Using Mindful Movement to Heal (Part 2)

In our culture, exercise is seen as having to be vigorous, exhausting, intense, and long-winded, in order to be effective. Let’s begin to challenge this notion since it can be harmful to our bodies and our psyches. Movement can be as easy as it sounds. Moving your body. From Tai Chi to Swimming, Bowling to … Read More

Using Mindful Movement to Heal (Part 1)

Eating disorders fundamentally disconnect us from ourselves. By keeping us trapped in worry about our physical bodies, they separate us emotionally and spiritually from our passions and the things that matter most to us. Practices of mindfulness can be used in recovery from an eating disorder as powerful tools to help reconnect with our bodies … Read More

How Social Media Influences our Body Image

Body image includes a person’s beliefs, thoughts, and attitudes towards their body. Having a healthy body image means feeling comfortable and confident in your body and accepting the uniqueness of your natural body shape and size. The prevalence and popularity of social media can have a negative impact on how we view ourselves and make … Read More

The Creator in You: Art Therapy and Eating Disorders

A picture is worth a thousand words. This idiom mocks me as I stare down at the white A4 printer paper before me. I am at a loss. Where do I start? I am seated at my first art therapy session with a registered art therapist. She has asked me to doodle about how I … Read More

Recovery and Choice

“You did not choose to have an eating disorder, but it is your responsibility to choose recovery.” This is a familiar phrase to those in recovery and it’s an important one; however, as is the nature of most phrases, it is a simplified statement about a complicated subject. Choice. Choice is a complex and interesting … Read More

“But You Look Great”

Having worked in eating disorder treatment for many years I can appreciate how hard eating disorders can be for others to understand. The way in which a person can become entrapped, tormented and completely preoccupied with weight, shape, food, body image, what others think, what others eat, every perceived change of their body, is hard … Read More

Kelly’s Journey of Recovery

  What kinds of things do you apologize for? Chances are you say you’re sorry when you step on someone’s foot, when you arrive late for a meeting, when you inadvertently hurt someone, or if you interrupt someone when they are speaking. Those are all great reasons to apologize. You know what’s not a good … Read More

Looking Back ~ Two Years Later

  August 1, 2013 was the most difficult day, as a mother, that I’ve experienced yet.  It was the day my husband and I took our daughter, Avery, to St Paul’s Hospital to be hospitalized for anorexia, she was 18 years old. If I close my eyes, I can see it all.  I can feel … Read More

Swimming Taught Me to Love My Self!

“How did you learn to love your body?” While I was out treading water in the middle of the lake on a hot summer evening recently, a new friend asked me this question after remarking how confident I am in my skin. Loving my body has been a process, mostly a shift in mindset. Now, … Read More

Keep Fighting: 4 Things to Remember in Eating Disorder Recovery

After years of suffering from an eating disorder, I can finally say I am recovered.  It took me so long to get to this point and at times I felt as though I would never reach it.  Recovery is difficult and tiring, but worth every ounce of energy, every tear cried, etc.  It is at … Read More