Struggling with shame around weight gain in recovery? Learn how to challenge negative thoughts and create a supportive healing environment.

If I were to ask you to conjure up an image of someone with an eating disorder, what would come to mind? For many of us, it’s an image of an emaciated, middle-class-or-higher white girl. Eating disorders, particularly anorexia nervosa, have long been viewed as a “skinny white girl” problem, at least predominantly.

The way we perceive our bodies can impact how we think and feel about ourselves. Our body image may influence everything from the clothes we wear and the activities we do to the careers we pursue and the people we surround ourselves with. If we have a negative body image, our quality of life will suffer. 

Queer people often struggle with bullying, discrimination, lack of support, body dissatisfaction, and isolation, making them a high risk for developing disordered eating or an eating disorder. 

Eating disorders can be a way of coping with the relational trauma of having parents or caregivers who weren’t there for us when we needed them.

All about self-esteem— what it is, how it develops, why it becomes low, and how to raise it.

Comparison is often inescapable, even when you don’t have an eating disorder. Here are some tips on how to stop comparing yourself to others once and for all.

Practicing self-compassion and self-care is one of the most beneficial ways we can heal from our past experiences, appreciate the present moment, and look to the future with open and curious eyes. Here are 19 lists to make for self-compassion and self-care for 2019. Keep these lists together in a journal or folder for reference to help you get through times of struggle, and know that there are no right or wrong ways to be kind to yourself.

As we reflect on past experiences and where we want to be in the future, we may reach a point where we feel disconnected from ourselves or our purpose. We may start feeling like we are broken and have lost the sense of who we are or once were, and begin a journey to “find ourselves” again. But here’s why we don’t actually need to “find” ourselves and how we can return to our true selves instead.

Compassion is widely accepted as something that’s beneficial for us, but it’s common to feel resistance in receiving compassion as well. You may not even realize that the resistance is actually a fear. Learn how fear of compassion presents itself, why it holds you back in recovery, and how to tell if you have fears of compassion.

Our need for love and belonging is as essential as the physiological and safety needs. To truly feel love and belonging, we must start with self-acceptance.

Through the years I have found that how we approach or handle one aspect of our lives can reflect how we approach other areas of our lives. So if this fear about not having enough or not being enough has you cluttering up your closet, how is it affecting the way you eat?