LOVE FOOD. LOVE YOUR BODY. LOVE YOUR LIFE.
Rediscover the magic of eating for pleasure, weight loss is a joyous consequence
Artful Eating Summer seminars 2022
Monday evenings from 8pm-10pm
6th Jun 2022 – 11th Jul 2022, Dublin GMT (UTC +01:00)
Location: Online, Playback available
Dear friends,
As we enter the summer season and my work at the University pauses, I find I have time, for the first time in quite a while, to turn to the very important business of thinking about food and the necessity, indeed the joy and magic of a positive relationship to it.
I then turn my thoughts to the body. Mine has just recently turned 40, which feels like a great privilege. It has weathered many storms; illness, accidents, abuse in the form of far too much champagne more than once or even twice (!) it has grown, birthed and fed two babies and it continues to serve me well. I feel incredibly proud and grateful for the one I have- my mothers legs, my fathers skin.
In the past, indeed I make no secret of it, I had a wretched relationship with my body, dissatisfied with this, frustrated with that. Embarrassed and always, always longing to be thinner, taller, better in some inexorable way that I could never attain. My body and the food I ate were intolerable, unhappy companions. I shouldn't have eaten this! Why did I eat that? On Monday I will do better... and so on it went for far too many years.
It is with a deep gratitude to my clients- for my approach began with them- that I now find true joy in the food I eat, the body I inhabit and the lightness and ease I feel, which is in great contrast to a youth and early adulthood of inner dissatisfaction and outer self-consciousness. Why I wonder do we approach food and weight loss with such a heaviness and negativity? Pleasure is the key to liberation, nourishment and lightness, in the heart and in the body. But I am getting a little bit ahead of myself!
Over the pandemic I was struck by how much boredom, stress and despondence fed into the collective problematic of food and I was deeply saddened that food and weight became a further burden for people on top of all the rest of the deeply troubling uncertainties which hounded us. It seems that so many people gained weight and are still carrying the anxiety and excess pounds since the pandemic, and with the natural limitations of working one to one, I wonder how best I can help…
The solution I've come up with, and which I am so very excited about, is The Artful Eating Summer Seminars, a series of seminars over six weeks which will be held live online- so yes, that would require carving out about two hours on a Monday evening to join us (though of course a playback will be made available) in a series of lessons, informed by the season and the Artful Eating approach.
Over the years I've come to consider Artful Eating as being like a language- no doubt this has something to do with my day-job as a Lacanian Psychoanalyst. Initially as a beginner, it takes conscious consideration, study, and intention to apply. But over time and with consistency, one becomes fluent, really enjoying this new way of thinking and seeing things. For those of you proficient in a second language you'll no doubt know exactly what I mean, one thinks differently in a different tongue. And this is true too of Artful Eating. So together will will have six inspiring, interesting, and enjoyable weeks throughout the summer to immerse ourselves in this language. The result will be a completely different relationship with food, our body and our lives.
If this piques your interest, here is a brief outline of the course:
There are four tenets to this approach; Pleasure, Ethics, Structure and Image. Over the six weeks we will explore these ideas and how they influence and shape us inside and out. I will provide you with resources, seasonal recipe ideas, practical tools including the ever-popular cognitive hypnosis audios, essentially everything required to assimilate this 'language' into your daily life easily and effortlessly. I anticipate that this will be fun, inspiring, enjoyable and the knowledge you will acquire is one that you cannot unlearn.
If you haven't engaged with this approach before, then you will certainly enjoy the freedom which comes from a change in thinking and behaviour around food and your body. And of course you will find that once you assimilate this way of thinking and feeling, weight loss will be an enjoyable consequence.
Perhaps you've already read my book or done one of my courses, if so, then these seminars will move you from beginner or intermediate to advanced, if you permit me to stretch the language metaphor that little bit further!
A final note, the fee for the seminar series is €250, this provides access to two people to enjoy the six sessions, so you can share the cost, or gift access to a friend, parent, son or daughter, someone who you feel will benefit from it as much as you. Together you can be each others support, accountability and really enjoy the journey and reinforce the learning though deeper personal discussions.
If you would like to book a place you can click the link here. If you have any questions or would like to know more, you can email karina@artful-eating.com and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Wishing you a wonderful hazy, light-filled Summer.
x Karina
THE DETAILS:
LOVE FOOD. LOVE YOUR BODY. LOVE YOUR LIFE.
Life is too precious to spend any amount of time feeling ill at ease about your body, ruminating about what or how much you've eaten, what you should or shouldn't eat, or how you feel in your own skin. There is so much joy and magic to be had, so much adversity to navigate, personally and globally, that feeling vital, energised, at ease in your body is an invaluable baseline.
Privileging the pleasure and nourishment of food is an easy, necessary position which we can all learn to inhabit.
A LIFE CHANGING PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH
Let go of unhelpful ingrained beliefs and behaviours around weight loss and your body. Learn a new language where the focus is not on what you eat, but on why and how you eat.
