Hugs and Resources to Support Eating Disorder Recovery

I haven't written anything here in a while now.

A lot has changed.

The world is a very scary place sometimes, and right now, we're experiencing something that I couldn't have predicted.

How are you? How are your loved ones?

I'm very grateful that I get to be home with my family. The school I teach at is transitioning to an online format, which has been challenging, but my heart is with the first responders and the heroes that are making it possible for the world to maintain some level of normalcy.  And my prayers go out to those who are suffering right now.  The other day on the news, I heard a rabbi talking about the difference between "inconveniences" and "problems." Inconveniences are the little things that we tend to feel anxious about or frustrated with. But they aren't problems, and the more we learn to handle them, the better able we will be to handle real problems when they arise.

Gratitude.

It all comes back to gratitude. And service.

For anyone dealing with an eating disorder, know that focusing on gratitude and on service will make the whole recovery process so much easier. Trust me. I've been battling Bellatrix (the ED voice) for nearly seven years, but I've made a lot of progress in the past three months because I've finally stepped out of my head and into my life. I've started trying to give back in what little ways that I can while also constantly reminding myself of how lucky I am to have the opportunity to heal.

Eating disorders like to trap us in the worry trails in our minds, and--at least for me--focusing too much on myself and my thoughts made these trails even harder to escape. The more I got into my head and my feelings of discomfort, anxiety, etc., the stronger Bellatrix became.

I'm not saying that it's bad to talk about our feelings. I actually met with a therapist last semester, and having someone to talk to is incredibly important.

But remembering that there is more to life than the stories we tell ourselves is important, too.

Lao Tzu taught that "what is small is easy to scatter." The smaller our lives become, the more easily the winds of anxiety can sweep them away. We need to root ourselves in things that are lasting--like faith, love, and gratitude.

That being said, I have some resources to share that I hope will help anyone dealing with eating disorder thoughts, body image challenges, or even just general feelings of anxiety.

Yoga With Adriene
If yoga is something that you and your treatment/support team agree would be supportive to you, I can't recommend Yoga With Adriene enough. I did the Revolution series with my mum last month, and Adriene's flexible attitude and fun personality serve as helpful reminders that movement should never be a punishment. In one of her videos, Adriene even says that she doesn't "subscribe" to the "no pain, no gain" philosophy. She's a good role model for loving yourself and everyone else.

The Real Life RD
Another good role model is Robyn Nohling, FNP, RD. In her blog, she debunks nutrition myths, shares fun recipes (marbled banana bread, anyone?), promotes intuitive eating/HAES, and provides a plethora of resources surrounding female health and wellness. I've been reading Robyn's blog for a long time, but I actually got to meet her in person this year. She's awesome and brilliant, and her perspective on health is so freaking refreshing after spending so long in the diet culture rabbit hole!


Mimi Kuo-Deemer
I found Mimi through the qigong videos she posts on YouTube, and her calming demeanor and graceful presence inspired me to read Qigong and the Tai Chi Axis: Nourishing Practices for Body, Mind, and Spirit, her first book. I LOVE THIS BOOK. Mimi is a yoga teacher who incorporates qigong into her practices. Qigong is a Chinese healing system based on fluid movements inspired by the five elements (Earth, Wood, Metal, Water, and Fire), and being of Chinese heritage myself, I love incorporating qigong's principles of balance and fluidity into yoga (and into my daily life).  Mimi is also currently offering donation-based yoga and qigong classes online via Zoom.

<3 <3 <3 Frances

Limiting Beliefs and Our Bodies

Happy Friday! I'm sending happy thoughts for everyone from the world of midterms. I'm grateful to be feeling much better today than I was earlier this week, but now that the fatigue of the flu is gone, my anxiety is beginning to ramp up a bit. Anxiety likes to take whatever energy we have and channel it into running through worry trails. My worry trails include thoughts like:

"Move more!"
"Wait--what's in that? Is that too much?!"
"Plan. Plan. Plan."
"You need to earn your food!"
"How many calories is that? Is it too many?"
"Should you have x if you're planning on having y later? Both are fruits. Fruits have sugar!"

UGH.

I wish that I could say that I were far enough on my own recovery journey to have released these thoughts, but the truth is that I'm not. Yoga has been immensely helpful for me in terms of learning to work with my body as opposed to against it, and I recently began using EFT tapping to deal with moments of acute anxiety. (I'll write more about EFT later--it's really cool and wonderful!)

But I still have some limiting beliefs surrounding food and movement. A major issue lately has been my belief that I need to "earn" my food through movement (i.e. lots of walking, standing, etc.). The idea that you need to burn x calories in order to be "allowed" to eat something is pretty ridiculous, but it's one of the diet culture myths that has been the hardest for me to separate myself from.

empoweredeatingrd.com

I was raised in a home where I was fortunate enough to have access to a variety of nourishing foods that came from sustainable sources. I enjoyed Nanny's homemade almond butter bars and scrambled eggs and feta without hesitation, and making apple crisp or gluten-free brownies (family with Celiac) was a highlight of every Friday night. Helping mum make Thanksgiving dinner never freaked me out, and the few weekends we splurged by getting Whole Foods hot bar takeout were so exciting because they had yummy chicken and salad and OMG gluten-free cookies!

I was a healthy child. I knew I got a rash when I ate dairy or gluten and that certain chemicals made me feel bad, but I didn't have to analyze these reactions or "label" my diet as "plant-based" or anything else. I ate things that made my body feel cared for without having to think about it too much, I played outside, I sometimes did yoga with my mum, and I read a lot. 

Something I didn't read? Calories. Sure, I'd look sometimes to see if an ingredient list had a food sensitivity in it, and I avoided things that came from factory farms, but I never looked at calories or serving sizes and used those numbers as guides for how to eat something. 

Obsessing over whether or not I'd eaten more than one ounce of Terra chips would've ruined all of my childhood Terra chip-eating experiences. Back then, I looked at a bag of Terra chips with a) gratitude and b) the hope that my brother wouldn't take all of the sweet potato ones.

