Loss 48/101: Loss through anorexia & orthorexia: Julia Trehane

#088. When it comes to eating disorders and losses, you might find you immediately think of ‘loss of weight’, but there’s so much more that can be lost through disorders linked to food and eating.

This is The Silent Why, a podcast on a mission to open up conversations around grief, to see if hope can be found in 101 different types of loss.

Loss #48 of 101: Loss through  anorexia & orthorexia

In this episode you'll meet Julia Trehane, from Bournemouth in England. She's an Eating Disorder Recovery Coach and podcaster, and she lived with Anorexia Nervosa for 40 years. Julia has learned first-hand about the dangers of living with an eating disorder (ED) and tells us why it was so powerful in her life for so long. 

It’s an honest conversation about a very serious (and not often spoken about) condition, but Julia is also a beacon of hope for anyone battling with a similar disorder because she's found her way to recovery - "I have complete food freedom, I don’t struggle with any eating disorder thoughts any more, I am fully recovered as far as I’m concerned."

And amazingly Julia told us she actually used to make Hermans (the original Herman that inspires our final question in every loss episode)! For more about those, if you don't know what they are, visit the Herman link below.

To find out more about Julia and her work, or to contact her, visit: https://juliatrehane.com/

Or find her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliatrehane
Or listen to her podcast - 'Fly to Freedom': https://open.spotify.com/show/0EuUm7VHWmLIBhyrQ0HuD4?si=9a7333ea2fc843db

Transcript

Julia: 0:02

Hello, my name is Julia and I'm here to talk about going from 40 years of living in anorexia to fully recovered and the losses involved, I completely lost my identity and who I was.

Claire : 0:15

When it comes to eating disorders and losses, you might immediately think of loss of weight. But there's so much more that can be lost through disorders linked to food and eating. Welcome to The Silent Why Podcast where we explore both well known and these lesser known forms of loss. I'm Claire,

Chris: 0:32

And I'm Chris, and we've reached loss number 48 on our mission to find 101 different types. And in this episode, we meet Julia Trehane from Bournemouth and England who's now an Eating Disorder Recovery Coach and podcaster. Having lived with anorexia nervosa for 40 years,

Julia: 0:48

I would exercise for up to eight hours every day, getting up at four or five o'clock in the morning, to run, to do CrossFit, to walk all day, to bake I baked, baked and baked and bait, which I fed to other people. And that's actually a huge symptom of an eating disorder is that you have to be around food all the time, because you're so consumed by foods thoughts, even though I didn't really eat much food.

Claire : 1:15

Through experiencing anorexia and another eating disorder called orthorexia. Julia has learned firsthand about the dangers of living in a culture that seeks to idolise certain body shapes, and the potentially disastrous consequences of keeping your problems hidden.

Julia: 1:29

That masks that I used to put on at the end of the day, when my children came home and my husband came home, where I used to pretend everything was okay. I ran out of energy to put it on, I didn't have the strength to pretend anymore. And it just got to the point where I did not know what to do. And I couldn't find any way out.

Chris: 1:49

In this episode, Julia talks about her long relationship with eating disorders, why they were so powerful for 40 years, and why she found it so hard to allow herself to 'feel your feelings'.

Claire : 1:59

It's an honest conversation about a very serious condition. But Julia has become a beacon of hope for anyone battling with an eating disorder.

Julia: 2:06

I consider myself fully recovered. I know a lot of people don't think that you can fully recover. I have complete so freedom. I don't struggle with any eating disorder thoughts anymore.

Chris: 2:18

And amazingly Julia told us she actually used to make Hermans the original Herman that is that inspires our final question in every loss episode.

Claire : 2:25

Hop over to the link in the show notes and check out Keep listening to hear what Julia's Herman is, but let's get www.thesilentwhy.com/herman to hear or read our blog explaining that. But in summary, Hermans are things that our guests have learned through grief that they want to share with others to this conversation going, as she introduces herself. give them hope.

Julia: 2:47

Hello, my name is Julia Trehane. I live in the very south of England, and I am an Eating Disorder Recovery Coach. I have two dogs that like to interrupt podcast interviews, and I lived 40 years of my 49 in anorexia.

