Could you REALY be the one in control??? Could you REALY be the one to decide?

Yes and yes.

Today's episode is all about freedom and permission.

It's about dropping the black-and-white thinking.

It's about letting go of perfectionism and an arbitrary picture of what recovery and being recovered looks like.

It's about allowing yourself to be the one to decide.

It's about boldness, autonomy, confidence...

Going your own way. Doing your own thing.

Sound too good to be true?! No way 😉 I promise ❤️

YOU'VE GOT THIS! 🦋

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Don’t forget to follow me on ⁠Instagram⁠ if that’s your thing! 🫶🏻 And also Substack for this longer-form content, in written form!

Ratings, reviews, and shares are always much appreciated! ⭐️ A free way to help a gal out and get this into the ears of more people who could benefit - we all get to help heal the world of eating disorders! 🦋

Rules. Rules??? ARE there rules for what you can and cannot do after recovery??? I don’t think so. (And I wonder how many rules there truly are for what you “can” do IN recovery? 🤔)

*I am not speaking to situations where someone is experiencing an eating-disorder-related medical emergency.*

I don’t like rules. Never have 😉 Why? Autonomy. Freedom.

Something I believe in for us ALL - and that’s why we’re talking about, today, the fact that pretty much nothing is inherently disordered 🤷🏼‍♀️

Tracking food, being intentional about food choices, exercising, setting physical goals, sticking to eating routines...

I just simply don’t believe anything is inherently disordered.

What does it come down to? Intention. YOUR truth. Love or fear.

You ARE free - free to choose whatever is best for you. You CAN trust yourself.

I so, so, so hope you can come to that realization in today’s episode ❤️🤞

This is all about you creating and living your best, healthiest, most joyful, freest life - in recovery and beyond 🚀

*I’m reading a Substack article today that isn’t set to publish until September 8! You can subscribe to my Substack here, FOR FREE, so that you’re notified when it (and all other articles, duh 😉) post! I also always share them on my Instagram stories every week 🥰*

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Ratings, reviews, and shares are always much appreciated! ⭐️ A free way to help a gal out and get this into the ears of more people who could benefit - we all get to help heal the world of eating disorders! 🦋

We're not talking about HOW to find the joy - rather that it is OKAY to find the joy.

That finding and feeling joy when others haven't and don't doesn't mean you are doing something wrong.

Or that you are being disrespectful.

Or that you are invalidating them.

We do NOT have to listen to widespread narratives about how ANYTHING (process, experience, etc.) "has" to be. Nope.

We get to choose a new way. Seek a new way. SHOW a new way.

What if we got to be examples? Not in a hierarchical way. Not in a "look at me and copy me" sort of way.

Simply in a way of showing what's possible...

But we can't do that if we hold ourselves back, think we're doing something wrong by finding and feeling joy, think that we're invalidating the experiences of others, think that what others say must be what's true...

No. We get to drop all of that and explore new ways. Remember...there are infinite...

(I also talk about how I have found so much joy in my recent AuDHD discovery - even while, yes, others find it challenging. And I experiences challenges, too! But there's nuance. Life ain't black and white. It ain't even gray. It's a rainbow...)

Get ready for nuance, encouragement, inspiration (I hope!🤞), and a beautiful (& loving) kick in the booty 😉 The world needs your light and joy! No more holding back 🙏🏻 No matter where you are.

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Don’t forget to follow me on ⁠Instagram⁠ if that’s your thing! 🫶🏻 And also Substack for this longer-form content, in written form!

Ratings, reviews, and shares are always much appreciated! ⭐️ A free way to help a gal out and get this into the ears of more people who could benefit - we all get to help heal the world of eating disorders! 🦋

Recovery isn't black or white. There's truly no perfection... No perfect path. There's only YOUR path. And, well, I don't think you can fail. I don't! You're learning, you're making progress, you're doing the thing. And a thing you can do while you're doing the thing is...

Think about nutrition.

Prioritize nourishing your brain and body.

WHILE you eat the fun/fear foods! Yes, all the foods your ED told you were bad, wrong, "dangerous".

