Mitch Albom speaks the truth about healing :)

** And then...in line with what Albom says about moving on, in order to continue transforming and evolving (in general and through ED recovery), one must continue to do the new unfamiliar thing instead of the old stagnating and life-blocking thing. My cousin reminded me of this very important truth earlier this week. For instance, you might remind yourself that you deserve to live free of roles and engagements that in induce fear and shame; you deserve to live free of roles that do not serve you in self-compassionate living. Do your aspirations and daily-doings involve patience? Keep them. Do they encourage you to self-validate? Keep them. Try to work on working through and letting go of the other stuff. This is what I have been telling myself today. It's much, much, much easier said than done. But, I believe it works. I believe in me, and I believe in you.

Caught myself in avoidance

I was just working on a blog post about how people with eating disorders often employ an external focus in order to block out internal distress. Once eating disorder behaviors are not overwhelming a person's every day life, the underlying stuff (such as the external focus) still exists, and it continues to needs attention. I have felt anxious since this morning about an internal polarization surrounding doing and not doing. I have parts who want to do-do-do in order to compensate and feel relevant, and I have other parts who are terrified that if I do-do-do, then I'm just going to miss our on being a human-being and will live my life as another human-doing. Since this morning, I have felt resistant to bring my focus inside. But, aware that I need to re-adjust internally, I came to Starbucks to journal....and then somehow, I found myself caught up in writing a blog about emotional avoidance. Yes, writing a blog post about emotional avoidance instead of facing my emotions. Sometimes I just feel like laughing at myself. Anyway, I might post my post tomorrow. But for right now, I need to attend to my distress. I'm glad that I noticed it, for so long it is was easy to obliterate my awareness of tears bubbling below the surface, a desire to neglect my feelings or act out against myself. To follow the larger culture and punish myself back into a doing-paradigm. Today, this is not going to happen, not even by blogging. You see, even things that are essentially therapeutic can become an act of avoidance. As a rule of thumb, if a doing is not continually done with kindness, patience, self-compassion, and honest reflection, then it is a good idea to question whether the doing is therapeutic. Not that every action must be therapeutic, but when that's what you're going for, I think you might know what i mean...

And on a semi-related note, I love this quote by Sappho...

Our hearts want us to surrender

Comments about PostSecret (Note: content may be triggering)

PostSecret is a community art project where people anonymously mail their secrets on a homemade postcard. They've been organized into several books. In one book, the dust jacket reads, "You are invited to anonymously contribute a secret to a group art project. Your secret can be a regret, fear, betrayal, desire, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before. Be brief. Be legible. Be creative."

I'm not sure why I thought about PostSecret the other day. But I did. Anyway, I browsed the web to take a look at a few. Some are sad. Some are funny. Some are poignant. Some are frightening. They come from people who appear to come many walks of life; all ages. A multitude of experiences. And many, many, many, many, did I say many? Many arrive to talk about eating disorders. 

Some come from the Eating Disorder itself, translating its language, it's purpose. 

Some come from the Eating Disorder's glorification of anorexia, its (and our culture's) misguided belief that restriction is control, and its terror of being "out of control."

Some come from Denial, protecting yet preventing an individual from facing his/her Eating Disorder.

Some come to confess that eating disorders exist behind fear, lies, and the pressure to appear fine.

Some come from people who want to make basic statements about living a life with an eating disorder. They insinuate the eating disorder's shame and hopelessness.

 

 

Some come from an Eating Disorder's awareness of its unchallenged narcissism.

Some come from the eating disorder's fear of recovery.

(Note: the EATING DISORDER'S FEAR of recovery) 

 

Some come from the Person's fear of eating disorder recovery.

Some come from desperation, as though to say: this is the last time, I swear...

Some come to speak about a lack of resources.

Some come from pica...or unspecified and other specified eating and feeding disorders.

 

Some come from sharing random acts of compassion towards individuals who struggle with eating disorder behaviors.

Some come from a dry awareness of the physical results of eating disorder behaviors.

I've found two that come from a recovered voice.

Listen, almost all of these Postsecrets are not very recovery oriented in content. But regardless of their make-up, they are recovery oriented in process because they are opening a conversation about the shame, fear, anger, and grief that underly the eating disorder. Many people who suffer from an eating disorder will be able to relate to a few (perhaps many) of these Postsecrets. The people who wrote them allowed themselves to be vulnerable enough to be honest. I'll admit, they were conditionally vulnerable. No one knows who these secrets are attached to. Nevertheless, they are being honest about their awareness of where they are. I challege you to be honest. Tell someone what your eating disorder is saying. Tell someone what your eating disorder is thinking. You may not know how to help you, but especially in the beginning, the process of talking about feeling helpless, ashamed, etc. is the most honest and self-compassionate thing that you can really do.

