Do you remember learning to ride a bike?
You're young, brave, and a bit fearless. Ready to tackle the world - and your bike will take you there.
It's sitting there in the garage, a brilliant sparkling red with three wheels, built for speed. You swing your leg over the seat and slide your feet onto the pedals. Helmet on head you take off, hair blowing in the wind, feet pedaling 100mph as you speed down the street.
Then all too soon it's time to take the training wheels off and be free.
Once again you swing your legs over your faithful red bike that has taken you all over your neighborhood. Your foot hits the pedals and you take off down the street. Hair flying and then... you start to wobble. WHAT?! You sway back and forth, momentum dying, and next thing you know...
SPLAT
You're lying flat on the pavement staring up at the sky - well that was unexpected.
But soon enough, when the sting of the pavement wears off you hop back up and onto that bike and after a few more spills you are doing it.
Riding a bike.
Ok now how does this relate to recovery? Let me introduce intuitive eating :) Intuitive Eating: a big fancy word that is entirely unachievable thrown around by therapists who are outside looking in
Or at least that's what I used to think....
When I started my recovery program and my therapist gave me a goal of intuitive eating I sat there and inwardly laughed, maybe scoffed a bit. There is no way that my number obsessed mind could ever be free enough to eat what I want when I want - ever. I had already accepted that fate a long time ago - intuitive eating was a fantasy, beautiful on paper but something that could never be my reality.
So I took my meal plan and let the structure guide me through recovery for 5 years. Sure meals weren't the most exciting, but it gave me the tools I needed to start eating normally again and give my body the nutrients it needed to keep going. And no matter how hard or frustrating it got I knew it was a necessity in my life - the training wheels on my road to recovery (ahhh starting to see it now?)
But eventually the rigidity of the schedule just conflicted with life. It was great and all but eating the same food groups each meal, having my day revolve around times and my ability to access food. It was time to try the bike - or in this case intuitive eating.
AND BOY DID I FALL. A LOT.
And with each relapse it felt like my original idea of intuitive eating was true. It was just unachievable and I would be stuck in a meal plan world forever.
And thats when it hit me - I was rushing it. Rushing to get healthy again, rushing to be "normal" again, and rushing to meet other's expectations. I mean if you really think about it this is life and death so hurrying up does seem like the best choice.
Except it's not. When you first get on a bike without training wheels you fall constantly. You are covered in bruises and scrapes, legs scattered with bandaids, but the most important part is you keep getting up and get back on that bike. Because with time you will find yourself riding that bike farther and farther until you are cruising through your neighborhood on two wheels.
In recovery you need to allow yourself to have time to heal and change, time to say goodbye to the disorder, time to walk into a new life. Training your mind to think positively, to realize your worth is in Christ not numbers its not a quick process - it requires grace, trust, and the ability to get back up countless times after you fall! But it isn't unachievable. Nothing is. Why? God is bigger than your eating disorder, He is bigger than the rules, bigger than the requirements, bigger than the rigidity.
And one day, when you don't even realize it, you will find yourself sitting across from the people you love sipping lemonade and enjoying a juicy, delicious burger and fries laughing at 11pm....
And there will still be bumps - you will still accidentally swerve to miss a squirrel and run smack into a tree. But again you will get back up, hop onto the bike and try again because with each time you swing that leg over the bike you get better and better.
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