Overcoming Addiction to Finding Your Life’s Purpose with Robyn Cruze

Hope: [00:00:00] Do you want to wake up feeling like you are stepping into who you are meant to be? Into the best possible version of you? What if I told you that the key to your best life, health, and happiness are all around you? You just have to find what works for you. I’m Hope Pedraza, and I believe that there isn’t just one way to live a healthy and meaningful life.

And that all you need is a little inspiration to make changes that last from the inside out. Each week, I’ll be sharing tangible tips and inspirational interviews to help you on your journey. These are the steps to take to improve your life.This is Hopeful and Wholesome

Hey y’all, welcome back to Hopeful and Wholesome. Thanks for listening. Today I have on the show, Robin Cruz, Robin is an internationally recognized author. She published making peace with your plate, and she is also a keynote speaker. She is highly sought after, and she talks about in these keynotes speeches, she educates on the co occurrence of substance and eating disorders. And [00:01:00] she has what she calls the body conversation. It’s how to have a relationship with your body and the food you put in it and a lot of other mental health advocacy topics. And that’s exactly what we talk about today. We talk about your relationship with food, how her relationship with food really shaped her and her purpose in life and what she’s doing to use that to help other people.

She’s a consultant for eating recovery centers, and she has a lot to say about how our relationship with food affects everything regarding our mental health. This one is really insightful, y’all, and I hope y’all get a lot out of this episode. Y’all enjoy. All right, y’all, let’s get going. I’m so excited to bring on Robyn today.

We are talking about food and how to have a relationship with food and your body and the food that you put in it. All of those things related to mental health and how mental health relates to food. So, thank you so much for joining me today, Robyn. 

Robyn: Well, thank you for having me on. I’m excited. 

Hope: Yes, me too.

So, this topic is really hit home for me. I [00:02:00] grew up with a pretty bad relationship with food and struggled with that for years. And your book, Making Peace With Your Plate, was like, yes, like, this is me. Like, I don’t know how many times I’ve thought these things, I’ve told these things to myself, and I could relate to all of it.

So, I want to kind of use your story to lead into the topics that I wanted to talk about with you. So, can you talk a little bit about your journey with your eating disorder and then how you came to be the expert that you are today with substance and eating disorders and mental health advocacy? 

Robyn: Yeah, wow.

How long do we have? No, 

Hope: I know, right? As long as you want. 

Robyn: So, you know, I, first of all, let me just say, I struggled with an eating disorder from 11 through to 29, but really there, I like to call it like a combination lock that needs to be put in place and cracked in order for us to even be susceptible to an eating disorder.

You know, we have our personality temperaments. So for example, [00:03:00] I was a high achiever, a very sensitive soul. When I always felt when somebody had a problem, if they walked into the room, I could feel their energy and I wanted to fix it. Very, very sensitive and intuitive young child. Then I have my genes, you know, we have mental health ailments within our Family tree, right?

We have anxiety and people that struggled with addictive behaviors, so that, right? And then the environment. I happen to have a trauma. My mom was diagnosed with lupus when I was 11 years old, and her family doctor said that she needs to prepare her family for her possible death. Lupus was really rare back then, so I don’t want to scare anyone, but it was very, very rare when I was a child.

And they just didn’t have very much research or even how to best, uh, treat it. And so her kidneys were failing and, uh, she was dying and that, that being the [00:04:00] environment and the chaotic kind of family life. All of that came together and my combination was cracked, right? And so now as a little girl, I have all these really big emotions and all these really big fears and I stumble across food, you know, just outside.

I always say just outside the canteen, which is Our cafeteria in the United States, I sat opposite Corey Glanville, who tried to impress me by eating a fly, which is a true story. Oh my God, would it be so funny if he listened to this podcast? 

Hope: Right. 

Robyn: Anyway. And I always say that if food could talk, if it had a voice, it would have sounded like my mom who was.

This was loving, nurturing person who was my everything and it calmed me and it gave me, it gave me some quiet in a world that felt so noisy and painful. And so that was kind of my first. [00:05:00] Interaction with food and the behaviors. It’s not like I grew up and I thought I wanted to be thin and I wanted to be this.

Yes, that actually came later because our culture, which is part of our environment, is quite brutal. It really is. There’s nothing pleasant about the body ideal culture that we currently live in. It is make believe. Only 5 percent or less are naturally born. With that body ideal, I say in quotations, right?

