We were lucky to catch up with Lyndy Barnard recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lyndy, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.

I’m a therapist in a bigger body.

I’m a therapist who sees a therapist.

I’m also a therapist who has figured out how to love myself regardless.

After working in mental health for more than a decade, I moved to Utah and the transition was mentally and physically rough. I gained 70 lbs. in a year from stress, overwhelm, and lack of social support. I was frustrated with my body and reached out to a therapist for help.

Looking for some way to feel better in my body, I started exercising regularly and found a community of support in my fitness group. It was the first time working out wasn’t about losing weight or changing my body shape. I truly enjoyed it. There are many times that I go to the gym and my body doesn’t feel great, but my mind does.

Through this experience, it finally occurred to me just how connected physical and mental health care. They’re completely intertwined and often shouldn’t be treated separately. It takes mental strength and physical strength to achieve well-being and I want to show women of all shapes that they can accept their bodies and feel good no matter how their bodies looks.

Your body is good!

Lyndy

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve worked in mental health in a variety of settings for 15 years. In undergraduate school I took a class that introduced me to the YWCA. I met a social worker, and immediately knew I wanted to be a social worker. Social Work is a broad field. I’ve lived and worked in a variety of settings including Oakland, Ca, Nashville, TN and through0ut the Salt Lake City/Wasatch Front area. I’ve been a social worker in settings including crisis response, residential treatment, outpatient, hospital, EAP, and private practice. When I first got into social work I did not plan on becoming a full time therapist!

My experience of moving to Utah, experiencing personal challenges and trauma, and finding meaning and connection of my physical health with my mental health has really driven my passion and drive to focus on building Mind and Strength. Over the last 10 years as a therapist I have met with countless individuals who struggle to find connection, personal purpose and meaning, and know how to use nutrition and exercise as a tool to improving their mental health.

I’m passionate about providing a true holistic approach to mental health and overall wellness. I professionally and personally understand how interrelated physical and mental health is. I believe the biggest breakthroughs in mental health happen when physical health is part of the conversation.

My expertise includes anxiety, depression, trauma, shame, body image, self-esteem issues, and improving resilience. I help my clients through these issues by focusing on increased self-awareness and resiliency, building coping skills, and addressing thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that get in the way of how you want to live.

The Mind and Strength approach focuses on helping clients build a foundation for mental health by addressing mental health, nutrition, and exercise congruently. Most mental health providers struggle to really coordinate care and address all these areas of well-being. The Mind and Strength clinic has strategic partnerships with a clinical nutritionist and access to personal training. This helps fill the gap in services in traditional mental health clinics who do not address conditions using a physical and mental health integrated approach to care. Especially for women who have had negative relationships with food or exercise its important to help them find a more positive relationship. For women in larger bodies, so often diet and exercise has always been about weight loss. One message I want to Shout from the ROOF TOPS is ITS NOT ABOUT WEIGHT LOSS! It’s about finding a way to love the body your in and help your mental health!

Our mission is to help women improve mood, body image, and find personal meaning and purpose. We focus on building resiliency to common mental health issues and life challenges. Our resiliency framework is fundamental to the work we do with our clients. We believe in a person’s ability to adapt in the face of adversity. Building on those strengths helps a person improve their mental health symptoms. This will decrease the length of treatment, the intensity of their symptoms, and improve their confidence in their ability to handle symptoms in the future. The truth is mental health ebbs and flows. learning to navigate those ups and downs using resiliency is vital to my mission at Mind and Strength.

My specialty and expertise is helping women with disordered eating and body image issues. Through 15 years of experience in the mental health field, I have noticed an ongoing pattern that depression and anxiety in women is rooted in negative relationships with their body, food, and exercise. If we do not treat the root cause, depression and anxiety keep coming up. Mind and Strength especially focuses on utilizing a weight-neutral, health at every size aligned approach. We believe no matter your shape or size, you deserve to love and accept yourself regardless of your body shape or size. Women ins larger bodies are underdiagnosed and mistreated in the medical and mental health space. Therapists unfortunately are not traditionally trained to understand how body size and image play a HUGE role in mental health. Imagine planning a trip and having constant fear if you will fit in the airplane seat? Without a therapist having knowledge and understanding of fat-acceptance, body acceptance and weight-neutral treatment, you might be directed to “challenge” your negative thoughts in a way that actually makes the anxiety worse. It is imperative we have mental health care that addresses eating disorders, body image, and body acceptance appropriately across the size spectrum.

