The human body, it is strong and it is resilient, but it is a living growing thing. We have cells that need certain things to function and to replenish themselves. Our bodies do so much work for us to breathe, replace blood cells and bone and muscle tissue; and must have energy to move, think, and balance all these functions.
Water,
Fresh air,
Healthy foods
Rest
and Exercise
and sunshine, good thoughts and hope....
These are the things we need...
When you take care of your body, it WILL take care of you, I promise this my friends!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Standing by you
My friends,
It has occured to me more and more how we have the unique opportunity to support each other because of how deeply we understand each other. It is my hope that everyone who suffers will find a way to reach out to someone they trust to help them get out to the other side and then someday find it within themselves to reach out to others and help them through.
I hope my new friends will continue to reach out to each other and support each other as well as look inside to themselves and find that friend INSIDE OF THEMSELVES that they can trust! Part of recovery is finding your inner strength and learning how to "act in smarter ways" to look out for yourself. (Remember, we have to learn to become better and more trustworthy friends and caretakers to ourselves too)
Wishing everyone a peaceful day,
Your friend in this battle (even if we never meet),
Amy
Whether you are looking to me, others, or yourself for strength, this song is dedicated to all my beautiful special friends today!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maAyfcO-X3k&feature=PlayList&p=887B077043D171CF&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=19
It has occured to me more and more how we have the unique opportunity to support each other because of how deeply we understand each other. It is my hope that everyone who suffers will find a way to reach out to someone they trust to help them get out to the other side and then someday find it within themselves to reach out to others and help them through.
I hope my new friends will continue to reach out to each other and support each other as well as look inside to themselves and find that friend INSIDE OF THEMSELVES that they can trust! Part of recovery is finding your inner strength and learning how to "act in smarter ways" to look out for yourself. (Remember, we have to learn to become better and more trustworthy friends and caretakers to ourselves too)
Wishing everyone a peaceful day,
Your friend in this battle (even if we never meet),
Amy
Whether you are looking to me, others, or yourself for strength, this song is dedicated to all my beautiful special friends today!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maAyfcO-X3k&feature=PlayList&p=887B077043D171CF&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=19
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Out damned spot
In the scene in MacBeth when Lady MacBeth has become obsessed with her husband's murder and figuratively cannot become clean, she continues to compulsively clean her hands and becries,
"Out, damned spot! out, I say!"
For those of us farther down the recovery road- it seems like we fought like that against our weight and bodies, and then continue even upon recovery, to fight like that to rid ourselves of the imprints of this disease upon ourselves, because we are stigmatized and feel marked by it for years. In many ways, there is no perfect recovery. We struggle with perfectionism, we struggle with the after effects of having had an eating disorder that linger upon us for a long time- in fact we wish to blot away the very fact we had an eating disorder.
In some ways it feels similar to the constellation of other behaviors we have related to our perfectionism-As we often struggle with imperfect situations in our lives. We have difficulty sitting with our feelings, we have difficulty with failure, loss, inadequacy. These painful cycles of self judgment, and attempts to correct situations, attempts to heal ourselves and even make everyone happy "in the end" and move beyond the past, find the answer that we missed, sometimes just need to be put away....
So today, I say, Ed (and eternal searching) be damned--
Today, you can just go away and leave me the hell alone.
Because I want to just sit with my feelings and eat some chocolate. Like other people do, when they are in a crappy mood.
"Out, damned spot! out, I say!"
For those of us farther down the recovery road- it seems like we fought like that against our weight and bodies, and then continue even upon recovery, to fight like that to rid ourselves of the imprints of this disease upon ourselves, because we are stigmatized and feel marked by it for years. In many ways, there is no perfect recovery. We struggle with perfectionism, we struggle with the after effects of having had an eating disorder that linger upon us for a long time- in fact we wish to blot away the very fact we had an eating disorder.
In some ways it feels similar to the constellation of other behaviors we have related to our perfectionism-As we often struggle with imperfect situations in our lives. We have difficulty sitting with our feelings, we have difficulty with failure, loss, inadequacy. These painful cycles of self judgment, and attempts to correct situations, attempts to heal ourselves and even make everyone happy "in the end" and move beyond the past, find the answer that we missed, sometimes just need to be put away....
So today, I say, Ed (and eternal searching) be damned--
Today, you can just go away and leave me the hell alone.
Because I want to just sit with my feelings and eat some chocolate. Like other people do, when they are in a crappy mood.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
It's a new day
Remember my friends, Every day is a new day....