This course merges science, psychology, and spirituality. Together we will create a new way of being in the world where you enjoy food and your body. This is a wholistic approach which extends far beyond how many calories you consume or how much you exercise. This is about relearning the joy, creative possibilities and nourishment of what you eat, how you eat, and how you show up for yourself and others in the world. Once you learn the language of Artful Eating it is a knowledge and way of being that you will carry throughout your life. It will touch those around you and it will lighten your heart as well as your body.
THE FREEDOM TO EAT THE FOOD YOU LOVE
Rediscover the magic of eating for pleasure, weight loss is a joyous consequence
The food we eat shapes us inside and out, but in recent times for so many of us, our relationship to food has become distorted. Food is a source of nourishment, it is an opportunity for pause, pleasure, creativity and rejuvenation. When trying to lose weight we tend to focus on controlling what we eat as opposed to relearning how to listen to our bodies and eat as much as we need in pleasure, love and appreciation- this is about conscious eating, focusing on pleasure. For far too long controlled eating and dieting has resulted in weight gain as opposed to harmony. It is time to look at the underlying causes; which are personal, social, psychological and cultural, as opposed to the symptom- our disease with our bodies.
COGNITIVE HYPNOSIS AUDIO REPROGRAMMING
This course will provide you with knowledge, skills and perspectives which will transform your life. You will create and live a new story of ease, freedom and pleasure around food and your body.
The story we tell ourselves shapes us inside and out. In some ways the story you tell yourself serves you, but in other ways it may be holding you in unhelpful positions and patterns. This summer school will help you uncover the fixed and limiting aspects of your story which are holding you back from truly living the life you desire and deserve. Change your story. Changer your life. We have a tendency to focus on the symptom, not the cause of our struggles in life. This course will help you come to know and truly understand the underlying struggles which have lead to your particular symptoms around food and your body.
ABOUT YOUR FACILITATOR
Join bestselling author and psychologist Karina Melvin for the Artful Eating Summer School and immerse yourself in a new language, a new way of feeling and being in your body and with the world around you. Weight loss is a joyous consequence.
Karina is a lecturer and clinical supervisor of Psychoanalysis in The UCD School of Medicine. With over 15 years of experience in this field, she works in private practice both online and in Dublin helping people come to feel at ease in their body and their lives. If you feel you would benefit from working individually with Karina you can contact her at karina@artful-eating.com
6 Week Structure
Weekly meetings MONDAY 06tH June - 11th July, 20:00 - 22:00 GMT on Zoom
Meeting weekly in our online space, we will undertake a journey through the language of Artful Eating
The Four Tenets which will ground this approach are: Pleasure, Ethics, Structure and Image.
Week One: 06/06 L'Aperitif
Pleasure is at the heart of it all. The old paradigm of willpower, control and limitations doesn’t work and is unsustainable long term. Mental reprogramming, realignment and intuitive eating, recognising that one size/approach/diet does not fit all. Rediscover your own inner wisdom, intuition and needs around food, your body and your life.
Week Two: 13/06 Hors d'oeuvre
Pleasure continued…Overcoming emotional eating, create healthy rhythms and rituals around food and your body for ordinary time and special occasions. Every day deserves to be revered, cherished and enjoyed through how you feel in your skin, to the food which nourishes you to the way you look and feel and carry yourself. Life is filled with opportunities for little pleasures which create the conditions for resilience, tolerance and consistency.
Week Three: 20/06 Main course
Ethics- what are your ethics when it comes to food and your body? Do you treat it with respect, love and compassion? Do you listen to it? Do you notice the little changes in mood, complexion, appearance, energy which are subtle communications from your body which deserve and need acknowledgment. What decisions guide and ground the food you eat? Do you know where it comes from? Do you know what’s in it? Create your own coordinates, language, thoughts and feelings around food and your body which will guide your choices and behaviours.
Week Four: 27/06 Desert
Structure- creating an environment and lifestyle which serves, supports and nourishes you. What comes into your orbit shapes you inside and out, not just the food we eat, but the media we consume, the music we listen to, the apps on our phone, the people we spend time with, the clothes we wear and products we use. Everything we consume gently and subtly impacts and shapes us. The life we live, how it is set up in so many ways is a default mode of being. Being considered and really creating a life, rhythm and cadence which supports a positive way of living, with an emphasis on attending to pleasure and joy is a marvellous platform for weathering the exigencies of life and maintaining a healthy relationship to food, ones body and ones reality.
Week Five: 04/06 Cheese
Image- this is central to the Artful Eating approach, how we view ourselves, the story we tell about ourselves is the reality inside and out that we experience. We cannot change our bodies if we first don’t change the story we have about ourselves. There is so often a disconnect between how we look and feel and how we want to look and feel. And often, when one does reach their dream size, they struggle to maintain it, because their story hasn’t changed. The image they have of themselves hasn’t changed. Its time to uncover the deep seated and engrained beliefs you have about who and how you are and to identify a new story, a new image which is still you, but a lighter, brighter, more at ease, liberated you which is in line with how you want to feel most of the time.
