INDD was originated in 1992 by a British feminist and survivor of anorexia, Mary Evans Young, who’d kinda had it with all the effort she saw women around her expending on counting calories, judging their bodies, and focusing on all the restrictive, appearance-based shoulds of food and weight. She is said to have challenged her friends: “What do you think would happen if you spent as much time and energy on your careers as you do on diets?”

Broadly speaking the goal of INDD is for women to have a more comfortable, healthy relationship with weight and food. The event has grown to encompass many approaches to achieving that goal including education, activism, group activities and personal reflection.

If you’re in recovery, you’ve certainly already learned that dieting is poison for your recovery process. If you still have questions about this, check out virtually any ED website —  a great example that focuses on INDD is Psychcentral’s Weightless blog—or  ED literature, talk to your therapist, OA sponsor, ED group, or any other reputable source. This is not a matter of controversy! For you the rest of you who are already on board with no-dieting, International No Diet Day might not serve so much as a course corrector as a chance to renew your vows. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Perhaps you’d like to review the ways you’ve benefited from leaving dieting behind.
• Consider one act you might take on INDD to respect or honor the body you have.
• If you are still secretly counting calories, imagine what kind of resources you might need to develop to safely give up the calorie obsession.
• For this one day imagine you’ve already achieved body acceptance. At each point of the day imagine how you’d be relating to your body from that place of acceptance, for example, while you’re getting dressed, when you’re having lunch, working out, spending time with friends, and so forth.

Whatever you do to mark the day, put on your INDD blue ribbon and know that you are not alone, you are part of something bigger than yourself. And consider that your efforts could be like that famous fluttering of a butterfly’s wings that ultimately results in a hurricane somewhere else in the world!

Warmest regards,

Susan

Resilient people can cope with stress or crisis and adapt as needed to difficult situations. It doesn’t mean you don’t feel the punch or go down for the count. It means you have the capacity to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start again, perhaps learning from what went wrong , and ending up stronger when the next setback occurs.

Today I’m delighted to recommend a wonderful resource in CD form for helping you build resilience: “Resilient-You®: Bending with Strong Winds”, created by friend and colleague, Elizabeth Lehmann, MA, MSW.  Reflecting Elizabeth’s many years of clinical experience helping people build and nourish personal resilience,”Resilient-You®” intersperses cutting edge information about the functioning of your nervous system with highly effective guided exercises for calming, grounding, and mindful awareness. Elizabeth’s approach gently and skillfully allows you to explore your own responses to the practices offered, to go at your own pace, and ultimately to focus on what works best for you.

Strong recovery generally involves a rich library of supportive resources. I encourage you to check out “Resilient-You®” to enrich your own collection! Click here to visit the “Resilient-You®” home page and learn how you can purchase the CD for yourself.

Warmest regards,

Susan

Developing or re-establishing self-regulation, as this balanced process in the nervous system is called, is both possible and necessary for a lasting recovery. Several therapy approaches focus on facilitating the development of self-regulation. Any of them can be used as your primary treatment or can serve as an adjunct treatment if you already have a primary therapist. It’s no accident that many of these and similar approaches were developed to treat trauma. One of the hallmarks of trauma is a dysregulated nervous system. Here are some of the best-known examples of treatment approaches that promote self-regulation:

• Somatic Experiencing® (SE)
• Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (SP)
• EMDR
• AEDP
• Mindfulness practice and mindfulness-based therapies (“google” key words to find relevant Web sites)

Each of these approaches facilitates use of self-awareness to help establish or restore self-regulation. With the guidance of a practitioner, you can learn to modulate emotional experience and physiological reactivity that feel out of control.  You can also learn to bring the resources of current living into traumatic or distressing experiences of the past that are still influencing your life. Each approach includes the understanding that an attuned clinician brings qualities to the moment that an attuned caregiver provides in childhood — the very qualities necessary for self-regulation to develop and flourish.

Warmest wishes,

Susan

You probably don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about your nervous system, especially as something that can help you with eating disorder recovery. If you think about it all, it’s probably as a vexation: a part of your make-up that can spin out of control, making you feel frightened or miserable. (Racing heart? Pit in your stomach? Clenched jaw?)

