While out of town a few weeks ago, I saw a woman who really put things into perspective for my own life. I was eating at a deli when I saw a woman coming towards the front door. She was in a wheelchair and was missing 3 limbs total. I started thinking about my past, binge eating, and just being grateful for what I have.
In our own lives, assuming that most of us have all four limbs, why do we complain so much and get so caught up in our own situations when there is just so much that we need to be thankful for. Imagine how your life would be if were without one limb, let alone three. How would you function on a day-to-day basis? Do you even see yourself that strong?
I remember when I was binge eating I would get so caught up in all of the bad qualities about myself. I would constantly beat myself up and say such horrible things because I wasn’t appreciative. I didn’t try to look at the awesome qualities I have to make myself feel better. How could I? I was binge eating, felt horrible about myself, and didn’t like myself.
You know, we can all get so immersed in our self-pity, especially with binge eating, that we forget that our situation could be a whole lot worse. We forget how important it is to love ourselves and focus on our good qualities… because, let’s face it; we all have some pretty great qualities!
We could compare ourselves all day long to people who appear to not have weight or food issues like we do. We could compare ourselves to people who appear to be more successful than we are. We could live our life each day doing this and let our lives just pass us by. Don’t you want to be able to look back and remember happy memories of different travels, friends, family, etc? I know I do. I know that we should not get so caught up in binge eating that we stop living to our potential. Binge eating should not have that much power over us!
Instead of worrying about how we are right now, let’s embrace and love ourselves. Let’s go out and truly live our lives in a way that will make the memories really stand out. Let’s seize every opportunity that presents itself before us with assurance that we can do it. Let’s just remember how truly grateful we are for what we have in our lives, regardless of binge eating.
Yes, our lives would be better without binge eating. Embracing ourselves in a positive way doesn’t change the mission we are on to end binge eating; it just means that we will go about it with more positiveness towards ourselves. Life is worth so much more than constantly comparing ourselves to others and putting ourselves down. Opening up our eyes will really help us to win the binge eating battle.
After all, it could be worse and could be even more of a challenge to us if we were missing an arm, a leg, or both. Love yourself just as you are and be grateful for all you have!
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