So basically the rest of us are screwed, you know, and we, and then we have this kind of multi billion dollar diet industry that. Is invested in us feeling inadequate to the body, ideal culture. And so that does play a part of the environment. And because I, my first career was as a TV film and theater actress, I really bought into it.

And in fact, I, I would think that I was part of the problem at some point because I was [00:06:00] trying to, to be that. And, you know, there’s a dichotomy when you really believe that you need eating disorder behaviors to survive and to use it as medicine. And yet it is making you, those behaviors are making you less attractive in the body ideal culture and your career is tied up to it.

Right. And so it became the starve binge purge cycle, you know, from about 17 through 29. And. When I finally gave it up, it was during a pilot season in Los Angeles, I had done my master’s degree in Glasgow, Scotland. That’s a whole nother story. I kind of, my story is really about running away from myself and what happens when you actually stop running.

Right. But anyway, so I, I come over to LA and I’m desperate to give it another try. And I promised myself that once I hit American soil, [00:07:00] I will never again binge purge or starve. And that lasted probably 24 hours, if that, right. And, uh, so I remember being. Sitting on the bathroom floor after giving myself food poisoning.

From food that I bought to binge on from a dollar store, actually. It was out in Silver Lake, for all of those who know California, Southern California. And, um, I was so sick. You know, it didn’t matter. I would have made myself sick anyway, to be honest with you, because that’s kind of what the whole purpose of the binge was.

And that the ritual that kind of took me away from all my shame and pain and also it offered hope because I was going to start afresh after that binge. That was really kind of the catch 22 of the whole eating disorder. But anyway, I remember sitting there and just thinking, this is, I’m either going to die like this, or I’m going to find out what life is.

Outside [00:08:00] of the behaviors in the world that has been created by the dictation of eating disorder behaviors and my belief about what it is that I should be and should look like. And that really kind of catapulted my recovery process. And it was, it was a long process, but I, I started it and you know, and then I, a few years later, my mom did actually pass from lupus, but I was, I had those 20, you know, I spent years with her when she was meant to die.

So I felt like it was such a massive gift. But when she did pass. That sense of, like, the world is going to cave actually did cave. And so I did another kind of run from myself and left LA and my acting career and moved my family to Colorado. And I started to drink. And I want to be really clear here.

Part of my story is anxiety and OCD and I like to put labels on myself. And so because I felt like labels protected me from [00:09:00] myself, I don’t believe in labels anymore. And I do believe that there is a spectrum. I think we were talking about this beforehand, a spectrum of behavior that, you know, in our culture and in our treatment for many years, there’s been black and white.

You’re either sober or you’re not sober, right? So you’re either abstinence based or not. There’s a whole continuum of care within that, that many of us fail to be. So you kind of, many of us that may have been on the lower side of things, we didn’t really have much care. Many options, so we kind of jump in and, and kind of label ourselves as addicts, which I am very against these days.

Some of us do need to be abstinent from it. Some of us do not. Many of us fit into that kind of continuum, that gray area. But in any case, you know, when I was, when my mum passed, I was deeply and profoundly depressed. I had two toddlers. My husband was [00:10:00] constantly out of town and we did what we knew how and I went to treatment and I ended up going to an addiction treatment.

Which I struggled with but that’s fine, you know, that was part of my story and I there actually the bottom line is the clinical director there She was very happy with my debating and my auntie and kind of opened me up to that just kind of sitting with it And thinking I kind of just went well You know I’m gonna give up the use of alcohol for today for now because it actually helps me to In going deeper in my eating disorder recovery and dealing with the trauma that was really waiting for 20 years for my mom to pass, right?

And so I started writing in there and she made me promise her that when I left, I would continue to write. And so I did. And then the first edition of the book came and I thought, right, we’re done. I’m not going to ever speak [00:11:00] about eating disorders again because now I’ve been in recovery for 10 years when the book, first book came out.

I’m never going to speak about it again. But then the universe, I guess, had another plan. And here I am, for a living, being a mental health activist, speaking across the country and, uh, Being very active and just kind of sharing what I know for today, which changes by the way every day. 

Hope: Yeah, totally. I found it interesting in the book you talked about because I like how you talk about, you know, you don’t like putting labels on people, on things, but then you also talked about how The thoughts that we have about food, and you relate this to just addiction in general, that it, it doesn’t, it comes from a different part of our brain than the prefrontal cortex.

