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I Help Highly Sensitive Women Change Their Relationship With Food & Their Body, Through Building Emotional Intimacy & Body Sensation Literacy.

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richelle_ludwig

I help women who feel unworthy change their relationship with food & body.
Somatic Coaching
Parts Work
Weight Neutral
Trauma Informed
🌌She/Her

Some words on trying to find agency and autonomy t

Some words on trying to find agency and autonomy through controlling the body. And our sense of self through an identity connected to the body's aesthetic.

Swipe 👆🏼

Rooting into my own inner sense of security, so I

Rooting into my own inner sense of security, so I don't need to source it externally through things that lead to self-extraction.

The descent last year was necessary for this.

It showed me what happens when I'm not anchored within myself.

It showed me how deeply my desire to belong can lead to self-abandonment.

And how it's never true belonging when we have to abandon parts of ourselves.

I had an astrology reading near the beginning of the year last year for my birthday.

There was a lot of expansion in my chart.

Looking back I experienced a lot of contraction, but as my friend @rochelle.trudo pointed out, my shadow expanded.

Light was shone on a lot of what was previously hidden to me.

I descended back into the seed.

The place where I can grow more resilient roots.

Roots that will hold me at my center, no matter the storm.

I've been coming out of a depression.

Something I'm hearing many of us have been experiencing.

This time was different though.

I could access a part of me that knew I wouldn't get stuck there.

That knew I wasn't heading for another rock bottom, but rather finally feeling what I'd needed to suppress 10 years ago when I didn't have the capacity or resources I do now.

I reached out for support.

I understood what was happening.

And I've been feeling my life force again.

There are more cracks of light in the cement room I'd been stuck in.

I'd tried to bypass this with positivity in the past.

It wasn't authentic and so it didn't actually transform anything.

And here I am.

At the seed.

The remnants of last year composting and feeding the seed.

Tending to the soil, so I can create the conditions for deep roots to grow.

Because the roots don't grow from the plant, they grow from the seed.

Self-care in the online sphere has become super bo

Self-care in the online sphere has become super bougie. And hey, if that's your thing I'm not judging! I just wonder how much we're actually supporting ourselves when the things we turn towards to destress don't actually impact our stress physiology.

Stress isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but when we don't know how to complete the stress response cycle it can begin to impact our well-being. The stress response cycle consists of 4 parts (swipe to see an image). Activation, mobilization, de-activation and restoration.

Sometimes what we might choose to do, keeps us in activation, like a hard workout or watching a scary movie. Other times we might thwart activation by distracting ourselves with something like mindless television or binge eating. We can also get stuck in a cycle of activation and mobilization, yet never move into de-activation and restoration. Hello burnout! 🖐🏼

How do we learn how to move through and complete the stress response cycle? Through embodiment and building connection with our body. Starting to notice the activation and then sensing how the survival energy wants to mobilize. This can look many different ways from pushing against something, to growling, to shaking to speaking no. I kicked a tree in the forest once, after thwarting a response to kick a dog that was on top of my dog, attacking her.

When we're connected to our body we'll be able to sense when the mobilization has completed and allow our systems to naturally de-activate. Then we can move into something restorative, which might be providing some pressure to our legs, walking, stretching, hugging someone, or even taking some deep breaths.

Getting your nails done doesn't exactly impact your stress physiology. Do it if it makes you feel great. But if you can't afford things like that, also don't feel like you're missing out on effective ways to destress. Destress just means completing the stress response cycle and we can learn to do that by building our capacity to sense our body.

Healing is not about getting rid of our wounds. It

Healing is not about getting rid of our wounds. It's not about dissolving our worthiness wound. It's not about getting rid of our fear of rejection. It's not even about overcoming our defenses. You know, those parts of us that avoid, distract, project, use anger to appear bigger, use humour to appease, etc.

No, it's about our relationship to these parts of us. There's a concept I learned called Change Without Trying in my MindBody Therapy Certification. So often we feel like we need to change parts of ourselves to be 'better.' Right there we can notice the judgement in that statement. Something in us feels like we aren't good enough and that we need to be better. This something also feels like something else in us is the culprit.

When we approach our healing from this place, we get stuck on the hamster wheel of personal development and spiritual healing. What I've experienced and seen happen with women I've coached and mentored is we're often blended with the same part of us that pursued weight loss and the perfect physique. We've just now transferred that same physiology onto our healing.

And this my friends, doesn't work. It's when we're able to start holding all of these parts of ourselves, while not becoming blended with them. When we're able to shift our relationship from either avoidance or being identified with, to one of witnessing and being with. This is where the concept of Change Without Trying applies.

