When early chronic dieting has broken your eating intuition

Intuitive eating is great if you can actually feel when you’re hungry and feel when you’ve had enough. But those mechanisms aren’t always that clear cut or working for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which is that we’re all different. Our brains are all different. Our reactions to food are all different.

And our eating backgrounds are all different.

If you were a girl growing up in the 1980s, you were likely constantly being put on diets. And that very much damages your relationship to food and your body.

Even when I was a size zero I was not small enough.

Only when I started to dance again in my 40s did my relationship to food and body finally become neutral, which I think is actually the healthiest relationship you can have to those things.

But over the last few years, as depression has eaten away at my healthy mindsets, it has also brought up old patterns around food and body.

And because I can’t simply intuit about food, I end up eating things that do not feel good in my body and I end up eating too much — to the point of discomfort.

Something had to change. Body and mind are one and I know from experience that to get my body back to more comfortable and more active is to then heal my mind.

So I’ve started to track my food again because of that lack of intuition.

And whoa… it’s freaking surprising.

First, I don’t ever think of myself as an emotional eater. As a matter of fact, if I’m super stressed I don’t eat.

But… I am a bored eater. I am a depressed eater.

I am constantly thinking about what food I could be putting into my mouth.

Second, the amount of food that I thought was necessary to make me feel full was way off. I knew this, as I said, because I was uncomfortable, but the amount I needed to feel full and comfortable was a lot different than I anticipated.

(I’m using this macro counter and a food scale. TO BE CLEAR: NOT to deprive myself but to recalibrate my understanding of food.)

So this is part of my journey right now. And if you need to talk about it, you can always email me or ask to be added to my group on Facebook.

And if you need to move more, I start a new 4 week session of Stim Yoga and Peony Somatic Dance online classes next week.

Introducing quickie yoga for your neurospicy brain

Or rather, introducing a reframing of quickie yoga in a way that tells its story better. We’ve been doing this work all along but now I’ll be bringing it to the forefront. Go here to register for March.

As always, these classes can be done live or with the videos on your own. And this 30 minute quickie, focused format works, I think, really well on video.

As we focus on what I’m calling “STIM YOGA for your neurospicy brain”, we’ll be bringing in a lot of the usual suspects and then some: multiple lineages of yoga, basics from primal movement, basics from systems like tai chi, somatic movement, breath work to match it all, and anything else I happen to be learning and is floating my (brain) boat. ((ha))

This is for those of us who struggle with focus, inner balance, peace, and nervous systems that tend toward anxious. You know where to find me if you have any questions.

Growing our community muscles has to be a priority

From a recent local class.

Let me start by saying that a lot of us have grown, over our lives, complacent about community building. We tend to participate in communities that are convenient and easy.

This has been especially true since the pandemic, from which we learned to isolate more and more. Of course, this was necessary in terms of 3D human encounters to protect us all, but many of us gave up altogether even in the face of tools that could have kept our community muscles a bit more healthy.

So we enter into next week, into a new and potentially damaging paradigm, leaning again into isolation.

This won’t do.

Not if we want the coming years to be at all safe for women and marginalized humans. We can’t just sink into our aloneness and stay at home watching television and judge the world as it burns from our comfortable front windows.

We must commune with likeminded humans. We must build trust and companionship because that’s the foundation of the work that will call to us.

We must build this trust and companionship via shared story (and truth) telling.

We must embody this trust and companionship.

I’m convinced that this cannot only all be done in 3D but also if we are far away from one another via the very tools that many want to use to hurt us.

Tools are only as good as their users… whether this be the maps of religions or tech tools or hammers or communication.

And we must not desert these very powerful tools to those who would use them for evil. (Yes, evil.)

I will be staying, for example, on Facebook because it has a free private group function that no one else offers. I can use that to grow community.

But beyond that, I am staying because I will not let these spaces be taken over by hateful voices. I will be a compassionate voice. I will fight for the space that has given me so much.

And I will, of course, continue to teach online via zoom. The community that has grown in those classes since the start of the pandemic is as beautiful and deep and solid as any community in 3D that I am a part of. To say otherwise is to demean our basic, DNA level need and capacity to connect to one another regardless of circumstances.

So I come to you with two things.

If you’re not in the Circle of Trees on Facebook, ask me to add you.

Here’s a quick take on what goes on in there: It's a space where people feel really safe to share challenges -- and joys. We talk a lot about neurodivergence/neurospicy brains, and mental health, and of course. somatic/healing movement. The support in this space and the kindness and compassion are indescribable.

And as always, I have classes starting. They start next week, the week of the inauguration.

