The Bigger Picture

It's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture when there's something you want to accomplish but aren't quite sure how to get there. Your mind can get overwhelmed with what you want to achieve, what you want to BE, what you want to feel. You can lose control. You can turn to tactics to make you feel better. You can try to make it through the day so as not to freak out.

You slip at times back to where you started. To the very things you want to get away from. But you're trying to make yourself feel better. It's a strange concept. But it happens.

Lose weight
Eat less
Throw up dinner
Use the diet pills
Use the laxatives
Harm, hurt
Gain back the control

I'm all about living in the now--but what will those things do for you in the long run?

Make you sick?
Slowly kill you?
Wreck your life?
Destroy your pride?

Don't forget to look at the big picture in terms of recovery. Take one day at a time...but be sure to have a happy, healthy life as your long term goal. Let it be your candle in the darkness, your flag waving in the distance, your lighthouse beacon showing you the way to shore.

If you focus too much on all the little steps of recovery and forget what it is you're shooting for (i.e. a new life) you're doing yourself a harsh injustice and making your already difficult journey that much harder.

Addressing the Tunnel

It’s funny how you can grow to know yourself as a person—a whole person—and like what you know. It’s a fun discovery sometimes, to dip into the soul of someone who’s been with you all along, but never really seen as a complete entity. It’s so easy to know yourself as depressed, or crazy, or worried, or anxious—or as a body. But to really know yourself for what you are—totally—is something altogether fascinating. Of course, you may not like everything you learn about yourself, but we all have faults and discrepancies within ourselves. It’s only natural to find yourself imperfect. But you know, it’s true what your teachers always used to say: “Nobody’s perfect.” But you can be good at being you. You can be real.

I list a lot of techniques and strategies for a recovery-helpful lifestyle on this blog, all of which I feel strongly about, but when it comes right down to it, you have to be willing to go into yourself and feel. And then get rid of the bullshit. And the voices from others. And the worry. And the self-pity. And the not feeling good enough. And only then will you be able to get rid of the pain.

The right path is never the easiest one, you know. And the more you struggle, the better you will feel when you’ve overcome what it is that is bringing you down. In essence, everything worth fighting for starts with a struggle. And believe me, your health and your happiness are definitely worth fighting for. I may not have known at the beginning that I would feel as good as I do, but I wouldn’t go back to that horrid beginning for anything. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. And if you don’t see it yet, climb a little farther. And when you begin to see the glowing edges of that light, you will want with all your might to reach it and come out on the other side, free at last from the stifling and dark tunnel you’ve struggled through so long. It only makes sense, doesn’t it?

But as always, saying is easier than doing. Much easier. But every action starts with a thought. So let this post be your thought. And begin.