Three Steps to Finding Relief

I have an amazing therapist. He is honestly helping me understand things in a way that is transforming my life. Some of the stuff we work on is so simple that it seems like everyone in the world should get this stuff, but for some reason we don't. I wanted to share three simple steps that are making a huge difference in my recovery and this is written to someone struggling with an eating disorder but honestly, 99% of the concepts here apply to EVERY single person. I promise you that if you try these things when going through difficulties you will find relief!


I know this may be hard to believe but it’s not about your body, it’s not about your weight, it’s not about the food, it’s not about your urges, it’s not about anything that your eating disorder or other addictions are telling you. It's not even about your difficult day or the things in your life that feel unmanageable. I know those things may feel so difficult that you don’t know how to go on, I know it may feel like you can’t take another bite of food or like you can’t stand being in your body for one more minute, but I promise you, those things aren’t the problem.

There are only three things you need to focus on— your physical sensations, your emotions, and your thoughts. Before you get overwhelmed, because those three things encompass a lot, let me break that down. At any given time everything you are experiencing is a combination of physical sensations, emotions, and thoughts. That may sound fairly simple but I can promise you, it gets complicated. When we are anxious or depressed our mind starts spinning with all kinds of negative thoughts which create a tsunami of unpleasant emotions which then cause tension to reside in our body creating a myriad of physical sensations. We often don’t realize this, but when we are really struggling we are usually in our fight or flight response. Without getting into too much detail, when we are in fight or flight the front sections of our brain, like the prefrontal cortex, that are responsible for cognitive thought and decision making get turned off and we are left to our primitive brain that isn’t very good at making decisions.

One of the biggest problems when we are struggling is that we don’t recognize that we are actually in fight or flight and we try to do things that are impossible to do when you’re stuck in this response. Have you ever felt like you are drowning in emotions or like the world is crashing down on you or like everything is so hard that you don’t know what to do or like you’re so depressed that you don’t care about anything or like you don’t want to eat another meal or just anything else that’s felt really, really intense? And then somebody offers you advice and says why don’t you try challenging your thoughts or why don’t you do some opposite action or why don’t you try this coping skill or that thought stopping technique and you want to just laugh at them (or maybe scream) because you’re like how in the world do you expect me to do that right now?!! And even if you are willing to try, do you ever feel like you are doing what people are telling you to do but it just doesn’t work? That’s because there are three important steps when it comes to dealing with our physical sensations, emotions, and thoughts and we often miss the first one.

The first, and sometimes most vital, step is to calm our bodies. No good work can happen until the body is calm and we are out of fight or flight. There are all kinds of methods one can use but I like to keep it simple. Anytime I notice myself spinning into anxiety or being consumed with depression or feeling like I’m about to fall apart or any other intense emotion, I stop and immediately focus my attention on my breath. It doesn’t need to be some complicated breathing exercise—just simply notice your breath coming in and out of your body. It may take three deep breaths, it may take 3 minutes, but just notice that as soon as you shift your attention to your breath something really does happen inside your body. It starts to calm down. Do it right now. Even if you’re not anxious you’ll feel a shift in your body as you focus on your breath. But that’s just the start, you have to keep going. After you notice your breath start noticing where you have physical tension in your body. Is it in your shoulders? Your stomach? Your chest? Your hands? Notice where that tension is residing and try to release it. You may not be able to get rid of it but at least try to relax those tense spots. The third thing I do to calm my body is focus on one of my five senses. Stop and listen to the ambient noise in the room. Feel the texture of your clothes. Look outside at the sky. It doesn’t matter which sense it is, just pick one and focus all your attention on it. I promise you, if all your focus is on the moving clouds or the hum of the traffic your anxiety will go down while you’re doing that. It takes a LOT of practice, but go through those steps of calming your body over and over again until it becomes a habit. EVERY time your emotions start to escalate, shift your attention to your breath. I know you may not believe me, but I PROMISE that if you take these steps to calm your body your anxiety will go down. But it won’t stay down unless you move on to the next two steps—honoring your emotions and challenging your thoughts. You must have a calm body to be able to deal with your emotions and thoughts.

