What

oh holy fat

™

is

photo: Gaia’s self-portrait called “Eat Away My Envy”

Welcome to

an IFS*-Based

Healing & Living Memoir!

{of a woman healing from compulsive eating and body image struggles}

Oh Holy Fat™ is “an IFS*-based healing & living memoir” of Gaia Nao, a chubby woman who’s been on an exploration since birth—but now mainly harnessing IFS* {Internal Family Systems} healing modality and Reparenting—to redeem the essence of her soul. The soul that’d been buried in the wreckage of “ruptured fragments” of her life and her self. The life that was shattered into pieces by the multigenerational trauma that she and her family have suffered. And the self that was broken into bits by the pain that she endured from the “spell” of being labelled “fat” most of her life, since she came out of her mother’s womb. Only because of her substantial weight and the larger body size that she carried, as well as the compulsive eating behaviors that she could not stop—even though the entire society had shamed her, pathologized her, and exiled her loud and clear—in the name of “well-meaning” intention.

What called for this memoir to be written:

Primarily, this memoir was simply born out of Gaia’s inner knowing that her life story can be a gift to someone. Secondarily, she knows firsthand that the kinds of traumas that she’s suffered are universal, and that resonance has beautiful healing power that we all can use—to help one another heal from them.

Therefore, to have the stories of her traumas told and witnessed by others, especially by the readers and listeners who resonate with them, the stories themselves become gifts to them. As each story gracefully becomes a sacred mirror that is being held up in front of them that can help them recognize and remember their own “reflections”. And through those reflections, resonating acknowledgements of their painful traumas, along with connections and validations for all the efforts that they’ve made to survive the traumas till this day, will be made. And that is where miracles can occur and healing can begin and deepen—in resonance, acknowledgements, connections, and validations

To put it in a way that a true food lover and nurturer would, Gaia is writing this memoir because she knows that her experiences—both the traumatic and healing ones—have become Soul Food—a source of spiritual nourishment—that not only has been nurturing her but also has great potential to nurture the collective. Imagine a loaf of delicious and nutritious bread that’s risen from being kneaded hard by life’s knuckles, caressed by an abundant amount of love from healing palms, and baked warmly by just the right heat of a gentle illuminating fire. Now, this bread is in front of you—ready to feed the hungry you and the hungry world!

Moreover, Gaia knows that the wisdom that she’s been granted opportunities to alchemize and distill from her suffering has become the nectar and the balm that can help heal the collective wounds. Therefore, as a way to “give forward” all that she’s been receiving, she’s gratefully and happily sharing all of them through her memoir.

After all, thanks to the “fat spell” that’d started her journey off the minute she came into the world and had people exclaim with gasps, “Oh Holy (Moly), (she’s) Fat!”, her life has been made to be about spiritual discoveries & growth and become revolutionary and spiritually purposeful more than anything else ever could.

And if you imagine slathering really rich butter on your favorite bread, that makes the bread so heavenly. The fat that’d got Gaia to feel “under a spell” most of her life, after years of traveling inward to heal herself—to her, this bread—slathered with that fat now—is even more heavenly, holy, and sacred. Because she now knows that it literally is a purposeful powerhouse that holds not only rich stories to tell, but also lots and lots of treasures—of strength, persistence, patience, courage {especially, courage}, wisdom, and potentials. Therefore that very same exclamation has double meanings to her now!

That’s why “Oh Holy Fat” became the name of her memoir. So, she hopes that you are ready to nourish yourself with it and enjoy it!!

photo: Caudio Segovia on Pexels

photo: Eat Kubba on Pexels

What to expect as a structure of this memoir:

Same as her 3 main life chapters, Gaia writes this memoir into 3 main chapters, too:

Chapter 1—Life Before Healing: Growing up, Gaia had absolutely no idea that she {and her family} suffered multigenerational trauma. She only knew that she suffered a lot of rejections and alienations around her body weight and size that, ironically, to cope with it, she was uncontrollably driven to eat even more! So, this chapter tells you all about that, among everything else that was painful in her life that she also felt compelled to “stuff down”. Now, after decades of healing work, Gaia believes that the trauma that she suffered started many generations ago; that is where this memoir begins.

Chapter 2—Early Days on the Healing Journey: It all started off one day in her early 30s, when Gaia accidentally entered one of the 12-step program rooms around her eating and body issues, which led her to explore other issues, too. In those rooms, she discovered valuable information and received some help and support for her issues. Then, in her 40s her exploration took a turn to merge onto the Reparenting healing “lane”, where deeper inner healing started to happen for her.

Chapter 3—The Healing Journey Immersing in IFS: Later, in her late 50s, Gaia landed in the Internal Family Systems healing world {IFS} and she’s been residing in it and gratefully harnessing its gifts in her everyday life since. This is where she’s been unburdening the lifelong burdens, redeeming her Soul or her True Self, and living her life led by It. This is also where her capacity to heal has exponentially expanded and deepened and still continues to do so. And since her intention for this memoir to be a living one, her writing continues on in her present days.

And since Gaia believes that healing magics and miracles can happen through reflections, along with every story she writes, she also shares Reflection Prompts—written guides that can help you connect with yourself and reflect on your own life stories and experiences—so that you receive those magics and miracles.