When I first ventured to find a solution to what was at the time diagnosed as an ‘eating disorder’, I went seeking a way to fix having this ‘disorder’, how to resolve the symptoms and not have them present in my life any longer. At this point I was approaching healing from the viewpoint of having a disorder that needed healing.
What I observed about this attitude towards healing was that it limited me to only seek support based upon the symptoms of the named disorder and not ever to look deeper than those symptoms alone. I was approaching healing within the box of ‘eating disorder’ and that is where I stayed until I could so clearly see that I was only going around in circles (up the walls of a box) and not truly ever getting out!
For some time that suited me as I was not calling for the deep healing that was otherwise available. I was still enthralled in what having an eating disorder gave me, keeping me numb from feeling and sensing in the world – something that was really so natural to me, yet I was too afraid to be that sensitive under the guise that it was weak … only later realising it was a huge strength for the awareness and understanding it afforded me. So eventually, it did not suit any longer to stay in that box. It was too obvious that the detriment of living in this way was not one my body could sustain, nor one I wanted to inflict on others any longer – and so it was time to truly do something about it.
Within this mindset of ‘eating disorder’ I was given remedies and solutions of how to put weight back on, how to eat properly, and how to shift the negative mind-talk to positive mind-talk. These were great – momentarily. But not long term when the yearning for true healing called and being boxed in by this mindset would not allow me to get out of it and see beyond it.
I began to observe how often we box ourselves in, in more ways than one, when we say that we are the illness we have been diagnosed with, pulling the blinds down on what the true cause may be, while we only focus on the post-cause (external presenting) symptoms and diagnosis provided.
I recognised that there was a call for me to truly heal and unfold what this ill occurring in my life was really about, because I began to get frustrated by the box I had placed myself in called ‘eating disorder’. I was only able to resource support directly linked to that diagnosis and that narrowed it down immensely. I tried and tested many a specialist: psychologist, psychiatrist, paediatrician, dietician, I even did a full treatment program that went for about a year with a team of doctors, dieticians, psychologists and carers. It was by the end of all these trials and tests that I was honest enough to admit that I no longer desired to run in circles within that mindset around the same behaviours. I was also honest enough to admit that all the hours I had spent with these various practitioners were only just keeping me on top of otherwise extreme ill health but not truly recognising the underlying cause. I was honest enough to admit that I was very frustrated at the stagnation I felt myself to be in.
Although I had submitted to the concept of what was the ‘eating disorder’, I was then feeling a bit stuck as to renouncing and getting out of it once and for all because the behaviours had become my normal …the number of times I had repeated these behaviours, day in, day out, of course they felt ‘normal’ or more precisely, safe and secure. Yet being stuck in the normality of abnormality and being aware of this brought me to the humble realisation that I would need support to break free of this box and look deeper than what it offered.
It was then that I approached an esoteric Chakra-puncture practitioner with the openness to say I did not really know where to begin, other than that what I had been doing was not working and a new approach was in order. It was through the Chakra-puncture sessions that I was lovingly guided to bring the focus back to how I felt rather than focusing so intently on the symptoms of what had been diagnosed as ‘an eating disorder’. With the practitioner’s support I spoke about how I felt and although this was uncomfortable at first, it was well worth it in the end because it was what got me to the root cause … finally!
It was true that the physical behaviours were an important element to unpack and digest, yet I had given them so much focus for so long and had not found the truth, so for me, it was time to put my hands up and say, “I don’t have the answers.” It was with this movement of honesty and surrender to not knowing the answers, a humbleness, that allowed me to begin to step out of the box of ‘eating disorder’ and have a wider view … to see everything that had led up to the initial diagnosis of Anorexia Nervosa.
The perspective shifted. No longer were the questions like:
“How often do you eat per day?”
“How much exercise are you doing?”
“How much do you weigh?”
“How much did you weigh last week, two weeks ago, last month?”
They were more like:
“What is it that you were feeling that led you to behave in that way?”
As I began to allow what it was that I was truly sensing to come to the fore, everything unravelled and unravel it did because of the openness I had to truly healing. When I dug my heels in, holding onto a behaviour or pattern, the healing slowed down, the realisation as to why was not so rapid. Yet when I remained open, the realisation just came, things that I had been attached to for years just fell away, renounced once and for all. No longer was I attached to the stimulation, drive and protection that the energy behind an eating disorder offered me. Instead, I had reconnected to the grandness underneath it all that was always there but unable to be seen while I was identified by the label of ‘eating disorder’. It was so worth not being in the box anymore. I could see so much more clearly what I truly was!
Upon realising for myself that I was boxing myself in whilst labelled as having an ‘eating disorder’, I began to further realise just how much I had compressed myself into many other labels such as being a high-achiever, being a straight-A student and being good, all of which fed the very same perfection energy that saturated my body in the movement of ‘eating disorder’. I was this. I was that. But was I really? No. But by constantly confirming that I was those labels, I then lived and moved in a way that came with everything they represented.
It is true we can move certain qualities. For example, I am sensitive. But I am not the name sensitive, as in, I am not it. I simply can be sensitive as it is a quality that I allow to flow through my body.
So, am I ‘eating disorder?’ No. But I sure could move everything that an eating disorder is through my body and be its prime representative. It was when I started to realise that I could apply this science to any attachment to a name, description, picture or label. Healing really ramped up this realisation, or rather speedily deepened, AKA the fast track back to who I truly was. Now, no longer was I just breaking through the pre-created mould of ‘having an eating disorder’ and getting behind it and understanding the root cause of the ill, I was also getting behind the ill of all the other labels, descriptions and pictures I had taken on and identified to be ‘me’. They weren’t me and never were!
This realisation became a mega-important part of renouncing all that was not me, that I was not just a ‘girl’ or someone with ‘an eating disorder’ or ‘a personal trainer’ but actually an innately divine, sensitive and loving being, so much more than a diagnosis, title or label could ever define.
I may have needed to restore the weight to my body and put an end to the physical self-harming behaviours, but then the deeper self-harm needed to be looked at – the attachment to and moving of all that was not me needed to be renounced. This is still something I am in the joy-full unfolding of today … renouncing and clearing all the things that are not who I truly am, returning to a deeper sense of myself each moment (imperfectly so).
Therefore, there is never an endpoint to healing but instead a cycle of going deeper with the renunciation, moving closer to Soul each time around, should it be that we surrender to the true magic that is on offer through the cycle. No box exists where the Soul resides!
Further reading:
Universal Medicine Helped to Heal Bulimia
From Seeking the ‘Perfect Body Shape’ to Finding My Body Perfectly Beautiful as it is…
