Expressing gratitude does a world of good for me, deep down I know this. I feel emotionless when I relapse. Food replaces all of the hard feelings - sadness, anger, frustration...As I begin day one, I start feeling overwhelmed with things I feel inside. I want to stuff everything back down again. I am scared of the things I feel inside and have a hard time understanding how to even deal with the things I have going on. At times I try to express myself and am riddled with guilt because I feel I am annoying people or using their valuable time. So gratitude helps me begin to feel valuable myself. To appreciate the things around me but to also appreciate that I deserve (finally) to work on these steps and to heal and forgive and make peace with myself. I am miserable and SO ready to finally make peace with myself more than anyone else in my life, because I feel that is what holds me back from making peace with anyone else, my lack of worth. If I took the time to practice gratitude daily as I am about to do below, I will hopefully open up to facing the world daily with a enormous gratitude in my mind, heart and soul and participate fully in my own recovery.
5 Things I am Grateful for Today:
1. OA resources, the loops, the meetings, the literature, the sponsors and the willingness to openly share the positives, the struggles and everything in between.
It isn't easy to share details about such personal things and it helps me so much to listen as well as share my own.
2. I am grateful for no limits. There are no limits to how many times we can get up and try again. There are no limits to the ways we can help ourselves. There are no limits to healthier choices, ears who will listen, self-acceptance and new paths to follow in life. There are only limits to these things when we allow them.
3. I am grateful I am not inviting my self-bully into my day today. In my relapse starting back in September of last year, I have continually allowed my self-bully to humiliate me and knock my self-esteem further into the ground. While I know it will take time I am grateful to know that positive mindset is possible again and for today I will not bully myself. I need to believe I am worth more than that again.
4. I am grateful for knowledge. I am a compulsive eater/binger, food/sugar addict and bulimic. I have a lifetime of abusing my body with food, purging and self-bullying. I am grateful for the understanding of my disease so that I have opportunity to help myself especially after I have relapsed. I know the dangers of what I have been doing to myself and feel worthy enough to save myself. I want to save myself from further abuse and potentially death. That means I feel some self-worth - and for that I am very grateful today.
5. Lastly, I am grateful for the ability to step out of my protective shell today. While isolating is extremely hard, sad and a miserable place to be, it is also what feels safest and easiest. I push people away and live in a solo world of shame and sadness that I can't quite describe right now. For today, I am extremely grateful for the courage to step out of that comfort zone and ask for help. I may not be reaching to anyone specifically, and certainly don't feel ready for that - however, I am ready for helping myself and taking small steps toward my recovery.
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