do you struggle with body image?

It’s no wonder! Our culture in the U.S. is obsessed with unrealistic ideals of size, shape, and beauty. We’re bombarded from the day we’re born with subtle and blatant messages about how we’re supposed to look in order to be successful, loved, important, beautiful, intelligent. Now, add in how your family, friends, partners, or community may have perpetuated these ideas or even added some pretty awful messages of their own about your appearance. Aye yai yai.

It’s such bull shit!

And, it’s really, really hard NOT to be affected by these toxic messages. We judge ourselves, decide we don’t measure up (because even famous people don’t naturally look like their Insta filters!), and go down a spiral of self-loathing.

We may:

• fixate on those body parts that we don’t like, even dreaming of plastic surgery to finally change them

• feel ugly and never good enough

• unconsciously sabotage ourselves and our relationships because we don’t think we deserve them

• not wear what we want or develop the style we want, refusing to show those body areas we don’t like in public or even in our intimate relationships

• feel like an imposter - like if anyone realized how ____ we are, we’d be alone and broke and hopeless

• have unhealthy eating or exercise habits in a desperate attempt to fix what we don’t like about our bodies

what if you didn’t have to hate yourself?

We’d love to help you live the life you want. Just reach out.

body image and highly sensitive people (HSPs)

We’re all susceptible to the messages that surround us everywhere about how we’re supposed to look, what size our bodies are supposed to be, what is and is not sexy. Our damn capitalist society is constantly trying to convince us that we’re flawed, broken, ugly and that buying the right product will fulfill all of our dreams.

Ugh!

However, highly sensitive people often feel even more like sponges - absorbing the messages, feelings, and needs of those around us. It’s no wonder that these pervasive and repeated messages can get deeply lodged in our brains, which then tend to think deeply and overanalyze every single thing about us.

It sucks. But, you deserve to see your own beauty - or at least not be consumed with thoughts about what you don’t like. We’d love to help.

do you struggle with disordered eating?

Do you find yourself engaging in eating habits that you know aren’t good for you? Maybe you:

• try diet after diet in an attempt to find “the thing” that will finally help you lose weight

• experience ups and downs with your weight, as you yo-yo between times of eating less/restricting food intake and then binging on all those comfort foods you’ve been missing

• spend LOTS of time every day thinking about what you should eat and how much you should exercise

• feel guilty about food, like even if you eat one piece of cake for your friend’s birthday

• make yourself follow really strict exercise plans in an attempt to lose weight and berate yourself if you miss a day

enough is enough

Are you exhausted from all of these efforts? Is it time for a change? You don’t have to live this way anymore.

How therapy can help

You deserve so much better! Whether you’ve been really down on your body and how you look or you’ve been eating and exercising in ways that you know aren’t good for you, life doesn’t have to be this hard.

We know that you are beautiful and loved and wonderful exactly the way you are, right now. But, it’s totally okay if that feels way too hard to believe. After all, it probably goes against what you’ve been told your entire life.

So, we can go step by step.

Sprinkle in some kindness and compassion.

Begin to explore and unpack these ideas and beliefs that have brought you to this point of so much pain.

Gently offer some acceptance, maybe shifting toward body neutrality.

Day by day, moment by moment, we support you in shifting away from the toxic messages and creating more helpful beliefs that allow you to live the live you want. And, hey, if we get to stand up to and rebel against the patriarchy and the establishment that bestowed these awful beliefs on us in the process, even better!