Digital Nomadism and Eating Disorders: Navigating Stress, Emotional Eating, and Self-Appreciation

Hey Nomads, welcome to Digital Nomad Stories, the podcast. My name is Anna Claessen and, together with my co-host, kendra Hasse, we interview digital nomads. Why? Because we want to share stories of how they did it. We talk about remote work, online business, location and dependency, freelancing, travel and, of course, the digital nomad lifestyle. Do you want to know more about us and access all previous episodes? Visit digitalnomadsdoriesco. Alright, let's go into today's episode. Hey Nomad, welcome to this brand new episode. Today we have a solo episode from Kendra on our podcast. I just wanted to give you a little bit of a trigger warning because in this episode, she will be talking about her eating disorder and other nomads that she spoke to with her eating disorder. So if this topic is triggering for you in any way, then I recommend considering to just skip this episode and come back next week for our normal interview episodes or listen to one of the other 150 episodes that we have about digital nomads lifestyle, remote work and travel. Now, in this episode, kendra will be sharing her own experience with eating disorders and what worked for her. Also, you know she is not an expert in this field, so if you are struggling with eating disorders, then please go to the show notes for some helpful resources and make sure to get professional help. I hope that this episode is helpful. If you are struggling with this and if you know anyone who is struggling with eating disorders, then please direct them to this episode so that they can also hopefully feel heard and understood and they can get some help out of this. All right over to Kendra.

Today I will do like a little monologue, a little session by myself, talking about a topic that really brings me out of my cold-blooded zone and at the same time I feel it's so relevant because in this little private conversation I have from time to time with other digital nomads mainly women, but we're sure they also may not be there The topic we talk about when we have more trust and confidence and we underestimate how many people are suffering from it. So today is all about eating disorders. It's also my personal story a little bit. I deal with it. But now I feel I'm on a point where I can listen to you who might suffering it on their journey as a digital nomad, or who even feel a little bit afraid of starting the digital nomad story, being afraid they will fall again into a pattern of the eating disorder. I made a huge progress, advancement on my own healing journey so that now I can talk with authenticity, that we all can manage to come out of it stronger and maybe even understand this little gift we have behind it. So, let's start talking about it for digital nomads, what it means, because what is it like? this eating disorder and I mainly will talk about it because that is where I have the expertise in bulimia. So it's like about eating a lot. You cannot stop eating. You're like in this automatic process of eating, eating, eating until you are at a point where you might throw up. Maybe you're not throwing up, you just have like huge belly pain, or maybe you throw up. And the digital nomads I met who are suffering from it. It's like they are telling me oh my gosh, every city I'm going to have a new country. There are so many different delights, so many cool new foods I want to try. So and I don't know how I can just not control myself, right, i feel I need to try, i need to try, i need to try, and then I cannot really enjoy the local food because I'm just overthinking it. I try to control, to not eat too much, so in the end I eat everything in a day and I cannot really enjoy it. This is the things I hear from some women. The other thing I hear from people suffering it is oh, you told me, some of you told me, yeah, but then as a digital nomad, we need to go out eating all the time, so then I cannot eat what I want. This is the end courses that I overeat In the end too much. I mean some of you who have no relation to eating this or else might fear. What are you telling about? I cannot really follow. Keep on track, because it might be also interesting for you, because you might understand some habits, some patterns of people you met. You are controlling or just bordering your horizons. Some people who suffer it might find some inspiration to deal with it, to come over it. So first, it's all about this control of food, right? What I just said, i would like to bring in the metaphor of the iceberg. So the peak of the iceberg is what you see, and there what you see is just, i cannot control myself. I'm eating, eating, eating, eating, and then I'm slowing down. But what you are not having there is, like below the surface of the iceberg, the underlying reasons. It's not that you cannot control of what you eat, it's not that you're overwhelmed by the different opportunities, possibilities of new food. I mean, you have several days in the new country, right, maybe seven weeks, so you have enough days to try all those new food. It's more over there. For me, it was always a stress and pressure in different kinds. So one stress or pressure can be fulfilling expectations of others. So the thing is as a digital nomad, you have to behave in such and such a way. You have to meet new people, you have to be happy, you have to be grateful of having this freedom to travel, to being at a new place. You have to be able to deal