“Tell the image makers and magazine sellers and the plastic surgeons that you are not afraid. That what you fear the most is the death of imagination and originality and metaphor and passion. Then be bold and LOVE YOUR BODY. STOP FIXING IT. It was never broken.”
– Marion Woodman
Dear amazing women,
Today I find myself wanting to write you a letter, something a bit more personal than usual…
I am about to go on a journey, and I want to invite you for the ride.
But I cannot authentically do that until I tell you a story — the one that starts when I landed in a Weight Watchers program at age 11, continued onto disordered eating in high school, zig zagged through every diet created into my 30s, and ends with me in a “healed” body 12 years ago — or so I thought.
Here’s the deal. I am all about learning and passing what I learn back out to you. Sometimes I do that very literally. Sometimes I learn things that get passed back through expanded capacity in my coaching and teaching.
I always make sure I am only talking about things that I have resolved, and that’s going to make today’s message different. I am a bit more in the messy middle with one of my 2022 intentions, but every bone in my body is encouraging me to share with you now…
Here’s the story.
2021 was both the hardest year of my life and the best year of my life.
In November of 2020, I admitted that my then 14-year old daughter was not OK. She needed help, and I decided that I was the one to help her. This was me following my intuition. (I was told by people I trust that she needed more institutional help.)
I quickly realized a big piece of me being able to help my daughter was me healing myself. At a very high-level that looked like… I looked at all the hard moments in my childhood and re-felt them to heal them. I cried a lot. I wrote a lot. I rewrote a lot of my past. I talked it through with a coach, a healer, and a select group of friends frequently. I did this at strategic times, so I could be with clients and my kids during the day as a functioning human.
I practiced staying in the present moment as much as possible. This helped me operate from intuition and love, and have a chance of doing all the right things for my girl and community.
By July 2021, I had my girl back. Not only was she back, she had become a new version of herself — as had I.
In October I felt really good about the experience and led a 6-week class with my mentor and coach, Sil Reynolds, called Easeful Motherhood, where we had the honor of supporting an amazing group of moms as they navigated their tricky corners.
All was great, except as my family needed less support, I realized that in holding the space for a kid to heal — while also navigating parenting 2 other kids, nurturing a marriage, serving beautiful clients, growing a business, and living in a pandemic — I literally ignored my body.
So that brings us to the past few months….
I embarked on a journey to take impeccable care of myself — my body, mind, and soul.
I’ve made a few agreements with myself.
#1. I decided that all action to take care of myself will come from love. If there is an action that is feeling like “I’m supposed to be doing this” or “I should be doing that,” I will slow down and get back into alignment with myself before “doing” anything.
#2. I decided that there is no end destination. This meant not starting with food — until I am as sure (as I can be) that I am doing it out of love for myself vs. shame that I gained weight in the last year — as body-image seems to be the most complicated conditioning from my past. In fact, I do not want food changes to come from any...
