Peace Meal

Episode description: 

Melissa Louise Johnson is a Marriage and Family Therapist, adjunct professor at Bethel University, and the founder of the Impossible Beauty blog and podcast. Through her work at Impossible Beauty, Melissa is on a mission to expand and renew beauty, as she believes the American brand of beauty is divisive, destructive, and far too narrow.

Melissa explores the concept of beauty with us in this episode of Peace Meal. She describes how cultural beauty messages impacted her childhood, adolescence, and the development of her eating disorder, as well as how she recognized and reckoned with these messages in recovery.

Appearance standards were set early in Melissa’s life. Animated princesses, sitcom actresses—all of the media's kind and “good” characters—reinforced a singular image of beauty. External beauty was important, the media showed. And beautiful meant thin.

On top of these media images, another layer of cultural messaging emerged in Melissa’s adolescence and early adulthood. These messages, Melissa sees now, included disordered ideas about food and body. Her peers actively engaged in diets and swapped diet culture messages, all of which reinforced dieting as a means to meet the thin beauty ideal.

It was in eating disorder treatment that Melissa began to critically examine society’s messages about beauty, thinness, and dieting. In group therapy, she observed how these messages had impacted other people’s lives, her heart breaking at all the damage they inflicted.  

“We’ve been so lied to about what beauty is and our worth,” she came to realize.  

Increasingly aware of these cultural lies about physical appearance, Melissa sought to redefine the concept of beauty for herself and others. Toward that end, she created Impossible Beauty, a blog and podcast that aim to expand narrow societal standards.  

In her work at Impossible Beauty, Melissa differentiates between culture’s fleeting, fickle standards of beauty and true beauty, which is eternal and unchanging. The blog and podcast invite others to examine appearance expectations as well. 

“There is actually another path that we can take that actually values our humanity and the sacredness of us as eternal beings—who have so much value beyond how we align or don’t align to this very small picture of beauty,” Melissa says. 

Find Impossible Beauty at impossible-beauty.com and on Instagram. Connect with Melissa on Instagram at @melissa.louise.johnson. 

Learn more about The Emily Program online or by calling 1-888-364-5977. 

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About the podcast: 

Peace Meal is an Emily Program podcast that discusses topics related to eating disorders, body image issues, and how society may contribute to distorted thinking. 

You can find Peace Meal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts. If you enjoy our show, please rate, review, subscribe, or tell your friends! 

Are you interested in being a guest on Peace Meal? Email [email protected] for more information.

Episode description:

Jaeden Luke is a singer-songwriter who wrote the single “Beautiful” for his older sister Kianna, who experienced and fully recovered from an eating disorder. Kianna is a graduate of St. Martin’s University, a young adult group ministry leader, and the author of a forthcoming book about her healing journey, The Cross That Set Me Free.

Jaeden and Kianna join us in this Peace Meal episode to explore the sibling experience of eating disorders. The brother and sister pair recall how Kianna’s eating disorder impacted their relationship as well as how their relationship—and “Beautiful”—helped her heal.

The siblings have always been close, they share. But Kianna’s eating disorder wedged itself between her and her brother, as is characteristic of these isolating illnesses. Entrenched in the depths of her disorder, Kianna grew distant from the family and friends so meaningful to her. She turned down plans and hid from others, her eating disorder isolating her in misery and darkness. It was hard to accept help and love.

Jaeden describes the difficulty of witnessing the dimming of Kianna’s light and stealing of her spunk. Though he didn’t understand what was happening, he remembers that one feeling was clear: “I just felt like I was losing a lot of her.” Feeling confused and helpless, he turned to a means of expression most familiar to him, music.

Jaeden wrote “Beautiful” for Kianna in the early stages of her recovery. His goal in writing the song, he reflects, was to package a message of comfort that would travel with her anywhere. No matter what, the song would be a reminder that he would always be there.

In a Peace Meal first, Jaeden then plays the song live, sharing his encouraging anthem again with Kianna as well as anyone affected by these illnesses. “You are so beautiful,” he sings, strumming his guitar in rhythm.

Kianna takes us to the moment she heard the song for the first time. She recounts the complex mix of emotions she felt then: shock, love, and determination along with the numbness that often comes early in recovery. “It was incredible,” she says, “and it gives me goosebumps every time.”

The two then unpack the lyrics of “Beautiful.” For Jaeden, they captured Kianna’s journey as he saw it, and for Kianna, they inspired her to commit to recovery more fully and actively. More determined after hearing it, she hoped that one day she would believe its resounding chorus.

Reflecting on their own experience, Kianna and Jaeden offer advice for other siblings, including creative ways to reach out to those struggling in isolation and darkness. They champion support that is less about “fixing” things and more about walking alongside your loved one in love and presence.

