It’s taking all my willpower to sit down and type this (thank the coffee, which is the only substance, aside from ADHD meds, that helps me be still LOL). Because the truth is, I feel like I ALWAYS have to be moving.

Especially now that I feel safer with my living situation and have gained back the weight I lost in my recent toxic living situation (thanks extreme hunger!), I have SO much energy. And I’m overwhelmed by it.

The moment I wake up in the morning, I feel as if I’m being chased by the hands of the clock. There’s SO much I want to do, so much I want to create, yet also there’s so many demands!! This body needs nourishment, this body needs rest, this body needs hygiene, and that’s on top of all the other things us humans are expected to do on a daily basis. Somehow, we have to fit all these to-do’s in a tiny fraction of existence – what us humans have labeled as “a day.”

My feelings of “bursting at the seams” are because I’m a boundless soul that’s confined to the boundaries of a human body and physical world. So this idea that I constantly have to be moving, I think it’s because my soul is already everywhere, and this vessel that hosts my soul is trying to “match up” to that vastness…hope that makes sense 😅

Anyways, the reason I wanted to share all this is because, through an eating disorder lens, my restlessness might be labeled as “compulsive movement.” I mean, how many of us are reprimanded in treatment when we want to do anything that’s not sitting down??? I even had one client tell me she was reprimanded for bouncing her knee while she sat on the couch!!! 😟

For neurodivergent people, movement is an intuitive way in which we regulate ourselves. Of course, the eating disorder hijacks this strategy and convinces us we need to be physically moving every second of every day.

Traditional treatment methods claim that you can only recover from the ED if you can “make peace with rest,” and they implement this claim by forcing you to sit still all the time. But you know what happens when there’s no alternative to the coping mechanism that you’ve come to rely on? Your infinite energy gets bottled up. It has nowhere to go. And oh, well, there appears the ED as the escape hatch!

Misunderstanding neurodivergent regulation needs is why so many people “relapse” after leaving treatment. It’s not that they’ve “failed” treatment or couldn’t “comply to the protocol,” it’s that the treatment itself has failed to recognize & accommodate the needs of the unique individual.

In How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery, I introduced the term energy channeling. Rather than “redirecting” the movement or attempting to “overcome” movement urges, I invite you to ask: Where do you want to channel this energy instead?

When we approach movement (and ED recovery in general, hence why I prefer the term “discovery”!) from a place of positive direction rather than avoidance, you can actually move towards the person you want to be (no pun intended!).

Are you ready to break free from quasi recovery and channel your energy into the person who’s living in alignment with their true being? Join us in 51 Days to Freedom!