As a seventeen-year-old girl, I developed an eating disorder which turned into an obsession that held me tight in its grip for many years. I was an international athlete and I lost the joy of running simply for the love of doing it, one step after the other. Instead, I found myself running away from the pain; seeking love somewhere in the race results, the arduous training regimes, and the restrictions on my food intake.
I am 50 years old now and free of that obsession, free to be me. I am free and I am making it my work to talk about my experiences, to share my story and the wisdom it has given me in the hope it can help others caught up in the pain of an eating disorder, or any addiction, start on the pathway towards their own healing.
I have been asked to speak on television and radio about my experiences and was invited to an event in London on behalf of b-eat, the UK’s leading charity supporting people affected with eating disorders. During a conversation with another endurance athlete, we explored the dilemma within the sport where ‘being thin’ is part of being an athlete. There is a fine line between ‘training behaviours’ that manage weight and allow for proper nutrition to provide the leanness that contributes to top level performance, and behaviours that communicate nothing but self abuse and self hatred.
I found that I had an inability to believe that I was accepted and loved for being myself, and this was accompanied by the loss of any sense of safety. For many years, I lived devoid of the feeling that I was “allowed” to have my needs met, emotionally and actually. I even got to a point where I didn’t think I had any needs for myself.
The voice of an eating disorder is very insistent. It tells you that you will only be loved if you are thin – certainly not if you have an ounce of fat on your body, or you eat that extra biscuit – and this voice will shout and scream if you lose control. The voice must win. It is important, when learning to live again and to listen to your inner wisdom, that you can isolate this destructive force and recognize it for what it is.
I have an idea that this voice can pin itself to anything, that it is the voice that takes us away from who we really are and puts conditions on love and on living. It tells you that you can only live if you do what others want, that you can only live if you hide who you are, that you can only live if you cease to really live.
Something powerful and destructive, like an eating disorder, allows us to see the damage these voices cause, but the voices are present in many people - taking them away from truthful self-expression, taking them away from trusting who they really are, and leaving them terrified of opening up to themselves and others for fear of rejection, for fear of abandonment and annihilation. As with any addiction, these same people may try to kill themselves, or at least kill who they really are, to avoid the death of being rejected for being themselves.
The recovery of the individual will lead to the recovery of the planet. To heal the world, we must heal ourselves. But the path to health and to healing is one of consciousness, of being conscious of our every thought and our every action, knowing that so we think, so we live. If we let our mind run away and chatter insistently we will cease to hear the still voice within that knows everything there is to know.
Likewise, when we speak we play our part in creating our futures and the futures of those we are interacting with. I was talking with a friend this week about being silent with others, and it brought tears to her eyes to relate being in the company of her husband when they run together in silence – of being in that space with another where no words are necessary. She said, “There are no lies if there is silence. Once there are words it’s possible to start to create something false, but in silence there is truth, and if you can be silent with another it is because there is nothing to hide.”
As with everything, there is a polarity within words. Words can be used to express creativity and to communicate truth but they can also be used to hide and to lie. It is all about choice. We have a choice, moment by moment, to create a different future and to take our life in one direction or another, both by what we do say and by what we don’t say.
Everything is created through dialogue and in the spaces between people. If we own our own part within this, listen to one another and become conscious of our responses and reactions, then we really and truly can work together to heal our wounds.
Consciousness means owning our actions and taking full responsibility for the consequences of our part in any interaction. It is so tempting to blame others, more than tempting, it is prevalent in our society and contributes to the separation between us. When we open our hearts to seeing the potential within every person, when we open to the other and attempt to see the magnificent human being in front of us we will relate from a different position.
Julia Armstrong has worked for over thirty years as a life coach and therapist. Her skills lie specifically in enabling people to have healthy and happy relationships with themselves and others. She is a certified Educator for the Imago model of relationship therapy, which is a powerful tool in enabling people to really listen to one another and validate and value their differences. Julia's work leads others towards real connection, healing and personal growth, allowing relationship to become a place to experience living with more joy and creativity. To learn more visit www.juliaarmstrong.com
