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Episode 2 - A digging deep chat with Ellen who shares honestly her eating disorder hell, but also her recovered life in the backdrop of dance.
This conversation is all about being brave, being vulnerable, being real and being rooted in a mission of helping others in their walk out of the darkness and into eating disorder recovery. We talk about Ellen's journey through what she describes as an illness that provoked her to feel the worst pain she has ever felt and what some of the triggers and catalysts were that fed into her illness as she progressed through her dance training. Perfectionism, punishment, pressure and ultimately control governed and dictated her every waking moment, as it categorically does when discussing the mechanisms of most eating disorders. We call out some of the damaging patterns in dance and a dancer's life and reject them as failed constructions and narratives that serve nothing and no one. Why not time for a change? We call out some myths surrounding dance and a dancer's embodiment, and suggest more conscious and empowered ways of being in dance. We visit shame and the powerfully ugly place it occupies in this discourse and why it is so important to reach out for help to break those shame chains. In telling our story we release the secrecy and the absence of self compassion that shame thrives (and can only survive) in.
We talk body, we talk food, we talk getting real on what dance physically and mentally demands from us. We talk about connection and disconnection from dance as joy. (This is the Dancer's Circle after all).
We express our gratitude for gratitude!... and speak our truth on our spirituality and how in adversity, pain and suffering, our faith and awareness that we are created from love, is what has enabled us to nourish our self worth and gifted us with resilience, trust and the ability to help and heal others from a place of active choice and calling.
We shout worth because we ARE, in our inherent essence, not from some external validation or unattainable, fear driven, perfection point.
When in Chorus Line they ask, "who am I anyway, am I my resume...?"
I shout NO. NO YOU ARE NOT!
Although we feature an odd jet flying overhead, the occasional off road trailing of thought, a slight swear word, talk of a treadmill in a uni lecture and the taking off of a neck brace off way too soon, this conversation has Ellen standing in the Dancer's Circle in exactly the same way she does all the things. With kindness, with agency, with authenticity, with truth, with soul and with a sincere generosity that I have found in very few.
My heart fills when I can write that we round our chat up with a brief exploration of her recovered life, and what that looks like now for her.
She wouldn't change a thing about her journey and is now dedicating her soul expansion to connecting and helping others know that there is another way. Suffering is not life, dance is not a place to sacrifice yourself, and we all deserve to feel the worth of who we are.
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By Natalie ThaisThis conversation is all about being brave, being vulnerable, being real and being rooted in a mission of helping others in their walk out of the darkness and into eating disorder recovery. We talk about Ellen's journey through what she describes as an illness that provoked her to feel the worst pain she has ever felt and what some of the triggers and catalysts were that fed into her illness as she progressed through her dance training. Perfectionism, punishment, pressure and ultimately control governed and dictated her every waking moment, as it categorically does when discussing the mechanisms of most eating disorders. We call out some of the damaging patterns in dance and a dancer's life and reject them as failed constructions and narratives that serve nothing and no one. Why not time for a change? We call out some myths surrounding dance and a dancer's embodiment, and suggest more conscious and empowered ways of being in dance. We visit shame and the powerfully ugly place it occupies in this discourse and why it is so important to reach out for help to break those shame chains. In telling our story we release the secrecy and the absence of self compassion that shame thrives (and can only survive) in.
We talk body, we talk food, we talk getting real on what dance physically and mentally demands from us. We talk about connection and disconnection from dance as joy. (This is the Dancer's Circle after all).
We express our gratitude for gratitude!... and speak our truth on our spirituality and how in adversity, pain and suffering, our faith and awareness that we are created from love, is what has enabled us to nourish our self worth and gifted us with resilience, trust and the ability to help and heal others from a place of active choice and calling.
We shout worth because we ARE, in our inherent essence, not from some external validation or unattainable, fear driven, perfection point.
When in Chorus Line they ask, "who am I anyway, am I my resume...?"
I shout NO. NO YOU ARE NOT!
Although we feature an odd jet flying overhead, the occasional off road trailing of thought, a slight swear word, talk of a treadmill in a uni lecture and the taking off of a neck brace off way too soon, this conversation has Ellen standing in the Dancer's Circle in exactly the same way she does all the things. With kindness, with agency, with authenticity, with truth, with soul and with a sincere generosity that I have found in very few.
My heart fills when I can write that we round our chat up with a brief exploration of her recovered life, and what that looks like now for her.
She wouldn't change a thing about her journey and is now dedicating her soul expansion to connecting and helping others know that there is another way. Suffering is not life, dance is not a place to sacrifice yourself, and we all deserve to feel the worth of who we are.