Meet the Trainers Leading Eat Breathe Thrive Professional Trainings This Autumn
This autumn, three experienced eating disorder clinicians, counsellors, and yoga teachers join the Eat Breathe Thrive faculty, bringing decades of experience in eating disorder treatment, trauma-informed care, and yoga education.
As our Executive Director begins maternity leave, we’re delighted to announce that three long-standing members of the Eat Breathe Thrive community — Dixie Brown, Michelle McElroy, and Abby Calleo — have joined our training faculty will be leading our Professional Trainings starting in September.
We spoke with them about what drew them to this work, what participants can expect from the trainings, and what continues to inspire them after years of supporting people affected by eating disorders.
Michelle McElroy
Michelle first discovered Eat Breathe Thrive while completing her practicum at an eating disorder clinic. “The training felt like the perfect combination of my two passions, yoga and helping people,” she says. She attended her first Eat Breathe Thrive training more than ten years ago and has been part of the community ever since, first as a facilitator, then as a practitioner, and now as a trainer.
Today, Michelle is a clinical counsellor, EMDR therapist, trauma-sensitive yoga teacher, and educator with more than 25 years of experience. She has spent much of her career supporting people affected by trauma, and brings a caring, collaborative approach to teaching.
“I learn almost as much from the participants as they learn from me,” Michelle says. “My hope is that, by the end of this training, you will have a deeper understanding of eating disorders and how yoga and its principles can support recovery.”
Dixie Brown
Dixie first connected with Eat Breathe Thrive more than a decade ago while running a residential substance use treatment centre for women in Asheville, North Carolina. Looking for ways to integrate yoga into treatment, she invited Eat Breathe Thrive to train her staff. Willow Place soon became home to the first Eat Breathe Thrive clinical programs outside of Los Angeles.
Dixie holds a PhD in Integrative Medicine and has spent more than 15 years working at the intersection of trauma, eating disorders, substance use, and mind-body medicine.
She has trained with leaders in the field, including Dr James Gordon, Deepak Chopra, and Jon Kabat-Zinn, and has dedicated her career to bringing evidence-informed, integrative approaches into behavioral healthcare.
Drawing on both her clinical leadership, operational experience, and academic background, Dixie helps trainees understand how yoga can help to complement eating disorder treatment, and how trauma-informed, embodied practices can support lasting recovery.
Abby Calleo
Abby first came to Eat Breathe Thrive while searching for ways to support her daughter through anxiety, body image concerns, and disordered eating. What began as a way to help her family soon became a commitment to helping others.
After completing the Facilitator Training, Abby went on to become a facilitator and has now been leading Eat Breathe Thrive programmes for more than a decade.
Abby is a 500-hour registered yoga and meditation teacher and brings a perspective that is shaped by both years of teaching and her lived experience as a parent supporting a loved one through recovery.
One of the lessons Abby returns to most often is that recovery rarely follows a straight line. “Healing takes time and is quite circular, like a spiral,” she says. That perspective shapes the way she approaches both facilitation and training, encouraging participants to meet themselves and others with patience, curiosity, and compassion.
We’re incredibly grateful to have Michelle, Abby, and Dixie leading our Professionals Trainings over the coming months, and we’re excited for the next cohort of professionals to learn from their experience.
If you’re a professional working with people with eating disorders, our trainings and seminars can help you integrate embodiment into your work. You can start with a seminar to get familiar with our approach, and continue on our certification pathway to become qualified to deliver Eat Breathe Thrive interventions.