Calories didn't really start to "matter" to me (read: dictate my life) until I was in my freshman year of high school. I was stressed, lonely, and seeking a way to cope with anxiety. Sadly, the coping mechanism I ended up choosing was the online calorie tracking app we were told to use during health class.

I'm not criticizing health class, but I think some of diet culture's convoluted messaging definitely seeps into a lot of what people are taught about wellness. We aren't taught about the antibiotics used in factory farming or about mindfulness or about the chemicals in Febreeze. And all of the good things we learn about--vegetables, fruits, fun recipes--is largely overshadowed by the calorie.

Even on my healthy diet--the one that my body had been trusting since childhood--my calorie intake was "too high" than my expenditure. I'm very petite, so the BMR that my calorie tracker calculated for me was pretty low, and I remember doing my health homework and discovering the horrifying fact that I was consuming way more calories than I "needed." 

Oh, no! 

The next part of the assignment--multiplying my excess intake by 365 days and then converting that to pounds--freaked me out even more. I was left feeling like a total failure, and from that point forward, I entered the caloric value of everything I ate into my tracker.  I also upped my movement to "compensate" for my intake--just to be safe.

I did everything that I felt was necessary to get an "A." And I ended up getting Anorexia.

#fail

My story (which of course involves more factors than just that health assignment) aside, what I'm trying to get at here is that our brains are very susceptible to the language we expose them to. If we keep telling our brains something, they're going to start to believe us, and then we're going to end up being controlled by whatever it is we told ourselves. Our thoughts are very powerful. If we keep ingesting diet culture-inspired thoughts, then those are the thoughts we're going to have.

I'm proof of this. Diet messaging very easily "sticks" with me. I read somewhere a few years ago that meals MUST be spaced three hours apart. This, apparently, is vital for survival, and I incorporated this rule into my innermost being. As a result, I still struggle with what to do when I'm experiencing low blood sugar. If it's only been two hours since breakfast, I question whether or not I can eat a snack--even if I'm lightheaded or really hungry.

As a child, I definitely would've had a snack. And then I would've moved on. One of Nanny's nut butter bars and I'd be set. But now--just because I read a silly post on a health blog--I'm caught in a limbo of low blood sugar = worrying = waiting (and then still not eating enough) = anxiety.

PLEASE, don't let yourself be controlled by your limiting beliefs! Limiting beliefs lead to limited lives. A best friend of mine once asked me to go to yoga class with her. I panicked. I couldn't go to yoga . . . I had to run so that I could eat dinner. 

Don't make that same mistake. Skip the run. Do the yoga. Eat ice cream at your brother's birthday. Dance. Watch a movie. Paint a picture. LIVE.

Don't live limited.

<3 <3 <3 

Applying The Power of Now to Eating Disorder Recovery (Part Two)

Happy Sunday! Things have been slightly chaotic lately with lots of work and school deadlines and events, but the pretty April flowers have a way of making everything seem very storybook-like despite awful springtime allergies. I'm working on an essay right now about the relationship between environmental and human health (both mental and physical), and last week I hosted a fundraiser at school for an organization supporting artists in Guatemala and Nicaragua. (If you're interested in supporting these artists, too, visit wwww.pulseraproject.org.)

I'm excited to be sharing Part Two of Applying The Power of Now to Eating Disorder Recovery. Tolle's book can really be applied to anything in life, but the way it connects to eating disorders has been very powerful for me, and the section I'm reading now--all about the "inner body"--has profound implications for the disconnect that occurs in the throes of an eating disorder. In anorexia, my mind, body, and soul all separated from one another. My soul took the backseat to my mind--which was "infected" with insidious thoughts--and my body became an object that I had to control and obsess over.

UGH.

Yoga has been very helpful for me in recovery because it is focused on connecting the mind, body, and soul back together. "Yoga" literally means "to yoke"--pull together--and by linking breath, movement, and intention, I'm slowly figuring out how to stitch myself back into a whole spirit-person again. Eastern philosophy emphasizes the "bodymind," and if you're trying to recover, please remember that, though you aren't your physical body, there is a profound and beautiful connecting energy force coursing through you that links your physical self with your spiritual (true) self. Also remember that when Eckhart Tolle refers to "connecting to the body," he usually means the "inner body." We'll get to that now :).

The "inner body" is not part of the external world. Rather, it is the invisible energy running through you that makes you who you are and enables you to become "rooted within" (Tolle 98). Think of yourself as a tree. The inner body is the complex root systems coming up from the earth and spreading up and into your trunk.

Here are some excerpts from The Power of Now that may help make the concept of the inner body more understandable:

"Direct your attention into the body. Feel it from within. Is it alive?  . . . Can you feel the subtle energy field that pervades the entire body and gives vibrant life to every organ and every cell?" (p. 93)

"The art of inner-body awareness will develop into a completely new way of living, a state of permanent connectedness with Being, and will add a depth to your life that you have never known before." (p. 98)

Your inner body is "formless, limitless, and unfathomable" (Tolle 93), and you can connect with it at any moment to pull yourself out of your head. It's difficult to connect to the inner body because we've been so conditioned to be focused on the external and on the mind, but try to take a few moments every day to consciously tap into the energy field within yourself. Even if you can only do it for a second, it will help ground you, and over time, connecting within will become less of a challenge. Meditation and yoga or any other sort of mindful activity/exercise can strengthen your bond with your inner body, and I highly recommend picking up a hobby that encourages inner-body awareness.

<3 <3 <3

Applying The Power of Now to Eating Disorder Recovery (Part One)

Happy Saturday, loves! I hope that everyone is having a happy start to Spring. We don't really have any big festivals here where I live to honor the arrival of this season, but I like imagining the celebrations taking place around the world because it makes life feel more colorful. And Spring is a really good excuse for weaving flowers into my hair, which is something that I have never done but have always secretly wanted to do. Because being a faerie would be fun, right?

I'm continuing to read A New Earth and The Power of Now, and I have to say that these books have had a profound impact on how I perceive the whole "eating disorder recovery" process. Because of this, I'm going to be posting a little series of reflections on the principles of The Power of Now and how they relate to the healing journey.

