National Eating Disorder Awareness Week

The reason I am so passionate about living intuitively and reconnecting to one’s self, is because it is what saved my life.

I say that with no exaggeration or dramatisation. And it is really hard for me to say. I still struggle with talking about my eating disorder more openly because I do not want to be triggering in any way and I hate sounding dramatic or attention seeking - a shadow I am trying to work on. However, I push myself to keep talking about it because it is my truth. I share in the hopes of normalising this experience. I share in the hopes of providing a connection to hope. I share in the hopes of eliciting more understanding, compassion, and acceptance.

Eating disorders are very often connected to other mental health struggles such as anxiety, depression, OCD and more. These disorders not only run your thoughts, but they run your life. It can be almost impossible to have space for any other thoughts to enter your mind. Without room for other thoughts, your life is dictated by your disorder.

There were times during the thick of it when I did not know how I was going to make it through another day. I did not want to make it through another day, not if it meant I had to continue on in the way I was. I knew I could not continue on in the way I was. And yet, I had no idea how to change. In fact, in those moments, I was incapable of change. I felt completely stuck. I do not say this from a space of victim mentality. I wasn’t a victim, and yet I was prisoner to my disorder.

There are times when you are in the depths of your disorder, where it can be physically impossible to heal yourself. Your disorder has taken over your conscious awareness and you lack the clarity to see beyond its’ version of truth. When you are completely absorbed by your disorder, your connection to your intuition can feel nonexistent. But it is there. It is there in whispers and bursts, but it is there. All you need is one quick act of courage to grab onto it. That is why support and treatment of any kind is crucial. That is how you move forward. That is claiming ownership over your life.

When you begin to get support you can start to enact changes. This is where intuitively wild practices come in.

Reconnecting to your intuition, to nature, with tools such as mindfulness techniques, provide the ability to begin to separate yourself from your thoughts. They give you the opportunity to not only start creating new thought patterns, but to respond differently to old ones. So much can change when you start to bring awareness to your thoughts and realise that they do not hold power over you. Your thoughts are not facts. Your thoughts do not control your actions. Your thoughts do not dictate your life.

Reconnecting to your intuition is actually quite simple, yet very difficult. We first begin to reconnect by slowing down and getting outside into nature. Nature whispers to us the secrets we need to remember. A deeper connection to nature, is a deeper connection to ourselves. Slowing down provides the space for us to see a little more clearly, to hear the whispers from inside and all around us, and begin to make changes. When you slow down, you may be surprised what is revealed to you.

This awareness comes in layers. Give it time. One day you may look back and see that the thoughts you believed were fact, were really fiction.

This is your reminder to have hope. Open up, be vulnerable, reach out for support. Look around you and see that everyone is seeing the world from their point of view. Be open to new perspectives, new insights. Be accepting and compassionate towards others experiences. Separate from your thoughts, choose your own actions. And, most importantly, allow space for yourself to reconnect to your intuition and to nature.