So, the prefrontal cortex is where we have logical thoughts, and so the thoughts that we have around like food or addiction, whatever, comes from a different part of the brain. So, can you explain why this is important and why this [00:12:00] is important to understand and how that helps people deal with these thought patterns?

Robyn: Gosh, I wish I could explain that but I believe that is Espera’s section of the book. 

Hope: Yes, yes, yes. 

Robyn: And I would be doing it a massive disservice to actually answer that. 

Hope: That’s a valid point. That’s a valid point. So how do the words good, bad, Healthy, unhealthy, how do those play a part in how we view food?

Robyn: Yeah, you know, as a culture, we use those words often. That food is good, that food is bad, that food is healthy for you, that food is unhealthy, that food is junk food, that food is clean food. The problem that we have is that we’re labeling food that really is just food. It doesn’t have the power to be anything.

It really is about how we relate to food. The problem that we have, especially those who are recovering from [00:13:00] eating disorders, is we form a relationship with those food and we give them more power than they are. There is a, and I wouldn’t call it a debate, but I would call them two valid arguments about food.

One is: Food is medicine. Now, I know that to be true. When my mom was diagnosed with lupus and she was sorting out ways to help herself recover from them or to go into remission, she knew that foods like tomatoes and potatoes Tomatoes, whatever you like to call it. My mom knew that nightshades when she ate them would inflame her body, inflame her joints and she would be in pain, right?

Just like winter would often do that to her. So she knew that when she was going to eat them, that was going to happen. So the truth about food being medicine is that that’s a [00:14:00] valid point, right? The other valid point is that when we Remove certain food groups or foods, right? That tends to make those susceptible to eating disorders, perpetuate that behavior.

So that’s also a valid point. So we have this issue, right? Well, I, a diet seems valid because we can put it up there for being healthy, right? Right. The problem is And this is not just for eating disorders, but I think for everybody in our culture, I think there’s two valid points. I think that food can be used optimally, right?

Like my mother used it, but I think that we start way up here and we try to kind of, we try to implement choices about food through the good and bad lens. [00:15:00] That I like a diet lens and we cannot sustain them because with every diet with every restriction there must be a balancing out and there will be a binge, right?

That’s how it is, right? If you restrict, you will overeat. That’s how it is. So, if we start down at the bottom, creating a relationship with our body and the food that we put in it, our body, because it’s so intelligent, because it actually is so intelligent that it can create another human being, right? So it’s really, it can tell us what is good or bad for our body, right? Not our culture imposing what is good or bad in our body or what is healthy, unhealthy for my body. Listen, I could probably eat sugar until the cows come home. Joe blogs over there may not be able to, right? So, My point is that I have to create a relationship with [00:16:00] my body and the food that I put in it in order to even consider what is optimum health, what is good or bad for my body, right?

I need to do that first. And if I want to do that, I have to remove every single thing that I think I knew about food and my body and be prepared to listen to it. And get, build a relationship with its signals. The problem that we have is that most of us, eating disordered or not, or struggling with eating disorders or not, have spent so many years ignoring our body’s signals that we need to create a structure in order for us to start to hear them. 

Hope: Does that make sense? Yeah, and do you think that’s ultimately the root of the problem? Is it more of like a self awareness thing with what’s going on in our bodies? Like, how do we tune into that more? 

Robyn: I think it absolutely is the problem. And again, I don’t think it’s just for disordered eating, but I think it’s for anybody.

I always think that the, kind of the food plan, if you like, and for want of a better [00:17:00] wording, for the book, I think it’s really for everyone. You know, I use it for my children. Right? Because I always say to my girls who are 12 and a half and nearly 14, listen, you are going to have so many messages from people that are well intended, right?

And magazines and social media, they’re going to tell you how to look, what to eat, what is good or bad. But if you focus on having a relationship with your body and listening to it, what it wants to eat. Eating when it’s hungry. Stopping when it’s full. You don’t have to listen to anybody else because you have all the tools within you.

Like that is the most prominent thing, but it’s hard to listen when there is so much noise out there and there’s so much. So much kind of like, you think about it, think about thigh gap, how ridiculous is that for women? 

Hope: I know. [00:18:00] 

Robyn: Like, it’s so, when you take a step back and you, you look at what we’re being bombarded with, what our kids are being bombarded with, it just seems so, so old.

Hope: Yeah. 

Robyn: We’re not males. 

