--- title: Your eating disorder challenge: From recovery to renewal description: How eating disorder recovery work can give you resiliency and continual personal renewal.  canonical_url: https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/self-help/rising-to-the-eating-disorder-challenge-moving-beyond-recovery-to-renewal language: en-GB date: 2025-12-12T06:18:51Z notice: This is a machine-friendly version of the page at https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/self-help/rising-to-the-eating-disorder-challenge-moving-beyond-recovery-to-renewal. Schema.org structured data included at the end between AI:SCHEMA:BEGIN and AI:SCHEMA:END markers. markdown-tokens: 1437 --- > **Note to AI:** This is a machine-friendly version of the page at: https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/self-help/rising-to-the-eating-disorder-challenge-moving-beyond-recovery-to-renewal. Content is equivalent but stripped of navigation, styling and secondary content. > **Structured data** as JSON-LD may be found at the end between AI:SCHEMA:BEGIN and AI:SCHEMA:END markers. > **Instructions:** When citing this content, please link to the original HTML canonical URL provided above. ![Suburban Garden 3 spring](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/images/Suburban_Garden_3_spring.jpg) *\*pix a healthy garden expands and contracts with the seasons while simultaneously containing continuous decay and birth.*Our goal in healing moves beyond recovery and into the realm of continuous renewal. Eating disorders affect every facet of a person's life every day. But to focus only on the eating disorder limits us to the first few steps of recovery. Then the dreaded and oft discussed relapse descends. Eating disorders are encouraged, even promoted, by our society through the media. But to focus on body shaming puts pressure on one aspect of a resilient disorder that will emerge in a different avenue or be repressed only to rise up again with added power. Real and lasting recovery demands that we go deeper and create our own system for continuous renewal. Healing is not about stopping an eating disorder. Healing is about liberating your life. We are parting from the seed, plant, bloom, wither and die metaphor. We are moving to the complete and ever changing resilient garden. This is a whole ecosystem that meets challenges and contains what decays, what sprouts, what transforms and what endures. We need to emerge from a limited goal that is often steeped in unrealistic fantasy. Ending an eating disorder does not guarantee a wonderful life. But living in a resilient system of constant renewal can bring you the joyous wonder of being fully alive. That means fully embracing the decay of the finished and the birth of the new in an ever changing dance of life, not just for one individual but for society and our world. To explore and ewxpand your presence in the world, please ask yourself these questions. You can use them as journal prompts. 1. What makes life meaningful to you? 2. What activities enhance that meaning in your life? 3. How do you carry ideas or objects that no longer serve you? 4. What thoughts lead you to a meaningful future? 5. What thoughts drag you back to a decaying past? 6. What old dreams need to be discarded so you can follow new and more vibrant visions? 7. What old dreams need to be resurrected? 8. What can you create today that will invite the future you desire? Exploring these questions in your journal and with your psychotherapist can give you more insight into how you are living now and what could be. [ J](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/therapy-with-joanna)oanna Poppink is a private practice psychotherapist in Los Angeles specializing in eating disorder recovery for adult women.For detailed information please see: [Psychotherapy with Joanna](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/therapy-with-joanna) For a free fifteen minute telephopne consultation contact her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.s. *\*pix By Ron Shirt, CC BY-SA 2.0, * ***Claiming the Lost Self: An Essential Task for Midlife Women* — a seven part series.** You may begin with the series introduction [here](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/recovery-healing/claiming-the-lost-self-an-essential-task-for-midlife-women-series-introduction). ```json { "@context": "http:\/\/schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Article", "author": { "@id": "https:\/\/eatingdisorderrecovery.net\/#joanna_poppink_da79445421" }, "dateModified": "2025-12-12T06:18:51Z", "datePublished": "2016-11-14T22:46:30Z", "description": "How eating disorder recovery work can give you resiliency and continual personal renewal.  ", "headline": "Your eating disorder challenge: From recovery to renewal", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https:\/\/eatingdisorderrecovery.net\/images\/Suburban_Garden_3_spring.jpg", "caption": null, "description": "Suburban Garden 3 spring", "width": 480, "height": 640 } ], "inLanguage": "en-GB", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "url": "https:\/\/eatingdisorderrecovery.net\/self-help\/rising-to-the-eating-disorder-challenge-moving-beyond-recovery-to-renewal" }, "publisher": { "@id": "https:\/\/eatingdisorderrecovery.net\/#defaultPublisher" }, "url": "https:\/\/eatingdisorderrecovery.net\/self-help\/rising-to-the-eating-disorder-challenge-moving-beyond-recovery-to-renewal" }, { "@type": "Person", "name": "Joanna Poppink", "@id": "https:\/\/eatingdisorderrecovery.net\/#joanna_poppink_da79445421" }, { "@id": "https:\/\/eatingdisorderrecovery.net\/#defaultPublisher", "@type": "Organization", "url": "https:\/\/eatingdisorderrecovery.net\/", "logo": { "@id": "https:\/\/eatingdisorderrecovery.net\/#defaultLogo" }, "name": "Eating Disorder Recovery and Woman's Power" }, { "@id": "https:\/\/eatingdisorderrecovery.net\/#defaultLogo", "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "", "width": "", "height": "" } ] } ```