Chris: 3:05

To be a coach now having had the experience that you've had, did the coaching start after you had 'recovered'? If that's such a thing? Or do you consider yourself to still be in recovery from anorexia?

Julia: 3:17

That's a really interesting question. And I So for those who are less familiar with eating disorders, consider myself fully recovered. I know a lot of people don't tell us just a little bit about the different types that there think that you can fully recover. But I consider myself to be fully recovered. I have complete food freedom. I don't struggle with any eating disorder thoughts anymore. So I am fully recovered. As far as I'm concerned. I still do lots of personal development, I still invest in myself, and I'm still growing every day, but not from the eating disorder. And coaching I went into after I recovered when I realised just quite how much my life transformed and how different I was and how different I felt. are and how they might affect a person. Okay, so the first thing to know is that eating disorders don't have a look, because a lot of people think that classic emaciated look, which I did have, is an eating disorder, but you can have an eating disorder at any weight. Anorexia or atypical anorexia both are pretty much the same thing just based on the BMI level. Anorexia is a restrictive eating disorder, where you miss identify food as a threat. It is commonly thought of as the eating disorder because I suppose people in full anorexia do have the emaciated look. You can also have atypical anorexia which is the same, but you're not at that very, very low BMI, bulimia, it's a restrictive eating disorder, but your biology will kick in. When you are so starved and make you eat. It's like the body takes over and makes you eat. And then there's the shame and the purging of trying to get rid of the food. Binge eating disorder is very similar. And you can physically or mentally restrict with binge eating disorder. So even if you are eating food, but you're shaming yourself for saying, Oh, I can't have this cake, it's really bad, I shouldn't be eating it, I should know better, I should have more willpower. That's still restriction. Even if you're still eating the cake. When you're shaming yourself for doing it, you're still restricting. And your biology will still kick in. And they're still bingeing. But with binge eating disorder, there's not the purging afterwards, and purging can be making the self vomit, laxative abuse, purging with exercise. They're all restricted eating disorders. Really, anorexia is a very interesting in that there's a theory which I strongly resonate with, that it's part of the migration response, that when your bodyweight hits a certain level, if you have this genetic component for anorexia, your body thinks that you are in a famine, and it makes you want to move compulsively, to get to the land of plenty, and it makes you eat very, very little. Because if you were in a famine, and you stop to eat a big amount of food that would slow you down from getting to the land of plenty. And it also heightens your anxiety hugely. Which is your brain in the survival response, looking for danger. So it's like a very old caveman response from our reptilian brains. So yeah, that's a little bit about the different types of eating disorders.

Chris: 7:01

I think hearing all of that, Julia it's remarkable, and it's so complex, and there's so much involved in that. Something that struck me was the length of time that you, I guess, spent with your life accompanied by an eating disorder. So just remind us again, for how long you were anorexic. And well, what are your reflections on that large portion of your life being in that way?