Hear “Beautiful” on Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud, and YouTube, and learn more about Jaeden on his website and Instagram. Watch for more news of Kianna’s book, The Cross That Set Me Free, soon.

Learn more about The Emily Program online or by calling 1-888-364-5977.

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About the podcast:

Peace Meal is an Emily Program podcast that discusses topics related to eating disorders, body image issues, and how society may contribute to distorted thinking.

You can find Peace Meal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts. If you enjoy our show, please rate, review, subscribe, or tell your friends!

Are you interested in being a guest on Peace Meal? Email [email protected] for more information.

Episode description:

Rachel Wilshusen is a dynamic writer with liberal arts degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, University College London, and the University of Cambridge. After an extensive battle with anorexia, she wrote Emancipated Love Junkie: Liberating Myself From Anorexia to embolden others to follow her path toward recovery.

Rachel shares with us her experience of eating disorder recovery in this episode of Peace Meal. She illustrates it as a multi-step, nonlinear journey that began the moment she first reached out for help and continued well into and after her stay at an eating disorder center.

Treatment provided the necessary structure, education, and tools to help Rachel launch her healing, and then her task was to implement the lessons learned into her own life. To actively value her health, she says she relied on continued support from eating disorder professionals and a regular practice of self-care. She reminded herself again and again, even when she couldn’t quite believe it was true: She deserves to treat herself well.

With repetition and practice, Rachel has been able to quiet her inner critic and treat herself as she would treat her best friend. Self-kindness allows her to handle slips along the way and to reframe her perspective when negative, self-defeating thoughts come. It also helps her to keep her perfectionism and desire for control at bay.

Some of the biggest gifts of Rachel’s recovery include the ability to respect, trust, and affirm the power of her body and the opportunity to learn more about herself. She shares how her relationship with her body evolved with pregnancy, as did her appreciation of nutrition.

These big and “mini-wins” along the way, Rachel concludes, are what make her recovery. It has indeed been a nonlinear process—but a beautiful one.

To put it short? It’s a “manifestation of self-love,” she says.

Rachel’s book is available in print and digital form on Amazon. Her blog, Live Free & Happy, is on her website, rachelwilshusen.com.

Learn more about The Emily Program online or by calling 1-888-364-5977.

—

About the podcast:

Peace Meal is an Emily Program podcast that discusses topics related to eating disorders, body image issues, and how society may contribute to distorted thinking.

You can find Peace Meal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts. If you enjoy our show, please rate, review, subscribe, or tell your friends!

Are you interested in being a guest on Peace Meal? Email [email protected] for more information.

Episode description:

Kiera Russo is a student at The University of Notre Dame, studying Film, Television, and Theatre. An eating disorder survivor, she hosts the podcast Heavier Than I Look, which aims to empower other survivors, educate listeners, and foster conversation surrounding eating disorders. By finding meaning in her own suffering, Kiera hopes to fight against the silence that eating disorders demand and to liberate others from the same demand.

In this episode of Peace Meal, Kiera shares with us her eating disorder and recovery story. She traces the beginning of her illness to the time following eighth grade. During this period of transition, stress, and anxiety, Kiera started running to prepare for her school’s track team. But, she says, “it easily and quickly turned into…a mechanism for me to control not only how many calories I would allow myself that day, but also how much weight I could possibly lose.”

While Kiera’s eating disorder was taking root, people around her inadvertently reinforced it by remarking positively on her behaviors and body changes. These comments validated the disordered behaviors, all the while worsening her illness.

After years of struggling in silence, shame, and confusion, Kiera opened up about her illness in a class poetry assignment. She recited the poem in front of her classmates, uttering the words “eating disorder” for the first time and acknowledging that she had one. At this moment, Kiera gave herself her voice and revealed it to others.

While sharing her experience was an important step in Kiera’s overall story, it did not resolve her eating disorder. She continued to struggle with restricting and bingeing in secret, experiencing a taste of freedom only temporarily when she entered college. Surrounded by friends who had healthy relationships with food and their bodies, she was able to eat without concerns about weight and body. It was a “blindingly euphoric” time, she says.

Unfortunately, additional comments about her weight triggered food and body concerns again. Immense fear returned to mealtimes, and darkness encroached upon her life. At this point, Kiera revealed to herself that she needed help.

Despite the obstacles to seeking help, Kiera successfully advocated for the professional care her eating disorder required. Equipped with proper support, she pursued recovery while quarantining last year. She ditched the scale, journaled, and rethought her identity, relationship with food and body, and vocational plans. Born out of her recovery was Heavier Than I Look, her podcast which has transformed her plans for her future and kindled her sincere desire to amplify her and others’ voices.

Listen to Heavier Than I Look on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and PodBean, and follow the show on Instagram and Twitter.

Learn more about The Emily Program online or by calling 1-888-364-5977.

