My Story (the short version)

During my undergrad, I switched into the field of nutrition and dietetics as a means to an end. I was studying Sports Medicine, but battling my challenges with food and body to an extent that I felt inspired to make food my field. I thought the nutrition would SAVE me.  

And I was wrong.

As I studied nutrition, I started to wonder about the psychology behind why we eat. I was learning about nutrition as a science, but I kept waiting for the classes that would talk about the mind. To me it just seemed like common sense... We know thoughts control behavior, so why aren't we learning about how this works in the context of food and overeating?

It wasn't until I volunteered with a forward thinking dietitian in the field that I was introduced to the concepts of intuitive and mindful eating.  And from there my world CRACKED OPEN. 

I wasn't healed overnight, but these concepts ignited a fire in me that guided my healing process over the next 10 years. I was obsessed. I read everything I could get my hands on in the realms of self-care, mindfulness, spirituality, self-help, and the overall connections between eating and psychology. I realized we shouldn't be interested in what people are eating, we should be more interested in WHY people eat.

In time I came to realize that our food and body challenges aren't really about the food. The food is important, but we can't reap the benefits of good food if we haven't first done some work with the mind. If we haven't first done some work on self.

Challenges with food and body stem from a disconnect.  Somewhere along the way, we lose touch with body messages.  We turn away from the genius of our own bodies in favor of guidelines or rules coming from someone else (i.e. diet books). From there we tend to spiral downward and disconnect more from not only a healthy relationship with food, but from a healthy relationship with who we are. We lose ourselves in the dieting. 

So healing our relationship with food is really about healing our relationship with ourselves. Learning who we are and healing from past experiences that have clouded our ability to be compassionate toward ourselves.  

The process involves LOVE. And once we learn how to be KIND to self, then adopting a more nourishing diet begins to feel effortless. And moving the body begins to feel joyful. And we feel inspired to express ourselves more creatively. And we start taking risks, and going after what we want, and being bold, and being daring, and living the life we're meant to live.