(I'm going to pause really quickly here so that the words "healing journey" can sit with you for a moment. Rather than thinking of eating disorder recovery as loss of identity/major change/etc., think of it as what it is: recovery from an illness. You're healing your body. You're not "losing your fitness" or anything, okay? Making this shift from victim to warrior is incredibly empowering. I mean, right now we have the opportunity to change our lives for the better! An eating disorder is not a choice, but recovery is. It's healing. We're healing. Yay!)

I rediscovered The Power of Now while staring in desperation at the titles in my mum's medicine pantry. Many of the books there were collected by her and by my grandmum over a period of decades. They're coffee-stained and have broken spines and smell like cinnamon, and they remind me of a childhood spent rescuing earthworms from flooded streets and listening to my mum and grandmum read aloud from the works of Beatrix Potter, Marianne Williamson, and C.S. Lewis.

When I saw the faded binding of The Power of Now, I remembered the audio book version that my grandmum used to play during long car trips, and upon opening the book's cover, I discovered the words "best heart" scrawled in my five year-old handwriting. My grandmum used to always tell me to love with my "best heart," and seeing those words again was like a wake-up call. My "best heart" would in no way approve of an eating disorder. And neither would my grandmum.

Between school assignments and work, I've only gotten about a quarter of the way through The Power of Now, but the sections that I've read are already full of underlining and annotations. The concept of the "pain-body" has been particularly meaningful for me because Tolle's description of the pain-body is so applicable to eating disorders. The pain-body seeks to perpetuate itself by feeding on the sadness, anxiety, and fear that it creates.

"The pain-body wants to survive, just like every other entity in existence, and it can only survive if it gets you to unconsciously identify with it. It can then rise up, take you over, 'become you,' and live through you."

WOW. Reading this, all my disordered eating patterns started to make sense. When I start digging a hole for myself--relapsing, getting absorbed in fear, etc.--it's really hard to pull myself out of that hole. The pain-body "feed[s] on any experience that resonates with its own kind of energy," so the more anxious I become, the more power the pain-body gets. And then, because the pain-body convinces me that it's who I am, I just dig my hole deeper, not realizing that my eating disorder is trying to perpetuate itself. This all sounds pretty abstract and metaphysical, I know, but it's been incredibly eye-opening for me. I've finally started to take a step back and realize that my eating disorder is an illness. It's pain seeking pain, and I have the power to put an end to it.

"The pain-body . . . is actually afraid of the light of your consciousness." 

Next time, I'm going to write a bit about consciousness and awareness vs. unconsciousness and thinking. I hope that these posts will resonate with some of you, too, and I'm sending #kittyzen wishes.

<3 <3 <3

Embracing Unpredictability

Instead of studying for finals yesterday, I spent the morning trudging through snowmageddon with my mum and brother. Because of a rather un-foreboding weather forecast, we'd thought that we would be able to make it home from church before the weather got bad, but our 24 year-old car ended up sliding down an ice hill, and we had to abandon it in the middle of the city and seek shelter in our friend's tool shed. By the time he got home to break us out of it, the roads were buried, and we ended up staying the night without access to any of our homework. Yay, finals!

Needless to say, I am so incredibly grateful our hero-friend saved us from the snowstorm. We got locked in his shed, and when he showed up wearing a Santa hat to break us out of it, we were soaked and covered in the purple-red hues of pre-frostbite. I swear that I've never been so happy in my life to have a cup of tea before . . . even if the inspirational quote on the tea bag made me feel a bit foolish for having gone out that morning:

"One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning."

Thank you, James Russell Lowell. I'll remember that.

Anyway, we made it back to our poor sweet car today and dug him out of his snow pile enough to get home, and we're desperately trying to make up for our lost study time now. The semester ends this week, so I'm trying to write as fast as possible, but I wanted to take a quick break to post here a little bit because last night got me thinking a lot about practicing gratitude and embracing unpredictability. Both of these things are so crucial to eating disorder recovery.

Found on Yoga for Wellness

One of the things that an eating disorder promises us is control. Often, we become vulnerable to eating disorders in part because something about our lives feels out of control, and we believe that if we control every aspect of what we eat, we'll find a sense of safety and calm. Ironically, though, having an eating disorder actually means losing control to an illness. We give up our sanity, our health, and our happiness for control that we don't actually have. Isn't that scary?!

I know I make this comparison a lot, but Gollum's relationship with the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings is a really good metaphor for the relationship someone has with an eating disorder. Gollum thinks that possessing the One Ring gives him control in his life, but in reality, the One Ring is a very unhealthy fixation for him. I mean, he's willing to spend eternity hunched over in a dark cave talking to himself and cradling the ring like it's the only thing he cares about. "My precious . . . ."

When I think of my eating disorder obsessions, I try to imagine Gollum and the One Ring, and then I realize that an eating disorder--as "in control" as it may make me feel--is ultimately going to ruin my life if I don't fight it, regardless of how counter-intuitive and stressful non-disordered behaviors may seem. But every day that I don't do the hardest workout and every Friday night that I eat a bowl of Luna & Larry's on the couch with my brother is another step closer to freedom.

And as for practicing gratitude . . . my mum and I have been trying to follow some of Lesley Fightmaster and Adriene Mishler's yoga videos on YouTube, and they usually include mindfulness lessons woven in with the actually asanas themselves. A few days ago, we did a yoga video that included a quote from The 7 Book: How Many Days of the Week Can be Extraordinary? by Dan Zadra and Kobi Yamada:

30,000 mornings, give or take, is all we’re given. If you’re 26, you still have 20,000 left. If you’re 54, you still have 10,000. An accident or illness could change all that, of course. But let’s count on you to remain safe and healthy all your allotted life—in which case you still have plenty of time. Sort of.

“We get to think of life as an inexhaustible well,” wrote composer and author Paul Bowles, who lived to the ripe old age of 32,442 mornings. “Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. 

“How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.” 

