Recovery Support

Happy New Year!

I hope you are having a wonderful holiday! I am having a great time with family and friends in Texas.

I am very excited about the New Year, so I wrote a new article (below).

Happy 2008!

Best,

Jenni

A New Year’s Resolution: Making each day a time for change
by Jenni Schaefer

Do you have a New Year’s resolution? As the last seconds of the year tick away, we often become introspective and think about ways that we can improve our lives. Some of the most common promises we make to ourselves each January 1st involve spending more time with friends and family, taking better care of our bodies, and sticking to a budget.

This year my New Year’s resolution is to stop making New Year’s resolutions. Don’t get me wrong. It is a good thing to want to change our lives for the better on January 1st. But we must not forget that it is also a good thing to want to improve our lives on February 1st, May 12th, December 30th, or any other day. My point is that each moment is a time for positive change, not just the beginning of the year. So maybe I do, in fact, have a New Year’s resolution --- to make each and every day an opportunity for growth.

Unfortunately, many promises we make to ourselves are broken fairly shortly after they are set. When I was struggling with an eating disorder, I used to make promises to myself daily only to break them by nightfall. I had great ideas about how to recover, but I did not make a solid commitment to follow through with any of these concepts. So the concepts remained just that: concepts. Making real change in my life required a new kind of commitment. It required action.

Whether we make a commitment on January 1st or another day, we must learn to describe our goals in specific terms. I used to promise myself, “I will never again engage in eating disordered behaviors.”

After failing over and over again with the “never again” part, I realized that my goal was too broad. I needed to start smaller and to be more specific. So I made a commitment to eat lunch everyday for a month without restricting. I could make this happen. But making it happen required a plan.

When it comes to goals, we need plans. In my recovery and life, I have discovered that setting a goal without formulating a plan ends in the same result as if I had never set the goal in the first place. Without a plan, ideas remain ideas; concepts stay concepts. We need clear steps that can be put into action. For instance, when I became interested in exploring my spirituality, it helped for me to set aside a specific time each day to read spiritual literature, meditate, and pray.

Within our plans for progress, it is often beneficial to include accountability to others. When I made the commitment to eat lunch everyday, I was accountable to Nikki, a woman in my eating disorders support group. I made a promise to call Nikki everyday at noon and tell her my lunch plans. Regarding my work in spirituality, I became accountable to my sponsor in a Twelve-step group. Other people cannot only help with monitoring our progress, but they can also offer encouragement and provide a new perspective. A support team of friends, family members, health care professionals, and others is invaluable.

My support team encouraged me to write down my commitments to my recovery and myself in a journal. I have since realized that writing is a helpful step in accomplishing goals.

When we write down our goals, we must remain flexible. Just because a goal is written in some notebook does not mean that it cannot be changed. Life is all about change and being flexible. We must give our goals room to breathe and to thrive.

And we must acknowledge our successes --- big and small. While celebrating small successes, we keep our eyes set on the big change. At one point in my recovery from my eating disorder, my therapist said that the same small steps I had been making for years were just not going to cut it anymore. I was not making progress, so I needed to concentrate on drastic change.

Any drastic change I have ever accomplished in my life was the result of persistence and hard work. Nothing ever happened just because I woke up one morning and decided to change. No, things happened when I decided to change, took real action, and never gave up. Each morning, each moment is an opportunity for a new life.

I am not saying that we should never make a New Year’s resolution. I am saying that we should not limit ourselves to change at only one time of the year. The best time to change is not always January 1st.

And the best time to change is not tomorrow.

It is today.

Jenni Schaefer is a singer/songwriter, speaker, and the author of Life Without Ed: How One Woman Declared Independence from Her Eating Disorder and How You Can Too (McGraw-Hill). She is a consultant with the Center for Change in Orem, UT. For more information, visit www.jennischaefer.com or email jenni@jennischaefer.com.