You CAN eat a bowl of sugary cereal AND a side of scrambled eggs with sliced avocado. You CAN eat pizza with a side of some veggies. You CAN have a PB&J (on white bread with full-sugar PB and full-sugar jelly) with a side of fruit. Just because you choose foods for nutrition + joy doesn't mean you're "doing recovery wrong". And those choices certainly do not negate the awesome work you're doing by challenging the fear foods and eating what you REALLY want (and what the ED really DOESN'T want).

Everything can be happening at the same time.

And this is what we dive into today, Sweet Souls ❤️

As always, MAKE THIS YOUR OWN! Your own recovery journey. That's what I'll ALWAYS be encouraging you to do 🫶🏻

You've got this and I'm here with you.

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Don’t forget to follow me on ⁠Instagram⁠ if that’s your thing! 🫶🏻 And also Substack for this longer-form content, in written form!

Ratings, reviews, and shares are always much appreciated! ⭐️ A free way to help a gal out and get this into the ears of more people who could benefit - we all get to help heal the world of eating disorders! 🦋

*I forgot to put in the disclaimer at the beginning of the episode!!! So here it is: I am not a licensed medical or mental health provider. Nothing that I say here should be taken as medical or mental health advice, nor as a basis for diagnosis. Everything I say comes from a place of personal research and experience, with the intention of helping you find your own way. Please be wise when taking any sort of action. Please don’t leave out your team of professionals if you have a team! Dietician, doctor, counselor, etc. Everyone is in this together for YOUR full recovery.

Our eating disorders all begin for unique reasons.

But no matter how they began, they can get tangled up with so much more in our lives! Emotional things, cultural things, neurodivergent things, trauma things...

On a subconscious level, we can end up using (in a way) our eating disorders to have certain needs met, as permission slips, as a way to numb, etc. - infinite possibilities!

BUT no matter what role(s) the eating disorder has/have taken on for you...

NO. SHAME. It is so easy to be embarrassed, to feel ashamed, to beat ourselves up, to start telling ourselves false stories that we're manipulative or broken or...

No.

None of that is true.

You are a human, a human who is learning, figuring it out, HEAING. And healing cannot fully happen, in my opinion, amidst shame.

In today's episode, we dive into why I don't believe we need shame! (Here and even more broadly.)

Plus I give you two examples from my own eating disorder journey concerning what roles it ended up playing for me. (And how it was really freaking hard to recognize this.)

You've got this. I see you. I'm with you. 🦋

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Don’t forget to follow me on ⁠Instagram⁠ if that’s your thing! 🫶🏻 And also Substack for this longer-form content, in written form!

Ratings, reviews, and shares are always much appreciated! ⭐️ A free way to help a gal out and get this into the ears of more people who could benefit - we all get to help heal the world of eating disorders! 🦋

You don't always have to share your wins immediately! It's okay to quietly celebrate within before sharing with others.

Today we talk about the joy to fear and fear to joy flip-flopping that can happen in our brains when we take a recovery action! We can be SO proud and then in the next moment wonder what the heck we've just done! It's okay - the brain is just relearning 😉🧠❤️

We talk about being gentle and kind with ourselves in the face of overwhelm! Taking things at our own pace. Pushing out of the comfy zone but not pushing TOO far at the same time - finding the balance!

You've got this, Sweet Soul 🦋

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Don’t forget to follow me on ⁠Instagram⁠ if that’s your thing! 🫶🏻 And also Substack for this longer-form content, in written form!

Ratings, reviews, and shares are always much appreciated! ⭐️ A free way to help a gal out and get this into the ears of more people who could benefit - we all get to help heal the world of eating disorders! 🦋

In your eating disorder...if you're there or WERE there, in one...are you or were you ever sacred of INHALING calories? I know, it sounds wild! And it is.

It's irrational.

But I've been there, too! 🙋🏼‍♀️ You're not alone. You're not broken. There's nothing wrong with your brain!

Today, we are talking about this irrational fear, irrational fear in general in an eating disorder, why the heck we can have such irrational fears (of all sorts) in an eating disorder, and more!