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About the podcast:

Peace Meal is an Emily Program podcast that discusses topics related to eating disorders, body image issues, and how society may contribute to distorted thinking.

You can find Peace Meal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts. If you enjoy our show, please rate, review, subscribe, or tell your friends!

Are you interested in being a guest on Peace Meal? Email [email protected] for more information.

Episode description:

Dr. Shauna Frisbie is a Licensed Professional Counselor, an approved Supervisor for Licensed Professional Counselors (LPC-S), a Certified Eating Disorders Specialist (CEDS), and a National Certified Counselor (NCC). She has taught psychology, family studies, and counseling since 2001 and is currently a Professor of Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Lubbock Christian University.

Shauna joins us in this episode of Peace Meal to discuss the value of sharing and discussing visual content in therapy. Her phototherapy techniques are described in her 2020 book, A Therapist’s Guide to Treating Eating Disorders in a Social Media Age.

Images, Shauna explains, and the stories we attach to them provide insight into deep emotional processes and responses.

“When I do phototherapy with clients, I’m really trying to help them explore the meaning behind these images,” she says. In treating images as communicators of meaning, she and other trained therapists can help facilitate emotional awareness and processing with clients. 

Shauna outlines how social media and smartphones have made images more relevant than ever, especially for young adults in a developmental stage of identity searching and relational skill development. For those susceptible to eating disorders, this increased exposure to images can be especially problematic. Shauna explains how phototherapy can help uncover how visual content impacts clients’ relationship to their bodies and/or sense of identity, as well as offer means of healing.

Learn more about Shauna at drfrisbie.com, and find A Therapist’s Guide to Treating Eating Disorders in a Social Media Age at norton.com/author/22703/shaunafrisbie. 

Learn more about The Emily Program online or by calling 1-888-364-5977.

—

About the podcast:

Peace Meal is an Emily Program podcast that discusses topics related to eating disorders, body image issues, and how society may contribute to distorted thinking.

You can find Peace Meal on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or Google Podcasts. If you enjoy our show, please rate, review, subscribe, or tell your friends!

Are you interested in being a guest on Peace Meal? Email [email protected] for more information.

**Content warning: This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences in recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms. This episode includes mention of sexual assault. Please use your discretion when listening and speak with your support system as needed.

Episode description:

Miranda Snyder is a student in the Honors College at the University of Maine, where she is studying to be a high school ELA teacher. A strong proponent of storytelling-based advocacy, her past and current advocacy efforts emphasize the power of lived experience.

The power of Miranda’s lived experience is on full display in this episode of Peace Meal. She shares with us her eating disorder story, charting it from illness to “quasi-recovery” to full recovery.

When Miranda first underwent treatment for anorexia in eighth grade, she felt she had little say in the matter. She received ample support from friends, teachers, and friends, but her participation in care was more passive than active. Although she achieved nutritional rehabilitation, she continued to struggle with strict food rules and routines for the next several years. She lived in so-called “quasi-recovery.”

“I figured, ‘This is as good as it’s gonna get,’ she says, reflecting on that time. “I would be doing the best I could and be achieving so well, but I would always have an ED in the back of my mind.”

And then came a turning point.

Earlier this year, Miranda realized that she is “worth so much more than a quasi-recovered life.” She entered treatment again, this time on her own terms as a 21-year-old.

Miranda put her whole self into recovery, making it a project that received her full focus and dedication. She voraciously took notes in virtual “eating school,” relied on support from family and friends, and regularly journaled affirmations and plans for her future. 

In moving beyond quasi-recovery, Miranda has found space for things far more meaningful than disordered rules and routines. She’s better able to engage in coursework, research, and advocacy, she says, as well as relationships with others. She’s more present, more centered. She has claimed a sense of self rooted in her true values—and a life fully free from the leech that is an eating disorder. 

Learn more about The Emily Program online or by calling 1-888-364-5977.

—

About the podcast:

Peace Meal is an Emily Program podcast that discusses topics related to eating disorders, body image issues, and how society may contribute to distorted thinking.

You can find Peace Meal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts. If you enjoy our show, please rate, review, subscribe, or tell your friends!

Are you interested in being a guest on Peace Meal? Email [email protected] for more information.

Episode description:

Brittany Braswell is a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist (RDN) who runs a virtual private practice for those struggling with food and body image concerns. In both individual and group settings, she helps clients reduce their anxiety and disordered behaviors so that they can achieve lasting freedom from the bondage of their eating disorders.

Brittany joins us in this episode of Peace Meal to explore recovery from a faith-based perspective. For many, she explains, faith is a belief system more powerful than an eating disorder, one in which people can trust when distancing themselves from their illness.

To place trust in faith during recovery, Brittany emphasizes the importance of intentionality.

“I think being able to reconnect to those values or to your faith is really about turning down the eating disorder volume and getting really intentional about identifying and listening for those healthy voices,” she says.

