Arielle's Word of the Day #17: END

The eating disorder has to end so that you can begin. There is no other way around it.

The world is waiting for you. It's waiting with open arms and a smile. All you have to do is live.

Though this attempt to live can be the single greatest thing you ever do, it is in fact probably the most difficult thing you will ever do. You may even think you are living right now. And perhaps you are. But I can tell you, if you do not feel "alive," you are not living. If you are not nourishing your body and your soul, you are not living. If you are not being honest with yourself, you are not living. If you are hating yourself, you are not living. If you are not breathing, you are not living. If you are weighed down by a variety of things, you are not living. If only one of these things is true, you are not living.

This is not to say that "living" requires complete happiness every moment of every day. Living life means experiencing the bad with the good, but when the bad consistently and greatly outweighs the good, you are not living. You may be trying to live, but you are not living. 

Do not confuse existing with living. The two are very different indeed. 

Somehow, we forget to live. Really live. It's difficult to even pinpoint exactly how this happens, but it does. All too often. And before we know it, we are lost in the crowd, lost in the troubles, lost in the pain, lost in the life we think is a life simply because it is a reality. Maybe no one ever told you this, but...

You can change your reality.

So today, I invite you to live.