Guest contributor Minh-Hai Alex, MS, RDN, RYT, is back with a helpful blog on paying attention to what people, places and things depletes and replenishes our body. The framework offered can be used to gain awareness in our recovery and life about how each choice we make affects our “body budget.”

A beautiful poem about healing and forgiveness by Dr. Jo, an anorexia survivor who now helps women celebrate their unique identities, boldly use their voices, and proudly take up space.

While sitting at a Vietnamese restaurant with a steaming hot bowl of bún bò huế for lunch, guest contributor Minh-Hai Alex, MS, RDN, RYT, shares the memories, joys, and fears she sees while looking at the food before her. By sharing what she sees when she looks at her plate, Minh-Hai invites readers to connect with food through story and comfort, memory and appreciation—an uplifting perspective that all can benefit from.

In a letter to the eating disorder that “came into our home, unannounced and uninvited” and affected a family member, guest contributor Barri Leiner Grant describes the tremendous grief she experiences as a result. In learning to acknowledge her own grief, Barri reaches out to other caretakers and family members, offering validation that their grief is also real and deserves time and space to heal.

Guest contributor Taylor Bowman loved to move as a child. From bopping her head or tapping her toe or shaking her hips, movement was a natural part of her. But this all changed when critical comments about her maturing and changing body caused Taylor to begin judging her body, which resulted in an eating disorder. In this blog post, Taylor shares her pain of feeling unworthy to move or exist in her body, and her triumph of reconnecting with her body through dance, yoga, and other forms of movement on her healing path to self-acceptance.

Guest contributor and trauma-informed yoga instructor Kierstin Graham opens up about why yoga studios were unhelpful environments during the early phases of her eating disorder recovery. From diet culture influences to an emphasis on competition and working out as “punishment,” Kierstin identifies aspects of yoga studio culture (in general, not all!) that could be harmful for individuals going through recovery, and with examples from her own story, sheds light on alternative places and ways to practice yoga so that it is the healing and supportive practice it is intended to be.

Guest contributor, Rachel, shares how she turned to yoga when she began her eating disorder recovery. Like recovery, her experience practicing yoga has not been linear. Rachel shares the challenges she’s faced and the gifts she’s gained from practicing yoga, and how yin yoga, particularly, is helping her foster self-compassion.

In her 20s, guest contributor Rebecca Berg, MS, RDN (she/her/hers), became obsessed with exercise and controlling her food intake and weight, only to realize that she was experiencing an eating disorder at the very same time she was studying to become a Registered Dietitian. Rebecca bravely shares what it meant to her to acknowledge she had an eating disorder and how she reframed the stories that were keeping her stuck. Rebecca’s story is an invitation for everyone—including those in the helping and healing professions—to recognize that their struggles do not diminish their worth.

“When we step back and observe emotional eating as a natural behavior we use to help us cope with hard feelings like anxiety, loneliness, sadness, and anger, we can begin to let go of judgement. Instead, we can look at emotional eating through a kind, understanding lens.” Read this latest blog post by Caroline L. Young, MS, RD, LD, RYT, to learn why emotional eating is normal, how to release judgment for coping with food, and to remember your ability to choose from a variety of ways of cope with hard feelings.