Finding Your Why with Alana Van Der Sluys
How can you find your WHY?
The journey of recovery from an eating disorder is filled with fear of the unknown, anxiety of the future, and lots of bumps in the road. Today is all about finding and embracing your WHY for your recovery, especially in those moments when nothing seems worth it. We have TedX speaker Alana Van Der Sluys sharing personal insights, tools, and acronyms (so many acronyms!) to help you along your recovery journey.
Alana Van Der Sluys is a TedX speaker, entrepreneur, author, and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. She is dedicated to empowering women to heal their relationship with food and their bodies to step into their potential, take up space, and pursue true health. Her debut book, Freedom with Food and Fitness: How Intuitive Eating is the Key to Becoming Your Happiest, Healthiest Self, on November 7, 2023 with Urano World USA, Inc. She is also the host of the Finally Free Podcast. Find Alana online at freedomwithfoodandfitness.com, or to work with her, visit www.freedomwithfoodandfitness.com/discover.
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Why do we feel stuck in our recovery?
A simple answer: at times, recovery can feel like an insurmountable mountain to climb, leaving people feeling trapped and unsure of what to do.
It can feel incredibly difficult to start when a person has no idea where to start. They are bombarded with conflicting messages, questions, and ambivalence, making it hard to discern the right path. The voice of the “food police” in one’s mind can also keep them stuck, reinforcing restrive behaviors and holding them back from true healing.
The fear of the unknown and anxiety about the future (aka future tripping) can be scarier than clinging to the familiar devil, someone’s eating disorder. When a person starts to understand the eating disorder is attempting to serve a function, it makes it easier to understand why this is happening and what it is trying to keep them “safe” from.
Put Future Tripping in the PAST
People try to prepare themselves for the future and to save themselves from things that have not even happened yet. The problem is that when (or if) this worst-case scenario does happen– the anxiety and worrying ahead of time do not make it easier to cope with. So how does a person actually help themselves when they worry about how difficult things will be later?
Alana shares her first acronym with us on how to get rid of future tripping.
P- present mindedness
You cannot change the past, and you cannot predict the future– focus on the now.
Ground yourself to the exact moment you are in; look around, and describe what you see. Alana gives the example of looking at the soap dispenser in the bathroom with great detail. When you are so focused on something in the present time, you cannot be anxious about the future.
A- address your negative thoughts
Alana shares how she believes journaling is the best exercise for this.
List out the thoughts and question them. Are these things really going to happen? Are these things actually true?
S- self-care
A vital tool in recovery. This can look like engaging in activities like journaling, taking walks, bubble baths, and anything else that can help soothe our minds and promote self-compassion.
T- tap in
Alana explains meditating and journaling are effective ways to identify how you are feeling in the moment. Identify the emotion and what you are doing by deep breathing and clearing your mind. (If this is hard, go to therapy!)
PAST’s whole point is to stay grounded. Instead of saying what we cannot do, we focus on what we can do.
*You will notice how journaling is brought up multiple times– this is because it is so effective and can help stop the obsessive loops in a person’s mind. However, it is not just one-and-done. This takes practice over time and multiple tries.
Compelling Factors of an Eating Disorder
Part of how we work through eating disorders is to begin to understand it better. To understand what is keeping someone stuck in their eating disorder, they need to understand that eating disorders often serve a deeper purpose, attempting to fulfill basic human needs for safety, acceptance, love, and validation.
That brings us to our second acronym!
S- safety
Do I feel safe in my body physically and mentally?
A- acceptance
Do I feel accepted for who I am, the size that I am?
L- love
Do I have love for myself? Do I need to be a certain size to feel love from others?
V- validation
People become attached to external validation. So can you be your own cheerleader?
Maybe it’s not obvious, or maybe it is, eating disorders don't actually fill these needs. Once we understand which need the eating disorder is attempting to fulfill and understand this is something more than just food, you can explore more effective ways to meet those needs without resorting to our eating disorder tendencies.
Discover your WHY
A vital part of recovery is discovering your why or your purpose in completing this journey. It is trickier for some people to identify specifically what they want it to be.
So, TAPE it together, folks!
Talent, audience, passion, and experience all come into play when deciding your why.
T- talent
What are you really good at?
It could be something you gained from a hobby, from work, or wherever!
A- audience
Who do you want to serve?
Where do you want to give those talents to?
P- passion
What did you do as a kid?
What is something that makes you happy?
E- experience
What do you have experience doing?
Reflect on your talents, who you want to serve, what brings you passion, and your past experiences. These all can help you identify a purpose that goes beyond your eating disorder- something that brings you joy, fulfillment, and a sense of purpose in life.
To hear an example of Alana using TAPE listen at the 24:00 minute mark.
This replacement coming from the TAPE method has nothing to do with money or making a career. It is only about bringing you joy and creating more for yourself than your eating disorder. It can be something super random, like memorizing Harry Potter trivia facts or writing fan fiction anonymously. 🤪
Stuck on Your Purpose?
If you are completely stuck on what you should do about this, here is some of our advice:
Google it- there are SO many hobbies to be explored
Check out your local area to see if there are any free classes
Ask yourself, what did I love to do as a kid (this is perfect because it is before you had big worries about productivity or being the best)
Embrace Tombstone Thinking
– this does not mean we have to wear all black now 😉
It is not meant to be morbid, but it is more serious and life-affirming.
To find happiness in the present, we can think about what we want people to say at our funerals or what we want written on our tombstones.
This exercise helps us clarify what truly matters to us and what we want our lives to be about. It shifts our focus from external appearance and achievements to the impact we make on others and our community.
*Do you really want someone to talk about how great our abs were at our funeral?*
So it’s that simple, right?
This conversation may make everything sounds so simple but that does not mean there won’t be hiccups along the way in your recovery journey. So then what?
No worries– Alana shares her last acronym
Chill the Fuck Out
Understand the power of CTFO cycle: Circumstance, Thought, Feeling, and Outcome.
If you look at CTFO in a negative sense, your outcome will reflect that.
If you reverse engineer it by identifying the desired outcome, acknowledging the feelings necessary to achieve it, and cultivating supportive thoughts, you can create a new cycle that empowers your recovery.
Newsletter update: If you’re not already signed up for my newsletter, then I’m not sure what you’re waiting for! I’m ✨obsessed ✨ with it. In an effort to keep things fun and fresh, we’re going to monthly newsletters rather than weekly. If you have any feedback on what you want to see in the newsletters, reply back to one or send me a message!
Tweetable Quotes
“You will notice how journaling is brought up multiple times– this is because it is so effective and stops the obsessive loops in our minds. However, it is not just one-and-done. This takes practice over time and multiple tries. “ - Rachelle Heinemann
“To understand the factors of staying in an eating disorder, we need to understand our eating disorders often serve a deeper purpose, attempting to fulfill our basic human needs for safety, acceptance, love, and validation.” - Rachelle Heinemann
Resources
Free Chill the Fuck Out Worksheet: www.freedomwithfoodandfitness.com/chillout
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Hey there! I’m Rachelle, the host of the Understanding Disordered Eating Podcast. As a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, I work with clients to make sense of life’s messy emotional experiences.
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