A Perspective of Eating Disorders

A human’s perception of what are right and acceptable ways to look, act and behave are really nothing but a pile of empty, meaningless and substance less rules of which have been passed down through generation after generation of perhaps, confused and somewhat misinformed people. Whether it has been from the influence of religion, culture, tradition or right down the line to the fashion market these ‘so called’ rules are created by people who too have had to deal with personal influences of which have helped them shape their perception of the world, life and other people. They then dictate these ideas, based upon their own experiences in life to us whether they are valid or not. They may or may not know any better, after all, it is their perception according to how their minds have been formed as a result of their own experiences.

When it comes to the issues of body image and more importantly, eating disorders, the influence is spreading like a virus! To be thin and stick-like, but lacking inner peace, love, and compassion is worth nothing. It only makes you more frustrated when you do lose the weight you are striving to shift, thinking it will solve all your problems of lack of love, happiness and acceptance from others. However, when you achieve that weight loss and realize your external life circumstances haven’t improved at all, it creates more confusion, frustration and emptiness. So all we do is go on and on losing weight until we are lost and oblivious to what is really the reality of the whole thing! We become to preoccupied with the ideal and the intention to achieve the ‘so called’ desirable body image that we miss the whole point of the problem that started this in the first place. What do we gain from this? Nothing except more pain, frustration and feelings of worthlessness and it continues to breed!

Why should we carry on killing ourselves to fit the image created by a society that in reality is leading us nowhere in the first place? Think about it! Everywhere we go, we are surrounded by negativity, hate, fighting, war, destruction and power crazed, egotistic humans who are in reality only killing the essence of their own soul. Is the world not screwed up enough without having to inflict any more unnecessary pain upon yourself?

If you have any small spark of light that shines behind the veil of your confusion then please preserve it quick, before it fizzles out! We are not all bad people in this world, but it is unfortunate that pain and anger spreads through us humans like wild fire due to all of the negativity that exists in our world today. You do not have to be someone you are not. You are unique in your being, just like we all are. But as a human race, it seems we are all falling for the confused messages that are forced upon us by others which convince us that external beauty and material pleasures bring us happiness, acceptance, recognition and that word again, power!

The way the world is driving today is seriously devastating and in order to heal things on a larger scale, healing must begin with us as individuals before it will ever work on the larger scale of things. I guarantee that if the fashion industry changed their strategies to advertising larger models and claiming it was cool and fashionable for us to be ‘fat’ by ridding themselves of all of those skinny excuses for women that they call ‘models’ then we would definitely change our perception of the way we think we should look. That is the way it goes, those examples that are shoved in our faces are what manipulate our perception of how we should look. We would change with the times under such circumstances, but if we resist changing our attitudes it will never happen!

We have a right as a human being to live in our bodies completely and naturally, just the way they are. We have an effective ‘built in’ system that dictates when and how much we should eat. If you respond according to that then I promise, your weight will stay at its normal, healthy level without you having to starve yourself to stay slim. I was once anorexic and bulimic, now I am not, but I have not over weight since I stopped practicing those eating behaviours. My body is just perfect for me without having to torture myself to live up to an ‘ideal’ image. It took a while to adjust into a new attitude way of thinking and some deprogramation of the negative and degrading thoughts I had become accustomed to thinking about my body, but it worked. If your decide to conquer your eating disorder, but still find yourself thinking negative and self degrading thoughts about your weight and body, that is okay. It is normal and natural because after spending so much time thinking in that way, of course you have programmed yourself subconsciously to always think that way. A conscious decision to change is a good start but you must work through the layers and different levels of your mind and consciousness to change the beliefs and ways of thinking you have you have inflicted upon yourself in the ‘eating disorder’ state of mind.

It can be tough and confusing, but that too is okay. It can be hard work in the beginning, but it is not impossible. It takes practice and a great deal of trial and error until you are able to maintain a healthy state of mind again. My dad always used to tell me “Nothing comes for nothing and to really be able to appreciate something, you have to work hard to achieve it” He was right! You will learn to love yourself and your body more and more each day and it feels great to be able to release yourself from all of the stress of constantly obsessing with food and weight issues. Eventually you will see yourself, other people and the world through different eyes and all of the pain, confusion, and frustration will slowly fade, I promise!

Make your own life worth living no one else can do it for you. The world is twisted enough without us having to hurt ourselves too. You do have a responsibility towards yourself here and I know you may think to yourself ‘well, what’s the point, life sucks anyway!’ But, like I said before, if we as individuals begin to heal ourselves then that love will eventually spread over a larger scale and that is what the world needs now because, in my opinion, we are all in a very sorry state here on this planet and if we cannot be responsible or even capable of handling ourselves and our own lives properly and healthily then how can we ever expect to show a good example to our children and all of the other people who we touch in our lives each day? Think about it! Unless we learn how to love ourselves properly, this misery, emptiness and feeling of being purposeless will prevail and spread on even from our examples to other people around us.

Ashleigh Stewart
The Free Spirit Centre
http://www.freespiritcentre.info