You're seen, you're perfectly fine, you're not alone ❤️

Freedom is here, Sweet Soul 🦋 You've got this! I'm with you.

Substack article on the fear of inhaling calories

Podcast episode on perfectionism and control!

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Don’t forget to follow me on ⁠Instagram⁠ if that’s your thing! 🫶🏻 And also Substack for this type of longer-form content, in written form! (That's definitely where I'm most active right now.)

Ratings, reviews, and shares are always much appreciated! ⭐️ A free way to help a gal out and get this into the ears of more people who could benefit - we all get to help heal the world of eating disorders! 🦋

Being "skinny" is not a prerequisite for recovering from an eating disorder. You do not need to be "skinny" to have an eating disorder. And no, if you are in a larger body and have an eating disorder, that eating disorder is not automatically binge eating disorder!

You can have a restrictive eating disorder in any size body.

The human metabolism varies in many ways across different people. The human metabolism is still a large mystery in many regards! We know a little but there's a heck of a lot we don't know.

What we do know? Your body size has nothing to do with whether or not you have a restrictive eating disorder.

Today that is exactly what we chat about!

You know when you have an eating disorder.

Trust yourself. Validate yourself. I am not saying this is easy, especially if you are in a larger body! (And we talk about this too. I fully admit my thin privilege.)

But we CAN do this, and spreading these messages helps! Not everyone knows or understands. We get to be a part of the change, Sweet Souls.

You deserve recovery right now, full stop. No matter what.

There's no magical point you need to reach before you get to start recovery. Nope, it gets to happen right now.

I'm with you. I see you. You got this. 🦋

Here's an article I wrote on the topic!

Link to Shan Guisinger's website

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Don’t forget to follow me on ⁠Instagram⁠ if that’s your thing! 🫶🏻

Ratings, reviews, and shares are always much appreciated! ⭐️ A free way to help a gal out and get this into the ears of more people who could benefit - we all get to help heal the world of eating disorders! 🦋

Should I include all caps in my titles like that??? I like to highlight key words, but I don't want to "yell" 😅 Anyway...

I wrote an article and made an Instagram post about this very topic: If you want to fully live a life of Love (which I know you do!), it's gotta include your body. Not the "body love" that celebrates the awesomeness of how you look! That can definitely be included, but that ain't the type of love I speak of here. This is about action.

And not nourishing our bodies...not resting... (ya know, eating disorder actions!)

That's not Loving.

We're made from Love, of Love, for Love.

This hit me when I realized that all I really care about for my life is, well, that it's about Love! So, this is topic number one for today's episode.

THEN we go into talking about scarcity.

A pretty big theme in an eating disorder, huh?

Sometimes it's not just a part of an eating disorder, though. Sometimes we can have this mindset outside of the disorder, too.

And we can let it hold us back from enjoying the very best that's already here for us, both in recovery and beyond.

We dive into why this may be and how it could be holding us back from more than we realize! 😳

You can read the article I wrote on this scarcity topic here ✍🏻

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Don’t forget to follow me on ⁠Instagram⁠ if that’s your thing! 🫶🏻

Ratings, reviews, and shares are always much appreciated! ⭐️ A free way to help a gal out and get this into the ears of more people who could benefit - we all get to help heal the world of eating disorders! 🦋

Just like plants need a HECK OF A LOT of water after a drought to get back to baseline AND THEN get into their thriving zone? Where they are properly hydrated and feeling awesome?

Your body needs a heck of a lot of food after the eating disorder.

EVEN WHEN the brain says, "NO WAY!"

We know. We know the Truth, don't we?

Let's talk about why this is - because sometimes the brain needs that reminder! 🧠 And these simple little analogies can be anchors for us to return to time and time again ⚓️ to help us keep taking action 💪🏻

We can, we will, we got this! I see you, I believe in you, I'm with you. 🦋

Here's the Substack article! ✍🏻

Don’t forget to follow me on ⁠Instagram⁠ if that’s your thing! 🫶🏻

Ratings, reviews, and shares are always much appreciated! ⭐️ A free way to help a gal out and get this into the ears of more people who could benefit - we all get to help heal the world of eating disorders! 🦋