Making Space: Eating Disorder Recovery
What does it mean to be in eating disorder recovery?
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What I am feeling in this moment for my own eating disorder recovery is a discovery of w i d e n i n g.
This has been one of the lessons I have learnt through my journey of eating disorder recovery, with the support of somatic practices, microdosing, and plant medicine.
Recovery is a widening that happens within. It is a widening within oneself whereby one is able to be with the full range of feelings - from pleasure to pain - rather than existing in a small bandwidth of existence that the eating disorder prescribes.
There is a sense of wide, open perspective whereby one can see with clarity. There is an ability to be with whatever is arising - even if it’s challenging - with a sense of broad equanimity. There is a widening of one’s capacity to be with challenges with a sense of grace and resilience.
Whilst there is a sense of increased capacity to be with discomfort and to hold feelings of pain, one is also building capacity to be with goodness. Recovery is to increase one’s capacity for closeness.
What I see with those who are navigating eating disorders often feel two things at the same time: “ I don't want to be close to anything” and “I desperately want to be close to everything.”
Individuals who are navigating eating disorders want to disconnect from so many things, and at the same time, want to deeply connect. Often the fear of connection is so strong that it overrides the desire to reach out. In this place of push and pull, there is a narrowing of what is available to feel, experience, and hold. It can feel like there is a lot of energy that gets trapped in this narrow place within.
This is why when one is deep in disordered eating, it can feel so overwhelming because there is a lot of energy internally, and not enough space for this energy to move.
And so in eating disorder recovery, one works at increasing this capacity and the space within so that the energy has more room to move, to release, and for new energy to flow in. There is fluidity and resiliency in being able to move with the tides and waves of energy.
Recovery is being able to be with expanded states of energy - and contracted energy - and the skill in which to move between them consciously.
Recovery is being able to allow the feelings of pain to be here. In the recovery process (aka the upgrade of awareness), things are bound to bubble up, challenges arise, and shadows emerge. Recovery is not about feeling good all of the time or no longer feeling pain. It’s about how one is able too hold the pain.
As part of this human existence, the contract each human signed is that suffering and challenge will be here but it is how we respond to it. So recovery is having the strength and softness to be with whatever arising. Those who embark on recovery are able to manage and hold this ever-changing energy that's happening inside and around with perspective, grace, centeredness, and trust.
Eating disorder recovery is about creating space within.
Moving from a narrow to a wider existence also means greater intimacy and closeness. Plant medicine and psychedelics has reminded me how interconnected and close we all are.
Somatic therapy has taught me to remain close to my own self despite what has happened, how I feel, or whatever shadow is present.
In the depths of an eating disorder, there is small window in how one can relate to others, engage with the world, and with oneself. It can feel very hard to come close to people. Intimacy requires being close and vulnerable/open/wide enough to be seen by another. When one allows an opening and a widening within, deep, close connections with others are made.
Eating Disorder Recovery is about widening, expanding, and being seen.
An eating disorders keep folk in perception of being invisible. It can feel safe to invisible, but deep down, there is often a feeling of wanting to be seen; and wanting to connect on a very deep level. It can feel scary to begin that movement from narrowing to widening, from invisibility to visibility, in all shapes, colours and parts.
Psychedelics help individuals move from into the heartspace more easily, making is more accessible to connect all the different facades of who we are without judgement, with more acceptance and kindness.
In this process of becoming more intimate with life, one is able to touch the goodness, the sweetness, and the tenderness of life. And what can come up is the belief around receiving this goodness. What happens in your body when you receive goodness? And often for people with eating disorders, there's a sense of “I don't deserve this goodness/pleasure/sweetness.”
Thus, recovery is not only widening the capacity to feel and to receive, but there's also a shift of beliefs. There is movement from “I don’t deserve this warmth” to “I do deserve this warmth and goodness, and am allowed to receive it and have it in my life”. Being able to embody and integrate this warmth is part of the process of deepening of feeling and being.
Recovery is about coming out of tight, small, narrow patterns of stress survival response that use food and the body to cope and adapt. It is being able to detect when there is a tightening, an evaluation of whether there is threat, and opportunity to respond to the environment with greater openness and understanding.
Recovery offers one the chance to find and create more safety in life by creating real, genuine safety within and with others. The eating disorder likes to keep us separate, away from others, and isolated. Often there is a belief (that developed early on for good reasons (which is a story for another day)) that “it is dangerous to come into contact with others.”
Recovery asks each individual to move into connection, to build relationships that are intimate, genuine, sincere, and safe so that new imprints can be laid within the nervous system, leading to new blueprints and new realities.
There are new beliefs that form in recovery such as, “I do belong”, “I am safe”, “I deserve this connection” and “I deserve this goodness.” In this state, the survival responses that use food and body do not have to work so hard.
In essence, the eating disorder do not have to be there anymore because the inner foundation has shifted from an brace to an embrace.
This is the natural maturation out of the disordered eating behaviors. Once there is this felt sense of safety, a felt sense of connection, and a growing belief of belonging and deserving, the eating disorder cannot survive.
In recovery, we no longer feed the eating disorder and starve the true self.
Walking this transformational path leads to a widening, deepening, and expansion.
There is expansion of the heart as well as expansion of the mind to perceive differently. It is clearing of the perceptual apparatus and seeing the whole forest rather than just the one tree. And in this clearing and widening there is a new reality that is before us.
What is recovery to you? How has recovery changed you or impacted your life and the people around you? Recovery is also so much more than just healing for ourselves: It impacts people we know and in ways that we may never see.
Thank you for showing up to this work.
Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash