Katie Davis: Becoming a “Mindful” Eater

By:Diana Hinojosa
diaqua90@hotmail.com

Katie Davis, a registered dietician and nutritionist, is looking forward to providing the clients at The Awakening Center with the best well-rounded treatment. She believes that the combination of a therapist and a dietitian working together is ideal because the client will be receiving complete care all in one place when both their emotional and physical struggles are being addressed.

“I’m looking forward to getting to know the staff and the clientele,” she says, “But mostly, I just want to be able to better adjust the clients’ relationship with food.”

Having received her undergraduate and graduate studies from Michigan State University, Katie took some time to work with collegiate athletes, where she began to notice there was an abundance of incorrect information circulating about nutrition. In working with her clients she found that it was not about telling them what to eat, but more about figuring out their relationship with food and what was keeping them from having the relationship they wanted.

She says, “I have a really strong passion for helping clients come to the point where they can eat normally. This means that they can eat what they want when they want to, but also feel like they can stop at any point and still really enjoy the food. I don’t think enough dietitians address that.”

Katie does not encourage diet plans because she does not believe they are effective long-term or realistic for a client that needs to address a deeper emotional struggle.

“Instead of doing diet plans and menus I like to get my clients back to appetite awareness. I want them to recognize when they are full and hungry and really pay attention to how it makes their body feel when they eat one food versus another,” she says, “Giving somebody a diet might be effective for a few weeks but at some point everybody gets sick of being told what to eat. In the end they typically gain the weight back because the problem is not the food, it is something deeper.”

Katie believes people have become very good at ignoring body signals so her efforts aim to get to the client to listen to his or her body in order to eat a well rounded diet. It is about being a “mindful” eater, and helping her clients pay attention to how their bodies really feel while eating a meal. This process encourages people to break down their barriers and figure out what their true struggles are.

“The thing I like the most and the thing I like the least about this field is the same," she says, "Nutrition is a very tangible topic; everybody thinks they know something about nutrition. But unfortunately there is a lot erroneous information out which is causing confusion and harm. Nutrition is a part of everybody’s life, and everybody deserves to have a truthful and comfortable relationship with food. That's where I come in.”

Picasso on Creativity and some Thoughts to Consider

From what I have learned, found, experienced and used as a tool for recovery is one vitally important quality of the self: creativity. I think that this can be one of the more challenging aspects of recovery. I believe every person, no matter their lifestyle or culture, has an urge and potential that can only be fulfilled through creative self-expression.

“Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.” – Picasso

In recovery one must shed their old patterns of living and thinking. There can be an immense amount of fear giving up what seemed to be everything that defined one’s way of living. It is like the caterpillar that must enter the cocoon to shed its caterpillarness to become a butterfly. This can be awfully frightening. The process of redefining, reconstructing, and renarrating one’s life is not something that can be done overnight. This can also be one of the most joyful and humbling experiences of recovery: it is the opportunity to reclaim one’s identity. Creativity is vital when one must start over with what seems like a blank slate.

I always feel a certain amount of anxiety when faced with a blank canvas. I’m not sure what is going to happen, I’m not sure if I’m going to like it, and I can’t say how it will look in the end. Sometimes I jump in impulsively with paint, only to pull the reigns back later to make refinements. Sometimes I begin with a careful sketch and work timidly and slowly until I reach the full develop of a picture.

”I am always doing things I can't do, that's how I get to do them.” - Picasso.

I think many individuals in recovery would agree that they are not sure what they like to do. When one wipes away old behaviors and thoughts, it can feel like there is a void lingering. The void seems like it is begging to be filled. The good thing about creativity is that it can help us fill the void, lead us to the self, and little by little, help us discover who we really are. Creativity is an ancient coping mechanism used by many cultures since the beginning of human history. It releases what has built up in us. It allows us to examine objectively what has been circulating in our minds. It helps us define our selves. This is a hard task to start when one feels as though they don’t know who they are.

”I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.” - Picasso.

One of the hardest parts to deal with on the journey to self-discovery and creativity is the inner critic. Sometimes this part can be so overbearing: fighting to maintain control over our lives while we try to become a butterfly. This can really slow our progress and leave us disheartened. The caterpillar, in its cocoon, does not berate itself for the color of wings it is trying to develop. It does not criticize the length of time it stays in its cocoon. The process occurs fluidly and naturally, in its own time. This lesson tells us that we cannot be self-destructive while trying to self-construct.

”The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.” - Picasso.

