Wilson Counseling: The Armchair Chronicles

Some of you will be spending time with family this holiday. You know what they say; you don't get to choose your family. Family can sometimes feel all too free to talk about your body, your eating habits and your weight without any invitation to do so. It's annoying and even hurtful. For someone with an eating disorder, it can often trigger their eating disorder and signal for it to take over and rescue them from the body shame they feel. Even if you don't have an eating disorder, but you have overzealous family or friends who love to get in your business, this article on revelist.com entitled " 9 polite clapbacks to help you deal with body-shaming relatives " can help give you some good comebacks. They won't all fit for you, so feel free to be creative in coming up with your own comebacks. Your body and your food choices are your own. Don't let a well intentioned but mean comment ruin your holiday.

image:nyt.com I will be glad when the presidential election season is over. In the mean time, I am mostly avoiding the news. Here is an article from Mindful.com with other strategies to ease election anxiety.

Houston dietitian Amanda Holben was interviewed on the NPR radio show Houston Matters about eating disorders in the elderly. You can listen to the interview here: http://www.houstonmatters.org/segments/segment-c/2016/10/26/eating-disorders-theyre-not-just-a-young-persons-problem

I hate my body How do you go from hating your body to not only accepting it but feeling more alive in it? Is that even a realistic or worthwhile goal? Can you imagine looking at the loose skin on your stomach, stretched from carrying children, or the cellulite on the back of your thighs, or the dark circles under your eyes made worse by nights of worry and thinking that your body is acceptable, even sometimes beautiful and miraculous? Are you just wasting your time even trying? Hate -----> Tolerate ----> Liberate In this video Dr. Jennifer Kreatsoulas proposes there are three stages in being liberated from body hate: HATE, TOLERATE, LIBERATE. This does not mean you always love your body, but you can learn to "neutralize the charge of hate, feel your mind quiet down, and feel more in sync with your body." Neutralize body negativity Kreatsoulas discusses how the use of yoga can get you closer to that place of tolerance and liberation. It is not a once-and-done e...

Breakups are really hard. I showed you why breakups are painful in my latest post which you can find here. In this post I am going to show you how to get past a painful break-up. Purge your ex from all of your contacts Stay off of social media for a few weeks Pack up photos or other reminders of your ex Spend time with those who love you. Don't isolate even if that is all you want to do Journal about your feelings This photo was actually taken by my daughter (who is awesome). You can find her blog here.  Write a letter to your ex (but don't send it). This is just for you Acknowledge the good things about your past relationship (but don't over-romanticize it) Spend time doing things that recharge you Give it time. Rushing into a new relationship will not solve the problem  Make a list of your goals and dreams. This will help you redefine the life you want and get you thinking about the ...

Love hurts, literally You can see the physical and emotional pain in the body language of someone who has gone through a recent breakup. It hurts to exist. It looks like it takes all their energy just to hold themselves up. The metaphorical weight of the world seems to be literally propped on their shoulders, threatening to crush them. And the distant, glassy look in their eyes betrays the fact that they are not fully present. It is too painful to exist fully in the here and now. The most popular post I have ever written is entitled " Letting go of broken relationships ." It resonates with people because so many people in broken relationships can't let go. We fear the breakup. We are wired to avoid pain, so why would we court it by breaking up with our partner?  Some of the most depressed clients I have worked with are those going through recent break-ups. I had one client recently who commented, "My ex is already posting pictures of herself with...

via Are you trying to reach a biologically impossible ideal? Being bombarded with media images of the "ideal" (read thin) body shape, it is hard not to start believing there is only one type of beauty. One of the obvious problems with that is that most of us don't have bodies like the women who grace the covers of magazines. The natural comparisons, however, cause us to feel dissatisfied and down about our bodies and to pursue biologically impossible ideals we can never reach.  via Your body is a masterpiece: strong, functional and uniquely beautiful! I wanted to post some pictures of curvier women whom I think are beautiful to balance out the images that are probably thrown at you from tv, the movies, social media, and hollywood. Thin can be beautiful, and curvy can be beautiful, too. The important things is to learn to embrace and enjoy the body you were given. It is a complex masterpiece.  via Take a look at each of these women a...