Carolyn Costin M.A., M.ED., MFT Interview

I am honored to welcome to the podcast, Carolyn Costin, my mentor.  Carolyn is a world renowned, sought-after eating disorder clinician, author, and international speaker. 

Recovered herself, Carolyn recognized her calling after successfully treating her first eating disorder client in 1979. Carolyn was first to publicly say that people with eating disorders can become fully recovered.

After 15 years in private practice and running hospital programs, Carolyn recognized a gap in the field and opened Monte Nido, the first residential facility in the U.S. combining standard treatment with meditation and yoga.  Clients finally could practice daily skills necessary for full recovery such as grocery shopping, shopping for and preparing food. 

Carolyn’s contributions to the field are extensive. Of her six books, the most popular is, 8 Keys to Recovery From an Eating Disorder. Carolyn’s service in eating disorder organizations,  training professionals worldwide, and the outstanding success of Monte Nido all spurred her to international acclaim.

After selling Monte Nido Carolyn created The Carolyn Costin Institute offering continuing education for clinicians, and the certification of eating disorder coaches, filling another existing gap in the field. Carolyn continues to see a few clients, offer consultations and speak at national and international conferences.  

Carolyn is a passionate, inspiring force in the eating disorder field. 

Thank you for listening to The TuTu thin Podcast

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Thank you to Matt Miller @ Smacky Media Group

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:49

Thank you for listening to the Two Tooth Thin podcast. Today it is, I don't even know how to say this. It's my such an honor to welcome the person who really gave me a start in the eating disorder world, Carolyn Coston. Um, I wouldn't be who I am or where I am today without her. And so I feel so honored to have her here. And she's helped so many people in the eating disorder world, and she's a pioneer. But I'm gonna let her tell you about her journey to where she is today.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

So, Carolyn, welcome. Thank you, Dawn. Uh, you know, as I've said to you before, we we teach each other, but I appreciate you saying all those things. And as I've talked about you before, you always have such gratitude. And I and I I really appreciate that. Um, what do you want to know about my journey? I mean, it's so long. What I mean, I guess I can go back, I'll I'll try to do the Cliff Note version, you know, but basically I suffered with my own eating disorder and there wasn't any treatment. There wasn't, I didn't even know a therapist, dietitian, you was just unheard of. Nobody knew what I had. Um, and when I be decided to become a therapist, um, I was a school teacher at the time. I decided to become a therapist and I was just gonna treat adolescents. But what happened was there was a girl across town, and everyone was saying to me, Oh, she has that thing you had. And uh would you see her? And I felt weird about it at first, like, oh, I don't know. And I saw her and and I almost felt like it was a mind meld, and um she got better. And then turns out her mom is in a beauty parlor with another mom with this other girl, and oh, well, my daughter, and then sent me, and that just became, you know, it was before Karen Carpenter died, and so eating disorders were not a national, nationally understood illness. After um Karen Carpenter died, and she was on the cover of Time magazine. Then people started going, what is this anorexia? And by that time, I had already been in private practice, I think for for several years. I don't remember exactly how many. Um and then I I'm gonna go really quickly here. I realized I'm treating all these people, and I realized some of them need more than just I can provide in this in my office once a week. And I started looking around and realized there's hospital programs, but I went to the hospital programs and I thought, I don't really like what I see happening here. I ran a hospital program for a while and thought this isn't the best place for people to get better because there's no exposure, there's no cooking, there's no shopping for food, there's no exercise. There's no people were like put in these beds and they had to eat, and that was freaking them out. Anyway, so I opened uh the first residential treatment center in the country, and um, that was Montanito. And then we had day treatment attached to that and transitional living, and you were one of the star uh staff that I had there and sold it, and now I'm I I there's another gap in the field that I'm trying to fill, and that's coaching. So now what I do is uh I realized there's no training for eating disorder coaches, there's very few of them out there, and I looked around and I realized there's no certification, there's no standards. Um, I'm gonna do it. So that's what I'm doing now.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

