may also be supportive for the physical, mental, and emotional body in eating disorder recovery.
Trust that the whatever medicine you feel drawn towards, granted you have done the necessary research, clarified intentions, and are prioritizing your physical, mental, and emotional safety, you will receive what you are needing in the moment to uncover, discover, and recover yourself.
Psychedelics do not cure or act like a magic pill.
They enhance our vision and awareness on the places that we cannot see ourselves. They highlight aspects of ourselves we have forgotten or repressed, and give us a chance to see things in a new way. Plant medicine take us to the root of where the eating disorder stemmed form and with this new knowing we can start to direct our lives differently.
As such when the journey ends, the ceremony of life begins, and as part of the integration process, we can meet ourselves each day armed with new insights and deeper presence.
When combined with other healing modalities like talk therapy, somatic therapy, dance and art therapy, as well as when supported by another, like a coach, therapist, counsellor, or mentor on a long-term and regular basis, the old thought patterns and internalised beliefs can be chipped away and worked through, creating fresh opportunities and greater space for a more inspired and aligned blueprint to be imprinted into the psyche.
Psychedelics help us to learn about ourselves through an embodied understanding: this experiential understanding gets into our cells and nervous system. The whole body, including the mind, are unlearning and learning new ways of being. With the support of plant medicines, individuals can believe and feel on a full body and cellular level that they love themselves - perhaps for the first time. This can be forgotten over time, but it can always be remembered because it's in the cellular memory.
Each medicine in their own way, can also remind us of us the bigger web that that we are connected to; we are part of this unified existence and that we all have a part and role to play. And we all deserve to be here. This is so important for people with eating disorder who often feel separate from the world and society, like they don’t belong, or deserve to be here. Plant medicine remind us that there is support and holding all around us and that we are worthy to receive the goodness and love that is already here.
Unlike what diet culture wants us to believe, the answers are inside of us.
Psychedelics are not an external cure, they catalyze us to look inwards; healing is internal journey. Psychedelics can show us the way, but they won’t do the healing for us.
The medicine that we seek are within. We are our own guides for our own healing and transformation.
How To Recover From An Eating Disorder
Eating disorder recovery is a process of learning and developing certain skills.
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Eating disorder recovery doesn’t just happen out of the blue. It takes practice - we are practicing a different way of being with our bodies and being with the world.
By definition, eating disorders (which can be considered as a form of addiction) include the cycle of relapse-recovery; recovery is thus a process of learning how to manage and live without the eating disorder behaviours. Relapses, setbacks and challenges are expected, and it is through these moments of relapses (aka opportunities for growth) that we get to look at our recovery with more awareness and understanding.
It's a series of conscious and committed efforts that requires patience and perseverance. It takes time to develop any kind of skill, and recovery asks us to upgrade and develop ourselves to become the person whereby the eating disorder is unable to exist in our reality.
There is a major misconception to recovery that says that one plant medicine or psychedelic journey or a trip to a treatment facility will grant us freedom. Whilst these external supports can be catalysts, supports, and offer structure, they can't cure us. And the only way out of the eating disorder is through all of the entanglements that got us there in the first place. And so it requires a person to be open and willing to look within and develop oneself beyond the eating disorder.
Looking within is one of the most important pieces, and is a key skill to develop for recovery. Looking within is a skill. We can get better at it with practice. Accessing liberation is through this practice of self reflection, that is looking at ourselves honestly, and to see the truth behind our own psychology.
Honesty is also an important skill to develop in disordered eating recovery, because an eating disorder can be very sneaky, living in the shadows. When gripped by the eating disorder, people often lie, cover up, hide, and pretend all ok. But being honest with where we are at is a hallmark of recovery and a skill that we can develop.
When choose to journey with psychedelics, we are often faced with the honest truth of where we are at as they take off all the masks, veils, and fake layers, shining light on all the shadows we were hiding from. Psychedelics us prepare a new, fertile soil and plant seeds of change within. Plant medicine, like Ayahuasca, psilocybin (including microdosing), Iboga, or Changa supports the repatterning process, providing us with opportunities to let go of old ways of being that no longer serve, thereby making room to consciously create new beliefs, behaviours, and choices.
Working with sacred plant medicine or psychedelics requires inner courage, self-compassion, perseverance, patience, truth-telling, and trust. We learn how to lean into and inquire about the discomfort, to regulate our emotions in challenging moments, and to harness the body as an anchor and resource as we fully face ourselves.
Preparing for a plant medicine ceremony is about widening our capacity to gracefully be with the ebbs and flows that occur in a psychedelic journey - and beyond.
When we prepare for a journey, we are developing skills of the heart, mind and body for the ultimate ceremony: the ceremony of life.
Indeed, once the ceremony ends, we are required to take the necessary action to care for our inner garden and nurture the seeds. This is called integration: turning downloads into daily action and practice.
We are always practicing and developing something.
When we look at ourselves in the mirror and the thoughts and judgments around our body shoot up and out, this is what we are developing and practicing for ourselves. Versus, if we think something along the lines of “I'm beautiful”, that is also practicing and developing a way of thinking and being.
What ways of relating to yourself are you practicing and solidifying within your consciousness?
So often we think the same thoughts, feel the same feels, and do the same things. As such, we are refining and solidifying a set of beliefs, feelings, thoughts, and actions. These sets of patterns that we have developed, day in and day out, create the blueprint of our reality.
Practicing recovery (aka transformation) means that we are actually practicing something different to what we currently practice. The more we practice recovery, the more we can direct our healing trajectory, and naturally mature out of the eating disorder behaviours, into our innate healing states.
This way, when we are ready to step into recovery, we have already been training for the truth.
Developing ourselves in this way takes time, especially if the eating disorder or disordered eating tendencies have been ongoing for many years. This is often a messy process - as is learning any new skill.
Developing ourselves for recovery begins when any of us realize that something needs to change. When we realize something needs to change, there is an increase of awareness and expansion of our consciousness that points us to another way of being and another reality that exists out there. Indeed when someone is unaware of the problem, it is hard to develop oneself.
However, if the awareness that something new is out there, there is a process (with stages) of change that many of us travel through as we learn, grow, heal, and evolve.
In order to achieve a goal, or get unstuck from an old place, we will likely move through these stages of change, as outlined by researchers, Prochaska and DeClemente, and Noel Burch. It is much easier to move through the stages of change when we know what they are:
The first stage is precontemplation. This is a stage where we are unaware or in denial of problems. In this phase, we are not ready to make change, and we are not ready to develop ourselves for recovery. A person is unaware that recovery is possible, nor are they are aware that there are skills necessary for recovery. Another term to call this is unconscious incompetence.
The second stage is contemplation. In this phase, we are aware of the problem, and we are able to consider change. A person becomes aware that recovery is possible but they feel unsure how to achieve and sustain recovery. This is termed as conscious incompetence.
The third is preparation. This is when we are ready and motivated to change. There is desire and curiosity. This is a ripe time to make a plan to develop ourselves for change. A person chooses to learn and gain recovery skills through practice so that they can achieve and sustain their recovery. This is also known as conscious competence.
The fourth stage is action, whereby we make changes, integrate insights, and see results. There is courage, commitment, humility, and self-reflection. There is patience in this process where we try and practice, again and again.