Julia: 7:24

Okay, so due to certain factors in my childhood, I wasn't getting the needs that I needed to have met. And it also wasn't particularly safe for me to be seen, or to show emotions. And my child brain worked out that if I stayed small, I was less likely to be seen. And the way to stay small is to restrict your food. So maybe that's what my child brain worked out. So I started to restrict my food at sort of eight years old. And a wonderful side effect of that, which I didn't know was going to happen was that when you restrict your food, it restricts your emotions. And so I was staying small staying not seen and not having to feel the emotions that I got in trouble for having. So I just thought I was winning, I thought I had like this superpower, where I didn't have to feel the emotions, I stayed out of everyone's way. And I got to stay really small. It was like a high. It was like, I was really, really winning at life. And it also felt kind of like, I was really, really good at something I didn't have to eat like other people had to eat made me feel really special. And I kind of existed in this eating disorder. It got quite bad in my team. And I was forced to wait restore. But weight restoration and recovery are very, very different things. And so I weight restored partially and carried on my existence in this still underweight for me body. But still with all the thoughts and the rules about food and the fears about food that just carried on as an existence until I met my husband, I'd left home at 16 I met my husband at a team and things were okay for a while I still had a lot of rules about food. And I also had a lot of sort of thoughts about what food was good what food was bad, had another judgments around food. And I got married at 21. I had three children. And my eldest child had anaphylaxis to egg, which is a life threatening allergy. And so I had to be super super, super careful about what we were going to eat and what food was in the house because literally anything with egg in or even touching an egg could have killed him. And that morphed for me. I took it too seriously. I went too strongly into it and that morphed into something called orthorexia. which is only eating clean, organic, unprocessed food. And I got to the point where I wouldn't eat anything that I haven't prepared. I even made my own yoghurt from scratch through fermenting milk and everything and made my own sourdough bread and Herman for it. I didn't add terms, I did make them. And then I started getting involved in exercise, because after my third child, my youngest, I had him at, I think about half past nine in the morning, and I was home by lunchtime, I'd started exercising quite compulsively, then. So I went out for a run straight after I got home. I also walk the dogs in the afternoon, did the school run for the other two children, vote for another run in the evening, and got so much validation from people saying, Oh, my goodness, you're amazing. I was back in my jeans in three days. And people were just like, you're like supermom, how'd you do this, you do everything all the time, isn't your finger incredible. And I got huge amounts of validation from other people, praising me for basically being really sick and disordered and not allowing my poor body to rest, even after I just had a baby. And this then continued, year after year, I would exercise for up to eight hours every day, getting up at four or five o'clock in the morning, to run to do CrossFit to walk all day to bake I'm baked, baked and baked and baked, which I fed to other people. And that's actually a huge symptom of an eating disorder is that you have to be around food all the time. Because you you're so consumed by search tools, even though I didn't really eat much food. And then in COVID, my father died. And he had been one of the biggest reasons I wasn't allowed to feel emotion, and I didn't want to be seen as a child. And so when he died, all the suppressed emotions, because when you don't feel those emotions, when you suppress them, they don't actually go away. They're still there. They're waiting for you. And they all started to bubble up and spiral out. And I honestly thought I was going completely bad. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to process emotions, because I've never done it. And I thought, Okay, well, I'll restrict some more. That's what I'll do, because that's going to stop the emotions. And so I did. And it didn't work didn't stop the emotions. So I restricted more. And it still didn't stop the emotions. And I didn't know what to do at all. So I basically stopped eating completely. And obviously, you can't survive that long without eating. So I think I managed, I'm not going to actually say numbers here because it could trigger somebody, I managed a significant amount of time. So I was passing out at the gym, I got kicked out because I wasn't safe to train. And I felt like my world had ended because it felt compulsive, I had to do it, it was part of my identity, the eating disorder was my identity. And that and then all these emotions, and that masks that I used to put on at the end of the day when my children came home when my husband came home where I used to pretend everything was okay, I ran out of energy to put it on, I didn't have the strength to pretend anymore. And it just got to the point where I did not know what to do. And I couldn't find any way out. And I decided that the only way out was to take the only way out that I could see. And I got everything together to take my life. And I have a severe allergy to gin. So that was what I was going to do. And I bought it and I wrote notes to my family. And I poured the gin in a glass. And then something in me said How dare you? How dare you leave this legacy to your kids? How unbelievably selfish and unkind and unfair is that to them? And I agreed I would be just leaving this stain in their memories forever. And so I didn't do it. As you can obviously see. And I'm so grateful for that thought I'm so grateful that I didn't do it. And I for probably the first time in my life asked for help. And I reached out and I started my recovery.

Claire : 14:52

Did people around you at this point when you were this low? Did they were they aware of what you were going through? How much of it had you shared with other people around the the food side of things?

Julia: 15:01

Virtually nothing. I was incredibly secretive. I prided myself on being somebody that never ever needed help somebody that had it all together, that just got on and did everything. And a couple of my friends were starting to get really concerned, particularly after I'd been kicked out of the gym. And this was some times on dog walks, that people found me passed out. So yet, they're worse alarm bells ringing, my husband's a farmer, and it was peak harvest season at this time, so he just simply wasn't around. So yeah, it, I was very, very good at deceiving people, I was very good at lying. To protect the eating disorder, I used to lie all the time, I used to say, Oh, I actually had a late lunch, or I had an afternoon tea with somebody, or I get at somebody's house or something like that, when I hadn't had anything. And I just used to lie all the time to protect the eating disorder.