So now you train people that helps between a therapist, dietitian, uh, and an empty space that maybe somebody who's gone home from treatment doesn't have the ability to um maybe eat meals by themselves and things like that. So a coach would help that.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah, coaches do not take the place of a therapist or a dietitian. They work as an adjunct to the team, but coaches are the type of people, sort of like a 12-step sponsor, but they're they're more they're trained and certified, so it's a little different. But like in the sense that let's say you have a client with binge eating disorder and they feel um, they start feeling the urge to binge, who are they gonna contact? Who are they gonna text at 10 o'clock at night? Therapists and dietitians are busy with full caseloads. Coaches step in there and say, you can text me. Or if a dietitian gives someone with anorexia a meal plan and they say, You have to add starches this week, we gotta, you know, up the game here and start adding some starches to your meals. Uh, the coach can help them work out what that's gonna be, can go to the grocery store store with them, help them buy it, can go to a meal with them and make sure they eat it. And with someone with bulimia, they go to the meals with them and sit with them afterwards. Um, so sometimes it's helping people uh prevent going to a higher level of care. Sometimes it's helping people who are leaving, say, a residential or a day treatment program and going back to once-a-week therapy or dietitian, and but they need more than that. So that provides more. And sometimes they're helping, like I have several outpatient therapists now who, if they have a really difficult case, call me or send me an email and say, uh, you know, I have a case, they describe it to me. Do you have a coach that, you know, sort of matches this client? So it's sort of all over the map in terms of what they are doing. That's great. See, you're a pioneer, as I said, you know. Yeah, I'm doing it again. I'm doing it again, I'm swimming upstream. But I really think, you know, even with residential, I just did what I thought was right. And it's the same thing here, you know. And and and just so people know, because I think some people think, oh, what an entrepreneur you are, and all this. The foundation, so the coaching is the Carolyn Coston Institute, that entire institute is part of a foundation. 100% of the money goes to philanthropic causes, and uh a big piece of that pie is eating disorder causes. And I don't even take a salary for it. But I feel like this is going to be a game changer. Oh, and by the way, you know, maybe more geared to this podcast, helping people. I have coaches who have different expertise in different areas, and I have a lot of them who have been athletes, who have been dancers or Olympic athletes, uh, track, uh, track and field, um, gymnastics, who are also helping people who have exercise addictions and umor just abusing exercise or just can't get themselves to get into balance with it, who are helping with that too.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Well, that was one of the things I wanted to talk to you about because, you know, I think there are two rules of thought in the eating disorder world. And one is to really keep people away from their sport, their athlete, their dance, or whatever if they've had an eating sort. But you incorporated things back pretty quickly at Montanito. And I think it really helped people.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Yeah, well, we had a good track record. I mean, you know, our outcome study was really good. The recovery rates were so high, I couldn't even believe it. Anyone can go and probably find those uh on on the website, but the Montanito website. But but I realized when I was running hospital programs for eating disorders that this is silly. We're sending people back, we're keeping them all cooped up in a bed, and then we're sending them back out at home. And then what are they supposed to figure out how to exercise on their own? It's a part of an overall balanced lifestyle. And so I figured, look, have it be an incentive. If you eat your food and you're not not purging your food and whatever, and you're going through what we had a level system, then you would get increased exercise. And as long as it you didn't lose weight, you know, you'd be able to, and we had it pretty, pretty balanced. We had fitness trainers, we had yoga classes, we had dance, we had um walks in nature. I I can't even see why not. It just didn't make any sense. If you if you take it totally away, then you and I both know the person just sits there in the back of their mind, they can't wait to get out, and then they overdo it again. So to me, it's it's it's all about balance and it's all about helping people find, I want to put them on the track, you know, on this plan that they're gonna be able to do for the rest of their life. And why not get them to that sooner than later? Even if even if it's just moderate, like some people will only do walking. Some people, as you know, got turned on to yoga and started doing that in their world, you know?

