You should “move on” from grief, closure happens at the 1-year mark, when rainbows and unicorns appear, and other myths about grief
Read moreDear Casserole people (How to Support a Loved One in Grief)
4 Ways to support a loved one in grief for the grief adjacent.
Read moreMyths about Using Your Tools in Recovery, and Grief
In eating disorder recovery, therapy, and grief, we often talk about “using your tools.” Using your (healthy) coping mechanisms is so helpful! Support groups, journaling, expressive arts therapy, utilizing a food plan, hydrating, sleep hygiene, meditation, medication, can all be such helpful tools in your eating disorder recovery and/or grief process! However, sometimes we think that using these tools means we will arrive somewhere, at a destination endpoint, with no more discomfort. That is a myth. Here are some myths about recovery and grief coping tools I’d like to clear up.
Read more6 Tools to Get Through the Holidays When You Are Grieving the Loss of a Loved One
If you are traveling the holiday season without your loved one who has died, it can feel overwhelming to do all the traditions you used to do together. It can feel like one, big, looooong grief trigger. Here’s a thought:
Read more3 Healing Benefits of Using Art with Grief
The art of grief is that art can hold and express emotions and experiences where words fall short. Art can help “get the bad feelings out so that the good feelings can come in.” Art can also provide symbols as medicine…
Read moreEating Disorder Recovery and Grief: when are you done?
Grief, like eating disorder recovery, is individual. Although sometimes it can follow a trajectory like this recovery slogan:
It gets better
Then it gets worse
Then it gets different
Then it gets real different.
There are all kinds of metaphors about how grief is something you learn to carry more gracefully over time. The grief doesn’t get smaller. We grow bigger, around the grief, and learn to live with it differently. Here is a beautiful visual of Dr Lois Tonkin’s model of grief, which shows how the griever grows around the grief…
3 truths I've learned along the Road to Recovery...
Three tidbits I’ve discovered along the road to recovery:
1) You are not responsible for your eating disorder. You are responsible for your recovery.
2) The size of your body is not your business.
3) The mean girl voice in your head will continue to share. You do not have to believe it.
Read moreBlack Lives Matter and BIPOC Resources for White people, Moms, and Eating Disorder Recovery
BIPOC resources for white women, moms, and eating disorder recovery
Read moreTaking Off the Mask of Perfection: Being a New Mom in ED Recovery During COVID-19
New moms and women recovering from eating disorders face particular challenges during the pandemic. Here is one new mom’s experience along with questions exploring how to cope with sadness, isolation, and support while taking care of a new baby.
Read moreWhy Your Head Might Be Full of Bullshit (and What to Do About it)
The bullshit in your head, aka cognitive distortions, can be affected by sleep, hormones, and diet culture. Here’s what you can do to identify the cognitive distortions and get back into your eating disorder recovery.
Read moreExercise and Eating Disorders: Thoughts on No Longer Trying to “Run Away from” Yourself in Recovery
How can exercise be bad when it feels good? When does exercise become an addiction? Isn’t exercise an antidepressant? When do you need to take a break from exercise? How can you move your body with joy in your eating disorder recovery?
Read moreVision Collages: Guidance on Creating Your Vision for Your Recovery, Your Life, and You
What is a vision board? How can it help your recovery? How can you make one?
Read moreThe Diet Trap and 4 Ways to Survive the Holidays
Christmas cookies, Christmas cakes, Christmas turkey, egg nog, …I’ve been thinking about how the stress of compulsive eating, emotional eating, dieting, and disordered eating affect so many people this time of year...
It can be so tempting, to use food as a comfort for unmet feelings or to to diet/restrict food as a way to avoid or control uncomfortable feelings. However, it has been proven, again and again, that diets don’t work.
Here’s why and here’s what you can do instead.
Read more6 Way to Take Care of Yourself Right Now
Following the news and social media can be difficult right now if you are an abuse or assault survivor, are recovering, or are an empath. Here are a few self-care tools to practice keeping your feet on the ground, 1 step at a time, and potentially assist in calming your nervous system.
Read moreStarting School
It's the start of the school year! End of summer vacations, unstructured time, sleeping in (if you're lucky enough to be one of the few who has a child that does this)! Many parents breathe a sigh of relief (Hooray: No more trying to create a daily structure!) along with a feeling of dread (Oh Dear! Coordinating and calendaring school schedules for the next nine months!) Here are some thoughts about how to potentially ease the transition…
Read moreA Recovery Story
The story of the velveteen rabbit has lots of eating disorder recovery wisdom. What are the essential parts of yourself? What are the eating disorder parts? What parts of you are shiny and polished, what parts are dismissive, what parts are diseased? What is the part of you that wants to connect and wants to become real? How does one become real (recovered)?
Read moreAll Mothers Work, Inside and Outside the Home: What is the Right Answer?
All mothers work, whether it be inside the home, outside the home, or inside and outside the home. What is the right answer? When is the right time to go back to work? Here are some things to consider whether you are going back to work, staying home, or combining the two…
Read moreWorld Eating Disorders Action Day: Breaking Stigma and Bringing Inclusion for Recovery
Eating Disorders do not just affect straight, white adolescent women…They are not a fad or a diet, they do not occur outside cultural context, and bringing awareness of intersectionality can help with prevention and treatment.
Read moreAwake at 3AM: Yoga For New Moms
I wrote about letting go of the idea that yoga is only for people who are skinny, flexible, or already calm. I wrote about letting go of the idea that yoga means you must have a certain kind of birth, feed your baby only organic food, or avoid any medications you might need in order to do yoga…
I wanted moms to know that yoga doesn't have to be another thing to do fix or improve themselves, but that it can instead be a balm, a source of comfort, or what I call in the book my "well of sanity."
The Goldfish Debacle: A Guest Blog About Mindful Eating For Moms
Corinne Crossley, LMHC, a psychotherapist and mom, shares her experience on mindful eating before children- and her somewhat humbling experience with goldfish crackers- after becoming a mom.
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