10/20/2025
IDK who needs to hear this but 🥹👇🏼
I won’t forget one of the first times I felt my Healthy “Self” emerge when repairing my relationship with food + body.
I was eating dinner by myself, and had just finished a taco with chips and all the things.
One part of me was saying “this is PLENTY of food/calories/etc. You are done eating.”
Another part said, “But is what you typically do and you’re usually hungry soon after. If you want to get better you need to challenge yourself.”
My “Healthy Self” said…. “Okay…. Why don’t I make the taco and just see how it goes, what’s the worst that could happen?”
At first, it was a “disaster” 😂
🤢 Physically I felt so uncomfortable. So much more full than normal. Yuck. I hate this feeling. Nope. Make it go away.
😭 Emotionally, I was in turmoil:
💭 “What were you THINKING eating the whole thing? You could have stopped halfway and that would have been perfect… or even better not made the 2nd taco.”
💭 “No one even made you do this, you chose it for yourself. If you keep this up you know where it’s going.”
💭 “It was just a taco…. Truly. How do you think you will ever get better when this was so hard for you…?”
🌊 Flooded with guilt, shame, anxiety, and sadness.
This is a daily reality for someone struggling with an eating disorder.
But in the midst of this particular experience, I felt a steadiness and confidence wash over me, a perspective that I was familiar with but had not yet made my own -
“You cannot heal from the same methods that got you into the eating disorder in the first place.”
If I was going to get better, I had to stop being so critical. I had to stop talking to myself in this way. I had to let it be messy. I had to congratulate myself for trying. I had to have my own back.
Imperfect and trying > stuck in paralysis
Self-compassion > stuck in dysregulation
Steps towards recovery > staying stuck
Maybe you don’t need to try harder.
Maybe you need to try different.
Courage dear hearts,
-EM