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Well, one of the things that I always appreciated was that, you know, at the time that I worked at the residential, I also had my dancing school, and you would allow me to take the clients and they'd get to dance in front of the mirrors. And that was such an experiential experience for them because they either loved it and fell back in love with dancing if they'd danced before, or they were crying about their body. And then that was more information to talk about. So I just think you really looked at how we can expose clients to as many things as possible that are going to help them.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Well, we know now exposure and response prevention. I mean, that's the key for people who have phobias, anxieties, and and because they had you, and because you were overseeing it, you could talk to them about, especially when we had dancers, and especially when they had gotten so freaked out that they stopped going or got too weak and couldn't dance anymore, or whatever it was, or even those that just did it for fun or wanted to learn something to do for fun, which taking someone who was a runner who would just run and run and run and run and run to burn calories and turning them on to dance, we could go to a class and the class begins and ends. So we turned people on to things, and you're right, it's all gris for the mill. I mean, if somebody uh had a hard time with it, we were able to help them. How do you deal with body image stuff? How are you going to deal with it when you go back out there in the world? Same thing about grocery shopping. Someone with anorexia would break down if we took them grocery shopping, but we might as well do that while while while we can help them while they're in treatment, then then think we're going doing a good job in treatment and send them out into the world, you know. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

So tell me how you came to really think that yoga was so important in the recovery of eating disorders because it was a big part of the program.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Yeah, well, yeah. And you know, I've written about it since and had a lot of people um collaborate with me on a book, Yoga and Eating Disorders. It starts personal. I mean, really, it started personal because I did the whole thing where I went from, and a lot of people do this, I had an eating disorder. Uh, mine went from anorexia. And as I gained weight and as I was getting better in that, I thought, oh, I'll just exercise more. And I became an exercise addict. I mean, I was bad. And um, I know what it's like to feel like you can't tolerate being in your own skin if you don't do your run that day, or you won't allow yourself to eat if you don't do the certain miles that day. And um, in my own life, I had an injury, I had several, but I had a bad running injury, and somebody suggested I try yoga. And at first I thought, oh, this is BS. There's no, there's no, it's not cardio. I'm not gonna get a good workout. And and I so I went to this yoga class, and it was really interesting because for the first time, there I was having to be with my body, do these deep breathing, breathe with my body movements, and I got a sense, just a little grasp in the beginning about, oh, this is something interesting, feeling my body move as opposed to be out there running my ass off burning calories. And um it took a it took a while, but I went back. I think you have to have a good teacher. I think you have a teacher who's talking about it in the right way. I think you have to not be um a teacher who helps you pay attention to your own body and not be competing with the teacher or other people in the class or how much can you bend here or there? It is so much about where's my body, what's good for my body, and where can I take my body just to its edge, not too far, not too fast. And you would learn that, like say, doing a balancing pose if you tried too fast, if you tried to look like somebody else, if you tried it in any other way than being embodied, it didn't work. So to me, yoga helps with embodiment and have making peace with your body in a way that I was, I was, I was shocked. Not only that, it turns out it's very um, it's a good fitness practice too, but it's just so much more than that. So I thought when I have a treatment center, I would recommend it to clients, but then when I opened Montanito, I thought I'm going to incorporate it because I want to teach people how to have a mindfulness, be mindful in their bodies. And you know, because you saw people, I mean, doing even the last doing Shivasana at the end was almost diagnostic how many people couldn't do it, couldn't lay down and close their eyes in front of other people in a class. And it was astonishing. So the important thing is, I think, is integrating it into the whole thing. So the yoga class didn't just take place and gone. The yoga teacher would come and she would chart notes and she would talk to us and um talk to the therapist about what was going on in the class. I think it helps people learn about not comparing their bodies, which is a huge problem in um eating disorders and um dancers and dancers. And dancers and dancers, you know, with the mirrors and everything else. And so we didn't have mirrors in the yoga room, but but still, I think, and I think that was good. Um, but I think it teaches people where they're supposed to be focused so that when they do go to a class with mirrors, they realize, okay, but my focus is internal, my focus is on what I can do. And there's a lot of things about the yoga philosophy, the yamas and the niyamas and all this stuff about uh um that are actually super interesting old practices that are also very uh mindful and very um, I think helpful in terms of calming one's mind and um, yeah, a bunch of different things like nonviolence, but including being nonviolent to yourself and all this stuff that I think can be sort of sprinkled in with the other stuff. So, and we and it helped. I think it helped people, it helped people shift. Look, there are all kinds of ways to have your body be in shape, and you need to be a participant in it, you know?

