A Message About Planting a Seed
posted by Sarah Kessner / February 17, 2021
In the spirit of self-compassion, I wanted to speak a little to planting a seed, and the importance of reminding myself of this when I’m feeling stuck.
I learned about The Body Positive upon a random internet search. I don’t really remember what I was looking for, except that I wanted relief from my suffering around an eating disorder I felt like I couldn’t get a handle on. And I found a blog post written by Connie Sobczak around honoring our changing bodies and appetites during the colder seasons.
And I felt something shift in my body – this was something that was very different from the traditional messages I had received throughout my treatment for an eating disorder.
The latter messages were firm: that recovery from an eating disorder meant “weight restoration” and staying within a “normal” BMI, regardless of my natural body weight range. I loved Connie’s radical message around honoring our changing bodies, wherever they went, and sent the blog post to my dearest friends, including my two sisters who also had disordered eating histories. At that point, I began reading everything I could get my hands on about The Body Positive, Health at Every Size (HAES), and Intuitive Eating.
And something continued to shift in me. At the time I was working at a group home for children and teens and had been slowly these concepts to my residents. Shortly after, I was inspired to go back to school for nutrition to become a dietitian using the new health and nutrition paradigms I was learning about. This was 10 years ago. I say this because even though I had this shift and felt inspired at that time, I didn’t become a HAES-informed eating disorder Registered Dietitian until the end of 2019 and a Be Positive Facilitator until 2020.
Throughout my 20s and early 30s, I continued to struggle with an eating disorder, despite years of traditional treatment. When I found The Body Positive, I attended several day-long workshops and brought one of my sisters who felt likewise transformed (she also later went on to work for Connie and eventually became a Body Positive midwife). I even conducted my graduate research on the Be Body Positive model and nutrition graduate students.
The reason all of this is important to talk about now is for those who feel stuck in the traditional recovery model or disheartened by the larger system of inequities and injustices you may be working within that makes it feel impossible to heal yourself or others.
Maybe you are working among folx with old-school beliefs and you feel met with constant resistance when trying advocate for change in your department. I know all too well the experiences of silencing when I am fighting against a larger system of oppression and power.
The thing is, I learned about the Body Positive in 2010 but didn’t really reach a place of full, intuitive living until probably 2020. And this is significant because although I had an eating disorder and continued to struggle for many years, my recovery from a relapse was always much less painful than before because I was able to fall back on what I had learned from The Body Positive and their 5 Competencies: Reclaim Health (which was constantly evolving), Practice Intuitive Self-Care (which was unique to only me and no one on social media could tell me what it looked like), Cultivate Self-Love (which didn’t happen overnight, but did eventually happen), Declare My Own Authentic Beauty (which looked very different than what I had been fed by diet culture), and Build Community (which meant surrounding myself with other Body Positive folx, leading groups, and educating others when it felt safe to do so).
I always had these competencies in my back pocket, really as my basic foundation for living.
And these are competencies, not rules. I practiced them, I did not “perfect” them. I was healing from my perfectionism which had only served to put a blanket on what I was really struggling with – my desire around feeling loved. Navigating my relapses was hard, but I kept coming back to my home, my body, my unique body, and the words of Connie and Elizabeth Scott around fluidity – that life and our bodies are not static. I say this now because I know it can sometimes feel like we are fighting against a system that is greater than ourselves. And we are. But I want you to remember the power of planting a seed. If that seed wasn’t planted back in 2010, I am not sure I would be recovered today – or a HAES dietitian and a Be Body Positive Licensed Facilitator now. Yes, sometimes, the system feels too great. And I feel disheartened or hopeless. But I remember how I felt when I read that first blog post.
Today I work as a dietitian at a forensic psychiatric hospital and sometimes the injustices that play a role in why these patients are there can feel too heavy to bear. And sometimes I feel like I am pushing up against a cement wall that is planted firmly within these kinds of institutions. But I am reminded of the feedback I received from a patient after my internship. I had the opportunity to lead a “wellness” group for patients around “healthy living” and I chose to use the Body Stories activity. At the very end of the group series, they asked the patients what they liked most about the groups and what was most meaningful to them. And one patient shared that creating his Body Story in the group I lead was the most meaningful to him. This was very powerful to me as this patient used to be the most violent patient in the entire hospital of over 1,200 beds – and he had the opportunity to look at his body story, reflect, and imagine a more peaceful relationship with his body in his future. He was able to come back to his home, to his birthright and to at least maybe, feel embodied, even for just a moment, under the impossible circumstances of his life, serving time in a maximum-security psychiatric hospital. Another patient had shared with the group that he envisioned a future in which he could have unconditional acceptance of his body. Pretty incredible, huh?
And so I remind myself of this now – the importance of planting a seed and the messages I have received throughout the years that show that I have made an impact. I remind myself of this after a challenging session with a client who doesn’t feel seen, or a tense conversation with an angry parent who denies their child’s eating disorder. After an emotional group and the heaviness I feel knowing my clients have to go back into the world of injustice, racism, and fat phobia. After I feel silenced by other health professionals who can’t seem to understand why shaming patients for their eating behaviors and their weight is harmful. After I have a client discontinue work with me because she wants to give dieting another shot. And after all the times I start to feel myself collapsing into hopelessness, I remind myself of where I was all those years ago.
The seed was planted. And the seed started to sprout, and grow, and flourish, but not without a little water, light, and tenderness.
Which is what I was able to give when I was resourced. The Body Positive had provided me the foundation and that little bit of recovery and hope I needed to persevere and navigate this world when it felt against me. I want to remind that to all of you – if you’re reading this now, the seed has been planted. And sometimes that’s all we can do. We need that seed to create a garden or a forest-style kind of revolution. All it takes is one seed.
Sarah Kessner, MS, RDN
Sarah Kessner is an Anti-Diet, Fat-Positive registered dietitian and licensed Be Body Positive Facilitator living on the Central Coast. She has extensive experience working in the mental health field, primarily working with children, teens, and college students. The Body Positive helped inform her personal and professional philosophy around helping folx reconnect with the innate wisdom of their uniquely beautiful bodies. She is on a mission to use her privilege and her power for good to help diversify dietetics and to help dismantle racism, just one of the forms of oppression that has informed diet culture. In her spare time, she loves to be in nature, read for pleasure, practice Spanish, and prepare delicious food, specifically Jewish cuisine staples like challah bread and latkes or anything s’mores-related. She is family-focused, obsessed with her soul sisters, and loves to spend time with her S.O. and their wolf-husky hybrid and long-haired chihuahua.