This profile of Joanna Poppink was published as part of Revlon’s “Love is On” 2016 Million Dollar Challenge, which highlighted inspiring change makers around the world and raised money for select charities. written by Jonah Weiss

You can describe Joanna Poppink in different ways — therapist, author, naturalist, essayist — but they’re all aspects of the same holistic project of her life’s work: helping women understand and overcome eating disorders.

              Make the call to honor and save your life.

Will you keep waiting for tomorrow to begin your recovery? Tomorrow never comes.

Procrastination is a powerful part of living with an eating disorder. You postpone taking recovery action. When you put positive activities off you are saying that you'll create a new life for yourself in the future. You plan in your mind, as if you can have two lives, this one and the one you'll create when you finish procrastinating.

“The ultimate measure of a person is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." - Martin Luther King Jr.

And when is it not a time of challenge and controversy? When we are in moments of comfort and convenience, aren't we focusing on what's pleasant in our lives and disregarding pain in the world? We can't focus on pain all the time. That's disabling. We need to nourish ourselves and each other with love and support.

Question: What's hidden under your clothes, under your awareness, under your eating disorder? Answer: the path to your healing.

Vanity, character flaws and psychological weakness are not causes of eating disorders.  

Believing they are undermines a person's appreciation of themselves, fosters shame and inhibits seeking real help. It also creates massive confusion when a person with an eating disorder knows she has a strong sense of who she is yet can't find a way to live while honoring herself.

Cravings, urges, temptations each stimulate and lure you to the edge of action. Will you eat the ice cream or diet frozen yogurt? Will you do a drive by at your ex-boyfriend's house? Will you stay on the treadmill another hour? What is the power behind your decision?

A kind of circle develops between my patients, my garden and me where we share and appreciate the giving and receiving that is happening naturally for the benefit of all of us.

*pix View from my office window. Patient waiting area is to the right in the shaded area not visible.

Functioning in the world without an eating disorder can be just as daunting as functioning on the moon. Both require new learning and practice.

In social media, where people with eating disorders call out to each other, look for support, try to find recovery, and give warnings to others about what treatment didn't work, the shared pain, fear, and frustration are clear.