The fifth and final stage is maintenance. And this is living consciously to maintain the results, and to continue evolving out of the eating disorder. This is the integration and the ongoing showing up that recovery asks of us. A person has mastered the skills to live a life free from their eating disorder so much so that it becomes the automatic embodiment of living. This is called unconscious competence.
Through this process of change, we are learning a new way of being and developing ourselves into the authentic embodiment of our unique expression that is built on freedom and trust.
We can stay in these stages for any length of time as this healing process is certainly not linear. We can be at different stages for different behaviours at the same time, and repeat stages as well. As such, it takes showing up with consistency and commitment, and having the right support and resources to help smooth out the process.
We are not meant to undergo this process alone.
Included in developing ourselves for eating disorder recovery is the motivation to change. When we feel motivated to practice change, we believe that there are enough positive reasons to outweigh the negative ones. We thus need to desire change and believe in ourselves that recovery is worth it. When we believe this is something worth pursuing, there is an increased sense in one’s ability to walk the road of recovery.
The term self-efficacy speaks to a person's belief in their innate ability to handle situations and to achieve the vision of their healing that they wish to see in their lives. We usually only stretch ourselves as far as we believe we can go. And recovery almost always asks us to stretch a little bit further into the unknown, and it can feel uncomfortable.
Having a sense of self-efficacy supports the confidence and the integrity within ourselves to maintain healthy daily routines, and helps us keep on the recovery path, despite the hardships and triggers. As long as a person lacks self-assurance, they there are at risk for relapse.
a big part of developing skills for eating disorder recovery is also shifting the beliefs we hold around our own capabilities, as well as how we value ourselves.
Recovery leads to change within one’s belief structures, perceptions and frame of reference, thoughts, feelings and emotions, and other conditioned patterns of the mind.
Ask yourself, Am I worthy of change? Do I deserve this change? Have I been held back or judged in the past when I tried to evolve?
Can I recover? Do I believe that even a small ripple of change is enough for my overall healing trajectory?
Do I believe that every action I take, no matter how big, towards my healing has impact on the greater collective?
Part of our healing results in a social awakening to how our behaviour impacts others and the world.
So let us just take a pause, because this work is not easy. It means uprooting the truth about what ruptured our relationship with our bodies, reckoning with the process of reclamation, and choosing to live a life where we do not participate in a culture that was/is harmful to ourselves and others; a culture that is filled with anti-fat bias, racism, ableism, homophobia, ageism, and patriarchy. This process asks us work at the edges of our comfort zones, to unlearn old ways, and to learn new skills and ways of being that are often in opposition to the dominant culture. Recovery is a courageous act!
the process of change
Part of developing skills for recovery includes paying attention to what happens in our body.
Bringing reconnection back to the body, acknowledging its existence, accepting that it is here, accepting that is with us, and has information to share with us, is the process of embodiment.
When we have been living in such disconnection from the body, it takes the conscious competence - aka conscious, mindful practice of tuning into the body - to pause, listen, and feel. We have to unlearn the skill of not tuning in and learn how to attune to our bodies for a new way of relating with ourselves, our intuition, and our environment to emerge.
We prepare the nervous system to hold the embodiment of the change that we wish to see in our life as part of recovery. We practice embodying and energetically holding the higher frequency of this healed embodiment.
We can practice small amounts of pausing and sitting with the body on a day-to-day basis, to start building capacity to hold more emotions and sensations, rather than being overwhelmed by the present moment. There is a opportunity to notice the habitual responses of our nervous systems, the habitual flight, fight, freeze energetic signatures that often have been developed and established as a result of trauma.
When we see the map of our nervous system and how it came to be developed, we become aware of our patterns. With this greater awareness, we can move in and out of these patterns with more intentionality. The more we practice this kind of awareness, which is called interoception (sensing the internal states of the body), we have increased ability to respond to challenging or triggering situations with more clarity and perspective.
Recovery is being able to ride the challenging moments, whilst staying anchored in the body rather than running away from them through engaging in eating disorder strategies like restricting, purging, overeating, or over-exercising.
As we are develop ourselves for recovery, it is important to nourish our conditions to make the whole process a bit easier to navigate. This means getting good rest and sleep, eating well for the gut and brain, hanging out with people who feel safe and supportive, living in a clean environment, getting time outside in nature, throwing away anything in the physical home that feels stagnant, moving mindfully, meditating, and aligning with our higher intentions, standards, ethics, and values.
Thus, there is the hardware and the software that needs to be swept through and tended to so that the new upgrades can be integrated into our system.
What are some things you can do to shift or upgrade your life to support the development of your recovery skills?
Below are some skills we can all practice and develop for our eating disorder/disordered eating recovery wherever we are on the path:
Acknowledge. Own your experience of the eating disorder, accept it happened, and take responsibility for the next steps.
Reclaim. Open up to your empowered, true self. Recognise your power and your medicine. Go within and find a reason to evolve beyond the current circumstances. Recovery is in your hands.
Observe. See yourself and your reality from an objective, wide perspective. Identify how things impact each other (the cause-effect in all relationships). With neutrality, observe your patterns to escape, numb, or suppress. Set the intention to be with them, to be open, and to learn.
Honest. Be authentic and truthful with yourself with where you are and what you are needing.
Discern. Recognise what is important to you. Identify what stays and what goes. Listen deeply.
Tolerance. Build emotional resilience and regulation. Learn to sit with discomfort.
Vulnerable. Face the fear. Express your emotions. Surrender, let go of the resistance, and put down the armour.
Soothe. Learn how to recalibrate, calm, and rebalance your nervous system without the eating disorder tactics.
Mindful. Stay alert to truth, challenges, and opportunities. Maintain an open perspective. Listen to feedback from others, the environment, and your body.
Compassion. Befriend yourself. Practice non-judgement towards yourself and others (including diet culture). Remember all that you have overcome and celebrate who you are today.
Trust. Allow room for ambivalence. Trust in your innate healing capacities. Trust in the medicine. Trust that you have the power to heal yourself and .your innate healing capacities Trust it is all going to be ok. Trust the journey you are on, that you are in the right place at the right time, learning the right thing.
Openness. Recovery means meeting your growth edge, confronting your limiting beliefs and old narratives with an open heart and mind. Facing discomfort and fears require courage, resilience, perseverance, and self-compassion.
Connection. Connecting with something greater than yourself, and dedicating yourself to a higher purpose, keeps you in recovery. Recovery is not just about and for you - it ripples out into the collective, contributing to the evolution of humanity, impacting past, present and future timelines. Your healing ripples out into communities, giving them permission to thrive, flourish, and heal. It is about coming into right relationship with the interconnected web of all existence. This is not an individual process. Healing is sacred reciprocity.
Healing occurs when you consciously reconnect with your true self - the wise, loving, creative essence you are at the core.
What are some other skills and characteristics you can develop that haven’t been mentioned above. Feel free to share them in the comments.
All of these skills can be practiced in titrated, manageable bite-sized ways so that the nervous system can slowly integrate these new pieces in a way that that makes sense.
Rather than surprising the nervous system with too much change too quickly, we want the healing process to be slow and steady so there is enough time to integrate.
May we continue aligning with this path of recovery and with the greater intention of healing for ourselves and for the world, and practice and develop the inspired skills, and take the empowered actions required to become the authentic embodiment that we seek.
Why Choose Recovery?
I’ve been spending time on clarify my intentions around why I choose – and should choose – eating disorder recovery.
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Sometimes it can feel like one long slog, right? Connecting with our WHY is integral to staying on the path.
