Progress Not Perfection with Lara Reaves

 
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Episode 48 - Progress Not Perfection with Lara Reaves

by Karin Lewis, MA, LMFT, CEDS

IN THIS EPISODE:

This week I welcome Lara Reaves to the show. Lara is a certified Holistic Nutrition Practitioner, specializing in eating disorders, and recovered from her own battle with an eating disorder that nearly destroyed many of her dreams for her future. Since recovery, Lara has worked in residential clinical settings, adolescent mental health facilities, and is well-versed in communicating with a treatment team. She is the Chief Operations Officer and Coach for Rebecca's Eating Disorder Foundation, and a Recovery Coach for the Karin Lewis Eating Disorder Center. Her mission became to increase awareness and educate the public about eating disorders and the journey of recovery.


SOME OF THE TOPICS DISCUSSED:

  • The ways in which the journey to recovery can be one of the greatest teachers and source of growth.

  • Using behaviors in an effort to soothe the pain form the voices in your head.

  • How eating disorder behaviors (falsely) “protect” loved ones from the severity of one’s pain.

  • Recovery requires learning how to not negotiate one’s values.

  • The idea that one can make space for courage through disallowing fear from paralyzing the process.

  • How the courage and self-esteem gained from moving through fear outlive and outlast fear itself.

  • Recovery allows one to be “a part” of life as opposed to being “apart” from it.

ABOUT LARA REAVES:

When Lara Reaves arrived at a place of meaningful recovery with an urge to help people like herself. When asked by mentor Rebecca Cooper “what do you want to do deep down inside in your gut,” Lara knew the answer was to help others with eating disorders and Lara’s training began her training shortly thereafter. The clinical expertise and decades of recovery from her mentor offered Lara a unique education that “I would have never experienced during a psychology master's program.” During this time, Lara assisted in building a virtual Disorder Eating program, seminars on Eating Disorder Treatment, workshops, and writing projects. The experience was inspiring, and watching people make peace with food and their bodies felt like witnessing miracles. Lara realized that the Recovery coaching aspect of the work was what she loved and felt the most passionate about, leading to Lara receiving her certification as an Eating Disorder Recovery Coach from The Rebecca's Foundation Institute.

Lara was supervised and trained directly under Rebecca Cooper, world-renowned eating disorder therapist, author, and founder of Rebecca's House residential treatment center. Lara also volunteered as a Recovery Mentor, an experience that planted the seed to pursuing work as a recovery coach. She found it deeply rewarding to be a part of someone else's transformative journey towards a deeper, more peaceful relationship with food, addiction, and themselves. Through looking at the causes, effects, and social pressures, she grew her awareness of how much needed to be done to help people with Eating Disorders and mental health. As a recovered anorexic, bulimic, and alcoholic, Lara realized her new mission was increasing awareness of multiple aspects of the problem, guiding people in steps on the journey to recovery, and educating the public about the seriousness of eating disorders.

Since recovery, Lara has worked in residential clinical settings, adolescent mental health facilities, and is well-versed in communicating with a treatment team. She is the Chief Operations Officer of The Rebecca's Eating Disorder Foundation, where they fund men and women who want to get treatment. Lara is a Certified Eating Disorder Recovery Coach from The Rebecca’s Foundation Institute, Chief Operations Officer and Coach for Rebecca’s Eating Disorder Foundation, Body Image Training for Clinicians: The Missing Piece of Whole-Body Healing with Marci Evans, CEDRD-S & Fiona Sutherland, and Certified Holistic Nutrition Practitioner from Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, Tempe AZ.

Lara continues to value and love doing the things that helped her to reach full recovery by continuing to deepen her sense of spirituality and connection with the world including attending 12 step support groups, prayer and meditation, journaling, walking in nature, and reading a mix of spiritual and self-help books. Lara resides in Southern California, where she lives with her beloved husband Amir and their two dogs Ariel and Ernest. In her free time, Lara enjoys doing what she genuinely loves. Lately, this has been a lot of writing, playing with her dogs, service work (collecting and donating food and clothes for charities), gardening, and watching “I Love Lucy.”

CONNECT WITH LARA REAVES:

ABOUT KARIN LEWIS:

Karin Lewis, MA, LMFT, CEDS has been recovered from Anorexia Nervosa for over 20 years and has been specializing in the prevention and treatment of eating disorders since 2005. Karin is the founder of the Karin Lewis Eating Disorder Center located in Boston, MA. You can visit Karin Lewis Eating Disorder Center online to learn more about Karin and her center’s services. You can also connect with Karin on social media by following her on Facebook and Instagram.