Richelle Ludwig-Food Freedom Coach

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Richelle Ludwig-Food Freedom Coach

I help highly sensitive womxn end their fight with food & their body by guiding them back home to their body & building emotional intimacy.

I want to help women break free from food and body issues, so they can shine their vibrant lights and do what their meant to in this world. When women are healthy and happy in mind, body and spirit we can live life to the fullest and contribute our true gifts to the world. I've been there and was stuck in the binge restrict cycle for a good decade. I understand how it can impact every area of your life including relationships, career, finances, physical health and mental health. I know how alone and shameful you can feel and I want to help guide you out of this dark place, so you uncover who you truly are and begin living an authentic life on your terms.

31/05/2022

I was working with a client today who expressed that when an elder noticed her fear, her thoughts immediately went to thinking she'd failed at concealing her flaws. It made me think about what we perceive as flaws, and why. We internalize this shame and make it mean we're bad or wrong, when we don't get our needs met. When really it's not us, but rather our environment that's lacking.

As Dr. Gabor Mate states, "People have two basic needs. Attachment and authenticity. When authenticity threatens attachment... attachment trumps authenticity." So we internalize the lack of resource in our environment as our own failings, so that we can maintain some kind of attachment, as our survival depends on it during our developmental years.

It's something to consider, that it was a lack in our environment, a fault in our condition or a distortion in greater systems, when you're judging a part of yourself as flawed.

25/05/2022

Everything has changed
And I can feel this part of me
This part of me that feels like a caged animal
Stuck and fighting to get out
That doesn't want to be where it is
And then my therapist asks me what I would think if one of my clients was experiencing this
I tell her it would make sense
It would make sense given the layered experiences of loss and stress and uncertainty
And I feel myself soften
My therapist's question helps me remember a wiser part of me
This wiser part of me takes me to visit the land
And just the smell of the dirt feels like home
There are dark clouds in the sky, like a purple bruise
Rain spits and I welcome it
There's something about natures reflection of my inner experience that's comforting
The wise part of me reminds me to take deep breaths
The smell of coniferous trees soothe my very being
And the land reminds me that I don't need to rush
That there's no urgency in the souls path
The soul has its own unfolding timeline
I've remembered this over and over again
And I sense it won't be the last time either
I close my eyes and listen to the creek below
My words still haven't come back to me
It's like there's so much happening inside, but I can't find words that touch the experience
And right now, something is able to be okay with that
Words are expression for me but when I lose them, maybe the experience is not meant to be expressed
And again, or still , here I am in liminal space
Slowed down to tend to what's arising in the in-between
And I almost laugh at the paradox of how something so untethering and terrifying to one part of me, can feel so deeply nourishing to another
Everything has changed

18/05/2022

When we get blended with our inner critic we lose touch of our wholeness. And in this place we might feel like we're failing or lacking. We might even believe we're a fraud.

It's only when we're able to unblend from the critic, that we regain connection to our wholeness. It's in this place that we can soften into acceptance around our experience. And in acceptance, I've found its hard to feel like a fraud.

10/05/2022

Instead we can learn to relate to our inner critic from the Self part of us. This is the part of us we experience when we're in the ventral vagal aspect of our autonomic nervous system. Meaning, we can access an inner sense of safety and presence. Our protectors can take us into a hyperaroused or hypoaroused state. Self is calm, courageous, confident, compassionate and curious in nature.

There's something that happens in our bodies when we meet our inner critics from this place of Self. When we see the inner critic for what it is and how it's been trying to help us. There's a softening that happens when instead of fighting or rejecting our inner critics, we change our relationship with them. We meet them with understanding and compassion.

Because when we exile them, we push them into the shadows and they still continue to drive us, but from a subconscious place. Healing is not ridding ourselves of the inner critic but developing a different relationship with them. A relationship in which we can tend to what they need, feel the emotions they might be trying to prevent us from feeling, and then taking action from Self.

And sometimes, or oftentimes, the inner critic is an introject. A voice we've internalized from external experiences of criticism and shaming. We can do practices to place these introjects back outside of ourselves, which is very different than the experience of a protector exiling the inner critic.It's often a slow, gentle and subtle process to discern the difference.

I'm co-hosting a local, in-person Women's Workshop on Sunday May 29th 4 Points Health and Wellness. I have a feeling we might meet some inner critics and get to practice changing our relationship with them.
Register for the "Something For Me Workshop"
https://4pointshealth.janeapp.com/ #/discipline/14/treatment/380

09/05/2022

I'm thinking about my mom today and grieving that I don't get to celebrate this day with her. I still experience a lot of numbness over her death, but there have been more and more moments when grief surfaces.

I'm holding the complexity that this day might bring for you. For those who have an estranged relationship with their mom. For those who've experienced miscarriage. For those who have never known their birth mom. For those who can't become moms. For those with complicated relationships with their moms. For those who've lost a child at any age. For the lack of support moms get in our culture. For those learning to develop their own inner mother. For those who've been abused by their moms. For those who have a healthy relationship with their mom. For those with multiple moms. And everything else in between.

Whatever today brings up for you, I hope that you are compassionate with yourself and you get to tend to whatever arises.

