This article is in two parts, #1, Group Therapy Sketchnotes, and #2 An Open Letter I’ve written to educators who are using Yalom’s text “Love’s Executioner” as a Textbook. [click here to jump to Part 2] Group Therapy Sketchnotes In graduate school, I had the privilege of learning under instructors who were mostly…
Numbers, timers, scales, and bell curves are not the measure of health- they are external authorities sold to us as measures of goodness, permission, and performance. Fear and disorientation are normal first responses to the idea that perhaps all these wellness apps and fitness trackers are deeply tied to patriarchal motives to co-opt bodies…
There are lots of voices shaping our idea of a “Good Life,” but freedom comes when we take ownership of that narrative and choose- with mindfulness, integrity, and the wisdom of voices that have *earned* our trust- what the life we actually want to live looks like. Listening to our deep desires can be terrifying…
Pop-culture “wellness” often pathologizes desire. We are promised that if we can ignore physical hunger, meet our own needs emotionally, and keep our sexual desire confined, we’ll be okay and we won’t have to suffer the affliction of desire. This marketing-tactic is so ingrained that most of us (particularly women) have swallowed it whole. However,…
Intuitive Eating is an approach to eating that can help heal the relationship between food and our bodies and end the diet/weight-cycling cycle. When our brains know food is available and our bodies (re)learn how to feel and respond to the hunger, fullness, and appetite cues we all once knew as infants, we are actually…
What is your body saying? All of us get handed stories. From our earliest moments, stories are told to us and about us. As we grow up, these stories often get swallowed whole. The narratives of our family, culture, and other systems become tangled up with our identity. Many of us sense deep down a…
Taking care of a body can be really confusing. As more and more data and tech is developed to manage our bodies, it’s tempting to buy all the latest tools and compare and check our stats religiously- but trusting trackers, food logs, and external body ideals can actually erode trust in our own body and…
Our minds and our bodies are intimately connected. In a world that is constantly firing stress signals at us (hint: just about all advertising is meant to dysregulate us and cause us to spend money to self-soothe) we can become physically and psychologically healthier by becoming more intentional about real, deep self care. Mindfulness, pleasure-based…
Recently, I posted this story on my Instagram: “If your college counseling center serves students with eating disorders at a severity level that they would refer out if it were any other mental illness, that’s thin privilege and it’s perpetuating systems that contribute to the development of eating disorders and the marginalization of those in…