30,000 mornings. We’ll spend some of them on the treadmill, or fighting traffic, or standing in line at the Starbucks store. Just be sure to spend some of yours seeking and savoring the real beauty, mystery, and adventure of your days. This is your life, your one and only life—don’t miss a day of it.

Yesterday, I spent one of my 30,000 mornings hiking to safety in a tool shed, but my family and I didn't die in an accident, and we got to spend the evening with each other and a dear friend instead of spending it obsessing over homework. So I'm grateful for yesterday. Focus on the mornings, the evenings, the mid-days . . . see every moment as an individual piece of time that you've been granted. The freer moments are the ones when the eating disorder isn't in charge. You can do recovery and get your moments back for yourself. I believe in you.

And before I go . . .please be careful if you're in dangerous weather!

<3 <3 <3

Keeping Your Head in Recovery

Eating disorders and the holidays . . . oh, my. Between missing deceased relatives, reconnecting with loved ones, dealing with stress, and trying to balance life, love, pain, and work, holidays are fraught with ambivalence for everyone, but eating disorders add an element of anxiety that most don't understand. Whenever my brother sees a look of fear cross my face at the mention of "dessert," he becomes visibly confused. Why on Earth would anyone be afraid of dessert?

I think what's most challenging about the holidays is that they're often full of unpredictability. They also bring back many memories. I'm incredibly grateful for the fact that I have a sweet family to spend the holidays with and spent much of yesterday wishing that the world were a fairer place and that everyone had a family to be with, and I also kept remembering all the holidays I had to go away from home (personal family reasons with divorce, etc.). Being away and travelling between strangers' houses was confusing, and I was homesick and full of allergies and eventually learned to associate holiday food times with feeling lonely, icky, and awful. When these associations meet with the food guilt of an eating disorder, the results are disastrous. 

I've mentioned this here before, but one of the therapy modalities that's been the most helpful for me in recovery is yoga. This morning, the yoga sequence I was following ended with this powerful quote from Thoreau: "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." 

I had my least anorexic Thanksgiving in a while yesterday. I ate all my regular meals and snacks, finished the entire dinner that my mum made, and had a bigger dessert than I would've served myself (and several items included sugar *gasp*). My mum baked things that were allergy-friendly, which I am so grateful for, but despite the love I felt for her and the work that went into making everything, I  still struggled to shake the taunting squeals of Bellatrix in my head. "You ate that! You ate that! You're so unhealthy! How will you make up for it?" 

My eating disorder when she wants to guilt-trip me:

Image from Yahoo

I hate it when Bellatrix yells at me like that. Not only is eating normal, but it's also something I need to do "a lot" (what does that even mean?) of because I'm still very much in recovery, regardless of whether or not I think I am. I managed to quiet Bellatrix enough to have a happy evening, but she showed up again this morning, threatening me with anxiety and guilt. After yoga, though, I repeated Thoreau's words in my head and realized that, even if I can't make Bellatrix go away, I can do my best to change my perception. Every time Bellatrix yells at me, I'm going to stand my ground and tell her that my choices are healthy for me. "I'm being healthy." I know healthy can be a triggering word, but I want to reclaim it from our detox-obsessed culture. In eating disorder recovery, "healthy" means being whole and making choices that nourish your body instead of those that deprive it.

This holiday season, Bellatrix is not invited. Let's keep our minds in recovery.

<3 <3 <3 

Honesty in Eating Disorder Recovery

I love yoga very, very much, and it makes me sad that, for many years, limiting beliefs surrounding exercise prevented me from ever really embracing the practice. It wasn't a "workout" like running was, so I didn't have time for it.

Ugh. I wish I could go back and tell my runner self that running = not for me. I wish I could tell her to tune into her intuition--not the voice in her head--and practice Satya.

Image from Authentic Self Yoga

Satya is the Yama of truthfulness. It's about being honest with yourself and with those around you, and it's a crucial component of successfully combating any eating disorder. The reality of eating disorder recovery is that it's hard. It's wrapped up in confusion, false beliefs, and a cult-like devotion to the idols of "purity" and "control," and there are times when it can feel like you have no idea where you are. Are you headed in the right direction? Are you even sick? What if you're doing it wrong? Why are you thinking about food all the time? Is this normal? What if this is normal?

If you're hyper-focused on food and have to ask yourself "is this normal?" all the time, then it most likely isn't. But I understand why you're stuck. I get that way, too. I know that my ultimate goal is to be recovered, but it's so so so easy to get distracted by something else--school, life in general--and then "forget" that I'm still not recovered yet.

This is where Satya comes in. If I'm being honest with myself, I know that I still have a lot of work to do to get better because I have way too many rules. And I also know that, if I want to get better, I need help. I need guidance, oversight, accountability. Friends, the eating disorder thrives on control, but you need to give some of that control up. Find someone you love and trust and practice Satya with them. Be fully honest. Ask for help.

I've been lucky to have a really supportive, loving family this entire time, but there are areas where I notice I still try to take control. And I don't think I'm fully ready for that yet, so I'm trying to practice more Satya in my life and ask for help. It's difficult to admit that you're not 100% there, but if you ever want to get better, you need to acknowledge that something is off. What's wonderful is that when you find that person who can help you--a parent, a sibling, a friend, a therapist--they're going to see you with love. They're not going to judge you. They want the best for you, too.

From TIME

It's going to be okay.

<3 <3 <3

Stop Being Scared of Recovery

It's so much easier to be scared in eating disorder recovery than it is to be brave. The entire process--entering the unknown, shedding an "identity" (however false it may be), doing everything that's counter-intuitive, willingly getting uncomfortable--is quite frightening from the outside. Is it worth it? What if, what if, what if . . . ?

As someone who's not even done recovering yet, I'm right there with you with the fear and angst. But there comes a moment when you realize you don't really have a choice anymore. I can either let my eating disorder control me and my life and steal my health and youth, or I can take action. That's the key: taking action. Being brave. DOING recovery instead of just giving it lip service.