04/04/2022

Early in my healing journey I found myself attracted to mentors/teachers/coaches who had answers. It gave me a sense of certainty and because I didn't trust myself and I didn't feel safe in my own being, I outsourced that sense of safety through others certainty. Later in my journey I've found myself more drawn to mentors, and elders, whom offer more questions than give answers. I find it deeply comforting to learn from, and be in space with, teachers who exist in liminality. Who can dance with the unknown and live the questions.

Now I find teachers who righteously position themselves above others repel me, when once they attracted me. And don't get me wrong, I too have been that person who righteously positioned myself above others. These days, right relationship interests me more than fighting for the dominant position.

To me that shift comes from the difference of my wounded younger parts leading the way, versus my soul. My younger parts were the ones who sought safety externally through others certainty. It's my soul that has the ability to feel safe in the unknown. Even, nourished by it.

And when I'm in this space, I'm no longer chasing a destination with an end.
An end that means I'll never struggle again.
In working with others I've seen this chasing of a final, healed destination to be a common thread.
This seeking often comes from a younger part of us that wants to get rid of discomfort.
But healing isn't about getting rid of our wounded parts.
It's about changing our relationship to them.

I've found that when I'm connected to soul, I don't feel that impulse to get away from my wounds.
To chase that holy grail of fully healed.
Instead, I can soften towards the wounds without trying to exorcise them out of me.
I can tend to those parts of me, without feeling like I am them.
I can sense that they're only one small part of what makes up the mystery of my beingness.

And there I land.
In that suspended place of unknown, held not falling.
Okay and trusting in where I'm going or what's coming.
Present to the now.
Open to grief and joy.
Home again in myself.

02/04/2022

I'm excited to be joining the badass team over at 4 Points Health and Wellness! I met Alyssa back in the day when we were both ambassadors for Fitset. It's been inspiring to see her vision, along with her biz partner Brett's, come to fruition. They've just moved into a new location, that they designed themselves, and are holding a grand opening on Saturday April 9th between 11am and 4pm.

Come check it out! You can meet the team, try out a group fitness class and/or mini sessions with different practitioners. The team over at 4 Points Health & Wellness offers personal training, group fitness classes, massage therapy, chiropractic care, physiotherapy, psychotherapy, accupunture, nutrition, craniosacral therapy, energy healing and more. It's an East meets West, mind body soul, kinda place and I dig it.

I'll be offering mini sessions myself just to give a taste of what parts work is like. If you'd like to try it out bring something you're currently struggling with like a behaviour, emotional state or thought pattern. I'll share with you how parts work can help change your relationship to the thing you're struggling with. Of course, my work is relational as well and change takes time, but you'll get a feel for my energy and how I work in the mini session. You can also sign up for a free intuitive yin class that I'll be teaching at a later date.

I learned the practice of Intuitive Yin through one of my teachers, Mallorie Buoy .healing. Intuitive Yin is a restorative somatic practice geared towards rewiring the nervous system and developing our interoceptive capacities, or ability to sense our inner experience. This is something we require to be able to engage in emotional regulation, among so many other benefits.

01/04/2022

I was listening to Dr. Bayo on a podcast this morning and he said these words. "When we are stuck, we must learn how to get lost." I appreciate deep thinkers who don't pathologize experience. We can seek to understand what's happening in our nervous system when we're experiencing different things, and this can be helpful in some ways. In other ways, it can contribute to us forgetting that we're more than our nervous system.

"Getting lost is the volatile alliance between human and non human forces that allows for newness and novelty to emerge out of a situation of apparent destruction.

How do we sit with destruction and chart our way from there? Not going forward but ackward. How do we make research an invitation to get lost, instead of confirmation in anthropocentricity (an inclination to evaluate reality exclusively in terms of human values)? How do we learn to get lost?"

This is where I find myself. Practicing getting lost.

29/03/2022

Sometimes clients are afraid to bring up certain behaviours because they think I'm going to try to change them or take them away. First of all, I don't have that kind of power but I do deeply understand this fear. And the world is very black and white in the way it looks at behaviours these days. Social media contributes to that, when I prefer to take a more nuanced approach at understanding all the layers that contribute to a behaviour.

Let's take over exercising as an example. I'm not into managing the behaviour by telling you how much exercise is too much. I'd much rather explore the parts of you that are present with the behaviour and teach you how to tend to them. From this place, you can then reassess the behaviour and explore what is really true for you. Sometimes this means we still do the behaviour (exercise), but it just comes from a completely different place.

Sometimes the thing that's scary is we discover that part of our identity is wrapped up in the behaviour and to let it go means not knowing who we are. The work is actually a deeper exploration and excavation that involves uncoupling our identity from the behaviour. This means we'll have to spend time in this space of unknown. The space of unknown and uncertainty can feel really uncomfortable.

When we go through this process though, we can actually develop a richer relationship with ourselves and in this example, a richer relationship with the way we move our body and why. When we move our bodies from the place of an emotional wound or its defense, we'll inevitably end up over riding the body. When we can work through the layers and gain access to Self, a healthier relationship that nourishes and honours the body becomes available.

