Many of the women I work with in my private eating disorder coaching programs say they WANT to learn how to love themselves, but it feels scary and uncomfortable and they don’t know HOW to do it. Most of us NEVER loved ourselves before, so of course it will feel weird and awkward! However, it is helpful to remember that it is a learned skill and it does get easier over time. Here I came up with a list of the top 5 benefits to loving yourself, in order to ease the tension and fears surrounding this new way of being and treating yourself.
Top 5 Benefits of Loving Yourself in Recovery for Eating Disorders:
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Your life gets easier; therefore your eating disorder recovery gets easier.
When you love yourself, your life begins to love you as well. When you love yourself, everything comes easier as you are no longer “battling” and “struggling” or “striving” in your bulimia recovery or anorexia recovery, etc to become something you’re not. Things are easier when you are just being yourself. You are less preoccupied with worrying what other people think and in turn, you begin to be guided from within. You start to love and accept yourself exactly as you are, and things are much easier and much simpler that way.
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You begin to want to take care of yourself and you actually take action and follow through on it.
When you love yourself, you feel really good about taking care of yourself and getting your needs met. This does not always mean from others; loving yourself means you spend time taking care of your own body, mind and spirit. When you love yourself, you fill yourself up FIRST so that you have the love and energy to overflow those blessings onto others if you so choose. When you love yourself, you want to do the things for yourself that light you up inside and make you shine! When you begin to have this love for yourself, choosing the loving recovery thoughts and behaviors is much easier. You begin to make choices that align with who you are on the inside and take action on the things that bring you joy, love, peace, etc even when it is difficult but you do so because you love yourself and it becomes easier to follow through.
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You feel better about yourself and you have more self esteem.
When you love yourself, you begin to do those things you need to do to take care of yourself. For example, you might have to go through many fears in your recovery or you might have to learn how to become more assertive with others and with your feelings. Whatever it is, when you go through it and deal with what you need to deal with, you begin to feel better about yourself. You begin to believe that you CAN do this and you begin to build up your self-esteem and self-worth. You start to have victories and see the blessings in the difficulties. When you go through the pain and hurt, you heal on the inside which brings a deeper level of understanding, love and compassion for yourself.
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You begin to “fill the void” with a deep well of love and compassion for yourself.
When you begin to love yourself, it means that you no longer search outside of yourself for approval, acceptance and love. Yes, of course you may have a significant other, family members and friends that you deeply love and care for; however you know how to give love to yourself FIRST. You are no longer distracting yourself with the ED behaviors and you feel your feelings wholly, whatever they are, “good” or “bad.” You begin to have love and compassion and understanding of who you are, knowing you are “perfectly imperfect” with all your unique quirks, preferences and desires.
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You feel a deep sense of appreciation for yourself, and you continue to want to do bigger and better things for yourself.
Because you love and respect yourself, you want to continue to grow and learn and expand on this journey of recovery from eating disorders and life. You want to step into a bigger and greater version of yourself and fulfill the highest vision for yourself and your life. You are deeply grateful for how far you have come and are excited and eager for more. Your life continues to get better and better. Because you learned how to love yourself, it was easier to let the ED go, but that doesn’t mean that it was easy. It means that you faced your fears and did the hardest thing you might ever do in your life, and that brings great satisfaction and appreciation from within.
What do you think, beautiful soul? What is holding you back from loving yourself in your own recovery for eating disorders? Answer and leave your comment below, I would love to hear from you!
Peace, Love + Freedom,
thanks, found this helpful, but how exactly do you love yourself? is their certain things i can say or do? this may sound really stupid but suggestions would be much appreciated 🙂
Hi Amber! Thank you so much for your question. I believe that ALL recovery acts are acts of love, so it really starts by treating yourself well and shifting the way you speak and think about yourself. The easiest way to do this is to start telling yourself, “I LOVE YOU AMBER! I really really love you.” Do this while looking in the mirror, making eye contact with yourself. It may look and feel really silly or weird, or you might have a lot of resistance to actually doing it. Resistance is good because it can help you better identify the eating disorder voice – the one that creeps in afterwards and says, “No you don’t! You are ugly and disgusting and not worthy of your own love,” or whatever it is that your nasty little critical voice says to you. Another good place to start is just by telling yourself that “I accept myself. I approve of myself. It is safe to be me” or use whatever affirmation resonates most with you. By practicing these thoughts, it can help you get into a better place to be able to begin to FEEL how it feels to love yourself. It is a process and remember too that everyone starts out in a different place. It will take someone who “hates themselves with a passion” longer to fully love themselves than it would someone who simply “disliked themselves” to be able to fully embrace self love. Begin to practice the thoughts and feelings of loving yourself, and become very aware of your inner self talk. It is important to shift these thoughts towards loving, gentle and supportive thoughts as you learn to become your own best friend. Hope this helps! Good luck, and let me know how it goes after you begin to implement some of these tools Amber!
Peace, Love + Freedom,
Lauren