1 Foreward: Acknowledgments and Honouring our Beings
Acknowledgements
Welcome and the warmest of greetings,
We begin by acknowledging the financial support we received from the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) at Cape Breton University, Sydney, Nova Scotia. Funds supported the creation and curation of this Open Access Educational Resource. Specifically, our goal was to make this resource freely available to students, university health centers, and community support groups. We would also like to thank our colleague, librarian, Jasmine Hoover for guiding us with our application and for her initial support with the Pressbook. Furthermore, would also like to thank Laura Dann for reading and responding to multiple drafts. Finally, we are grateful to all the artists who generously allowed us to include their artwork: Olivia, Janet, Sandra, Hannah, and Laura. Again, we want to thank the reviewers for their invaluable support and we owe them a debt of gratitude.
Terminology
Eating disorder is a term we use throughout the workbook. We acknowledge that persons living with sub-clinical symptoms are termed “disordered eating” and are included. These person may benefit from this journal.
Why a Journal?
We came together to share our love of journaling. From our years of experience we wanted to share what we had learned. Therefore, this journal was designed as a space for you to create and reflect on your journey as you learn about, live with and recover from an eating disorder. We appreciate there are many possible paths as one lives with an eating disorder, struggles with recovery, and lives in recovery (Alexander et al., 2015; 2016).
We know the process of understanding eating disorders is complex and this may include relapses. Everything within the journal was designed to support you as you hold and embrace yourself, learn to pay attention to: your body (physiological), feelings (emotional), thoughts, (cognitive), and relationships with self, others, and your communities. From our own experiences, we know this as identity work. We imagine future stories when we love our bodies and ourselves for the beautiful beings we are and the beautiful beings we are becoming.
We Are Not…
It is important for us to qualify; we share our lived experiences and are not experts in the field of eating disorders. We are women, willing to explore and discuss our journeys while creating, reflecting on, reading peer-reviewed literature, and acknowledging the fullness of our beings. We are women with individual and ongoing journeys with food, emotions, body image, experience, and identities. By doing this work we acknowledge who we are, including our eating disorders and we purposefully flick off the shame that can consume and or hide bits of ourselves. We welcome and honor all of ourselves as we continue along our complex journeys.
Through the years we benefited from our engagement with journals and related activities alongside trusted: healthcare professionals, friends, and family members. Our goal is to weave together experiences, related literature, writing, activity prompts, and artwork. You might find there are bits within the journal that do not speak to you because we dig too deeply into research literature, or we do not dig deeply enough, or you do not appreciate the suggested creative activity. When you hit such a location, we encourage you to skip forward, or backward. Our hope is that you will continue along your path, experience your feelings and find the ways forward that are the best and healthiest fit for your journey.
This is purposeful because like Brene Brown (2021) we appreciate:
“without understanding how our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors work together, it’s almost impossible to find our way back to ourselves and each other. When we don’t understand how our emotions shape our thoughts and decisions, we become disembodied from our own experiences and disconnected from each other ( p. xx)”.
Our Intention
Our intention is that the journal holds spaces where you can remember, reflect, and imagine as you continue along your journey. Write, create, sketch, doodle, and discuss your thoughts and feelings. Below is an example of an art activity, including a step-by-step, how-to.
Creative Space
Squish Art: Butterflies Abound
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Fold the paper in half and then open it up.
- Drip paint into the fold.
- Re-fold the paper.
- Press using your fingers along the crease of the paper to squish the paint into an image.
- Open the paper up, and admire the image of your creation.
- While viewing and reflecting on the image, consider the following: what feelings are you experiencing?
“When you look your drawing, painting, or other artistic expression, a feeling is conveyed. Rather than determining or assigning a meaning, try to look at the image for its emotional quality. What are your initial impressions? Is the image happy, angry, sad, anxious, and so on? Or does it have different feelings expressed through color, line, and form” (Malchiodi, 2007, p. 242-243)?
Consider sharing your creation with a trusted healthcare provider, friend, parent, or guardian. In choosing to share, it may provide your trusted person with opportunities to ask questions, allowing you to further understand your thoughts, emotions, and journey (Harvey, 2011). If at any point you would like to share your doodle, poetry, artwork, etc., we will post it on our website for the purpose of providing help to others living with eating disorders.
Trigger warning: This journal may include topics and content that you experience as emotionally difficult, triggering and or traumatizing. We encourage you to care for your safety and well-being as you create and reflect. Take breaks and reach out to a trusted health professional, family member and or friend for support.
Sincerely, Janet, Sandra, and Hannah