Here's the good news, though: recovery does not have to suck. Yes, you read that correctly. This whole ordeal doesn't necessarily need to be the "ugh" that we've made it out to be. Find ways to enjoy recovery so that it's sustainable and loving instead of forced and unpleasant! I, for instance, have discovered the joy in yoga and am learning to see it as something beyond a "form of exercise." Thinking in terms of "exercise" is detrimental to my mental health (and therefore to my physical health), so I keep reminding myself that yoga is an ancient and all-encompassing life practice and that the asanas are fun and flowy and that I don't "have" to do any specific routine to "do yoga." 

Speaking of which . . . . 

I've also found recipes that make nourishment more appealing. For a long time, I've avoided so many of these recipes I'm going to make now because I was afraid they had too many calories. Even when I wasn't trying to be afraid, I unconsciously tallied calories up in my head. Two dates in that shake? That's too much. 

But what's the freaking point of doing that anymore? When my blood sugar gets too low, I get angsty, moody, irritable, and actually begin to fear food more than when I've just eaten. Earlier today, when my blood sugar wasn't too low for me to think properly, I saw a banana-date shake recipe online and decided that it looked really yummy and would be a fun snack for the afternoon. Immediately, a little voice popped into my head and said, "But your normal snack is much smaller!" On any other day, I would've given into this voice, but today I told the voice to shut up. I remembered what I'd learned in yoga--that our perception determines our reality and that we can control our reactions--and I decided that I was going to make myself a banana-date smoothie with all the nut butter and protein powder I wanted to add to it just because I could. And I did. And it was awesome. I was "doing recovery," and it didn't involve any sweat or pain. It was fun. It tasted like bananas!

<3 

Letting Go is Courageous

A new month is almost over. And then it will be October. That has to mean something, right? I don't know. Maybe I should ask the cats.

What are your plans? What are you gripping onto? I often realize that whatever I'm clutching correlates with what I'm afraid of. If it's in my hand and I'm refusing to let go of it, chances are that I'm afraid of what will happen when I release. "Letting go" is an idea that's developed a negative connotation around it. We associate it with giving up and becoming weak. When we let go, we're undisciplined, lost, unmotivated.

Or are we?

When I let go of running, I was afraid. There was pitta-vata imbalance written all over me, and the more I fed into the frustration and fear inside me, the worse I felt. Speed and force can help us numb out of things, but as soon as the "high" of adrenaline subsides, the worry and fear and grasping creep back in. Tools like over-exercising, restricting, etc., are not long-term helpers for us when we're dealing with stress or anxiety. They're unsustainable and put our bodies in a constant state of sympathetic nervous system overload.

Having people that love you enough to call you out when you're going into SNS overload (pushing, resisting, and fighting mode) is a blessing. I'm so grateful to my loved ones for helping me see that moving faster and faster isn't going to make me feel better, and it breaks my heart that there are people all over the world who are going through destruction alone. We need to help spread the message that, in some cases, letting go isn't bad. It's not weakness!

Letting go is strength. It's courage. It's something we have to practice every day.

Our inner demons have all sorts of names. Anorexia. Perfectionism. Workaholism. Internet addiction. These insidious forces overtake us during a period of vulnerability in our lives, and before we know it, we're afraid of everything, most of all ourselves.

Image found on Sue Atkins

Marianne's got it. We're terrified of letting go because, somewhere within ourselves, we know that we CAN let go. It may not be cut-and-dry or simple, but it's possible. When people are overexercising, for instance, it may scare them to know that they have the power let the alarm go off a bit late and skip running. They have the power to do yoga instead, or sleep in, or read . . . .

In order to access our "power," we need to have faith that things are going to be okay. I'll admit that I'm definitely not the full-of-faith, let-it-be person that I'd like to be, but the point of writing this is to say that it's okay to let go of inner demons and let faith in. Let love in.

<3 <3 <3

Anxiety, Body Image, and Other Lovely Reasons to Just Chill Already

The challenge of maintaining a work-school-life balance returns as soon as the alarm goes off on Monday morning.

From Giphy (OMG, so adorable!)

The imminence of our brief "holiday" (i.e. work from home) time ending is a bit anxiety-provoking, but yesterday at Mass, I realized that gratitude is so much more convenient, beneficial, and compassionate than fear and worry are. I'm incredibly grateful to have an education, jobs, and a place to come home to at night, and when I choose to focus on this instead of on all the things I could be panicking about, the jigsaw pieces of life fit together much more easily than they do when my thoughts are scattered and freaked out.

Giphy

Of course, it's much easier to just sit here and write about mindfulness than it is to actually put mindfulness into practice. We don't just wake up one day feeling all zen and Yoda-like (just ask Luke Skywalker about that!). Sometimes, anxiety sweeps in and decides to take over everything. This morning, for instance, I found my mind drowning in overwhelm. I couldn't focus on anything, and my thoughts were going way too quickly for me to keep up with them. I wanted so badly to slow down but at the same time felt that I had to go faster and faster. Ugh, right?

One of the great things about science is that, at times like these, we can use it to understand what's going on in our bodies. The spike in cortisol and adrenaline that accompanies panicked, distressed feelings produces certain physiological reactions: shallow breathing, shaking, sweating, etc. Anyone who's ever heard a yoga instructor before knows that the breath plays a major role in regulating how we feel at any given time, and we can harness the breath to our advantage by focusing on deep inhales and long, relaxing exhales. Yoga, tai chi, qigong, and meditation are wonderful practices for building awareness and contentment because of their incorporation of mindful breathing. By linking breaths to different postures, a yoga "flow" encourages us to stop paying attention to whatever is going on in our head (body-bashing, self-criticism, fear, etc.) and instead pay attention to our inhale/exhale patterns. As we calm down, our breaths become fuller and deeper, and we experience a sort of "lightness" in our bodies that is only accessible via the one-and-only parasympathetic nervous system.

Breathing--that amazing function that so many of us take for granted--keeps us alive. It nourishes us with oxygen and gives us a vehicle through which to expel negative energy, but when we're caught up in anxiety, we let the bad feelings fester and don't allow the breath to help us. When I looked in the mirror the other day and decided I didn't like what I saw because x wasn't flat enough and my hair wasn't y enough, my breath became shallow, and negativity built up inside me. I started thinking about all the things I needed to do . . . restrict, add cardio, etc., etc., etc. Did any of those thoughts help me? NO. They suffocated me--physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Don't let your thoughts suffocate you, loves. Remember that you aren't a body. "You're a soul. You have a body." 