Week Six: 11/07 Artful Eating for life
Finding inner balance and ease with your body, mind and soul. Confidence and creativity with food, preparation, thought and planning for the life you desire now and always
Overview
6 × 2 hrs Live Workshops
We meet weekly on Monday evenings, for a 2 hour live session delving into the psychological, scientific and spiritual aspects of enjoying food and your body now and always. Weight loss and sustaining your desired weight will be a joyous consequence of these new perspectives. Playback will be available for those who cannot attend live. If you choose to join live, you can join in or come along without putting your video on- it is entirely up to whatever feels comfortable to you!Resources & Homework
Each week you will receive a cognitive hypnosis audio to help reprogram your mind and spirit. You will also receive homework in the form of actions, tasks, and practical exercises which will change your perspective, position and help support the new ideas and awareness which will come to light during our sessions.A-E partner
Your ticket provides access to two people to enjoy the six sessions, so you can share the cost, or gift access to a friend, parent, son or daughter, someone who you feel will benefit from it as much as you. Together you can be each others support, accountability and really enjoy the journey and reinforce the learning though deeper personal discussions.
What are the benefits and possible effects of this course?
You will learn to become fluent in the language and culture of Artful Eating, this is a liberation from old, unhelpful and ineffective approaches to weight loss.
You will discover why it is not so much about what you eat, but more why and how you eat that is the key to easily inhabiting your body with confidence, comfort and vitality.
You will learn how to overcome emotional eating and how to shift from being a controlled eater to an intuitive eater.
You will come to untangle the old unhelpful ingrained beliefs and fixed ideas around your body and size. You will change your story which is an essential element in changing how you see yourself, which in turn will change how you carry yourself in your life. Great, effortless, lasting changes will come from this shift in perspective.
This is a far reaching process which will encompass so much more than the food you eat and how you eat it. Get ready for a life-recalibration as you choose to change how you feel about yourself and how you see yourself. Wonderful unexpected and powerful changes will come from this.
To note...
Although the effects of this work may be therapeutic, it is important to know it isn't therapy. If you are moving through something extremely challenging, such as trauma or an eating disorder we strongly recommend that you combine this work with a therapist who can offer you one on one support.
Why participate?
Life is too short to feel uncomfortable in your body or dissatisfied with how you look and feel. Vitality, health and body confidence are a wonderful starting off point for the challenging, exciting and exhilarating journey that is your life. Now is the time to move forward in a way where you feel at ease around food and in your body. There are plenty of other things to give your thoughts and energy to!
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If you are curious and want to find out more, or are unsure and want to have a little taste of the work before you commit, then get in touch with Karina at karina@artful-eating.com
Testimonials
“I’ve lost 30 pounds so far and its really been the most enjoyable process! This is like no other weight loss approach I’ve tried. I can eat the food I love, I just now understand how to eat. Artful Eating has changed everything for me. I am finally happy with my body and with food, my diet is not what I think of every minute and I don’t constantly feel guilty about what I eat- it’s so liberating!”
“ I feel totally ‘different’ after listening to the Cognitive Hypnosis Audios - It’s so easy now to only eat when I’m actually hungry and eat the right amount for me. The audios make it so effortless, I set my goals and have easily stuck to them. But mostly I discovered that I can lose weight by changing the way I think about food and my body. I’ve reached my goal and lost 3 stone, this way of feeling around food has truly changed my life.”
“Working through the Artful Eating programme was utterly transformative for me. So much of what you taught me and guided me through has stuck. I’m amazed. Really big positive lifestyle changes. Deeply ingrained unhelpful habits, cut loose.”
Investment
Your ticket provides access to two people to enjoy the six sessions, so you can share the cost, or gift access to a friend, parent, son or daughter, someone who you feel will benefit from it as much as you. Together you can be each others support, accountability and really enjoy the journey and reinforce the learning though deeper personal discussions. If you feel strongly called to join but cannot afford the fee, please get in touch to discuss something that can work for you. Once you buy a ticket, send me the name and email of your nomination and I will include them in all correspondences pertaining to the Summer Seminars going forward.
Practical Info
To join this event you’ll need to create a free zoom account which you can set up here: https://zoom.us/ Instructions on how to join the call will be sent the Friday before the first session
Please note that we do not arrange refunds or exchanges. We welcome swapping or reselling your tickets with people you know or via Ticket Swap
For enquiries please email Karina at: karina@artful-eating.com
Website: artful-eating.com
REFUNDS POLICY: Please note, we do not arrange refunds or exchanges. When possible we encourage reselling or swapping your ticket
ACCESS: We do our best to include everyone in our events, regardless of health circumstances. If you have access requirements please email karina@artful-eating.com directly to discuss.
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