Jennifer Kreatsoulas, PhD, RYT 500, is a yoga therapist specializing in eating disorders and body image. She is coauthor of the forthcoming book, Body Mindful Yoga: Create a Powerful and Affirming Relationship with Your Body (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2018). In addition to her private yoga therapy practice, Jennifer leads yoga therapy groups at the Monte Nido Eating Disorder Center of Philadelphia and yoga workshops and retreats on eating disorder recovery and body image. She is a partner with the Yoga and Body Image Coalition and the Transformation Yoga Project. Her writing on the topics of yoga, body image, motherhood, and eating disorder recovery can be found on her blog as well as several influential online publications. Connect with Jennifer on her website. Jennifer concludes her two part series discussing NEDAcon Philadelphia in this week’s blog post.
Today, I am filled up with gratitude for the brilliant, brave, and inspiring individuals who shared their stories and showed up for themselves in such empowering ways at NEDAcon. It was an unforgettable day for me, one that has sent me on my way to new explorations and learning about intersectionality and eating disorders, and a quest to seek out the voices and stories of those who are willing to share and be a part of educating me and the world.
As such, I have 5 action items on my list from NEDAcon. I share them here with the hope that you, too, will join me in these actions and that they may even inspire other steps for you to share with me and the recovery community.
Diversify my social media newsfeeds so that I am learning from/about other groups’ experiences, the challenges they face, and have an understanding of what they value. I will then share/include their posts in my community and amplify their voices in my work, so that they are being heard and seen in my small corner of the recovery community.
Connect with experts and leading voices with different backgrounds than myself and ask questions about their life experiences so that I am best able to serve my yoga therapy clients and represent the entire recovery community in my speaking and writing.
Be mindful of images I post. Seek out images that represent a variety of body sizes, races, abilities, genders, socioeconomic statuses, sexual orientations, and ages.
Be mindful of the words included on my posts, so as to not unintentionally perpetuate fat phobia or other damaging and insensitive cultural and social messages.
Share others’ voices on my blog to promote inclusion as well as provide space for individuals to tell their story.
To that last action item, if you would like to share your story of recovery on my blog, I would love to hear from you. Individuals of all body sizes, races, abilities, genders, socioeconomic statuses, sexual orientations, and ages are invited and welcome. Your story holds more inspiration than you realize, and the recovery community is hungry for inspiration, motivation, healing, and empowerment. If you are interested in sharing your story on my blog, let’s connect.
Thank you, National Eating Disorder Association, for such an excellent day of sharing, learning, and ultimately, healing. You have my commitment to practice inclusion and encourage others to do so as well. We don’t recover alone; it often takes a village. Let’s do this together to make sure no one is alone on their personal healing path.
This article originally published on the Chime Yoga Therapy Blog.
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