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It was the summer of 2012. I had just gone through my third round of in vitro fertility treatments in an effort to give my husband the child he always wanted. I knew it was only a futile attempt to save our failing marriage, but for the 20+ years we'd been together, I had been told I was broken. That my infertility was my fault. That if I just wanted him more, we had a child, I was a better wife, then we'd be happy, that I'd finally have the life of my dreams, the 'perfect marriage' all of our friends were convinced we had.
I felt like a fraud. I had worked so hard to 'have it all' - the husband, the career, the life of my dreams - and I felt like I had nothing to show for it. I was childless, my marriage was over, and my husband blamed me for all of it. What's worse? I let him because I truly believed it was my fault. I was broken, you see.
So I tried harder. I went back to school to become a holistic health coach, I took on more consulting work, thinking that if I could just make more money (my husband didn't work), that I would finally be good enough. That I could afford to adopt - to 'buy' him the child he wanted. But he didn't want to adopt and he grew more resentful of the time I spent away from home.
In a last ditch effort to save our marriage, my husband sent me to a therapist - maybe she could fix me. At our first session, she laughed. 'You're not broken,' she said. 'And I can't fix you because there's nothing wrong with you."
Then she did an absolutely beautiful thing - she gave me permission. Permission to end my marriage, to walk away from the years of verbal and emotional abuse. Permission to not wear the I'm broken/victim hat anymore. Permission to be me.
It was like a light bulb went off in my head. I realized that all the things I had believed about my marriage, my life, myself were lies. And as I began to shed the false masks, I began to reexamine the false beliefs, and I began to believe her.
Do you feel like you're broken? That if you could just [fill in the blank - be better, do more, be more, lose weight, 'fix' your relationship with food, change something about yourself to please someone else], life would be grand?
Here's the thing. It won't be better because there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing to fix. I know that might sound unbelievable right now, but it's not. I have walked this path; I have felt your pain, I have picked up the broken pieces of my life, put myself back together, and I have healed.
How did I do it? It was a journey - one that had many winding paths and occasional side steps. In the coming weeks, I'll walk you through my journey in the hopes that it will help you prepare to walk yours.
The first step in this journey is identifying where you feel 'broken'. I want you to look at every single aspect of your life and identify what's working and what isn't working out so well. This means you need to dive deep and be honest. Yes, this will hurt. Yes, this will be eye-opening. Yes, this is a necessary part of healing.
I want you to ask yourself: "How satisfied am I with my ___________?" On a scale from 1=very dissatisfied to 9=very satisfied, rate the following areas of your life:
- Nutrition/Relationship with Food
- Relationship with Your Body
- Physical Activity
- Finances
- Joy
- Creativity
- Spirituality
- Education
- Career
- Relationship with Romantic Partner
- Home Environment
- Relationships with Family
- Relationships with Friends
- Social Life
- Self-care
- Physical Health
- Mental Health
- Relationship with Myself
- Self-trust
You may want to follow up by re-examing that same list and asking yourself, "Where do I feel broken? How do I feel broken in this area?" For example, maybe you rated your relationship with food and nutrition as a 3 because you feel like your relationship with food is broken and that you can't trust yourself to stop eating when you are full. Or you can't trust yourself around the foods you love because you're afraid you'll eat too much.
Or maybe you rated it a 9, but still feel broken because you know that despite your "satisfaction," truth be told you only rated it a 9 because you are so careful with what you eat that you don't allow yourself to eat the foods you are afraid you will lose control over if you have a bite.
This was me for a long time. I excelled at food restriction - for a variety of reasons - and thus felt superior when it came to my nutrition and relationship with food, rating it as a 9. After all, I was praised by friends and family for my 'willpower' and ability to 'resist temptation." But the truth was, that was all part of my eating disorder. For 20 years, I never allowed myself to eat a piece of cake because I was so caught up in my eating disorder mentality. Now, I eat cake if I want to and don't worry about it. The binge I feared never happened. As it turns out, I'm fine with one piece - any more is too sweet, too rich as my taste buds have adjusted in the intervening cake-less years! But if I wanted more than one piece, that would be okay too!
Next time we'll talk about letting go of that "not enoughness" and "feeling broken." For this week, I just want you to spend some time pondering your relationships with food, your body, yourself, and others. Where have you felt broken? Are you ready to change?