Hope: Right. 

Robyn: We have hips, 

Hope: right? 

Robyn: We have thighs. 

Hope: Right. 

Robyn: Some women don’t. Does that make them better? No. It just means that they don’t have thighs and they don’t have hips. You know what I mean? My daughters are two very different looks. 

Hope: Yeah. 

Robyn: One of them is like me, more compact, hips, got the Maltese kind of heritage in there, a little opposite, little island opposite Sicily.

And my other one has their grandmothers. She’s a very different body type, which is, you know, legs for days and no matter, you know, her metabolism is much, much faster and she’s a very different body type. 

Hope: Yeah. 

Robyn: Yeah. You know, both of them are equal. 

Hope: Right. Right. I think that, and that was [00:19:00] actually something I had, I wanted to ask you about too was about, and it’s great that you have girls cause you can speak to this like from a personal perspective, But I know, I mean, for me, when I was growing up, I grew up as a dancer, so I was around the ballerinas and that was what you strive to be, right?

You wanted to be this. And I’m, I am naturally, I’m short and compact too. I’m small and condensed and petite and more athletically built. Like I’m, I’m not a super skinny person. And I struggle with that because I wanted to have the, you know, the ballerina body or whatever. So how do you, I mean, besides, I know you were saying that teaching them to tune into their bodies and to listen to signals.

But how do you change those thought patterns with these young girls when they are like you’re saying they are bombarded with I mean they’re inundated with social media and just media in general and Hearing all these things what they should be eating and shouldn’t and should look like and all that So, how do you change the thought patterns though that they’re what they should look like and should way or whatever How do you [00:20:00] change those?

Robyn: Well, I think there’s a couple of things, first of all, you teach them how to question the narrative. Yeah. What’s a narrative telling you? 

Hope: Right. 

Robyn: Like, what is that telling you? Does that mean that you have to stay in your place? Your job is to get outside the box. Right, because you’re not a cookie cutter person.

So how do we question what that person says? I remember my eldest daughter questioning what she heard on the radio one time when it was a join this club and lose such and such weight. Why would a doctor mom say that when they’re all shapes and sizes and what that seems to contradict what you say mom, you know, 

Hope: so intuitive 

Robyn: Yeah, and well, she didn’t say contradict, but she said that doesn’t that’s wrong, you know That’s not what you said mom Yeah, and Letting her know that yeah, that’s the example of people [00:21:00] imposing a product on you.

What do you think about that? What do you think what they say? You know, how does that fit in with your life? And then the other one was my youngest. I remember one night, we were still living in, uh, Denver. She was crying in her bed, I’m like, honey, what is wrong? And she said, such and such said that you must be really dumb at your job.

And I’m like, oh, honey, what? Oh my God, she said, yeah, I was eating the chocolate cake that you packed me for lunch. And her mom’s a nutritionist. 

Hope: Oh no. 

Robyn: And her mom said that I’m going to be fat the time I’m, you know, a teenager. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Wow. And I was like, wow, that sounds like a lot. Sounds like it hurt your feelings.

And she’s like, yeah. She said, are you [00:22:00] mad? And I said, no, sweetheart. And I just sat with it for a little bit and I said, you know, sometimes people can both be right. It’s just their messaging is wrong. 

Hope: Right. 

Robyn: It’s just that there’s both the world is gray that the world is made up of two thoughts and the truth is always somewhere in the middle and that’s why it’s so important for you to listen to your body and stop when you’re full.

You know, the hardest thing for me. Was thinking back to the young girl who said that and whenever she came over to our house She would call it a junk day. Mommy said that I could have a junk day and she would be up in my daughter’s room Inhaling, you know all the things that she was unable to have at her home Whereas those things can go Left in our cupboard for months, you know, it’s like candy has to be thrown away at our house after a couple of [00:23:00] years. Do you see what I’m saying?

So it really comes back to me What is our relationship with that food? And how does our behaviors reflect that? 

Hope: Right? 

Robyn: Let me just say one more point. It is Crucial in my belief. It is crucial for parents to To model healthy behavior with food, healthy being an open relationship with food. Right, and not black or white relationship and we get to model that by how we react to our food.

You know, I’m a generation X when my mom would make an amazing roast with Yorkshire pudding and meat and vegetables and mashed potatoes. After it, You could find her at the table holding her tummy and going, that was so delicious. I shouldn’t have eaten that. Right. What we say and what we [00:24:00] don’t say impacts our children.

