Episodes

Have you ever felt awful about yourself after flicking through a glossy fashion or beauty mag? You’re not alone. Oskar T Brand analysed the content of an Elle and Cosmospolitan magazine and found that 85% and 65% of their content (respectively) comprised paid ads and content. Marketing specialists get paid lots of money to make you feel inferior and inadequate and in need of their products. Great for sales but NOT for your self-esteem. Oskar has put together a brilliant video clip illustrating t...

My ED shifted from anorexia to EDNOS to binge-eating, but the core truth I needed to know and experience at a deep gut level at EVERY stage of my ED was that I had worth and value as a person irrespective of my problematic behaviours. Not knowing this kept me stuck in an ED for years. Once I discovered this truth as a reality, it set me free to face and manage life from a whole new platform. The foundations of my life shifted from conditional worth and value to unconditional worth and value. I a...

Your future is in front of you and is being shaped by your present. If you’re struggling with disordered eating in your present and you don’t want to carry this into your future you will need help to deal with what’s going on below the surface that’s driving unhelpful behaviours. At the same time understand that we ALL struggle. It’s part of being human. Your recovery (like life) will be a journey, and you will need different support at different times. Be patient and kind to yourself and feel f...

Your future is in front of you and it is being created right NOW in your present. Sometimes we want our future to look different but we haven’t let go of our past. Life is a journey for all of us, and new issues constantly arise but when we deal with new challenges out of old hurt unhealed places, we’re likely to produce bad (unhealthy) fruit in our relationships with self, others, food, body etc. If you’re struggling in the ED space I encourage you to deal with the things below the surface that...

In the last episode I said that changing core beliefs requires more than just challenging our thinking. We need an encounter with truth that is experiential, life-affirming, full of grace and transformative. I shared how I experience this in relationship with the God who loves me unconditionally. But another very powerful and healing relationship is the therapeutic relationship where we can re-process old pain (places where we’re “stuck”),in the presence of a skilled and enlightened witness and ...

In the last few episodes I’ve been speaking about capturing and challenging unhelpful thinking. This is an important tool in getting free from disordered eating but it’s not the whole story. Our thoughts spring out of our deeply held beliefs and these beliefs are formed in the crucible of our self and life experience. To transform these deeper core beliefs we need an encounter with truth that hits us at a deep core level and that carries with it an experience of the reality it embodies. I experi...

Have you ever felt so awful about the way you look you’ve stayed at home rather than going out with friends only to end up feeling worse about yourSELF and comfort-eating? Let’s use the ABC to catch and challenge unhelpful thinking in this typical disordered eating scenario. I welcome your feedback and questions. michelle@michellesparkes.com @mp_sparkes Anorexia and Eating Disorder Recovery Hub

It’s 11.00pm on a Friday night. A bevy of gorgeous young girls pass me wearing the accoutrements of our popular culture. Tight jeans on long slim legs, high heels with teeny tiny mini skirts and tight tops revealing cleavage. Looking sexy, looking hot. Absolutely. Wanting to be seen, desired, to belong, to be loved. Understandable! Oh but my heart tightens in my chest. I feel concerned the lads they’re primping for, good lads no doubt, but groomed by the culture that is ours to shape, will not v...

Have you ever found yourself reaching for food, comfort eating or bingeing like you’re on autopilot? Before you know it you’ve gone down a track you never intended and it’s not until you stop eating that the resultant anguish and emotional turmoil hits you, and if you don’t take hold of your thoughts right here, chances are you’ll stay on autopilot and purge, punish or comfort eat further – whatever your habitual response – only to restrict again later, and keep the whole sorry cycle going. Let’...

Albert Ellis developed a simple ABC framework in the late 1950s to help us “think about our thinking” and to capture the unhelpful thoughts or statements we often say to ourselves with little awareness of the unintended consequences. In this podcast I provide a simple example of how this ABC framework can be used to identify unhelpful thinking and the different thinking sytles that can lead to unpleasant feeling states and undesirable behaviours. Michellesparkes.com @mp_sparkes

If you’ve ever walked in the bush you will have noticed that some tracks are easier to walk down than others because they are well-formed, usually the result of plenty of traffic or use. It’s the same with our thinking. If we want to think differently in order to have new, healthier or better life experiences, we are going to have to put in the effort required to shift out of old habitual (well-formed but unhelpful) tracks in our thinking and to develop new pathways. Are you aware of some the wa...

If you’re in a tight space, a small space, or a tired space right now, do you know how to shift that? One of the simplest and best ways I know to do this is to STOP what I am doing and shift my SELF literally and physically. To get up, to get out, to look up, to look out – to change my focus. To position myself above my situation. To put myself in a position where I am above and not beneath the situation or circumstances that bother me. This could be as simple as representing my situation on pap...

