On today's episode, I’m joined by my amazing friend and client, Laura! Laura is a marriage and family mental health clinician and one of the most badass, epic human beings I’ve ever met. Laura came to me about six months ago wanting to improve her relationship with food, feel more confident in her body and just feel better about herself. She was caught in a spiral of binging and wanted to find a way out.

We started to work together and she got to a really good place mentally and physically but then something interesting happened. She started to spiral but while she was feeling she was going “downhill” physically, she felt like she was spiraling up mentally. The shift looked different than how she thought it would. It meant she really stepped back from the fear of healing, my relationship with food and embraced it. While this has led her to put some of the weight back on, Laura felt different. She was a better mental and emotional headspace. She was aware of her triggers and the binging stopped. She gave herself the permission she needed. She started to ask herself “Do I feel happy with my body?” “Do I feel healthy?” “Am I healthy?”

Top Takeaways

If you are going to heal your relationship with food, you have to embrace what that means for you. Whether it means weight gain, whether that means eating things that you tell yourself you're not allowed to eat because they will make you fat or you will never stop eating them or you will overdo it. Allow yourself to tell yourself that you’re going to heal and by healing, we have a little less emotional baggage. It’s about allowing your body to be where it is and take the pressure off yourself. You don’t have to eat that donut when it’s offered because you can have it anytime. Look at it as a full integration of health- spiritual, mental, emotional and the physical

Be kind to yourself and be present. Especially during COVID, there’s been a weight on all of us. You might get to a place where you feel like you can’t hold yourself in that space anymore. The space where you have to be “on'' 100% of the time or you always have to be on track. Give yourself a little bit of grace, cut yourself some slack and be compassionate. Focus on what you’re great at. For Laura, when she worked out, it used to be about punishing herself but when she gave herself the space, it became about seeing what she could achieve. She was in awe of what her body is capable of. Give yourself permission to not be perfect.