Buh Bye Diet Culture, Hello Self-Compassion

As I've been mentioning in previous newsletters, I’m in the process of healing some childhood wounds around body shame and a lifetime of normalized food restriction egged on by the $72 billion diet industry and my well meaning, but misguided, parents.

On a personal level – my goal is to break this cycle in my family AND give fewer (if any) fucks by the time I hit 50 about how close I am to the manufactured thin ideal.

I’m walking straight into the fire on the path toward accepting my genetically predetermined body size and learning to trust myself when it comes to desire – with food and beyond.

On a macro level, I’m beginning to see the impacts of diet culture on women’s careers.

How we spend endless amounts of time planning and counting and tracking and dialoguing with our internalized rules instead of creating and innovating and advocating for our place at the table. Or building a new fucking table.

How we hunger for influence and joy and agency, but accept rice cake crumbs and pretend we are satisfied.

There’s so much to share about how this Anti-diet and Body Liberation work intersects with my own mission of helping women design careers on their own terms.

New ways to think about organizational cultures, inclusive spaces, setting boundaries in relationships, plus corporate wellness programs !

And, of course, it’s me so there are PODCASTS. So many podcasts.

All the ideas are percolating.

Yet, for now, I’m still in the messy middle of working through my thoughts and feelings. My grief and all of the hard truths I’ve been avoiding by distracting myself with diets and "wellness" as it’s now called (same restrictive rules, new marketing).

Getting back to the title of this post, I promise that today, I did set out to write about self-compassion. As it turns out…I did.

I sat down and let my fingers type out the words my body wanted to share. I trusted this was the message that needed to come through – ready or not.

I honored my desire to tell the truth. To be who I am and who I continue to become.

So yes, self-compassion FTW.

I’m here for you and your connection to your desires. I’m grateful we’re in community to chip, chip, chip away at the Patriarchy with its goal to keep us small and without energy to fight back.