Chris: 16:03

It's worth flagging up actually, at this point that you talk really candidly and honestly about this with your husband, Dave, on your podcast, and well worth listening to those conversations with you and Dave, because his side of things is so important as well of what he thought was going on. And why didn't you sort of talk to me in that sort of breakdown and communication between the two of you, and you were maybe talking about things with friends, and he felt that he wasn't hearing about it further. So it's, it's really valuable really worth and we'll put, we'll put links to your pockets in the show notes as well. We've listened to those episodes, to hear how the two of you felt about it and talked about it.

Claire : 16:37

Yeah, there's so much that we could talk about in this area, that will be really interesting. But I will divert people toward your podcast because it has so much in it on a deeper level, on the kind of the loss and the grief side of what you're saying. You know, I can see a lot of similarities in some ways of carrying grief, this is this thing that's inside you, you don't share you don't talk about and eventually, it gets the better of you because you can't carry around all this feeling too long. It needs to come out somewhere. I imagine with eating disorders, people probably look at them. And they just think, you know, well, what's the loss involved? Maybe it's loss of weight loss of control. But you know, we know there's so much more going on with these sorts of things. What would you want to say to people, what are the losses and the grief that are associated with having an eating disorder?

Julia: 17:16

I felt like I'd lost my entire identity. I felt like I had lost my acceptability. I felt like I had lost my source of validation. And I had to grieve hugely for the woman I was in the eating disorder. I had to grieve for the body, I had the the body that I got complimented on all the time, the body that made me feel special, that there was so much, so much more so much grief. And then through recovery, exploring the emotions and exploring the fantasy world I'd built for myself that I was living in this very carefully constructed fantasy that I created as a child to get by to survive, and to pick apart all that as part of the healing process and face the actual truths. So I had to grieve for the life that I should have had that I deserve to have that I never had.

Chris: 18:18

You touched on it there because I was gonna say, some of that you've been able to regain through your recovery, through your coaching work through all that the help that you've had. And then at the very end, you'd sort of came on to the permanent side of things. Have there been elements that you've had to come to terms with? I won't ever regain that, or this is a permanent something in my life. Does that ring true in the case of yes has been temporary loss, but there's been permanent loss as well?

Julia: 18:45

Yes, very much so that the permanent loss of the the hope that I always held, I always hoped that one day, there would be I suppose unconditional love. That is all I'd ever wanted as a child, and to let that go. And to accept that actually, that was never ever going to happen. And that the unconditional love that I was looking for. I actually have learned to give myself to go inwards, to validate myself to accept myself. But to let go of that fantasy world that had been my world for so long and face the actual truth of what my world was. That was huge. And that was it was heartbreaking. It really was through the eating disorder. Those 40 years of living in anorexia were 40 years of dry eyes. I didn't shed a tear in those years. That's how much I restricted my emotions. And so all that had to be faced. I suppress my emotions so much that I was I spent my children for I was heartless that the school that levers, ceremonies and stuff when all the other parents were crying and things like that I never did. I was just sat there.

Claire : 20:11

One thing I think it looks like is that it would be a very lonely kind of grief and loss because you said you weren't really talking about it with anybody else. Did it feel lonely? Did it feel lonely at the time?

Julia: 20:20

Yeah, incredibly lonely, and an eating disorder very, very isolating illness as well. And even when you're with other people, you feel detached from them, you feel separated from them. So yeah, it was incredibly lonely.

Chris: 20:35

Was there a stage where that changed? And when you did ask for help, and others became aware, and would would take an interest or show care or even seeking expert help? Did that live in this change or disappear when others became involved?

Julia: 20:50

Yes, and no. So I found an incredible recovery coach, who was my inspiration for becoming a recovery coach. And she taught me about self love. And she taught me about self acceptance, which I had never ever, ever had any clue that was anything other than arrogance, actually, I thought loving yourself was arrogant. And I thought it was a bad thing. And when I learned to accept myself, and stop being my own worst critic, and my own worst, judgmental person, when I learned to start treating myself with kindness, and caring about myself and accepting myself, and realising that, actually, I was good enough. Once I'd accepted myself, I could let other people accept me. And then I didn't feel so isolated. And then I could start talking to people and being more open with people, and allowing people to help, which was a really big thing for me to do, actually.

