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I help highly sensitive womxn end their fight with food & their body by guiding them back home to their body & building emotional intimacy.

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richelle_ludwig

I help womxn who feel unworthy end their fight with food & their body.
Somatic Coaching
Inner Child
Weight Neutral
Trauma Informed
HSP
⬇️🌌ECLIPSE 💜⬇️

I won't tell you I know the 1 key thing you're mis

I won't tell you I know the 1 key thing you're missing to stop binge eating.
I won't tell you I have 5 steps to help you overcome disordered eating.
I won't try to sell you a formula that worked for me, because I get we're all different.
I see the nuance, complexity and layers of this journey.
I won't respond to your pain with an oversimplified spiritual statement.
I won't victim shame you, because if you feel like a victim, you've likely been one in one way or another.
I understand healing starts with being seen, acknowledged, validated and accepted in that experience.
I won't pump you up with fake empowerment, but rather meet you exactly where you are.
I won't pretend to know better than you, but help you explore, with my own curiosity, to understand what your truth is.
I won't tell you my way is the only way, as I believe we can have multiple guides or teachers that each serve a different purpose at different times.
I believe I'm just one person and one part of my clients journey.
Have I done or said these things in the past?
Absolutely.
And, I've also unlearned them the deeper I went into my own healing.
The more problematic I saw them as bypassing.
The truth is, healing is not that linear.
And life is not that linear.
There will be many things you come back around to, to deepen into.
The process isn't one big expansion into your highest, best, authentic self. Although, that does sound sexy doesn't it?
The nature of life is to expand then contract, then expand then contract.
If you're like me you might have started seeking to get rid of the contractions and find more of the expansion.
This in and of itself, sets us up to feel like we're failing.
Nature is a beautiful guide with this.
The oceans tide comes in and then goes out, comes in and then goes out.
The moon has phases. The new moon is dark and as we begin to see more of it it moves from waxing crescent, to first quarter, to waxing gibbous, to full moon in its bright glory. Then it begins to go dark again from waning gibbous, to last quarter, to waning crescent, to new Moon again.
The seasons are a beautiful example of (re)birth, growth, harvest and dormancy.
Continued below ⬇️⬇️⬇️

I've been thinking a lot about anger lately. My ow

I've been thinking a lot about anger lately. My own relationship to anger is complex. There's been a suppression of healthy anger, only to have it erupt into aggression. There's been fear of others anger and no capacity to stay when its expressed. There's been the acting in of anger towards the self, as self hatred for many years. And more recently there's been the ally to my sensitive parts.

When I feel anger now, the practice is to approach and respond rather than avoid or react. I'm not always good at this. I can still push it down. I can still react. And each time I learn more about my relationship with anger. When things are in flow, I'm able to pause and be with the inner experience of anger in my body.

Anger is not acted in towards the self like it used to be and for that I'm grateful. I tend to cry more easily than I get angry. My inner critic who carried so much anger in the past, told me my feelings were weak. Of course, we often internalize messages we get from others as our inner critics. At the end of the day, the inner critic is just trying to keep you safe from others rejection.

Although I just uncovered yesterday, that there's still a part of me who tries to suppress emotions that make me cry in front of others, because it fears being judged as weak. Although I discovered that, there's still been a deeper, gradual acceptance of this sensitive part of me, and of the anger. I've experienced moments when anger is the ally and not the bully, internal or external.

As always, I've discovered there's so much nuance that comes with exploring our relationship to anger, that a quote on the internet telling you to feel your anger, just can't cover. The true work is in our bodies, not here on IG. Don't make the mistake I did with just reading about all the things, but never integrating them. We can deepen awareness through learning and that definitely has its place, but it's in the trenches that transformation actually happens. Where we experience visceral and embodied change.

I used to get really stuck in the unknown. I feare

I used to get really stuck in the unknown. I feared not having control. I felt like I needed to know. In my need to know, I would get stuck in circular thinking. I would ruminate on what was going to happen. On figuring out the how. There were many layers contributing to my inability to accept the unknown. The resistance I experienced in my body felt like too much. And as I say this, I know there may be times I experience that stuckness in not knowing again, because it's a practice.