I choose eating disorder recovery because I feel better. I have no desire to allow myself to go back to that place before I started recovery. I feel so much more regulated and have much more capacity to be with the world. I am able think clearly, to see deeply, to feel more expansively.
I choose recovery because it has allowed me to connect with people around the world. Through this process of stepping into a more true version of myself, I attract others who are also showing up to this work, who are dedicated to their healing, and are willing to go beyond surface-level interactions. These connections bring a lot of fulfilment into my life.
I choose eating disorder recovery because I believe it has a positive impact on timelines, breaking generational and cultural patterns and carving a different future for those who I may meet and those I will never meet.
I choose recovery as I feel it is support the collective in our evolutionary process. The more of us show up to this healing work, the greater the awareness, and the greater that we have the chance to ultimately take care of this planet in a better way. I feel that the more that we can connect with our bodies, the more that we can connect and tend to the body of this Earth, who sustains us, who cares for us, who gives so much to us.
I choose recovery because it has rekindled my connection this great mystery, with this unknown, magical, mysterious world. With that, there's been an increased sense of trust, faith and surrender to this healing process. And in that, there's a lot of relief and letting go of control and of needing to know everything - and to rather trust in this greater support.
I choose recovery because there doesn’t feel there is another option. It is in my DNA, it is my service, it is my healing, it is in my soma.
I choose eating disorder recovery because I am supported on this path. I have much gratitude to share and extend to sacred plant medicine allies and psychedelics for providing me with affirmations to keep walking this path. And to remain hopeful and resilient in the in the face of a world that does not support recovery and body diversity.
Connecting with something greater than yourself, and dedicating yourself to a higher purpose, keeps you in eating disorder recovery.
Recovery is not just about and for you - it ripples out into the collective, contributing to the evolution of humanity, impacting past, present and future timelines.
Your healing ripples out into communities, giving them permission to thrive, flourish, and heal. It is about coming into right relationship with the interconnected web of all existence. This is not an individual process. Healing is sacred reciprocity.
Why do you choose recovery?
Photo by Vladislav Babienko on Unsplash
Dreaming a Life Without an Eating Disorder
Eating disorder recovery is about dreaming and dying. We dream a new life into being - without the eating disorder - and let go of the old, allowing what is no longer supportive to die.
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As we move deeper on our path of healing, we see how our reality has come into being, formed by our beliefs. As we walk the path with greater awareness and more aligned embodiment, we recognize the power to consciously create the life that we want that is free from the eating disorder.
The life that we want, free from the layers of the ED, can be positively supported by empowering beliefs, our ability to envision a fulfilling life path, and by our conscious, committed efforts to show up to the creation of that reality.
When I think about the reality I was in when I was in my eating disorder, it was unconscious; I was numbed out for so long, drifting through life, living somebody else's dream, all of which developed as a response and an adaptation to trauma imprinting.
When we dream a different life into reality, we move away from the trauma patterns, no longer defined by the past. We can stand firmly in the present, and can observe with clarity who is in the driver’s seat defining and creating our future. Is it the true, core self? And if so, what aspects need to die for this dream to manifest? Or is the eating disorder still running the show, dictating our thoughts, feelings, and actions?
Who is the one dreaming?
The power of recovery is the ability to introspect, self-reflect, look within, and envision beyond what you believe it possible. As we walk the healing path, we have the chance to look at anything that has been forgotten or repressed: the parts that the eating disorder don't want to see or deal with. This is the part of the recovery journey where we go into the cave and confront our hidden parts, so that we can ultimately integrate and connect with the true self, and diminish the powers of any kind of dark, repressed forces.
From this place, there is an opportunity to direct the dream into a direction that is more aligned with our authenticity and our truth, and without the eating disorder dancing our dance.
When we reach this stage of recovery, we have reached a place of visioning a future without the eating disorder. It is also the stage where we face “our death” whereby we take a look at what things can be left behind that are not serving this great dream. By facing the shadows, we can integrate them back into wholeness, transforming them into wisdom and treasures. And it is with these treasures that we leave the cave and return to our communities and share our gifts.
We look within and when ready, share these clear and vibrant insights with the world around us, pulling us closer and closer to the dream. And repeat this process again and again.
Bear in mind, the ego will fight against this introspection and there will be resistance to not look at the habitual, unconscious patterns. This is because the eating disorder wants things to stay the same and wants to avoid the shadow.
Thus, to be in the space of recovery takes intuitive grace, radical responsibility, commitment laced with integrity, strength, perseverance, patience, and equanimity.
It is rather the embracing of taking responsibility for our growth and our development, rather than bracing against it.
Through the act of introspection, there is a natural pause and stillness that happens. In these moments, we have the clarity as all the distractions melt and fade away. In the space of stillness, self-reflection, and introspection, there is an opportunity to cleanse and purify your intentions for being here on this road of recovery. So ask yourself,
Why do you want to recover? What does life look like on the other side? What matters to you? What do you care about? How do you want to show up in the world? What does recovery mean to you? In what ways has this recovery journey shaped you? How are you bringing your dreams of healing and growth into reality?
dreaming a new reality
Through this process, there is a washing away of what doesn't serve. As the layers come off, you stand in your truth, in your core essence, and in the pure energetic signature of who you are.
This is an immense feeling to hold and embody.
And it is imperative to practice embodying these higher frequency states over the course of recovery to start aligning the body and mind with this greater vision. It takes practice. We practice recovery in titrated and manageable bites so the nervous system can integrate the evolutions.
Embodying a higher frequency state can be felt in a plant medicine ceremony, in a conscious dance journey, meditation, a sweat lodge, by an inspired conversation, through singing or prayer, creative activities, and essentially anything that gets you into flow.
Holding this frequency can bring up many emotions. It can be bittersweet. It can feel sad: maybe it feels sad knowing how long and far away you have existed from this higher energetic state. Perhaps you feel sad to let go of the old parts that feel comfortable and known. And it can be incredibly exciting to taste what is possible.
Once that taste has been tasted, it is possible to design your life around these inspired frequencies and to dance with that energy. And the practice dance is a powerful modality for moving energy and emotions, dropping us from the thinking mind into the feeling body.
As we dive deeper into our bodies, the more connected we are to our heart space. The heart space is where we dream. It is the place where we create our heartfelt intentions. It is the place that connects heaven and earth, bringing dreams into the physical plane. The heart is like the trunk of the tree, bridging the roots to the earth and the branches up to the sky.
When we step into recovery alongside our intentions, with or without the support of psychedelics or sacred plant medicine (including microdosing), there is usually a desire to feel differently, or to feel some other kind of energy state that feels more aligned, supportive and inspired.
Psychedelics can show us another way to feel differently. Plant medicine show us who we truly are without the layers: the aligned embodiment of our core essence. They remind us that is possible to live more authentically and that we have the right to dream a new reality - and we are worthy and deserving of that reality.
Plant medicines show us that in order to birth the dreams and healing that we envision for ourselves, we are required to tune into the heart space and move from that place with trust, to allow the dreams to continue evolving with us, and for anything else to fall away to make space for the core self to shine through.
The more we step into recovery, the more vitality we feel and the more capacity we have to dream. We have more desire to be creative. There is an increased lifeforce, sense of purpose, and belonging. There is an ability to move with waves of energy and emotions with equanimity. We are able to move the energy of stored, stuck trauma shifting from old beliefs into new ones.