Rise each morning and no matter what mistakes you made the day before, we put one foot in front of the other. And we can make this day better than the day before. That is the glory of time, it only moves forward.
So, let's all keep moving forward together! I know I for one am! It's a beautiful morning and I have a lot of seeds to plant with my children this afternoon. Who can think about silly things like their bodies and their weight or worry about what others think about them when they have their beautiful smiling children next to them with their hands in the fresh damp soil?
I hope everyone is able to find something beautiful to do today to remind them of the real reasons for living.
Rise each morning and no matter what mistakes you made the day before, we put one foot in front of the other. And we can make this day better than the day before. That is the glory of time, it only moves forward.
So, let's all keep moving forward together! I know I for one am! It's a beautiful morning and I have a lot of seeds to plant with my children this afternoon. Who can think about silly things like their bodies and their weight or worry about what others think about them when they have their beautiful smiling children next to them with their hands in the fresh damp soil?
I hope everyone is able to find something beautiful to do today to remind them of the real reasons for living.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Never again..
There is a place in our lives....for being able to say "never again"
When we must be able to grow from saying... "I am trying" to "I will stop". I will take a stand, I am worth drawing a line in the sand for. Several times in my life, I am proud to say, I was able to say, NEVER AGAIN. Never again will I purge. Never again, will I risk my life in certain ways. Never again, will I allow certain influences upon me. Never again, will I allow certain things/ situations/people to hurt me. Never again will I carelessly put myself in harms way.
These are hard moments, but these are the strongest moments. These are our most defining moments. These are our safest moments and our most life altering. These are the moments we have our voice, even if we do it in silence. These are our most beautiful, intelligent, soaring, inspiring, confident and FREE moments.
I hope my friends are able to reach their "never agains" someday as well. Trust me, I do know how hard it is.
Because we are "what if-er"s and "if only-ers" and "maybe it will be different this tim-ers".... we like to leave doors open and we don't trust ourselves and our instincts. We are afraid our voices will fail us and we are afraid that the consequences of standing up for ourselves and our altered future will be worse than if we just leave it alone. But sometimes... a change must come. That is the only way out of the place you are in.
Practice just saying that.... "never again".... doesn't that sound nice!
-------------------------------------------------------
When we must be able to grow from saying... "I am trying" to "I will stop". I will take a stand, I am worth drawing a line in the sand for. Several times in my life, I am proud to say, I was able to say, NEVER AGAIN. Never again will I purge. Never again, will I risk my life in certain ways. Never again, will I allow certain influences upon me. Never again, will I allow certain things/ situations/people to hurt me. Never again will I carelessly put myself in harms way.
These are hard moments, but these are the strongest moments. These are our most defining moments. These are our safest moments and our most life altering. These are the moments we have our voice, even if we do it in silence. These are our most beautiful, intelligent, soaring, inspiring, confident and FREE moments.
I hope my friends are able to reach their "never agains" someday as well. Trust me, I do know how hard it is.
Because we are "what if-er"s and "if only-ers" and "maybe it will be different this tim-ers".... we like to leave doors open and we don't trust ourselves and our instincts. We are afraid our voices will fail us and we are afraid that the consequences of standing up for ourselves and our altered future will be worse than if we just leave it alone. But sometimes... a change must come. That is the only way out of the place you are in.
Practice just saying that.... "never again".... doesn't that sound nice!
-------------------------------------------------------
No more
Never again shall I kneel to thee
Demon of my haunted self
Turning myself inside out
For you no more
I am not your human bride
I shall not sacrifice my
Soul to your chains of eternal thirst and hunger
And doomsday reflections
These hands I own
This body I nourish to walk forth strongly towards
It’s destiny
This mouth to laugh
And sing
And fill with earthly delights as indeed
I now fill my soul
With the beautiful things
That once were hidden from me
When I was yours
No more ED demon
I cast you back
To the pits of hell
Where you belong!
Monday, May 11, 2009
something beautiful and true
thanks to a dear new friend for sending me this wonderful thing today:
I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way to the answer.
-Reiner Maria Rilke
I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way to the answer.
-Reiner Maria Rilke
Thursday, May 7, 2009
The Emotional Easy Button
Lately, it has occurred to me, that I can no longer rely on the emotional easy button.
and I wonder if many of my friends can relate, as I often feel I hear echoes of this in their stories.
I feel I have learned lately through many life lessons that often, the right decisions, are the hardest ones to make.