The reason I’m so heated about worth, value and security is because a revelation and experience of these foundational truths deep in your soul will set you free from the lies at the heart of anorexia and other disordered eating experiences. Tall claim but true. Human love, valuing and connection is wonderful and healing (and I’m all for it) but because we are fallible, flawed and finite human beings, and we live in a fallen world (these two are connected), when the earth shakes and the mountains...

The 4th component of each of the 4 keys (in the 4×4 Freedom Express) is a spiritual component and I believe it’s foundational to getting whole and FREE in any area of life. I adopt a Christian worldview in that I believe human beings (and the world we inhabit) are CREATED, and that influences everything I say and do. What about you? You don’t have to believe what I do but you do need to think about what you believe, particularly in regard to your personal worth and value because that will be inf...

Vision is the master key to get FREE from anorexia & eating disorder concerns because unless you can SEE where you are relative to where you want to be, chances are you won’t get to your destination. And if you’re stuck and can’t SEE what’s keeping you stuck, you’ll stay stuck. You need LIGHT and you need VISION. They work together. If you’re lost, in the dark, spinning your wheels or stuck in a cage you cannot see, you need both. These images describe my experience of anorexia and ED. Light and...

Ever tried to get somewhere you’ve never been before without a map? Difficult isn’t it. But with a map, things become clear, you can spot the dead-ends and plot the most direct route to your destination. Miche’s Model is a simple visual ‘map’ I developed to illustrate how an eating disorder functions and why getting whole and free requires dealing with the ‘heart’ of the problem – our heart. Once we can SEE what we’re dealing with in an eating disorder, recovery becomes clear and simple…though n...

If you have a question, you can be confident others have that question too, and the answer to your question can help someone else. I love this concept. It makes this platform infinitely helpful. If you have a question or situation you’re willing to share, I’d love to hear from you. You can keep use a pseudonym & keep any identifying information out of the conversation. michelle@michellesparkes.com @mp_sparkes

Freedom is a journey that has no end because it is a state of the heart more than anything else – and one can always be growing in one’s sense of inner peace and security. Bondage on the other hand is a small, tight place that can get so dark and airless it threatens to snuff the life right out of you. Freedom has no end but bondage does. I want to encourage you (wherever you are in your ED journey), as long as you have breath, you have life and light in your veins and there is HOPE for your fu...

When I think of an eating disorder I think of a small, tight place – a place of confinement or bondage – where one feels driven and constrained; where there is little joy, light, peace or hope. When I think of recovery from an eating disorder I see a wide, open field – a spacious place bathed in sunlight stretching out towards the horizon as far as the eye can see. If we were to plot a line from left to right with bondage on the left and freedom on the right, I wonder where you might be in your ...

I believe body acceptance reflects self acceptance; that how we feel towards, think and value our “selves” is the key to how we treat our bodies. I also acknowledge that social and cultural values strongly influence the communities, families and groups we belong to and thus affect how we value our bodies and our selves. To recover from an eating disorder we need to help the individual and address the broader sociocultural factors at play. I believe there are 3 foundational truths that (experienc...

Real bodies are real beautiful because they house real people inside. But in a landscape of digitally and physically enhanced bodies, how do we determine where the lines and healthy boundaries are for us in terms of enhancement? These questions are not as simple as they first appear because we all engage in body/self care /enhancement to some degree or another – from the functional to the obsessional – from the clothes we wear, to whether we cut, style or colour our hair, groom our bodies, use m...

I did a life drawing studio recently and was impressed by how well this experience translated into a deeper appreciation of how beautiful a “real” body is – it doesn’t need to be air-brushed, pumped up with botox or surgically enhanced to be beautiful. Personally I think REAL is beautiful – I think when we mess with that, we mess with the opportunity to SEE the beauty of the real person shining through their eyes, their skin, their wrinkles, their expressions. At an art festival recently I was t...

When I speak about the 4×4 Freedom Express I’m not suggesting that recovery is quick or easy. I don’t believe it is. I do believe it can be a wonderful journey however and I AM suggesting there is a more direct route to be taken than spinning your wheels losing time, life and opportunity on the ED treadmill because you don’t know why you’re stuck, where you’re going or how to get there. If you’re interested in coming on board the Freedom Express feel free to contact me at michelle@michellesparke...

If you’ve ever taken an ALL STOPS train or bus to get to your destination you will know it takes forever and stops at places enroute you have no need or desire to visit…all of which takes precious time from you reaching your destination. Time lost on a train journey may not be significant but when that time is your LIFE and it’s spent spinning your wheels on the ED treadmill, the cost to you (in time, health and opportunity) can be enormous! Welcome to the 4×4 Freedom Express – a unique online p...