Concentric Counselling
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welcome to the concentric journal

 
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Fat Bubble: Bethany Rutter
Fat Bubble: Bethany Rutter
Why Bingeing is Only Half the Story
Why Bingeing is Only Half the Story

When people come to Concentric Counselling with a history of bingeing, they are often surprised that one of the first things I ask them is how often they restrict their food intake. To them, they are coming because the issue is bingeing. But what continues to reveal itself in the therapy room is that for many people that struggle with bingeing these episodes punctuate long periods of restriction.

The Heart of Body Collaboration - Intentions and Inspirations
The Heart of Body Collaboration - Intentions and Inspirations

Let me share with you some more details of the exciting model that I’ve been developing. Called Body Collaboration, it has emerged from my practice over the last ten years, a compassionate response to clients sharing a persistent issue - ‘I’m trying to hate myself into being ok with myself’. Body Collaboration is a pushback to a kyriarchal culture that teaches us to admonish ourselves rather than accept ourselves. It’s a radical practice of gathering in the most abandoned parts of ourselves, and offering them healing. And it’s a lovesong to what I think is the most powerful thing on Earth – partnership, collaboration, working together for the good of the all.

Sitting in the corridor - why it's a necessary part of recovery
Sitting in the corridor - why it's a necessary part of recovery

I often meet clients when they're in a particular spot... they’ve turned their back on intentional weight loss, knowing that going back into that way of life will only cause harm and open them up to risk. At the same time, they don't know how to transition into a space of body acceptance, knowing that there will also be loss in that decision.

From apology to entitlement - battling body assumptions
From apology to entitlement - battling body assumptions

In my corner of the world, we talk a lot about anti-fat bias or fatphobia and, more broadly, how it is to live in a body that is marginalised by dominant culture – through race, gender and sex, body size or shape, or disability.

Sometimes our conversations about anti-fat bias can take on a very theoretical and abstract form – as a systemic issue, of course we often look at it through a wide-angle lens. More recently, though, I’ve been thinking more and more of the individual impact of anti-fat bias – what it really means to live in a fatphobic culture.

Sensory Five - safety at your fingertips
Sensory Five - safety at your fingertips

Overwhelm and burnout don’t just happen in Covid times – these are themes I’ve been working for since the very beginning of my counselling career. It’s when our nervous system becomes overloaded, and we really struggle to regulate ourselves; feeling either anxious and agitated, or zoned out and flat.

Introducing A Modern Practice - Let Me Tell You More
Introducing A Modern Practice - Let Me Tell You More

For those of you who follow me on Instagram or subscribe to my mailing list you will know that I have been building towards a space for therapists to come together and connect. I’m so happy today to be able to outline this a little more, and introduce this idea to you.

Lessons from the ebb - how to get through when life draws back
Lessons from the ebb - how to get through when life draws back

We're in an ebb season, collectively, I think. And we're not encouraged to think about this at all. The effects of the pandemic, here in the UK, have been upon us for eleven months. And what’s been so surprising is how little accommodation we will often make for this. We’re living in a global tragedy – a collective trauma. Life has, necessarily, had to recede. We have had to lean hard on our internal resources – our patience, our hope, our tenacity. Understandably, we’re feeling a little depleted.

Embracing a non-diet new year - setting body positive resolutions 
Embracing a non-diet new year - setting body positive resolutions 

The relentless treadmill of diet resolutions is about to crank itself up again, at the start of the new year. After all the festive food adverts, Boxing Day onwards will see the focus shift instead to weight loss programmes, diet foods and new ‘healthy eating’ cookbooks, sold to you by slim people. It is a predictable, exhausting cycle, which perpetuates unhealthy ‘all or nothing’ thinking, and punishing and unsustainable restriction.

A beginner’s guide to developing body acceptance
A beginner’s guide to developing body acceptance

And so begins December, the month where dominant culture tends to deep-slide into a clarion call for ‘indulgence’ before, as regular as clockwork, the adverts and articles that promise ‘new year, new you’. Christmas is an exaggerated example of the pendulum swing that diet culture encourages; ricocheting between too much and not enough – all governed by a deep fear that we ourselves are not enough.

Sitting in the corridor - why it's a necessary part of recovery

I often meet clients when they're in a particular spot... they’ve turned their back on intentional weight loss, knowing that going back into that way of life will only cause harm and open them up to risk. At the same time, they don't know how to transition into a space of body acceptance, knowing that there will also be loss in that decision.  

It is, understandably, where you will seek out someone to help you with your process; because you know the old way isn’t working for you anymore, but you don’t know how to get to the next phase of their life – one in which they experience food freedom, and body respect. 

And when I meet clients, this is how I phrase it – we're in the corridor. You’ve closed one door, and you don’t want to get back through it, even though it’s familiar. There’s a door in front of you, marked ‘acceptance’, but it’s super unfamiliar, and it’s daunting to go in that room. What’s behind the door? Is there anyone there? What do I have to give up to go in there? What if I change my mind? Isn’t the old room better, just by virtue of being known? What perks are through the new door, that make all this worthwhile? The process of walking through that door is filled with questions. 

The corridor is where we consider all of that. Bring a cushion, do you need a blanket? I put tissues on that little table in case we need them. We sit down with our backs to the wall and talk. We pace the floor, working through challenges. Sometimes we kick the skirting board in frustration. Sometimes we don't talk, and we just sit quietly together and work it through – we experience the corridor, we take a look around. But we must spend some time in the corridor - in the in-between - before we can transition through to the next space. 

“We move at the speed of trust”
— adrienne maree brown

The in-between isn’t a space we’re encouraged to linger in; not in our culture. We're supposed to be barging through doors, seizing the moment, moving on. Some people are surprised I’m not hurrying them out of the corridor and through that door. But, as you might be familiar with if you’ve worked with me or read this post, we move at the speed of trust (thank you to adrienne maree brown for this phrase). We leave the corridor at the speed of trust. I know the best thing we can do is be in the corridor – the in-between space – for as long as it needs to be. I know the best way out of this space is to let this space be what it needs to be for you. And I hold the trust that we will move through the acceptance door when the time is right. It's your timeframe, and I recognise it’s a big transition, so I’m going to kick time with you in this corridor for as long as you need. Honestly, it’s my privilege that you invited me into this space, and I trust you here. 

Sitting in the corridor is just about as glamorous as it sounds (eg, not very). It isn’t a brilliant place sometimes – it can be tedious, bleak, just a way to get to somewhere else. But it’s also a profound, creative, imaginative and wise space; when we give ourselves the time and hold our courage to stay here for as long as we need. Sometimes we cry, sometimes we get pissed off, sometimes we laugh. I hope, very much, that you’ll be glad you asked someone to spend time with you there – someone who’s spent time here before - because sitting in the corridor on your own isn’t much fun at all. And you’re sitting with someone who knows - who believes and trusts - who holds the hope – that this time in the corridor is worth it. 

I can’t tell you exactly what is behind your acceptance door. I can tell you it’s filled with ordinary magic. And with you, in the corridor, we can construct that acceptance space together. We can imagine, and build, and plan, and hope. We can prepare, we can grieve, we can draw up our courage. We can connect, we can create. In that way, the corridor is filled with ordinary magic too. 

Diet culture recovery, Eating disorder recoveryVicky BellmanComment