It's in right relationship with these parts of ourselves that we see change occur. And not change as in they disappear, but we experience them differently. We're able to attend to them from Self. From the part of us that is resourced, well and whole. It's from this place that we can hold all parts of ourselves just the way they are, without feeling like we need to change them through force or will. It's here that we also begin to dismantle our own internalized hierarchy.

Emotional eating is a human experience. It doesn't

Emotional eating is a human experience. It doesn't need to be fixed. And, there's a continumn, as there is with most things. If it's beginning to impact you, it can be something to explore that might lead you to getting to know yourself better.

Swipe for more. 👆🏼

So many of my clients feel ashamed for struggling

So many of my clients feel ashamed for struggling with their body image when their body gets bigger, their clothes get tighter or they see the number on the scale go up. The message is that it's superficial, and yet when we look deeper there's more to it. So much more.

Swipe for more. 👆🏼

We often do to ourselves, that which we fear. It's

We often do to ourselves, that which we fear. It's not a conscious decision of course and we don't purposely have malintent towards ourselves. We develop fragmented selves as a way of adapting to survive. As adults these fragmented parts of ourselves can take over. We can become blended with them and not see all possibilities. We see, feel and think from the fragmented parts partial perspective.

When we're fearing rejection, we're often blended with this younger part who experienced not belonging or fitting in. When we try to push past that fear to achieve or produce something, we're blended with another part of ourselves. Often, it's a part that learned to avoid fear and keep doing. Something we'd call a protector. I've seen people mistake this as their higher self, when really it's helping them continue to avoid feelings.

The thing is, this keeps communicating to the part that fears rejection, that it's not wanted. It feels rejecting to not have its fear attended to. And so, we get to learn how to attend to the fear. We get to develop our inner parent. The part of us who is innately whole, well and anchored. As we develop this part of us, we begin to be able to meet our younger parts needs, and then take action from our adult self.

This helps us change our relationship to the fear of rejection. Does it mean it completely goes away? I don't believe so. But we learn to use it as an ally. It teaches us to become more attuned with our younger parts. It guides us to feel our emotions. It leads to us developing a stronger sense of self and inner anchor.

We live in a culture that teaches us how our body

We live in a culture that teaches us how our body looks is more important than what we're experiencing within our body. What if by building that inner connection with your body, your body image improved? Because when we're disconnected from our body, we're more easily influenced by external sources. And our world is not short of external sources that tell us we need this cream to avoid aging skin, we need this diet to lose weight, we need this makeup, and that hairstyle, and those clothes.

All the feelings we seek through external sources can only be authentically found within. And when we notice those thoughts and feelings creep in around our body lacking, use it as a cue to explore what feelings might need some attention.

Also recognize that we internalize patriarchal, colonial and supremacy views around the body. What would it look like to shift from hierarchy around body size to right relationship? How would you relate to your body then? What if the body was not good or bad? And, what if we are so much more than our body?

We develop strategies to avoid uncomfortable emotions and sensations. In a world that teaches us to hyperfocus on aesthetic, it then becomes easy to use behaviours that shift our appearance as a distraction from our inner experience. It's helpful to shift our self to body relationship from outside-in to inside-out.

Apparently today is International Day Of Forests.

Apparently today is International Day Of Forests. It's a day to celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of all types of forests. Forests play an important role in climate change and support biodiversity.

For as long as I can remember I've experienced grief when big trees are cut down. As kids my siblings and I used to play in an area of trees that resembled a house. The way the trees came together created spaces that seemed like rooms. We each had our own room, in this forest home we spent hours in. I felt cocooned in the embrace of this little patch of forest.

When my parents divorced we moved into town. There was a big tree behind our back yard. We used to climb the fence, so that we could climb the big branches of that tree and sit in her arms. It ended up being cut down and I remember feeling a deep loss.

In the neighborhood I live in right now, there are some big, old trees. I'm always in awe at their presence whenever I take my dog out for a walk around the neighbourhood. As I pass by I look up at them and smile. Last summer someone cut down two big trees down in their front lawn. I felt sadness over that loss.

I came across an article talking about the logging of the big ancient Redwood trees. It described the size of these majestic trees and that we'd never see them regrow in our lifetime, or likely again because removing them impacted the whole ecosystem.

Robin Wall Kimmerer speaks to this in her book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. This book touched my soul and provided a new lens through which to see our relationship with nature.