Claire : 21:59

I wrote down one of the lines, you said on your podcast that you 'knew you needed to feel the feelings, but the fear of feeling them was actually worse than doing it', that's how it sort of felt? Yeah. So when did you make the decision, I'm gonna go for it, I'm going to do it.

Julia: 22:13

I fought it, I did fight it to begin with. And my coach used to say, the worst thing that you ever do, is feel a feeling. And that's it. It's just a feeling it's, it can't destroy you unless you let it. And so I started off by identifying where in my body, the feelings were. Because like, anxiety would be in my chest. And so I started off with that. And then I started off with trying to identify what the feeling was, I actually had to look at a feelings wheel to begin with, to kind of work out what I was feeling, because I hadn't really done that before. And then I just breathed into the feeling, and allowed myself to sit with the feelings. And it's actually not that hard to feel a feeling. It really isn't. It's not that bad. And once you felt it, you feel so much better. But you've got to stop running away from it first. And you've got to allow yourself to feel the feeling. And it's the thought and the fears of feeling the ceiling is so much harder and so much worse and so much scarier than just getting on and feeling the thing.

Claire : 23:24

So hard to do. But so true that that is the case. And we all know it from different experiences, I think but yet when you when you're faced with it, it feels like just impossible wall in front of you.

Chris: 23:33

Because you're now doing coaching and helping others in a recover clearly, with a lot of your own experience mixed in there. Do you ever find yourself thinking back to times, you know, with clients, maybe where you say, Look, if only I'd done this, or I wish I'd done this a bit sooner? Or are there any sort of main headlines for things that you might say from your own story that I wish I would have known this sooner or somebody had said this to me when I was this age?

Julia: 24:00

You can live a life of regrets, can't you? But realistically, everything happens as it's meant to. And I am where I am, because of where I've been. And it happened at the right time for me. So focusing on I wish I'd done this I should have shouldn't have isn't going to serve me in any way. I do talk about my own experiences with my clients, because it really helps for them to know that I understand. But I don't, I don't even look back and regret it now. Because I get to help people transform their lives now. And that's a gift. And that's a privilege. And without my history, I wouldn't be here.

Claire : 24:43

Something we ask all our guests is what their relationship has been like with the question Why did you find yourself asking that at any point, why am I here? Why am I in this? or did it feel like you knew what you were there?

Julia: 24:55

Do you know what, I don't think I've ever asked myself why. Because there's always a reason isn't there? There's always something and I guess it just is what it is.

Claire : 25:06

Grief is something that, you know, we don't just'get over'

Julia: 25:09

No

Claire : 25:10

Probably similar for some people with eating disorders. Does that loss or grief side of it? Has that continue to cause you pain? Looking back at what you've lost in any way? Or has that gotten easier has that come with the recovery, and also sort of got got better? Or is that still something you wrestle with?

Julia: 25:27

I am very aware of the losses. And sometimes I can look back and feel a bit sad about it. But then when I look at the gains, I've had the gains for recovery, that gains of my life, the fact that I actually live rather than exist, I wake up in the morning, and I'm glad to be alive, and I'm excited for the day ahead. And I'm so grateful for everything in my life. And so the gains I've had of learning to love who I am and to just enjoy living, to laugh, to have fun to feel all the feelings, even though I was so scared of failing them all my life. So yes, there is so much loss, that there's also so many games and that outweighs the loss.

Chris: 26:18

Yeah, talk into that a bit more about the gains because that's a huge thing. You know, having hope for something to hope in something to hope for change. What have been some of the the physical and material, the emotional, what have been some of the gains that you really sort of cherishing now to make the most to live rather than just to survive.

Julia: 26:37

Okay, I'm not scared. I'm not living in absolute fear and anxiety. Sure, I get scared, I get fears. But now they don't stop me from living my life series and opportunity to grow. Now it's an opportunity to explore what, what's holding me back, and to move further forward. So physically, I am considerably bigger. That's changed. But I'm also not absolutely freezing cold all the time. I'm not breaking my bones a lot, which I was my booty works. It just works now, whereas it didn't. I mean, there's still healing to do and there's going to be I mean, you don't heal physically from 40 years of restriction that quickly, but every day, I heal more. I sleep better. I laugh, I smile. I feel happy. I'm not constantly worrying and catastrophizing. And it just, it's indescribable, to be honest difference in how I feel.

