Something that is hard for me to do is to acknowledge when a seemingly little thing upsets me more than I think it should! I’ve been learning, however, that these little things usually carry a big chunk of emotions behind them that I have to work through. If I continue to ignore these heart emotions, I end up avoiding my feelings and trying to cover them over with obsessive thinking. I believe this was the major contributor to my struggling with an eating disorder in my teen years. For me now, this covering over means ruminating thoughts which anxiously call to me repeatedly in my mind. It’s like having ants in my thinking, they run around all over and drive me crazy. It’s a mental diversion that carries a load of anxiety with it (tight feeling in my gut). But they don’t deal with the pain or grief or anger or whatever is going on in my heart.

I grew up in the same house where my parents still live. The house is a ranch style with an addition. Mom and Dad still live there.

Our gar...

As you feel, you heal, and to heal, you must feel.

Many times, eating disorders, or disordered eating, stem from a desperate grasp for control. Parts of our lives are so painful that we numb our hearts and then look to control other areas of our lives. The result is the inability to feel coupled with hope; feeling that security is out of reach. 

Healing comes with feeling. Opening our hearts to feeling again can be scary. I feel more deeply now than I did last year, last month. Sometimes the things we feel can catch us off guard. A casual comment from a friend that she forgot our plans led me to gut-wrenching sobs. The pain from my childhood of feeling overlooked, and the lies that came with it, gripped my soul and threatened to tear it apart. Feelings from the past of hurt, anger, and shame resurface with unparalleled intensity. Yet, I must go there. As much as my heart aches and longs to go numb, I need to feel that pain. More than that, I need to grieve for that lonely little g...