Recovery is about having a flexible, fluid nervous system that can respond from a grounded, centered place. Recovery is being able to envision another reality, and to feel into the boundless oceanic sea of possibilities. It is the process of deepening embodiment, whereby our inner space and the outer world work in congruency, with grace, and ease. Recovery about is moving into another blueprint of embodiment, and into another existence relating and being. Recovery is in the moments where we can introspect and see deeply at what we have created, and to envision something beyond what we believe as possible.
What are you dreaming for your healing, recovery, and transformation?
Photo by Wolf Zimmermann on Unsplash
There is Medicine in The Eating Disorder
Why would I have chosen this path of having an eating disorder? Is it possible I chose to have an eating disorder?
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Over the period of my recovery, I have come to see that having the struggles of an eating disorder was and is necessary for my soul to experience.
Shifting from the perspective of being broken or stuck, blaming or in a victim mindset, into a perspective that views the eating disorder as an integral part of my evolution, with medicine, wisdom and insight to offer me, widens my capacity to heal.
When we can embrace our deepest wounds as medicine, we can shift the energy of our suffering. There is possibility to transform our suffering into our strength, and for some, even into service to offer for the world at large. When we see our wounds as gifts or blessings, they no longer grip onto us with such force.
When we make meaning of the situation in this way, we move into an energetic state of empowerment, curiosity, and flexibility whereby healing and freedom can arise.
Recovery is an effort of consciously choosing to deepen, widen, and lengthen our perspective of our eating disorders and our place in the world.
We have the choice to look and tend to our wounds, and to reframe them.
Choice.
let us choose our recovery pathway
For many people with an eating disorder, it can feel like we didn’t have a choice in having an eating disorder. Indeed, at the time of trauma, there was no other choice than to use food and body strategies to cope with life.
There were no other tools resources, or support available to manage the pain. I’m sure many of you can relate that the eating disorder, whether anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, over-exercise, orthorexia etc., was not something you chose one morning. It developed without conscious awareness. It developed in the places where we didn’t have the sight: in the painful places that were too hard to acknowledge.
Additionally, an eating disorder often comes into our lives because it is hard to express or communicate with others what we want. For many of us, the eating disorder developed as a way to stay connected with others because our expression was rejected. We had to choose living someone else’s dream over our own in order to stay in some kind of attachment with our caregivers. If we chose to be ourselves, we may further risk being rejected or left behind.
For some, the eating disorder comes in to numb or hide away from others. It acts as a barrier or separation wall between oneself and the world. Living in that way, there isn’t much exchange with the outside. As we step more into recovery, we emerge more into the world, and with that we are asked to communicate our needs and desires - and that can feel scary. It can feel unsettling to make choices, to set boundaries, to share parts of ourselves, and choose ourselves and our own self-care over another.
This unsettling points to all the places that need to be acknowledged and healed. It’s the growth edge. It’s the stretch we all feel as move from the comfort zone into the spaces of the unknown. So in a way, I do think I chose to move through the fire of an eating disorder in order to learn very specific lessons for my evolution. I believe some of the most challenging moments have been the most powerful as they often lead to increased awareness and understanding.
Eating disorder recovery is about bringing increased awareness to those shadow parts that don’t want to be seen or heard, and in that awareness there is embodied agency and empowerment to choose another way.
Once we see the wounding and shadows in a curious light, the relationship to our suffering changes, and they transform into something sacred. We move from the dual nature into a state of being. We bring cohesion to the fragmented parts into integration. We bring balance and unification within. We no longer believe to be separate from the world, and see the inherent interconnection with all of life.
Indeed, we open up to the sacred mysteries that emerge from the shadows, and the wisdom that comes from the darkness. In seeing it all in the light of our awareness, there is liberation and freedom.
Facing my eating disorder, with the support of sacred plant medicine/psychedelics, and somatic therapy, has taught me about coming into alignment with my truth.
It has taught me how to express honestly. It has taught me how to listen and pause. It has brought closer to my intuitive wisdom. It has taught me about connection and intimacy. It has taught me how to manage and regulate my nervous system. It has called me forward into deeper spiritual integrity and faith. It has taught me about attachment patterns, safety, and authentic attunement.
It has brought me to my purpose, service, and devotion. It has connected me with all kinds of beautiful souls around the world. It has shone light on compassion, empathy, kindness, humility, and patience towards myself and others. It has taught me about wholeness, dignity, surrender, and trust. It has shown me that the only template to embody for healing is one that is self-love.
As we move along the path of spiritual warriorship, we need courage and commitment, we must trust the surrender, have a sense of steadfastness, and hold equanimity - because sometimes the medicine isn’t always easy to swallow.
When we choose recovery, we see things we can no longer un-see. This is the increased awareness that comes with recovery. And when we see it all, we are we are faced with a choice. We can either continue on the path that we have been on, or we choose another path that includes all of those forgotten parts that have been hidden in the darkness. Once included, the shadow parts transmute into light. So if we choose the latter, we choose to step closer towards wholeness, alignment and inner truth.
As challenging or uncomfortable as this process can be, we can celebrate! We can celebrate this moment as a catalyst for deepening awareness and stepping into more wholehearted inner integration.
Recovery is messy, nonlinear, and imperfect. It's about seeing and perceiving more clearly, becoming more aware of all the parts, patterns, conditioning, layers, and the old narratives. Recovery teaches us about widening our capacity to be with feelings of pain and discomfort.
Often, we think about healing as no longer feeling any pain. Rather, it is about being able to hold what is here, and increasing our tolerance to hold whatever is arising.
Recovery is about training our nervous system to increase its ability to be with the fire, so to speak, rather than having knee-jerk reactions, running away, shutting down, or trying to fight it off. In recovery, we practice to take a breath instead of being blinded by the fire, and making a conscious, aware choice that is grounded, connected, and aligned with our values.
Recovery is going deep within - into the cave or through the fire - and reclaiming the lost treasures. It is an initiation of transformation, whereby we become the medicine we seek.
Photo by Greg Jeanneau 🗾 on Unsplash
Creating Safe Containers for Psychedelic Journeys
Holding space for psychedelic journeys is about establishing and maintaining a certain energetic frequency for a container that is imbued with safety, transparency, clear boundaries, and woven with trust and rapport.
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The intention for any container - whether there is plant medicine or not - is to do no harm. This is inherently conducive for vulnerability to peek through the armour of the eating disorder, and for healing to occur.
In order for people to be able to access themselves, they need to feel safe.
Where there is space for vulnerability, there is space for healing. If on the other hand, we are concerned for our safety, our nervous system is then on high alert, anticipating threats, even if it's subconsciously. This results in a contraction, tightness and rigidity. And deep, enduring healing happens when there's flexibility, a loosening up the scar tissue, an opening up, and when there’s a supportive presence who can assist in the massaging of the psyche’s defenses. Indeed, holding space means being physically, mentally, and emotionally present for somebody.
When there is presence and holding, there is immense healing that can happen.
The word container means to “hold” or “to enclose”, implying that there is a certain kind of holding that happens in these spaces. A container can be a medicine journey space, a coaching session, a relationship between friends, in a marriage, and within your own body. They are formed through our words (“be impeccable with your word”), and structured and informed by our nervous system, how we hold ourselves, and how we move through the world.
Containers are also also formed and impacted by our feelings and our mental chatter, as well as by the relational dynamics of those who are also in the same container as us, our past history, and our preparation process over the previous days, weeks or months.
