For a long time, I believed that if I could just do everything right, I could feel safe in my body.

I was a competitive runner whose identity was deeply tied to what my body could do. I was also navigating chronic illness, anxiety, and a growing list of expectations about what it meant to be healthy, disciplined, and good. Somewhere along the way, my relationship with food, exercise, and my body became something I was constantly trying to manage.

And like so many people, I mistook that control for taking care of myself.

My recovery from disordered eating changed my life. I learned to nourish myself without so many rules, to move my body without needing to earn my food, and to recognize that my worth had never depended on my appearance or my ability to perform.

But something I've come to understand more deeply in the years since is that making peace with your body doesn't mean life suddenly becomes peaceful.

I've continued to navigate chronic illness, disability, and profound changes in my health. I've experienced moments when my body felt unfamiliar, frightening, and impossible to understand. And I've had to reckon with the fact that trusting my body doesn't mean trusting that it will always feel good, function the way I want it to, or give me the answers I'm looking for.

Sometimes, body trust means believing that my body is doing its best under difficult circumstances. Sometimes, it means listening to what I need, even when those needs are inconvenient. And sometimes, it means allowing myself to grieve what's changed without turning that grief into a reason to punish myself.

I no longer believe that healing is a destination where we finally love our bodies, never struggle with food, or feel completely at peace with ourselves.

I believe it's an ongoing relationship. One that deserves curiosity, flexibility, and an enormous amount of compassion.

My personal experiences, alongside my education and years of working with people navigating disordered eating and body image struggles, have shaped the way I approach this work. I understand how difficult it can be to intellectually reject diet culture while still feeling its influence in your everyday life. I understand that food and body struggles don't happen in a vacuum, and that our relationships with ourselves are shaped by the world around us.

And I know that we cannot shame ourselves into feeling safer, healthier, or more at home in our bodies.

If there's one thing I hope you take from my story, it's that you don't have to wait until you feel differently about your body to begin treating yourself with more kindness.

You are allowed to care for a body you're struggling with. You are allowed to have complicated feelings about your health, your appearance, and the changes life brings. And you deserve a relationship with food and your body that makes room for all of your humanity.

There's so much more to life than trying to make ourselves smaller. And there's so much more to us than our bodies.

I’m just so glad you’re here.

xo, Abbie