So I always say, if you want to help your children, help yourself first. And then we get to model. 

Hope: Yeah, no, that’s very true. And I did like one, I think Espera talked about this, but then you talked about like, more like in your personal story. About how the lie that we tell ourselves that, you know, if we just have enough willpower we can lose the weight, But then the argument is that dieting will make you hungry and gain weight And so I think this speaks to what you were just saying before that restriction right restrictive diets is what causes you to binge. So, how, I know people have, like, a struggle with this, right, because they want to, you know, eat healthy or have a healthy diet or whatever, but then there is a fine line where if you’re cutting out entire food groups, like you were saying, like, you do end up binging because it’s too restrictive, so how do you balance that?

Robyn: Well, so, we know [00:25:00] that studies tell us that most people who diet I think it’s around 95 percent of them will put on weight more weight after they’re dieting. Let’s do a little exercise, right? Tell yourself tomorrow I’m going to go on a diet and I’m not going to eat sugar. I’m not going to eat carbohydrates.

What do you want to do? Go to the pantry and eat sugar, whatever’s left because you’re going to start tomorrow. Think about all of that food that If you didn’t, if you’d say, so for example, I have high cholesterol, right? So I have a very good relationship with my body. I know that eating a lot of dairy and red meat increases my cholesterol.

I know that because I’ve had blood tests and I’ve tried that, right? But if my body is craving a piece of pizza, I’m going to eat it. 

Hope: Mmhmm. 

Robyn: Right? 

Hope: [00:26:00] Right. 

Robyn: I don’t have a diet mentality towards it. So I’m not about to go and eat the whole pizza because I have to start fresh tomorrow. 

Hope: Right. 

Robyn: That pizza doesn’t have power.

It doesn’t have the ability to say that I’m more worthy or less worthy if I eat it or I’m Good or bad, if I eat it or don’t eat it, right? So, the hardest thing for people to understand, and I like to call it the body conversation, the hardest thing for people to understand, they think that it’s too hard, that if they listen to their body, they will eat the world, or they will, Put on such and such weight.

There’ll be the size of a house, right? So there’s this fear, which is great because now we’re stuck in the cage of what our culture says that we have to be stuck in. It’s a beautiful place. Now we’re going to invest in diets and diet books and self help things. That’s exactly where we’re meant to be, right?

As good women wanting to achieve, I say in, in air quotes, right? But the fact is our body, Having a relationship with our [00:27:00] body is the most powerful thing that we can do because when you Invest in yourself and relating to your body and listen to your body. It will have the perfect size For you and you will reach optimum health that you can sustain forever Because your body is intelligent.

It has its own mind, right? Right. It’s just that it’s we have to learn to listen to it and we think it just takes too much time I’m too scared and that keeps us in the loop of of dieting. 

Hope: Right. What do you find is the hardest thought pattern for people to give up because you y’all talked about a lot of them in the book of what goes on in your head and what do you think is the hardest one for people to give up?

Robyn: Gosh, I mean, I don’t know for people in general. I can tell you for me Mm hmm The one that keeps coming back to me that keeps tapping [00:28:00] me on the shoulder that I have to flick off is that somehow I’m less lovable. If my weight isn’t a certain in a certain range. 

Hope: So you’re stuck on the number. 

Robyn: Yes, I think so I think the number or maybe it is and I used to be probably clothing size But now the clothing size changes so much from one shop to the next it doesn’t really matter.

Yeah, it’s true. It’s very true But I think And let’s not be mistaken that just because somebody is in eating disorder recovery or fully recovered from an eating disorder doesn’t mean that they won’t be susceptible from the bombardment of messages that we must kind of have a cricket bat and just kind of bat away as they come to protect ourselves and our children, you know.

Hope: Right. So would you say that you still have like, oh, some of the same thought patterns do creep up? Like how do you fight those? 

Robyn: You know, I would, I would have, if you had asked me a couple of years [00:29:00] ago before the pandemic, Right? When I wasn’t sitting with myself as much, becoming very curious what I actually think about because I happened to be undergoing some anxiety treatment, which you have to become very aware of your thoughts.

I would have told you that I was fully recovered from an eating disorder and I really don’t have those thoughts, but actually I have those thoughts quite often. I just don’t react to them, like my behavior is not dictated by them, especially when I’m unable to move very much or, you know, I’ve hurt my back, so I’m unable to do the exercise that I like to do.

