PSA

*for the women and our daughters

“The moments where recovery feels the most painful are often the ones you are making the most progress, because it indicates you are actively challenging your demons. Keep on pushing forwards even when the eating disorder voice screams at you.

Things tend to scream when dying.”

Amalie Lee, “Redefining Healthy”

For many years I wondered if, and how, I would ever directly work with those suffering from eating disorders. I have been a strong advocate for women’s healing and empowerment for 15 years, and have indirectly been addressing the systemic diseases we face by guiding people, of all identities, down the path back home.

A few months ago I was gifted the opportunity to become a Holistic Eating Disorder recovery coach through the Carolyn Costin Institute. It was something I “stumbled” upon one day when I was looking for new work and desiring to partner with organizations focused on this most challenged population. Although I have had plenty of lived experience walking through the hell of recovery, I knew that I needed to be resourced with tools and language specific to eating disorders as it is the number one most challenging mental illness and addiction of all to treat.

I say this with love, and because I can - those of us who are taken over by this disease develop a special kind of crazy. :).

• Eating disorders are the most challenging mental illness/disease to treat with anorexia having the highest mortality rate of all mental illness.

• An estimated 10,200 deaths occur every year directly from eating disorders—equating to one death every 52 minutes.

• They are the third most common chronic illness among adolescent females.

• Eating disorder medical claims rose 65% as a percentage of all medical claims over a recent 5-year tracking period.

• During this claims-tracking period, Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) saw a 305% spike, while Binge Eating Disorder rose 81%, and Anorexia claims increased 73%.

• Despite the severity of these conditions, fewer than 27% of those affected receive treatment.

Although I have been free of the overt behaviors that almost took my life since 2012, and have a very good relationship with food, I was not free from why those behaviors existed. It is very challenging to unwind an eating disorder because it often consumes the entire persona. It is a slow death that must be handled tenderly and with tremendous skill because we don’t ween off of, or go cold turkey from, food- as in substance abuse situations.

We must become something entirely new, entirely whole and free while holding hands with the trigger(s) and living in a society built on the desecration and control of women’s bodies.

All things necessary and good for the body (food, water, exercise, sex, relationships, play) have become distorted and a threat to survival, or used in egregious ways for survival. And depending on how long that groove was traveled in the mind/body, it can take years, decades and often lifetimes (if you believe in that kind of thing) to re-pattern the mind/body back to right relationship with Earth, humanness, God.

And -being fully recovered in this life is possible. Being fully recovered is when the person can accept her, or his, natural body size and shape and no longer has a self-destructive relationship with food or exercise. When you are recovered you do not use eating disorder behaviors to deal with, distract from, or cope with other problems. ~ Carolyn Costin

I never received the kind of care and wisdom Carolyn offers. I white knuckled my way through, cobbling together a mosaic made of sacred plants, prayers, midwives, angels in disguise, soul lands and some innate ability- despite the desecrations thrust upon this body- to listen to my still, small voice and tread the path less traveled. I have been in mainstream recovery centers and have had therapists that grazed the topic with me, but I never met the depths of the eating disorder all the way…

UNTIL NOW. Oh, how humbled, once again.

I realized I thought it was me I was trying to heal rather than seeing the entity for what it truly was all this time. Zoom out from the eating disorder lens and we are really talking about the ego death and the spiritual awakening that happens when “oh that’s not who I really am” lands in new territory in the psyche where old patterns used to roam.

What I sit with now is a heart afire with new life and greater awareness and a body still filled with shrapnel from the explosions of the past. The tension between the two has illuminated something I could not see until I was ready- and without this course.

The health issues I navigate are not just shrapnel from the past, they are also addiction in a new disguise. Another way to protect, to avoid pain- with a less threatening form of pain. A part of me is trying to shake loose the old skin, (she really wants to)- and as LOVE, real Love, gets closer- a new symptom emerges. So I am analyzing and expanding on what full recovery looks like if and when a trauma complex takes new shape to hide itself and continue the old pattern. I am at a choice point and very powerful inquiry that I will share more about at a later time.

I abandoned my body these last few years because I truly believed that I was being punished for what I did to myself most of my life for the sake of approval and safety- from a place of debilitating shame. A pert of me thought my beloved Guru and God were putting me on yet another restriction, another hard lesson I must need to learn.

The pain and disability has been enormous and has currently prevented me from playing my harp (in case you were wondering why those beautiful shares have stopped-which I doubt you noticed as we are all mostly self consumed). I stopped moving almost entirely because I didn’t want to trigger the old body obsession, I didn’t want to be focused on my body for the wrong reasons and perpetuate misogyny and more self hate.

Yet, I had no blueprint for how to focus on my body for the right reasons. I did’t think I was allowed to honor my beauty, accentuate the gift for the Gift, be full in my feminine expressions, follow those desires, shine and love my body.

I essentially told my body to die. And that is what it began to do. The fear of actually dying, or becoming permanently disabled, blurred my drishti, my ability to stay at the feet of compassion. However something did remain bright enough to keep me from completely caving into darkness. Without God where would I be?

I am regaining myself in ways that are a threat to this old, old friend of mine. I have had to dig into the quantum archives, and the primordial memory banks of the body, that hold more power in true identity and potential than the habitual, destructive patterns.

Alongside this deeper healing, I am still navigating some challenging, to say the least, health issues and could use your prayers in breaking the cycle of abuse that perpetuates these symptoms, while caring for them from a neutral, grounded, present and loving way.

How to heal without feeding the disease? How to let all that love in while loving myself as I am?

I share so openly because people die from this disease and its long term complications. I share because it’s not me. Because there is no shame in what I navigate because it is collectively systemic. It has lived in my body in this way, but lives in all bodies in some way.

AND I AM READY to help others directly meet this, heal this. I don’t know how it all weaves together with my larger visions, but today I am offering this path of hope for others. Today I can fully say I am recovered even as I still remove bits of shrapnel with loving hands, bless them and cry. It has been really hard. Thanks for hearing that.

You can read more HERE and in my SESSIONS page about what this level of care looks like and my other offerings.

(In order to graduate I need 3 clients who are willing to be recorded over three sessions. This is a great way to work for those who need a little financial assistance for some sessions and to get, not only my care, but Carolyn’s feedback. These are confidential recordings for the purpose of this course only).

Thank you for your support. It has been such a journey.

Shira Starfire,

*I specify “women and our daughters” as this disease, like most of our mental/emotional diseases, targets women.

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