"...there is something about the holiday season and the practice of looking at all those health and fitness goals set in January that lost their way by the spring. There is an uneasy shadow cast as people gather to have feasts and inevitably wax poetic on the good vs. evil dynamic of the meal that stands before them."

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The December air brings with it many familiar feelings: the coziness of being curled up on the couch with a blanket and a book; evenings chatting with friends reflecting on the year that was; walks through sparkly side-streets shimmering with the glow of red, green, and gold lights hung from trees and balconies. Yet, while these most delight-inducing snippets of the year-end magic fill me with warmth, I am also visited by an uninvited acquaintance from the not-so distant past, the fragments of my eating disorder brain. 

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While years have passed since the core of my deepest pain and most obsessive thoughts, there is something about the holiday season and the practice of looking at all those health and fitness goals set in January that lost their way by the spring. There is an uneasy shadow cast as people gather to have feasts and inevitably wax poetic on the good vs. evil dynamic of the meal that stands before them. There is something alluring about the reminder that January is a fresh start and that all the choices that resulted in shifts in your body can be wiped away with a new plan, a more disciplined approach. There are the temptations to gorge on the plethora of beige carbs and then confront yourself in the mirror with promises that all will be different on Monday. Sound familiar? This is because so many of us regardless of where we are on the continuum of our relationship with our body, have an uncomfortable and yet incredibly engrained ghost that follows us around, the ghost of diet cultures past. 

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It is seemingly innocent when it shows itself as an affirmation to work it off in the morning or a quote posted on a message board telling you that being more disciplined is a cure-all for any feelings of self-doubt. Yet, don’t be fooled, these are just the messages that we see as external to ourselves, the ghost tunnels deeper, it follows us into the corners of our mind and with a few little tweaks, the occasion idiom, it starts to sound like us. 

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The mysterious trespasser tags along into the changeroom at the mall where it laser-focuses in on that one part, that one area that makes us believe we are not worthy. It chases us out of the kitchen and away from that dessert we have been eyeing all evening with reminders that you will not be lovable if you come within a foot of that pile of sugar. It whispers in our ear when glance upon our reflection at a holiday party, signalling to us that everyone is staring and silently judging us for how that dress fits across our hips. 

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While this menace likely has been floating around us in a spiral of self-critique since we were young enough to absorb the messages shouted or hushed through magazine covers and our mother’s response to our 2nd helping of rice pudding, it isn’t our voice. 
 

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"It is seemingly innocent when it shows itself as an affirmation to work it off in the morning, or a quote posted on a message board telling you that being more disciplined is a cure-all for any feelings of self-doubt."

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It is an intruder, an interloper reinforcing a conditioning designed to make us feel less than, to fan the flames of insecurity and leave us distracted away from all the beauty and joy in the world. And, because it is not our truest inner monologue and doesn’t hold a place that is real and honest, it can be banished and replaced. While never easy (it is still something I tackle many years after it has faded into a hum, replaced by a much kinder, compassionate character) we can begin to stop it in its tracks and unlearn its harmful messages of caloric doom. 

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How do we do this you ask? Any time a murmur begins to rise thoughtfully informing you of your thighs, or that your last trip to the gym was two weeks ago or that that chocolate has more ingredients that some influencer told you it should, interrupt it. Let it know that you are aware that it is not your voice, it is not your friend. It is a culmination of decades of commercials and movie quips describing to you what worthiness does and does not look like. In these times, once you have it right where you want it, give it a little push and assure this villain in your tale on the journey to self-compassion that you will no longer be handing it the mic. Clearly state that you have decided that as often as possible (because this will take time and you will be strong, and you will be vulnerable and you will confidently pushback and sympathetically let it back in) that you will be calling in a new lead, the one that shows up with a recognition of your gifts, a softness towards your insecurities, the speaker of pep talks when you are uncertain of yourself. The more you can get out in front of vicious force, the shadow that lurks in your fridge, and instead invite the voice that treats you as a friend, as a small child simply trying to wonder at the world around you, the better your ability to call them up will get. 

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This approach will not only help and lead you to fill the thought buckets with loving encouragement where vile insults were once slung, but it will also give you insight into the minds of everyone around you, who too is trying to shush an unkind spirit in the form of those absorbed and internalized stories from their inner dialogue. 

You see whether yours speaks of macros and hours moved on an elliptical or of how hard you are supposed to be pushing yourself for your boss or that if your date doesn’t find you charming, clearly they are right and you are scum, we all have these apparitions. We all have slurped up the social norms that surround us at all moments, channeled through the comments of our grandmother at dinner or on our iPhone as we flip through reels showcasing people living the shiniest lives imaginable. So, in these micro-moments where you have a chance to glance at yourself from the outside for a split second, showcase the warmest, most genuine smile to yourself and to those around you as together we all put on the suit of self-compassion to activate our own inner ghostbuster. 

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