How Embracing Rage Fuels Body Liberation and Heals Diet Trauma with Paula D. Atkinson

One underdiscussed aspect of a body image or food recovery adventure is the importance of rage. 

What can occur is that all the anger that might be felt about how you were treated in the past gets turned in on your body. Your body becomes the focus of all your rage rather than on a culture that ever taught you that your body should be different than it is. Your food behaviors become a way to express this anger when it doesn't feel like it has an outlet. 

Somatically, if your experience of rage is scary, overwhelming, and threatening, then it can also feel unsafe to feel and express rage. This is why I like to explore small, safe micro moments of feeling rage so that you get to slowly take it off of your body's appearance or express it with food. 

What this might look like is drawing rage, writing as if you were rage, putting on a song that taps you into rage and moving as rage would move for one song. This could look like throwing an egg against a tree or ripping a piece of paper. This is all about getting used to the felt sense of rage so that when you start to judge your body, you can feel the rage, express, move through it, and not blame your body for it. 

In this week's Satiated Podcast episode, I chat with Paula D. Atkinson, liberation psychotherapist, body justice professor and activist, author, and podcast host, about: 

• Trauma of diet culture
• Impact of starvation
• Embracing rage and how to use it as a tool for body liberation
• History of fatphobia
• The intersection between body image and social justice
• Importance of experiencing pleasure and joy

You can also read the transcript to this week’s episode here: https://www.stephaniemara.com/blog/how-embracing-rage-fuels-body-liberation

This was an incredibly powerful episode and I hope you enjoy it! 

With Compassion and Empathy, 

Stephanie Mara Fox

Keep in touch with Paula here: 

Website: https://www.pauladatkinson.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pauladatkinson/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pauladatkinson