We consciously create safe containers for our nervous system to experience something different. Many of us who seek healing, and those who seek healing with the support of psychedelics and sacred plant medicine, are often looking to clear trauma from the roots up.
Trauma is not just an event that took place in the past, but it is an imprint left by that experience on the mind, body, and brain, which then impacts how we live and survive in the daily life. It is through these safe containers, with the empathic supporters, guides, or listeners, the body can start to learn that the danger or the trauma has now passed, so that one is able to live in the present.
When there is trauma, and as it is with eating disorders (which can be seen as as responses to trauma), the psyche is stuck in the past, rigid, with no place to go. And when we choose to open up to healing, there's an increased flexibility, where we can move from the past into the present. There's a literal energetic movement that occurs. With this new mobility, we can start to envision a future with a mind that is more flexible, stretching itself towards greater possibility and capacity. There's a feeling a renewed purpose, and compassion: when we see how the past has impacted our lives from the lens of compassion, there is a wider perspective that can be taken. There's more flexibility in what and how we see things, and how even the challenging times served a very important role in our growth.
A container is demarcated moment in time where we consciously create a space that allows us to dream, and that allows us to envision that future that is free, whole, and aligned with our core self. It is also a moment in time and space to try something different, to rewrite old pathways into ways that are clearer and clarified.
In a container, we have an opportunity to model to ourselves, and to others who are in the space with us, who we wish to be - not an attempt to be perfect, or in an attempt to prove anything to anyone, but simply to practice the version of ourselves without the layers, the veils, and the masks. As such, we can all lead by example in these containers, collectively creating a reality that is free from those layers of hiding.
The more there are containers and spaces that are safe and supported, the more we can practice this version of ourselves that is whole, free and enough. With practice, we can start to radiate this more aligned embodiment in the outside world beyond the parameters of a container.
A true container will always point you back to yourself to look within. I’m sure you know what I mean by this, particular when in a plant medicine journey container!
True container will allow whatever is here, whatever each individual is experiencing and feeling to be welcomed and process through.
A true container has basic guidelines that keeps everyone safe. Once that scaffolding has been set up and agreed to, then there are an infinite amount of possibilities that can occur within the container.
When containers are held in safety, neutrality, and trust, the organic process can lead to very deep healing and insight.
A container is also a co-creation. It's an active process whereby everyone has the chance to show up fully. Each individual who is present to the maintaining of container, and are able to contribute their wisdom and their medicine into the space.
In a container, there are three things that we can do to support someone. The first is to listen. The second is to listen. And the third is to listen some more.
Included in establishing and holding a safe container includes confidentiality, lots of kindness, acceptance, non-judgement, and patience. Each person takes responsibility of their own self-care, as well as taking responsibility of any triggers that arise.
Triggers often point back to a past trauma or unresolved conflict within our own selves. Containers can thus play out some very interesting social dynamics, symbolizing the microcosms of our lives and bigger archetypal relational dynamics within the collective. So notice the projections, resistance, entitlement, jealousy, irritation, envy, the exasperation, and intimidation. Notice in what moments you give, or take away your power; notice the power plays. Notice when you start playing the role of the mother for another, or the role of the father, the child, or the sibling. Pay attention to when you play the victim, rescuer, or perpetrator.
Indeed, in sacred plant medicine containers, there is heightened sensitivity and so any unintegrated aspects of ourselves come to the light to be seen. This is because the medicine shows us all of the aspects and parts of ourselves that we have forgotten about, ignored, or suppressed. There are many opportunities in these consciously created spaces to take the wider perspective, to practice compassion to ourselves, and put ourselves in the observe role.
Establishing a container creates structure that allows for subconscious depths to safely reveal themselves.
Those who are supporting the space are required to hold the energetic frequency of integrity, neutrality, and empathy.
Space holders should be doing the work themselves by looking at their shadows and fears. If they are not looking at their own shadows and fears, how can they support others to do the same? Medicine work makes us realize our shortcomings and requires us to face them with honesty and courage.
Additionally, the more time space holders can get to know everyone in the container, the more trust and rapport can develop. Space holders should have a good idea of each individual’s history through proper screenings, whilst holding a trauma-informed, ideally with an understanding of somatic therapy. Space holders should have a set of guiding principles of a code of ethics to support them and clients.
It's important to remember that when we step into a psychedelic journey container, we are also stepping in with our own container: our own body, our vessel, that also contains our nervous system.
As such, it is important to develop and strengthen a daily practice. A daily practice helps us cultivate generosity, loving kindness, and experiential and embodied wisdom. When we keep tuning our bodies daily, we keep tuning and maintaining the container within. It’s the daily sweep on the inner landscape. Chop wood, carry water, sweep the leaves.
It's also good to get used to cleaning up physical spaces regularly. Most likely when you see people create physical spaces for healing or journeys, there is a lot of focus on clearing the space. The space is well laid out and is smudged. There are some clearing prayers and invocations that people speak out loud. Meditation to clear the old thoughts is practiced. Individuals often have showered. There is calming music, relaxing aromas, and soft blankets to make the container feel welcoming. Cleansing the space supports the idea that we clear from dense to subtle we release the old and make space for the new across all the various layers.
Clear, release, and let go within the physical space. Clear, release, and let go within our own body-container.
The more that we tune and refine and take time to observe ourselves in all moments of the day, the better we get to know, trust, and feel safe within our own container - and then the healing and transformation is ongoing and happening in real time in our daily life.
When held well, anything within a consciously co-created therapeutic container is possible. For people with eating disorders or disordered eating, there is a chance to express love, to connect with our bodies, with our power and intuition, and face our fears. There's the opportunity to go to the root of our suffering, to understand it and transmute it into love into light. For some, this may be the first time processing the eating disorder or the past trauma in that way.
Whatever arises, we can practice being fully honest with ourselves; and when we are fully honest with ourselves, we allow others in the container to be honest with themselves too. And the more honest we can be, the more vulnerability there is, and the more healing can occur.
When a container is held in authenticity, with love and non-judgement, we can meet those challenging moments with curiosity and trust, and leaning in with flexibility, rather than rigidly resisting and contracting.
When our own container and the containers we step into are held securely, safely and kindly, really important work can be done. With a structure and foundation, we can access freedom and flow within our innate healing intelligence.
May we keep sweeping and showing up.
Photo on Unsplash
You Are The Ceremony
You carry a sacred temple around with you at each moment; this sacred temple is your own human body.
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You exist right in the heart of this sacred body temple, and within it, you create the ceremony of your life.
Through your own body, your life can become a practice of cultivating presence. By practising presence, you begin to see it all. Each moment of presence becomes sacred, filled with gifts, gems, treasures, messages and signs. You make the ceremony through the embodiment of practicing presence.
Every step you walk, every word spoken, and every gesture weaves and forms the ceremony that is your life. Everyday is a ceremony because you are the ceremony. This is eating disorder recovery.
It’s time to think big, broad, and deep. Can you imagine a world where everyone ate intuitively and accepted their bodies: where there was no such thing as an eating disorder?
It is possible to embody a high vibrational frequency where the eating disorder has to eventually let go of us. It is possible to embody an energetic signature that is beyond the energy that the eating disorder exists in which is tightly held in density, hiding, veils, and masks.
It is possible to embody a frequency that is expressed through freedom, wholeness, trust, safe intimacy, and radiance. This is a future that is possible when we see it in our minds, feel it in our bodies, and allow our hearts to lead.