And nourish that soul--nourish yourself--with sincere, healing breaths. 

Art by Michelle Eshleman

<3 <3 <3

Yoga-ing All Day

I used to fear double pigeon pose, but since I began doing it every day, it's gotten easier. I'm learning to push through the discomfort and just be in my body, working with it as opposed to against it. It's easy to start judging yourself in yoga. You're trying to do a forward fold or wheel pose or get your knee aligned above your ankle, and then all of a sudden you're noticing how your thigh doesn't look "right" or how uncomfortable it feels to brush against your own side.

But then, when you sit with that discomfort and breathe into it and just observe it, you can get out of your head and into your body and realize that your body isn't 'wrong." It's not imperfect or flawed; it's just what it is. It doesn't need to be changed. 

Initially, it can be scary to accept and ease into the moment--to really settle into every line and mark and fold and curve of your body--but the magic lies in softness. If it were easy to be relaxed and comfortable with and in yourself, then mindfulness/yoga/etc. wouldn't be a practice. It'd just be something we wake up doing!

Even if the experience of being "in" yourself is difficult at first, know that, the more you practice it, the more natural it will be become. When I slip into disordered eating patterns, I tend to become hyper-focused on a specific body part. I'm very aware of my stomach and then start analyzing it, judging it, and wondering why it doesn't look like it "should." UGH. All this does is push me into my deep, dark little hate hole of insecurity and despair. When I'm trapped in the hate hole, it's really hard to climb out. I'm also usually accompanied by Gollum. He's sitting there cradling the One Ring while I cradle my self-criticism, self-doubt, and body dysmorphia. Needless to say, neither Gollum nor I has a particularly pleasant time in the little hate hole, and I highly recommend that you avoid going down there/ It is not a fun place to be!

Today, instead of leaping into the insecurity spiral, I focused on just going through the yoga movements mindfully and acting as an observer to my thoughts. We can all do this. It takes practice, and it isn't always easy, but it's better than sharing a cave with Gollum. The next time you're starting to judge your body, take a minute to step out of your head and back into your being. The thoughts can come, but they don't have to determine how you feel about yourself.  Breathe in for three counts and breathe out for four counts. Longer exhalations lower anxiety. And yoga poses like tree and Warrior II can help to ground you. They say, "Hey, let's get out of the head space and into the body space! Soft and strong!"

Soft and strong. In body, in mind, in actions.

<3 <3 <3 

Bunnies: Making the World a Better Place

I had a soul-changing experience the other day, and I'm not saying that lightly. We were taking the recycling out, and when we got to the top of the hill, we saw the world's smallest, cutest, and most innocent bunny.

Seriously. This bunny was so small that he wasn't even aware that there were humans everywhere. We of course pose zero threat to any animal life, but this bunny felt no fear. And immediately I realized that perhaps my highest calling in life is to just grow up and raise a bunch of bunnies/rabbits named after famous literary figures.

Has anyone else had a life-altering moment with a cute baby animal? I think part of my affection for rabbits is due to the fact that my mum raised me on Watership Down, Beatrix Potter, and Max & Ruby. 

This is not the bunny I saw, but it's adorable.

And speaking of bunnies, "bunny yoga" is apparently a thing! 

I hope that this was able to bring a little sunshine to your day :). Bunnies make the world a better place, and we need all the love and cuteness we can get right now because there's a lot out there that's really quite tragic.

<3 <3 <3 

Unicorn Dreams, Yoga, and Maple Syrup

I'm still not sure how it's already the middle of July. All year long, summer seems so far away, and then it gets here, and we realize that we actually spend a lot of it working . . . and then it ends. But I'm grateful to have this time to get to be with my mum and brother more.  (And at least Fall means plaid skirts, which are always a plus.)

I've got a lot of work to do to get ready for the school year starting. It may seem early to begin prepping, but I'm going to be applying to a speech pathology program, and I need to work on that before I'm tutoring and subbing every afternoon. My dream right now is to work in rehabilitation of some kind . . . and in my "unicorn dream," I hope to use yoga and art and writing therapies with children at Vesnova in Belarus. Does anyone else have a "unicorn dream"?

From Giphy

This August marks ten years since my grandmother passed away. She helped raise me and my brother, and we miss her red hair and freckles every day. I didn't really understand the extent to which she was sick (lupus, cancer, etc.) until after she died, and my heart goes out to anyone who's dealing with any sort of autoimmune disease. Autoimmune diseases are like ghosts: they aren't always visible, but they're there, and they're felt.

They're definitely felt.

When I was little, my grandmother used to bake with me, and she liked to make pumpkin pie and apple crisp and a whole assortment of other gluten-free, allergy-friendly treats*. One of my absolute favorite parts of the baking process was getting to taste the batter because it had maple syrup in it.

Maple syrup is delicious.

But I haven't had maple syrup in the past several years because I've labeled it as "too sugary." Ugh, why? I know that there isn't any one perfect diet system and that dropping diets is the best thing that any of us dealing with disordered eating behaviors can do, but there are some principles of Ayurveda that have been helping me recently. Ayurveda actually recommends maple syrup for anyone dealing with excess Vata or Pitta. Certain eating disorder behaviors--like obsessing, restricting, and avoiding--fit really well with Vata and Pitta imbalances.

And Ayurveda aside, maple syrup is yummy and packed full of antioxidants. Why deprive yourself of that?

Image from Amazon.com

This morning I was baking muffins for our neighbors, and I picked up one of my favorite cookbooks (Deliciously Ella, yay!) to look for some ideas. I found Ella's blueberry muffin recipe, which calls for a lot of maple syrup. My initial reaction was to think, "Okay, what should I sub the syrup for? How can I make it less sugary?" But then I read her description of the muffins as nourishing, satisfying, and energizing, and I decided to drop my maple syrup avoidance and instead embrace the idea of trusting the recipe and trusting myself.