As those healthy voices become louder in recovery, people can also strengthen their connection with their bodies and nutritional needs. Faith can augment a non-diet approach like intuitive eating, Brittany says, highlighting the alignment she sees between scripture and intuitive eating principles. She explores this connection in greater detail in her eBook, Faith Over Fear.

A key to recovery—for people of faith and otherwise—is finding eternal worth and an identity separate from the eating disorder.

“Once you know your worth and identity,” Brittany says, “place your identity in that thing that’s unshakeable.”

To learn more about Brittany and her faith-forward approach to recovery, visit her website at brittanybraswellrd.com. There you can find her free eBook, Faith Over Fear: Ditch Food Rules and Nourish Your Body Without Guilt, information about the services she offers, and other resources. Brittany is also on Facebook and Instagram.

Learn more about The Emily Program online or by calling 1-888-364-5977.

—

About the podcast:

Peace Meal is an Emily Program podcast that discusses topics related to eating disorders, body image issues, and how society may contribute to distorted thinking.

You can find Peace Meal on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or Google Podcasts. If you enjoy our show, please rate, review, subscribe, or tell your friends!

Are you interested in being a guest on Peace Meal? Email [email protected] for more information.

Episode description:

Maddy Kit is a woman in recovery who is writing a book about her experiences with anorexia and other obstacles. She hopes to share her story with the world to help anyone going through something similar. 

Maddy joins us in this episode of Peace Meal to share her recovery story. She tells us first about developing anorexia at nine years old and the barriers to care she experienced at this young age. She then reflects on how her eating disorder evolved in the context of bullying and isolation, as well as a severely traumatic event in high school. Though her illness was not a choice, she notes how it did provide some short-term comfort and illusory control in the face of these painful experiences. She then goes on to describe how she came to accept eating disorder care. Initially resistant to it, she understands recovery now as a life-saving experience, one that has allowed her to realize her worth beyond her body and to pursue interests like writing, traveling, and spending time with friends and family.  

Learn more about The Emily Program online or by calling 1-888-364-5977.

—

About the podcast:

Peace Meal is an Emily Program podcast that discusses topics related to eating disorders, body image issues, and how society may contribute to distorted thinking.

You can find Peace Meal on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or Google Podcasts. If you enjoy our show, please rate, review, subscribe, or tell your friends!

Are you interested in being a guest on Peace Meal? Email [email protected] for more information.

Episode description:

Mark Schindler is an NBA writer and podcaster for SB Nation and his co-created site, Premium Hoops.

Mark joins us in this episode of Peace Meal to reflect on his eating disorder experience, particularly as it relates to his pursuit of a professional boxing career. His food and body image concerns manifested in the sport and contributed to an eating disorder that extended far beyond it. Sharing how his illness compromised both his physical and mental well-being, Mark warns of the dangers of weight-cutting and offers a definition of health that encompasses more than appearance. Strewn throughout the episode are meaningful words of advice and comfort for those considering recovery.

Find Mark on Twitter @MSchindlerNBA.

Learn more about The Emily Program online or by calling 1-888-364-5977.

—

About the podcast:

Peace Meal is an Emily Program podcast that discusses topics related to eating disorders, body image issues, and how society may contribute to distorted thinking.

You can find Peace Meal on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or Google Podcasts. If you enjoy our show, please rate, review, subscribe, or tell your friends!

Are you interested in being a guest on Peace Meal? Email [email protected] for more information.

Episode description:

Susan Burton is an editor at the public radio program This American Life and a former editor of Harper’s. Her radio documentaries have won numerous awards, and her writing has appeared in Slate, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and others. Susan’s debut book, Empty: A Memoir, is out now from Random House.

In this episode of Peace Meal, Susan tells us about Empty, a personal story of her eating disorders long kept hidden. In describing her experience with binge eating disorder (BED) and anorexia, she poignantly recounts how the illnesses felt both destructive and protective, both safe and stifling. They functioned in part, she says, as ways to cope with longing and a deep desire for human connection. Understanding now that BED and anorexia were equally harmful and isolating, Susan shares myriad lessons from the perspective of someone still recovering. In this liminal space of recovery, she continues to learn how to sit with discomfort, balance emotional highs and lows, and practice self-compassion with the help of therapy and family support.

Empty is available at local bookstores and on Amazon. Connect with Susan via her website, Instagram, or Twitter.

Learn more about The Emily Program online or by calling 1-888-364-5977.

—

About the podcast:

Peace Meal is an Emily Program podcast that discusses topics related to eating disorders, body image issues, and how society may contribute to distorted thinking.

You can find Peace Meal on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or Google Podcasts. If you enjoy our show, please rate, review, subscribe, or tell your friends!

Are you interested in being a guest on Peace Meal? Email [email protected] for more information.