National Eating Disorder Awareness Week: Why it Matters.

Why it Matters

My work began as a Motivational Speaker, sharing my story of the fight for my life through Anorexia and Disordered Body Image. I was in my early 20’s, still figuring out who I was as a person and what my journey was meant to be. I often spoke when I was in bouts of remission and occasional talks when I was still in the thick of the fight.

How could I talk about something so vulnerable or offer real hope when I was as sick as I was? Because I was real. I used my voice to tell the truth.
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We don't often hear that anymore. I spoke from a place of pain, not wanting anyone else to have that experience. I didn’t care about what people thought of me, I cared that they learned how dangerous a step into that world of dieting and body hatred was an incredibly difficult step to take back.

The most common phrases we hear around disordered body image and different weight loss methods today is;

'it's a person's choice.'
'It's their body to choose what they want to do with it.'
"It's none of your business.'

When you have walked through hell and back fighting for your life, watched countless fellow patients in treatment and friends DIE from a number on a scale, a diet fad or to fit into clothes that defined nothing else but a trend and a message that is not based on anything other than opinion, it makes it my business.

It is not the weight loss drugs that are consuming our society that I take issue with; mind you the unethical and physical deterioration to the human body and psyche are one to argue. Rather it is the lack of true understanding behind the message of the drugs.
 
We are born with intuitive eating, intuitive listening and honestly a love for our bodies. Somewhere along the way, people stop listening to their body and stop trusting within. That is the problem.
 
We aren’t all supposed to look the same; we come from diverse cultures that we dismiss. Our bodies know more than we do. When we learn to love ourselves for who we are in the moment that we are in; they become who they are meant to be.
 
But more importantly listening to our bodies is something we have walked away from; when we do so, I promise a peace of self-acceptance will find you.
 
I want women and men to come back to knowing that whoever they want to be in their body is ok, round, curvy, tall, pear shape, plump, slim, or muscular.
 
 Society is the one that changed the narrative. TAKE IT BACK.
 
We have a right to love our bodies as they are in the moment that they exist no one can take that away from us. We are allowing drug companies and society to change the narrative. The amount of discrimination women AND men face around their bodies on daily basis is criminal. That is the issue I have a problem with today.
 
Those who choose drugs, don’t know who they are at their core. They are still listening to the messages of others, of media, of society, of drug companies and on and on. They phrase it as if it’s ‘their choice’ but no one chooses an eating disorder. No one chooses hell. They go that route because they are listening to everyone BUT THEIR BODY AND THEIR INTUITIVE SELF.
 
When we pause and come back home to ourselves, we find peace within the body that we have.
 
I have no desire for the world to become obese or ill. But I do believe that living in moderation; eating, moving your body, pausing to listen to your body allows us to find a balance between living fully and finding joy.
 
Imagine that, finding joy in who you are at this moment today for no other reason than to just find joy.
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