An activity was posted on my recovery group’s wall on Facebook yesterday, to write a letter to our bodies in the form of “dear body, thank you/I love you…” or similar. Here is my contribution:
Dear body,
Thank you for your intelligence and knowing what is good and right for me. I don’t listen to you as often as I should and for that I am sorry. Be assured that I am working toward learning that you are right and Ed is wrong and thus, trusting you completely.
Love from,
Ames
As you may be aware (and if you are not I’m thinking you have been living under a media/advertisement/retail rock for the past month) Valentine’s Day will be upon us very soon. Tomorrow in fact…
I am single. By choice at the moment. I am just not in the right place to be in a relationship at the moment. Given, if the right guy landaed on my doorstep by some sheer stroke of fate and chance, I would make a pretty big effort to let go of my inhibitions in regards to loving someone else.
I am getting carried away here. Back on track!
One thing I am struggling with my in recovery is learning to love and accept myself. Knowing I am much more than a number on the scale, a dress size or a certain stereoptype – these things shouldn’t define who I am or even matter. However, to me they do. I am frightened to death of rejection and judgement based on my appearance (thanks high school bullies). If someone were to call me fat or ugly, I don’t think I would cope. It would destroy me. Hence why I am stuck in this monster of an eating disorder, trying to control my weight and shape so I do not get judged negatively.
Now, I know that I shouldn’t be relying on external validation about my appearance to feel worthy, or on the flipside, unworthy. I should be focusing on who I am: my personality, skills, talents etc. these are the things that truly matter. I also know that if someone were to make harsh comments on my appearance, it shouldn’t matter one single bit. Who are they to judge anyways? They have no right to make those sorts of comments; forcing their own and society’s stereotypes on other people, forcing them to change. These aren’t the kinds of pople one wants in their life anyway. We need to hang around people who love us for us and don’t care how much we weigh or what colour our hair is etc.. These are our true friends.
I think everyone can take a leaf out of Thumper’s book.
I need to keep in mind that really, no one is perfect or perfectly fits the chocolate mold anyways (like how I threw a yummy food in there??), we are all created unique and that’s what makes us special right?
I can hear you know… “OK, so if she is saying all these things why doesn’t she believe them, or why does she have an eating disorder?” well, I’m saying them because that is what I’ve been told. Part of me believes it, but unfortunately a larger part of me doesn’t believe it, or fears the potential that it could happen if I don’t keep myself looking a certain way… That blessed unknown.
My fear is greater than my strength.
I need to learn to love myself more, and show love for myself, and I mean everything about myself, from my good bits to my not-so-good bits.
Anyway, as I mentioned before, Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. So, seems I have no one to show me some lovin’ (but in all honesty, do we really need a set day to tell or show someone we love them? Can’t we do that any day?), I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to show myself some lovin’.
No inuendo intended. Get your heads out of the gutter! Hehehe.
I don’t mean THAT kind of self love… I mean this kind:
“In 1956, psychologist & social philosopher Erich Fromm proposed that loving oneself is different from being arrogant, conceited or egocentric. He proposed that loving oneself means caring about oneself, taking responsibility for oneself, respecting oneself, and knowing oneself (e.g. being realistic and honest about one’s strengths and weaknesses). He proposed, further, that in order to be able to truly love another person, a person needs first to love oneself in this way…”, The Art of Loving (1956) by Erich Fromm. Harper & Row, source: Wikipedia, February 8th 2015 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-love
I have decided that for 7 days from Valentine’s Day onwards, I am going to do at least one act of self-love each day. Something to respect, know, care and be responsible for myself, internally and externally.
Here is my check list (in no particular order). Note that I have more than 7. I put more than enough on their in case some weren’t possible.
So there it is peoples. I am looking forward to doing this. We don’t treat ourselves with love and kindness enough, so this is my chance to make a real effort to do it. Who knows, if it works I might try to continue with it!
Amy's Invictus 