Eating Disorder Recovery Is A Creative Act
Eating disorder recovery is a creative process from rigidity and repetition to new ways of thinking and being.
Like most of my blogs, newsletters and articles, when I get started with the process of writing it can feel clumsy and awkward.
As I sit down, I put on some music to help me get into the zone and take a moment to pinpoint what that original spark was that brought me to write in the first place.
That spark was just a feeling that tells me, “It’s time to write”.
Armed with only a gut feeling to create, I start by playing with words with a sense of curiosity and lightness. I begin to type out and delete sentences over and over again before I feel something land.
When that “thing” lands, the writing begins to flow with a bit more ease. There’s a river to move with and a current to follow.
I share this bite of #bts because it reminds me of a similar process that many of us go on when we embark on the journey of transformation.
Maybe you can relate to this: Sometimes we have no idea why we signed up for those coaching sessions, or joined that support group, or how we even got ourselves to a plant medicine ceremony.
Yet here we are.
And somehow, we know we are exactly where we are meant to be even if we have no idea where we are going.
We followed a spark.
Something deeper was pulling us closer to ourselves. The logical, cognitive mind often cannot rationalize or make sense of the reasons why, but the intuitive, feeling body just knows that this path must be followed.
This brings us to a concept called “organicity” which is a core principle of Hakomi Therapy, a form of somatic therapy. This concept is based on the premise that as organic beings, all humans are inherently able to self-correct, heal, and reorient to inner alignment.
This is a natural process that exists in all human beings, and when we are in a safe and supportive environment (and the nervous system recognizes this safety internally too), this movement towards healing and regulation organically unfolds (without us having to will it or force it to happen).
This shift our focus from what is wrong to what is already whole. In fact, the eating disorder behaviours themselves are also not wrong.
Rather than focusing on how the eating disorder behaviours are maladaptive or “disordered”, we can notice how these food and body behaviours are strategies of survival rather than strategies of dysfunction.
Just like the Hakomi principle of organicity, the body is always trying to return to balance and healing; although like with disordered eating behaviours, that attempt towards wholeness doesn’t quite bring resolution.
I believe an eating disorder is the body’s creative adaptation to find some sort of regulation (inner harmony) and sense of protection.
Sometimes, the eating disorder behaviours are the only strategies we have access to in order to stay connected to and functioning in the world.
At the core, an eating disorder represents a deep yearning to reach out to connect with others but, for many reasons that I won’t get into too much detail here, there quite simply isn’t a hand that we can trust to grasp onto and pull in close to attach to and feel safe with.
So, when I see an eating disorder, I see an opportunity for those who are in supporting roles to reach out our hands and meet it, because the body is communicating, “Even though I can’t reach out my hand, see me. I’m still here, I’ve survived, and I want to thrive - and I can’t do it alone.”
This is the spark.
This is the spark of creativity.
It is the spark that finds its way to healing, organically, adaptively, and creatively.
This is the spark that knows something can be different.
It is the spark that guides us towards practices, people, and places that inspire new ways of thinking and feeling. This path of thinking and embodying something different is the same path of living a creative life.
Eating disorder recovery requires creativity. I’m sure many of you reading this know that eating disorder behaviours are often rigid and repetitive, with little room for something different to occur.
Addiction recovery and healing from trauma require similar creative pathways. And so, creativity is the way through from the old status quo to the new status quo.
To access creativity requires a particular nervous system state. We have to shift from a narrow vison of protection and defense (ie. flight, fight or freeze) to a more open vision (ie. social engagement), where our somatic architecture is shaped by a sense of groundedness, belonging, dignity, and presence.
This can be achieved through co-regulation, through feeling the warm support and loving awareness of another human, animal, or nature being.
It can also be achieved through nourishing and soothing the senses, thus resourcing the body from the inside out.
A creative outlook can be achieved through practices that tease apart and soften the neural connections that strongly enforce and rigidly hold onto old beliefs and embedded constructs, such as meditation, microdosing, and plant medicine or psychedelic journey work.
And when we start to lean into the belief that, “I deserve to heal, and I am worthy of live a life that feels good for me” we create more possibility to try something other than the eating disorder. This is further strengthened when we know there is support around us.
Indeed, it takes great courage to try something different, new, or unknown!
All creative people (which includes you) know that the first word on a page, first mark on a canvas, or first step on the dance floor require bravery because in that moment of open, liminal space we have no idea where it will lead.
However, when we know in our bones, when the hairs on our neck stand up, when our when heart flutters, or when we have that gut knowing, that this is the path to follow.
When we listen to the innate intelligence of the body, we know what direction to go towards. Recovery is the practice of developing and integrating sustainable and adaptable tools and resources to face the unknown with courage and creativity.
Rather than contracting and becoming small in the face of change, we can open towards it and be transformed by it.
Recovery, which is an act of surrender (which is different to giving up), can feed us and nourish us and change us, bringing us deeper into our own embodiment, breath by breath, step by step, choice by choice.
As I sit here, I look back at what I have written. I had no idea that this is what I would write, but I trusted that spark of creativity, and with patience arrived that these 1328 words.
Writing this has been a nourishing act for me. Most the time, I end up writing and sharing is the medicine that I so desperately need. It is not just the content that feeds and inspires me, but it is the creative act itself that is deeply soul-nourishing.
In this creative state where so many people report a sense of flow, presence, spaciousness, connection and alignment, the inner chatter quietens.
It is in this state of being where eating disorders cannot exist. (Read that again).
There are many ways to walk the path of recovery. The recovery path is a creative path, where anything can be considered a resource and an ally as long as it resonates and lands within you.
That resonance will communicate in and through your body.
I trust you in finding your way to hearing the body, and I trust your body and its cues and signals.
You know what direction you need to go in. Trust it. Follow that spark of resonance.
It’s that same resonance that has brought us all here together, united by a similar feeling. Each of us followed a spark within, a spark from the body, to walk this path of recovery.
I am so glad we are here together, co-creating a reality that support body trust, connection, and love.
Sending you all of my deepest appreciation and gratitude.
To read more on psychedelics and microdosing:
6 Ways Microdosing Psychedelics Can Support Eating Disorder Recovery
Psychedelics Can Help People In Eating Disorder Recovery Establish Self-Trust
Envisioning The Embodiment Of Authenticity With The Help Of Psychedelics