Coming from a dysfunctional family seems to be the norm, and I often realize that I got things to say to my family, but what I really want is love.
After I left my family home, and when I was in my early twenties as a dysfunctional adult of dysfunctional adults, breathwork (Rebirthing) played a big part in my own personal healing journey. I wanted to learn how to make the pain go away.
I started on the adventure of life to discover how to create a supportive and validating family life. I had not felt supported or validated in my family, so a childhood of pain was my challenge to deal with. I dealt with it by becoming a compulsive eater at the age of 13, that developed into bulimia by the time I was 17. I healed at 18. More, deeper issues emerged and I was co-dependent by 22.
Breathwork saved my life when I was 26 and my further healing continued in earnest then with positive thinking, and much study into self healing.
Looking back, chunk of healing happened after chunk of healing as I continued to read and follow my heart. I rarely visited my family after I left at 19 and just focused on healing the wounds inflicted by those people who did not see me, hear me, or make me feel safe.
It was the best they could do and the power to heal from all of that was mine, and thankfully I was able to do so to the extent that I no longer eat when full, or smoke, or drink to deal with the pain of a dysfunctional upbringing - all of that I gave up twenty years ago.
An addiction free life is not necessarily an easy life, it is just we learn to cope with life in different ways. We no longer suppress our feelings and creativity by eating when full, drinking, smoking or doing drugs, rather we feel those feelings and seek to live the life we would like to live, by incorporating into it what we think we might like to do. We involve ourselves in our interests and stay clear of the original transgressors; or if we are around them, we can handle it in ways that don't harm us. We cut the visit short or we learn how to protect ourselves from their subtle or overt abusive ways. It is a difficult road to walk to hide from abuse, it is much easier to own up to the fact it happened and that we can stay away and be with people who truly like us. It starts with ourselves and our own self-care and self-appreciation.
Thursday 9 October 2014
Saturday 4 October 2014
The Price Tag on Freedom
It has been said that the price tag on freedom is responsibility. And in doing yourself the great favor of freeing yourself from the habit of compulsive eating, you are developing the ability to respond to life, and food, and feelings, in different ways. Ways that allow you to stop when full. Ways that allow you to be who you are. Ways that allow you to ask yourself - How do I feel about that? What is my opinion on this?
This is your ability to interact with life rather that stuffing your feelings down with food when full and stuffing yourself into a stereotypical image of womanhood.
I personally have discovered that I grew up in a family that had very limited ideas about what a woman could, or could not do. Rather Victorian and very patriarchal. Stifling to say the least. Maybe it was no coincidence that I moved to a different country only six short months after overcoming my eating disorder. My stuffing my feelings down with food when full was all to do with living in a family that was trying to shove me into a shoe box, and call it living.
In my ability to cease eating when full, and my getting into the habit of asking myself - What feeling is this I am trying to suppress? every time I felt like eating when full, enabled me to discover what I wanted in life.
I am very blessed to have been able to leave that stifling upbringing to emerge into a life that allowed me to live in London, study what I loved, work and follow my interests.
Seek your own ability to respond to your life in a way that allows you to truly live. No longer eat when full and allow yourself to feel the feelings that eating when full suppressed. Seek to resolve those feelings. Seek the way to feel and heal. Ask yourself - Given the fact I feel this way what would I like to do now? And let it guide you to responding to people a little differently. Staying away from some, spending more time with others. It is your adventure now. It is your pilgrimage. It is your life.
Allow it to flourish.
Let your life get bigger as you get smaller.
Blessings, until next time
Sofia
This is your ability to interact with life rather that stuffing your feelings down with food when full and stuffing yourself into a stereotypical image of womanhood.
I personally have discovered that I grew up in a family that had very limited ideas about what a woman could, or could not do. Rather Victorian and very patriarchal. Stifling to say the least. Maybe it was no coincidence that I moved to a different country only six short months after overcoming my eating disorder. My stuffing my feelings down with food when full was all to do with living in a family that was trying to shove me into a shoe box, and call it living.
In my ability to cease eating when full, and my getting into the habit of asking myself - What feeling is this I am trying to suppress? every time I felt like eating when full, enabled me to discover what I wanted in life.
I am very blessed to have been able to leave that stifling upbringing to emerge into a life that allowed me to live in London, study what I loved, work and follow my interests.
Seek your own ability to respond to your life in a way that allows you to truly live. No longer eat when full and allow yourself to feel the feelings that eating when full suppressed. Seek to resolve those feelings. Seek the way to feel and heal. Ask yourself - Given the fact I feel this way what would I like to do now? And let it guide you to responding to people a little differently. Staying away from some, spending more time with others. It is your adventure now. It is your pilgrimage. It is your life.
Allow it to flourish.
Let your life get bigger as you get smaller.
Blessings, until next time
Sofia
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