Speaker 2 (00:00.28)
So hello everyone. I’m really, really excited to be here again today with the next episode in my mini series of asking questions to a wonderful selection of people from the recovery community. And I’m super excited to introduce today’s guest, which is Victoria. So first of all, I would absolutely love to sort of put it over to you to offer you an opportunity to introduce yourself to my audience.

Thank you, Emily. Thank you for having me and hello, Emily’s audience. You may or may not me. You may or may not know me. I’m Victoria Klinsman. My title, if you like, is a food freedom and body love coach. And I help women and men, actually mainly women though, recover from any kind of eating disorder, any kind of body image struggle, fall back in love with themselves, be confident as fuck. And that’s because I’ve had my own journey for 20 years being in eating disorders, different eating disorders.

which primarily always stems from restriction. And now I’m completely free and healed and happy and overflowing with love to give to other people. So that’s me in a nutshell, if you like.

Honestly, I feel like from the time that I’ve had the joy of kind of actually getting to speak with you directly, the word that really does shine out from you is love. I think it’s a really wonderful thing. And I know when I was a guest on your podcast a couple of weeks ago, actually, that was something that I really took away from our time together. So I do absolutely recommend that anyone who is interested in the kind of things you’ve just spoken about to go and kind of check out all of the wonderful stuff that you are sharing.

For today though, we’ve got the three questions and if you’re ready, I would absolutely love to sort of dive into that first one.

Speaker 1 (01:44.864)
Let’s do it and I’ve got notes so if you see me look to the side that’s why but it’s to keep me off on tangents that I like to go on.

So that’s absolutely perfect. So the first question is, what are the three most important things that you learned or did in your recovery journey?

Well, I actually, if it’s okay with you, Emily, would like to read word for word what I wrote down on my one of my pinned Instagram posts. I think it just lands really powerfully.

Yeah, absolutely. I’d love that.

Okay, so number one was when I truly realized that nobody was going to save me. There was no man on a white horse. There was no fairy godmother. There was however, me, myself and I, and mentors and coaches who could guide me to this journey to freedom. And the realization felt very lonely at first and then scary and then something shifted, which brings me on to number two. Second thing.

Speaker 1 (02:43.424)
Number two was when I realized that I and only I had the power to change. And I actually wasn’t who I thought I was. Now bear with me. This is a little bit long, but I think it’s worth sharing everything I want to share. And number two, I had the power to heal. It was me all along. Only I could validate myself. Only I could know that I was enough. Nobody else could do it for me. That hole within me could never be filled from the outside.

no matter how much I tried and got, tried, I realized that my belief in limitation was the only thing that was keeping me limited. So when I felt that limitless power within me, call it universe, call it a higher power, call it self belief, whatever it is, I knew that I wasn’t my body. I had a body. I knew that I wasn’t my eating disorder. My brain was just wired with an eating disorder.

I wasn’t my feelings, I just had an experienced feelings. So I also realized that I was the thinker of my thoughts, I was not my thoughts, no matter how true they felt. So with that distance, I was able to feel into my own power, which leads me on to number three, which is action.

I could then take the action because nothing happens without action, right? We can, you said it before in the podcast we did, Emily, we can talk about recovery, we can read about it. We can listen to every podcast and book in the world. But unless we’re taking the consistent action, we stay stuck and nothing changes. those three things, realizing no one was going to save me, nobody, no matter how much someone wanted to. Number two, realizing that I had the power to change.

and understanding part of number two that I actually wasn’t who I thought I was. I didn’t have an eating disorder. My brain was just wired with one. And number three, consistent action.

Speaker 2 (04:45.414)
my goodness, so much wisdom there. was like such a fast speed, high speed drive through so much wisdom relating to recovery. And absolutely that point of no one’s coming is such a powerful, it’s kind of a scary thing. There’s a lot of responsibility that comes with that awareness, but the reality is on the other side of that responsibility is opportunity. And actually that amazing thing where it’s like, well, no, no one’s coming, but like you then went on to say to…

you have the power, you hold that power and it’s there within you, ready, ready to be released, ready to be taken action with. And of course, as that point is taking action, you know, I know that we very much the same hymn sheet on the of doing. And like you said that, yes, you can watch, you can listen and there’s value in that. Yes. Going to change without making that change happen through action.

Exactly. And one thing to add to that is, I realised the fear couldn’t hurt me, but the eating disorder could. So fear feels so real. But actually, when you face the fear, it’s a lot less painful than resisting and fighting the fear and running away from the fear.

