Thanksgiving

I try my hardest to be thankful every day of my life, but this week especially, I hunker down and observe everything in my heart that blesses me each day! 

Even when I am having a hard time with the fact that I am still recovering from surgery and can’t do those things I love, I try and turn the thoughts around by finding those things I am grateful for! I have started back to writing down 10 things I am grateful for, each night before I go to bed! It helps me to decompress from the day and lay out everything in my heart, allowing me to rest easy. It can be the smallest thing, such as my morning coffee, to an appreciation text from my husband, to cooking a delicious dinner, to the beautiful sky at sunset! All of these things take the focus off myself and into those things that light up my soul! 

On this upcoming Thanksgiving, I know that the day can be filled with a lot of anxiety for those that suffer with an eating disorder, body image, or anxiety. I remember the first Thanksgiving I went to 3 weeks after getting out of treatment! It was terrifying! I spent the day engrossed in calorie counting in my brain, hiding away in a corner journaling, while the rest of my family was enjoying the time together, and finally storming off the second I could sneak out to go “walk off” everything I consumed! It was a terrible way to spend the holiday and when I truly decided that recovery was what I wanted, I vowed to myself I would not have another holiday like that one, again. 

For all of us, but especially those suffering, try one small change tomorrow that can help you enjoy the holiday a little bit more than you thought. Find a positive mantra you can repeat to yourself (I am Enough is a good one), or practice deep meditative breathing, focusing on breathing in calm and breathing out peace. Finally, allow yourself the space to feel everything that comes up within you, breath through it, and then let it go. Tell yourself that today, even for 5 minutes, I will allow myself the freedom to enjoy all that Thanksgiving has to offer! Those 5 minutes will eventually turn into 10, then 30, then 60, then days, years and so on! Don’t give up and don’t beat yourself up! 

I, for one, will be thinking of all of my friends and family and sending out grateful vibes to you all! 

Happy Thanksgiving! Gobble Gobble! 

And remember: EAT-LIVE-LOVE