Help Yourself

doorknob 948568 340 Doors can open for you if you knock or simply turn the handle.

Here you can find articles that may answer your questions and support you in your personal recovery work.

You'll also find a series of inspirations and affirmation that may help you stay on your healing path.

Please remember, helping yourself does not mean going it alone. Helping yourself means discovering what what you can do to support your own recovery. That includes how to recognize opportunity and reach out for what supports your health and personal development.

When you help yourself you are looking to people as well as books, websites and classes, who are in a position to offer you genuine recovery help on your journey to healing.

Open new doors to find your recovery path.

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Crisis: Crisis refers to an exquisite tipping point that leads to instability and then returns to stability or becomes drastic and imaginable or unimaginable change. Therefore, a crisis can relate to any situation because any situation can change. The situation involved could be physical, emotional or mental. It could be imagined and perceived as happening, or it could be real.

Understanding the Binge Response: To understand an eating disorder binge response to crisis, we must understand the person’s lived experience while she is in her precarious moment of instability and perhaps imminent change. It’s her inner lived experience, not the situation itself, that forces the binge response.

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Exercise 1

prayer-water-fall-serene At least three times a day – upon rising, mid day and before going to sleep say aloud
three times or more:

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check list Coping with the pain and turmoil in a life governed by an eating disorder can tempt you into making to do lists. You want positive change in your life. Why not just make a list of what you want to change, and follow your own directions in an orderly manner? A "To Do" list can seem like your solution. Can it work, or is it a set up for failure?

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I love it when science catches up with ancient wisdom and makes wisdom "evidence based." This brain function information is so very important for eating disorder recovery.

Brain Function Research Findings

The research findings are not just about the aging brain. They also applies to brains that have gotten stuck in rigid thinking and have been deprived of nourishment on every level. Every person who has struggled with an eating disorder can give themselves a recovery boost by honoring and nourishing the physicality of their brain. And that means eating enough nourishing food and giving yourself nourishing mind experiences.

To keep your mind functioning well, to bring up to speed a rigid and limited mind set, to break the "spell" of outmoded regimented thinking or obsessive thoughts, wisdom of the East has told us for thousands of years, go to beginner mind.

Beginner Mind

Beginner mind? Yes. It doesn't mean to become a child. It means to start fresh with no acquired knowledge and let yourself develop. Your development will probably occur in new ways and lead you to new ways of thinking, relating, problem solving and creating.

If you are a dancer and want to be a better dancer, learn to sculpt. If you are a writer and want to be a better writer, learn to dance. Start anything at all where you have to learn from the beginning awkward stages and you will improve your brain function and your mind's ability to think and create.

The article in the New York Times, "How to Train the Aging Brain" spells the process out nicely and in easy to understand detail.

(mind)...stretching is exactly what scientists say best keeps a brain in tune: get out of the comfort zone to push and nourish your brain. Do anything from learning a foreign language to taking a different route to work.

How To Grow Your Brain and Stretch Your Mind

Examples that are easy to bring into your life:

Brush your teeth with your other hand.

Flip your mouse to your non-dominant hand

Switch your kitchen drawers around so dishes, pots and pans and silverware are in different places

Hold your phone with your other hand

More Challenging:

Draw with your non-dominant hand

Write with your non dominant hand

More challenging:

Take a class in something you are interested in but know nothing about

Learn math

Study the geography of where you live or where you were born

Even More Challenging:

Go to a lecture or event where you know in advance you disagree with the major premise

Read an article or book all the way through where you disagree with what the writer is saying

Grow:

Without anger, accusations, name calling or glittering generalities, write a clear, thoughtful and honest comment on blog posts, youtube showings, website articles, newspaper articles in which you disagree and present your position.

Give your brain cells the opportunity to stretch and grow. They will help you stretch and grow into eating disorder recovery - a very nice place to be.

Please share your experience with mind stretching!

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(Binge Eating Article in Los Angeles Times. Good for the L.A. Times for being open to many perspectives!)

I am relieved to see in print the genuine experience of a binge eating person and a description of the in-depth psychological work necessary to heal beyond the need to mindlessly devour food.