The right choice, often means giving up that thing you want, that thing which makes you feel good at some cost, the thing that on the surface "seems right" but doesn't quite make sense and you JUST know it. It means learning to operate from a place of emotional balance and self parenting, rather than impulse and emotions only. It means sometimes letting go of your security blankets. And sometimes it means taking the longer slower path. And sometimes it means letting sadness, or other real feelings into your life for a while. Or having to be uncomfortable and solve things on your own. But something worth doing (LIVING YOUR LIFE AND LIVING IT RIGHT!) is worth doing right.
We are generally people of addictions, low emotional self regulation, the "walking wounded" in some way, carrying a strange mix of being overly trusting yet completely guarded and untrusting at the same time. Through this odd combination, we often fall for the emotional easy button. We like to fix our bad emotions through "quick fixes". Denial, fantasy, ("if I can't see it- it's not happening") or rationalization ("well, this is really happening because..."; or "this is Ok because...."). We like to find others to help us make the decisions that are too hard for us to make. We will often peck at the same easy button well after it has been broken or worn out just simply because everything else is too hard to try. Who knows if this is because nobody taught us otherwise, or our genetic/biological/emotional/intellectual make up, or a result of traumas of childhood. But, this lack of emotional forethought, self confidence, emotional intelligence, and stability is part of who we often are. And we often know better, at some level, and make decisions that we know are not the right choice, but will find ourselves still falling back because it is "emotionally easy" to do so.
Sometimes, the right thing to do at the time, is the hardest thing to do. And there are no emotional easy buttons for most of life. And that is part of being a grown up. And giving up our behaviors, all of them, the eating disordered behaviors, and the constellation of behaviors that go with it, and becoming a self advocate as well as watching out for the emotional needs of others around us whom we care about and becoming a strong confident grown-up is where we win our dignity back.
-----------------------
You must be the change you wish to see in the world
~Ghandi~
Things do not change; we change.
~Henry David Thoreau~
Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.
~Arnold Bennett~
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy, for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another.
~Anatole France~
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
~Henri Bergson~
Change the fabric of your own soul and your own visions, and you change all.
~Vachel Lindsay~
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
and I wonder if many of my friends can relate, as I often feel I hear echoes of this in their stories.
I feel I have learned lately through many life lessons that often, the right decisions, are the hardest ones to make.
The right choice, often means giving up that thing you want, that thing which makes you feel good at some cost, the thing that on the surface "seems right" but doesn't quite make sense and you JUST know it. It means learning to operate from a place of emotional balance and self parenting, rather than impulse and emotions only. It means sometimes letting go of your security blankets. And sometimes it means taking the longer slower path. And sometimes it means letting sadness, or other real feelings into your life for a while. Or having to be uncomfortable and solve things on your own. But something worth doing (LIVING YOUR LIFE AND LIVING IT RIGHT!) is worth doing right.
We are generally people of addictions, low emotional self regulation, the "walking wounded" in some way, carrying a strange mix of being overly trusting yet completely guarded and untrusting at the same time. Through this odd combination, we often fall for the emotional easy button. We like to fix our bad emotions through "quick fixes". Denial, fantasy, ("if I can't see it- it's not happening") or rationalization ("well, this is really happening because..."; or "this is Ok because...."). We like to find others to help us make the decisions that are too hard for us to make. We will often peck at the same easy button well after it has been broken or worn out just simply because everything else is too hard to try. Who knows if this is because nobody taught us otherwise, or our genetic/biological/emotional/intellectual make up, or a result of traumas of childhood. But, this lack of emotional forethought, self confidence, emotional intelligence, and stability is part of who we often are. And we often know better, at some level, and make decisions that we know are not the right choice, but will find ourselves still falling back because it is "emotionally easy" to do so.
Sometimes, the right thing to do at the time, is the hardest thing to do. And there are no emotional easy buttons for most of life. And that is part of being a grown up. And giving up our behaviors, all of them, the eating disordered behaviors, and the constellation of behaviors that go with it, and becoming a self advocate as well as watching out for the emotional needs of others around us whom we care about and becoming a strong confident grown-up is where we win our dignity back.
-----------------------
You must be the change you wish to see in the world
~Ghandi~
Things do not change; we change.
~Henry David Thoreau~
Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.
~Arnold Bennett~
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy, for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another.
~Anatole France~
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
~Henri Bergson~
Change the fabric of your own soul and your own visions, and you change all.
~Vachel Lindsay~
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
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