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.

11/19/2025

🌷When acceptance and change coexist.
👉You can want both.
🌟When You Want to Change Your Body—and Also Make Peace with It

There’s a tender place between wanting things to be different and wanting to make peace with what is.

Many people find themselves here while healing their relationship with food or body.

One part still longs for change: less weight, more tone, clearer definition.

Another part whispers a quieter truth: “I want to feel at ease in my skin. I want to stop fighting myself.”

Both are true.

Both are human.

🌟The Dialectic of Healing

In Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), this space of “both/and” is called a dialectic, the recognition that two seemingly opposing truths can exist side by side.

You might notice something like:

🌷Even though part of me wants to lose weight, another part knows my body needs gentleness and consistency more than control.
🌷Even though I want to feel more fit, I also know chasing an ideal has cost me joy and connection in the past.

Holding both realities doesn’t mean you’re confused; it means you’re evolving.

It’s a sign of psychological flexibility and emotional maturity, the ability to stay with complexity without collapsing into shame or certainty.

🌟Softening the Shame

It’s normal to want to feel desirable, respected, or socially accepted.

We’ve all grown up in a culture that rewards certain bodies and diminishes others, a culture built on systems that have long used appearance to sort power and belonging.

It’s understandable that those forces live in us, too.

You are not shallow for wanting what society has taught to be valuable.

You are wise for beginning to question it.

🌟Listening for the Deeper Values Beneath the Desire

Sometimes the wish to change the body is only the surface ripple of a deeper current.

When you pause and listen, you might discover that it’s not really about appearance—it’s about how you want to feel and live.

Maybe it’s about…

❣ Freedom: wanting to be unburdened by food rules and body worries.

❣ Vitality: wanting the energy to move, play, and participate in life.

❣ Integrity: aligning choices with genuine self-care, not pressure.

❣ Compassion: ending the war between who you are and who you think you should be.

❣ Peace: no longer negotiating your worth with a mirror.

❣ Justice: refusing to feed systems that profit from your dissatisfaction.

❣ Abundance: trusting there’s enough joy, nourishment, and acceptance to go around.

❣ Authenticity: showing up as yourself, fully human, without apology.

When you connect to those values, body care becomes a form of agency, not submission.

It’s less about control and more about reverence.

Less about what you fix, more about how you live.

🌟A Closing Reflection

You don’t have to pick a side between wanting and accepting.

You can be the one who seeks change and the one who practices compassion.

Every time you let those parts sit down together…

…without pushing one out of the room…

…you reclaim a little more wholeness.

That’s what healing often sounds like: a conversation, not a verdict.

🌟Reflection prompts:

❓What are two truths you hold about your body right now?

❓What deeper value might your desire for change point toward?

❓How might you honor that value today—without betraying your well-being?

11/18/2025

Principle 2: Honor Your Hunger

Hunger is your body’s natural signal that it needs fuel to function. Ignoring it disrupts this essential feedback system, often leading to both physical and emotional consequences. When we go too long without eating, it can result in overeating or making impulsive, less mindful food choices. Listening to your hunger cues is key to fostering a healthier, more balanced relationship with food.

Nutshell: The body has thousands of years of evolution behind it. If it sends a hunger cue, it’s wise to believe it. Hunger just means that it’s time to eat.

11/17/2025

🤔 Logical Fallacies

👉 Even the sharpest 🔪 critical thinkers can occasionally fall prey to logical fallacies! Here’s a quick look at a common one to help you stay sharp and alert!

11/14/2025

If the fridge isn’t offering ready-to-eat snacks and emotional support, I’m closing it. 😤🍽️
We’ve all been there, hungry, tired, and staring at ingredients that require effort. That’s why I like to think in terms of Plan A, B, and C meals:
👉 Plan A: You’ve got time, energy, and maybe even a podcast going. You’re cooking from scratch, chopping, roasting, sautéing like a domestic god(dess). Amazing… when it happens.
👉 Plan B: You’re semi-functional. Dinner comes together with the help of shortcuts: rotisserie chicken, pre-washed greens, frozen rice, canned soup. A little assembly required, but manageable.
👉 Plan C: You’re done. It’s frozen pizza, cereal, toast, or takeout. No shame. You’re feeding yourself the best way you can in that moment, and that’s what matters.
All three plans are valid. All three count. Feeding yourself doesn’t have to be fancy to be enough. 💜

11/13/2025

❤️‍🩹 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?" 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

11/12/2025

➡ The morality myth of beauty and bodies
➡ Are we treating our bodies like moral projects?

We live in a culture that treats bodies as moral performances.

