How Personality Fuels Your Eating Disorder and Recovery with Carolyn Costin, LMFT

Carolyn Costin sitting in nature next to a tree

Own the traits you have and know how to use them for your best good. – Carolyn Costin, LMFT

According to world-renowned clinician and author Carolyn Costin, LMFT, Founder of Monte Nido and The Carolyn Costin Institute, people with eating disorders often share similar personality traits, such as being anxious, perfectionistic, controlling, rigid, impulsive, and/or compulsive. Rather than blaming your genetic predispositions for fueling your eating disorder and rejecting these traits, she shares how to use them to shine, even during times of crisis.

In this episode of The Recovery Warrior Show, Carolyn dives into many concepts from her book 8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder such as the importance of detaching worth from ego, learning acceptance, and how to reduce suffering during difficult times.

The Recovery Warrior Show · How Your Personality Fuels Your Eating Disorder and Recovery with Carolyn Costin, LMFT

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What You’ll Learn from Carolyn Costin

How to shift your personality traits from darkness to light.
Why differentiating your “ED Self” from your “Healthy Self” is vital.
How the practice of acceptance vs. resistance can help you recover.
Why hating your eating disorder is not the answer and how working with it can help you heal.
Why it’s important to find a balance between feeling emotions and distracting in a healthy way.
What “soul moments” are and how to find them.

Carolyn Costin’s Quotables

Your body isn’t bad. It’s your resistance to your body maybe not being exactly what you want it to be. That’s what causes the suffering.

Worry is not preparation.

You’re not your thoughts. You’re not your feelings. You are the wise, presence underneath all of that.

You really are a soul that happens to have a body.

The battle is between you and you. Your eating disorder self and your healthy self. And they are both there. They’re both present. And the goal is to strengthen your healthy self but not to hate your eating disorder self and try to get rid of it like it’s an awful thing.