Yes, completely. that recognition that actually on the other side of that isn’t all of the smoke and mirrors that that fear creates actually freedom and space and connection and love and all of these wonderful things. So thank you so much. Question number two is if you had to pick one sort of recovery related topic to do a passion project on, what would it be and what are the kind of

key or most important things that you would want people to know or hear about that topic.

Speaker 1 (06:30.318)
For me, it would be why the eating disorder was created in the first place. I think it’s really important to understand why. We don’t need to know exactly why, but it can be helpful to dive into our childhood. And then from that understanding, we can be like, right, well, how did the eating disorder serve us? And how might it be serving us still? My work as well is to really dive into like where it’s from, how it served us, how it’s serving us now.

And then of course, go into the deeper work of like what all that means. It’s usually linked to body image issues, which then it is a deeper reason for lack of self acceptance. So ultimately, my opinion, like true recovery and freedom is fully loving and accepting your true, authentic, real and raw self in all ways, including your body size, including your appetite.

So for me, there’s so many layers to it, of course, Emily, but it’s through the roots, not just the behavior and the new that the rewiring your and gaining weight and new, I can never say this word nutritionally rehabilitation is more than just that for me. It’s really

interesting actually to bring this into this space because I think often and I think there’s a big place for it there is that real focus on the nutritional rehabilitation and the neuro rewiring and I certainly advocate very strongly that those are fundamental but of course everyone’s journey is unique and of course the thing that has gone on to contribute to an energy deficit showing up in the first place that can look different for different people so it’s really it’s really lovely to hear actually you kind of

exploring that in more depth and really bringing that into the work that you’re doing to support people to heal because coaching is in the now and it is focused on what can you do and of course a lot of that does centre on neural rewiring and nutrition facilitation but there is a value of making space for what may

Speaker 2 (08:33.708)
gone on before that has contributed and played a role in that energy deficit establishing. So it’s really good. And I feel that mirrors actually my, my respect and admiration for therapeutic work as well. I sometimes in this space, therapeutic work can really be sort of not looked down on, sort of sides. But actually I think that this is where I feel therapists and coaches can work so gloriously together. And it’s really lovely to hear you incorporating that work.

into your coaching practice.

Yeah, thank you, Emily. I’ve had to because I think as coaches, not speaking for everyone, but speaking for myself, we coach through personal experience. So for me, because I had to delve deeper into all the stuff underneath, that’s how I recovered. That’s how I coach. And, you know, like you said, some people say, I don’t want to see a therapist. I don’t want to be in the past. I want to move forward. That’s where I bring everything together. So it’s both and I think we need an understanding and especially why it’s serving you in this moment.

and then dealing with the fears that come up as to why, if you let this eating disorder go, why would that not be okay? So it’s everything. It’s just a combination of the deeper stuff for me, because that’s for me, where my true self acceptance and self love and just allowing myself to fully express who I am. And that contributed to full recovery also from the eating disorder.

No, I I absolutely love that and I know on a very personal level I resonate with this because I was aware particularly in the part of my recovery journey where I kind of got out of quasi I’m fully recovered I was aware that when I started exploring things on a deeper level and I made space for the fact that there were things that I’d experienced growing up or things that had kind of played a role in the initiation or the beginning of that energy deficit occurring I felt

Speaker 2 (10:26.158)
sort of threat and destabilization of all this amazing stuff I’d read about nutritional rehabilitation, neural rewiring. And I think I felt this sense of threat, like if this is true, maybe actually it isn’t about eating without restriction. Maybe it isn’t about opposite actions. And actually, I think it’s a really powerful thing to make space for the fact that the need to nutritionally rehabilitate stands strong, the need to do opposite actions and that neural rewiring work that stands.

also be valuable to make space for that healing on a deeper holistic level and make space for acknowledging where that energy deficit started, what was going on, what your body and yourself’s whole story and journey is, so you can kind of make peace with things that you can work through things and then yeah make that sort of full and complete journey to recovery.

everything together, like you say, everything is so important, we need to hit a holistic way of recovering, not just the actions, which is the most important, but the stuff underneath. But that’s when I say that no one then will relapse. Because if you if you think of a tree, you pluck the leaves off, they’ll grow back, you like tear some branches off, they’ll grow back eventually, if you pull the actual roots out, it won’t grow back. So for lifelong recovery, and again, this is just my experience.