As if size, shape, skin tone, and beauty are evidence of how disciplined, worthy, or evolved someone is.

This belief runs deep: that visible traits reveal invisible virtues.

~ Thinness signals control.

~ Fitness signals responsibility.

~ Beauty signals value.

~ Aging, illness, or fatness signal failure.

Underneath is an even older moral assumption — that some bodies are inherently better, closer to “goodness,” and others are proof of moral weakness.

We learn that our appearance doesn’t just say something about how we live, but who we are.

And because certain aspects of appearance are transient (or at least marketable as changeable), another belief takes root:

If we can change our body, then we should.
If we don’t, we’re neglecting a duty, not just to ourselves, but to others.
I’ve heard clients say heartbreaking things like:

“I don’t want to put my ugliness on other people.”
As though existing in a body that doesn’t conform to the ideal is a kind of moral trespass.

So dieting becomes more than a pursuit of beauty or health.

It becomes a way to prove “good decision-making,” to signal belonging and status, a visible declaration of self-control and moral worth.

And when we don’t (or can’t) conform, hiding feels like penance.

It’s the same emotional choreography we see in “reveal” scenes on makeover and weight-loss shows — the triumphant music, the audience applause — as though transformation were a confession followed by redemption.

How Body Moralization Sounds in Our Heads
Our inner dialogue often echoes moral codes disguised as self-improvement.

“I’ve really let myself go.”
→ “I’ve failed at being a responsible, respectable person.”

“I shouldn’t wear this until I lose weight.”
→ “My visibility depends on earning the right to be seen.”

“If I cared about myself, I’d take better care of my body.”
→ “Care means controlling my body into acceptability.”

“I can’t believe I gained weight again.”
→ “I’m ashamed of being human, of changing, of being seen as undisciplined.”

These thoughts reveal the moral confusion at the heart of body shame:

👉 We confuse virtue with visibility, worth with aesthetic compliance.

Three Cognitive Reframes for Body Shame
Reframe the “Moral Worth” Illusion
💭 “My body says something about who I am.”
→ Reframe: “My body says I’m alive, human, and adaptive. Moral worth isn’t visible — it’s lived in how I treat myself and others.”

Reframe the “Obligation to Improve” Belief
💭 “If I can change my body, I should.”
→ Reframe: “Having agency doesn’t mean having an obligation. I can choose care without treating myself as a project to fix.”

Reframe the “Visibility = Shame” Fear
💭 “I should hide until I look better.”
→ Reframe: “Visibility isn’t a reward; it’s a birthright. My presence doesn’t require justification.”

When we stop moralizing bodies, we begin to see them as part of the shared human condition, not proofs or punishments, but expressions of existence itself.

Because the body was never meant to be a moral argument.

It was meant to be lived in.

11/11/2025

Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality

The diet mentality is more than just thoughts about food, it becomes a way of life, shaping how we see ourselves and our bodies. For many, it feels like the "normal" way to live. This mindset is constantly reinforced by diet culture, which thrives in media and marketing. But it’s important to recognize how you’ve been misled and begin challenging those beliefs. The truth? Dieting often leads to feelings of deprivation and dissatisfaction that ripple into other parts of life. Start shifting your thinking, and reclaim a more fulfilling relationship with food and body.

Nutshell: Even though diets may seem to work initially, they tend to have backlash and unwanted consequences.

11/07/2025

Can’t wait to be flawless so I can finally enjoy being alive 🙃
Perfectionism is the longest waitlist. Live your life now—typos, bad angles, awkward moments and all.

11/05/2025

🍰 Cake is not a sin

➡ When food becomes a moral issue
➡ What your food guilt is really trying to say

We’ve all learned to sort foods into moral categories: good or bad, clean or junk, allowed or off-limits.

But when we moralize food, we stop talking about nourishment and start talking about worth.

Religious and ethical food laws, like keeping kosher, halal, or vegetarian, are rooted in values and meaning.

They’re about alignment with belief, ritual, or compassion.

You might follow them because they connect you to a community or express care for animals, the environment, or your faith.

Diet rules, on the other hand, often masquerade as moral codes…

…but they lack that grounding in values or spirituality.

They’re arbitrary hierarchies of virtue disguised as health advice.

How Food Guilt Sounds in Our Heads
Guilt around food is rarely about the food itself.

It’s the inner critic speaking the language of morality and self-blame.

Here are a few familiar lines and what they really mean underneath:

“I shouldn’t eat this cake; I’m watching my weight.”
→ “I’m afraid that enjoying this will make me look or feel out of control.”