with fear of missing out. It has to be easy for you to make new contact. It has to be easy for you to adapt to new places, to figure out some logistics. But, to be honest, all of us know it's not easy, but we are. When you're suffering this eating disorder, one reason might be that you fear that. You fear not receiving recognition by the others. So you want to fulfill these expectations. You want to show yourself in this image wow, you have everything under control, you're super happy, you're a super fulfilled, you're the most amazed digital nomad ever. So in the end. But you cannot lie to yourself, right? Your unconsciousness knows that you're making a show. Other people you can tell oh, i managed everything. But you cannot tell it to your unconsciousness, because your unconsciousness knows the truth And it's in your unconsciousness where you produce this trash and pressure. So, but you don't lie to yourself to accept. Oh, maybe you don't know how to. Maybe I'm stressed, maybe I feel afraid that no one likes me when I go to a digital meeting. Maybe I'm overwhelmed by all the options of where to go next, like what to visit, to what meetups to go, or maybe, oh fuck, i feel unknown, there's nothing going on And this all causes this pressure and stress. So what we, as emotional eaters like I feel, like the people who serve eating disorder, bulimia, emotional eaters. So what we learned is that food gives us the slap and this recognition we need in that moment. Right, so you don't feel well, you feel overwhelmed, you feel pressure, you feel stress And what you do then is eating. You eat to not feel this pressure, this stress. This may be not good. Feeling emotion of being overwhelmed by how you should behave as a digital moment, or maybe also even more, feeling lonely because you didn't meet paper, or by having this pressure oh, i need to be next to a point. Or by oh, i cannot set my boundaries. I need to be in every plan because, if not, they don't like me. I'm a digital nomad, i need to go out. It's not okay to say no to plan Whatever. There can be so many different options, but one crucial thing is this options might be less when we are not digital nomads, because then we have our safe space, we have our apartment, we have our community at home, where we are not all the time need to go out of our comfort zone, because the stress and pressure is coming is coming because we need to go out of our comfort zone, right. And then we feel it and we start criticizing ourselves for feeling it and we need love. We don't know how to get love, but in food, so we start And then it's like triggering and it's interesting. Oh, there are like so many different options of new foods you can try, or you are even craving for food that gives you a sense of feeling home, and that is something that happens quite a lot for this. So here it's nothing about this controller. There are so many options. It's more about we feel we need to cover something, right, maybe we want to suppress something. But what if you just would accept this uncomfortable feelings you might have? It's just the conditioning. Eating is just a cupidning mechanism where others might start smoking, drinking, i don't know, like I don't know schooling in social media, like we all have our different conditions and cupidning mechanisms And here it's like we're at all sorts and it's interesting for the people who might not suffer emotional eating or eating disorders, who might then now think about oh, that's why I do this, right, and so like why I'm talking about it. Because the other day, at a conversation with a girl who was thinking about stopping her digital nomads journey because of this? because she feels she's going super deep into an eating disorder, because she's just thinking peak of the iceberg and not below. So what's really below? like summarizing what I just said in one sentence recognize yourself, believe in your greatness, believe in your will, believe that you are doing completely fine as a digital nomad, that you behave as you should, as you want to behave, as authentic self, and stop comparing yourself to others. Right, that's the thing. If you compare yourself to other digital nomads, you might feel less valued, less well, but you're not seeing deep inside other people. You know Like in the outside, we all can shine, we all can be happy, but what's really deep inside us no one talks about. So that's also why I really like to do this episode today And I already did like a monologue on the truth of maybe not feeling good as a digital nomad, or maybe you want to hear, to listen also to that one. So what's now the clue? The first thing is to understand it and accept it. Right, to get a little bit clarity on thinking oh okay, maybe I'm just seeing the peak of iceberg and not the underlying surface of it. So now being willing and able to understand this underlying surface. And how can you do it? The first thing is accept it. When you accept it, you can start looking deeper into it, understanding, and then maybe ask yourself what is your pattern? Are you maybe self-criticizing yourself too much, or are you just controlling too much? Each of us has different things. For me, it's this recognition part that I am like too less recognizing myself, appreciating myself, honoring myself for my greatness, right, and then, as I am depending or I was depending on the recognition of the outside, of other people honoring me, giving me this love, giving me this appreciation, making me feel love, making me feel