Memories of New Year’s Eve once entailed preparing appetizers with my high school boyfriend. We snuggled in for the night with yummy snacks and movies at home. Total homebodies, for sure!
What followed those quiet nights is a drunken haze of clubs during my college years (and many years after that, I mean, let’s be honest!). I vaguely recall a rooftop bar in Dallas, a very cold Westport in Kansas City with a rare taxi driver to get us home, and a handful of years on either side. Big cities, big plans, and a big ‘ol dose of disappointment at the end of most of those nights. I mean really, I pity December 31st, talk about a lot a pressure for that poor girl!
What stands out more vividly than the bars and boys, and perfected outfits during that chaotic stage of my life, were the New Year’s resolutions that followed the escapade the previous evening. The re-write and renewed devotion to my commandments, my Eating Disorder Commandments. would recommit with fervor to my beloved ED. Significant blocks of time were dedicated to bowing to these commandments, and re-writing them, when really, I could have written one resolution and it would have saved me a lot of time:
1. Mission: LOSE YOURSELF in the New Year, PERFECTLY.
The year before I embarked on my Recovery Journey was different, increasingly more desperate and crumbly. I was compromised from the chronic effects of the eating disorder – physically and emotionally. I had moved back to the small town where I was raised in an attempt to ‘get my s*%$ together after a devastating break-up with a man I believed I was to marry. (Thank you baby Jesus that didn’t happen!).
I woke up New Year’s morning, sober. I no longer had the energy to cope with the disappointment of another NYE, spent essentially with strangers. The world was still dark as I ran in the freezing cold. I promised myself I was superior to the drunken fools who would wake up hours later to the weight of regret and shame of their poor choices from the night before (massive projection). I was still very much stuck in the rigidity of my disorder, I had no idea that the year ahead promised me more than my ED ever could.
A recipe for recovery ensued. It was percolating beneath the surface of those flimsy ED goals and would emerge in glimpses. I opened my heart space, and in teeny bite-sized morsels it evolved.
Here’s what I can promise you if you are spending this New Year’s morning in the throes of your own version of ED commandments, under the guise of New Year’s resolutions:
The ‘Thin Ideal’ (ya know, those airbrushed mirages in magazines) will never bring you what your heart is truly looking for – Never, Ever. You are guaranteed to 110% stunt yourself. Your light will dim. You will disappoint your True Self, the most authentic version of YOU that resides deep within you. The people in your life that truly love you will hurt as they observe your empty pursuit.
There is another way! I know it to be true because I found it, I live it and I am profoundly blessed to be able to accompany my clients as they embark on their own journey back to themselves and expanding beyond even that.
Let the story of your ED Commandments recede. Open your heart to the infinite possibility of a life beyond those limiting beliefs. I’m asking you to create your own recipe for recovery, even a teaspoon will suffice for now.
What will you embody in 2016? I believe you can Rock Your Recovery!
Sending you much Love and Light in the New Year,
Angie
PS: I spent NYE with my high school boyfriend, a lot of appetizers and movies, with our sweet babes snuggled in our warm nest.
