Why I Care or Coach
Being at war with my body far more describes my relationship to it than a peaceful acceptance, self-compassion or self-nurture. Judging and comparing, I felt like I was actually just too good for my own body. This posture towards it left me disconnected, withholding kindness and appreciation.
How did I become so against my body?
Many experiences set me up to stand in judgment to my body and declare- it isn’t good. Side eyeing my body in disapproval– I learned to relate to it with the cruel lens of shame, seeing that it wasn’t good enough–it was broken and bad.
I was young and shaped by powerful influences:
Growing up in the 90’s where the “Cult of Thinness” hit its all time high
Christian Fundamentalist Purity Culture Community
Mothers all around me, fad dieting in discontent with their bodies
Girls (my peers) always complaining about their bodies
Media portraying mostly young, very thin bodies
For me, I didn’t have parents helping me filter these toxic influences or providing counter points to help me see the damage in these shaping ideas. I didn’t have relational security that often translates in to self security. I wasn’t helped with wisdom and insight around how to be a young woman in a world that tends to value a woman first for her appearance. Alone to figure it out, the easiest seemed to strive to improve and change my body, longing to match the ideal. Even deeper, my longing was to fit in, to belong. Innocent and insecure, I tried with my whole heart.
So, I dieted and exercised a lot. I mentally bullied my body, withholding acceptance and appreciation. Literally running to get to the “better-” the body that was finally “enough.”
Fast forward through getting married and 4 pregnancies, religious trauma, and lots of counseling. Tragedy had hit our family in multiple ways and sorrow and loss became my daily companions.
I saw my disembodiment, disconnectedness, disapproval. I saw this precious self, this human story–striving to be loved. My religion had taught me that I was wretched and weak–that there was always a formula for love and if only I could perform and please–I could behold this love. While grace was explicit, implicity–my experience was similar to being a teen in the diet culture. Being a woman in the Church was a continuation of striving and trying to match an ideal. I did eventually become the on the surface, shallow “ideal.” I was a pastor’s wife, had a brood of children, homeschooled, and was thin. I even wrote a book. Profound loss, a disguised gift–was inviting me to go deeper, to let achievements fall away and see myself with compassion and actual grace.
If I was going to reconnect with myself through the grief, I would have to face my relationship to my body–as it is a symbol of how I have related to myself. I began to see through a different lens, tossing the shame glasses and instead actually see and believe that I was already good. I was already loved. Being at war hadn’t worked for 40 years. I craved peace. If I was going to heal, I would have to see and think differently about my body, myself.
I had been practicing as a spiritual counselor for all of my adult life. I wasn’t too surprised when I found myself yet again at the interchange of invitation to deeper healing and growth. I knew that what was stirring in me would be transformed into the vulnerability of helping others heal too.
I went back to school for nutrition and health coaching and started sitting with folks in their body and food stories. As tears streamed and trauma experiences unfolded, beautiful humans were sharing their thoughts, beliefs and behaviors with their bodies. I began seeing patterns. I saw damage and devasting affects of diet culture, broken attachment, extreme religion, and other heartbreaking influences. All of these and more left people disconnected and sitting in disapproval with their bodies, lives, and selves.
Peaceful relating to bodies and food doesn’t seem too common. In my corner of coaching and counseling– this work is both about recovery and transformation. My work is helping people reclaim or pursue for the first time, peace with their bodies. To reinspire creativity and imagination for health, food, and movement! This invites us to take a compassionate and curious approach to seeing the variables for how we replaced connection with disconnection, peace for anxiety, acceptance with judgment. We can reverse all of these!
I am a Nutrition and Health Coach because I understand and am still healing too. I see and know first hand, what shame has felt like in my relationship to my body and how I have used food and exercise to control it.
Compassion and Curiosity shape my health and nutrition classes. I do this work because love is so much more powerful than shame.
