Affirmations: Reprogramming my Head

What ED says:

What I say.

you're fat.  

I am a beautiful creature of God - a piece in his miraculous puzzle - I look exactly the way he wants me to look right now.  Who are you to criticize God's work? The shape and size of my body are none of my business.  If I provide God with the tools he needs (proper nourishment and regular exercise), he will mold my body to its best form in his time.  It is not up to me to control that.  My only job is to provide the materials, take care of my body, stay connected to God, and let go of the results.

you're lazy.

I am so determined to excell, that I am willing to tune into the needs of my body.  I am resting so that I can be maximally efficient, strong, energetic, and productive when I return to activity.

you're retarded.

Awww!  How cute!  A new flaw.   I'm so funny.  These cute little personality quirks are what make me uniquely me- a fun, interesting, lovable person.  We are loved for our weaknesses, not our strengths.  This only makes me more able to relate to more people! 

You have so much potential.  How did you mess it up so horribly?

I am exactly what I'm supposed to be in this time in this place.  All of my experiences teach me something that is an important part of my journey.  What makes me think I have the power to screw up God's plan?  I am here for a reason.  The sooner I accept it and move on, the more receptive I am to the lessons I must learn to reach that full potential that I was made for.

I am now, and have always been moving in the right direction.  By connecting with God's will, I am now enacting even more progress.

you blew it.

Wow.  God is leading me in a totally different direction than I ever would have expected.  Stay open and aware to perceive a new unexpected opportunity!

You don't care enough.

I am doing the best I can, and I care enough.  I am dealing with what is most important - taking care of myself - first, so that I can pursue my goals with maximum strength, energy, efficiency, and passion.

It's OK that something has drawn my attention away from many of the things I care about.  Having felt my feelings, I am stronger, more focused, and more energetic.

I take up too much space.

The love, energy, and inspiration that I contribute to the world with my presence is worth far more space than what I actually take up, and I deserve every inch that I occupy!

You suck.

I am exactly where I am supposed to be - on a never ending journey of exploration and enlightenment.  This is just a part of my trip on the way to something great.

You can't be trusted.

I am making the choice to put strong conscious effort into enhancing my integrity, which demonstrates that I do in fact value trustworthiness.

You are slow.

I am so amazingly good, skilled, and successful already.  Now I get to work on SPEED, and as I practice this, everything I do will get even better.

You need to figure this out.

Enjoy the mystery.  God has a plan.  Accept it as it is.  I am not in charge.  I don't have to know.

You're slacking off.

Some other area of my life has been occupying my attention, and I dealt with what was most important.  Now, I choose to redirect my focus to align it with nature, and move forward with gusto!  May miracles occur through me.

You're selfish.

Thank you for putting on your own oxygen mask first.  Now you are better able to help your neighbor.  so GO PAY IT FORWARD!  try taking a random act of kindness.

You don't need rest.

Right now I have a lot of energy and enthusiasm.  Once I exert it, I give my body time to recover.

I'm lazy.

Go hard or go home.  Both are admirable productive choices.  Sometimes, the most productive thing I can do for my body is REST!!!  Now might be a good time to practice some hard core relaxing.  are you up for the challenge?

That is soooo wrong!

Things are what they are.  Live in accepdance: Life on life's terms.  It's not my job to judge.

Someday, I'll be good.

I am exactly where I need to be right now: on a never ending journey of growth and progress.  How exciting!!!

I'm irresponsible.

Slow down!  Take a minute to connect with your Higher Power, and process.  Make a list if you need to.  What is urgent?  What is important?

I need to be super human

I am inspired to be an EXCEPTIONAL Human Being!

I have to fix this.

God's got it covered.  I do my part, tell my truth, and let go of the results.  They're not mine to control.

I can't think.

Slow down.  Get centered.  Hand it over to God for a few minutes.