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Yeah. Do you when you wrote a book? You mentioned it, but I mean, I know there were other people that helped, but talk about your book on yoga, and then we'll talk about all your other books. But uh well, the yoga book, yoga and eating disorders.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

I thought this is not just me. These clients are picking up on this. Clients would write things like in yoga was the first time that I found myself still inside my body. The first time that I realized um that I didn't have to compete with anybody, and when I pushed too hard, it didn't work at all. Like they were writing things and journaling things. So I started finding um uh other people, other yoga practitioners that had seen people with eating disorders, other people that felt like yoga was a part of their recovery, and other treatment centers that began to incorporate yoga into the treatment center. So I got a bunch of people together and said, let's let's let's not have it just be for me. Let's have all these perspectives about what we are seeing in this sort of movement where we're having people embody, become embodied, which is a huge thing for people with eating disorders, in a way that is peaceful, in a way that is caring. And it's still challenging. I mean it's not like the poses aren't challenging, but it's all a matter of it teaches you to challenge yourself at your own pace and at your own level. And so I had a lot of contributors, and people wrote different chapters about different aspects, from uh an Olympic skater who talks about yoga as being a part of her transformation in terms of recovering from her eating disorder, to yoga teachers who have incorporated it and saw the amazing difference that it played in people's lives. From to um this guy from Boston, David Emerson, who does um trauma-informed yoga, which is really fascinating because he does a lot of trauma work and he talks about how yoga can help you learn to be in command of your body again. And in trauma, often you lose that. You know, you have these responses that you're not in control of anymore. And um, but it has to do with uh there's some techniques for doing trauma-informed yoga, and one of them is not to come up and adjust people in poses, let people adjust themselves in poses and different things like that. So he he was a part of the book as well.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

So, and and yoga, I think, is uh something that's used a lot with dancers and athletes to help them cross-training, stretching, you know, it's just different than going to a ballet class.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

So, you know, it's it's not yeah, yeah, it is a very interesting system, and anybody can do it. When some, you know, we had clients say, Oh, I can't do yoga, and I said, Then you don't know what it is, because there isn't a can't do because it's about finding your place. If you want to move your arm over your head like that and it's too tight, well, that's your tightness, that's your yoga. Yoga is for you personally, it's not about doing a backbend because the teacher can do it, it's about opening yourself and opening your heart. And there were poses, and there are poses for different things. There are anti-anxiety, anti-stress poses. You know, there there are poses that are are designed to help people. There's a lot of breath work, which is super important, especially for anxiety. And it's a it's a moving mindfulness practice. And as you know, people with eating disorders often cannot do traditional meditation, at least not in the beginning, because they're just too amped up, their amygdala is firing, you know, they're just too anxious. And so having a more of a moving meditation helps them get them get them to that place.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

