“Healing isn’t about changing who you are. It’ about changing your relationship to who you are. A fundamental part of that is honouring how you feel”.
THERE IS SO MUCH YES IN THIS QUOTE.
It speaks to me in so many ways because this year, I didn’t just heal from my eating disorder, I healed from years of self-neglect, years of of pushing unrealistic & even impossible standards on myself & doing everything in my power to meet them, even if it meant sacrificing my physical & mental health, years of internalizing my grief & repressing my emotions to avoid facing my reality & years of putting everything & everyone else before my needs to the point where I forgot what it felt like to KNOW my worth.
It’s been a hell of a ride, but over the course of the past year & a bit, I learned that if I truly wanted to find my way out of my illness & take control of my mind, I had to finally start LETTING myself feel & HONOURING my feelings, good or bad. In that way, letting myself feel became a fundamental part of my recovery.
When I was in the depths of my eating disorder, I was a brick wall with basically no emotion. The only thing that triggered any emotion was FOOD & my anxieties surrounding it.
I got anxious if I didn’t think I’d make it home to have dinner by 4:30PM.
I got sad if the numbers went up on the scale.
I got ironically excited when my doctor or therapist told me my situation was getting worse.
You get the point: The only thing that triggered any emotion whatsoever was FOOD.
But when I slowly began to heal my relationship with food, years of repressed emotion came to the surface: My sadness surrounding the loss of my mom & best friend, my heartbreak as I watched my marriage crumble & come to an end, my regret over the opportunities & events I missed out on because of ED.
When I finally let myself cry, grieve, break down, accept, heal, find closure & move on, my relationship with myself changed.
It was eye-opening: I realized I was worth more than the emotions I repressed for so many years & ironically, letting them finally come out, break me apart & tear me down, actually made me stronger.
The ability to feel is probably the most beautiful gift we’ve been given. Use it to your advantage.