22/03/2022

"Grief feels like it will never pass. This brings us great fear. We worry that this house of sorrow will be our final resting place, that our days will always be overcast, gray, and dulled by the sadness we carry. We have the sense that we are on a slow walk with no obvious direction. Fortunately, grief knows where to take us; we are on a pilgrimage to soul.
It is challenging to honour the descent in a culture that primarily values the ascent. We like things rising - stock markets, the GDP, profit margins. We get anxious when things go down. Even within psychology, there is a premise that is biased toward improvement, always getting better, rising above troubles. We hold dear concepts like progress and integration. These are fine in and of themselves, but it is not how the psyche works. Psyche, we must remember, was shaped by and is rooted in the foundations of nature. As such, psyche also experiences times of decay and death, of stopping, regression, and being still. Much happens in these times that deepen the soul."
~Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow

I haven't had a lot of words to share here, since my mom's death. I've been taking time for my process. I'm learning that sometimes these seasons of descent last a lot longer than we'd like. I thought 2020 was my descent, but then it continued into 2021. And here we are in 2022, and it still continues. Deep, deep down we go.

I'm practicing letting go of timelines. Learning to honour the cycle of inner seasons. To tend to what arises in the liminality of descent. I'm not that good at it to be honest. I can vacilate between my collapsed child state and then my hyperfunctioning protectors. It's a challenging practice of tapping into my adult self with agency, capability and sovereignty. To hold these tender parts of me. The rage. The anxiety. The sadness. The fear. The shame.

To contain it all and ler it be expressed, rather than suppressed. And then to take action from Self, my inner wise one. Loss after loss has compounded at times and moved me out of my capacity. And then this is the hardest practice of all for me, not holding it alone. Being in community while the parts of me that have been exiled have surfaced. The unlovable parts. The shameful parts. It stretches my capacity.

Here we are again, but this time deeper. Deeper to the soul. Dancing with the grief. At first in tiny glimpses. And then as I practice sharing my inner environment with someone who's safe enough, more grief comes to the surface. And there's a sort of relief in that. Relief in that the movement means we're not stuck in what was feeling like depression. Relief, because I can feel my soul again.

And when I can feel my soul, there's more trust in the death and decay of this process. Because the soul can hold uncertainty. The soul rests in the questions. The soul can be with the unknown.

In his book, Francis Weller says we are left to interpret the times of descent as pathological, and can feel like we're failing because we live in a culture obsessed with the ascent. But what if the descent was a holy initiation to deeper being? To, as Weller states, the soul. What if we held reverance for the process of meeting our deepest pains and darkest shadows?

18/03/2022

A reminder from nature to let the thaw be slow.

02/12/2021

I find it interesting how many people offer solutions with steps, to so called problems that don't heal linearly. 5 steps to stop binge eating. 3 steps to overcome people pleasing. The 4 phase solution to kick self-doubt to the curb. 6 steps to heal from burnout. I get that we're taught to market in this way. To package the healing process into a product. And that our society wants quick fixes and certainty.

I was stuck in seeking that for quite some time too. And I'm not shaming people who market this way. Maybe it works for them and their clients. It's just not how my brain works. I see the spiral of layers. I see the individual process. I see the environment that also impacts healing. I see the "problems" as once being solutions. Solutions to attachment, safety, belonging.

I see the importance of relationship above any tool or 5 step process. I see the bypassing and false sense of healing or evolving. I see the ways in which we trick ourselves. The ways in which we can reinforce patterns and think we're healing. The ways in which our protectors adapt. The ways in which we turn healing into getting rid of parts of ourselves. How we further exile parts of ourselves. I see it because I still experience all of it in my own process.

Healing is a lifelong journey. Healed is not a destination we arrive at. This mentality is often rooted in the same physiology as the emotional wounds. In perfectionism and flight. An attempt to get away from pain and suffering. One of my teachers, Dr. Miles Neale taught us about there being 3 types of suffering in Buddhism.

Ordinary suffering understands that things are inevitably painful. This type of suffering includes birth, death, being parted from loved ones, old age, sickness, having to deal with unloved ones, etc. This type of suffering needs to be accepted. Then there's the suffering of change, also known as impermanence. This is a recognition that even the highs are replaced with lows and lapses, but there shouldn't be any naive holding on. This means that every hedonic moment of pleasure is eventually replaced by disappointment and a yearning for more. This is not about not having any pleasure, but more that we don't overindulge or suppress. We access our natural or innate joy versus the joy tied to seeking objects or positions.

With the suffering of change there's a recognition that pleasures are wonderful, but short lived and temporary. The practice here is one of savouring and letting go. The third type of suffering is known as the all pervasive suffering, which is embedded in the mindbody complex. Our default setting as human beings is predisposed to an unconscious propulsion of self-perpetuated suffering, our conditioning. This has also been called the suffering of existence. It's the actions we take to avoid the first two types of suffering, the habitual patterns we've developed to cope and deal with suffering, that create this 3rd type of suffering. This is where the work is. Is your healing journey trying to get rid of the first two types of suffering, or is it changing your relationship to them?

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