You create the ceremony in your imagination, through your authentic embodiment, and with your aligned actions. You are the ceremony.
You are the ceremony
Photo by Nicole Geri on Unsplash
Making Space: Eating Disorder Recovery
What does it mean to be in eating disorder recovery?
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What I am feeling in this moment for my own eating disorder recovery is a discovery of w i d e n i n g.
This has been one of the lessons I have learnt through my journey of eating disorder recovery, with the support of somatic practices, microdosing, and plant medicine.
Recovery is a widening that happens within. It is a widening within oneself whereby one is able to be with the full range of feelings - from pleasure to pain - rather than existing in a small bandwidth of existence that the eating disorder prescribes.
There is a sense of wide, open perspective whereby one can see with clarity. There is an ability to be with whatever is arising - even if it’s challenging - with a sense of broad equanimity. There is a widening of one’s capacity to be with challenges with a sense of grace and resilience.
Whilst there is a sense of increased capacity to be with discomfort and to hold feelings of pain, one is also building capacity to be with goodness. Recovery is to increase one’s capacity for closeness.
What I see with those who are navigating eating disorders often feel two things at the same time: “ I don't want to be close to anything” and “I desperately want to be close to everything.”
Individuals who are navigating eating disorders want to disconnect from so many things, and at the same time, want to deeply connect. Often the fear of connection is so strong that it overrides the desire to reach out. In this place of push and pull, there is a narrowing of what is available to feel, experience, and hold. It can feel like there is a lot of energy that gets trapped in this narrow place within.
This is why when one is deep in disordered eating, it can feel so overwhelming because there is a lot of energy internally, and not enough space for this energy to move.
And so in eating disorder recovery, one works at increasing this capacity and the space within so that the energy has more room to move, to release, and for new energy to flow in. There is fluidity and resiliency in being able to move with the tides and waves of energy.
Recovery is being able to be with expanded states of energy - and contracted energy - and the skill in which to move between them consciously.
Recovery is being able to allow the feelings of pain to be here. In the recovery process (aka the upgrade of awareness), things are bound to bubble up, challenges arise, and shadows emerge. Recovery is not about feeling good all of the time or no longer feeling pain. It’s about how one is able too hold the pain.
As part of this human existence, the contract each human signed is that suffering and challenge will be here but it is how we respond to it. So recovery is having the strength and softness to be with whatever arising. Those who embark on recovery are able to manage and hold this ever-changing energy that's happening inside and around with perspective, grace, centeredness, and trust.
Eating disorder recovery is about creating space within.
Moving from a narrow to a wider existence also means greater intimacy and closeness. Plant medicine and psychedelics has reminded me how interconnected and close we all are.
Somatic therapy has taught me to remain close to my own self despite what has happened, how I feel, or whatever shadow is present.
In the depths of an eating disorder, there is small window in how one can relate to others, engage with the world, and with oneself. It can feel very hard to come close to people. Intimacy requires being close and vulnerable/open/wide enough to be seen by another. When one allows an opening and a widening within, deep, close connections with others are made.
Eating Disorder Recovery is about widening, expanding, and being seen.
An eating disorders keep folk in perception of being invisible. It can feel safe to invisible, but deep down, there is often a feeling of wanting to be seen; and wanting to connect on a very deep level. It can feel scary to begin that movement from narrowing to widening, from invisibility to visibility, in all shapes, colours and parts.
Psychedelics help individuals move from into the heartspace more easily, making is more accessible to connect all the different facades of who we are without judgement, with more acceptance and kindness.
In this process of becoming more intimate with life, one is able to touch the goodness, the sweetness, and the tenderness of life. And what can come up is the belief around receiving this goodness. What happens in your body when you receive goodness? And often for people with eating disorders, there's a sense of “I don't deserve this goodness/pleasure/sweetness.”
Thus, recovery is not only widening the capacity to feel and to receive, but there's also a shift of beliefs. There is movement from “I don’t deserve this warmth” to “I do deserve this warmth and goodness, and am allowed to receive it and have it in my life”. Being able to embody and integrate this warmth is part of the process of deepening of feeling and being.
Recovery is about coming out of tight, small, narrow patterns of stress survival response that use food and the body to cope and adapt. It is being able to detect when there is a tightening, an evaluation of whether there is threat, and opportunity to respond to the environment with greater openness and understanding.
Recovery offers one the chance to find and create more safety in life by creating real, genuine safety within and with others. The eating disorder likes to keep us separate, away from others, and isolated. Often there is a belief (that developed early on for good reasons (which is a story for another day)) that “it is dangerous to come into contact with others.”
Recovery asks each individual to move into connection, to build relationships that are intimate, genuine, sincere, and safe so that new imprints can be laid within the nervous system, leading to new blueprints and new realities.
There are new beliefs that form in recovery such as, “I do belong”, “I am safe”, “I deserve this connection” and “I deserve this goodness.” In this state, the survival responses that use food and body do not have to work so hard.
In essence, the eating disorder do not have to be there anymore because the inner foundation has shifted from an brace to an embrace.
This is the natural maturation out of the disordered eating behaviors. Once there is this felt sense of safety, a felt sense of connection, and a growing belief of belonging and deserving, the eating disorder cannot survive.
In recovery, we no longer feed the eating disorder and starve the true self.
Walking this transformational path leads to a widening, deepening, and expansion.
There is expansion of the heart as well as expansion of the mind to perceive differently. It is clearing of the perceptual apparatus and seeing the whole forest rather than just the one tree. And in this clearing and widening there is a new reality that is before us.
What is recovery to you? How has recovery changed you or impacted your life and the people around you? Recovery is also so much more than just healing for ourselves: It impacts people we know and in ways that we may never see.
Thank you for showing up to this work.
Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash
What is The Energetic Signature of an Eating Disorder?
Eating disorders are a response to some form of a dysregulating foundational experience where there was inadequate support (this is what we call trauma).
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When trauma happens there is a shift of energy that occurs inside of us - we move from our essential selves to a fragmented version of who we are. The eating disorder then becomes the external manifestation of that internal shift that emanated from that dysregulating root experience.
The result of recovery is a deeper embodiment of our attachment systems, our defense systems and our sensory processing systems.
This means that in recovery, we learn how to connect and bond with others safely, by grounding into and reembodying our own divine, essential energetic signature that is underneath all of the layers of the eating disorder. In recovery, we learn how to manage overwhelm, and stress, and create boundaries.
We come to understand what it takes to protect our energy, stand up for ourselves, and defend what is important to us. In recovery, we learn how to connect with our five senses, and to listen to how the body communicates.
The eating disorder behaviors reflect how the body speaks about how a person makes sense of life. As such, the eating disorder behaviors indicate to us that something has gone astray. Usually, someone with an eating disorder has had a moment (or many moments) of feeling unsafe, of not being recognized, feeling unsupported, not being seen, or feeling undervalued.
These potent experiences result in a tightening or contraction of energy. And the individual then goes through a process (often very unconsciously) of rejecting their essential energetic signature. For many of us, it hasn't felt safe to move out of that contraction - it hasn't felt safe for us to step into our true selves.
This is because our true selves weren't recognized. Our energetic signature's were unsupported. They weren't seen.
