Welcome back to another episode of I totally relate, this is an interview with Shannon Ricks of Modern Eve. Shannon is an LMFT who focuses on eating disorders and faith transitions.

Ever since she was a young girl, Shannon knew she wanted to be a therapist. So after receiving her degree she gained experience working in a lot of different facilities, including with troubled teens and young adults. She needed more clinical hours after grad school and that’s when she began working at the Center for Change. She fell in love with the clientele and ever since has been helping people with eating disorders and body image work.

In junior high Shannon realized the difference between her experience and her peers. She has found that it builds and instills confidence to not get appearance based compliments, and to not build your worth around your appearance.

Shannon does a fantastic job with helping us understand specific terms and meanings, as well as helping us notice power dynamics at play and power structures. We discuss diet culture and tactics that keep women small within the power structure of the patriarchy, we talk about the messaging in the past that attracted women into the workforce and the messaging that pushed them back into “cute housewives”. We also dig into scarcity mindset and the competition between women.

Not only does Shannon do a fantastic job of helping us understand eating disorders empower structures, she also gives us some powerful tools to help walk us back from body hate to body gratitude. In this conversation we also share grief by talking through the love for our body that we miss out on because we experienced so much body discussed.

Shannon references the book “The beauty Myth” by Margo Maines. If you’d like to hear more from Shannon, follow her @Modern.Eve or contact her at ModernEve.org

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