For so many of us in recovery, being “healthy” creates quite a conundrum. Although we commit to health and desire the benefits that come from being healthy, it can be painfully difficult to hear the words: “You look healthy.” Here I open up about the trouble I had with this word, and how I eventually learned to expand my definition of healthy from one rooted in eating disorder thinking to one that aligns with recovery values.

Guest contributor Steph Hillier (she/her) writes with honesty and humor about the fears, challenges, and hopes of going through eating disorder recovery. Read Steph’s story to learn how living with anorexia ultimately exhausted her of beating herself up for being an imperfect human, leading her to commit to walking the path of recovery wearing “kick-ass love glasses and self-compassion capes.”

A beautiful poem about healing and forgiveness by Dr. Jo, an anorexia survivor who now helps women celebrate their unique identities, boldly use their voices, and proudly take up space.

While sitting at a Vietnamese restaurant with a steaming hot bowl of bún bò huế for lunch, guest contributor Minh-Hai Alex, MS, RDN, RYT, shares the memories, joys, and fears she sees while looking at the food before her. By sharing what she sees when she looks at her plate, Minh-Hai invites readers to connect with food through story and comfort, memory and appreciation—an uplifting perspective that all can benefit from.

In a letter to the eating disorder that “came into our home, unannounced and uninvited” and affected a family member, guest contributor Barri Leiner Grant describes the tremendous grief she experiences as a result. In learning to acknowledge her own grief, Barri reaches out to other caretakers and family members, offering validation that their grief is also real and deserves time and space to heal.

“When we step back and observe emotional eating as a natural behavior we use to help us cope with hard feelings like anxiety, loneliness, sadness, and anger, we can begin to let go of judgement. Instead, we can look at emotional eating through a kind, understanding lens.” Read this latest blog post by Caroline L. Young, MS, RD, LD, RYT, to learn why emotional eating is normal, how to release judgment for coping with food, and to remember your ability to choose from a variety of ways of cope with hard feelings.

The health nut identity is far too common in our culture. It's often actually an eating disorder in disguise: orthorexia, an obsession with "healthy" eating. Caroline Young, MS, RD, LD, RYT, reflects on her years suffering from orthorexia and shares how she reclaimed her worth by letting go of her “health nut” mask.

Guest contributor and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor Maria Scrimenti explains how, “When we feel triggered as adults, it’s often not our adult self that is activated. It is our child self showing up, unable to regulate their emotions and less able to access rational perspective. It’s like your adult self is being hijacked by your child self. Often, your child self feels unsafe and needs to know they are okay.” Maria shares an exercise to help us communicate with our inner child and forge a caring relationship with them, so that we can begin to heal the triggers we confront as adults.

In this month’s blog series, Niya Bajaj explores how the experiences of stigma and silence around mental health concerns, including eating disorders, impact how people seek help and how yoga therapy can support inclusive recovery.