the worth I was not able to give it to myself. So my tool to give it to myself was food, because my inner child, something in my childhood, learned that food is a way my parents showed me love, right, and so the older I became, the more it was. Oh, i need laugh because I'm pushing myself too much, i'm criticizing myself too much. Then I found it in food. So how did I stop it? And because maybe then when we are like traveling, we are like more, it might be, it might not, but we have like more of the situations where we meet new people and now that we meet new people, we have a gambles feeling of hope. Hopefully they like me, hopefully they like this place. I need to deal with this X, y that you know. So, as I just said before, we always bring all the words out of our comfort zone and it cannot be that our only tool is food to coping it, to get to it And how I heal. I really want to say that I heal, I think, emotional eating and eating disorders is more like sober. Was I called this one? So maybe we never heal 100%, but we learn how to deal with it. And that, what does I mean? what I healed, i learned how to deal with it. I have, like, i accept that and understood my patterns and I became aware of them and I learned how to integrate it. And, yeah, there might be options, there might be situations where I fall back. You know, at least I'm not, but I'm not throwing up anymore. I might, from time to time, have this emotional eating and then I'm eating way too much, but then I go out of this, but I have my tools to realize it and then I go out of this autopilot and then it's all about compassion Compassion for ourselves, that we maybe ate too much, but the good thing is that we aren't throwing up anymore, right, because that is so horrible for our body. So what do I do? what did I do? And I mean maybe you heard, like other episodes where I was always talking about for me, it's all about this time for ourselves and connecting really to ourselves, because just when we're opening the space and by opening the space I mean taking time for ourselves, taking time to understand our patterns, understand the underlying causes of why we have this eating disorders or maybe other coping mechanism of social media scrolling, of maybe being addicted to going to dates and having sex with growing people while traveling, because you're always smoking too much, because you just need this appreciation from someone we know. So there's yeah, there's life. So the crucial thing here is to really take in the time for ourselves and check in on a frequent basis how we are doing, because just then we can travel into our inner world and understand our pattern, understand our limiting beliefs, our needs and, in the end, our authenticity. So if I'm not aware of myself, if I'm not taking time to understand who am I, how could I have understood that I am not appreciating myself enough, that I need food to give me love and to appreciate? So that's not the thing I learn by talking to people. For this I really need to ask myself, and for me we have all the answers within us. We have all the wisdom within us. I'm always talking about our heart. So really connecting to my heart, to our heart, like really understanding what's going on, because our heart has all the wisdom and love we need to know, but maybe you do not with a night with heart. Maybe it's your intuition, maybe it's your inner parts, maybe it's inner child work, maybe it's your body wisdom, maybe it's just for you psychology coaching conversations you have with yourself and you can get help for it. Do not think you need to do it all on your own. I also have a therapist and my own coaching for it. I am to understand it. But as it is, you know what you might. But nowadays there are so many online sessions you can do right online therapists. It's okay if you're always on the road, but you can have your fixed therapist, for example. That's possible, but then it's really taking the time for yourself, so making it part of your traveling to take every day to check in how you feel. I do it in my morning, with my morning coffee, meditating and journaling. For me, journaling is this intuitive, reflective writing. I'm really asking myself every morning how am I really doing, how am I really feeling And reflecting on the day before, and then I mean now, for example, for sitting, this order, reflecting on the eating behavior. Have you been like a conscious eater, normal, when you were hungry, all good, great. Have you eaten more than you wanted? Have you been attracted by all? those delicious things and the sweetest, and ask yourself why did you need the food? What did the food give you? What was the reason behind it? And the more you do it it's not in the first time you do it you will not understand But the more you do it, the more you open the space. Your heart, your inner world gains the trust that you're really willing to understand, and then you can uncover what's really underlying there, what, what's really behind there, and then have this compassion with you. Because then, when you have a compassion and you accept that and you understand it, then the next thing is how can you change this behavior? Because it's a routine, like eating when you're like in a low emotion. Might it be fear of msling out, might it be feeling lonely, might it be stress of fulfilling expectations, might it be getting recognitions by others, might it be meeting super cool other digital moments. You created this pattern, this routine of oh, i cannot feel