Positively Balanced Athletic Therapy

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Leslie Ann Ellingburg

Queen Lizzo Soulmate

Mental Health

As Queen Lizzo sings:

‘Cause I’m my own soulmate (Yeah, yeah)

I know how to love me (Love me)

I know that I’m always gonna hold me down

Yeah, I’m my own soulmate (Yeah, yeah)

No, I’m never lonely (Lonely)

I know I’m a queen but I don’t need no crown

Look up in the mirror like damn she the one

She is on to something here, we are our own soulmates and to be complete we don’t need another person. It’s a hard truth to accept and fully lean into when our society values relationships. It makes sense. If we look at relationships through a sociological and anthropological lens, they serve a function. Relationships build societies, culture, create safety and protection, and serve a purpose of reproduction. Humans are social beings and part of that socialness is that of building relationships–especially those who we want to “settle down” with. 

If you’ve been in any form of couples counseling or have heard anything about healthy relationships, it’s important to be your own person and to love yourself. To know who you are outside of your relationship. It kind of reminds me of the infamous RuPaul quote, “If you can’t love yourself how the hell you going to love anyone else?”. There is so much truth and power in her outro. For years I watched Drag Race and was like that’s such a nice sentiment. But it wasn’t until I turned thirty, started to connect to myself, and eventually leaving my marriage, did I learn how to truly love myself. I thought I was loving myself but I wasn’t. 

I thought loving myself was taking care of others–my clients, my family, my husband. Serving them and putting their needs and wants before my own. I was raised with the adage that it’s kind to serve others and to put your husband first. 

I thought loving myself was making myself small and not taking up space. To not be a pain or burden to those around me. When I was in the midst of a gastro flare up I would do all I could to take care of it myself and not ask for help. Even if I was writhing on the floor puking my guts out. I took care of my recovery and even when my eating disorder voice wanted me to relapse and that area was looking very gray, I just kept it all to myself. Not to worry others or make their situations or stress seem less. 

I thought loving myself was making myself presentable for others. Dressing and adorning myself in a way they wanted me to appear. Covering myself and not coloring my hair or doing things that I always wanted. But still treating myself to spa days, manis and pedis, and treating myself to clothes. 

But this was pseudo self love. It didn’t do anything for me. Self love is loving who you are–the good, the bad, the alright, the imperfections, the dimples, pimples, your super loud obnoxious gut laugh, and the fact that you crave attention and affection. 

I started putting myself first and doing little things that made me happy–like buying flowers. I got tired of waiting around for someone to buy me flowers. So I started buying them because I LOVE them and they make me smile. Every Sunday after my tennis lessons–another thing I started to do for myself, I bought flowers and made flower arrangements. 

I dyed my hair blue. Something I always wanted to do, but felt like I couldn’t.  I also began getting my hair done more often because it made me feel pretty and confident and I’ve been through hell and I deserve it. I started wearing crop tops and while I always ended up wearing what I wanted, I truly started living up to the fashionista I always wanted to be. 

I stood up for myself. That was the biggest self love act of all. 

Leslie Ann Ellingburg is a trauma informed movement educator based out of Tennessee. She is a certified exercise physiologist through the American College Sports Medicine (ACSM), dance teacher, a certified Yoga Instructor with over 800 hours of teaching, holds Levels 1 & 2 of the Yoga 4 Eating Disorders Mentorship Program, recently completed her trauma informed training through Yoga 4 Trauma, and is beginning to pursue her master’s degree in Public Health/Community Health. Leslie’s passion is that of recovery (eating disorder, exercise addiction, other addictions) and helping individuals reconnect to their bodies in a positive, affirming, and fun way. Her philosophy is based on the Sanskrit words, “shanti” (peace) and “leela” (play)-finding inner peace through the play and practice of Yoga. When she isn’t moving on or off her mat you can find her playing with her furbaby Winston (#dogiwinston), curating the perfect playlist, writing, practicing her photography skills, and making the best coffee a home barista can. 

The Big Breakups of 2020

Mental Health, Physical Health

I had two big breakups this year–I left my husband and I broke up with all my fitness trackers. Both were relationships that started out with the best of intentions, lots of fun, love, and new ways to see my life. However, one became controlling, demanding, constricting, dulled my shine, consumed my thoughts and actions all day-every day-365, and greatly impacted/plagued my marital & pre-marital relationship. 