Picasso painted how he felt. Many people say that the nature of his paintings reflected a child’s perspective. From this we can tell that Picasso’s artwork was an outlet for releasing his inner child. Another important step in recovery is learning how to nurture and care for our own inner child(ren). What better and more natural way could there be for nurturing the inner child than creativity? Whether it be painting, coloring, sewing, sculpting, writing, poetry, cooking, building, designing, altering, changing, dancing, or singing, it all leads to self-discovery.

By: Danielle Meyer

Danielle is the Art Therapy Intern at the Awakening Center. She is Masters student at the Adler School of Professional Psychology and will be starting her Doctorate in Psychology there this fall. Danielle facilitates the Art Therapy (5:30pm-7pm) and the Eating Disorder (7-8:30pm) Drop-In Support Groups on Tuesday Evenings.

Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Off, Start All Over Again

"Nothing's impossible I have found, for when my chin is on the ground, I pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again" (Lyrics by: Dorothy Fields / Music by: Jerome Kern).

On the path to recovery, to a greater understanding of oneself, or even just an improved outlook – it can be tempting to beat oneself up whenever life throws a curveball and a moment or a day or a week occurs that makes you feel like you have messed it all up. It can sometimes feel like you have to press the reset button on all of your progress, and that nothing you accomplished before that difficult moment counts anymore. I know I have struggled with this concept. I felt that if my recovery or my plans for self-improvement weren’t just perfect, that I either wasn’t doing it right or I was just a failure. I was living in this black and white world where there wasn’t room for progress, only “perfection”. Then one day I was introduced to two concepts that actually made me pause and reflect on how I was approaching my life. I was told that I couldn’t push the river, it was simply going to flow as it needed to. I was also told that if I did find my “chin on the ground”, to be a gentle cop; meaning to acknowledge that perhaps I had experienced something difficult, and perhaps didn’t make the best decision in the moment, but that I didn’t have to beat myself up so badly that I couldn’t even get up again. I could love myself, understand that I’m human, and just get back up again and continue down my path. As I adopted these thought patterns and practiced them, I found that I did indeed become more gentle with myself, and over time I actually stopped perceiving myself to be on the ground so much. It just felt like life, and I was walking down my path with a greater feeling of Self-love and Self-acceptance. If you find yourself in a moment with your chin on the ground, perhaps you can practice pausing, remembering you can’t push that river of Life, and gently remind yourself that it’s OK, you’ve still accomplished so much, and you are experiencing your journey and your recovery exactly the right way for you. You don’t even have to start all over again – you simply pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep moving onward.

By Erin Stitzel

Erin Stitzel is an interning therapist at The Awakening Center. She is a Masters student at Northeastern Illinois University and will graduate and gain licensure in August of 2012. She specializes in eating disorders, depression, anxiety, trauma, and grief. She runs the Saturday Eating Disorder Recovery Drop In Support Group at TAC on Saturday mornings from 10-11:30am. For more information please call 773.929.6262 (ext.12).

Jennifer Schurman: Finding the Right Questions

By Diana Hinojosa
diaqua90@hotmail.com

As a marriage and family counselor at The Awakening Center, Jennifer Schurman encourages her clients to include family members in the process of their recovery by helping them create a space for them to communicate effectively.

“It is pretty powerful when you are able to see relationships repair, and having a family that is ready and willing to change can really impact the client in therapy,” says Jennifer.

Understanding that therapy should be about meeting the client where they are, and working from there, Jennifer has witnessed how much of an impact families can have on the rehabilitation process of the clients, specifically those with an eating disorder.

Having some friends that had experienced eating disorders, Jennifer found herself gravitating towards this with much intellectual curiosity that has now translated into trying to ask the “right questions” to her clients. She believes it is about being a part of the client’s life in a way that sometimes nobody else can.

Jennifer says, “There is not much about my job that is black and white, and there is never a day that is the same, but that is exactly why I love my job.”

Some of the most difficult parts of her job is acknowledging where the parents of her clients are coming from, while trying to reinforce their intentions. Trying to be the “healthy” voice in the room isn't always easy when trying to mediate the relationship between her client and their parent. Nevertheless, Jennifer feels very privileged to be working with her clients in their process to recovery.

She says, “I think the people that walk in here really want recovery. The biggest joy is watching a client find their voice, and seeing how their life changes, rather than having an eating disorder take over their identity.”

She enjoys being a part of The Awakening Center’s team because of the support she receives from the staff, especially when she feels like she needs to bring herself back from stressful situations.