So when I first met you, you had only written one book, and that was your dieting daughter. What happened? And then there was an explosion of multitude of books. Talk about them.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Yeah, okay. Well, oh uh, yeah, the dieting daughter was a I'll talk about the dieting daughter first, I guess. I I had this idea that if I could write stuff down, then when I was working, this is how it started, when I was working with parents, if they had something to read, some kind of manual, and at the time it was all females. I mean, as males became more identified and more willing to admit they had eating disorders and we had more males in our practices, you know, I I I could write your dieting son now, but I did, but I didn't. Uh and and I was saying, I need something for parents. So if they could spend, you know, $15 on this book, it's not whatever I was charging, $175 for my session. And they could read it and then they could ask me questions. And so I thought I want it to be a manual for that. And there was all these things I had heard. That's when I came up with the Thin Commandments, because I had all these clients coming in and talking about this, like there are these mantras that they all had, you know, I feel guilty if I eat anything fattening, thou shall not eat without punishing or oneself afterwards. There are all these things. So I wrote that in there, and I wrote way back when about social media and about how moms had to and dads. There's a chapter for moms and a chapter for dads in there, had to really pay attention to what was going on in social media because kids were really being affected by it. And I have a chapter called Mirror Mirror on the Wall, all about body image, and uh a chapter for dads because, you know, called Daddy's Girl, because dads were really struggling. What what do I say? What anyway, so I wanted this to to kind of be a guide. And um the other early book. And these books have, you know, there's an initial edition and then a later edition. So the later edition, I talked more, a little more about dieting in the first dieting daughter book, and I took a lot of that stuff out in this in the second one. And in the second one, I talk about FBT family-based treatment and stuff because that was well known by then. Um, and the same thing, uh, the eating disorder source book. Most people don't know. There's three versions of that. I I was asked to write that book um because there wasn't there wasn't really a source book for eating disorders out in 1996. That's when I wrote the first one. It's hard to believe. My God. The year Montanito opened, I wrote two books and opened Montanito. It's just kind of shocking. And anyway, so that was really the diagnostic criteria. What are different philosophies of treatment? What do you do in groups? What do you look for in a treatment center? There were so many things in that book. Um, how to do a family group, how to run a group, what are the medical complications, because there just wasn't anything at the time. And that book was 1996. It got reprinted with some updates in 1998, and then in 2006 it had a whole other series of updates. I don't think most people know it's different books, especially from 1996 to 2006. And then uh I was asked to write um, there's a series of books called 100 Questions and Answers About menopause or depression or whatever. And I was asked to write 100 Questions and Answers About Eating Disorders, which is a quick reference book. But probably my most popular book, the one that I just find everywhere now. I go to treatment centers and they're it's there. I get emails from people all over the world, and it's the eight keys to recovery from an eating disorder that I was also asked to write by Norton and Sons, and they came to me because they have an eight keys series. Again, eight keys for depression, eight keys for headaches, eight keys for back pain. And they asked me to write it, and I first said, no, I'm too busy, I have books. But, and I think you know the story, I don't know if you know. I had a former uh patient who uh had been a patient at Montanito 12 years earlier. She was now a practicing therapist, and this is Gwyn Grabb. And I was going to see her that day to see her practice and to see what it was like. I hadn't seen her in, you know, forever. And I decided I would go meet with her. And I went into her office and I was talking to her about some stuff and groups and different things I had done, and she said, Oh, oh, wait till you see this. And she pulled out a drawer, and in that drawer was all the group assignments and individual assignments and everything I had done in group and individual therapy at Montanito. And I didn't even have these written down. They just, you know, I would just things would come out of my head. I would tell people to do, oh, I have an idea today. So she had these all written down and filed, and I went, you want to write a book with me? And so then I called Norton and said, Okay, I'll write the book. And that turned into that book and and a workbook, which people really get a lot out of. And I think partly because it really is practical, it gives step-by-step things um to do to make changes. It has a lot of recovered people with quotes in there. Um, yeah. So am I forgetting anything? I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

No, I mean, I use it all the time in my private practice because it's like I go key by key with kids and I'll say read the first key and then pick something that relates that you find interesting. Yeah, and and and write about it. And then they write, and then we go to the next key. So I love it. It's it's I mean, I love I love all your books, but that one I love.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

I think it provides a structure and it's the voices of recovered people. It's not a professional, just a professional talking, it's two people who recovered talking, and then a lot of other, there's a lot of other people represented in that book who have recovered and are talking about what that was like for them to go through and what it was like when they first started looking at the difference between body and soul, for example, you know, and um yeah, I forgot to mention that in I think in the Dieting Daughter, I know there's a chapter you really like. Um, and and and and you contributed, you know, and and so that's another thing, but uh the fitter fanatic stuff that's in there that is really is so important for people like you and I who really think we have to incorporate discussions about this when someone's really into movement or exercise or their sport or whatever. So there's that whole thing, and there's a lot of questions in there for you to help screen is somebody fit or are they fanatic? And the same thing in the eating disorder source book, there's a chapter that I called instead of exercise addiction, I called it activity disorder. Because as we saw, sometimes it's not, it would be more than just exercise. It would be the people who would be, they'd have to stand instead of sit. They would have to park their car the farthest and walk, you know, or always use stairs and never an elevator. And not that that's bad to do. Sometimes that's nice if you want to get your steps in or whatever, but these are people who couldn't stop doing it. They couldn't not do it, they couldn't even sit down and eat a meal, or they'd be shaking their legs under the table, or you know, doing isometric exercises. So it really was more than exercise addiction. And um, and I I talk about people with activity disorder often there I always um I found this correlation be between that and their problems with intimacy, intimacy with people. And so I always that was a big part of what people talked about when they talk about reading that book and reading about activity disorder, about how people will use that frenetic kind of working out and moving and having to keep always like this, you know, and how hard it is for them to sit and just be with somebody and be be intimate in relationships and on all different levels. I'm not just talking about sexuality, you know. And um, I think that was had a good impact in helping people assess and and look at that. And and what's nice about it is it has a whole list of um uh of questions to ask the person, you know. Do do you judge your worth based on um how much you exercise? What would happen if you got injured and you couldn't exercise? Have you lost your menstrual cycle? Do you ever make people wait for you, like on Christmas or holidays? Do you miss things because you have to exercise instead of going to a party? Like there's a bunch of things to ask that I think are really geared to help people see, oh, you know, maybe I do have a problem.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