"Until we can grieve for our planet we cannot love it-grieving is a sign of spiritual health. But it is not enough to weep for our lost lanscapes; we have to put our hands in the earth to make ourselves whole again. Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift."
~Robin Wall Kimmerer

#InternationalDayOfForests

We've internalized hierarchy because of the air we

We've internalized hierarchy because of the air we breathe. The systems of oppression that we live in. It shows up internally with how we moralize our states of being, our coping strategies, our parts, etc. It's in the personal development industry and it's in spirituality.

When we apply morality, we then look down on ourselves and others, when our coping strategy is something that's been criminalized like drugs. Or maybe it's not something that's been criminalized but we know causes harm, like smoking. It will never help us heal, when the ways we've adapted to survive are shamed.

We learn to do this with ourselves. And when we do it to ourselves, we do it to others. So therein lies the work. Learning to remove the hierarchy so we can get into relationship with every part of ourselves. Because when we learn to moralize our behaviours, we then exile the ones that are deemed unacceptable.

What we exile becomes a part of our shadow. And our shadow will continue to impact our experiences and behaviours. Right relationship removes the hierarchy and allows for connection and intimacy. And this, is where change can happen. Not through power over dynamics.

This is something I'm teaching in my new offering RETURN. I've experienced and seen how both Internal Family Systems and Inner Relationship Focusing support the dismantling of this internal hierarchy in an embodied way. I can't wait to share more!

Yesterday in my group program, ECLIPSE, we went do

Yesterday in my group program, ECLIPSE, we went down the rabbit hole of discerning the difference between intuition and wounding. I don't even go here until month 5 of 6, because I've found it so important to spend time in practice getting to know the felt sense and developing our interoceptive capacity first.

There have been many times in the past where I thought my intuitive no was just fear and pushed passed it. I've seen myself bypass my intuition because I was in a fawn defense. I've seen myself ignore my intuition because I was also rooted in a flight response. I've even seen myself thinking a fight response was my intuition.

I've seen my wound of not belonging lead me astray by trying to belong where it wasn't a fit. I've seen my worthiness wound lead me astray in choices that weren't an intuitive yes. I've seen attachment wounds get mixed up with what I thought was my intuition.

I've learned to slow down, because sometimes the first impulse I recognize isn't my intuition but rather rooted in a survival response. And so, I don't rush decisions. I practice turning towards what's there so I can explore where it's coming from and what it's rooted in.

One thing I've learned is that our intuition doesn't always guide us to choices that feel good at first. Sometimes it's guiding us towards something that doesn't make sense to our mind. But overtime, we deepen our sense of self-trust as we learn to follow our intuition and work with our wounds.

This also isn't to say that our wounds or trauma's are not informing us. They are, and that's important information too. There's a need to access enough safety in uncertainty to follow our intuition. This allows us to surrender to outcomes and trust in something higher. There's a spiritual element to intuition, but we can't bypass our connection with our body to deepen access with our intuitive nature. It's this connection, which supports in the discernment between intuition and wounding.

I know that I can really focus on dismantling what

I know that I can really focus on dismantling what isn't working at times. And have spent plenty of time in the past doing this in various ways. But I've discovered that after awhile, it pulls me away from myself. It pulls me away from what lights me up. It pulls me away from my souls expression and leads to a form of self-abandonment. I've come to understand that more change can happen when I'm work towards what we desire.

There are many phrases that convey the sentiment of fighting against when it comes to growth and healing:
-Fighting our demons
-Conquering our fears
-Crushing...
-Pushing through..
-Overcoming...

When I think of a liberation framework, the focus is on creating something new. It doesn't bypass what is though. It tends to it as it arises. What if we approached our healing in this way? What if instead of solely focusing on removing masks, shedding identities, getting rid of limiting beliefs, overcoming self-sabotaging behaviours, we spent just as much, or more time on what we desire?

What if we turned towards our souls expression more often? What if we let the mystery guide us moment to moment? What if we did the things that made us feel alive and well. What if we rested more and consumed less? What if we engaged more in co-creation and interdependence within community? What if we made choices now to support where we're going, based on how it feels? Not based on external factors?

What if our healing was less about tearing down what's not working, but creating something new while attending to what is not working, as it arises?

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Land Acknowledgement

I gratefully live and work in Edmonton as a settler (reclaiming my Metis roots), which is located on Treaty 6, the traditional territory and meeting grounds of Metis and First Nations people including Cree, Assiniboine, Salteaux, Niitsitapi (Blackfoot), Nakota Sioux and Chipewyan.

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