Ed is Not an Option

I just had the opportunity to present at Family Week at Center For Change in Orem, Utah. I spoke with both family members and women struggling with eating disorders. One young lady pointed out something very important about relapse. She said, “Yes, relapse is normal. But we can’t use this fact as an excuse to relapse.” 

Relapse is definitely a normal part of eating disorder recovery. I relapsed often throughout my recovery process, but I always did my best to learn from every fall. And I did my best to not fall in the same way twice.

At one point in my recovery, I began using relapse as an excuse to relapse. I found myself sliding back over and over again. I had hit a wall, because I was not willing to make certain changes. I thought, “Relapse is normal. I will stop relapsing sometime.”

“Sometime” only happened for me when I made a firm, conscious decision to change the behaviors that I really did not want to change. “Sometime” happened when I made a new kind of commitment. I committed to not giving into Ed.

Is Ed still an option for you?

What can you do to remove Ed from your list of coping mechanisms in life?

What are some healthy ways to cope with life’s difficulties?

I only recovered when I answered these questions for myself. I recovered when Ed was no longer an option.

Ed is not an option.

Holiday Message from Thom

I hope you are enjoying this holiday season! My former therapist and co-author, Thom Rutledge, would like to share some wisdom with you about the holidays. His article below includes some great tips. Enjoy!

Best,

Jenni

The Rules of Self-Care Apply to the Holidays Too
By Thom Rutledge, author of Embracing Fear

No matter what progress we may have made in taking better care of ourselves in our day to day lives, we are in danger of leaving that progress behind when we pack for our holiday trips --- whether the trip is cross country or just across town. Consider the strange phenomenon of instant age regression when you step across the threshold of your parents’ home. You may be 42 when you step onto the porch, but once inside the house your psyche automatically shrinks to 12. Or think about the certainty with which you feel that you “have to” be at a certain place, or with certain people, just because it is Thanksgiving or Christmas or Hanukah. You may have been successfully breaking the dysfunctional “have to” rules throughout the year, but when November comes, you suddenly, mysteriously find yourself standing on the all-too-familiar square one.

Well, consider this your reminder that practicing your healthy independence is just as important during the last two months of the year as it is for the first ten months. Take a few notes with you as you navigate the sometimes turbulent and tricky waters of family gatherings. (I suggested that metaphor to a client recently, and she said that going home for the holidays for her was like sailing into the Bermuda Triangle.) You don’t have to have a Bermuda-Triangle-level of dysfunction in your family to benefit from a little refresher course. Put these reminders in your pocket, and/or write a list of your own.

•    Remember that every day has only 24 hours --- no matter what you call it.

•    Love them (family, friends, whoever), but don’t take them personally.

•    Break some family rules just for the fun of it.

•    Keep a list of supportive friends’ phone numbers with you … and use them.

•    Take a walk periodically by yourself, or with a relative you really like and feel comfortable with.

•    When in doubt, say something bizarre. (Again, for the fun of it. For instance: proudly announce that you have 90 days clean in your Homicides Anonymous program.)

•    If you really don’t want to be somewhere, don’t be. Check the birth date on your driver’s license to remind yourself you are an adult. Make decisions based on what you think and feel, not what your family might think or feel.

•    Write a brief holiday mission statement for yourself --- something like …

“I will treat others with respect, starting with myself.”
or
“I will enjoy myself by spending time with people I really want to be with.”

•    Add to this list, and share it with others in your support system.

The holiday grass is often greener on the other side of the fence. Some people grumble about “having” to spend time with family while others are hurting because they don’t have family to be with. Whatever your circumstances, remember to express gratitude for what you have, and look for opportunities to be of service to others. Have a peaceful and enjoyable holiday season.

Thom Rutledge, LCSW is the author of Embracing Fear: How to Turn What Scares Us into Our Greatest Gift and co-author (with Jenni Schaefer) of Life Without Ed: How One Woman Declared Independence from Her Eating Disorder & How You Can Too. For more information visit http://www.thomrutledge.com.