A Journaling Prompt For Eating Disorder Recovery
What would your life look like without food struggles?
Writing can be incredibly therapeutic for someone recovering from an eating disorder or working through disordered eating struggles. In fact, starting up a journaling practice was one of the best things I ever did for my own recovery. After I shared this blog post with you on the three ways that journaling could change your life, I received many questions from you guys asking about specific journaling prompts that you can use. So that’s what I’m doing today. The exercise that I’m sharing with you today is incredibly powerful because it taps into the power of visualisation and allows you to imagine a life without food struggles. It’s one of my favourite exercises to do with my clients, and I hope that it will help/resonate with you. PS I’m sharing one of my lovely client’s journal snippets with her permission, as it’s beautifully written, almost brought me to tears and will hopefully be an inspiration to you, my dear reader.
Your Journaling Prompt For Eating Disorder Recovery
Write about how your life would look like without an eating disorder.
What will recovered life look like? What will it look like to have a perfectly normal relationship to food? How would life be different if you didn’t obsess about calories and your weight for every second of the day? How would meal time be different? How would your social life be different? Your intimate relationships? What are the things you’d finally do that you are currently denying yourself of? How would all of this FEEL? Imagine how proud you’ll be, how relieved you’ll be, how happy you’ll be. Allow yourself to dream.
It might be really difficult when you’re in the thick of it, but really try to let your imagination run wild. Because whatever you’re dreaming up, it is possible.
You can either write this from the perspective of:
“My life would look like XYZ”
Or you can do what I ask my clients to do, which is to write a letter to me 10 years from now, updating me on the magnificent, fulfilling, eating disorder-free life they are living. There’s something incredibly powerful about writing as if it’s already happened!
As promised, here is a letter that one of my clients wrote in response to this journaling prompt. I hope this is helpful & a massive thank you to my client for letting me share this with the community. Enjoy, xx.
Hey Stef! How are you? Hope life has been good to you and treated you well.
It’s been a while since we last spoke, so I thought it was time to catch up and tell you how I’ve been doing the past ten years.
When you challenged me to imagine life at this stage ten years ago, it almost broke me. I remember being so tired of not being able to snap out of my eating at that time - I was so exhausted, everything felt so hopeless, and the simple task of imagining my life in ten years almost destroyed me. In a single second I saw my life flash before my eyes. I saw me at 16, ten years prior to the call, and I saw the ten years fly by in a blink. Both because time really flies, but also because time flies even faster when you’re busy spending all your time in your own head, focusing on things so superficial and unimportant as the destructive food and body beliefs I was letting drive me. I saw myself wasting my years. Wasting my life.
Then I saw myself in ten years. At 36. Almost 40. Halfway in life. I saw the years passing even faster. And I saw myself still wasting my life being too much in my own head, not realising life was happening, and not doing what I wanted to because I was still being controlled by my destructive thoughts.
I realised my biggest fear in life was unfolding right in front of my eyes.
I wanted to live, I wanted to feel alive, but instead I felt numb and distant. Like someone else was living for me. The realiation hit hard. I was terrified. But it also helped me snap out of it. It gave me energy. No way I was going to let this continue. No way I was going to waste my life more than I already had.
I didn’t really know how to get there, and I still don’t know exactly how I made it, but somehow I slowly managed to leave my limiting beliefs behind. It involved a lot of consistent work. It involved thousands of conversations with myself, convincing myself that how my body looks is far less important than what my head makes me believe it is. It involved constantly reminding myself how badly I wanted to escape my destructive patterns. I got better at listening to my body’s needs and actually honouring those needs. I became better at focusing on what would feel better in the long run instead of being driven by instant gratification. Step by step I managed to eat more intuitively. I stopped being scared. I managed to make the healthy choices I wanted to and I started focusing even more about what made me feel good. What made me feel alive. I wanted to be present in every second of every day. Somehow I managed to overrule my instincts to eat to feel free - free from thinking about food and body. And instead I started focusing on how I could be free from those destructive patterns. I could feel the healing. And the healing kept me going.
Looking back, I can see that COVID-19 happening was key for me and my recovery journey. It couldn’t have hit at a better time. Up until that point where I was forced to isolate and I had nothing much to do, I wasn’t capable or willing to really work on myself. When life was busy and filled with work and traveling I kept pushing my eating struggles away. I shoved it all back and put a lid on it. I guess deep down I knew that I couldn’t work on it and have a normal life at the same time. Not properly at least. When looking back now I realise that the amount of energy recovery has required of me, I wouldn’t have been where I am today if it hadn’t been for COVID-19. Isolation allowed me to go all in and commit to myself 100%.. To bring all my issues to the surface. To give it the attention it needed. To be all consumed by exhaustion. Having no outer expectations of having to perform allowed me to really work on myself. It didn’t matter if I spent half my days in my own head, sitting hours by the ocean watching the waves, or letting my food monster come out, free to do whatever it needed to do - because I was in isolation. I didn’t need to answer to anyone. COVID-19 was one of the most frustrating times of my life, but maybe also the most rewarding one. It was the kickstart I needed to reach where I am today.
Like you know so well, it all felt so dark back then. It’s been a rocky road, I’ve had many setbacks and recovery has been exhausting, but it all led me to where I am today, and I couldn’t be happier. It’s all been so worth it.
Today, I can honestly say I’m at peace with my body. All destructive thoughts and habits are like blown away. I know when I’m hungry and satisfied and I eat thereafter. Food is not on my mind anymore- it’s just a tool to nourish my body. I can fully enjoy good food, but it doesn’t leave me struggling anymore. And I’ve got so much more time and energy to spend on other things. I feel good in my body. I feel good in my clothes. I feel confident. I feel free. And I feel alive. I no longer feel like I’m wasting my life - I’m living life to the fullest. I’m doing the things I truly want to, without being scared of what others might think or without pulling myself down. I feel healthy, I feel fit and I feel strong. In both mind and body. I am grateful for everything I’ve been through. I am proud of my journey, and I am proud to have made it out of the darkness. I have never felt better and life has never felt better.
Thank you for helping me through it. I would not have been here today if it hadn’t been for you.
So much love,
xoxo
I have created two free 14-day Emotional Eating Journal Guides, designed to help you dive deeper into the origins of your toxic food behaviour that is no longer serving you, so that you can free up space in your life for bigger and better things. Essentially, this is a sneak peak into some of the questions I work through with my clients in our one-on-one coaching sessions. I hope that you have many lightbulb moments along the way and are able to use this increased awareness to make positive changes in your life.
