Today we have a blog post from one of our Master’s level interns, Hannah Wise, about navigating eating disorder recovery during the holidays. Hannah feels a drive to help others reconnect with themselves and their bodies through mutual empathy, authenticity, and vulnerability.
She values the therapeutic relationship and sees it as a vehicle to deliver connection and healing. By creating a collaborative environment with clients, Hannah establishes a safe space for recovery and realignment.
Hannah believes that all bodies are beautiful and worthy. By reconnecting and honoring their bodies, clients can pull from internal strengths and skills to tackle the challenges and trials of everyday life. Hannah is honored and excited to walk along this journey of healing with her clients.
Navigating Eating Disorder Recovery During the Holidays
The holiday season can be filled with joy, warmth, and connection. However, for those in eating disorder recovery, this time of year can be uniquely challenging. Food-focused gatherings, comments from well-meaning family and friends, and heightened expectations around holiday cheer can stir up anxiety, uncertainty, and difficulties maintaining recovery.
While these emotional experiences may come up and are important to pay attention to, you have the capacity to navigate this season of the year, especially if you have some planning, social support, and self-compassion on your side
In this post, I will provide you with some tangible tools to navigate eating disorder recovery during the holiday season. Feel free to reach for these tools or reread this post if you feel stuck in your recovery during this time.
Resource Yourself
What does it mean to resource yourself? To resource yourself means you have access to physical, mental, and emotional practices or tools that are small yet powerful ways that you can support your mental and emotional well-being.
Think of it like filling up an emotional reservoir. By building up your reservoir, you have an easily accessible treasure trove of resources specific to you and your nervous system.
So, take some time to think about what makes you feel grounded, safe, and comforted. Some examples of resources include gentle stretches, breathing exercises, reading a book, listening to music, looking at photos of loved ones, or creating art. Speaking of art, creating your reservoir can be a fun, creative process. Feel free to draw your emotional reservoir however you picture it in your mind. If you love music, write a fun jingle about your resources that you can sing to yourself when you need to access them.
The holidays are meant to be a joyful time-lean into that spirit by having some fun in creating your resource toolbox.
Embrace the Uncertainty
As I’m sure you’ve already experienced, recovery is filled with uncertainty. This experience may be even more heightened around the holidays as you have less control over your food choices, time, and interactions.
I encourage you to not run away from or worry about this uncertainty. Rather, think of this as an opportunity to lean into the uncertainty to show yourself that you have the capability to manage the anxiety that comes with the uncertainty. Remind yourself that uncomfortable feelings are only temporary. This teaches your brain and body that you are resilient and that worry in uncomfortable situations isn’t helping you.
When we worry and avoid, we actually reinforce the neural pathways that tell us we need to engage with all of our anxious thoughts. Over time, we need more and more worry or avoidance to pacify the anxiety. This tolerance build-up causes impairment in our lives. When you do lean into the uncertainty, remember the resources you created for yourself. These tools will help you get to the other side of the anxiety and learn that you are able to embrace the uncertainty you’re experiencing.
Self-Compassion is Your Best Friend
Recovery is not linear. There will be times when we take steps back in recovery, and this especially can happen when we are around family who may know an older version of ourselves.
If you experience a set-back, I encourage you to reach for self-compassion rather than blame or shame. What do I mean by that? Self-compassion is three-fold.
The first component is self-kindness. This means that we treat ourselves with gentleness and kindness rather than being harsh.
The second component is mindfulness. To be mindful is to bring awareness to the present moment and allow all thoughts, emotions, and sensations to naturally come and go without resisting or avoiding them.
Finally, the third component is common humanity, which is the idea that suffering is part of the human experience, and you are connected to others who are also experiencing pain.
These three elements of self-compassion will help you move forward in your recovery even after a set-back. They form the foundation of resilience, self-confidence, and motivation. Blame and shame tend to hold us back while self-compassion can move us forward.
I hope you can use these tools to continue in your recovery journey during the holiday season.
If you would like more support in this journey, I recommend reading Worrying Is Optional by Ben Eckstein. It’s an excellent book about anxiety, which often goes hand and hand with eating disorders, and how to resource ourselves when it comes to uncertainty, worry, and rumination.
Finally, I’d like to leave you with an affirmation to carry with you as you navigate this season of life: “Self-esteem is the ability to see yourself as a flawed individual and still hold yourself in a high regard.”
You got this!
Hannah Wise
We hope you found Hannah’s insights on navigating eating disorder recovery during the holidays helpful. If her message resonated with you, this could be the perfect time to take meaningful steps towards your healing and peace. To initiate your work with Hannah, please feel free to call our office at 615.510.3797 or click here to learn more.