this emotion, i don't know how to deal with it. That's the thing I didn't say It's about. We need to learn how to deal with this emotions. So you created this mechanism in our feeding, so now you need to start creating another mechanism, and all of us know how to secrete it is to build a new routine, and even if we are on the road traveling, it's even more difficult because you don't have this set environment where you always can do the same. But on the other end, you can use it also as an opportunity, because you are like more in new situations, so they're not always the same patterns coming up, and this really helps you to go out, to break with this eating routine and start making another routine. And there you know for example, i just wrote myself when I started with it, a list What are potential other activities you could do instead of eating, because what you cannot do is just say, okay, now I stop eating when I have this emotion and just will feel it. No, sorry, you never learn to feel it First. You also need to learn how to feel it in this process. So before you learn how to feel it, you need maybe other techniques that are more helpful. I love dancing, my passion is dancing, so I won't do my list Next time I really want to eat, i turn on my music and dance, but you cannot always do the same. You always need to have a list because in every situation it's different. So I had there dancing, then I had having a walk around the block getting fresh air. I had journaling For me. Journaling I do it now eight years. For me it's the best healing tool ever, because journaling for me is this possibility to connect to your true essence, to really write down how you feel, to really write down why you have this urge, this need of eating, and then, once you write it out of your mind, it's out. If you can let go, you can release And you zoom out in this observer perspective and can change a little bit perspectives and understand different ankles, different reasons. Out of it. There's not just this black and white thinking anymore. You see what really helps for you. You know yourself the best, what do you think could be different techniques, and then just try it out And you always can adapt this list, have this list visual. It's like really coming to develop it. As some of you told me And I also did an exchange here in school It's not just a normal life, but you're living one year in another country with another family And one of the most reasons, people, that the exchange here was to eating this order And I don't know it's so weird. Like almost all of the girls gained like eight kilos. It was really a common pattern because when I was 16, a lot of girls, i read it but it was like super cool, you're super interesting. I mean I also had it. I just was thinking why do they tell them? I didn't tell anyone because they didn't want them to stamp in their coat, you know. But I also developed it in this year I think Like a little bit before, but it became stronger when I was then 16 and in my exchange in Chile, i don't know, because we feel like I want to try, I want to try, i want to try. And then you are like, ah, but I don't want to lose weight, i don't want to gain weight, i don't want to gain weight. What do I do? I throw up. It might sound ridiculous, but it's like. Sometimes we humans are worked like this ridiculous. And now I heard some girls telling me that they have it, that then they want to try, like all like. I had this conversation in Colombia. There's so many fried food on the street empanadas, palito de queso, you know, like all these sausages, chorizo, whatever, repas. I mean, they're like so many things and if you eat them too much, obviously you gain weight. But what can you then do? Understand why you cannot eat it consciously. So maybe because you're that's another thing I want to talk about is control, and a lot of people who have it it's because they're controlling too much they are eating. What about if I tell you, just go with the slow, just be in peace And every day what you want to eat and connect to your body If you're really hungry, i believe or I experience, you can eat whatever you want if you're really hungry and not overeating, and obviously not every day. You know like I'm also a lover of vegetables and healthy food and to and really nourishing my body. So if one day per week or twice I eat a little empanada or palito de queso, i'm gonna be at work telling you. So, if you are like really learning, like a little bit of this conscious eating, learning maybe if you feel you don't know so much about it, like learning about nutrition, what is really healthy for your body, what not And then allow yourself from time to time these really delicious treats. And also, if you go out for dinner with other people, allow it then to yourself. And the time you don't know not, or adapt to it. But let go of this control And don't, because there's another thing, don't make it like what is also like happening about is you're not enjoying this meetings with other people having dinner because you're all the time thinking about, oh, i will get all the way and get all the way, when can I go to the toilet and throw up or whatever, and you're not really present and not enjoying it. So what about trying next time to really be present and not conversations and make food not the main attraction of the evening but trying to make choose a plant you like, but then it really present and conscious And then, little by little, you start again enjoying it. Because