Because Mind and Strength specializes in treating body image and eating disorders, we expect clients’ outcomes to include

Decrease in costly medical care
Decrease in common mental health symptoms
Increase self-confidence
Increase in body-image resilience
Find a community of support and like-minded people
Less money being wasted on women trying to “fix” their bodies.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn a lot about my relationship with my body, nutrition and exercise. In school we were always taught the importance of physical health, but we were never given any direction of how to do it. When I was introduced to shame professionally, I decided to seek out therapy for myself. The therapist suggested “well eat better and exercise,” but never had any direction of HOW to do it, or why it was so difficult for me. She clearly did not understand the shame, grief, intense anxiety I experienced surrounding food and exercise because of my body size AND SHAME. I did not go back to that therapist. It took me several years to find the right therapist who helped me address and work through some of my lingering body shame.

After I lost a significant amount of weight and saw some improvement in my own mental health, I thought weight loss was the key. I eventually ended up gaining the weight back (covid, trauma, etc.) but even before gaining the weight back. I learned valuable lessons through my weight loss journey, but also learned valuable lessons about myself and my worldview after gaining the weight back.

One thing I realized the biggest reason I was able to maintain different habits for nutrition and exercise is because I finally LOVED what I was doing. When I was introduced to activities such as CrossFit and weightlifting, I found a community and exercise that I truly enjoyed doing. It was the first time as an adult that I was exercising for joy and mental health, not for weight loss. I still enjoy these things and try to incorporate them into my routine.

I also had to unlearn what I believed about my body shape, size, and that the obsessive/compulsive nature of my exercise and eating routine was not sustainable. When covid hit and other events forced changes, that’s when weight started to creep back on. I realized I’ve dealt with disordered eating and binge eating probably throughout my life. I’ve tried to control my shape because I felt my value was intertwined with my body size.

Professionally and Personally the last several years have focused on asking myself, “WHY” instead of “what” “Why do I like the move my body?” How does eating this food make me feel? How do I feel connected to myself? What helps me feel inner peace? I’ve learned things such as walking, swimming, weight lifting all help me feel inner peace. I’ve learned the intense relationship of food and exercise on my mental health. But I’ve had to unlearn the beliefs that value is tied to appearance. As a therapist I’ve had to change realize that helping people improve their relationship with their body and eating is a systematic, holistic, world-view shifting experience that requires love, compassion, and support.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I LOVE RESILIENCY. My practice, framework and core value as a therapist is built on resilience. Resilience is our ability to adapt in the face of adversity. Resilience is built on connection, wellness, healthy thinking and finding meaning and purpose. I had the opportunity to be a Training Director and Clinical manager for a group mental health practice for about 3-4 years. I had actually discussed starting Mind and Strength in March 2020! We were trying to start some groups, and then covid shut everything down. I started seeing more clients, supervising and overseeing more therapists, and helping the practice that my vision for Mind and Strength got put on the back burner. I had several individual clients I was working with where body image, disordered eating, and exercise kept coming up. I knew this was the type of client and integrated group I wanted to offer. Actually one of my clients really encouraged me to do it. So finally in Spring 2021 we offered a 6 week integrated group with myself, a clinical nutritionist and a personal trainer. It planted the seeds again in my mind of what I really wanted to create. At that time I still did not see a path forward to make it happen. Toward the end of 2021, a linkedin recruiter reached out to me about a potential mental health contract. I was scared and reached out to my different support systems. One friend told me, “well if it fails you can always go back and get another job.” that was an epiphany. I finally took the step forward to leave the group practice and open my own practice. I opened as a solo practice in a tiny office one day a week, other days were telehealth. In July 2022 I moved into a full time space with my strategic partner, Melanee. I now have 3 therapists who work with me. We have exciting developments and plans for 2023!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mymindmystrength.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindandstrength/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mindandstrength
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mind-and-strength/