You will know you are ready to consider adding a mentor to your support team when you can honestly realize and admit that your efforts on your own, if you do not have access to professional medical care, or in concert with your current treatment plan and support system, are not yet getting you to where you want to go with your recovery goals. (-Quote from Beating Ana)
There is not one single right time to add a mentor to your support team. A mentor is not a substitute or replacement for professional treatment. But a mentor can offer a perspective on eating disorders and recovery that is valuable and unique, and in this way can provide much needed encouragement and support.
Some of you may never want or need to add a mentor to your support team, maybe because someone on your existing team already fills that role or because you feel totally supported in different ways by your the team you have in place.
But for others of you, meeting a mentor may be one of the most life-changing, transformative experiences you ever have in your life. At the very least, every moment of time you spend talking with your mentor will be one less moment of airtime that Ed gets in your head - worth a try for that reason alone!
Have you been considering adding a mentor to your support team, or investing more of your time and energy into your current mentoring partnership? What other ways are you mentored - through inspiring books or movies, pets, friends, and heroes? Most importantly, how do your mentors help you stay focused on recovery instead of listening to Ed?
xo
Shannon
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