The Compassionate Body Center

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The Compassionate Body Center

Resources for healing relationships with food and body image issues. Sick of the dieting roller coaster? Wanting a friendlier relationship with your body?

Hoping to make peace with food? This page will explore therapeutic yoga and Mindful Self-Compassion for those struggling with eating issues. All sizes, shapes, ages, and genders welcome. No previous yoga or meditation experience needed. This is for you. . . even if you hate to exercise. Katherine Dittmann, M.S., R.D., holds a Masters Degree in Nutrition, is a Registered Dietitian/ Nutirionist, and is a certified yoga instructor. She is authorized to teach the Mindful Self-Compassion protocol as set forth by Drs. Kristen Neff and Christopher Germer. She has worked the spectrum of eating disorders treatment; her approaches include intuitive eating, mindfulness, and yoga philosophy to help clients
explore relationships with food.

02/01/2026

Body positivity and fake affirmations don’t usually work. At least not right away. You don’t have to always love how you look to treat your body with care.

01/30/2026

Running into your therapist at the grocery store: equal parts surreal, hilarious, and deeply weird. 🛒😳

If they looked a little awkward? That’s them protecting your privacy.

Ethical therapists won’t initiate contact in public, it’s part of the code. And if you pretended not to see them, turned down another aisle, or did a full grocery cart U-turn… they totally get it.

Next session? Great time to unpack the encounter, laugh about it, and make a game plan for next time. 🛍️👀

01/29/2026

❤️‍🩹 Self-compassion phrases are like little reminders of kindness we offer ourselves when we need a moment of support or comfort. When you're feeling emotional pain or discomfort, pause and gently ask yourself, "What words do I need to hear right now, spoken just for me?" 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

01/28/2026

💫 You’re Not the Only One
Why self-compassion starts with being ordinary
Bad faith, exceptionalism, and the specialness trap

If you’ve been with me for a while, you know how often I return to Kristin Neff’s idea of common humanity, the reminder that our struggles aren’t personal failings but part of the shared experience of being human.

As Neff likes to point out, it’s statistically impossible for us all to be above average… yet somehow nearly everyone believes they’re either uniquely superior or uniquely deficient.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how deeply this runs, not just psychologically but culturally.

In the U.S., we swim in the mythology of exceptionalism, the belief that we, unlike everyone else, are a singular marvel. You can see it everywhere:

A Silicon Valley founder insisting he needs exactly four hours of sleep because his “brain is optimized for efficiency,” while the rest of us mere mortals apparently require REM cycles.

The influencer on TikTok who claims she “transcended hunger” through sheer mindset.

The wellness guru who insists you can heal everything with a celery juice ritual “if you’re high-vibe enough.”

But exceptionalism has a shadow twin, what I think of as negative exceptionalism. It shows up when someone believes:

Everyone else can eat normally; my body is the one that doesn’t work.

I make mistakes that are so embarrassing, so shameful, so “me,” that I deserve harsher judgment than anyone else.

Other people’s needs matter; mine are… optional.

In this version, we’re not too special, we’re specially broken.

And this, too, pulls us out of common humanity.

If you read the recent piece I sent out on Sartre and bad faith, you may remember that when we try to escape our actual, ordinary humanness, we lose the capacity to act freely and, by extension, compassionately.

Sartre thought we often hide behind identities, i.e., “the superior one” or “the hopeless case,” so we don’t have to face the vulnerable truth of being human beings who make choices under real conditions.

Neff’s work echoes this: the more we cling to being exceptional (good or bad), the harder it is to treat ourselves with kindness.

What I’m exploring lately is how these two forms of exceptionalism, either grandiose or shame-based, are actually two sides of the same cultural coin.

Both pull us away from shared humanity. Both make self-compassion harder.

And both are reinforced by a culture that loves the idea of “special” but isn’t always comfortable with “human.”

Some reflection questions for all of us:

What if you didn’t need to be exceptional today?
What if being human was enough?