I'm currently in a space of unknown. Deep unknown. But I don't feel stuck. I'm moving forward in the unknown. I'm feeling and being with it. I'm not forcing answers or outcomes. There's a curiosity and understanding that I can't and won't ever know, all there is to know. There's something oddly comforting in that now.

I'm listening not just with my ears, but my heart. My whole body. My body feels the yes and no, which guide me. My body sees where different individual and collective truths and non-truths are coming from. My body hears tones and undertones. Anger, aggression, grief and shame. Yes, my body reacts with my own trauma's from this life and intergenerational. That still guides me as I heal. It needs to.

Yet, I've also experienced a greater capacity to be with difficulty and activation. Hence moving forward in the great unknown. That anxiety that would often rise with the need for control and certainty has been replaced with trust. Not just in the outcome I'm moving towards, but in my ability to show up for myself and handle whatever is. Trust in the greater path and unseen but felt support that guides me. Faith.

It reverberates in my cells when I get quiet and still enough to notice. The more than okayness with the unknown of life in the outer world, is a reflection of the changed relationship with my inner world. There's an access to wisdom and inner power that reinforces that self-trust. There's also an acceptance and curiosity of what the contractions bring. A knowing that expansion always follows, with an ease of flow between both.

I'm open. I'm curious. I trust. I have faith. I'm supported and guided. The unknown is a place of alchemical remix.
Continued below 👇

My friend Denise has launched her new offering and

My friend Denise has launched her new offering and I couldn't be more excited for the humans she's going to serve. I met Denise September of last year and have had the honour and privilege of being in community with her. We started a Mastermind together, which we've co-created with 2 other womxn and its been such a healing container for all of us.
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This Mastermind is not your typical business Mastermind, as we're not focused on the metrics or the hustle, but rather consent, feeling, healing and liberation from patriarchal (and now colonial) ways of doing business. Denise is the real deal. This womxn does her work, integrates and embodies what she teaches. More from me in the comments. 👇
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#Repost @denisedimensional (@get_repost)
・・・
It’s here folx!!! This baby is *finally* birthed from six months of undoing shame and repression of my heart’s medicine and crying many healing tears. This is a super low key intro as I’m on day two of my moon cycle and actively decolonizing “launch week” while wearing crystals in my booty shorts and jammin 2006 Amy Winehouse. For reals tho, my heart is feelin’ SO BIG and fluttery for this— this offering everything I stand for and is the fertile soil for the rest of my legacy (aka bizniz) so I’m calling in 10 super aligned BIWOC who want to be witnessed and honored for their truth and belong within all of it while learning somatic trauma resolution from someone who’s been doing so for the last three years+. Let’s be shameless in our truth telling and crush the patriarchy while we’re at it— I’m here for the long haul babe. Yes this is for womxn of COLOR only and I couldn’t be more grateful for all the nuggets of wisdom, divine synchronicities and guidance I’ve received in my healing process, only to arrive back where I started, this time with so much more depth and commitment to the work of serving womxn in reclaiming their power and healing white supremacy. The deets and application are in bio and you can DM me questions, loves! If you’re a white ally- please share with anyone you’d think would love this OR send me a DM if you’d like to donate to the scholarship fund. Love love love to you all 🙌🏼💜✨🌻

One of my teachers, Dr. Miles Neale was sharing a

One of my teachers, Dr. Miles Neale was sharing a story about the Buddha and his own journey from pleasure seeking to pleasure aversion to naturally accessing a sense of joy internally. Whenever I'm taking in new information I filter it through the lense of how it can be applied to disordered eating.

I could see the link of disordered eating on both spectrums when it comes to pleasure. One thing Dr. Miles Neale shared is that we can turn to misguided sacrifice, acting out rage or shame by denying self something, like in eating disorders. Restriction can be seen as pleasure aversion, as we're denying the body nourishment and pleasure through the simple joys of eating and satiation.