Secrets fertilize the soil where eating disorders flourish. 

So, this tid bit is more a message to those entering the process of recovery, but it's relevant for everyone:

Tell on yourself.

Your eating disorder lives and breathes in the little things that you think don't matter.

Tell on yourself.

You need external perspectives in order to feel related to, validated, and challenged in the process.
 
Tell on yourself for tuning out during that meal because it was easier to get through. Tell on yourself for skipping a snack. 

And tell on your eating disorder, because even though it only talks to you, it needs to be offered up to a team who can empower you to save yourself.

The Consummate Compassionate Warrior

Please watch the video below to watch Eleanor Longden talk about how she developed a collaborative relationship with voices that she hears. I am not sharing this video to suggest that individuals who have eating disorders also struggle with schizophrenia. I think it's important for you to know that I'm not saying that at all. But, I am sharing this video in order to suggest that the manner in which Longden speaks to her voices is an inspiring example about how we (with eating disorders and otherwise) must learn to interact with our thoughts and emotions so that we can live a more self-compassionate life. A life where we are curious about our internal struggles, a tenacious life where we are not giving in to the fuck-its, a life where we are taking self-compassionate responsibility for our lives, and a life where we continue to develop our ability to construct meaning out of experiences that feel frightening and deeply upsetting. Longden is the consummate compassionate warrior, and we have much to learn from her.

The following are significant quotations that I reflected on after I listening to her.

When Longden talks about her gratitude towards those who supported her, acted as resources for her, and did not give up on her, she says that they: "Empowered me to save myself."

Longden interprets her voices (and we can interpret our thoughts) as...
"A meaningful response to traumatic life events, particularly childhood events, and as such were not my enemies, but a source of insight into solvable emotional problems."  

In order to recover, Longden learned to...
"Extract and separate out a metaphorical meaning from what (she) had previously interpreted as statement that (she) took to be a literal truth."

Longden..."Deconstruct(ed) the message behind the words."

Among other things, an eating disorder is a language. When a person walks into residential treatment and has limited insight into the function of their eating disorder, it is as though that person has been attempting to speak themselves in a language that they don't understand. The eating disorder appears self-destructive, but eventually the person will realize that its message is a constructive one. It's a message that may ultimately say: "Something feels very wrong, I don't know how to understand it, I feel like there's something wrong with me, I don't know what to do....and I don't feel okay, etc." This message is constructive because these sorts of thoughts invite you to attend to solvable emotional struggles. 

In many ways, an eating disorder is a daunting puzzle that needs figuring out. Of course, the process isn't that linear or basic, but decoding is a part of the process. The process requires support; however, it typically needs some breathing room apart from one's primary family (for a limited period of time). It needs space so that it feels comfortable shifting its mode of communication into a language that you can understand and/or decode. An eating disorder is an element of yourself that is trying to communicate something to you about you. An example is: having lived a long time where one took the phrase, "I am a failure" to be a literal truth. If one took the time to extract a metaphorical meaning from the phrase "I am a failure," (and of course everyone's meaning will be a little different), one might pay attention to the attitude/emotional energy behind the thought, one might wonder...if for instance the phrase "I am a failure" is self-talk that sounds angry or sad...then what might the anger and sadness relate to? And how do you feel about externally expressing anger or sadness? Do you keep everything inside and act like everything is okay, when its not? And what are you preventing yourself from paying attention to when you are insisting to take "I am a failure" as a literal truth? And how does your body feel when you say "I am a failure"? Does it feel heavy? Does your eating disorder believe that restricting, binging, purging and/or exercising will make the emotion go away? Are you scared? Feel helpless? Feel as though the emotion will never end? Does the sensation make you want to escape your body? What happens? Decoding what is really going on can empower a person to take the reigns instead of allowing their eating disorder to lead. There are so many questions that one could ask, so many meanings behind a self-hating phrase. So many intentions behind an eating disordered thought or urge or perception. It also takes intentional looking inside to notice that you're even talking to yourself in this way. In the eating disorder, most of the time it presents as an eating disorder urge, or a sensation of body hate, or a holding onto a certain perception of the body, or a preoccupation with avoiding food, or a preoccupation with going towards food, or a preoccupation with dealing with food in a certain way, etc. In people who do not have eating disorders, self-hate presents in different ways. Incessant doing, perfectionism, mean-ness, anxiety, depression, narcissism, and worries about external judgment are a few solid examples. Most people say self-hating things to themselves a lot of the time, it's just that their self-hate is often not debilitating enough to recognize the statements. But one can figure out whether they are there, how they sound, and what they are attempting to convey by being fearlessly honest with yourself. Fearless self-honesty always works, and it is one of the most courageous things that a person can dedicate themselves to doing.