The behavioural stuff is really important. can’t recover just in therapy, in my opinion, but it’s together.

Love that, thank you. And it’s really lovely to have this kind of conversation. This is exactly what I wanted this mini series to be about because it’s so lovely to hear different people’s perspectives and the angles that you’re working on. I love this kind of conversation. Thank you. So the third and final question is, what is being recovered like? And was the fight worth the freedom? Or as I also like to say, it was the juice worth the squeeze.

Speaker 1 (12:08.686)
You too, Emily. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (12:24.366)
Ooh, I like that. I’ve got a few things to say on the word fight, but first I’m going to share with you what recovery feels like to me. And I wrote some words down, enlightening, relieving, almost like, the pressure’s gone from trying to be fucking perfect all the time. So that was a big one for me, feeling relieved, free, empowered, self-expressed, safe within myself, which I think is really important, confident.

to be who I am in all ways. It’s about way more than just being able to eat freely, so much more. And in terms of fighting, for me, I’m a fighter naturally, and many of us listening to this mostly are. And I realized that I’d been fighting with myself my entire life. And even though I was a fighter and I had a lot of will,

And I was fighting in recovery. That was no longer serving me. So actually I swapped fighting with surrender, complete surrender to, to letting go of control. That worked for me. So I could fight. Yeah. Cause I’m a fighter, but it was exhausting. So when I had an eating disorder thought, when I was like trying to fight and push through for what I wanted, I would just drop it all and surrender to letting go of control and then connect to the true me.

which then was a recovered action. So for me, actually, it wasn’t fighting because I imagine like two of me with a tug of war, like I was pulling against myself and I had this dream one time where I dropped the rope. So therefore there’s nothing for that other part of me to put to pull against. And I walked up to the other part of me and just hooked her and said, we’re in this together. Let’s let’s like, let’s do a peace march instead of like fighting.

recovery. So that’s what I would like to add and that works for me but there’s a lot of effort involved of course.

Speaker 2 (14:18.862)
Yes, you know what, I really, really love that. I really love that. And I think that, of course, that word fight, it resonates with people in different ways and the journey is a unique one. But I really love that perspective on shifting the lens to look at that through that surrender, that making peace, that letting go basically of the restriction, control, the disorder. know, I really, really love that.

Thank you. It’s just a different energy. You know, we’re fighters and that only got me so far. And it can be very powerful and very supportive of recovery. I’m not saying it’s not at the beginning. It was my anger and will to recover that got me so far. And halfway through I was like, what if I just like let go and surrender to all control and just allowed myself to be my authentic me in all ways, including my body, whatever body size I want, like my body wanted to be. And that’s what’s created such a

a feeling of peace and freedom in my life because I can’t control shit and that’s great. I’m so happy I can’t control shit. It’s exhausting trying to control everything, even trying to control recovery. It’s exhausting. Just give up control, let go.

Yes, you know what, and I can feel it in myself as we’re having this conversation now because I feel I still hold those kind of visceral memories of the journey. And I think the work that keeps it alive in a way that if I didn’t coach, it would probably be fading away into the distance more. But I have memories of that place, of the battle that it can feel like and the fight of recovery. And it can be and it does at times feel like that. But actually, I think there’s a really powerful

shift to be had in paying attention to the ways in which actually it’s about putting the fight down and really just leaning into the wisdom that your core self and your body already knows. And I know that I’ve spoken a few times on this channel about feeling like in ways actually recovery was this sigh of relief. And actually when I made space for it, there was so much about the recovery process, the doing of recovery that was gloriously enjoyable.

Speaker 2 (16:31.362)
You know, resting when your body is exhausted is of course glorious. It is a lot of peace to be had in the doing of that. And this isn’t to discredit the challenge of that and the tussle that’s gone within. But absolutely, you I felt this sense of almost a sigh of relief from my body and myself. Yes.

You know, I really, really love that you’ve brought that here because as I said, I kind of made it like I was saying to you before we start recording, I made these questions as a collection of my own kind of thoughts and then suggestions from the community. And I’m really excited to hear people’s thoughts on that, the concept of fight.

Yes, and then the question then becomes, how do you surrender? And it’s like, I have to laugh at that question, because it’s like, surrender, it’s an experience, it’s not something you can really explain in words. You have to have that experience. I read many books which didn’t answer, but it did help. There’s a great book called The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer. He’s the author of The Untethered Soul. There’s also a book called The Art of Surrender, The Wisdom of St. Francis.