Restriction can also be seen as pleasure seeking through grasping for an aesthetic, as there's a belief it will bring you joy and all your struggles will disappear if your body looks a certain way. Restriction can also be seen as pleasure seeking in that the numbness it can create or the knawing, empty feeling it can create, feels pleasurable compared to other sensations in the body.

On the other end of the spectrum, binge eating can be seen as pleasure seeking. It's a natural impulse to swing to the other side of the spectrum, when we've restricted. There can be a sense of deprivation and the urge to consume as much as possible before more restriction comes. It can give us a temporary high that blocks potentially painful sensations and emotions in the body.

Binge eating can also be seen as pleasure aversion. When experiencing moments of goodness, connection and joy we may experience the urge to stop it before it gets too good. We may punish ourselves through binge eating.

Natural pleasure is somewhere in the middle. It's the knowing that life is contraction and expansion. It's an acceptance of the nature of the highs and lows, without holding on. It's an allowance of savouring the moments, allowing them to leave when they do, knowing there will be more. It's a practice, as all the integrative work is.

Oh and Black Lives Matter. Period.

Bringing awareness to our thought patterns is grea

Bringing awareness to our thought patterns is great. But have you tried working with the root of those beliefs that often exist in the body? The deeper conditioning that exists in our cells? The somatic experience of those beliefs?
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I was watching a replay of one of my classes in Contemplative Psychology with Dr. Miles Neale. He was doing a teaching on The Wheel of Becoming, which is new to me, while many of the concepts weren't. There's one section on Causation with 12 links that show how each conditions the next.

He shared how links 3 to 8 are all conditioned from the past and there's nothing we can do about them. Included in links 3 to 8 are our thoughts and beliefs. Link 9 is action. I wonder how much time we waste trying to control our inner narrative through mindset work. I wonder about the energy that is often behind mindset work.

I wonder about the sense of force and manipulation of one's inner thoughts, rather than acceptance. Acceptance that's rooted in knowing its not all truth. I wonder about the focus of mindset that continues to keep us locked out of our bodies where truth and power actually exist.

I wonder about the power of somatically working at the level of what comes before the action. I wonder about the need to know and be sure, which leave little space for the magic of existing in the unknown. I wonder about the belief in what we know, yet our not fully knowing in how we know it.

I wonder about the lack of open mindedness being connected to the disconnection of the body. I've experienced the mind becoming more open, through the connection with the body. I wonder about what I might know incorrectly.

One thing I do know for sure, is the more I learn, the more humbled I am in what I might not know. And something I've come to know, is that curiously working on a somatic level often brings forward the nuance and complexity that quotes on the internet just can't touch.

The core emotion of anger is clean. It communicate

The core emotion of anger is clean. It communicates when boundaries are being crossed, injustices are happening and disrespect is occurring. We can use it to mobilize us forward into action. When we're disconnected from our clean anger, it's going to be hard to access our power too.

That inner fire that says this is me, this is what I need and this is what is okay and not okay for me. That's part of our power. Developing connection with our clean anger is the work for many highly sensitive womxn, whether you were taught to suppress it or needed to, to survive.
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When we're not connected to it, we tend to have either really weak boundaries or walls. The discomfort of not being able to say no or closing everyone off, can be why we turn to food to soothe and regulate. Or, it can be why a person turns to restriction to grasp for some sense of control and therefore power.

Often there's a struggle with codependency and that's not love either. Now don't get it twisted. Anger can also be a secondary emotion. This is when it's being used as a defense and can be projected onto others as aggression.

Please note: In this case I am NOT talking about any BIPOC and their reaction to years of racism and trauma. It's not my place to comment on how they process and react to this pain and the retraumatization. And frankly, the reactions I see make so much sense. I'm talking to White people here about their aggression.