Step two is to acknowledge your emotions. Sit down with a piece of paper and write out every emotion you feel and if you’re up to it, write some of the reasons why. Even better, talk to a friend or therapist and tell them what you’re feeling. Don’t get into judgements or complicated narratives, just simply state the feeling and why. Like “I’m feeling really sad right now because I just got my feelings hurt” or “I’m so angry that I’m stuck in treatment and missing out on _______” or “I’m terrified of facing my past” or “I feel empty and lost and like I have no purpose”. Don’t overthink or over complicate this, just get out what needs to come out and honor those emotions that are building inside you. Sometimes you will notice that as you acknowledge your emotions they intensify because the emotions becomes more real, but by giving those emotions a voice you allow them the space they need. Sometimes that means having a good cry. Sometimes it means feeling anger or pain that’s unpleasant. But by feeling and acknowledging the emotion it allows it to move through you and not get stuck. And sometimes that helps you to feel some relief.

The third step, challenging thoughts, is the hardest one for me. I sometimes jump ahead and try to challenge thoughts when I’m still in fight or flight or consumed by emotion and the results aren’t pretty. I end up frustrated and more convinced that my irrational thoughts are true. So make sure you have thoroughly done steps one and two. Sometimes I have no desire to challenge my thoughts because they feel like absolute truth and it feels ridiculous to challenge something that I “know” is true There are lots of different methods for challenging thoughts so you have to find one that works for you. Maybe you ask yourself what you would say to a friend who is in a similar situation or having similar thoughts. Maybe you sit down and write out your thoughts, identify the distortions, and then really try to imagine what your wise mind would say, even if you don’t believe those things right now. Maybe it’s taking a step back from your thoughts and just questioning their validity. Do some work and find a way of challenging thoughts that works for you. Don’t expect this to work all at once. You are not going to change years and years, sometimes decades, of deeply ingrained thoughts and beliefs overnight. So be patient with yourself. But start challenging those thoughts, especially those cruel and self-defeating thoughts that our brains seem to latch on to. Do you really want your life to be controlled by thoughts that may not even be true? Do you really want to be miserable because your brain tells you you’re not good enough, not thin enough, not _________ enough, when there is no scientific evidence that those beliefs are even valid? Don’t let some perceived standard or set of expectations set the bar—choose to create new beliefs that you are ok just the way you are! Because it’s true, you are ok, today, regardless of where you’re at or what you’re struggling with. The more you challenge those thoughts the more your beliefs about yourself will change and as those beliefs change you will notice a decrease in unpleasant emotions and physical sensations.

You may wonder why I’m telling you all this when it feels like these things aren’t your problems. Your problems are your weight, the food, your current life challenges, your depression, your anxiety, all of that stuff. But I promise you that if you break it down and take these steps that everything else in your life will change. You will discover an ability to ride out the ups and downs of life like never before. You will start to find hope and relief that words can’t describe. I’ve been in really dark places in my life. I’ve been all out of hope and where I felt like I couldn’t go on. I thought I was a chronic case that would never get better. But now I am finding freedom that I never could have imagined. But it is only through intense and difficult work that you will find that freedom. Do the hard work. I promise it works and I promise it will be worth it 1,000,000 times over. Above all else, even though you have never met me and don’t know my story, trust me when I say things can get better. I promise you from the depths of my heart, if you just keep putting one foot in front of the other and stay on the right path, your life will transform. It is possible to find happiness, no matter how dark the world seems. You can’t see it right now but life without an eating disorder is SO much better. Yes, life is still hard. It always will be. Sometimes you feel more pain when you’re not using your behaviors because you’re not perpetually numb. But on the flipside, the joy you are now able to feel is more than worth every ounce of pain.