Erin Reiland is a Certified Disordered Eating/Anxiety, Breathwork and NLP Trauma Coach. She helps women overcome their struggles with food, its underlying causes and begin to live a purposeful life with lasting recovery.
She is the creator of InBody_Love Coaching, where she supports and guides women to heal their past trauma, anxiety and disordered eating. Erin had a battle for over 20 years with a severe eating disorder and experiencing early childhood trauma. Since recovering, she has made it her mission to help others with their mental health.
She is a Certified Breathwork Practitioner, using breath to heal past trauma, negative emotions and pain stuck within the body.
In the last 3 years, she has been featured in major media outlets such as CBS, ABC, NBC and FOX. She was a contributing consultant for a TEDx talk about eating disorders in 2019, with over 100k views. She has been a guest on multiple podcasts, interviews and speaking engagements on topics surrounding mental health and eating disorders.
She is also certified in DBT, CBT and Mindfulness Coaching. She is an Ambassador for "Project Heal", the Nations largest nonprofit providing grants to those who cannot afford eating disorder treatment. She has over 12k Instagram (@erin_reiland_love) and Twitter (@food_Body_Coach) Followers.
Her mission is "HOPE"...Help One Person Everyday.
Erin Reiland, Disordered Eating & Mental Health Coach
Hi Erin, introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better. Hi, my name is Erin Reiland, and I am a Certified Disordered Eating/Anxiety/Trauma & Mental Health Coach~Breathwork Facilitator & NLP Practitioner. Before starting my own business, I worked in Academia at Stanford University for 12 years. I was born, raised and still reside in the Bay Area, Northern, CA. I am a single mom to my 13-year-old son and have an amazing rescue Pitbull, Lucie. We rescued her at a year old and now she is 10 years old. She is the heart of our family who brings joy into everything we do.
One of my passions in life is to continue to spread awareness, understanding and compassion about eating disorders and mental health. I am an ambassador for Project Heal, which is the largest nonprofit eating disorder organization in the country. They help those who need treatment but cannot afford it. The more that people can get the information and resources they need to recover, the better chance that lasting recovery will happen.
What is your business name and how do you help your clients?
My business is called “InBody_Love” Coaching. I support women who struggle with any type of disordered eating, body image, and unhealthy relationships they may have about themselves. I also work with women who have experienced past trauma, anxiety and depression to help them work through that pain that may be holding them back from fully living life.
I coach women in a 1:1 setting as I have found this type of coaching provides a safe environment for true healing and transformation. Using my own past experience from healing from my 20-year battle with an eating disorder and what had helped me finally be able to recover, I then began to use that as well as the educational piece, to bring in specific tools, guided meditations and more into my coaching. I begin with getting to know the person and who they are without their disorder or what they have gone through, to see that person underneath. Discovering what they want for themselves, and how we can move towards those goals. To be able to fully recover and heal the past trauma or pain that has resulted in using food, exercise or any other maladaptive behaviors to distract, punish or focus on rather than the real issues underneath that need to be healed. Peeling back those layers is a process and the more I work with someone it becomes apparent what is at the very core of their disorder/trauma etc. I focus more on the person, not the actual disorder-although working on behaviors and better feelings about oneself goes hand in hand with everything.
In the last couple of years, I started practicing breathwork and became certified with PAUSE Breathwork as a Trauma Informed Breathwork Facilitator. Using breathwork with clients has been an amazing experience to watch how much it has changed their lives. I use integrative and meditative sessions with different goals for each client. But the practice allows for someone to drop into their body and as the breath takes over, it can release emotions and experiences that have been “stuck” inside of them for years.
The body knows way more than the mind does and holds onto energy that keeps one in a place of not being able to fully be their best self or fulfill their full potential. Sometimes we aren’t even aware that these emotions are there. Through guided breathwork sessions, as these emotions are released people feel like a weight has been removed from their soul. I have experienced these things and know first-hand the power of breathwork.
What are your current goals for your business and what would you like to achieve for yourself and your business in the future?
My goals and what I see for myself and business in the future, is to really be able to help as many people as possible for those who struggle with eating disorders and mental health issues. With speaking engagement’s beginning to start again (with Covid restrictions beginning to lift), I am excited to get out there at conferences, and other public avenues to speak and be a guest speaker at these types of events.
I have also begun to hold group programs and have already received amazing feedback, so expanding on those will be a way for me to work with groups of women. Holding a collective space for healing is so powerful.
