Illuminating Anorexia & Eating Disorder Recovery

A great chat with Julie Duffy Dillon RD, dietitian, writer, speaker and host of the popular Love Food podcast , covering everything from her approach in working with people affected by ED/DE, to problems larger bodies experience in getting timely diagnoses, to her thoughts around mealplans and veganism, and her top 3 tips for making peace with food. These include: Stop fighting your body – p...

Have you ever found yourself on a backroad by mistake or design? It’s a great opportunity to discover things you would otherwise miss. When we come away from mainstream messages about our worth and value, we have the opportunity to explore and discover (or recover) those things that are unique and special to us. When we’re not caught up in the slipstream, we can take time to notice what makes our...

“Love is On”…says Revlon and the message is that your lovability is dependent on appearance. Don’t be sold a lie. More on this in this podcast. Gwen a podcast listener expressed her frustration at being “bombarded by images that make normal people look horrible.” Apart from unplugging what else can we do? Here’s a few thoughts: Step back, take a breath, pu...

Binge-eating is a common feature in the disordered eating landscape. Binge-Eating Disorder as a diagnosis affects around 3.5% women, 2% men and 1.6% adolescents. Today I speak with Ryan Sheldon, a male who has struggled with binge-eating disorder and is using his experience to help others through his blog, Confessions of a Binge-eater. Important take home messages include: Accepting you have a pro...

As we move into 2017 I will be bringing new voices, ideas and inspiration to help you SEE and GET FREE from your ED – voices of people struggling with ED, voices of people who have recovered from ED, voices of people working with ED, and voices from related fields that impact upon ED. Coming up I’ll be speaking with Ryan Sheldon a millennial guy with experience of binge-eating disorder, Julie Dill...

AMBIVALENCE refers to the tug of war that exists inside us when we feel pulled in two directions. Perhaps we know that something is not quite right (or perhaps people around us are reflecting this to us by expressing their concern). Until we are aware that we have a problem and ready to do something about it, most of us will defend against people trying to ‘help’ us before we’re ready.  So what ca...

Are you believing a lie about your worth and value? As you journey out of your eating disorder (or any life consuming/life controlling problem) you will “hit” some of the deeper (painful) self experience that sits below the surface of your (disordered eating) behaviours. This is a difficult but necessary part of recovery. At such times, it will be incredibly helpful if you can “be” where you’re at...

To know our worth and value at a deep level sets us up to do life in ways that are health-promoting and life-affirming. In this podcast I explore how our self concept develops using the analogy of building a house. We all have different experiences growing up and some people appear to have better “foundations” than others, but the storms of life hit us all at various times, and when they do, we ha...

What we believe in our heart shapes the way we see and do life – which in turn shapes our experiences and beliefs. It can be a continuing circle for good, health and life promotion, or it can be a continuing cycle for negativity, low self esteem and poor relationships. We have different life experiences but I would argue that we all have a solid reason to believe in our unique and unshakeabl...

Self Esteem Vs Self Worth. Are they different? How are they different? And what difference does that make? I believe they are different and that the difference is significant to our mental health and well being. Here’s why… Self esteem refers to how we esteem (or value) ourselves and is made up of all our beliefs about who we are, what we can be and what we can do in the future.  Our experience of...

Where we sit today (inside our skin; at home in our bodies) will be a reflection of our experiences – how we have internalised and processed our experiences and how these have shaped our beliefs, attitudes and behaviours – towards our body, our self, other people, our world. As we continue to act on, and in, our world we will have new experiences, which will confirm, challenge or shift our e...

Louise, a podcast listener wrote in to say, “ Thank you to this podcast for illustrating that people with eating disorders are still human and deserve to be treated kindly, still – thank you.”  To be honest I was kinda shocked. To me it is so obvious that eating disorders are one of many ways we human beings struggle with our emotional, inner world “stuff” that I get shocke...

