“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau

Here at Growing Humankindness I humbly offer refuge for those who self soothe with sugar or food and who want warm, compassionate support to let go. 

I weave together the worlds of relational neuroscience, self compassion, and presence so you can gently soften overeating, loosen your bond with food, and heal the shame you feel about your struggles.

There’s a deeper story that lives underneath the surface story of your food struggles, and this story is both more true and more merciful. Together, we sing this story into being.

The suffering of separation

When we experience pain, trauma, and loss, and we don’t have the support and warmth to process our fear and pain, our nervous systems move in to protect us.

These protections, rooted in goodness, become the ‘not beautiful’ coping strategies – the overeating, addictions, defenses, compulsions, and obsessions – that fill us with shame and suffering. 

These protectors safeguard our functioning. They’re based in wise instincts to preserve our functioning, guard our safety, and keep our connections with others. For this may they be praised.

Feeling stuck in protectors

But our protectors carry a high cost and bring their own suffering. We feel ashamed of the ways we eat to cope with our pain. And we often blame ourselves, telling ourselves “it’s all my fault.” The implicit, underlying belief – the story that lives in our bodies – whispers, “There’s something’s wrong with me.”

It can be complex and confusing – how food is a place of both comfort and pain, how we long for food and loathe it at the same time. Overeating becomes something we fear, and we fight to heal and overcome it.  

This ‘overeating self’ can take over our whole identity, and rupture our sense of ourselves.

Listening for the deeper story

Trauma rearranges our sense of self – how we see ourselves, how we see life, and who we think we are. It’s incredibly painful, lonely and disorienting. But underneath the surface story of the trauma there’s a deeper story, and this story is both more true and more merciful.

Your deeper story – gently, and persistently – invites you to look again at what you may label as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ about yourself and offers a more radical perspective.

Your deeper story knows that this place where you’re struggling is holy – a womb, a place of birth. As Rumi says, ‘It’s where the light enters you.’

How Growing Humankindness began

I’m Karly Randolph Pitman, the founder and steward of this sacred space. 

I struggled with eating disorders for decades, from my teens into my forties. Depression and anxiety have been other companions on my journey.

I’m also a seeker, and a typical sensitive person. The intertwining of these realities – my conscientiousness and my struggles – never seemed to fit. I couldn’t understand why I struggled so much to feel safe and whole. And when I found myself caring for years of mental and physical health problems, I felt ashamed – and wanted to fix it.

I consumed spirituality, psychology, and self help, trying to find the ‘right’ teachings to help me ‘overcome my struggles.’ I tried so hard!

While many of these teachings carry gifts and grace within them, and while they gave me helpful practices, I wanted these teachings to eradicate the shame I felt about my trauma.

Over the years, through many rounds of frustration, I began to feel the futility that my attempts to ‘fix’ myself – no matter how transcendent the means – didn’t work.

I remember the day when I felt a gentleness stir in my being:  what if my neediness is something that will never be filled? And what if it doesn’t need to be? What if I never receive the healing I think I need to be ‘whole?’

These questions can sound like ‘giving up’ or despair. But that January day I felt them as relief. I didn’t have to keep working so hard. The image I was working so hard to create – a ‘healed self” – shattered, and my body softened with a giant exhale. I came to rest.

Rather than getting rid of my pain, I slowly turned towards it. I grieved. Over time, as the shame softened, I began to see my trauma differently. I became more comfortable being ‘incomplete,’ in having both wounds and wonder, accepting both the shadow and the light within myself and others.

I found safety in the very place I didn’t think it existed: in holding the entirety of my life in my hands. 

I came to see that my most vulnerable struggles were the very place where the ‘unloved life’ within me longed to be heard, held, and cared for. I didn’t have to get rid of it. And I didn’t have to be scared of it, either.

What is Growing Humankindness?

One day, when I was trying to find the words for this path of healing, my husband said, “What about Growing Humankindness?” And so this work was born.

Since that time, I’ve had the honor to sit alongside many others, to receive their sacred stories with food. I’ve been awed by their stories of loss, courage, healing, and renewal. It is to them that this space is dedicated and to whom it belongs.

Growing Humankindness is fundamentally a change of heart – a new way of seeing and relating to our struggles. This change of perspective comes from the sacred heart of life, flowing through us into our relationship with food, ourselves, and with our wounds.

Here, I yearn to offer a fiercely loving space, a womb for growth. The hand over heart is a symbol of this mercy, of bowing the thinking mind to the knowing heart.

How I help

If you feel frustrated and stuck in food, and you want a compassionate way of softening these patterns, you’re in the right place. I offer a gentle path to soften self blame, self criticism, shame and self soothing with food, with support at your side. 

Overeating can soften, and here you’ll learn a relational, developmental approach to support this transformation.

Change how you see, and how you relate – rather than seeing your struggles as personal failures, we’ll help you embrace them as opportunities to deepen compassion: a call from the soul to grow into a full, rich human being.

Move from shame, isolation, and separation into relationship, community, and connection  – The isolation of addiction can be so painful! As we heal, we reconnect with ourselves, life, and others. It’s a radical surprise how our vulnerability can be a place of connection with others rather than a place of separation.

My approach is grounded in these key areas:

• Relational neuroscience, attachment theory and developmental psychology, especially the work of Dr. Gordon Neufeld
• Self compassion
• Soul work – images, stories, collage, poetry, journaling, and creative expression as doorways to insight, intimacy, and integration
• and presence – what helps us rest in love and deepen our connection within

I tend to attract gentle, sensitive, passionate souls to my doors – healers, doctors, nurses and doulas, therapists and coaches, mystics and ministers, parents and grandparents, meditators and spiritual seekers, teachers and artists, and poets and writers.

I work best with those who are comfortable with both meditation/contemplative practices and psychological tools and who want to embody compassion in their relationship with food.

Where to start

If you resonate with my approach and are curious to learn more, here’s where you can get a taste:

• Explore my free resources in the welcome room of my course library
• Read my When Food is Your Mother newsletter (look for the coming book!)
• Read the archive of past articles
• Sign up for the Sugar Addiction 101 course (it’s free)
• Sign up for the Binge Rescue Worksheet, a really helpful tool when you’re caught in cravings (it’s free)

Ready to move forward?

If you feel ready to move forward, you can work with me 1 on 1, take a home study course, or pair a home study course with 1 on 1 support. 

Here’s where you can learn more about my home study courses.

And here’s where you can learn more about my 1 on 1 work. I offer a free 30-40 minute zoom call for those who want to work with me 1 on 1 so you can see if we’re the right fit. You can see my calendar and sign up for one of these spots here.