Learning who I really am
through my relationship with food has ultimately been one of the most empowering experiences of my life.

Welcome, I'm Marina Francis

I don’t buy into the myth that this traditional discouraging, disempowering diet mentality can ever actually give us any long term results we can sustain and be happy with.

Instead, when we feel what it’s like to stand unapologetically in who we want to be, our bodies begin to relax into this. We do the honest, and empowering work that deeply reconnects us to body food and soul. How we eat and how we show up in the world is deeply related. By learning to eat and honor our bodies as an authentic expression of ALL of who we are, we finally get the lasting results we’ve been looking for the whole time.

When I was a kid I used food to go comfortably numb and to try to feel safer living in my very unstable family.
When I got older, I used food to limit and sabotage my gifts, my true voice and honest desires.

I tried so many strategies and made endless bargains with myself in misguided attempts to create a healthier relationship with food and with my body that I couldn’t sustain. I failed every time; whether it was a day, a week or a year later, eventually I’d find myself overeating sugar.

Again.

I did a lot of this in secret because I was very attached to preserving the outward appearance that I had my sh*t together, because back then I cared a lot about what people thought of me.

Read More of Marina's Story

I’d usually start off with momentum and excitement until one or several things happened:

  • In the chaos and noise of my world, I’d often “forget” how I wanted to be eating.
  • I’d get too busy or overcommit and not eat, then overeat later.
  • In an effort to be “good”, I’d skip lunch and work out, then get fast food on the way home.
  • I’d numb my feelings with food when I was scared about money, when my relationship ended, or when my grandmother died.

This seriously eroded my sense of worth for years. It didn’t matter that I “looked” successful or together because I couldn’t believe it myself.

I spent years caught in the chronic trap of all or nothing. I’d either eat excessively, or I’d deprive myself, out of a basic mis-trust that I couldn’t eat “some” without tight control.

This dynamic still comes up for me once in awhile, but my saboteurs don’t take me down the way they once did. Now I can feel fear, or be in a major uncomfortable squirmy or unknown place and still honor my body. I can experience leaving a relationship, telling a hard truth to a family member, or face a thin bank account without needing to eat over the top of the emotions that can feel so huge at times.

The tools I teach clients and groups are the same ones I use for myself whenever I feel I’m getting smaller – in a relationship, in my visibility professionally, and in my desires for my life.

You Can Get Started Here

“Marina, I feel blessed that we’ve connected in this journey called life.  I really appreciate your support and wisdom. This is such powerful work. I’m making very good food choices, my relationship with food is changing. It’s becoming more a ceremony than a quick fix. My body is shrinking, getting firmer, and I’m feeling stronger, healthier and sexier than ever.”

~ Sienna, LMT and Yoga Instructor

I’m a personal, spiritual and mind body transformation coach, mentor and writer who has supported women in creating yummy relationships with food and body for 20+ years. 

I’m also a feet-in-the-dirt student of nature and of seasonal influence, a textile artist and a hopeless color addict with enough supplies to last 9.2 lifetimes. I’ve spent my life stirring an alchemical dyepot of ancient earth based and spiritual teachings, body centered wisdom psychology, energy work and leading edge neuro-plasticity practices that have allowed me and others to re-claim the essence of the Sovereign Sage women we really are.

Also…I’m just a teensy bit irritated that my cat is clearly much more enlightened than I’ll ever be.

Certifications:

  • Mind-Body Nutrition and Dynamic Eating Psychology, Institute for the Psychology of Eating
  • Body-Centered Therapy I and II, The Hendricks Institute
  • Charter Faculty for The Living University, The Hendricks Institute
  • Conscious Relationship Transformation I and II, The Hendricks Institute
  • Living and Loving Coach, The Hendricks Institute
  • Level III Pro-EFT Practitioner, National Alliance for Emotional Health- EFT, AAMET

Trainings:

  • Naturopathic Medicine Course in Self-Healing, Charley Cropley ND
  • Positive Intelligence, Shirzad Chamine
  • Advanced Awakening, Thomas Hubl
  • Mystical Principles of Intimate Relationships Thomas Hubl
  • Mystical Principles of Healing, Thomas Hubl

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 From Sabotage to Sovereignty:
6 Essential Practices for Relaxed Self-Trust with Eating  

You’ll also get Stockpot© about twice a month with tips, opportunities 
and inspiration on women, soul and food.

 

MArina's Story

I was a skinny but very sugar addicted kid. Most afternoons in high school my best friend Beth and I hung out at the local golf clubhouse in our rural town. We’d eat 3 or 4 candy bars or ice cream bars apiece in front of a roaring stone fireplace. We felt safe there and it was quiet and comforting. We were numbing the pain and confusion of living with our white collar, successful alcoholic dads and silently exhausted moms. We stayed as long as we could every day, dreading going home when it got dark.

This was my general pattern with sugar for another decade until my metabolism slowed and I wasn’t so skinny any more. I worked out obsessively hard and skipped meals at times, thinking I had myself “under control.” But beneath my public surface various symptoms started showing up in my emotions and body. I cycled through low energy, low level depression, constant cravings, pain in my joints and trouble focusing.

While looking good in my jeans I was ignoring my own body’s cries for the food I needed, when I needed it. When I waited too long, I’d eat anything in sight, and back I’d go to the rollercoaster of sugar again.

I knew lots of health statistics, and was fairly current on nutrition, but I was still caught in a chronic Catch 22.

Every mirror was a reason to judge myself, but I couldn’t judge myself right into being “successful” with my eating. I wouldn’t let myself feel good because I wasn’t where I thought I should be. Feeling good about myself was supposed to be the reward for eating perfectly, and for getting that great body back…
  
My turning point finally came in 1997 as a newly certified Professional Coach, when I realized I was scared of the expansion my new career was asking of me, and I was again comfort eating and overeating sugar. Different reasons, same behaviors.

To do deeply meaningful life-changing work with clients, I needed to face the fact that the old ways of willpower and control don’t work and never will. I couldn’t fix this with typical unrealistic food rules, the bargains, the “good” and “bad” labeling of food. I learned how to trust myself to sit in a room with sugar and finally feel what was really going on underneath the urge to eat.

The work I’ve been doing for 25 years was created from the desire and longing to get my own food and body challenges handled in a sustainable way that I enjoyed, that was empowering and felt like a deeply alive expression of who I was. I wanted to eat food that I love and live in a body that I love, every single day.