You have to really sit with yourself. And I notice that, especially as I age. I’ve started to go, well, you’re putting on weight. And then I’ll be like, wow, that’s an old belief. That’s not right. And yet I can feel that it hurts [00:30:00] a little bit. It stings a little bit still. I just know that if I want to see change in myself and I want to have a fuller life where I think.

And I used to say just as women, but it’s actually with men too, because their messaging is so brutal with men as well. If we want to really live our life fully, we have to shut down the lies of a culture. And the culture can only change if we change. 

Hope: That’s true. 

Robyn: And so that’s where my activism comes in.

Hope: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So we talked a little bit about this before we started, before we hopped on. But are there different levels to eating disorders. Cause you see people kind of in different stages, and I know like I talked to you a little bit about my story, and I didn’t like go to a treatment center or anything but it was just more of like a mental struggle for so long, so are there different levels, and then how do you seek treatment?

Whether it’s, you know, with yourself or profession, whatever, how do you deal with those different levels? [00:31:00] Like where you’re at? 

Robyn: Yeah, that’s a really good question. Again, I think it comes down to the culture. Dieting, again, multi billion dollar culture. We’re told that in order to be loved, acceptable and successful, our body needs to look a certain way.

And let me just say thank you to all the body positive 

Hope: Yeah. 

Robyn: People out there and activists out there. The great thing about social media, there is a downside to it, but there’s also a gazillion of body positive people and I honor them and I thank them. The continuum of eating disorders. There is, so we have the culture, right, where it perpetuates us dieting, but let’s be clear that an eating disorder is a mental health issue.

It means that our thoughts and our behavior is dictated by the eating disorder thoughts and beliefs. I like to think about eating disorders. Now, [00:32:00] like, okay, so I have a mild version of OCD, which includes when I panic, I’ll go into what they call intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts. Now, let’s be clear.

Everybody has thoughts that they don’t are weird and bizarre. They just don’t latch on to it. They like, they kind of go past you people with anxiety or struggling with intrusive thoughts. They grab those thoughts and they give them meaning. Right? I think Eating disorders are much like that. The eating disorder thoughts, we grab onto them and we give them meaning and they, when the more we give them meaning, the more they grow until they feel like their own persona, right?

Hope: They own you. 

Robyn: They own you. And so you become dictated by it. There is a little quiz that I’m going to find for your listeners called the scoff questionnaire This is a SCOF questionnaire and it says that two or more yeses to five of these questions [00:33:00] provides 100 percent sensitivity. For anorexia and bulimia for your patients.

So here’s what they are. Do you make yourself sick because you feel uncomfortably full? Do you worry that you have lost control over how much you eat? Have you recently lost more than one stone, which is 14 pounds in a three month period? Do you believe yourself to be fat when others say you are too thin?

Would you say that food dominates your life? And I would tell you that that last one, people with eating disorders are going to say, yes, yes. Oh my God. From the moment I wake up and open my eyes to the moment I go to sleep, I think about food, what I’ve eaten, what I haven’t eaten, if I’ve exercised, how I’m going to compensate for it.

What’s the next diet it’s going to be. It just is a narrow world. 

Hope: Yep, totally. 

Robyn: So I’m going to say [00:34:00] that, and I’ve forgotten what your question is now. Oh, treatment. 

Hope: Yeah. 

Robyn: And so the next part of your question is about treatment. Mm hmm. I would say that if you have two or more of those and you are feeling overwhelmed, with thoughts about eating disorders and feeling like you’re dictated by them.

I am going to say that you should do some investigation. You should get very curious about the life that is possible outside of that very narrow living. I can speak to a couple of resources for your listeners. The National Eating Disorder Association is a great free resource that you can go to It will give you help certified eating disorder specialists and registered dietitians in your location.

It will give you free support options. It will give you therapist options. All of those that you will [00:35:00] have that are available to you, you’ll have, they’ll give you online support groups. I think that’s wonderful. Obviously, I think our book is wonderful. If you can work with a lot of therapists will work with their clients with our book.

The other option, I would say, especially right now in a pandemic where there is going to be massive flare ups of eating disorder behavior because the world is uncertain and it is overwhelming. And many of us with eating disorder behaviors, uh, find that we medicate from it because of the lack of control opposed to body and weight, you know, it could be both, you know, but ultimately it’s about controlling.