“I know better than to eat pasta for dinner.”
→ “If I were a better version of myself, I’d have more discipline.”

“I was being so good until I had that burger.”
→ “I believe my worth depends on doing things ‘right.’”

Notice how these thoughts create a moral drama: the good self trying to overcome the bad self.

When we inevitably eat the thing we’ve labeled “wrong,” we feel we’ve sinned, not just slipped.

The Cycle: Rebellion and Self-Disappointment
Our nervous system doesn’t like deprivation or being told “no.”

So when food becomes forbidden, the rebellious part of us pushes back.

You might find yourself eating the thing precisely because it’s off-limits, proof that no rule can contain you.

Then, once the rebellion passes, another part takes the mic: the disappointed parent voice that sighs, “You knew better.”

It’s an endless pendulum between defiance and guilt, both fueled by shame, neither truly nourishing.

And in social settings, we may engage in what I call performative eating, narrating or editing our choices to signal “goodness” to others:

“I’ll just have the salad.”
“I’ve been so bad this week.”
“I’m trying to be good.”

It’s less about food and more about reputation management: our way of proving discipline, purity, or belonging.

Three Cognitive Reframes for Food Guilt
Guilt for Wanting
💭 “I shouldn’t want this.”
→ Reframe: “Desire is not a flaw. It’s a signal that I’m human, and my body is trying to meet a need.”

Guilt for Doing What We ‘Know Better’ Than
💭 “I know I shouldn’t have, but I did anyway.”
→ Reframe: “Information and behavior don’t always line up. That’s not hypocrisy, that’s humanity. I can learn from this without shaming myself.”

Perfection Guilt
💭 “I was being good until I ruined it.”
→ Reframe: “There’s no moral scorecard. One food or meal doesn’t define my worth, discipline, or health.”

When we stop moralizing food, we make room for something richer than “good” or “bad”: context, choice, and compassion.

Because eating isn’t a test of character.

It’s an act of care.

10/29/2025

➡ Learning to Self-Regulate Pleasure
➡ How to Enjoy Things Without Fear of Losing Control
➡ Why Pleasure is Not the Problem

Many of us are afraid of the things we like.

We fear that if we let ourselves enjoy pleasure, like food, rest, love, beauty, leisure, we’ll somehow go too far.

We’ll lose control.

We’ll become “lazy,” “indulgent,” or “bad.”

But desire itself isn’t the problem.

Pleasure is not the enemy.

What’s often missing is the skill of self-regulating pleasure, the capacity to stay connected to enjoyment—without tipping into self-harm or shame.

When pleasure turns into pain, it’s rarely because pleasure is inherently dangerous.

It’s because our relationship to it is unintegrated. We’re trying to use pleasure to fix what only care, rest, or connection can meet.

The result can be overconsumption, compulsion, or a crash of guilt afterward.

Philosophers and spiritual traditions have long wrestled with this balance:

Buddhism offers the Middle Path: a life between indulgence and deprivation.

Aristotle called it the Golden Mean: virtue as the balance between excess and deficiency.

Christianity, Judaism, and Islam each have traditions that both celebrate and restrain pleasure (feasts and fasts, sabbaths and sacrifices), reminding us that pleasure has context, rhythm, and relationship.

True self-regulation of pleasure isn’t about restraint for its own sake.

It’s about discernment, as in knowing when pleasure nourishes life and when it begins to drain it.

Here are three steps toward that discernment:

Reduce Shame
Pleasure isn’t proof of weakness. Notice any reflexive guilt that arises when you enjoy something and name it as cultural conditioning, not moral truth. Without shame, it becomes possible to make genuine choices rather than reactive ones.

Care for the Need Beneath the Desire
Desires point toward something — comfort, connection, relief, stimulation, safety. Ask: What am I truly needing right now? Sometimes the need and the desire align (warm soup when cold); other times, pleasure tries to substitute for an unmet need (scrolling when lonely). Meeting the underlying need softens the craving.

Recognize When Pleasure Turns to Pain
Mindful awareness helps you sense the moment when enjoyment fades — the extra bite, the extra hour online, the numbing after the initial satisfaction. Pause there. You don’t need punishment, just presence. The ability to notice the shift is what builds trust in yourself.

In the end, regulating pleasure isn’t about control, it’s about relationship.

When we learn to be with our desires rather than suppress them, pleasure becomes less something to fear and more something to befriend: a teacher, a signal, a reminder of our aliveness.

Questions to consider:

“Where in your life does pleasure feel risky?”

“What might balance look like for you?”

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http://www.thecompassionatebodycenter.com/

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