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Dawn’s Story: Mindful eating and yoga taught her how to listen to her body

Michelle May

Dawn-Hopkins

In this heartfelt conversation with Dr. Michelle May, Dawn Hopkins talks about her struggle with disordered eating and body image, and how mindful eating and yoga brought her healing.

Dawn explains that she developed an eating disorder while in a body-conscious sport in high school. Though she had recovered from her eating disorder, mindful eating helped Dawn recognize that she was eating restrictively in order to maintain control.

Dawn said, “It was exhausting. If I could have all that time back that I spent counting calories, and worrying about what I ate, and making up for what I ate, and all of the emotional weight…”

Watch the full interview here.

How mindful eating and yoga led to healing

Dawn explains, “The healing was taking place in two ways: Through mindful eating and practicing what I was learning, alongside now rediscovering my body on a yoga mat, and not beating the heck out of myself. Instead, I was really embracing this unfolding that takes place when you’re practicing yoga.”

Dawn learned a new way of relating to and caring for her body through “deep listening, starting to hear my body, starting to listen to my body, starting to trust my body, and then respond in a way that would be healthy and beneficial, to the information I was getting from my body in terms of my eating and my physical yoga practice.”

Dawn uses her personal experience and Am I Hungry? training to offer Mindful Eating and Yoga classes. She is also one of the highly-rated instructors during our Am I Hungry? Mindful Eating and Yoga Retreat.

Dawn also shares how what she has learned helped her cope with a recent diagnosis of breast cancer. “I started to feel like I was at war with my own flesh, and that was a very familiar feeling since I’d spent years and years doing that…. that’s about fear and struggle. Everything I learned in mindful eating and yoga is about a harmonious relationship with self, it’s about loving yourself through whatever it is you’re going through, and being in a space of acceptance. And then, what can I learn from this? What can this teach me? and Where are the opportunities for me to be grateful?”

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