Those things led me to be able to physically, emotionally, spiritually, let go and just be okay with whatever is right now. guess it’s deeper spirit. I guess it does sound like deeper spiritual work. It doesn’t have to, but surrender is a state of being that comes after radical acceptance. Acceptance is like the mindset, the choice to stop fighting what is.

and surrenders the state of being that is available to you when you’ve accepted, is what it is, this is the way it is. I can have feelings about it. I can not like it. I can fight it. I can resist it. Or I can just almost like give up, which feels horrible when you’re overachiever and a perfectionist, because it’s like the worst thing ever. But giving up for me and letting go was the best thing I ever did for myself. And that’s where surrender’s born.

Speaker 1 (18:35.074)
And it’s a practice. And when you feel it one time, my God, there’s no going back. Then you can get to choose and live that over and over again. And that was what skyrocketed my recovery and body image and everything.

It’s really, really wonderful to look at it through that lens.

Thank you, Emily. And may I share one more sentence from that? She is from my website that I want to speak to the listeners with Came to me when I was prepping so I would like to say to everyone listening and watching Because Emily’s question the last one was like is it worth it? Like it’s thousand percent worth it if I could offer you a taste Pun intended of what it’s like to live in complete food freedom and body love

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (19:19.594)
Any doubts in your mind about starting recovery would vanish. Full recovery from eating disorders goes far beyond what you might imagine. It brings mental relaxation and a shift in perception that transforms your world from a place of anxiety to one of bliss. And I feel like emotional like reading that because I know you know what it feels like to be living in that hell of anxiety.

And if you could just have one taste for one second of what food, freedom and body love feels like, you would without a doubt go on that peace march and do all the actions into recovery. So I hope that me sharing this has really inspired someone and gave them so much hope. Yes, the work needs to be done, but it’s so worth it. Like I’ve not met a single person who’s recovered who regrets recovery, not one.

No, exactly. And I think there’s this glorious thing that, you know, life, life is life. Life has ups and it’s downs and it’s peaks and it’s troughs, rough patches and it’s overwhelmed and it’s uncertainty. It has all of that. But navigating that from a place of love and acceptance and freedom versus that place, the eating sort of navigating that without disorder is infinitely better, easier, simpler.

than doing it with an eating disorder in tow.

And even when when you’ve learned how to surrender in recovery, all the life stuff, that doesn’t matter either. Like it’s like hard to describe, but this deeper, deeper work, spiritual work, whatever you want to call it. Even when life happens and we have emotions and we have feelings about it because we’re human, there’s just a consistent underlying foundation of peace and love of what is.

Speaker 2 (21:12.302)
I feel like recovery has offered me that almost teleported me to that place in my life where I actually I’m just like, it’s okay, I don’t know. And I feel personally like just embarking at the beginning of my 30s and I feel that sense of solidity of this is who I am, this is where I’m at and this is okay and there’s loads of uncertainty and there’s lots of ups and downs and there’s lots of things we can’t control and that is okay.

Isn’t it amazing to be in that place and to understand and to know that the only certain thing in life is uncertainty? Yes. Yeah. You really grasp that and more so embrace that and welcome that. You sorted recovery was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. I’m not going to lie, even harder than leaving the abusive relationship and being physically harmed every day.

Yes.

Speaker 1 (22:07.5)
Recovery was harder, but it’s so worth it. So worth it. Anyone who is considering taking that leap, just fucking leap.

Yes, that, And I want to thank you as well for being so real and so raw and so open here, because I feel like it’s just been the most wonderful, wonderful conversation. I’m already very excited to share this. So thank you so much.

You are so welcome. hope it’s helpful and reach out to me. Anyone has any questions about what I’ve said? Me and Emily, think we’re to be doing things together in the future. Like we’re just so vibing. Just speaking for both of us right now, if that’s okay, Emily.

Speak away, speak away. Thank you for having me. No problem, no problem at all. say, I know that it was just when I was on your podcast, we realized that geographically we’re actually not in Netherlands, we are a little bit because you’re in the Netherlands, but when you’re back in the UK, geographically, we’re not too far away. So we’re going to enjoy a dog walk and go have some lunch together, which will be, and we can talk passionate recovery and then all the other stuff as well.

Have a good one.

Speaker 1 (23:14.648)
Can’t wait for that day. It’s gonna come. Thank you so much, Emily. And thank you to your listeners as well.

Yes, thank you. Marvellous.