So I think I'm just uncomfortable with things being normal.  If every day doesn't end spectacularly, I feel off kilter.  I have a hard time going to bed without a happy ending to close out the day.  I don't really know how else to explain it.  Sometimes I feel like I have to say up until I get that comforting sense of closure to the day.  But I don't like just waiting around for it.  I either have to do something to make it happen, or check out in some way.  I guess that's why I used to do a lot of bingeing in the evenings.  It's why I've been feeling like eating since I got home this afternoon and knew we had no more activities planned for the day.  It's not a disaster.  It's not a drama, but being aware of it is kinda a big deal.  Tonight, I'm going to practice not having to force a perfect ending to the day.  I can't really make them happen anyway, and tonight, I don't have to beat myself up for that.  but I think i'd like a hug.  i'm gonna go hug my mom...right after I play a prank on my step dad.  he's snoring.  it must be done.  : )

Step 2

So I was insane, and I had already tried every human power to control it, and was out of ideas.  But I always knew there was a way to get back to sanity.  I had to try everything in my own power first to understand that I couldn't do it by myself.  And no person could be relied upon to always be there to keep me inline.  It had to be a power greater than me.  I was so down and out that I was willing to accept any solution that would actually work, no matter how far fetched.  

I was already pretty open to the idea of a higher power.  I just had no idea how to define it or connect with it. I could definitely feel it in nature: swimming in the ocean or sitting on a rock while the waves crashed up around me; sitting in a treetop where I could look over an entire forrest of trees just like the one I was in; riding my motorcycle through the mountains and looking down at a sea of clouds...It's all so beautiful and amazing, it makes me proud to be a tiny part of it: one little piece of a giant puzzle.  When I think of the world in terms of people, I get competitive, and want to know that I'm better and I stand out.  People can seem so petty and materialistic, but when I am surrounded by nature, and animals who live with no inhibitions or self consciousness- completely in the moment always, it seems like a cool thing to be a part of, and I don't mind being one of many on an equal playing field.  

I started learning to keep my eyes and ears open, praying and looking for answers, and I began to see them.  I told myself to accept the idea that God would take care of my problems with food and body if I just let go...and I began to accept it.  I would do little tests, like going to bed without setting an alarm..."If I'm supposed to go to the 7:30 am OA meeting, then God will make sure it happens, right?"  I thought it was a sure-fire way to sleep in and prove that God didn't care if I went to meetings, but somehow, I'd wake up after 4 hrs of sleep, and be unable to drift off again.  It seemed as if God would help me with this. (see other examples in comments to this post)

I still forget sometimes, but I'm getting better at it.  Hearing stories from other girls at meetings- especially when J shared at my first costa mesa meeting- gave me an insight into what this was really about- learning to live and love.  It helped to explain why human connection is a worthwhile thing, and how even if it did nothing for my eating-even if it made me fat, it was something that I needed in my life.

One of my big sticking points was what I wanted in a higher power.  The thing I wanted most was to be the favorite-the most important.  I wanted a God that loved me more than anyone else, and I wanted to know how to make God love me more.  Maybe if everyone has their own personal higher powers, then mine loves me most, but then who's higher power is the best?  if mine loves me most, but isn't the best, then who cares?  It drove me in circles.  Climbing trees and watching squirrels helped with that.  But I was also bothered by the idea of unconditional love.  If it was unconditional, then where was the incentive to be good?  If I'm loved- good or bad, then I do nothing to earn it.  It seemed worthless.  Love that is thrown around so freely and offered up to any criminal is hardly worth having.  I wanted to have to be good...better...exceptional in order to earn God's love.  I wanted to be able to control how much he loved me by working hard to be better.  It's funny-it made so much sense before, and while I still understand it, it seems a little silly now, and beside the point.  God loves me for who I am, not what I do.  What I do may be an external representation of who I am, but the core spirit and personality of me is there regardless.  And that's what he loves.  Nothing I do will change who I am- it only changes the outer appearance of who I am.  As I grow in the program, my outer appearance and actions will become more and more consistent with who I really am inside, which never changes how much God loves me, because he could see the real me all along!  Wow.  this is making more and more sense!  By accepting that there is such a power who really loves me for my true honest innermost self, I begin to trust that part of me, and become more willing to share it.  By trusting my higher power, I can stop trying to control how God feels about me, and how I appear to everyone else, and start working on how to make my life and actions true to my self.  This is so cool!

I got exactly what I asked for!