When you are distressed, threatened, or unhappy your nervous system is responsible for taking this news to all parts of your body. In doing so, it’s executing orders from your brain for your body to either take some kind of action to make things better, or to shut down so you won’t feel the pain when it feels like there’s no hope of making things better any other way.

Nature intended for your nervous system to be self-righting. In other words, when you’re experiencing too much or too little stimulation, it’s supposed to swing into action to bring you back into a manageable zone. This is called self-regulation. It turns out that Nature can only supply the raw material for self-regulation. Humans must also have the right kind of input from caregivers early on in order for the inborn capacity to blossom and develop properly. “Input” includes caregivers who themselves are able to self-regulate and who can be adequately tuned in to the needs of growing children for comforting and reassurance.

If you didn’t receive enough of this security–making input, you will experience what we call nervous system dysregulation. If your emotions feel unmanageable, or if shutting down feelings altogether seems like your only option, you’re experiencing a dysregulated nervous system, a system that can’t right itself. Your eating disorder symptoms have been recruited to fill in for missing self-regulation. The intention is to feel better or at least to feel less bad.

One of the most fundamental achievements required for sound and solid eating disorder recovery is the establishment of missing self-regulation. So you’ll probably be happy to know that’s possible even if you didn’t get the right ingredients n childhood. And you can learn to engage your nervous system to help! The same nervous system that can take a sense of alarm or distress to all parts of your body can also take messages of calming and quieting. You may already be doing this without knowing it if you engage in practices such as yoga, meditation, visual imagery, or certain breathing exercises. These may be all you need to prompt your natural capacity for self-regulation. For others, in whom early disruptions were more severe or traumatic, it may require more focused work with a clinical specialist to get the capacity for self-regulation going. The important thing to know is that it is possible for anyone.

Check in next time if you would like to know more about the kinds of approaches that specifically aim at helping you develop the capacity for self-regulation.

Warmest regards,

Susan

Ted Talks, if you’ve never tuned in, is a daily video podcast  of presentations from live TED conferences. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design but the conferences are actually a forum for “ideas that matter in any discipline”. It’s slogan is “ideas worth spreading”.

My tipster’s nominations for “best ever” Ted Talks are The Power of Vulnerability and Listening to Shame by Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. Brown has made thinking about the psychological experience of vulnerability and its companion issue, shame, the core of years of professional research. And a funnier, more down-to-earth presentation of the subject matter you’ll never find.

Illustrating with her own experiences of vulnerability and shame, Brown takes us through the following propositions drawn from her research:

• Vulnerability is at the heart of shame.
• Vulnerability is what we experience if we make ourselves open and known, including our flaws and fumbles.
• This kind of openness is essential to being able to truly, authentically connect to others.
• A certain amount of shame is inevitable if we are making ourselves vulnerable.
• If we can neither tolerate vulnerability or the shame that can accompany it, we are likely to engage in one of two self-defeating strategies to protect ourselves:
  • Perfectionism — an attempt to erase anything about ourselves that might draw criticism or disdain
  • Numbing — usually through compulsive behaviors including drinking, drugging, shopping gambling, Internet surfing, cutting, and—you guessed it—eating disorders
• Though people imagine they’ll be admired for their perfection, what really draws other people is the kind of openness and authenticity that makes us vulnerable.
• Understanding and deeply embracing that we are enough as we are is the gateway to freedom and increased happiness.
• Being truly open and vulnerable takes courage.

“This was the hard part,” Brown says of people she interviewed who embraced personal vulnerability; “they were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were.”

I’ll provide you with one more quote in the hopes of luring you to go to the links above and hear for yourself from this wonderful voice for healing shame and living “wholeheartedly”. Speaking to parents, Brown says:

Our job is to look [at our children] and say, “You know what? You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.”

Until next time, warmest regards,

Susan

For many of you, this takes us right into a key driver of your eating disorder: the profound belief that you must control your body size and shape so that others will admire you for your physical appearance—and that this is a requirement for you to be okay.

This probably includes the companion belief that the only alternative to being admired is to be held in contempt, looked down upon; there’s nothing in the middle (like people being neutral, or thinking you’re fine as you are, or being more focused on other things they like about you that have nothing to do with your weight or appearance).