01/27/2026

✨ Intuitive Eating Tips

Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality

Reclaim Food Freedom 🍴✨

Write a personal declaration like: “I deserve to enjoy food without guilt or shame.” Place it somewhere visible (on your fridge or as a phone wallpaper) as a reminder of your commitment to rejecting diet culture.

01/26/2026

🧠 Cognitive Distortions: What They Are and How They Mess With Your Head 😵‍💫

We all have those sneaky, distorted thoughts that twist reality and feed into negative patterns. Cognitive distortions are basically thought traps—mental shortcuts that don’t tell the full story.

01/23/2026

I honestly have no idea what a vitamin is. It's in a banana but it's also the sun? Sure. 🍌☀️🤷‍♀️

Honestly… fair question.

Here’s the deal:

🧪 Vitamins are essential nutrients, tiny but mighty compounds your body needs to function, but can’t make enough of on its own (or at all).
🍌 Bananas? Great source of vitamin B6 (for brain and energy support) and a little vitamin C.
☀️ The sun? Helps your skin produce vitamin D, which technically acts more like a hormone than a traditional vitamin. Science is weird.

You don’t need to know all the details to nourish yourself well. But a little curiosity goes a long way. And you’re still doing great even if you thought Vitamin D came from vibes. ✨

01/21/2026

😏 Sartre, Bad Faith, ad Binge Eating
❓When We Forget We Have Choices
❣You Weren’t Powerless, Just Overwhelmed

Sometimes, behaviors feel automatic, mindless, or give us the sense that something else in us was in control while we were asleep at the wheel, or tied up in the closet.

Many clients tell me things like:

“I knew I was full, but I had to finish.”

“I found myself at the convenience store again.”

“I told myself excuses while putting candy in my basket.”

These moments feel automatic. And that feeling is real.

But they’re also moments where we often slip into a kind of self-deception that Jean-Paul Sartre called bad faith.

Not “bad” as in shameful or wrongdoing, but something else very human.

“Bad faith” simply means: treating ourselves as if we have no freedom when, in truth, we still have some.

It’s what happens when we say:

“I had no choice.”

“It just happened.”

“Something took over.”

Sartre’s point isn’t to blame. It’s to remind us that even when urges are strong, habits are deep, or we’re overwhelmed, we are not completely without agency.

There is almost always a sliver of freedom left, even if it’s small:

~ A three-second pause.
~ A moment of noticing.
~ A tiny shift in how we interpret the urge.

Modern neuroscience helps explain why the urge feels so powerful, such as dopamine loops, stress activation, emotional overload, or conditioned patterns.

None of that is chosen. But how we make sense of those urges, and whether we allow ourselves to collapse into “I had no choice,” is where a little freedom still exists.

A more compassionate, more accurate reframe might be:

“My choices were limited, but not absent.”

“I didn’t choose the urge, but I can choose my next step.”

“I was overwhelmed, not powerless.”

You don’t need to regain control.

You do need to reclaim your dignity: the sense that, even when things feel automatic, you are not an object swept along by your urges.

You remain a person with possibilities, even tiny ones, inside the moment.

Freedom doesn’t lie in “I can totally stop this right now.”

It’s in “I still have some authorship, however small.”

And that small spark is often where real change begins.

01/20/2026

✨ Intuitive Eating Tips

Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality

Identify Diet Mentality Thoughts 🧠✍️

Keep a small notebook or notes app handy. Whenever you catch yourself thinking, “I shouldn’t eat this” or “This is a bad food”, write it down. Over time, you’ll notice patterns and can start to challenge these thoughts.

01/17/2026

I don’t post a lot of practical nutrition stuff here, but this is an excellent dissection of the problems with the new guidelines. They are neither “new” nor revolutionary. And are confusing AF. Try this: get enough protein from a variety or course. Eat yer fruits and veggies, welcome plenty of whole grains, beans, legumes, nuts, seeds, and so-called “healthy” fats. Use your discretion on more processed foods depending on your individual needs. Nutrition really isn’t that complicated.

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http://www.thecompassionatebodycenter.com/

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