If you self soothe with food or sugar to care for overwhelm, trauma, or loss, and you want to care for your needs in more nourishing ways, we can help.
We weave together the worlds of relational neuroscience, soulful exploration, and presence to soften self blame, criticism, and shame so that you can soften overeating, deepen self trust, and love, connect and give freely.
We don’t offer nutritional guidance about what to eat, as there are others who offer this good work. Our offerings help you change how you relate to the overeating – what disentangles painful habits, softens separation and nurtures new life. Learn about our approach here.
How to work with us
There are two ways you can work with us: by joining our ongoing membership community or by taking a home study course.
The difference between the two is the level of support. Home study courses don’t include the interactivity and support that is woven into the community – webinars, a place to ask questions, group cohorts for classes, and a place to connect with others.
Our offerings are hosted on the Growing Humankindness Mighty Network, a safe, private, ad free space where you have unlimited online access.
The primary way we offer support is the Growing Humankindness membership community. The community is filled with generous, kind, soulful women (and sometimes a few men) who want to gently heal their relationship with food.
The community includes:
- a forum to connect with others
- Listening Partners for regular emotional support
- webinars where you can ask questions
- group cohort classes – a structured, economical way to go through our courses
- and a warm container to help ‘hold you’ as you heal
Learn more about the membership community here.
Home study courses
If you’re not wanting a community or needing the structure of a group, you can take a home study course. Our home study courses are available at any time and offer support for key areas of struggle.
Align: Heal the Battle with Your Inner Rebel
Align is for you if you reactively push against help and support and get stuck in feelings of resistance – “No, you can’t make me!” – when you try to make positive changes with food and other areas of your life.
In this course, you’ll learn how to soften the inner conflict between the part of you that wants to change and the part of you that pushes back. Defusing this conflict will help you follow through on the changes you want to make, set healthy limits, and express a greater sense of power and agency in your life.
Emerge – Create a New Habit
If you overuse sugar for stress relief, to care for your emotions, or to self regulate, this course will help you change your eating habits with gentleness and insight. You’ll receive daily emotional support and learn how to apply self compassion to the process of habit change, so you can create more nourishing self talk and build resilience, that internal sense of, “I trust myself to move through this.”
This course is our most popular and has been taken by thousands from around the world since 2012. *Note – this course used to be called The 30 Day Lift. It was renamed and revised in 2019 as Emerge: Create a New Habit.
When Food Is Your Mother
We tend to think of overeating or binge eating as a ‘bad habit.’ But relational neuroscience has helped us understand that our addictions – including food addictions – are emotional bonds – places of safety, warmth and ‘holding’ that we turn to when we’re overwhelmed by pain, alarm, or distress.
In moments of overwhelm, this emotional bond with food – and the needs that drive it – can override other needs, such as a need for health or nurturing limits. In When Food is Your Mother, you’ll learn more about this new understanding of addiction and ways you can nurture the healing process.
Individual support and companioning
I often get questions if I work with people 1 on 1. I offer individual support for people working through a course or members of the Growing Humankindness community who want additional 1 on 1 support and care. This extra support can make all the difference!
Where do I begin?
If more than one course applies to you, we recommend starting with Emerge, then taking When Food is Your Mother, and then taking Align.
And if you’re wanting ongoing support, an immersive experience, and need structure to make progress, the membership community is the best fit for you.
How long does it take to heal?
One of the most common questions we hear is, How long does it take to heal?
It’s a good question – and one that tends to arise when we’re feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, or at our wit’s end. We long for relief, and to know that healing is possible.
While each person’s journey is unique – filled with its own timing, heart, and wisdom – we’ve found it takes 2-4 years to nurture and support the healing process that softens protectors like food. It’s a developmental process, and it needs patience, support, gentleness, and time.
This is the primary reason for our membership community: we respect the time it takes to heal and the wisdom of the healing process.
During this window, several important things are happening. You’re supporting your body, nervous system, heart and mind in:
- feeling safe, the foundational need for healing
- softening self attack, perfectionism, shame and self blame
- cultivating the compassion, patience, and curiosity that supports healing
- moving out of isolation and into connection with others
- pruning out what doesn’t work
- grieving the losses that live underneath overeating
- and strengthening your capacity to be with discomfort and feel uncomfortable emotions
Closing blessing
We respect your time, money, energy, and dreams of healing, and we want you to get the support you need.
If you have any questions, please reach out. We’re here to help, whether you choose our services or another’s.
Please go here to read our refund policy, privacy policy, terms and conditions, and more. We welcome all feedback and questions.
We bow our hearts, bend our knees, and tune our ears to the beauty in your journey, to the longings in your heart, and to the mercy that holds us. As many have said, “the work of one is the work of all.” Your desire to ease your suffering eases the suffering of all of us. For that, we thank you.
With warmth and sincerity, Karly and the Growing Humankindness team