Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the show. Got an important and good show for you.

Basically talking about holiday times. I come in. We're going to be talking a lot about holiday-based

mental health stuff because if there's ever a phase of the calendar year that really generates a lot of

discomfort and mental health triggers and whatnot and trauma responses, y'all, we are in that phase.

So we're going to talk essentially, as always, I use different entry points on a topic,

but it's applicable well outside of that.

So even though we're going to really enter, how do we manage our relationship with food and our bodies and eating disorders

and body positivity during holiday time with friends and family, you can take out the word food and eating and put in drugs and alcohol.

Your singledom that maybe family members are problematically bringing up and wanting to talk about why you and your partner aren't having kids.

Maybe it's your trans identity or your queer identity. You plug in whatever word you want, but we're going to be

using the entry point of working with our relationship to disordered eating and food. Why? Because,

well, that's an important part of holiday time is food, which is why I want us all to give ourselves

a break and just eat the foods we want to eat. There are no good foods or bad foods. It's just

food. It is part of

culture. It's part of celebration. It's part of time with others. It is the way we celebrate a good

day. It's the way we sometimes cope with a bad day. Yes, you're allowed to use food to cope

with your feelings. Yes, you're allowed to eat your feelings. Sometimes the best thing I need, or the most more thing I need on a rough day, some ice cream. It puts a smile on my face. It gives me a little joy. I am worth that. I deserve that.

And then I don't have to punish myself for having eaten that by starving myself, counting calories

or going to the gym. No, we don't punish ourselves for food. So again, you can take out the words

disordered eating and body positivity and weave in whatever you want,

but I'm using the food example because fortunately,

far too many of us can identify with having a disordered relationship with food or our bodies.

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