I love the way newness (fresh hope and expectation) are woven into the very fabric of our existence in the natural world. We get a new day every 24 hours, a new season every 3 months and a new year every 365 days. I want to encourage you whatever your past year has been, whatever your life has been, this is a fresh day, this is a new year and there is new hope for you. Here are 3 ways you can expe...

My journey through anorexia, EDNOS and binge eating exposed the LIE that I needed to be perfect to be worthy and deserving of life. It may sound so obvious (we all know perfection is it is impossible right?), but as the lie grows it creates such a bind, it DISCONNECTS the heart and mind of the affected person from TAKING IN the physical and emotional nurture they need to survive (& that may in...

In this podcast I explore the lie at the heart of an eating disorder – how it starts in seed form and develops over time, being reinforced by the food control ‘solution.’ I explore why I believe human and divine connection is so important in breaking through the lie and helping a person move towards freedom and wholeness, and I share my own experience of travelling into the heart of the lie...

I believe there are a handful of key truths that (experienced) will take us forward into LIFE, and that are essential to the health and well-BEing of every person.  These truths relate to our core needs to know we have worth and value, that we are loved and lovable, and that we can experience security in the face of uncertainty.  You may see things differently to me and I welcome that. You don’t n...

It’s Christmas Eve and I’m mindful that this can be a challenging time for people depending on where they sit in their relationships with family and friends.  Regardless of your circumstances or emotions right now, here’s a truth that can bring such peace and nurture to your soul. You are chosen, choice and cherished. Feedback and questions welcome. michelle@michellesparkes.com @mp_sparkes  

“Eating Disorders are not a choice” is a half truth that is unhelpful because it suggests that a person is powerless to get free from their ED. Nothing could be further from the truth. No one and nothing is more powerful than the affected person’s choice (over time and in situation after situation) in getting both into and out of the bondage of an eating disorder. That’s not to say the journey out...

How do you re- establish your sense of worth and value when you don’t believe you deserve (or are entitled) to these things? The eating disorder lie that says you are not good enough/not worthy/don’t deserve to take up space, can shame, isolate, bind and blind a person to the point where it becomes very difficult for that person to take in physical or emotional nurture. This is the ver...

Anorexia and other eating disorders reflect a hunger for life – a hunger to know oneself as loved, worthwhile, of value, and to feel secure within. This may surprise you because you may know someone who has developed an eating disorder and think they come from a good family; they’ve had good life experiences; why are they struggling? When a person develops an eating disorder they buy into th...

Eating disorders are not a mystery. They reflect a way of dealing with emotional pain; pain in the heart or core “self.”  You are not WRONG. Your hunger is not wrong, but because it’s origin is emotional (of the soul or psyche), your physical (food control) ‘solution’ will never take you where you want to go. It will never satisfy the hunger in your soul. Once you SEE this, it empowers you to cons...

Have you ever felt awful about yourself after flicking through a glossy fashion or beauty mag? You’re not alone. Oskar T Brand analysed the content of an Elle and Cosmospolitan magazine and found that 85% and 65% of their content (respectively) comprised paid ads and content. Marketing specialists get paid lots of money to make you feel inferior and inadequate and in need of their products....

My ED shifted from anorexia to EDNOS to binge-eating, but the core truth I needed to know and experience at a deep gut level at EVERY stage of my ED was that I had worth and value as a person irrespective of my problematic behaviours. Not knowing this kept me stuck in an ED for years. Once I discovered this truth as a reality, it set me free to face and manage life from a whole new platform. The f...

Your future is in front of you and is being shaped by your present. If you’re struggling with disordered eating in your present and you don’t want to carry this into your future you will need help to deal with what’s going on below the surface that’s driving unhelpful behaviours. At the same time understand that we ALL struggle. It’s part of being human. Your recovery (like life) will be a journey...

Your future is in front of you and it is being created right NOW in your present. Sometimes we want our future to look different but we haven’t let go of our past. Life is a journey for all of us, and new issues constantly arise but when we deal with new challenges out of old hurt unhealed places, we’re likely to produce bad (unhealthy) fruit in our relationships with self, others, food, body etc....