I know what it’s like to feel like, no matter what you accomplish, it’s never enough.
To walk past a mirror, see my reflection and reflexively grab at my belly, my breasts, my body – and feel shame, feel broken. If I could just shift this, lose this, lift that, things would be okay. I would be okay.
Do you know that feeling?
It’s another meal plan, another exercise program, another documentary. Another New Year’s resolution that matches the same one from last year, except it’s another five pounds and a little more desperation.
It’s getting home from work and the kids are hungry and just not knowing what the fuck to feed them. Or at the grocery store, wandering the aisles with a cart piled high with anxiety. It’s choice after choice after choice, decision after decision – no confidence that any of it is right. At the end of the day, it’s a tiredness that cuts to the bone. The glass of wine or the chocolate or the Netflix binge is just a distraction.
In the morning, there is still something missing. Everything is good, but it’s not enough. It is never enough.
My name is Tracy-Lynn and I’m here to help. My mission is to free every woman who feels like she is trapped inside her body, weighed down by what she thinks she should look, feel and act like. I’m here to liberate you from the confusion about your health, your weight and food so that you can focus on what really matters to you. Whether you have weight you are ready to shed, an autoimmune condition you want to understand and overcome or you just don’t feel at home in your own skin – I have been there. And I am here to help you break free.
I am a Naturopathic Doctor, geneticist, nutrition expert and devout yogi. I am obsessed with food – where it comes from, how it is made, how it makes us feel – and how it can either ruin or renew us – depending on how we use it. Its my passion to help every woman escape the body shame and stories that were forced upon her by her families, culture and media so that she can truly find peace and freedom with who she is and why she is here. I believe that a woman who knows her worth and revels in her own skin is one who can change the world!
You are not your body. You are her guardian.
As a child, I was surrounded by adults who loved me and told me I was meant for greatness. Yet at the same time, though their intentions were true, underneath it all there was a constant stream of guilt, judgement and responsibility.
I learned from a young age that in order to be safe, I needed to make sure everyone got what they wanted. Their needs were met.
My world grew to revolve around pleasing others, no matter the cost. It kept the peace, it kept me and my younger siblings safe.
As I grew into a young woman, I internalized it. I was beautiful, but it was not enough. I was a top athlete, but not the best and never went all the way. I was the top of my class with a full scholarship to the best university in the country. I was the class president, the opening act of the talent show and everyone’s friend. I was also running 10 miles a day and no one would ever see me eating more than an apple.
If you told me you were disappointed in me, still to this day it would feel like you had drop kicked me in the stomach.
Saying no to anyone was just not an option. I would tell myself I was a nice person that didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
But truly, I never felt safe in my life. Even though we lived literally in the middle of nowhere, I was always the one obsessively locking the doors and checking the windows.
And I was terrified to upset anyone. I just knew I hated myself. I hated my body. I hated that I couldn’t say no. I didn’t trust anyone, least of all myself.
By 17, I had found an answer. A roller coaster of exercise, starvation and purging became my secret weapons. I felt a feeling of power. Of freedom. Of lightness. Of Control.
I became addicted to the control. Not eating was powerful. But when someone would notice, I could just eat whatever I wanted to please them and then, later on, up it came. Up and out. And every time, it was a high.
The next 10 years I spent searching outside myself for answers.
Anorexia, Bulimia, abusive relationships, perfectionism, self-loathing, desperation – it was all hidden away. I acted the part and I did it well.
On the outside, I was a woman who travelled the world, spoke on stages in front of hundreds, trained people 30 years her senior, changed her career mid-stride and hustled her way through medical school.
But deep down, I felt as though my worth depended entirely on everyone thinking that I was whatever they needed me to be. My fear over making anyone unhappy was so intense that I continually put myself in situations I did not want to be in.
I slept with people I didn’t want to. I went to events and parties I didn’t want to be at. I drank and ate and behaved in ways that I knew weren’t who I was. I even went to school to become a doctor, worked 100 hours a week and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and still not entirely sure I actually wanted to do it – but I knew that being a doctor was someone everyone else thought I should be.
At the same time, I never stopped trying to figure it out – I knew it wasn’t supposed to be this way.
I would give and give and give and then snap.
I found myself at 31, 38-weeks pregnant with a 2-year-old, writing my week-long board exams, single, in bankruptcy.
I was done.
I had never stopped trying, but trying needed to become being. It was slow, painful and truthfully its still on-going.
Here is what I know.
Most of us spend our lives looking to fix ourselves. We are raised to believe our worthiness depends on behaving properly – whatever that looks like. And our economy makes a disgusting amount of money off of playing into the idea that we are fundamentally flawed and something outside of us – something that we can buy – is going to make it better.
And then we will have what we want, feel how we want, have the body we want, drop the stress, make the money, find true love.
The answer isn’t out there in another meal plan, another exercise program or another documentary. There is a way to find peace there. And it’s not in accepting your love handles or your thyroid or your slow metabolism and telling everyone you love yourself anyway (even though deep down you know its bullshit). It isn’t in a whole 30 or a paleo crockpot meal plan.
It’s not out there at all.
We are given bodies we are never taught to care for. We are given minds we are never taught to use to our advantage. We are told we are caretakers and this is where our fulfillment lies. And we do our jobs, we do them damn well.
Until we can’t anymore.
Until the illness hits us, or the marriage fails and we find ourselves searching through the feed for another program, another technique, another diet plan, another piece of equipment. Until we are yelling at the kids.
We distract ourselves with busy and then blame the busy and anyone associated with it. We stay up late, trolling Facebook looking for validation – sharing articles on the “mental load” of womanhood, saying, “Yes, that is it. They are the problem. It’s just too much and it’s not my fault.
I call bullshit.
There is freedom for you.
Freedom from the shame.
Freedom within your body.
Freedom to live in whatever way you want.
But it comes at a price.
It requires a revolution and sacrifice. It requires the death of your old way of being and a willingness to look within.
To take responsibility for everything in your life.
It requires that you leave your need to be liked and loved by anyone else behind. It requires that you stand up and declare who you fucking are.
Dr. TL Reside, ND 