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Last night, the young women of Project Heal came to speak at our program at Penn State. It was truly inspiring. They have recovered from their eating disorders and are now raising money to help sponsor others in need of treatment. I could rant about an insurance system that makes it so difficult for individuals to get treatment, but I want today's blog to be about healing and inspiration.
In the past three years, these young women have developed a non-profit corporation and already helped five other individuals get treatment. They have changed people's lives. But how did they get to this place? They first worked to change their own lives.
Clearly, their recovery from their own eating disorders was very difficult, but their perseverance and strength are amazing. From the talk, I was struck by a couple of things. Kristina spoke about how when she was in portions of her recovery, she would just need to go into "autopilot". She would have to eat meals even though she didn't want to, even though she didn't feel hungry, even though eating made her feel guilty, she did it because she had to. That was the way to recovery. After operating on autopilot, the meals became easier. The negative emotions were less intense.
Everyone has challenges that seem overwhelming. We need to break the tasks down into manageable pieces and then even if we doubt ourselves or struggle with anxiety or other negative emotions, we need to place ourselves on autopilot and move ahead. For Kristina, it was meals. For me, sometimes I freak out about revisions of writing or the number of things I need to get done. But if I put my energy into freaking out, then I don't get any further ahead. Instead, like Kristina, I can allow myself 2 minutes of freaking out and then get down to business. If I push ahead in autopilot, tasks will get done and my energy will have been well spent.
Liana talked about some of the clichés or quotes that helped inspire her. One of my favorites is that we all have skeletons in our closets. So what we have to do is make them dance. I love that image. Ever get the feeling that you're the only one with issues and that everyone else is blissfully happy? Or that you are the only one hauling around baggage, and everyone else is "normal"? My husband's quote is that if you think someone is "normal", you just don't know them well enough. We all have our own issues, quirks and challenges. That's what makes life interesting.
So-
- What challenge are you facing? What do you need to do to get through it? Journal it so that you can find a way to put yourself on autopilot. Here are the tasks and now I need to move ahead. Sometimes journaling in new ways helps, create a spider web-put one word on the paper and then branch out ideas of how to solve it. Create a tree. The trunk can be the main thing that you need to accomplish. It might feel like a wall-but if it is a tree, then the branches can be all the small steps that you need to take to get you to the trunk. Break each task down into smaller and smaller branches until you just have a twig. When my kids were little all the writing that I could do was in short bursts. Those were the years that I created a lot of poems. But that helped hone my creative juices. It interested my daughter in writing and poetry. Sometimes even small tasks can have huge payoffs.
- Journal about the skeletons in your closet. How can you make them dance? Journal first to understand what is in that closet, taunting you. Take away some of its power by writing it down. Now put those skeletons to work. Make them dance for you-what have you learned about yourself or others from those skeletons? One of our family's skeletons? My grandfather was not supportive of my mother's desire to go to college. He did not make it easy. She could have handled this in many ways-given in to his pressure to find a secretarial position and not pursue her dreams. But she found a way to make her dreams happen. She started with one task-pursuing medical technology and finally pursued her PhD. She persevered, step by step. And how did she make this skeleton dance? She took hold of the same bull-headed obstinacy that my grandfather could demonstrate and she put it into her own goals.
- Or journal and make those skeletons lose their power. Think about Harry Potter and the "ridiculous" charm they use against bogarts. They turned their worst fear into something ridiculous and poof, it disappeared. Remember Snape in Neville's grandmother's clothes? How about my grandfather in a clown suit saying that education is for bozos? Not to be cruel-my grandfather had many good points. But he was opinionated and did not always see the benefit of things that he didn't understand. That is a trait that many of us share. We might need to take some of our biggest detractors and journal them into a ridiculous situation so that we can take some of their power away.
- Journal about your passions. Another part of last night was when the women talked about their need to discover things they loved. Then they could put the energy there and not into their eating disorders. What do you love-make a list and then make it happen!
Go and Write On!
Martha Peaslee Levine, MD
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-write-health