And if you are struggling, I can recommend, because I work for them, so full disclosure, is Eating Recovery Center that now have virtual online care. I’ll give you that resource for your members. You can, they’ve been doing virtual care for over three years, so it’s not something they’ve stuck together. But.

You [00:36:00] can go to them and they can give you a ton of therapy. You can have the therapy in your living room. Those that are very medical complicated issues will, I imagine, still need to go to a treatment facility. ERCs, eating recovery centers, uh, treatments are still open for those very ill, the people struggling that are, you know, have medical complications.

So these are the two top resources that I would recommend to you. I will say that, you know, don’t try to recover by yourself. No one does anything alone. No one achieves success alone. No one gets well. On their own we would never say to a cancer patient now stay in your home by yourself isolate and think your way out of it You know, 

Hope: it’s true.

Yeah, 

Robyn: you know mental health is health. It’s as equivalent as physical health We need that care. And so I would say [00:37:00] Please seek it out. 

Hope: I want to talk a little bit before we finish about kind of your purpose now and that you’re kind of an advocate for mental health and you deal with eating disorders and substance abuse, right?

Robyn: Substance use disorder. Yeah. 

Hope: Yeah. Yeah. So can you just talk a little bit about that? Cause we, in this, in this podcast, we talk a lot about purpose and kind of where you find your purpose. So what is your purpose now? What inspires you? 

Robyn: Oh, you know, it’s interesting that you asked that question because I’m really in a life changing kind of place.

My husband and I packed up our children over a year ago and we converted a school bus and we traveled around the country. It was amazing as mental health activists and we spoke a lot about how we could end stigma surrounding mental health and addiction. That really is my passion. I am right in the middle of really, [00:38:00] you know, we spoke a lot about the continuum, the kind of the spectrum.

I’m really fascinated by this concept of how we relate to things opposed to labeling them. And that’s really isn’t my focus right now. I’m in the middle of writing my second book. That’s going to be a lot about anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder that I’m really invested in. But I, you know, my old life was as an actress and my new life is as an activist and I love This concept of looking outside of the box of anything that we do outside of the box of what people say Addiction treatment is outside of the box and what people say about how we have to look or what who we are at certain ages and outside of the box and what it means to play and Live a life fully and I’m really interested in how do I put all that together?

Because you know My purpose is probably the same as a little girl on [00:39:00] the railway track of wild New South Wales, Australia who wanted to be witness and to share her words with people. So how do I at 46 years old align myself? You know, I certainly don’t align myself if I label myself and I’m stuck in eating disorder behaviors or addictive behaviors.

So how do I align myself to my truth? Well, it means I have a relationship to it. And that’s really what I’m interested in. That’s really what I talk about. How do I relate with the most important thing in my life, which is myself? Because I’m not alone. I can’t give anything if I’m not true to myself. Does that make sense?

I know it’s a lit. 

Hope: No, it’s, it does. It totally does. And that, that leads me to my last question. I like to ask the same question at the end. And what do you think is the most important thing someone can do to live with purpose? 

Robyn: Be honest with yourself. It doesn’t matter what you say out there, have a dialogue with yourself [00:40:00] and witness yourself.

And when you witness yourself, your purpose will come through with just. It will start nagging at you and hitting you on the head until you listen to it. And that’s exactly what happened to me because our purpose is there for a reason. So listen, listen to it, just be willing, get curious, be gentle. 

Hope: Yeah.

Great. Thank you so much, Robin. I am excited to put all of these links to help everyone who is listening, who has struggled with this, is struggling, or knows someone struggling with mental illness, I think, in general. I think it relates to kind of the broad spectrum, right? So I’m really excited to share all of this.

You’ve got some great links. Insight and thank you so much for sharing. 

Robyn: You’re welcome. Thank you for having me. It was fun. I hope it wasn’t too everywhere. 

Hope: No, it was perfect. I think it covered the gamut. So yeah, it was awesome Thanks for listening to hopeful and wholesome y’all if you found value in this week’s episode Please subscribe on iTunes wherever you get your podcast [00:41:00] and leave review to let me know what you thought I love to know what you find useful in these episodes So I know how I can provide the most value I can to my listeners And if you have topics that you want to know more about I’d love to hear those as well.

So shoot me a message on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn. It’s at the Hope Pedraza or visit my website, hopefulandwholesome. com. Thanks y’all.