9 Body Positive Practices For Hard Body Image Days

The other day I was social distance hiking with my roommate.

It’s finally spring here in Boulder, and the quarantine mandates are lifting. The grass is growing, people are all over their lawns in a desperate attempt to carve out some alone time, and bikers are abundant. Masks and lone latex gloves litter the streets.

There’s a feeling in the air like people are coming out of a daze.

Anyway, we’re hiking and chatting about our futures (for me, the absolute unknown of it) when I look down at my leg and effectively cringe.

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“Oh, I Can’t Just Eat Pirates Booty Through This Pandemic?”: Coronavirus and Recovery

It’s 8:30 on a Monday morning, and I’ve been in quarantine for 23 days. Or more. I’ve lost track of time. As I wrote that, I had to double check if it was Monday on my phone calendar.

A month ago, I was on a connecting flight in San Francisco to go to Europe and Morocco indefinitely (okay, probably like a month because money doesn’t grow on trees):

It was to be my Eat, Pray, Love debut. I was going to write my book, figure out what I wanted my career to be (I’m going through a quarter-life crisis, we’ll call it), go makeup free, taste Cafe Con Leche at cafes, wander the streets of Europe again in flowing skirts and stop in Seville in southern Spain to reminisce of my year there as an au pair (I do not recommend being an au pair FYI but I DO recommend living in Spain), and generally have this momentous moment of human freedom in recovery. 

Look at that grin.
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I Still Suck At Mirrors: And 5 Other Recovery Lessons For 2020

It’s New Years Eve, and I’m sat in a coffee shop on Pearl Street in Boulder, CO, where I live, trying to wrap up the sentiments of this past year.

It’s been months since I’ve written a post. What’s new? I’m not even gonna to try make a self-deprecating joke about it. Tis life. And I write a lot about the ole eating disorder on Instagram so I guess I’m just a basic millennial that shares experiences as they happen.

Anyway, I felt the beautiful sense of urgency today – to wake up and try to make sense of this last year in my life. What lessons to focus on (recovery smatterings) and what to mention in brevity (a focus on friendship) and I chose the five below that I keep returning to when trying to sort out the stream of consciousness that is so often my writing style.

As always, I look forward to any comments or messages – and Happy New Year to each and every one of you <3

random proof that I’m focusing on friendships this year lol
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What Ending My Engagement Taught Me About Recovery

A few weeks ago, I met my ex fiancé after work. The night before, I told him I was dating my roommate.

Killer opening line, right?

 “Wheyo Linds, where ya been?”

Then, BAM: open with a doozy one-liner.

Actually, more of like a “wait WTF. Didn’t she JUST get engaged? Didn’t I recently like that picture on Instagram? Who is this chick – a bachelorette contestant?”

To confirm: yes, there was an engagement in March. It ended in May. I’m now dating my roommate.

And no, I will not apply for The Bachelor.

More of that later.

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A Letter To You, Anorexia

This one’s to you, anorexia

For you continue to change my life.

The last time I saw my best friend alive, it was 9:00pm at a house party at The University of Arkansas, and I stood there, in the front yard of someone’s house, backing away from him because I wanted to finish a run.

18 years old – our first week of college – he was visiting on his way to a Mississippi school.

Linds, he pleaded, reaching out for my shoulder. Just stay. Christ, don’t run.

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Sh*t Rehab Never Taught Me: Part One

In December 2013, I was gearing up to go to treatment in Florida after 8 years of living in the eating disorder cycle.

In my mind, I had this notion that rehab was gonna be this all-knowing descent into radical self realization.

More or less, I expected to come out of it being Basic B*tch Gandhi… or at the very least, Mother Teresa’s sinful pseudo-daughter. Meditating on the reg – zen-like in feeling, and – of course – still thin because in my jacked up head I thought the weight I felt was “extra” was only there because I binge ate about as much as I starved.

L-O-L.

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Do You Struggle With “Leftover Anorexia”?

Standard cheese, nature, computer pic

First things first – I think I’ve coined this whole “leftover anorexia” term and I’m feeling called to take a moment here to chuckle at my own irony. (Is it irony? Leftover? Like … leftovers. Like, food. Get it? Oh God, I know. Lame. Possibly insensitive.)

But, it’s another one of those eating disorder topics that seems to be difficult to acknowledge – though my guess is quite a few of us struggle with it.

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It’s True: You Probably Aren’t “Sick Enough” To Have An Eating Disorder

Yo, hold up. Put down the pitch forks, please.

I write headlines to get your attention.

This is one of them.

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“To Exercise Or Not To Exercise”: 6 Hard Eating Disorder Situations You Will Absolutely Face In Recovery

In the process of moving this month from Denver to Boulder (wahoo!)

Between periods of biting my partner’s head off because he didn’t like the same rug I did – to eating at strange times because I’m in between homes and packing boxes, etc., it led me to reflect on some of the initial recovery situations we face in the beginning- throughout.

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