Thanks for reading my thoughts, please enjoy the video!

 

Brené Brown is Brilliant

These Ted Talks really speak for themselves. I recommend watching them from top to bottom, they feed off of one another. Brown is brilliant. Poignant, funny, and honest. Oh, and vulnerable :)

The most basic way in which these videos relate to eating disorder recovery is that: 1. Shame underlies the etiology and maintenance of eating disorder and 2. Unwillingess to be Vulnerable is one of the most powerful underlying forces that may prevent a flourishing recovery process.

▼ Allowingness ▼

I listened to Tara Brach again this evening; I listened to the audio titled 'Into the Wilderness.' First, Tara talks about habitual ways of resisting (and this reminded me of my blog because eating disorders are all about resisting; its a compulsion to resistance; it's an "I can't handle the legacy burdens and I need an escape" kind of resistance; it's an "if I sit in presence, I will feel like I am falling to pieces because my desperate and fearful mind will escape every other millisecond and I CANNOT TOLERATE the returning, the returning...just to be disappointed by the fearful mind once more" kind of resistance; it's an "I NEED to live in this role but I CANNOT live in this role" kind of resistance; its an eternal reverberation of: I'm not okay, I'm not okay; I'M NOT OKAY; it's chaos and it's excruciating...but recognizing and being with the chaos and the excrucitating-ness is the way to deeply recover).

Then, Tara talks about the body as a portal into what-is; a portal into the radiance that surrouds us. She talks about how seeking our inner nature mirrors the archetypal process of going into the wilderness. How we wander the internal world and the external world, and that we find the same barriers in both worlds. She means that being present in the external world, that being present with the breeze, that being with sensations that center us can deliver us to our internal sense of eternal-centeredness. Crying can be an advance into the wilderness. A few nights ago, a beautiful friend of mine cried as she thought of the concept of breaking the surface. Her tears following her longing heart. Internal voices desperate for profound self-soothing connection, simultaneously fearful of the process of self-connection. The tension between the different sorts of longing is a poignant sensation; but she sat with it, brave. A compassionate warrior. And she let her tears fall, and I felt grateful for her, and compassion for her. And I knew that her fear, her longing, and her vulnerability-angst were rooted in both her external and internal worlds. I think she is like all of us. I know that she is both poet and poem; in our own ways we are all poets and poems.

But like most poets, we also become those who condemn our poet-ness for not writing the perfect poem; the poem that goes: boom. Big blasting poems. There is a fear that one's inherent poetry and internal eternal-centerness will not be enough. Enough for what? To each his own. Still, we all avoid on account of being fearful that we are not enough. We all run away and the act of running away is never as simple as we can sometimes fool ourselves into believing. It's never really just avoidance. It's almost always a disowning process; a process of dismissing. In IFS work, we have a name for the parts of ourselves to who want to run away: protectors (managers, etc). They are the voices that say: If you do this perfectly, then everything is going to be okay. They are the voices of blame, self-recrimination, and self-deception. They are the voices behind the obscure sensation that something in comparatively wrong with our bodies; they are the voices attempting to sooth something inside of us by saying: You'll be acceptable when.../If only.../And of course...should...SHould...SHOULD! They are also the voice(s) that communicate the Felt Sense Prayer (which I have included in the bottom of this posting; it is originally written by Bob Shapero), which Brach recites at the end of her audio. Beneath the shoulds, they are really saying that they are afraid. They are really saying: I am saying "should" because you are fearful of what will happen if you do not do "___fill in the blank___" or if you do not become "_____." They speak on behalf of what is inside, and their voices point us in the direction of what always has been. A particularly true moment is when Shapero says: "More often than not I am just the most recent notes of a long symphony;" one must acknowledge the symphony and be willing to change the notes along the way. There is no point in waiting and saying, "next time I will challenge the shoulds," now is the time. Following the meal plan later, challenging thoughts later...later doesn't work. Do it right now; be with it right now. All we have is now.

