There is no cure for bulimia…depression, illness or anything else.

At least, not in the conventional sense. Not because we can’t recover — but because we are missing the point most of the time. Over the past couple of years, I’ve coached high performers in the corporate world, entrepreneurs, all generations of people all over the world who want to improve their health and people with chronic and terminal illness.

There’s one common thread when we feel stuck. An underlying unhappiness.

Most of the time, it’s an unhappiness with what we are doing or how we are living. Our job, how we spend our time or the fact that we have this big dream and feel like there’s no possible way we can achieve it.

The most common thing I hear is strangely, an echo of my own thoughts a few years ago: I really want to do X, but I don’t think I can make money doing it (or enough money). Or, I want to do X, but who’d want to pay me for that? Would I really get clients/customers?

After that, the yeah, buts come in:

  • Yeah but, I have kids.
  • Yeah but, I’ve tried it before (or other things before) and it didn’t work.
  • Yeah but, no one makes money that way.
  • Yeah but, how could I make enough and only work part time?
  • Yeah but, I’m in debt.
  • Yeah but, I don’t have the money right now/it’s too expensive.
  • Etc.

Believe me, I’ve said them all (except for the part about having kids, of course).

For me, the biggest yeah but was: “But how will I pay my bills?” or “What will happen if I let myself have some time off?” I honestly figured I’d be in a gutter somewhere, rolling around and destitute. It wasn’t until I said this out loud that I realized how much I had boxed myself into what I DIDN’T want to do through fear.

It wasn’t until I realized that my health HAD to come first, that I made my first real steps into recovery. It had to come before my fears — my desire to recover had to be BIGGER than my fears.

That’s when I started playing with my vision for how I wanted my life to be. My vision was not a measuring stick to feel bad about the gap between where I was and where I wanted to be. Instead, it acted like a thread, pulling my energy up. Everytime I saw myslef in that vision, it tugged on my BELIEF.

And over the past couple of years, I have realized that no matter what TOOL we use (nutrition, emotional freedom technique, yoga, breathing, mediation), nothing REALLY works unless we back it up with BELIEF.

We are powerful beings. Much more powerful than we think.

If we BELIEVE something will work, it will. Because we’ll take action to back up that belief.

Beware of False Belief
There’s also false belief. That’s when we SAY we believe something and even much of the time, we THINK we belive it. But in the back of our minds, there’s that tape playing (yeah but, does this really work?). We have so much DOUBT in the back of our minds that it actually sabotages our belief.

Come on, I know you’ve done it! I have, plenty of times. We all do.

The trick is, can we catch ourselves in those thoughts. Can we replace them — training ourselves to stop the sabotaging thoughts that are probably our habit.

Most of us have grown up with so many people doubting everything, including our abilities that it’s no surprise it would become a habit. I recall a time in high school…

I was 16 and working at a little corner store. I picked up a magazine and saw this beautiful picture of a stark white stucco home — really just the balcony — overlooking intensely blue water. There was a woman dressed in white enjoying the view. I said, “I’m going to have a home like this someday.”

Immediately, this boy John, working with me said, “There’s no way you’re going to have that!”

How often has this happened to you?

Today, I live in a white house overlooking the Caribbean ocean. It doesn’t look exactly like that house (which could have been in Greece), but it has the same FEEL. See, it wasn’t THAT house that I cared about so much as the feeling of looking high above a blue ocean. And it’s not like I had a pile of money sitting there waiting for me to buy a house.

I think we charge our thoughts with belief or doubt. It’s just that if you look around, you probably have more people who express doubt than belief.

It’s not hard to have this seem normal, is it?

What if BELIEVING we could do anything was normal? Believing we could do work we love and support ourselves? Believing we could have our dreams?

And actually BELIEVING we could recover?

There is no cure for bulimia…because I don’t think bulimia is the issue. Like a doctor once told me — “eating disorders are symptoms of other illnesses.” He believed there was a different root cause.

I think so too.

I think we lost our belief somewhere along the line. In ourselves, in the world and in our ability to share our unique gift with the world. Most likely we don’t even BELIEVE we have a unique gift.

  • Carol Tuttle once said that we get depressed when our desire for something is greater than our belief. So in order to stay in some proximity to happiness, we lower desires to match our beliefs.
  • Louise L. Hay has long said that our beliefs create our experiences.
  • The Secret movie and all it’s experts said the same thing decades later.
  • W. Clement Stone (and many after him) said, “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

I’ve noticed that whenever I truly believed something would work, it did. I seemded more open and relaxed about taking the steps I needed to take. My belief carried me through the ups and downs that would come along.

When I ended up embroiled in doubt, I found myself faltering.

I think that this is why we see so many “cures” for everything. ANYTHING can cure you…if you BELIEVE. If you truly believe in a way that is stronger than any doubt or perhaps without doubt, anything works. I think it’s because what happens inside is inspriation. Inspiration is a high energy vibration that can carry us through just about anything.

For me, creating my vision gave me inspiration. Visualizing myself in my vision brought that energy of inspiration into my body — giving me the experience of what it could be like. It helped me believe.

All of my tools – healing foods, healing routines, EFT (emotional freedom technique), yoga, meditation – all of these are incredible for helping me create a space where I can still my mind. They help me shift my energy so that I can stay in a place of belief. In essence, they help me stay on track or maybe get back on track when I fall off.

There is no CURE for anything if you expect the cure to be some instantaneous magic pill that absolves you from all effort at creating a life you love to be in. Life wants us to be joyful. I think addiction is the way our bodies SCREAM us into facing up to a life in alignment with what is truly nourishing for our souls.

And so while it may not seem like it, illness and addiction CAN be a gift. They can be pointers to help us realize that not all messages are just staring us in the face. Sometimes we have to dig deep inside and have the courage to go after what we love.

If you want to find out and create your vision, I have a free vision exercise on my business coaching website. I’m going to spend some time posting on reaching our dreams and strengthening our belief. Since Spring is a time of rebirth, is there a better time to plant the seed of belief and watch it grow?


One Day Can Improve Your Life

Related items