Your beliefs are probably the result of early relationship wounding which robbed you of a basis for feeling secure and confidant just as you are. The modeling of a parent who struggled with the same insecure beliefs may have also made its mark. And let’s not forget the impact of a culture which teaches you — and the rest of us — at every turn that “thin” is the ticket to admiration and security. If you just control your weight, it can all be yours.

Ever notice how the more you chase it, the more insecure you feel? That’s because the very proposition of controlling others’ responses to you as a way to control your own self-image is a house built on sand. People notoriously think what they’re going to think, regardless of our efforts to organize the outcome. Today I’m inviting you to consider a way to manage your self-esteem that doesn’t depend on controlling others’ reactions. The idea is that instead of focusing on others’ responses, you work on building up your own. In this approach you know or can remind yourself of your worth no matter what others think. This is not an easy shift to make. If you have an eating disorder, you’ve probably spent a lifetime feeling you have to get others’ approval to be okay.

Let me offer an exercise to get you started: Find a moment in which you feel really in tune with what you cherish most in yourself. Maybe it’s when you’re listening to or dancing to or performing your favorite music. Or perhaps it’s when you and a friend or partner are laughing over a shared joke. Or maybe it’s a moment when you and another are really resonating with each other, allowing you to feel seen and heard and that you’re making an impact. Or maybe it’s when you’re really connecting to nature.

You won’t get the shift to happen instantly. But if you just get your mind to start considering that there is another way to manage your self-image, you’re already on the right track. Then expect the shift in focus to take lots of practice. I promise, the payoff will be worth it!

Warmest regards,

Susan

This year I resolve to:

• Look in the mirror and pick out one thing I like about what I see each day.

• Consider my own needs and wishes in every situation, even those in which I end up deciding to put the other person first.

• Say “no” when I need to say “no”, even if that’s disappointing to someone else.

• Remember that my imperfections don’t reduce my worth.

• Treat an urge to binge or to restrict as a signal that something’s bothering me and I need to figure out what it is and attend to it in some way.

• Give some energy each day to something I care about that has nothing to do with weight.

• Ban the use of verbal abuse when speaking of myself.

• Give myself credit for one thing I do well and/or feel proud of (unrelated to food or weight) each day.

• Find a new way each day to remind myself that my weight has nothing to do with my worth.

My warmest wishes for the coming year!

Susan

You may have already taken action to express your concern and even to help where possible. At the risk of repeating my post-Sandy message, today I propose that you turn your caring to yourself. Many of you in recovery have histories of trauma. Too often the trauma occurred in the relationship with your caregivers or perhaps with peers. Maybe you’ve only learned in recovery to call what you experienced “trauma” and to understand its relationship to your eating disorder. One of the core ingredients in trauma is a sense of profound helplessness in the face of threat, physical or emotional, which you were not equipped to meet at the time it occurred. Unresolved trauma can resurface when current circumstances produce reminders. I want to underscore again today that national calamities such as those we’ve just gone through, involving innocent children or a merciless storm, can be the source of trauma “triggers”.  Trauma triggers don’t cause you to remember so much as they cause you to re-experience or relive. This means you can end up feeling as small and helpless in the present as you did when being traumatized in the past.

In my post,  After the Storm, I suggested a handful of ways to care for yourself when calamitous news threatens retraumatization. Today I’d just like to add that holding onto this knowledge about how trauma re-experiencing  occurs can help you stand a little outside the rush of feelings, where you can feel your feet firmly planted in a present in which you’re no longer so small and vulnerable. And every time you do so, it strengthens this updated response and makes it more available to you in the future.

Before I sign off for this post and for 2012, I invite you to peruse some posts from previous years bearing thoughts and tips for the holiday season:

The Five Top Holiday Eating Disorder Traps and How to Outwit Them (December 4th, 2009)

When Your Family Just Can’t Stop Commenting On Your Weight or Eating: Advice for the Holidays and All Year (December 18, 2009)

Holiday Eating Disorder Recovery Worksheet (December 3rd, 2010)

Warmest wishes to you for the holidays and all year,

Susan

Today I’d like to consider the holiday food challenge from a different angle. If you’ve spent two minutes or longer in recovery, the expression “It’s not about the food” will be familiar to you. You’ve probably begun your own inventory of all the emotional purposes food and eating are serving in your life, things like comforting, soothing, distracting, tamping down anger and frustration, checking out, creating boundaries, filling in for missing social resources, and more. But were you aware that just becoming preoccupied with your eating disorder can function in the same way? Let’s see how that works.