The other side of "should" is allowing oneself to be with what is; allowing what-is to Be. And this Allowingness, allowing what is here to stay here; allowing ourselves to be here with whatever is here, is a concept that is so dear to my tender heart. It is central to eating disorder recovery. Do you know the threatening voices, the ED, the anxiety, the perfectionism, the self-hate...whatever you struggle with...the disconnection, the trauma, the depression, the narcissism, the fear, fear, fear; the things that seem as though they will never subside? These parts will soften if you are willing to BE WITH them. They do soften, and they are vulnerable and in need of love, reassurance, and kindness. If one looks at these parts/thought processes/memories/impulses/emotions/etc, they become what Shapero states in his prayer. They transform from frightening chaos into "harbingers that lead you to the mysterious core of your being, where insight and wisdom are naturally available when called upon with a sincere heart." Looking at these thought processes/emotions/etc. as parts is a way of organizing a sense of internal chaos and giving each disorganized part compassion and love. Kindness, patience, and compassion are the only things that work. I'll never forget the woman who taught me this simple truth; I'm eternally grateful. If she read this, I am not sure that she would even know that I am referring to her.

Again, I'll return to Tara Brach's: Into the Wilderness. Brach's messages are consistently on point for me. Lately, I've been struggling with a sense of feeling inadequate. Today, when Tara read this Felt Sense Prayer and as I listened, I felt reminded of the deep gratitude that I hold for the voice of inadequacy because at its core, it is a part who feels vulnerable and frightened. Intent on getting my attention because I'm pushing it away, avoiding it. It is there so that I remember to pay attention to my internal experience. It is there so that I can translate its suffering into connectedness and joy.


Tonight I feel inspired by Brach's recitation, and so I wanted to share her Felt Sense Prayer. So, a gift for anyone who might be reading, please enjoy (and thank you)...

I am the pain in your head, the knot in your stomach, the unspoken grief in your smile.
I am your high blood sugar, your elevated blood pressure, your fear of challenge, your lack of trust.
I am your hot flashes, your cold hands and feet, your agitation and your fatigue.
I am your shortness of breath, your fragile low back, the cramp in you r neck, the despair in your sigh.
I am the pressure on your heart, the pain down your arm, your bloated abdomen, your constant hunger.
I am where you hurt, the fear that persists, your sadness of dreams unfulfilled.
I am your symptoms, the causes of your concern, the signs of imbalance, your condition of dis-ease.

You tend to disown me, suppress me, ignore me, inflate me, coddle me, condemn me.
I am not coming forth for myself as I am not separate from all that is you.
I come to garner your attention, to enjoin your embrace so I can reveal my secrets.
I have only your best interests at heart as I seek health and wholeness by simply announcing myself.

You usually want me to go away immediately, to disappear, to sleek back into obscurity.
You mostly are irritated or frightened and many times shocked by my arrival.
From this stance you medicate in order to eradicate me.
 Ignoring me, not exploring me, is your preferred response.
More times than not I am only the most recent notes of a long symphony, the most evident branches of roots that have been challenged for seasons.

So I implore you, I am a messenger with good news, as disturbing as I can be at times.
I am wanting to guide you back to those tender places in yourself,
the place where you can hold yourself with compassion and honesty.
If you look beyond my appearance you may find that I am a voice from your soul.
Calling to you from places deep within that seek your conscious alignment.

I may ask you to alter your diet, get more sleep, exercise regularly, breathe more consciously.
I might encourage you to see a vaster reality and worry less about the day to day fluctuations of life.
I may ask you to explore the bonds and the wounds of your relationships.
I may remind you to be more generous and expansive or to attend to protecting your heart from insult.
I might have you laugh more, spend more time in nature, eat when you are hungry and less  when pained or bored, spend time every day, if only for  a few minutes, being still.

Wherever I lead you, my hope is that you will realize that success will not be measured by my eradication, but by the shift in the internal landscape from which I emerge.

I am your friend, not your enemy.  I have no desire to bring pain and suffering into your life.
I am simply tugging at your sleeve, too long immune to gentle nudges.
I desire for you to allow me to speak to you in a way that enlivens your higher instincts for self care.
My charge is to energize you to listen to me with the sensitive ear and heart
of a mother attending to her precious baby.

You are a being so vast, so complex, with amazing capacities for self-regulation and healing.
Let me be one of the harbingers that lead you to the mysterious core of your being
where insight and wisdom are naturally available when called upon with a sincere heart.