I was just thinking about um Gwen's little drawer, because I sat for three years in your group on Wednesday morning that you led at Montanito, and every every week you'd come in with a new topic, but I'd be like, where'd she come up with that from? And yeah, brain. It's like, but it was just it's how I learned to do what I do because I sat and just watched you for three years.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Well, it's so interesting you say that. I mean, I certainly appreciate that. You're you've been a big fan with a lot of gratitude towards me, and I've always appreciated that. And I I it it is interesting how I don't really know. I think it was supposed to happen. As you know, I had a dream about Montanito. I mean, a literal dream. I was supposed to do this work in my life, and um it came natural to me to start treating other people, and I would be sometimes driving to work and think of some assignment I was gonna do in group, you know, like the one I brought in a bunch of flowers one day, and then that that became a regular assignment that we would do periodically, you know, okay, draw, draw, um uh take a flower and then write everything about that flower, about its characteristic and its appearance and everything else. And um, and then and they would write, you know, incredible things about the colors and the thorns as protection and all this stuff. And then I would say, okay, now I want you to write about your body, and you have to do it the exact same way. No disparaging words, nothing. You're not going to be saying things like, your petals are bigger than mine, or you know, you know, and it's weird to get people to do stuff like that because when you do, they can get out of this rigid mindset. That's why analogies are good. You know, the flower is just a metaphor or an analogy, you know, for their life. But there are a bunch of things like that that I did, and I think, and now a lot of them are, you know, in the book.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

So you talked about mantras, and we all know that. Well, we don't all know, but you and I know that people with eating disorders have mantras they tell themselves every day, you know. Uh, but you you have to turn yours into a positive one. So what do you say to yourself every day? What's a positive mantra that you use for yourself every day?

SPEAKER_01 32:54

I'll tell you, uh one that I use a lot is I am enough. Because I have that thing like you have, where we're always doing more, we're always challenging ourselves to do more. Did I do a good enough talk? Did I like after this podcast? Did I say the things that really needed to be said? Did I answer the questions? I, you know, you and I both, no matter what we do, I have all these books and I still, I still I'm doing the CCI coaching thing now. So um I I I I have it written down inside of one of you know those bracelets that you you got one where you put a your mantra inside your bracelet and you wear it, wear it around. Um sometimes I change it once in a while if I have a specific need. Like sometimes um it's about letting go if I really feel that I need to let go of things because I might hang on to things, worry about things. But most of the time, if I'm wearing that bracelet around, it's it's I am enough because I think we we forget that. We forget that in those quiet moments when we're sitting around and all that other ego stuff goes away. Who are we without the books, without the treatment centers, without this stuff that I've done in the past? Who am I? And I'm this soul who happens to have a body and and being here on the planet, you know, I want to know that that it's enough, just be me. So that's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

That's a good one. Uh because you and I are both ones that are on to the next thing.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

On to the next thing. And you know, the good news about that is that look, we have our genetic predisposition. When we applied it to calories, when we applied it to exercise, it it's gonna get us in trouble. But we we have it, we know we have it. It's a matter of where are we gonna channel that trait. And you know, this is a big also other thing that I came up with about people with eating disorders, and everyone was talking about it being genetic and all this stuff. Okay, yeah, but I can't get rid of my genes. So, what we have to teach people is how do you use your genetic predisposition for your best good? So if you tend to be a person who's really perfectionistic, are you gonna make that be about calorie counting and fat grams? Or are you gonna make that be about trying to put together the next um the talk that I'm doing for a conference or teaching, coming up with the curriculum for the coaching course? I mean, there are ways, same thing if you're a person who is tends to be impulsive, that it's a really good, you're more spontaneous than I am. And you and and how do you use that? Being spontaneous, you're probably the fun one at a party, you know. So learning about our traits and using our traits in positive ways, I think that was a huge thing for me to realize about about myself and uh and to pass on to people who are trying to get better. Yeah, I agree. And you and I just so happen to have the same temperament.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Well, you and I have a lot of things that we share in common, you know, like I had anorexia around the same time you did, where nobody knew what it was. I was just a freak, you know.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we grew up in that era where, you know, uh airline stewardesses, flight attendants were still being getting weigh-ins, you know. Yeah, you know, we didn't we didn't really grow up in that age where, you know, and our parents were, you know, I mean, it's interesting because there's still that fight, there's still all the body image stuff that's still going on out there. But I think that if you do your work when you have an eating disorder, you go through those things in life, you're you're actually better off, you know. I think that I mean, we're people who I think have we and people who've recovered from eating disorders have navigated those waters so it's easier for us to live in this culture now. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 37:09