I’ll start with the fact that the holidays can be a minefield of experiences that are triggering any time of the year, but now come at you in mega–doses. I refer to things like parties, family gatherings, the New Year’s Eve date, perfectly chosen and wrapped gifts, omnipresent dazzling foods, and everywhere you turn images of people who couldn’t actually be eating those foods and still look as model thin as they do. The chances to feel left out, inadequate, uncared for, judged, marginalized, and shamefully imperfect abound. It can be truly overwhelming.

As a place to retreat from the overwhelm, preoccupation with your eating disorder issues is no bed of roses. There’s the struggle with food, the urges to restrict, body image issues, exercise issues, and so forth. But when you think of dealing with the holidays on recovery’s terms, it can often seem like a choice between the devil you know and the devil you don’t yet know. Recovery is full of unfamiliar challenges, requiring skills you have yet to master and revealing internal experiences you aren’t sure you’re ready to handle. The struggles of your eating disorder at least provide the comfort of the familiar. You know the ropes!

Becoming preoccupied with the old eating disorder struggles can feel like backsliding. Since recovery doesn’t involve a perfect straight-line march to health, such moments are inevitable, but can be very discouraging. So I’d like to suggest a small experiment in which you turn them into useful signals. Here’s how: when you find yourself deep in the weeds with some old eating disorder preoccupation, such as:

• You’re trying on the 10th outfit for a party, certain every choice makes you look fat
• You’re toying with going on a diet just for a week
• You find yourself calculating the calorie count on the plate in front of you, thinking of running extra laps tomorrow…

…ask yourself “What would I be thinking about if I weren’t preoccupied with this?” Your answer will probably provide useful information about where your current recovery work lies. Maybe it turns out you’re heading to ED thoughts to retreat from people problems like family conflict or feeling slighted by a friend. Maybe you’re seeking sanctuary from feeling you didn’t perform up to par at work or school or in some more personal setting. Or maybe ED preoccupation seems most tempting when you’re facing expectations that feel oppressive or unreachable.

Why, you may ask, would you choose to think of such difficult things on purpose? It’s a reasonable question. It’s the holidays, for goodness sakes! I won’t try to soft peddle the difficult choices you’re facing. The good news is when you choose to confront the stuff your unconscious has reflexively chosen to avoid by heading for the ED exits, it leads to options and growth, whereas preoccupation with old eating disorder themes predictably leads to despair. And remember: when you confront something hard instead of going to the ED “sanctuary”, recognizing the hard thing in that moment doesn’t mean you have to resolve it then and there. Maybe you’ll bookmark it for therapy, or journaling, or a heart-to-heart with a friend. Or maybe you’ll think about it a little and then let it percolate until you’re ready to work on it some more. As you do this, even in the tiniest steps, you’re giving yourself the subliminal message of “I can” instead of the old message, the eating disorder message of “I can’t”. This could just turn out to be the best holiday gift you’ll ever get, and it’s all under your control because you give it to yourself!

My best wishes of the season to you,

Susan

I also want to remind you that disasters like Sandy can be traumatic even if you weren’t directly affected. Images of catastrophic damage pour into our homes and we hear the heart-wrenching accounts of those who suffered directly. Being fellow humans, we empathize and sometimes take more to heart than we can bear. This is what’s known as vicarious traumatization. If it feels like your empathy in-box is full, consider giving yourself a break from the news. Offer yourself whatever kinds of experiences feel rejuvenating to you: connecting with people you love, enjoying nature or the arts, gardening, civic activity, and so forth. If there’s some way you wish to contribute to disaster relief, you’ll be better able to do so if you’ve made sure you feel sturdy within yourself first.

A final note: If you have trauma in your own history, current disaster can stir up those experiences. It’s especially important to be alert to this possibility so you can take care of yourself adequately. You may wish to imagine a container for the old stuff so you have a place to put it when it pops up. If you have a therapist or therapy group, don’t neglect to talk about how you’re being affected and get the support you need.

My deepest wishes for comfort and healing to all of you as we move through this period of recovery together.

Susan