Although eating disorders are my focus, working with those who have had past trauma is very important to me as well. (There is a high correlation with eating disorders and trauma). I myself suffered extensive trauma as a child and I know the negative lasting effects it can have on someone. Coaching those who have gone through trauma is something that I am passionate about.
I plan to expand my breathwork coaching to be able to reach more people and show the power of breathwork in life!
I will continue to write articles, do interviews and shed light to this misunderstood disorder. By using my past and now having a voice to talk openly about what I experienced, I know that it will help someone. An article where I was interviewed about my eating disorder felt very raw and exposed in a way. But without people such as myself, the stigma surrounding eating disorders and mental health will continue. You can read my interview by Arianna Huffington’s “Thrive Global” Magazine about my journey with my eating disorder here.
Who inspires you to be the best that you can be?
Personally, the people who inspire me are my mother and son. My mother never gave up on me as I struggled for 20 years in my eating disorder. She was there as I was in and out of treatment, when I felt hopeless, and her support is one of the main reasons I was able to finally recover. She is one of the strongest and supportive people I know. My son also has been such a great teacher in what unconditional love is. I was able to love someone without the fear I used to have to love another person. He shows me resilience and I feel that in many ways he saved me from myself. I knew I wanted to get better and during my recovery process he was a motivator, but also, I began to see that I first had to recover for myself, to then be a better mother to him.
Professionally, my clients and those who I have helped are the ones who inspire me. To help them see the light, even if all they feel is darkness. I walk WITH them in their journey and as they heal, I continue to grow personally. If I help one person or make a difference in someone’s life, then that is what continues to bring joy into my own life. My motto is: "HOPE"...Help One Person Everyday ™
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.
A pivotal moment in my life that has brought me to where I am today, was not ONE actual situation or moment. It has been a culmination of small moments that lead me to finally make the decision to change my trajectory in life.
Struggling for almost half of my life with a severe eating disorder that stemmed from my childhood trauma, and having anxiety and depression felt so defeating at times. I wanted to get better and live a normal life, but my relapses reinforced that I was not worthy, capable or ever going to recover. Even after having my son, I struggled with the disorder and my guilt for not being able to get better for him added to the whole perspective that my eating disorder was who I was.
At my last residential treatment center back in 2015 though, is where and when my life began to change. I was halfway across the country from my son and at that point I was told by the doctors that my body and health were at a critical point. All the years of abuse had taken its toll on me. I mentally could not focus or really understand basic things as my brain was not working correctly.
I also was not able to regain the weight that was needed because my body was not processing the food. The doctors gave me the option to have a NG tube put in to help me restore weight. (A NG tube is used at times when someone is at a point of the body not responding to eating food or restoring weight when needed). In the past I had refused to get one. It terrified me to think that the liquid calories would make me “fat” (which is not true). But this time it was literally a choice that I had to make that ended up saving me. The choice was to begin to live or die. As scared as I was, I had the tube put in.
As I spoke to my young son on Facetime with the tube in my nose, I was devasted to see his face so scared. He didn’t understand the full extent of the situation. I knew at that point I was not going to have him lose me to the disorder. I had always tried to get better for him, but this time recovering was finally for me.
4 months later I left residential treatment, returned home and spent the next year in a day program and then back to life where I worked in academia at Stanford University. I loved my job and had been there for 12 years. I could have stayed there and continued with my job. But something pulled at my heart. I felt that I was meant to help others who were going through what I had. So, I left my job and began schooling for the next two years to become certified in multiple disciplines. Taking those tools and my own experiences I started my own business. Coaching and working with women in my 1:1 coaching programs that I offer as well as my Breathwork coaching I know that recovery is 100% possible.
Looking back on old pictures when I was sick and then photos from now, it is almost as if I am looking at someone I don’t know or recognize. It is so hard in the midst of being in the disorder to see your true self. It becomes distorted and you have no real grasp on the reality of living, other than the disorder and the lies it tells you.
Recovery is a journey for sure. There is no one path or way to a different way of living. It is not linear, but what I do know is that if you keep trying, picking yourself back up if you slip and remind yourself that there is no such thing as “perfect”. There will be hard times but going through the process will allow for you to emerge on the other side. You are worthy of a life that brings you peace, joy and allowing your true self to be seen!
I am grateful and want others to know that they are never alone and that living can feel terrifying. But that with healing life becomes better than you could imagine.