Chris: 27:46

What does it feel like to shed a tear now to cry?

Julia: 27:49

Well, to begin with, for the first time I cried, it was big. I cried a lot for several hours. And I was like, I don't even know why people do this. I've got a headache. My eyes hurt. My nose is stuffy. I look horrendous. why did why do people say clients could feel feel awful. But now it's a release, isn't it? It's a release. It's a way of expressing emotion. It's feeling the feeling and processing it. And you feel better afterwards. Still get the stuffy nose and sore eyes though!

Claire : 28:25

I don't want people to get the impression that it's been an easy thing to get to recovery. And I don't mean emotionally. I mean, physically. It's not a case, if you just started eating 'normally', again, well I say normally in inverted commas. So how long did that take physically? For people out there who are maybe in this situation, and they're really wanting to get out of it? And they want to do what they can to move towards recovery? What does the physical recovery actually look like? What did you have to do?

Julia: 28:48

Okay, so that is different for every single person. And it all depends on your mindset and how you go in to it. So my mindset was, it's do or die. There's a phrase called 'all in' and I was gonna go all in, which is where you literally, you sit down, you rest, and you eat, even though it's terrifying, even though every part of you is warranting not to do it. Other people do try and do it a lot slower and more gently, tends to just prolong the agony to be honest, I'm a bit like a rip plaster straight off person. So I went in with the mindset of whatever the f**k it takes, to be honest, I was just going to do whatever my coach told me to do. I was incredibly compliant. I didn't argue with her. It is the hardest thing I've ever done. There's lots of physical side effects, which are really difficult, really challenging. There's gas gastric issues, there's pain, there's exhaustion, there's edoema there's it is hard. It is the hardest journey I've ever made in my life. But in saying that I don't wouldn't put anyone off. Because the benefits I have lived more in the last two years of my life than I lived in the whole of my life before.

Chris: 30:10

Wow. And you're still married? Dave is still there.

Julia: 30:15

Still here, yeah!

Chris: 30:16

In terms of a relationship, we can broaden this out as well to include friends rather than, you know, just loved ones. What could you say about or speak to a partner or a friend of someone who they suspect may have an eating disorder? What are the sort of first steps that they need to take the first gentle steps to try and bring it out into the light or, or to raise it.

Julia: 30:39

First of all, to reassure that the person that they're worried about that they love them, and that this is not a judgement about them. It's a concern, and that you're worried that they have got a problem with food. And is it something that they would like to talk about, you can't make someone recover if they don't want to, and you just let them know that you're there for them. And if they would, like help, or would like you to help them find some help, that you're willing to do it. Just be there, just listen, and just support them, but don't judge them.

Claire : 31:21

So this morning, I was actually chatting to somebody on Instagram. And they shared a bit of their story with me, and it was actually related to an eating disorder. So I told them that we were interviewing you this evening. And they were very interested in the episode. And I said to them, would you like to ask any questions? And they sent me a question back again. So I'm just gonna ask that now. How did you deal with the loss of so many years due to an illness that was all along something you could get better from, even if it felt impossible at the time? So if you'd have had the mental strength sooner, let's say it's almost like a silly question, they said, because if it was easy to recover, you might have done it ages ago. But when you're on the other side, it's hard not to beat yourself up for doing it quicker.

Julia: 32:01

You need to acknowledge and accept that the eating disorder served a purpose, you needed it at some point, and it got you through my eating disorder saved my life. It got me through some very difficult times in my life. And it really did serve a purpose. And because of that, I'm actually grateful to it. But yes, there is, there is a huge amount of time I suppose wasted. But as I said before, everything happens when it's meant to happen. And it happens for a reason. And those years that I was existing, that I suppose I could have been living years I could have missed out on to take on now in the past, and I can't change the past. There's nothing I can do about it. And if I put my energy on feeling sad and negative, about the past that I suppose you could say was wasted, then I'm just going to be miserable. It's like I had a beautiful, beautiful quote this morning, which I just loved so much. worrying. Worrying is like praying for something you don't want. And so yeah, worrying about the past, you've lost you just making yourself miserable. I suppose my real answer is live in the now. Because you can't change the past. So worrying about it is not going to help you.