Interested in yoga? Try it here!

In yoga "class" (aka YouTube videos in the living room), I often hear to "trust the yoga." (Thank you, Adriene Mishler!) It's such a simple statement, but for anyone who struggles with feeling anxious or doubtful, releasing fear and control and just trusting the yoga is actually really liberating. It's all going to work out in the end. It's going to be fine! So today I trusted the recipe and just added the maple syrup, and as soon as I started pouring it, I remembered being four years old and sitting in my grandmother's kitchen tasting syrup off of the spoon while she baked.

Everything felt better in that moment.


Trust.

Just breathe and trust.

<3


*Note that I'm not pushing a gluten-free, etc., agenda or anything . . . my family just has a history of Celiac Disease and histamine issues. Any choices I reflect on the blog regarding vegetarianism or dairy or anything like that aren't fear-based.

Self-Care When You Don't Have Time

The April snowfall has caught me completely off-guard, and because I'm inside, I'm dressed for spring weather and have to keep reminding myself that if I go outside my legs will turn blue. Oops.

Getting ready for school and work this morning, I watched my mum rush to get out the door, off to help young children readjust to being in school after Spring Break. Because she's a teacher, her Spring Break wasn't as much of a holiday as it was a time to do all her work at home. Teachers don't get as much time off as people tend to assume they do. I'm in college studying to become a speech therapist, and I'm working as a substitute teacher in the meantime, so I get a lot of exposure to #teacherlife. Teachers are loving and dedicated, but their days are stressful. For teachers and nurses and doctors and etc, etc, etc, everyday life can be hectic and crazy, and when you're a person who cares a lot about other people and making them happy, life can get even crazier. What's really ironic is that, with the rise of the self-care industry, a lot of the people who have the easiest time incorporating self-care are the ones who might not need self-care as much as the people spending all their time serving others. I'm not at all saying that self-care is selfish--it's actually quite necessary. But it hasn't really reached the audience that I think it would be the most beneficial for because that audience is too busy sacrificing themselves for the well-being of their kids/jobs/parents/pets/etc.

Teachers will understand this question. (From Giphy)

When we try to figure out how to make "self-care" work, we hear a lot about super-complicated morning routines, cleanses, and retreats. It's easy to say, "Oh, self-care works for me!" when you've been on a one-week yoga and meditation retreat and start every morning with breathwork, self-massage, and crystal cleansing. There's nothing wrong with any of these things--they're awesome and can be very helpful--but I think that we need to figure out how people who work twelve-hour shifts and have endless homework can incorporate self-care into their lives easily and affordably.

Self-Care Ideas for Busy People (from Other Busy People):

• Try to go to bed 30 minutes earlier. Or even 15 minutes earlier. IT MAKES SUCH A BIG DIFFERENCE SOMETIMES.
• Find some sort of fun activity that helps you feel relaxed and centered and try to do it whenever you feel overwhelmed, even if it's just for 15 minutes. I love yoga and dancing. There are some great short yoga videos on YouTube, and all you need for dancing is music (and you).
• Breathe. Just in, and out. Focus on it. Relax. You can do this anywhere, anytime.
• Wear colors that make you happy. Seriously. Pink perks me up.
• Find a power song. It can be anything. My brother loves Arcade Fire.
• Add some fresh fruits and vegetables into your diet. They're nature's happy treats, and there are so many to choose from. Avocados! Bananas! Apples! Cucumbers!
• Plan a fun event you can do easily every week, like at-home Go Fish with your family or Netflix-ing with your cat.
• Find a book. Don't put pressure on yourself to finish it quickly. Just read a few pages whenever you get a chance. It'll be like exercise for your brain and for your feelings.
• Give yourself a hug. Then hug a friend. Hugs. Hugs. Hugs.
• Pick a desktop background that includes a cute baby animal or a wildlife scene.

<3 Frances

Spring Cleaning, Bunny Yoga, and Meditating with a Cat

It actually feels like springtime today, and snow is in the forecast, so I've sort of given up on trying to figure out what's going on with the weather. I feel like Mother Nature is screaming at us that global warming is a serious issue. I mean, it's snowing in April. For this part of the world, that just isn't normal. It's a major warning sign that we need to start taking the environment seriously before the earth starts looking like it does in Bladerunner. (Speaking of which, we saw Bladerunner 2049 recently, and it was really good. So plan a movie night. And remember to recycle.)

We're cat-sitting right now, and one of the fuzzballs we're taking care of is an incredibly chill, relaxed little fellow who I'm looking to for zen-spiration. When I feel myself getting stressed out or needing to "control" everything, I try to remind myself of what this cat would do in my situation, and, even if I can't roll around on the floor, I can at least take a deep breath and center myself. Yoga has been helping with this, too. If you're anything like I am (Type A, worrier, etc.), chances are that your first attempts at yoga might leave you feeling a bit frustrated and seeking the immediate release of hardcore cardio, but for some of us, focusing on stillness, flexibility, and breathwork is way more beneficial than pushing through 100 burpees. Trust me. I've been the 100 burpees girl, and I'm still recovering from the long-term effects of overexertion. It's not worth it, friends!

Is it just me, or does spring make anyone else feel weirdly optimistic?  I put on a spring-y blouse and shorts today to do homework, prep for the class I'm going to start teaching soon, and clean the living room, and the thought of warm breezes and flowers has me all excited even though I've got a bit of a pollen allergy and really am not looking forward to the summertime humidity. I'm sending out positive wishes to everybody and hoping that everyone is having a loving Friday <3. Because of all the sadness and tragedy in the world, I want to share some more inspirational/happy thoughts today:

• This is the story of Ziki, a little boy in the DRC who was rescued from a life as a cobalt miner and now gets to go to school.

From CBS News

• This is a video about Heifer International, which helps farmers in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the U.S. I listened to a podcast (link here) about Heifer and was inspired to find a video about it :).

• This is a song that we've had on repeat recently. I hope you like it, too! :) 

<3 

Frances

Things Like Stars and Yoga and Podcasts

“When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don't seem to matter very much, do they?”  