We need to discern the difference between the core emotion of clean anger and the secondary emotion of aggression. If it's the core emotion, we get to channel it and use it to mobilize us. If it's the secondary emotion, we get to do some work with that defense to access the core emotion that's actually underneath it.
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If your love and light is uncomfortable with clean anger, then it's just spiritual bypassing. Love can include anger. They can coexist together. It's not one or the other.

All LOVE and TRUTH. 🙏❤️

Our culture likes to focus on external appearance

Our culture likes to focus on external appearance when it comes to disordered eating. We often don't get the support we need because of this. I remember going to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting once and I felt so nervous about being judged for not looking like I struggled with binge eating. Up until that point, the only person who'd taken my struggle with binge eating seriously, was an eating disorder therapist.

She was super compassionate and I didn't feel judged by her. Unfortunately funding got cut for her position and I couldn't work with her anymore. I've been on the waitlist for both an inpatient eating disorder clinic and an outpatient eating disorder clinic. Both times I didn't end up going and slipped through the cracks. The second time I turned it down when they finally called because I also internalized that it wasn't bad enough to get help

People of all shapes and sizes can struggle with Anorexia. People of all shapes and sizes can struggle with binge eating. It's not about body size. It's about the state of their mental, emotional and spiritual health. The often toxic wellness industry, makes us believe that physical health looks a certain body size. It's not true. There are plenty of people who fit the societal ideal with more health issues than those who are considered "overweight" or "obese." We can't judge a book by its cover.

Part of healing our relationship with food and our body is unconditioning ourselves from fat phobia. What's helped me, is changing my relationship with my body from one based on its external appearance and how others perceive it, to one based on inner connection and its wisdom that it provides me. We get to honour where our body naturally wants to be at, when stop dieting and begin to eat intuitively. We get to honour physical hunger and also eat for pleasure. Then we can begin to look at our behaviours with food that serve as a coping strategy and expand our toolbox.

Today is National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada

Today is National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada. It was just a few years ago that I uncovered my own shame around the part of me that is Métis. Shame because of the racist narrative White Supremacy teaches us about the Indigenous people. Around that time, I also began to learn the truth of what happened in this country with the residential schools.
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I began to understand the trauma indigenous people endured. Two days ago a brave indigenous man shared his story in a local Facebook group I'm in, that started in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. His story unfortunately is not unique. He shared his grandparents stories of what happened at the residential schools. Stories they could only tell when drunk.

Stories of how their trauma impacted them. Stories of abuse. Stories of addiction, including his own. Stories of the lack of support for his own trauma. Stories of being thrown in jail when he was drunk, rather than being offered healing for his pain. What I felt the deepest was when he said, "I was taught being what I am is bad, and almost evil."
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When I look at my eating disorders, I see myself lucky in that the coping mechanism I turned to, isn't criminalized. My heart aches for all indigenous people, as I've felt a tiny bit of that pain in my own body. Yet, I know that I also have a ton of White privilege. I also have work to do to dismantle White Supremacy in my own body and I'm committed to the lifelong practice of anti-racism.

I know in my body that our liberation is connected. Last week I started a 6 month leadership training called Inner Activism. I'd signed up for this training 6 months ago, and who knew the REVOLUTION would be happening at the same time. This training amalgamates anti-racism education & colonial awareness in Canada, the physiology of oppression, race & disability justice and dismantling white body supremacy, alongside traditional indigenous epistemology & somatic practices.

The lens through which I see the world continues to change, the more I learn. I sense a paradigm shift coming as I delve deeper.
#nationalindigenouspeopleday

Inner child work has been a large part of my heali

Inner child work has been a large part of my healing journey. These younger parts of us, when not acknowledged or accepted, have more leverage over our behaviours. They're wired into our nervous system, so willpower only gets us so far. Working with the inner children parts and protector parts helps us get underneath the behaviours. It supports the emotional healing and nervous system regulation, which are behind our behaviours like binge eating, chronic restricting and over exercising.
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I had the opportunity to contribute to a blog post called Inner Child Work: Lessons For Trauma Healing by @annapenenbergauthor along with some other amazing humans including:
@createsaferelationships
@mindfulmaloku
@tonitalkstherapy
@miloisadora
@theselflovestudent
@blooming_forward

Link in bio @richelle_ludwig for the full blog post.