I completely agree. I always say I have the secret, I know what my body needs, I know how to eat, and that might I thank my eating disorder for that because I learned how to eat and maybe that and and what my body needs and how to listen to my body, and I wouldn't have done that had I not had my eating disorder.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

So yeah, yeah, you know, I tell people don't get upset when I'm about to say this, especially if it's parents, you know, listening to a talk. And I say, it was my biggest teacher, a huge teacher. And that's what we have to have it be for people, as opposed to this is so awful, you are so bad. How can you learn from this? What can you learn from this? What can you learn about yourself from this, about your temperament from this, about ways you can take this and channel all this power that you put into your eating disorder in a different way? Because people will say, Oh, it's more powerful than I am, and I can't get over it. And then, and you know, I always say it cannot be more powerful than you are because it is you, you give it its power. That's the whole philosophy. You have created that split-off eating disorder self, but you still have your healthy self in there, and the fight is between you and you. Yep, very true. Big, big one, big. It's probably yeah, it's the only thing I could teach people it would be that piece of it because it's about strengthening everybody's healthy self, and then that our healthy self takes care of the eating disorder part, you know. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Okay, so tell me or tell I probably know something fun about you, but tell us something fun about a fun fact about you that maybe people don't know.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Okay, let me think about that for a minute. Well, I a new fun fact that I'm doing a lot now is a few years ago I discovered these troll dolls that I you've probably seen them, uh, but I found them and I've had them since I was about 13 years old. And I'm 68. So what is that? That what is that? 40, what what is that? Four, whatever it is, however many years it is. So I've had these dolls. 45. No, 55, 55, 55. Jesus, that's just weird, isn't it? So I've had them for over four, four, five decades. So I start, I travel with them now, and they pop up at the Giza pyramids or in Africa in front of lions or and at Air's Rock Uluru in Australia or whatever. So that's a very fun thing. And I love them. There's something bright and fun and funny about them that I love so much. Um, I love arranging flowers. You know, I used to always bring flowers to um Montenito. And I was remembering the other day that when I this I don't think you know about me. When I was seven years old, my mom was a member of some, I don't know, junior women's league or something. And she brought me to a meeting, and they were there was uh flower arranging going on, and I decided I wanted to be a part of it, and uh I put together a flower arrangement and um and I won. I got a blue ribbon and flower arranging at seven years old. When you come to my house and you see what I like to do with flowers, I think it stuck.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

No, I did not know. I knew you loved flowers and I knew you loved to arrange them, but I did not know you won the blue ribbon for arranging flowers.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Seven years old.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

The flower flower arranging prodigy. Um, I just want to thank you. Like there's never a time that I see you that I don't learn something from you. And I think that's a gift that you give to everybody, whether it's a client or it's a friend or it's um, you know, somebody that worked with you. I think you always, even when you don't know it, you're teaching. So you've been yeah, you you just are a wealth of knowledge. And even today, you know, it's like listening to you, it's like I always learn something and or or am reminded of something that you taught me in the past. So, you know, I think we have to be grateful for people who come into our lives who give us special talents. And so I am grateful for you. Thank you so much, Dawn, and thanks for having me. It was fun. Well, thank you. And I'm gonna thank the listeners of Tutu Thin, the podcast, for listening. And um, as always, you can reach me through my website at 22thin.com or on Instagram at 22 underscore thin or on my other website at dontheodore.com. Thank you again for listening. Have a wonderful day, and thank you, Carol and Costin, for joining us. Thank you.