Move towards Aliveness
The following blog is a piece of my body story. It discusses content related to eating disorders and trauma and systems of oppression. I wrote this in honor of those that continue to resist and heal in the age of weight loss injectables, in a time of so much despair. I wrote this to honor and celebrate my own story. I wrote this knowing that though my struggle was profound it was buoyed by the many privileged identities I hold. I wrote this as a light for others, because lights were shared with me and illuminated my way.
Before I even knew I had an eating disorder, I met two women (Dana and Hilary, co-founders of the center for body trust) who were embodied in a way that I had not yet witnessed before and I thought, I want that. I need that. That is the Aliveness I have to move towards.
My recovery has been a continual process of becoming. Becoming more of who I am through a process of identifying my needs and wants, and figuring out what it looks like to live a life that also includes my joy and pleasure, that feels different from the flimsy ways I used to perform them. It involved a confronting of my story. Through it I left relationships, put up hard boundaries with family, touched crevices of grief and pain that felt unfathomably deep and raw. And I am continually healing and recovering, discovering and becoming.
Being a dietitian that works with eating disorders my work is informed by my own healing and my work informs my own healing. Which is very powerful. Because really all recoveries and all healing processes can have similarities but are also wildly different and unique to the individuals living them. The similarities typically come from systems of oppression that impact people in similar ways, in the case of anti-fatness and diet culture it shows up as disconnection from body, shame and guilt patterns, and manufactured self-hatred.
Recently a client got to the point where she could name that going forward with recovery was the only option because she had a sense of what it offers. Many people in eating disorder recovery go through an experience of not wanting to go back but having no idea what going forward looks like- there is a waiting period of hard work and anger and grief before a sense of what a recovered life could look and feel like within you takes shape. I remembered that point in my own process.
And when I talk about eating disorder recovery, my own and in general, I am speaking to all points on the spectrum of disordered eating to an eating disorder. Most all of us have healing to do when it comes to food and our bodies, because the dominant culture works so hard to promote disconnection, distrust, control, and shame. But most people consider the struggles their own fault, their own weaknesses. It is not your fault, and healing is your responsibility, if it is accessible and if you choose it. No one else can do it for you; the grief, wisdom, and freedom that healing offers is all yours. There is power in letting go of the idea that our bodies need to be controlled. There is power in letting your wildness lead.
The Aliveness I feel today stretches far beyond food and body freedom. I have satisfaction with where I am in my life and what it took to get me here. I am not obsessed with health, the way health has been defined for me and us. I’m not so fearful and guarded and controlling. I am softer, gentler, and more adaptable. That allows me to be in the moments of my life more, the difficult ones and the joyful ones. I am able to sit with my actual grief, rather than running from it under the guise of health morality. My idea of wellbeing is expansive and mostly meets my needs day to day, week to week, adapting as I move along. I have a sturdier sense of what matters and what doesn’t and my boundary practice allows space between me and what doesn’t matter. There is more clarity and less distraction. I honor myself more, which is different from the self hatred I used to be consumed by.
My eating disorder offered me false promises of worthiness and acceptance. It kept it all just out of reach, so that I continued on a hamster wheel of hustle, buying into the lies of body dominance. It kept my body thin and the privileges that come with that- which for me was the male gaze and the approval of body objectification standards, as well as an easier less expensive way to access clothing that I liked. It kept me small and distracted and numb, which for a time was what I needed, and I have compassion in that for me and for you, if that is where you find yourself. No one can tell us what’s best for us in any season of our lives.
The turning point for me was a combination of dissonance (the pain of staying the same was greater than the pain of changing), inspiration (being shown what it can look like to be embodied), and a familiar gnawing sense that my life could involve less suffering and more expansiveness- and wanting to continue to move towards that. I was also tired, tired of masking and performing a life that didn’t actually make me happy. As my habits changed my body changed and the distractions ended. I chose myself and my pleasure, despite the mostly silent biases I was confronted with as my body grew. It lives within most of us, to register getting larger under a certain list of adjectives and judgements- this is part of the oppression. It’s not true or real, but it’s socialized within us to great detriment- to all of us but most violently to the largest, the fattest, among us. This work is individual and collective. Resisting the ways that this harm moves through you and me and us is crucial to protecting all of us and fostering more aliveness. In the absense of distraction I had to grapple with my body story and the deep wounding my body held for me. An ocean of grief came out, and eventually I came out lighter and more clear.
I often talk with clients about how recovery, or healing doesnt mean we get to a place where we don’t suffer. Suffering is a part of this deal, this human experience. Recovery can offer a way where we know how to tend to our suffering and where we can externalize the shame and blame narratives outside of us from where they came, these sick ideas about bodies and worthiness and objectification and control. More Aliveness offers more expansiveness and feeling, which leads to knowing ourselves. When we know ourselves our connections become more solid and sturdy. There is an herbalist and artist in Olympia, WA, Fern Tallos, whose herbal blends aided my healing process. On each bottle it reads “Heal yourself, heal the world” and I do believe in this. Because when we know ourselves, truly, this fosters the sturdiness this world needs to move forward, away from domination and control and towards justice, safety, compassion and connection.