Now, I know that one of those is bigger than the other but both are huge in my world. Why? I have struggled and battled with an eating disorder for roughly twenty-five years. Nearly double the amount of time I was with my husband.While leaving my husband turned my life upside down, topsy turvy, and I felt like my world had shattered (even though it was MY choice to leave due to my unhappiness), at the same time I left my fitness tracker relationship when it was, and always had been, my safety net. 

Fitness trackers and their associated apps are the biggest tool used in the fitness industry. If you have done anything with a personal trainer or spent any time in the gym, chances are you were told to log your workouts and food. Fitbits and Smart Watches are the must have accessory in your athleisure wardrobe–a band to match each set of leggings and fully charged battery to make sure that you can get that WHOLE workout logged, because if it isn’t logged or tracked then it didn’t happen. This mentality fuels those of us with EDs. Even though I have been in recovery for some time, there were still moments I got sucked into the glorious world of scanning barcodes, counting macros, steps, and closing my rings. 

Those of us with eating disorders, disordered eating or other addictions, no matter how far along in our recovery journey we are–we still rely or fall prey to the sneaky charms of our disorder/addiction. I knew the moment I left my husband that I’d be a prime target for relapse. My ED (eating disorder) would be stalking me like a panther and would pounce when I was having a binge and alcohol fueled melt down alone in my bed. Or when my anxiety would pop in just to say “no one will love you now that you’re divorced, they’ll only love you if you’re thin and pretty. You’re just used goods now.”  

Over the course of later 2019 and pre pandemic 2020, I had begun my journey of intuitive eating and was pretty consistent with it. It was hard to go from a structured diet to a more relaxed and attuned way of feeding myself. Listening to my body and fueling it in the way it was really needing to be was freeing albeit scary. Sometimes I was eating more. Sometimes I was eating less. After a few days I’d find myself tracking again. But then I’d stop it because I started liking how I felt when I wasn’t tracking my food. It was one less thing to worry about, and as someone with anxiety I worry about anything and everything. My body felt nourished and free even though I wasn’t feeling free in all the ways I longed to be. 

When I left my husband last year and began life on my own I felt my eating disorder creeping back into my life. Relapse was rearing its ugly head but I was determined to stay ahead of the curve. While I was still doing intuitive eating and listening to my body; I kept logging my food and wearing my smart watch. I justified my behavior because I was free eating, let myself go out to eat with friends, I didn’t track ALL my food, sometimes I skipped days because I was emotionally and mentally drowning and had no energy (dissolving of a ten year relationship will do that to you), and I kept telling myself it was ok if I didn’t close my rings–even though internally I was berating myself. 

I felt comforted by these numbers, rings, and badges. It made me feel in control and powerful amidst a chaotic situation that I willingly put myself into. While my world was crumbling, I was trying to figure out who I was while reclaiming my body and time, my eating disorder brought me comfort. The thing about eating disorders and addictions is that they have a way to manipulate you into thinking you’re still on track and “doing a good job” and that if you get back into their good graces it’ll bring peace back to your life;  but when in reality you are just in quasi recovery–which isn’t a bad thing, it’s still recovery but it’s not quite as liberating as true recovery is.

It wasn’t till a really good friend of mine brought to my attention how reliant I became on my smart watch. It was a weekend we were together and I kept checking it–emails, texts, did I hit my 10k steps?, I didn’t close my exercise or move rings but I didn’t think about it because we’d had a blast together. They’d noticed that I would track a few bites of food when we were together. They didn’t like that I wasn’t fully present with them and that maybe if I unplug a bit I can work on my post separation/divorce intention of becoming more present. Which is precisely what our addiction does not want: us taking our attention away from them and focusing on others, or finding other enjoyable activities. 

So I slowly started taking a step back from my devices. I only wore my watch when I was teaching class. I went from tracking most days of the week to only a few. I went from logging each meal to just two then just one and now NONE! With each day I didn’t log or each day I chose not to wear my watch I felt empowered. It reiterated my intention of reclaiming my body and becoming a strong, independent female. I haven’t logged a meal or tracked a workout in over two months. And to be honest, I didn’t think I could feel this good and free. So here’s to 2021 and to the continuation of building healthy relationships with food, exercise, myself, and others. 

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