"Take with food"

I have been working my rear end off lately (well actually, I've been working it back on). And though I'm sure there are bound to be lots of hard days ahead I'm surprisingly excited about the future. I had a pretty cool realization the other day and I think this "epiphany" has helped me make some pretty drastic changes in my thinking this week. For a long time I've been on a teeter-totter. If I was doing well physically and behaviorally I was a mess emotionally. If I was really focusing on the emotional issues and tackling the underlying problems my eating disorder was rapidly spiraling out of control. I've always felt that it was too hard to work on both at the same time, that progress in one area would justify the collapse of the other. But the other night, as I went to pop a couple ibuprofen for the splitting headache I had, my eye caught hold of the label that said "take with food". And it just hit me, like a ton of bricks. Everything that I'm trying to do in my life, all my efforts to challenge my negative mind, work on my spirituality, develop new hobbies and interests, get outside of my head and connect with people, basically all my "prescriptions" for a happier, healthier me...in order for me to reap the benefits of all my hard work I MUST "take it with food". Sure, I can hold on to bits and pieces of my eating disorder and still feel some sense of accomplishment for doing good things. But if I want to really, truly live life to the fullest and experience more than just existing day to day then I have to get off the teeter-totter and work both pieces of the puzzle into my life at the SAME time. To me the caution "take with food" is both literal and symbolic. I literally need to consistently fuel my body (not just when I'm starving or when I'm at a party with food, but all day long, every day) but I also need to fuel my body with other things that make the hard work more effective--sleep, prayer, exercise, down time, social interaction, sunlight (if we only had some, go away you nasty inversion!), all those basic things that seem so simple but are oh so important. Lately I've been doing that. And it's paying off more than I ever would have imagined. Not that there have been any drastic external changes, but inside I'm feeling more alive than I have in ages. And I think being alive is pretty cool.

P.S. Like the avatar look? I've been having a little too much fun with the webcam lately.