WHY YOU NEED TO SEE MOVEMENT AS MEDICINE
I had a messed up relationship with “exercise” for many years. I ONLY saw it as a means to lose weight, to sweat off weight or to punish myself after a binge (there’s actually a form of bulimia called “Exercise Bulimia”)
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I hated it. I remember not allowing myself to get off the elliptical until I’d hit a certain amount of calories or until I broke a sweat thinking that if I sweat I was at least losing water weight (a horrible mindset picked up in my rowing days & trying to make weight).
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I look at movement now (I don’t use the words workout or exercise) as something I do for my mind - not to manipulate my body. Viewing movement in this way was an important part of my eating disorder recovery.
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One experience that forever changed the way I looked at movement was taking a “Shaking Medicine” workshop. It was strange, it was weird and the theory behind it made A LOT of sense.
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We store emotions & trauma in our bodies; in our muscles (our fascia) and if we don’t move our bodies a host of things will happen (physical pain, emotional pain, illness etc).
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This is why we can often cry (or feel like we might) when in a yoga pose. There’s a release; emotion that was trapped in the body was given space to come up and out.
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We need to release all the STUFF in our bodies now more than ever. Especially as those with Eating Disorders tend to be extremely sensitive beings. People that suffer from eating disorders are typically very empathic, and highly sensitive (HSP’s) and therefore we literally take on other people’s energy. We feel other people’s energy and emotions and it affects us A LOT…that is why we use food to numb these intense emotions that often make no sense to us. It becomes extra important if you struggle with food and body that you are taking time to release stored up emotion in your body and the best way to do this is to move, shake, dance, jump up in down, take BIG BIG deep breaths, yell, scream (helpful tip - do this in your car) or punch a pillow. I know this all sounds weird, or not “proper”…I know myself, I had to get over the “I must behave myself” mindset. That expressing anger (yelling/screaming) was not what “good girls do”. It was a deep conditioned belief system in my brain that I still feel when I go to do this type of work.
But we have to get it out of our bodies. It helps us heal, it helps us with our recovery.
So if you just shake it out for a few minutes in the privacy of your room (feel free to look it up) go for it - feeling better is worth feeling stupid or weird for a few seconds - you’ll get over it, and may even grow to like it.