It's Virginia Woolf's 136th birthday today! She's one of my favorite writers, and when I was accepted to study English at KCL last year, I couldn't believe it because KCL was the school she studied at. I obviously didn't end up moving to London and attending KCL, but I keep the letter from them on my desk just because I like seeing it.  And it's a more positive reminder of Virginia Woolf than the movie The Hours is.  I love The Hours for its tragedy and depth, but if I watch it again I'm afraid I'll end up an emotional wreck.  Are there any particularly heartbreaking movies that you feel drawn to?  I have a hard time not watching sad movies or reading sad stories because they're so powerful.

From Wikipedia

Speaking of which . . . this month, I discovered the On Being podcast.  Whenever I'm doing work-work, school-work, or house-work, I like keeping company by listening to podcasts, and the On Being show is amazing. Perhaps the best description of it is from the pod's website:

On Being opens up the animating questions at the center of human life: What does it mean to be human, and how do we want to live? We explore these questions in their richness and complexity in 21st-century lives and endeavors. We pursue wisdom and moral imagination as much as knowledge; we esteem nuance and poetry as much as fact. 

I'm hoping to write more here later about episode suggestions, but if you have the time, you should definitely listen to the episodes with Marie Howe and Matthew Sanborn.  Howe's episode is perfect for Virginia Woolf's birthday. It's about "how language . . . has a power to save us," and it explores the way poetry brings experiences to life and makes us each a little less lonely.  Sanford's episode is about feeling compassion and appreciation for our bodies, and Sanford's story is incredibly compelling.  Paralyzed as a 13 year-old, he now teaches yoga to everyone from those overcoming physical disabilities to teens battling eating disorders, and his perspective on life is eye-opening. You really have to listen to the episode or read the transcript to get the full impact of his thoughts, but one of the things that he said that stood out to me the most was that, instead of focusing on ways in which his body isn't working, he focuses on all the amazing work it does just to keep him alive. Wow. It's beautiful.

From Daily Mom

 

The last little tidbit for this morning is (cue fun music) morning yoga! Yay! There is a lot of struggle and disconnect and resistance in the world right now, and stress is something that we all experience on a daily basis. As you may know from previous posts of mine, I've been working to combat the body-image/control issues that have resulted from anxiety, and when I'm stressed, I have a tendency to want to move into GOGOGOGO mode. 
But Ayurveda teaches us that like increases like. If you're freaked out and high-strung and do activities that build on those feelings, then they're just going to get worse. So I've had to hang up my "harder, faster, stronger" fitness mentality and focus more on softness and flexibility, which I've come to realize may actually be better for my health than constantly pushing the limit was.  Truth is, running fast and far may be exhilarating for some, but for me it usually just meant feeling wired.  I got high off the endorphins, but then all I could think about was the endorphins and when I'd "hit the wall" again . . . which is bad!  Now that I'm foregoing heart-gargling intensity for yoga, I'm finding that I'm thinking a lot more clearly. I've always appreciated yoga, but I never realized just how true all those "yoga changes your mind" stories are. The past three days, my mum and I have done short Yoga With Adriene or Lesley Fightmaster videos together to detox after work, and during one of Adriene's detox videos, my mum and I actually managed to really breathe for the first time.  We didn't take those shallow stress breaths we normally take but rather long, deep breaths with audible exhalations, and it was really freeing to be loose and fluid, not tight and rigid.
So if you're feeling anxious or knotted up or under pressure, maybe take five minutes (yes, just five minutes) and try a little "feel good" movement with Adriene.  See? I'm making it easy and putting the video right here, just a click away :).

 

 

Much love and light!

<3 Frances

Nourishment, Flexibility, and Self-Respect

I almost forgot it was January when I woke up on Monday. In my mental calendar, we were still in the month of candy canes and hymns, and it's only now that the "spring" semester has started up again that it's hit me that it's 2018.  Another year!
Of course, the whole "new year" transition means that everyone is coming up with resolutions. The "new year, new me" mindset is pervasive--rarely do we see so many ads about diet and fitness routines!  Please remember, though, to filter the "diet talk." There's a good and a bad to everything, and while diet/fitness reminders can be motivating for some people, they can be harmful to others. Life is about balance, not extremes, and if you tend to be a bit of an extremist (I speak from experience!), please make all your health choices consciously, focusing not on limitation, control, and self-punishment but rather on nourishment, flexibility, and self-respect.

NOURISHMENT, FLEXIBILITY, AND SELF-RESPECT

 

That said, I know that "nourishment, flexibility, and self-respect" may sound a little bit self-indulgent. But taking care of yourself enables you to give out to others. There's a beautiful affirmation by Louise Hay that I want to share here:

http://bmindful.com/forum/thread/7900/loa-loving-wonderful-health-affirmations-etc

This affirmation captures the whole idea of "pouring from an empty cup." Simply put, you can't give what you don't have--eventually, you'll burn the candle at both ends and run out.  I've seen so many of the beautiful, strong women in my family do this.  Fueled on nothing but coffee and cortisol, they push themselves as hard as they can, but then one day they hit a wall. Adrenal fatigue, autoimmune disease, stroke . . . chronic cortisol isn't the healthiest energizer! It will only enable you to go so far, but then it'll backfire on you.

http://adrenalfatigue.org/stress-and-your-health/got-stress/stress-affects-body/

Even though I, too, have been known to feed off of cortisol, I really am writing this post for people like my grandmum who for years have been giving giving giving without ever stopping to take care of themselves.  It's the NEW YEAR, so while everyone is using this as an opportunity to make a diet/fitness resolution, maybe take a deep breath and resolve to find some peace for yourself. Inhale, exhale. The work will always be there, but if you allow yourself to heal a bit instead of just working yourself to exhaustion all the time, you won't burn that candle out.  Here are some quick fixes for cortisol spikes:

Yoga for Stress Relief -- 7 Minute Practice

 

Meditation for Stress

 

Phnom Penh Lullaby

 

Much love!
<3 Frances