A lot of times in our eating disorder recovery we are focused on the wrong things!
We put so much energy into thinking about NOT binging that it actually is counter-productive because it just makes you want to binge MORE!
When you are thinking about food, obsessing about your diet, restricting the types of foods that you “allow” yourself to eat, it just makes you want to eat MORE and you end up binging.
How do you get out of this trap? How do you escape the cycle?
Of course there are many aspects of your recovery that will contribute to stopping this vicious eating disorder cycle, the first of which is to get on an eating disorder meal plan.
But right now, what I want you to focus on is something more specific.
You have to get clear about what you want.
If you walk around talking about your eating disorder symptoms, talking about how bad you feel and how much you’d like to get rid of the eating disorder, this only draws more eating disorder behaviors and symptoms to you.
What you think about most, you attract into your experience!
When you are sitting there feeling bad about yourself, thinking about how you feel so fat, you are going to continue the cycle by attracting more of these bad and depressing feelings back to you.
The key is to get clear and figure out exactly what you want your eating disorder recovery to look like.
Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be fully recovered from your eating disorder?
I mean truly, absolutely, 100% recovered.
I want to help get you in the thinking and feeling space of total recovery and freedom. This is extremely important!!
Yayyyy! A quick exercise for you to do!!
First, close your eyes. Imagine yourself totally healed and free from the eating disorder behaviors, free from the dysfunctional eating disorder thoughts and obsessive thinking. Imagine what it would be like to just be You Without ED.
Imagine the feelings you would feel if you were finally free of the eating disorder…peace, love, happiness, contentment, freedom, and on and on. Feel those feelings while imagining yourself in a space of total 100% recovery. Now…
Write down everything you would like your eating disorder recovery to be like…and answer these questions below. And don’t hold back, either! This is to get you imagining and feeling yourself having an amazing life, one that DOES NOT include the eating disorder.
Journal on these questions:
What would your life look like without your eating disorder, when you are fully recovered and healed?
What would that look like for you? What would that feel like? What would it look like? What type of person do you want to be? What is important to you? What do you want your spirituality to be like? What do you want your body to feel like? What do you want to think, have, do or be? What would your days consist of? What activities would you be engaged in? What would your relationships be like? How would you treat yourself? What would you do if you didn’t have to put energy into the eating disorder behaviors? What new things would you try? What would your work life look like? What would your environment be like?
Add anything else you can think of!
Now, do you even believe it is possible for you?
Many of you might say no at this point.
That is okay!
This exercise is a starting point for you. When I sat down to write out what I wanted everything to look like in my recovery from eating disorders, it seemed so unattainable and overwhelming of a goal. But bear with me here!
There is a reason we need to do this. Focusing on the positive and what you want your life to be like without the eating disorder is SO IMPORTANT. It gets you focused on the SOLUTION and not the PROBLEM.
Now, the important thing to remember is that this is not an exercise to feel bad about what we are doing right now, and we have to remember not to focus on the lack or the fact that we *don’t* have what we want yet.
The important thing to remember is that this is only to know where you’re going!
“It really doesn’t matter.” replies Alice.
“Then it really doesn’t matter which way you go.”
So you see, in our eating disorder recovery it is important to define what you want and get clear about your intentions. That is, if you really want to be free!!!
After you define what you want, most people are confused about *how to achieve it.* See my eating disorder coaching page for more details!
Peace, Love + Freedom,
