Many of you know that I am a big fan of Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth. In this new book, he has made many of his concepts from The Power Of Now so much more accessible. I have been using this book as part of my recovery – from all areas of my mind, body and spirit. I think I mentioned that inspirational books like this have helped me more than any eating disorders book has. Why? Because in eating disorders books, I may learn more about the “condition” of an eating disorder, but not much about how to really change. Sure, I can change the behavior of addiction, but how do I change myself? How do I experience life with peace and joy? How do I stop suffering and struggling? When will I be free?

There are several stages of recovery that go beyond stopping the addictive behavior. In order to really enjoy life, this constant practice of CHOOSING happiness — choosing your thoughts – becomes the key. Eating disorders often keep us immersed in negative thinking – so when we start practicing putting positive thoughts into our minds and believing them, we move to another level of recovery – empowerment. We realize that we do, in fact, have control. Control over our thoughts, actions & choices. We don’t control the outcomes – but the trick is that we TRUST the outcomes – because we know we’ll always be okay. Once we can move from practice, to catching & choosing our thoughts, trust becomes what sets us free.

The Pain Body – What It Is & Why It’s So Difficult
Eckhart Tolle talks about suffering in terms of the “pain body.” He says that for most of us, we don’t think – “thinking happens to us.” We walk around on autopilot with involuntary and repetitive thoughts cycling through our minds (mind-chatter). When in this state, we lose our ability to choose what’s in our minds and the “voice in the head has a life of its own.” (A New Earth, p. 129). In this way, our thoughts own us, rather than us owning our thoughts.
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I got a comment on my blog last night that was deleted mistakenly when I was removing those fabulous SPAM bot comments that often try to sneak in. The comment stopped me for a moment, because I didn’t know what to say. How do I respond? And yet, this comment requires a response, because it’s a real-life situation. At the same time, I had a few e-mails from people who wanted to take the step to tell someone, but were not sure what the outcome would be. I’ll address both of these in this post.

The comment was: “My husband was disgusted when I told him about my bulimia.” This is our fear, isn’t it? This is what keeps us locked inside ourselves, afraid to tell anyone. We don’t want people to be disgusted with us, do we? We want to be strong, smart, responsible, beautiful – to be perfect. After all, those of us with eating disorders tend to be perfectionists and overachievers. We are smart, strong, responsible and beautiful – yet, we often take this to extremes because we’re never good enough.

And that’s the key, isn’t it? When someone tells us we are disgusting because of something we do, they validate our worst fear. That we are not good enough. And yet, in recovery, one of the most important things to do is to fully accept yourself – as the human being you are. Human beings have a mix of light and dark. In other words, we are not perfect – none of us.

Embracing Imperfections
Part of recovery is embracing our imperfections. Loving them – and loving ourselves so much, that no one else’s disgust, disappointment, disapproval or anger can shake that. It is creating unconditional love for ourselves that allows us to TRUST that no matter what happens and no matter what others think, we will be okay.

Questions To Ask Yourself
I want to acknowledge the person who put in the comment about her husband being disgusted. I want to acknowledge you for your courage in telling him. I want to acknowledge you for your courage in sharing his disgust. I have several questions to ask you – and anyone else who may be afraid to tell someone (as I was).
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Maya asked a really good question about artificial sweeteners and their relation to digestive health. Specifically, she was referring to artificial sweeteners in drinks, including diet colas.

Maya, I want to acknowledge you for noticing the link between what you are drinking and how it affects you. You had mentioned symptoms like bloating, abdominal distention – and masking your body’s needs around appetite and thirst. In my history, I have tended to avoid artificial sweeteners. I had heard that the airline industry would not let pilots consume artificial sweeteners because it adversely impacted their performance. There have been several articles written about artificial sweeteners like aspartame, Nutra-Sweet and others.