I, like most of you I assume, am grieving that inauguration, but I know, too, that I can’t stay stuck in grief, and being in somatic dance spaces with other humans is how I take care of my emotional and mental health so that I can be strong for myself and everyone around me.

You can register for Peony Somatic Dance classes right now.

Don’t hide. Don’t disappear. We need every single one of our voices out in this world. Now more than ever.

A few announcements!

First, as always, there’s a new session of classes starting the week of March 11th. Go here for information about quickie yoga and Peony Somatic Dance classes that are online.

Second, if you know Helen Yee (perhaps you’ve been in a class with her), you might not know that she’s an amazing violinist and composer, AND she just released a solo album that I’m currently playing on repeat. I think my students will love it for movement practice.

Go here to support her work. You can purchase the CD (which comes with digital download) or you can just do digital.

(And hey, if you have anything you’re releasing out into the world, please send me a message so I can highlight you in my/our spaces.)

Speaking of spaces, the third announcement comes with a lot of mixed emotions, but my overriding emotion is excitement and so I know this is the right choice: I’m shutting down the JoyBody Sanctuary after 12 years of running free, private Facebook groups. I need a break and I need that time and energy to work on other projects and writing.

That said, you should be seeing me here more.

You can go here to read what I wrote about the closing of the group. I’ll be archiving the group at some point on Monday, March 4th so until then you can comment and leave responses.

And finally, a short video from a class with Linda Soto. It’s blurry but I found this so beautiful that it’s worth the blur.

New Columbus Studio and Online Classes Update

So much has been going on in the 3D world that I’ve been a little lax with my online world, and I apologize for that. This space and all the spaces where we meet in this not-at-all-virtual world is so important to me.

So right up front, know that I plan on continuing my work here and in the private Facebook group and in zoom classes, regardless of what’s happening in Columbus.

That said, I have a new studio home here a mere few blocks from my house, and the fit is just amazing. Beyond what I could have hoped for.

It’s like I found a space where I don’t have to create the kind of inclusive compassion from the ground up … it’s already there. And it’s in full bloom so I just get to step in and do my thing and I’m surrounded by humans who get it very quickly and take it all in so beautifully that it can feel overwhelming.

You can see my Columbus schedule right here. I mean, if you’re nearby, come see me!!

I also look forward to running some workshops out of that studio that will be long enough to justify people traveling a few hours.

And you might have noticed a slight change to the name of my methods. I am hoping that calling it Peony Somatic Dance will help people to understand what I’m up to a little quicker than just calling it the Peony Method.

Finally, for those of you who still want to work with me online, THANK YOU. I feel so much gratitude for how supportive you’ve been through all of these changes to how we work together. I know it can feel challenging sometimes but I hope the work and the community warrants that.

A new session starts next week and you can find that schedule right here.

New Free Video & Last Classes of the Year

We’re going to be making a total of six of these videos (we being me and Linda Soto and Jillian Hynes) to show the fundamentals of a Peony Methods class on 3 different humans.

Here’s part two, showing some examples of possible floor (or chair) warmups. If you’ve been with me long, you know there are a bajillion things that we might possibly do for that segment of the class, but these are pretty standard.

And for the last class session of the year, I’ll be running the usual classes for four weeks. One week on, one week off for Thanksgiving week, three weeks on, and then a three week break over the remaining holidays.

GO HERE to looksie and register.

I would love to see you! Please always know that if these classes are out of reach financially that I will work with you to get you in. Just write to me and we’ll figure out what would be doable. I don’t need to know anything more.

It's already October!

Which means we start a new 4 week session next week, Tuesday and Thursday, October 10th and 12th.

First, if you need these classes and find they are out of reach in terms of payment, please tell me. I am not owed any explanation; just let me know your need and we’ll get you in to class one way or another.

GO HERE TO REGSITER

As always, I want to remind you all that you don’t have to be live for any classes and that the videos remain available to you for the entire four weeks PLUS whatever time there is in between the end of that session and the start of the next. Usually that means you get at least an extra week to play with this material.

Quickies are based in Kundalini yoga but there’s all kinds of functional movement added in, and these (like all of my classes) can be done on any level. You could do everything I teach from a chair if need be.

Tuesday Peony is fundamentals and beyond. This is a great place to start if you’ve never taken a class with me.

Thursday Peony is based in Butoh and only recommended if you’ve taken at least one other class with me.

If you have any questions, just send me an email.

So much...

Sometimes when I’m not writing a lot, it’s because there’s so much going on that I either am pressed for time or my brain needs time to process what’s happening in a way that it can be written about. Right now, it’s both of those things.

For now, I want to let you know that weekly classes will start up again the week of January 23rd. Please go here to read about what I’m offering and to register!

And I’ll be writing about what’s happening soon!