I remember a conversation I had. It was in a woman's circle I gave in Columbia And later I'm really if you're listening greetings to take a real conversation too. But she said longer and she told me because I told the other guy was suffering from a eating disorder, and she said longer and she told me you know what the worst part of it I'm not even enjoying meeting you people here trying all the new foods, because I'm all the time just thinking about anything more than the others. What will they think? or anything less than the others, what will they think? or can I eat it? It has too much calories, whatever. But that was because she's really in the beginning of her healing journey, right? Or she was because then you are still at the peak of the iceberg. Dig deeper, what's really there? Maybe you are like a flage on your authentic self to the others And then you are like just getting distracted by the food, or you're appreciating your side. You are wonderful as you are. It doesn't matter if you have a little belly or if you have a six-pack. That's another thing you need to learn. That's another thing I understand as a digital nomad. It's quite hard to keep your spots routine, for example. So I mean I could talk about it so much more And I don't know if this helped your little bit or gave you like. If you are having it, gave you like some ideas. Maybe adjust that you feel. Oh, finally, someone understands me. If you want to dig deeper and to adjust, contact me and we can also have a private conversation on that, because I was hovering from it 10 years a day And when I sat my digital nomad journey, i still had it. It was such a pleasure now Keeping on with my digital life style, being aware of it, and just enjoy new food, enjoy going out with people And understand that I had this. Oh, i don't appreciate myself enough. And now having my tools to appreciate myself, what? What? another example that might sum up your pace. It's not always about when interacting with others. It's also and I had it in the beginning when we are too stressed to work productively in Concentrator because, as a digital nomad, it's so hard to keep up with our to-do list sometimes because we need to pack, we need to travel, we need to organize logistics so we don't have so much time to work as if we would stay all the time at the same place. So here it's really our capacities and our ability to be a little bit productive and focused right. This is something I appreciate and really learning Now thanks to my digital nomad, like being a little bit more conscious of my time. But then sometimes we feel like so eye-throated and I know other people also feel so stressed about our to-do list that we cannot deal with it and then we just eat. Right. As I said in the beginning, the stress So it's this circle you know like mainly stress in so many different ways is the trigger. So be conscious. What is your stress factor? There are like so many different. Then, when you once understood what's your stress factor and you could link it to the food, accept it, become aware of it, take your time to understand what's below there, find your alternatives, work on this limiting belief you have. Maybe, maybe it's I'm not worth enough. What is it that you have for there? Change it. Start living in yourself, appreciating yourself with everything you're managing in life. That's amazing. I don't know you, but I don't know any person in my life that cannot be proud of what they manage each of us in our own dimensions and ways. And then it will be automatically that in someone you're surprised that you would have new abilities on how to deal with it and also have this compassion. And for a digital nomad, it's even harder sometimes to take the time to be on the healing journey to understand it. But also because you don't have the safe space where you can be on your healing journey. In every new place where you are, you are like again vulnerable, you meet new people, you don't have the safe space, so these are all factors that make it a little bit more difficult. But on the same time, if you then manage your healing, it's not like a little poor thought, it's like quicker, it's like more quick. And that's what I wanted to share, and let's see if some of you find it helpful or not. There's not this one solution. Each of us is different, but there's one way and it's taking the time for yourself and be brave, to accept it, to watch it and then find your way on how to deal it. For me, it's journaling, for me it's dance, for me it's meditation This inner conversation I had where I really asked myself why do I want to eat now? What's really the surface of the iceberg? And maybe this is something you can start with and that helps you. I sent you a big hug. Remember have compassion. It's not that you're a bad person if you're also so fine. You're super valuable and good enough With this. I sent you a big hug And thanks for listening until the end, thanks for other safe space of allowing ourselves some time today and showing us vulnerable. Thank you, bye.

And that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate it very, very much. I would appreciate it even more if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts for me. That way, more people can find this podcast, more people can hear the inspiring stories that we're sharing, and the more people we can impact for the better. So, thank you so much if you are going to leave a review. I really appreciate you And I will see you in the next episode.