I've spent much of my life interested in hunger.
Not only hunger for food, but for safety, pleasure, belonging, meaning, freedom, attention, and a life that actually feels like ours.
Along the way, I've become increasingly suspicious of a culture that tells us the answer is to keep improving ourselves.
What if we don't need another person telling us how to perfect our lives? What if we need practices that help us become more intimate with the lives we're actually living?
Jenna Hollenstein
Author · Buddhist Teacher · Speaker · Nutrition Therapist
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LEARN & PRACTICE WITH ME
Meditations, talks, workshops & retreats
Practice with me through guided meditations on Insight Timer and Lion's Roar, or join me for workshops, talks, and retreats at Kripalu and elsewhere.
READ AWAKE ANYWAY
Essays, reflections & things I'm thinking about
Awake Anyway is where I write regularly about Buddhism, bodies, motherhood, desire, horror, culture, and whatever else I'm trying to make sense of.
WORK WITH EAT TO LOVE
A companion for exploring your relationship with food
The Eat to Love Companion Workbook offers practices, reflections, and exercises for bringing the ideas in Eat to Love into your own life.
LOOKING FOR A SPEAKER OR TEACHER?
I speak and teach for conferences, retreats, universities, professional organizations, workplaces, and communities, with talks and workshops that bring Buddhist practice, embodiment, nourishment, and contemporary life into conversation.
I’ve been a dietitian for more than 20 years but back when I started I was still deep into my own disordered eating and drinking. At least I had the good sense not to get a job guiding people’s eating. Instead I delved into the science as a medical writer and editor.
I took my last drink on my 33rd birthday, a choice that, as it turns out, changed everything. Being sober forced me to face my fears, to get comfortable with discomfort, and to finally address my relationship with food and my own body.
I realize now that, even at my most disordered some of my own innate wisdom shone through: after all, I did choose a career that would ultimately allow me to heal and to support others’ healing as well.
When I began meditating, my brain started exploding with all the connections between Buddhist philosophy and the behaviors and substances we use to change how we feel: dieting, drinking, shopping, working, and on and on.
I’ve since explored those connections in my own relationship with food and body, in my work with people, and through writing. What I’ve realized I’m best at is accompanying you through your own process of deprogramming from the diet culture and reconnecting with the wisdom of your body, mind, and heart through Intuitive Eating and meditation.
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