I think it was sometime around 1984 when I realized that I had a bizarre relationship with food and my body. I was a small child and although most of the adult women around me shared this idiosyncratic relationship with food and their bodies, I knew that there was something uncomfortable about it.

Everyone around me was trying to get skinny. 

ALL. THE. TIME. 

 Nothing and no one was ever good enough, not to themselves and not to others. No skinny was ever skinny enough and no skinny was ever good enough. And I certainly never believed that I was good enough. When I look back at pictures of myself as a child, I realize that physically I was just a regular kid. But I didn’t know that. I thought that there was something wrong with me and that I needed to be better and to be better I needed to be thinner. And this lead to a very, very unhealthy relationship with food and my body.

It took me years to come inside of myself and become who I was and start to work on the inside and let the outside fall where it may. I learned how to love the good in me and around me. I learned how to accept and not criticize my body or anyone else’s. I learned how to be loving to myself and to those around me. I allowed myself to heal from the tyranny and the pressure to be skinny.

In 1999, I began working on helping other women heal their own food and body image demons after receiving my certification in Hypnotherapy at the Oakland Center for Hypnotherapy.

I loved what I was doing but I wanted to delve deeper into understanding the workings of the human mind and emotional pain. This spurred me to pursue my graduate degree in Psychology. After finishing my studies,  I began working in both IOP and In-Patient treatment programs for people suffering with eating disorders.

I wanted to learn everything I possibly could about treating them. I continue my learning and growing process every single day.