She says, “While this work can be challenging, the significance of the work we do is so powerful. Being along with these clients in their journey is such a privilege and to know I can witness this is very rewarding. At The Awakening Center we all have our talents and bring something different, but we all want the same thing for our clients. We have the heart for it.”

Breathe, Pause, Consider

Breathe, Pause, Consider

Having an eating disorder is like being a passenger in a rickety old school bus which is speeding down a winding mountain road at night in a blinding thunderstorm. The bus is careening off the guardrails with each turn and picking up speed as it goes along. If this wasn’t bad enough, notice there’s no driver on the bus!

Recovering is like making your way to the front of the bus and getting in the driver’s seat. Imagine with all your senses, feel it in your body as you make your way to the front of the bus. Experience sitting in the driver’s seat. What is the very first thing you would do in this situation?

You probably would reply, “Put my foot on the brake and stop the bus!”

Yes! Once the bus is stopped, you can sit there, as long as you need, to calmly make the decisions necessary to steer the bus to safety. Then, you can start to slowly drive the bus forward again.

An important tool towards recovery is as simple as taking a breath. In the momentary pause of that one breath we can step back and notice what’s going on. Then from our Self, from the place of peace and wisdom within us, we can consider our options –rather than from an emotional knee-jerk reaction.

Early in our lives, we learned to react to situations quickly, without thinking, to protect ourselves from getting hurt or getting in trouble. When these knee jerk reactions were successful, they were reinforced and became habitual. If when we were a child every time someone was angry we quickly tried to fix whatever was wrong, we will be conditioned to fix everyone’s problems as an adult. Not that fixing problems is bad or wrong, but if deep inside a young part of us frantically feels it is her responsibility to fix everything every time anyone is angry then we carry that anxiety and burden with us constantly.

We can practice taking a breath, pausing and considering until it becomes natural to us. Imagine a recent situation that where, in hindsight, you realize now that you felt like Life was racing down the mountain without a driver and you wish you had handled it differently. Maybe something that made your Parts react like in the old days. Now, take a deep breath, filling the bottom lobe of your lungs, holding it and then letting the breath out in a sigh. Repeat a few times until you feel a Pause – like Life has momentarily slowed down. In that Pause, feel yourself step into the wisdom of your Self; ask all your Parts to step back so your Inner Wisdom can see the situation objectively. Consider any and all options. It may help to ask, “What would my best friend do in this situation? What would I suggest to my best friend if the situation happened to her?” Then imagine yourself handling the situation using these suggestions from a place of peace and wisdom within.

I would love to hear your comments about trying this new tool.

Namaste,

Amy

Amy Grabowski, MA, LCPC has written a book about recovery from eating disorders. She is in the process of finding a publisher! She can be reached at (773) 929-6262 x 11 or awakeningcenter@aol.com

Linda R. Winter: Honoring Inner Wisdom

By:Diana Hinojosa

Diaqua90@hotmail.com

Being mid-life and going back to school can be really intimidating for some people, but for Linda R. Winter, it was what she needed to do when she realized what she was really passionate about.

“I was always considered a good listener, which made me consider therapy,” said Linda, “But I realized it was about being part of conversations that you cannot be in other professions.”

She recalls an article in which the author stated that people in the healing professions are attempting to continue their own form of therapy. She connected wit this idea very strongly due to some of her life experiences that have also encouraged her to become the therapist she is today.

For Linda, therapy is a way of becoming “impacted”.

She said, “There is a way of being present, it is about the process of therapy that is personally satisfying.”

Linda considers it a “joy and a privilege” to be a part of people that are brave enough to take a hard look at themselves, even when they are approaching it with timidity.

“It inspires me when people are willing to ask themselves those hard questions, when I can notice how much change has taken place in a person, and how the relationship with their parts has shifted,” said Linda.

She disagrees with people that view therapy as a “math formula” because Linda believes it is more of a continuum and that the person can become free of crisis when he or she has gained a new perspective.

As she remembers numerous clients to which this has happened to, Linda acknowledges that the most rewarding experiences are when a client really opens up and they have the courage to change their lives.

“One of the universal experiences is about how related everything is. It is great to come into focus with them but then we realize that other parts of ourselves are connected and that is very satisfying,” said Linda.

More than anything, Linda seeks to create acceptance, an absence of judgment, and a setting in which “compassion can really blossom.”

“I really do believe we have the ability to heal,” said Linda, “Helping a client sort through the clutter can help them learn how to access their inner wisdom. This is the heart and soul of therapy. This makes sense in the real world.”