Author: wingsofrecovery50aeeffc10

Finding Purpose in Your Life

As persons with ED,  a lot of us realize that we feel as though we have no purpose in our lives…nothing we can see that defines us as unique individuals except our ED.   We feel lost and adrift in the huge sea of humanity.   We have little if any self-confidence and no idea where to turn or who to turn to.   All of our emotions feel overwhelming and out of control.  So is it any surprise we feel like we have no sense of purpose.   Who am I?  What good am I?  How can anyone care about me?

Finding a sense of purpose, however small can actually begin to answer these questions.  But how do I do that, you are probably asking?  Where do I start?  After all, you probably feel so little and inconsequential and can’t see what you have to contribute to anyone.   

Finding something to enable you to feel like you have a purpose will increase your sense of self-worth.  An increased sense of self-worth helps us to be able to see more clearly that you can and do have a purpose.   Everyone, including you,  has a purpose and something to contribute .  We can contribute without ever knowing we are.  Smiling at a cashier or a simple thank you at the market can contribute to making them feel good.  It definitely is a small thing, one we generally don’t think about, but it is true.  Sometimes a smile or a ‘have a nice day’ can work wonders because we don’t ever know what their day has been like.  Without ever knowing you have contributed something to someone, you have.  

No one is saying your purpose has to be as huge as saving the world or creating world peace.  Again, I say, start small; take baby steps.  By setting a purpose for each day, not matter how small, the bigger purpose you want will come.   Just getting up every morning with the idea of today is a new day is actually a purpose.  You got up for whatever reason and that was on purpose.  Your purpose for that moment was to get up and maybe make or straighten your bed up.  As your recovery lengthens and strengthens you may come up with other things that you find give you a sense of purpose.  Remember a sense of purpose is simply why you are here at this moment.  

For far too long, I questioned what is my purpose in this life.  I was at a loss to be able to tell anyone the answer to that question.  After all, I felt as though I had nothing to contribute that was worth anything.  I was adrift in my own head with the anorexia running through my head like an out of control freight train.  I could see nothing good about myself.  I tuned out anything good because I didn’t feel I deserved to feel good and was sure no one wanted to hear anything I might think or have to say.  I sat and made vision boards expressing every bit of anger, confusion and self-loathing I felt.  Along the way, on the few and far between days when I actually had a glimmer of hope, I was able to make some vision boards that expressed my hope for recovery.  I brought some of the positive boards with me when I went into inpatient treatment.  I shared them with my therapist who encouraged me to share them with the other clients.  The reaction was very positive, so my sense of purpose began to grow as I realized I could encourage women who suffered from eating disorders, some of their disorders which were different from mine.  But the thoughts, fears, emotions are the same no matter what variation of this disease you may have.

 When I got home after 2 1/2 months my sense of purpose was to allow my creativity in this area to flourish.   As my collection of boards grew, my creativity grew.  So did my sense of purpose.  I began to put together a book on DBT for Teens.  Those who I have shared it with encouraged me to keep going.  From that encouragement came the idea to start a blog.  I gave it thought for over a year wondering if anyone truly could benefit from anything I had to say.  I finally decided to take the plunge and do it.  When I began to write these blogs to share with you I realized that for now this is my purpose.  I will never know if anything I say in the blogs I write will help someone, though I hope it does.  For now that is my purpose.   Next year I may have a totally different purpose, who knows?  But for now I feel a real sense of purpose.

Finding your sense of purpose takes time.  Only you can decide what to do and where to begin on this quest which I believe helps a great deal towards beating this disease we suffer from.   Step by step you can find it.  Start small and don’t let anything or anyone get in your way.  You DO have a purpose .   For those of you reading this blog that have small kids and/or a partner you love, your purpose for now  may simply be to get better.  Your sense of purpose can and probably will change over time as you become physically and mentally healthier.  That is okay.   And in my opinion, that is the way it is supposed to be.  None of us is the same today as we were last year.  We change!  And with those changes can come a new purpose in our lives.  No need to let this overwhelm you, start small in seeking a purpose for your life.   The growth you go through will enable your sense of purpose to grow along with you.  Embrace finding a sense of purpose rather than being afraid of it.  Remember, there is no right or wrong when it comes to finding a positive sense of purpose.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I know and believe that those of us who suffer from an ED of any type can beat it.  It is hard work and at times feels impossible; but I am sure it is a goal that is obtainable to all of you out there.

KEEP YOUR CHIN UP!  Take baby steps towards your recovery, put one foot in front of the other and know, with a capital K, you CAN do it.  Even if you can’t see it now, the world needs you!

My Positive Tips & Tricks

Along my very long journey towards recovery, I have made discoveries of various things that work for me when I am struggling.  Many of these are just my own adaptation of tools from different methodologies that are proven to work combatting ED.  These tips and tricks work for me.  Feel free to give them a try or just use these ideas to make up your own.  

I use the 5 senses tool but with a slight variation.  I will name my favorite movies, 4 of the main characters in it, 3 of my reasons I enjoyed the ‘movie to make it one of my favorites, 2 places that I thought were great in the movie and 1 favorite scene in the movie.  Use as much or as little detail as you are able; the more detail the longer the exercise is and the more calm you might find yourself becoming.  This technique does not keep me grounded in the present as the 5 senses tool does.  But rather allows me to distract myself away from the ruminating or unpleasant thoughts I am having.  Which ultimately helps to calm me and then allows me to be back in the present.  I am a reader, so I might switch it up and use 5 of my favorite books.