So the theme of the week was telling my truth, then letting go.  It was hard, but I had help.  I played a game of questions with my...boyfriend?... right...well we'll call him that.  But I asked the questions I was afraid to ask, and allowed my true emotional reactions to show.  I fumbled clumsily through my answers to his questions until I had answered them honestly and thoroughly, and he waited patiently for me to get everything out.  If I thought i didn't know, I knew that I was supressing it, and I would dig for it, find it, blush, get scared, think about how to say it perfectly, call myself out for being in my head, and just speak my thoughts out loud.  I gradually got more coherent.  It was the best night we had together.  I wanted to know why he liked me.  Am I more than just a body to him?  I got my answer, and I liked it.  I learned a lot about him, and feel much more connected and free.  He asked what I would change about him, which was terrifying.  I immediately blocked it, and it took me almost a half hour to dig it back out, but when I said it, it sounded easy.  He was pleasantly surprised, and made the change instantaneously.  It was really cool.  When I faced my fears and asked for what I wanted, I got it.  It feels really good, and I like him soooooooo much more now!  It's so cool.

mmmm Humble Pie!

i frequently get annoyed with some of the other students in some of my classes because I learn a lot of the techniques so much faster than they do.  I have a lot of experience in choreography and different styles, so it just clicks in my brain and body faster than other beginners.  There is one particular beginner who drives me nuts.  He's got a huge ego, and doesn't seem aware of how clumsy and uncoordinated he is.  Today, I got paired up with him to do some partner work, and I had nothing on him!  Seriously...I tripped on his leg twice.  i know the techniques forwards and backwards when I'm doing them alone, but their meant to be done with a partner.  He may not know the techniques as well as I do, but he had a better sense of how to work with a partner, and that is a vitally important skill- more important than any of the techniques.  It was a nice reminder that everyone has their thing-their specialty or skill.  I can't just go around writing people off.

Good Day!

I am so excited about my new friend!  It was amazing when I first connected with people in OA, and found a whole support group of people who thought just like me.  It was a relief and a comfort to be with people who shared so much in common with me, but there was always a missing piece.  I have a kinda unusual job that is tightly woven with my body and image, and I hadn't really found anyone in program who could relate to that.  Today, I found one!  She's close to my age, in a similar line of work, she began her recovery about 2 months after me, and we're practically neighbors!  I'm just so grateful!  especially since it's been hard finding people in program close to my age who live anywhere near me.  This is just everything I'd been praying for!  I guess that's how it works isn't it?  God is so cool.  

What else...

I took like...an hour and a half detour on a really cool twisty turney back road through the mountains today.  I was running late, and took this road as a short cut, drove almost 40 miles, and found out that the road was closed, and the only way to get where I was going was to go all of the way back the way I came, and return to my usual route.  Instead of being 15 minutes late, I would now be at least 1 hour and 45 minutes late.  Did I stress about it?  well...yes.  but only for like 2-5 minutes!  I called my friend to let him know, and then enjoyed the ride.  I couldn't have done that before recovery.  I also had time to think about my upcoming appointment.  It was a photoshoot...the first one I've done since I started my abstinence.  I knew I needed the pictures, and that I was in relatively good shape, but I really felt like I needed to stop eating for at least a day prior to the shots or at the very least take a massive overdose of fiber to help empty out my stomach.  You can't take pictures with anything in your stomach, right?  My thinking was so disordered on this topic.  I totally would have done it if it wasn't clearly defined in my abstinence.  I was stressing out about getting these pictures without engaging in any of that sort of behavior.  I wanted to put them off til I was skinnier or something, but I needed them now!  On my long detour, while I was working on accepting things as they are, I realized that the stuff we were going to be doing in the photo shoot was going to be really fun...REALLY fun!  I was so worried about my stomach, that I forgot how cool it was going to be.  I decided to let go.  There was nothing I could do about my stomach.  It was probably fine anyway.  I could just focus on enjoying the day.  And I did.  I was pretty present.  Pretty exciting that I could do that.

Gratitude

I just scrolled through my text messages on my phone, and saw sooo many loving messages from my friends, and they're all from the past 3 days!  I'm just really grateful to have so many real true friends who care about me, and to be able to recognize that and have real connections with them.  Today I did a lot of living, and spent a good portion of the time actually being present.  I had the daily reprieve, and felt kinda centered.  It's weird to have felt sooo awful for no particular reason monday night/tuesday morning, and even though nothing has changed since then, to be totally at peace and happy today (wednesday).