Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been interested in the ways we experience suffering in and around food and our bodies. A career in the performing arts only seemed to magnify the rigid food and body ideals that dominated my life and wreaked havoc everywhere I looked.
As I began to heal my own wounds, I made a pretty pivotal decision: to start talking about it. I talked about eating disorders and sizism and chronic dieting and social injustice and media literacy with anyone who would listen. I even created a one-woman-show so I could straight-up sing about it.
I also listened. Everyone I spoke to became my teacher. I devoured scientific literature and memoirs, trained in yoga, became a devoted student of mindfulness, and turned toward the truth-tellers who are bringing light to harmful inequities in our culture – all to invest in this crazy idea that we can help one another heal interpersonally.
And that's what I continue to do today – to help others get to know their own stories and to listen with a full and loving heart.