One of my favorite tricks is just as simple.  I am, and always have been, a reader so I take my favorite book or series of books and using any actress or actor, past or present, alive or dead and at any age they were in acting to figure out who I would cast as each character.  See if you can actually visualize them in the role you are assigning them to.  If you are not a reader, but use an app to listen to a book, you can still do this.  This is also something I use when my mind is racing at night and I need to slow it down.  BTW, if you and any of your friends are readers, you can turn this into a great conversation which can invoke a lot of laughter as you learn who others think would be a good fit for each character.

The great thing about the first 2 tips/tricks is that you can do them anytime you want.  You are only using your mind and last I checked no one is a mind reader so others won’t know what you are doing. 

Another thing that I do which helps with distraction and helps make me smile is that I think of something, going all the way back to the first things I can remember, and find a positive memory.  Once you find one, concentrate on the actual memory and NOT what happened before or after the memory.  Everyone has at least one memory that brings a smile to their face.  The trick here is to focus on the positive emotions that the memory invokes.  Go ahead and actually smile as you remember it.  That is the object.  Don’t panic if it is hard to find one in the beginning.  Just keep trying.  When I first developed this technique for myself it was impossible for me to find a good memory.  But I kept working on it for only about 2 minutes at a time until I was able to find one.  The reason for the time limit is to minimize any sense of frustration when you are not able to recall something good.  Don’t beat yourself up.   Just try again at another time.  It took me about 5 times of doing this technique before I was able to come up with one.  Once I was able to find a memory, it seemed like the flood of good memories didn’t want to stop.  This helped me to begin to realize that my life had some great times, which I had a hard time remembering.  My first good memory that makes me smile is the x-mas I got a brush, comb and mirror set when I was 6.  Both of my grandmothers had one and I felt so grown up and ‘just like them’.  This memory never fails to make me smile.  

As time goes by you may find other tips and tricks that work for you.  In my opinion, any tips or tricks you find that are POSITIVE in nature and help you are okay.  E-mail me with them at wingsofrecovery@yahoo.com.  If I get enough tips and tricks that work for you, I will publish a blog on them in the future.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I know and believe that those of us who suffer from an ED of any type can beat it.  It is hard work and at times feels impossible; but I am sure it is a goal that is obtainable to all of you out there.

KEEP YOUR CHIN UP!  Take baby steps towards your recovery, put one foot in front of the other and know, with a capital K, you CAN do it.  Even if you can’t see it now, the world needs you!

Words are Powerful

I have come to realize and understand how important the words we say to our self are.  The words we say stick in our brains and further allow us to beat ourself up.  Words have more power than we understand and are so very powerful to our minds.  Some words just by their very nature are judgmental.  When we use negative judgmental words on ourself we are immediately telling ourself we did something “bad”.  For anyone who grew up being constantly criticized we know this all too well.   Some of use grew up hearing on a regular basis that we are stupid, ugly, too thin, too fat, cubby, crazy, everything is our fault, we should have, etc., etc., etc. These words become deeply embedded in our mind and very powerful.  Thus we are sure that there is truth to what we heard over and over, even if we are not aware of the message.  Until we realize that the words we have heard repeatedly that those words are NOT true, we live our lives as though they are a reality.  This is actually called cognitive distortion.  Let’s take the power out of those words.

Every time we use the word ‘should’ we are actually making a judgment about ourself and unfortunately for most of us, that judgement falls on the negative side of things.  Especially when we fail to be able to follow through in the manner we think we ‘should’.  I found, for me, the simple act of changing the word ‘should’ to the word ‘could’ removes a lot of the judgements I make about me.  Instead of saying to myself “I should have done it this way”, I try to check myself and change it to “I could have done it this way”.  This removes the negative judgement that I didn’t live up to my own expectations and instead shows my mind that I had and still do have options.  And next time I could do it another way.

Take the word ‘control’.  This word by its very meaning to our minds means we have some influence as to what or who we are dealing with.  This is not always true.  We cannot control other people, their words or their actions.  When we fail to be able to do what our mind tells us what we should (there’s that word ‘should’ again) be able to do, that we can force the situation to be what we want, we then use that thought as a reason the beat ourselves up.  The simple fact is we have no influence on other people or situations.  Changing the word ‘control’ to ‘manage’ helps us to realize we can manage the person or situation by how we react to it.  

By challenging the words we use, we can take the power out of all the negative thoughts we use on ourself.  This is not an easy thing to do.  It takes time along with many trials and errors.  My suggestion is to make a list of words that contain negative judgements against ourself.  Next put another word(s) next to it that is a kinder, gentler word(s) or phrase we could use in its place.  If you are unable to think of a new word(s) ask your support team, either professional or friends and family, who can come up with ideas.  There is a Change My Words template under the template section.  Feel free to use it or to just use it as ideas for making your own.  Use a spiral notebook to do this is you aren’t feeling creative.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I know and believe that those of us who suffer from an ED of any type can beat it.  It is hard work and at times feels impossible; but I am sure it is a goal that is obtainable to all of you out there.

KEEP YOUR CHIN UP!  Take baby steps towards your recovery, put one foot in front of the other and know, with a capital K, you CAN do it.  Even if you can’t see it now, the world needs you!