That contraction, and that energetic state, and all of the behaviors that come along with it, get absorbed into our system and imprinted into our brain and becomes the foundation from which everything else grows. The eating disorders are therefore showing us what it takes to stay alive, and on the flip side, showing us what the soul needs to thrive and to fully exist in the world.
When we hear the word contraction, or tightening, that may bring up a specific image, a feeling, or memory. On the other hand, when we think of expansion and flow, that causes a completely different feeling, memory, or thought to arise.
And this is the foundation of nervous system regulation.
Nervous system regulation is the mastery of energy.
Nervous system regulation is foundational for eating disorder recovery. And eating disorders are a form of trying to manage energy.
Eating disorders block feelings of overwhelm (which is energy). They block feelings of pain or discomfort (also energy) through all the many eating disorder related-strategies.
For example, an individual experiences a feeling of blocked energy that causes discomfort. In response, they start to calorie count, or go into meal planning, or over-exercise, or there's a binge or a purge - all of these things distract the person from that blocked energy.
These tactics are helpful in distracting us, but we are still avoiding the pain and the discomfort that is underneath. Ultimately that energy is asking to be released or transmuted. It doesn't want to remain blocked because blocked energy leads to many kinds of physical and mental challenges, like eating disorders.
As such, recovery includes awareness, courage, strength, and commitment to notice when some kind of discomfort arises. Rather than running to the eating disorder behaviors, we can learn how to be with it.
how would you represent or describe the energetic frequency of an eating disorder?
It is important to note here that we don't have to do this alone. The support of being with others is crucial, because we can connect with other people's energy fields, and through mirroring, copying, or borrowing their nervous system/energy state, we learn how to regulate and balance our own energy in empowered ways.
Recovery is about recognizing that there will always be ups and downs, whilst at the same time developing capacity to be with what is arising and utilizing sustainable, life-supporting tools to move through these waves. It is about learning how to come back to a place of grounded, centered connection throughout the day rather than spiking into anxious energetic states and then crashing into shutdown or collapsed energies.
Perhaps we never had a role model in our youth who demonstrated the ability to self-calm, or self-soothe. Maybe we didn't have a role model who demonstrated how to reach out for help in a healthy way, who couldn't affirm their boundaries, or didn't model how to connect and bond with ease.
Perhaps we had role models who also used food to soothe, numb or relieve, which we then picked up on - and maybe not. Perhaps we were just picking up on their dysregulated energetic states and that resulted in us finding food on our by ourselves as our own strategy to cope.
It seems then that root causes of eating disorders often can stem from the attachment system: how we were cared for, seen, and looked after, how co-regulation was shared or not, and how we were raised in the home, at school, or in any prominent space we frequented in those developmental years.
How our attachment figure was energetically organized affected us in some way. If they were energetically overbounded (rigid, tightly curled up, protection mode), or unbounded (lose, energy spilling, unaware of boundaries), we may try protect ourselves against the over or unbounded energy by doing the complete opposite or copying that energetic signature.
For example, if the caregiver was very overbounded state, we may do the opposite by becoming rebellious, breaking the rules. and being impulsive. On the other hand, we may mirror that same rigidity in ourselves.
How our bodies and how our caregivers bodies are organized somatically can impact our feelings, thoughts, actions, relationships, beliefs and worldviews, and can lead to any kind of eating disorder behavior.
For example, someone may come to believe that there's no place for them in the world because their caregiver didn't attune to them properly or connect with them in a way that they needed.
This means that their essential energetic signature was not received because they were not seen or attuned to.
This may lead the individual to make themselves small, by crossing their arms, holding their head down, sitting in the back of the room, not speaking up in class, or being unable to make decisions because at their core they don't have a sense of self.
Thus, eating disorder can manifest in many ways. It can manifest in restriction by trying to become physically small. Maybe it ends up in bingeing because they can't identify fullness or hunger cues (as there isn't a sense of self). It could manifest in being unsure about what to eat and feeling of overwhelm at the thought of making a decision. The eating disorder may manifest as over-exercise, such as using heavy weights or running, in an attempt to feel the body and that sense of existing. Or it may end up as purging because when the food comes into the body, the person feels more alive, that they exist, that their body takes up space, and thus have to get it out through a purge.
When we look at root causes, it is less about what the eating disordered behavior or symptom is, and more about how we've come to understand life through our connection with others - which the eating disorder symbolizes.
As we come into deeper embodiment and eating disorder recovery, what we will see and experience is more of a relaxed and alert energy, being able to be present, being able to access tools to stabilize, and there's a sense of more connectedness, awareness, and feeling resourced.
In recovery, there's an ability to reach out for support, and the belief that we are deserving of support. There a sense of being empowered to make choices and feel that there are options. There is the capacity to metabolize feelings, a sense of resilience, and the belief that we can be with what is here.
Recovery is a particular energetic state compared to the eating disorder. I am sure I don't have to go into the details here - I'm sure many of you have felt it and have been in the energetic frequency of an active eating disorder. It is tight and contracted, miles apart from expansion and flow.
Recovery is about creating little pockets of time, with the support of others, to feel the energetic quality of recovery for a moment, to test it out, to feel its potency, and to trust this state, one breath and one step at a time. This is the road of recovery.
Photo on Unsplash
Moving From Rigidity to Flexibility: ED Recovery and Plant Medicine
How does the word “rigid” make you feel? And what happens in your body when you hear the word “flexible”?
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Two words, two different frequencies. How have these words showed up in your life?
When we think about the word flexible, it relates to being able to bend, something that is movable, having a sense of suppleness or workability. Rigidity on the other hand implies something that is fixed, something that cannot be changed. It is inflexible and unyielding.
This concept of moving from rigidity to flexibility sums up the process of eating disorder recovery and encapsulates how psychedelics and sacred plant medicine can support that transition.
Eating disorders are controlled, rigid patterns that have been picked up unconsciously during times of challenge, stress or trauma. And over the years, these behaviour patterns get refined by our unconsciousness, determining how we move through, act, and engage with ourselves and the world. Challenge, stress or trauma causes a fragmentation in the psyche, or a truncation from the whole self. Indeed, so many of us are moving through the world wounded.
trauma is like scar tissue
Many of us have experienced some kind of physical injury, for example a gash in the skin. When there is an open wound, the body heals with scar tissue by covering it up. Scar tissue is like this biological glue that the body uses to repair itself. It's not the same as skin tissue - it's a little bit less elastic, which leads to tightness and often limited movement and may even cause pain for some people. Scar tissue doesn't align itself in the same organized or symmetrical pattern as normal tissue. It also has a different composition to normal tissue with some people saying that it's weaker than normal tissue, and easier to reinjure. Scar tissue is also more pain sensitive. Scar tissue is different than normal tissue metabolically, meaning that it’s much more poorly oxygenated, nor does it receive nutrition, hydration, or fluid lubrication as well as normal tissue.
the eating disorder is the scar tissue
However, without scar tissue we could never heal and return back into the world. It is with scar tissue that the body is able to attach nerves back to nearby structures and regain function.
I personally have had my own relationship with scar tissue after having surgery when I fractured my tibia in February 2021 in a motorcycle accident. Over the course of a year, I have been finding ways to mobilize this rigid area back into a movable flexible state.
I really like how this analogy of scar tissue relates to trauma and eating disorders. We can see how trauma events cause a rupture or break in the psyche that can also lead to further physical manifestations like illness or chronic pain. To make sense of the trauma, the psyche did everything it could to cover up the wound. And usually the tools that we had to heal from the trauma time were limited. Often, there wasn't adequate support that was needed in that moment of rupture.
