Wisdom Tips for Overcoming Eating Disorders and the Healing Power of Growing Your Own Food
You often hear me speak about the joy of food. The love, healing, and wellness it brings to our lives. What you don’t often hear me refer to are the self image issues and pain that many have created around food.
Have you ever felt not skinny enough? Not good enough? Do you carry around a secret shame related to food? Do you hide your eating habits? Binge? Purge? If you answered yes, you are like many who are dealing with the hidden pain of eating disorders.
I spoke to a wonderful woman who knows the challenges of anorexia and bulimia first hand. Introducing Kate Daigle. Kate spent many years dealing with the pain of an eating disorder. Like many of LoveSelf’s inspiring people, she has overcome significant challenges. It is often those challenges that turn into our life calling. “I wanted to help people the way I have been helped“, she told me.
“I felt this need to be perfect”, Kate said. She told me about not feeling worthy and the anxiety that brings. For many years she wouldn’t talk about her eating disorder. After her first year of college, she went to France and describes having a “sort of spiritual crisis”. She was very much struggling and knew that she needed help. She began seeing a counselor, attended an evening intensive outpatient program, and describes, “doing a huge amount of reading, journaling, and soul searching”. She continued her healing process in counseling for several years.
Kate has not only healed from her eating disorder, she refers to food as a “source of joy” and has become an avid gardener and cook. Kate now counsels others to view their bodies as “beautiful, healthy, and powerful.” Kate openly spoke with me about the challenges of dealing with eating disorders, her new garden, and the joy of living life with full appreciation for healing foods. 
Kate’s garden has become her sanctuary. As she felt the power of her spirit return, Kate found herself fascinated by the process of growing her own fruits, herbs, and vegetables. She started slowly and soon realized that her garden had become her sanctuary. Her “perfectionism and anxiety” didn’t follow her to her the soil. She began to understand the nourishment that springs from our symbiotic relationship with the earth and our food. She now grows multitudes of vegetables ranging from carrots and cucumbers to peas, squash, herbs, and eggplant. Speaking of eggplant, Kate desires one section of her lovely land to become “an all purple” garden. Fun!
What has growing her own food taught Kate about healing? She sums it up beautifully… “Nurture, bloom, grow, and persevere”. Life just like our garden!
Kate’s garden has also inspired a love of cooking! She has shared with us her Root Vegetable Baked Squash recipe. Kate and her husband Jeff are expecting their first child and live in Denver, Colorado.
To learn more from those dealing with body image disorders check out Melanie’s approach to Paleo.
