Growth. Like a flower grows from the dirt, we are growing from our despair, reinventing ourselves into something new and beautiful. Brushing off our mistakes, we are planting new seeds to prosper in the our new and unsoiled garden. But what is growth and how do we know that we have grown? Growth is a measure of maturity and the cultivation to understand and accept everything that life throws at us. It is feeling every single last one of your emotions for what they are, whether they're happy or sad, whether you want them or not. It’s understanding that pain is inevitable and it’s going to come out of you no matter what you do. Growth is the ability to transform your pain from something ugly into something beautiful. The ultimate assessment of growth is shown in how you deal with your adversities and the things that have once torn you down. Recovery from your disorder, isn’t the promise of a life without pain. No matter who you are or where you will go, it will always be there waiting for you. Your feelings are going to get hurt. People are going to knock you off your high horses. Life isn't going to be fair. It’s cruel and ruthless. It's certainly not going to give you special treatment or a free pass just because you’ve had it hard already. Life just doesn't work that way. You’re going to get knocked down more than once, you’re going to have many rock bottoms; but that’s where you find the beauty in the struggle. It’s in the discovery of the silver linings and the prospects of hope despite the darkness that floods you. It’s learning how to deal with your pain and cultivate it into something more. No matter if you like it or not, you’re going to hurt again and one way or another it’s going to have to come out of you. Emotions are fleeting, like energy waves they come and they go. Depending on what you do with each opportunity and what you make out of your struggle, that is where your growth can be found. You can choose to let it out in ugly, self-destructive ways (which is what your ED, your addiction, or your overall demons want). You can tear up everything that you’ve overcome in one sitting. Or you can choose to feel pain beautifully. So let it out in words and in poetry. Let it out in screams if you have to. Just don’t try to run from it or swallow it down. One way or another it is going to catch up to you and you’re going to have to face it and that battle can either be bloody or beautiful. You decide. You have the power within you to turn your pain into a work of art. So grow a garden so wide it escapes the horizon. You're hurt doesn't always have to be ugly, because there is always room for the growth of something beautiful. "Just like the lotus flower, we too have the ability to rise from the mud, bloom out of the darkness and radiate into the world"
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During this Thanksgiving season, I have really tried to take a step back and think about all the components that have gotten me to this point in my life and have made a lasting influence on my character, by shaping me into the person I am today, writing this blog now. It’s extremely easy to get caught in a negative mindset and focus only on the aspects of your life that aren't going they way you thought they’d be. By encouraging these pessimistic thoughts, circumstances can seem to be a lot worse than they actually are.
Life is like one giant ripple through water. “Whatever we do in our lives, good or bad, will affect somebody, like ripples on the water- they expand, they touch something, before they slowly vanish... Ripples come in many ways, from love and spite, hope and despair and joy and pain; shaping who we are, exchanging what we lose for what we gain... Sometimes the ripples which somebody has created in your life continue on, long after the person has gone, not bounded by the twilight, but cherished, kept safe, hidden in the heart…” Ripples can be decisions that you make, slowly leading you into the place that you are now. One thing leads into another and the slightest change in time or place will make a lasting difference somewhere further down the road. In fact some refer to this as the butterfly effect, The scientific theory that a single occurrence, no matter how small, can change the course of the universe forever. I wouldn't go as far as saying your decisions will affect the universe, but none the less even small actions you take will lead to changes somewhere else in your life. A lot of times, we look back on our lives and wish we could have changed a few things. We pick a moment where we went wrong and wish to have never gone through with it. For me, that time that I wish I had back was the moments, thoughts, and actions that it took me to attain my eating disorder. It's really hard for me to look back on this period as something that’s changed me for the better, because I can only see the things that it has taken away. It has caused the biggest upset in my life. It took everything away from me that I knew at the time; my aspirations, goals, and hopes for the future. I have lost people and relationships. I lost the girl I was before and no matter how hard I try I can't get her back. But while focusing on the negative, it's easy to only see all the things it has taken from me and be blinded from all the things that it has given me. What I have failed to realize was how much my life and I have changed for the better. No matter how hard I try, I will never be able to get the girl I was before my eating disorder back, but why would I want to? If you think about it, if I became the same girl I was before my eating disorder, I would be setting myself up for getting an eating disorder all over again. I’d be setting myself up for failure. That girl was not someone I want to be. She was impressionable, emotionally-weak, naiive, and weak-minded. If my eating disorder did anything it made me strong-willed and resilient. Yes it tore me down, but it also tore down the parts of me that have no place in my life anymore and in turn allowed me to rebuild my values on new soil. I am not the same girl I was before, I am better. All the things and people I have lost during the span of this journey weren't supposed to have a lasting place in my life and all the people and things that have stayed have shown me who and what really matter. It’s shed a light on what's really important. The life that I had expected for myself, wasn’t what I was meant to do. I have found purpose since then. My worth isn't based off of others, it’s off of the respect I hold for myself. So although my eating disorder has taken away many things, it has given given me perception of my strengths and helped me rebuild my character, into someone I am proud of. Every step in my recovery was a ripple in the water, slowly growing and building me into the girl I am now. So during this Thanksgiving season, I am thankful for my eating disorder because without it I would not be the person I am today, wouldn't be where I am today, would not have met the the people I have met. I wouldn’t be me without it. |
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