Chris: 33:26

We use the podcast, Juila, to explore 101 different types of loss, mostly permanent loss to see if hope can exist can hope exist in every type of loss. So when you were in those worse moments when you were going through those years of trying, what was your relationship like with hope?

Julia: 33:45

I didn't really have a lot back then. I really didn't. I just existed, that when I started recovery, I had hope. And I was rewarded. Or I suppose when I found my hope I found my future.

Claire : 34:02

Is there's one thing that you would say to somebody who maybe is sat in that place right now, of just no hope?

Julia: 34:09

That if I can recover after 40 years, and I have clients that have recovered after 50 years, that recovery is possible for anyone. It really is you have you're not too old, you haven't been in the eating disorder too long. You just have to show up for yourself and do the work. And it is possible. And so there is absolutely hope I 100% believe that anyone can recover.

Chris: 34:37

On that note delighted that you dropped Herman's in about 20 minutes ago which is wonderful. So Julia to summarise then all of that with what is your Herman?

Julia: 34:48

Oh, it's 1,000,000% self love. It changes the world. If everyone could learn to love themselves, then that love just spills out and the ripple effect to everybody else is incredible. So, yeah, for everybody to learn to love themselves, and it would literally change the world.

Claire : 35:16

Loving yourself, not an easy thing to do, right? And some of you will find that especially hard, and it might not sit right with you, or feel arrogant, like Julia used to think. That might be because you're British! But imagine a world where everyone felt loved and loved who they were, where people felt safe in their identity validated, loved, accepted and enough, how could that not change the world? Katrina Mayer said 'Loving yourself isn't vanity. It's sanity.' We were all made to be unique, but sadly, so many of us dislike or hate ourselves leading to resentment, frustration, anger, addiction, eating disorders, physical stress, IBS, eczema, whatever it might be. But when our bodies, emotions and spiritual life are at peace with who we are, even love who we were made to be, like Julia said, that can only be good, could only lead to more grace, more patience, peace, kindness, and more love.

Chris: 36:05

Yep, definitely got some work to do there.

Claire : 36:07

Yes, you do. I mean, sorry, 'haven't we all?'

Chris: 36:10

Find out more about Julia, you can get her free ebook, or listen to her podcast, which is called Fly to Freedom, just by visiting her website, which is www.juliatrehane.com.

Claire : 36:19

Maybe you know, someone that would really benefit from some help in this area, either for themselves or someone they love. In that case, I'm sure Julia would love to hear from you.

Chris: 36:28

Now, there are some exciting new things afoot in The Silent Why podcast world.

Claire : 36:32

I've been loosely hinting at it, but now I'm getting ready to launch a new product from the podcast from January 2024. And to be one of the first to find out about this, before I post it on social media, you can sign up to my new newsletter at www.thesilentwhy.com/newsletter. And all these links will be in the show notes.

Chris: 36:49

She's using it for exciting updates news offers or just little bursts of hope that she wants to send you. So don't worry, it's not a daily or even a weekly thing. Now if you're new to us find out pretty much everything you need about us at www.thesilentwhy.com or on social media where Claire posts regularly @thesilentwhypod.

Claire : 37:06

And you can also support my work by going to www.buymeacoffee.com/thesilentwhy, either as a one off donation or monthly. Each donation is very precious to me. And up until a few months ago, I was using them to just cover the monthly running costs of the podcast. But a little excess that I had, it also allowed me to have a seed fund for my new venture. So big thank you for those who have given regularly to make this happen. And you generous people get to find out about this new thing, even before the newsletter folk. However, this does mean that my account is now almost empty.

Chris: 37:35

I can testify I'm still funding her marzipan obsession.

Claire : 37:38

So if you feel led to donate, I would appreciate the financial help. I'm really hoping that when you see what it is I've been using this money for you'll feel even more part of my ongoing mission to make sure that people don't feel alone when they're facing grief.

Chris: 37:52

And as always, we're finishing this episode with a quote and this one is from Parker Palmer.

Claire : 37:56

"Self care is never a selfish act. It is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others."