Short clip from my performance "dancing with my shadows". This part of the performance expressed anxiety and how thoughts can keep one awake at night.

In "A Food Addict's Lesson: Confusion. Clarity. Recovery," Michelle Petties weaves together powerful storytelling and transformative insights to illuminate how narrative exploration can break the cycle of food addiction. Through the lens of a pivotal food story about her uncle's relationship with watermelon, she demonstrates how our earliest experiences with food shape our eating patterns, often in ways we don't recognize.
Drawing from her 40-year journey of gaining and losing over 700 pounds, Michelle reveals how healing-through-reading-writing-and-storytelling became the key to her recovery. By examining and rewriting her food stories, she discovered that sustainable transformation begins not with another diet, but with understanding the emotional connections we form with food.
This compelling talk shows how creative writing and storytelling can:
Uncover hidden emotional patterns around food
Transform limiting beliefs about eating
Create new neural pathways for lasting change
Build a healthier relationship with self and food management skill
Michelle's presentation isn't just a speech—it's a masterclass in using narrative exploration for healing. Her powerful demonstration of how clarity through storytelling led to her recovery offers hope and practical tools for others struggling with food addiction.
As she shares her journey from confusion to clarity, Michelle illustrates how the creative process of writing and storytelling can illuminate paths to healing that traditional approaches often miss. Her talk inspires and invites us to explore the transformative power of our own stories.

An almost full performance of The Magic Duel Comedy Show at the Chicago Magic Lounge, Chicago, IL in May 2024. The performance features founder/owner/writer/performer of The Magic Duel, Mark Phillips and co-stars Ryan Phillips as his challenger.