The psyche attempts to cover up the wound as urgently as possible. Protection is #1 priority. Metaphorical scar tissue goes in all directions as quickly possible to cover up the pain for the sake of survival. In the same way that scar tissue works in the body, the eating disorder behaviours cover up the wound (the trauma) and help us move through life even if it’s a disorderly or miscalculated. The eating disorder behaviors get the job done, so to speak. We find a way to get through life with the help of the eating disorder. Who knows where we would have been post-trauma if it weren’t for the food and body strategies that were discovered.
Over time, with the eating disorder behaviors acting as scar tissue, we become rigid and hard to the world; our armour is up for protection. And our flexibility is lost, including our softness, spontaneity and capacity to surrender.
The process of eating disorder recovery is about massaging that scar tissue, so that becomes softer and more malleable. And it's about tending to that old wound, and holding it and placing a hand on it, and acknowledging what it has gone through.
psychedelics help us tend to the hard wound and soften
Psychedelics can help us get to that softer, flexible state as part of the recovery process. People who undergo psychedelic experiences report having their minds opened (not to mention heart and body). Sacred plant medicine like Iboga, psilocybin mushrooms, or Ayahuasca can support us moving from a narrow, rigid focus, to a more open focus.
Often people state that after altering their consciousness with psychedelics, they are more open to believing in the magical form of fate, and in consciousness that connects the universe, weaving us all together across time and space. Individuals move away from a cold, impersonal, scientific narrative of the world and towards one that is filled with greater purpose, meaning and mystery.
Plant medicine can ultimately offer and provide us with a deeper understanding of our place in the world, leading us to feel more at peace with our place in this interconnected web - which is so integral in in the healing and recovery process. Indeed, so the eating disorder can represent a kind of spiritual disconnection.
Reconnecting with a greater purpose, engaging with life in a reciprocal way, and expressing gratitude are fundamental in eating disorder recovery and stepping out of diet culture.
By connecting with these unifying spiritual principles - that include accepting impermanence - can ease our suffering. The healing process can drive us to reflect upon life’s purpose and the meaning on a personal scale as well as on a universal scale simultaneously.
psychedelics on the brain: moving from rigidity to flexibility
Dr. Robin Carhartt Harris has proposed the REBUS model (Relaxed Beliefs Under pSychedelics) which explains the way in which the brain constructs our world and our sense of identity by building stories, predictions and models. These stories are adaptive because we are taking our past experience and applying it to the present (or future) moment to solve an issue or challenge.
When we have gone through trauma, this past experience starts to inform every waking moment of the present and influences our perception of the future. We get stuck in a self-perpetuating loop, where we are trying to solve problems at the same level that they were created.
Psychedelics are able to affect the process of the brain that creates these stories and making things a lot more malleable and flexible. We're able to make new connections and see things from different lenses, so that we become flexible in how we explore ourselves and our place in the world.
Indeed, trauma is not an experience that we must endure; it can a springboard for conscious choice that has the potential of catapulting us into new perceptions about ourselves, others and the world.
Many of us know how tricky and sticky eating disorders can be; it can feel like sometimes it's completely dominating our lives and sometimes it feels like it’s kept in check. But it never feels like it really gone away.
Psychedelics can support eating disorder recovery because they improve this cognitive flexibility; they open up and soften that stickiness when journeying.
There is a break in the pattern of the ruminating thoughts around the rigid rules of what to eat, not to eat, how to exercise, how to get lose weight, and all the things that go with disordered eating.
surrendering is the journey of being flexible
During the journey itself there's a huge amount of inner courage and self-compassion that is required, because the medicine may make take us to quite difficult places. And so, in those moments in the journey itself, there is a movement from rigidity to flexibility. Otherwise, as the saying goes “what resists, persists.”
When challenging things come up, we are asked to be flexible, and adapt to what is present instead of holding on and trying to control the situation.
With the support of plant medicine, we see where and how we have become rigid (the patterns are exposed in a new light), and the work to open up to life after a journey is where the practice of flexibility comes.
When we look at depression or PTSD, psychedelics can offer immediate relief. But for eating disorders it does not always go like that. We can sometimes feel worse after a journey. This because the disorder itself is threatened.
We often see a lot of ambivalence in eating disorder recovery; some people don’t want to get better. This is because giving up the disorder means the protection of the scar tissue is gone. It can feel terrifying to give up that one source of control.
Psychedelics show us that opening up that scar issue and looking at the wound is where the healing takes place. And the eating disorder doesn't like that.
However, if we choose to look at the wound (and it can be done in a very slow, titrated way) and start the layered process of healing, we don't really know what will happen, where recovery will lead us, and how our own healing process will affect the collective.
So again, we can't even get too rigid or focused on how the healing process is meant to go. Often the path of recovery will never look how we imagined it, and is perfectly imperfect. And so we are reminded that throughout this journey of recovery we are to remain flexible.
accessing our innate healing intelligence
Psychedelics and plant medicine can help us with accessing our inner healing intelligence by helping us clear the path. The inner healing intelligence is the soma’s complex and elegant organization that drives us toward wellness, that when the obstacles to healing are removed and favorable conditions are created, our entire soma is influenced and is drawn into wholeness and freedom.
When we change from the inside out, it is not just the physical structure that moves with more ease and grace but also the thoughts, stories, beliefs and emotions that live in, through, and with the body.
Recovery is a freeing up.
Recovery is embodying congruence.
Recovery is being able to adapt to situations; having a flexible nervous system that can respond to the environment, where we have choice, agency and tools to move with whatever is arising before us.
Recovery leads to greater resilience.
Recovery is connecting the body and the brain for fluid, dynamic communication.
Recovery is being able to move with the constant change.
Recovery is recognising the endless possibilities and opportunities in life and being able to go for them.
Recovery is a dance.
Recovery is opening up the pathways for our innate capacity for healing to take place.
Recovery is moving from rigidity to flexibility which is an alchemical process.
Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash
I'm Hosting Eating Disorder Support Groups
I am excited to announce that I will once again be hosting online eating disorder support groups.
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For me, going groups after coming out of an eating disorder inpatient clinic was life-changing. I could be with people who were at all different stages of their healing journey. I remembered I was not alone and found refuge in other people's shares. I could relate and resonate.
“Heal yourself with beautiful love, and always remember, you are the medicine.”
— María Sabina
There were so many gifts that I could take away from each session; each person had such beautifully raw and real wisdom that helped me see myself in a new light.
When held safely and with compassion, group work reminds us that we heal in community. As much as an eating disorder separates us from ourselves, our hearts, and the world, the coming home process of healing is done when there is support, witnessing and holding alongside other people.
This group is open to anyone at any stage of their healing path. Whether you struggle with restrictive eating, binge eating, bulimia, over-exercise, orthorexia, body image issues, disordered eating, or you feel like something just needs to shift around food, you are welcome to join. If you are supporting a loved one through this, you are also most welcomed.
If you are looking for a space to connect with others who are on the quest for finding deeper embodiment, alignment, trust and peace with food and body, this space is for you.
For all the group details, head here, and to book your spot, just pop me an email.
May you be supported in your unfolding journey towards your true self, held with patience and compassion. May you be witnessed and celebrated in your growth!
With gratitude
Francesca Rose
Photo by youssef naddam on Unsplash