By Haley Schiek, Guest Contributor
Over the last decade, I fought to recover from multiple eating disorders, including anorexia, orthorexia, bulimia, and binge eating. I thought food and thoughts about my body would control my life forever, and I am so grateful not only to have moved beyond these issues, but to now have the opportunity to support others in their journey back to health & happiness after disordered eating.
I found yoga at the beginning of a painfully slow downward spiral. By age 15 I was beginning to really struggle with my mental health. Insomnia, depression, anxiety, disordered eating, self-harm, and substance use were very quickly changing my personality and ability to connect with others. My community was falling apart. I was losing myself. I lost my faith in God. And quite frankly, I just didn’t know where to turn for comfort.
I had ended my 8+ year career as a competitive gymnast upon entering high school and transitioned from a tiny Catholic school to the massive public system after experiencing bullying and betrayal trauma. I felt alone and overwhelmed. I also felt like God had abandoned me. If “God’s children” could be so cruel, then what kind of a father was God? After the bullying, I lost all faith in the religious system I was raised in. I thought that maybe I should give up on trying to “be good” and just focus on getting by.
In an attempt to regain control over my life, I channeled all my energy into controlling food and my body. On the surface, this helped me to cope with the intense emotional discomfort I was navigating, but underneath, I was becoming more and more dysregulated.
Recognizing my struggles, my mom enrolled me in a yoga teacher training program, hoping it would help me heal from my emerging eating disorder and depression. As a freshman in high school, I was the youngest participant to be accepted into the YogaLife Teacher Training program, which felt far more intimidating than impressive.
Despite coming to yoga with the intention of “finding myself and healing,” I struggled with the entire practice. For the first two or three years, despite training to become a teacher, I found it so challenging to be still. I found it even more challenging to be present in the stillness. I constantly wanted to check my phone, just to know the time or see if someone had texted. My mind wandered constantly, resulting in mental grocery lists and calorie counting during savasana. I felt deeply uncomfortable breathing to inflate my belly and felt hyper-aware of my body through each class.
Needless to say, I did not feel the peace, light, and love I expected. Despite these challenges, I persisted in my practice. Now, over 12 years later, my experience of yoga is entirely different. I feel comfortable in my body, allowing it to flop, fill, and fluctuate without criticizing or objectifying it.
I grew up in two distinctly perfectionistic systems: competitive gymnastics and the Catholic Church. These two cultures shaped me into a very black and white thinker: toes are pointed or flexed. Food is good or bad. I’m either a saint going to heaven or a sinner God’s going to burn in hell. There really was no in between. Yoga helped me to find the middle path, or what I like to call “the gray space,” a glorious area between the black and the white that allows for things like making mistakes, being human, demonstrating self-compassion, and cultivating an attitude of acceptance & accountabilitOverall, yoga helped me:
Practice loving-kindness towards myself
Overcome cognitive distortions like black & white thinking
Release my belief that “perfect is possible” & that I need to be perfect to be loved/included
Tolerate physical & emotional discomfort without self-harming
Accept & embrace the human opportunity
Take myself less seriously
Acknowledge & utilize my own divine wisdom
Trust myself enough to make decisions that align with my highest good
I am still so grateful for my initial experience at Yoga Life Institute. It was a crucial introduction to nervous system regulation for me, and it set the foundation for what would eventually become a vital part of my eating disorder recovery and my life.
There was a time, however, that yoga became a weapon of my eating disorder to further control and harm my body. For the first three years, I took yoga too seriously, striving for perfection and purity instead of self-understanding and growth. This only fueled my disordered eating and thinking. When I discovered hot power yoga as a senior in high school, my practice became all about exercise and burning calories and lost all spiritual meaning.
The yoga studio was covered from floor to ceiling in mirrors. Students wore as little as possible, and everything seemed to match. Only one body size (thin) was represented through my teachers. In classes, I objectified myself constantly, judging how I looked in every pose instead of practicing being present in my body. Other students talked about how they had already gone for runs or to the gym, and here we were about to start a class that was hard enough to leave my muscles aching for days. It left me feeling that there was no limit on how much I could and should exercise. The spiritual essence and subsequent benefit of the practice was lost. Without the spiritual grounding of my yoga practice, I forgot that I am “more than a body,” and my eating disorder was reinforced.
I understand that yoga can become a double-edged sword. That is why it is so important to not strive for perfection and purity in one’s practice or to reduce the practice to exercise. Yoga serves us best when used as a tool to love and understand ourselves and others more deeply. When we engage in yoga as a spiritual endeavor, we find that it is far easier to accept and tolerate the innate messiness that is living in a human body on this physical plane (which, let’s be honest, this world is complex, confusing, and can easily become overwhelming!). When the world feels like this and I start to spiral internally, I invite the teachings of yoga to guide me back to center.
The yogic principle of nonduality, which teaches about the inherent interconnectedness and indivisibility of all existence, helped me move away from the binary thinking that often accompanies disordered eating—such as labeling foods as “good” or “bad” or seeing myself as either “successful” or “failing” based on my weight. This broader, softer perspective allowed me to see myself and my body as part of a larger, interconnected whole, rather than as separate entities to be controlled or judged. My spiritual essence or “soul” came into focus the longer I practiced, and instead of seeing myself as a body or even as an individual, I am able to see myself as the same divine, intelligent consciousness that exists in the trees, rivers, stars, animals, and other human beings.
Ahimsa, another key yogic principle that means “non-violence” or “non-harming” encouraged me to stop viewing my body as an object to be manipulated or perfected. It opened my eyes to the fact that while I was doing everything in my power to be kind to others, I was doing everything in my power to hurt myself. Through Ahimsa, I began to see my body as an integral and alive part of my being, deserving of respect and care. This shift was significant in moving beyond just coping with my eating disorder to truly healing from it. It allowed me to cultivate a sense of self-compassion and acceptance, which has been foundational in my continued recovery and overall well-being.
After continuing to struggle with disordered eating, I finally discovered the transformative power of energy healing and the chakra system. After many traditional treatment modalities failed to fully address the root causes of my struggles, I was referred to an energy healer (by my dietician, of all people!). I was skeptical and terrified to try this new modality. These sessions taught me how to work with the human energy field to release toxic emotions, patterns, and beliefs. This new spiritual worldview allowed me to align my life with my values and let go of negative influences that undermined my power.
It is incredible to realize I have been practicing yoga for over a decade and teaching for nearly as long. This decade-long journey inspired my work as a Certified Professional Coach (CPC), Yoga teacher (E-CYT 250), and surf instructor who specializes in eating disorder recovery and psycho-spiritual wellness. It also inspired the creation of my 7-week Chakra Yoga Energy Healing for Eating Disorder Recovery program, designed to help others release self-hate, reclaim their health, and experience peace with food after disordered eating.
Today, I am relieved to say that I no longer identify as having an eating disorder and am very comfortable with where I am at in recovery. My relationship with food is not perfect, but then again, I don’t expect it to be! At the end of the day, I just want to treat myself with care and enjoy my life.