Doing relationship work, opened me up to seeing ho

Doing relationship work, opened me up to seeing how "I" centered the personal development and spiritual development industry is. And as I began to unlearn, it led to me understanding that we can't heal on our own. We're not islands and our nervous systems speak to each other. Working with an attuned coach, I began to feel more safety in my own system. I couldn't access it on my own. As I took more education in trauma and attachment styles, this confirmed my experience. I understood that we cannot heal in an unhealthy or toxic environment.

I was watching a replay for a course on Contemporary Somatic Psychology and the teacher, Dr. Chris Walling, articulated what I've been feeling. "It's completely incongruent to restore safety in the face of unsafe conditions. The goal of Somatic Psychology and its interventions on traumatic stress, is not to create folxs who walk out into the world feeling safe in an unsafe world. We have to be mindful to not pathologize what is actually often an adaptive response to systemic oppression, to trauma survivorship. We have to be mindful to not shame our shames. We have serious work to do on the macro level, beyond the micro level."
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This is why those of us with privilege need to stand up to the systems and support those who are oppressed. It's a privilege if we can access enough safety in our environment to heal. We need to remember that not everyone has that privilege. I've personally brought this issue forward to fellow coaches. I've brought up the difference between white sisterhood spirituality and it's lack of intersectional feminism, which leads to bypassing the reality of how BIPOC are impacted by oppression. That the white sisterhood spirituality is rooted in patriarchy and often looks like white women leveraging their privilege and culturally appropriating other cultures spiritual practices to sell to other white women, while the oppressed remain oppressed. My thoughts were, "what's the point of doing our individual healing work, if we aren't also taking action towards social injustice in the world and being part of the solution rather than the problem.

This truth is so loud right now.
Continued below ⬇️⬇️⬇️

We learn to label emotions as good or bad. The emo

We learn to label emotions as good or bad. The emotions that tend to end up in the "good" category often include joy, excitement, peaceful, hopeful, grateful, compassionate, courageous, playful and loving. The emotions that tend to end up in the "bad" category often include sadness, anger, fear, hate, jealousy, resentment, loneliness, shame and anxiety.

What happens when we label something as good? We strive for that. It becomes the norm we base our self-acceptance on. And if we aren't in the good category, we feel there's something wrong with us. What happens when we label something as bad? We avoid it. We hide it if we see its in us. We bypass it. We make it mean we're wrong or bad if we experience or feel it.

How we feel about our emotions has an impact on how we feel about ourselves, when we experience various emotions. The thing is, it's normal to experience a wide variety of emotions. The work is in seeing all emotions with neutrality, or at least enough acceptance to ride the waves of the contractions and expansions.

I don't know about you, but this didn't feel safe to me. I wanted to grip onto control on keeping things the same. This ended up leading to self-abandonment in order to maintain a status quo I thought was "good." Yet, it didn't really because under the surface these so called "bad" emotions still existed. Instead they manifested in my behaviours. Binge eating, food restriction, obsessive exercising, avoiding relationships, avoiding connection and intimacy, ruminating on my thoughts, constant striving to achieve and more.

We can't just change our thoughts or beliefs about emotions. We need to work somatically with the body to teach it it's safe to experience all emotions. We need to build capacity to remain present with more activation in our systems. I've learned this takes time, relationship and/or community and enough safety. This is what I'm cultivating in my 6 month small group program, ECLIPSE.

I couldn't do business as usual with the past few weeks and the Black Lives Matter movement, so postponed the start date to the program. We are now starting on June 22nd and there is 1 spot left. More information in my bio @richelle_ludwig.

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Recent Posts

To The Wounded Sensitive Ones
Returning To The Chrysalis
The Felt Sense Of Safety
Why I No Longer Believe That We Have To Love Ourselves First
And What If This Isn’t Here To Stay

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