Everything We Take Into Our Bodies & Minds Affects Our Health
In fact, food, food additives, beverages and all things we consume have the ability to affect our health either positively or negatively. There have been countless guidelines, diets and do’s and don’ts created to “help” us decide what is “good” for us and “bad” for us. My philosophy is that we have about as much understanding of the human body and digestive system as NASA has about space. There is good data, scientific evidence, explorations and discoveries, but no one really fully understands the full effect of our actions on the Earth or what lies out there in space.

For this reason, it is very important to understand how YOUR body responds to what you eat, drink, supplement and add to your foods. I am also a firm believer in educating ourselves about the addictive process and the body’s withdrawal from addictive substances. For example, craving foods tends to be related to either addiction or some type of malnutrition/faulty digestion (allergy, leaky gut, etc.).
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Thank you to everyone who submitted questions for my husband to answer. I compiled them all so that he could answer each of them, below. I will monitor the comments section in case you have any follow up questions for him.

What did you think when I told you about having bulimia?
I was a little confused because there were a number of conflicting feelings. But, I would say there were two or three strongest feelings that emerged. For one, I felt a little hurt because I thought what kind of horribly shallow and stupid person must I be? I didn’t notice or put the pieces together to figure this out on my own - a failure on my part? And, why wouldn’t you want to confide in me. You’ve struggled with this for so long and yet you didn’t feel like telling me? Is it that I’m incapable of helping - still doesn’t make me feel like much of a partner though. If I don’t, in fact, have the capacity to help, that doesn’t make me feel great either.

Further competing feelings were empathy and simultaneous joy for you. I wanted to hug you and kiss you there on that trail until we both collapsed from fatigue. I felt joy for you because I can’t imagine holding something like this in by yourself and carrying this burden around all these years. Letting go of this guilt around the secrecy must have liberated you beyond words. While I felt empathetic that you carried this around for so long, I wanted to cry for the feeling of joy, or relief that had to be overwhelming at that moment. You were finally able to share this burden with me.
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As many of you know, my husband is putting a post into my blog tomorrow to answer all of the questions we received over the past week. Last night, we stayed up really late talking about our relationship. I married him with bulimia — and as you may have read — it got worse in marriage than it had been prior. Over the years, I think we didn’t get to connect in ways that would make our relationship right for me. And while I knew that there were things that weren’t fulfilling my needs to feel loved, I didn’t understand how to ask for them. Mostly I think, because I felt so unloveable and didn’t even know what I needed.

Focusing On Myself For The First Time
In this stage of my recovery, I have been very focused on my self-development. I have been giving myself extreme self care and nurturing a growing joy inside of myself. In this place, I am starting to feel very stable and grounded — very solid and connected to the Earth and others. From my husband’s point of view, I did not seem as “happy.” Before my recovery, “happy” meant me putting on a smile even when I was not happy. It meant the highs I felt from the excitement of some food I’d be ready to binge on. It meant the high of workaholism — my socially acceptable and financially rewarding addiction. It was so easy to go to those places because I wanted to feel the high, the “happiness” I’d get from them.
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I find myself wondering sometimes, how long can this last? It’s just a tiny whisper that I catch myself thinking every now and then. Because there have been many times over the past 4 years, where I’ve been recovered for varying lengths of time and then relapsed. In each relapse, I have learned some very valuable lessons, which have helped me strengthen my commitment to recovery.

So what happens in my mind when the whisper snakes its way into my brain? As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the big difference about my recovery in this stage is that I am so aware of my thinking. I have been catching this thought, as I have with others – although there is a bit of a difference with this one. I sometimes have a small kernel of fear surrounding it. Fear about not wanting to go back into that dark hole of bulimia.

How To Stop The Fear
I’ve been curious about this thought process and the small amount of fear that surrounds it. I am catching the thought and the fear – and here is what I have been doing with it. At first, I would catch the though, feel the fear and then tell myself to focus on just this one day. Just as we’ve heard in other philosophies of recovery from addiction, this one day at a time mantra really does help. It’s much easier to get through this one day than to wonder what the next week, month or year will look like.
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