EATING & BODY IMAGE
FEELINGS
Eating and restricting compulsively is a brutal and deeply disheartening cycle.
As is, stepping on the scale again and again every few minutes...while stopping at the mirror along the way and repeatedly pinching different body areas.
So is, hiding what you eat. Hiding what you don’t eat.
Purging while at restaurants, work, and on dates.
Waiting for the date to end so you can binge.
Not going to events because you aren’t the size # you want to be.
Then there’s the dreaded pool party. The beach. Will swimsuit season ever end?
Measuring, counting, weighing...ourselves, what we eat, and what we didn’t.
The fat clothes, the skinny clothes, the clothes that never fit right.
Such painful experiences, chaos, emotional turmoil and feelings of self-loathing. Yet, for a malady so prevalent and with such serious downside, it is also the one struggle other people so easily dismiss or diminish, like when they say: “Just eat less and exercise more...calories in calories out!” (Ohhh...thank you...Never thought of that one...And thanks for helping reinforce my shame too...much appreciated!)
Or
“Just eat something!”
(Ouch!)
APPROACH
The list of painful examples could go on for pages, but suffice to say that I understand and I empathize with the difficulties you are facing. Another challenge is that unlike other obsessions, such as drinking, drugs, gambling, or even OCD, where full abstinence is a choice, eating is different because you still have to eat. The analogy of having to "take the tiger out of the cage several times a day every day and not get killed," describes it perfectly. In fact, many of the very definitions of addiction say that "we have lost our power of choice and the idea that somehow, someday you will have control is the great obsession of every addict." What a dismal view and it reflects how deeply misunderstood eating and body image issues are.
Fortunately, I know through my own personal experience, and the many people I have worked with, that there is hope and a path for sustainable change in this area of your life. Eating and body image are the original focus of my practice and I am uniquely qualified to provide very personalized, private, and empathetic counseling if you struggle in these areas.
The majority of clients I’ve counseled in this area have tried many other solutions and are left wanting and looking for more. My belief is that we can take those things that you’ve learned work and incorporate that experience in our time together, as we leave the unhelpful and often standard recommendation type stuff behind.
I will be candid in saying that the obstacles to healing are complex and never likely a quick fix, but that is also part of joy in the process as it fosters changes in our life that extend into other areas and that are for the better.
SESSION WORK
In working together, our course of action follows:
Eating and body view history
-first feelings of having to be different
-onset of negative behavior
-time stretches of relief
-recurrences
-current coping strategies
-current eating & negative body behaviors
Influential relationship dynamics
-historical and current
-family
-significant others
-influential people
-work/school
Significant life events
From this initial work together, I will prepare and organize a thorough and proprietary experience-based analysis specifically for you as the foundation for a plan in moving forward further. There will already be insights gained and healing begun by this point, but now the counseling work is combined with the guidance of coaching to develop work in:
Relationships
Disparity between inner self and external
Empowering intimacy
Processing grief and feelings of loss
Practicing joy in accomplishment
Monitoring thought focus
Manifestations
This middle to latter area of our work is often characterized by a lot of ups and downs emotionally. Ultimately, they are feelings and they just need to be felt, while feeling safe and supported. They can’t hurt us.
As we move toward completing this phase. The counseling aspect of our time together reduces more and more as the coaching becomes more emphasized, because now we have built a solid foundation and are navigating a new landscape with a new perspective. It’s an amazing transition and the feelings of abundance we experience now at times is so opposite from the state of deprivation we used to lived by, it’s almost irreconcilable that we were that person, and that it wasn’t that long ago.
If you can relate to the information presented here and are interested in finding out more as it relates to you, please contact me for a private and no cost introductory conversation.