Your Triumphant Journey through overeating to freedom will introduce you to many new feelings, ideas and opportunities. Here are listed some forms of support, help, inspiration, guidance and possible sources of joy and new friends which you can choose to access.

Some of these suggestions are obvious in that they relate directly to overeating. Others may surprise you since they relate to causes of overeating which may remain unknown to you. Still others relate to developing strength to meet your challenges. Others yet, relate to nourishing unknown wells of creativity and sources of joy within you waiting to be realized.

Experiment with these areas. Let yourself be surprised at the benefits you might reap. Give yourself, not one, but lots of opportunities to heal, grow and be happy in this life.

1. Read books and articles about overeating. They can increase your understanding of your behavior and your history with food.

2. Listen to relaxing audio tapes. They can help you internally soothe yourself.

3. Keep a journal. Writing your thoughts, feelings, reactions, dreams and fantasies can help bring unknown aspects of yourself to your attention.

4. Build and maintain contact with kind and supportive people. This can help you gain new perspectives about yourself. You can begin to learn what you have to offer others, and how you can have more positive relationships in your life.

Programs such as Overeaters Anonymous and Al-Anon can introduce you to people who understand your struggle with overeating and too much self sacrifice.

5. Other 12 step programs may be helpful to you. When you hear people describe feelings and histories similar to your own you may be free to feel or know something that has been lost to your conscious awareness.

6. Meet regularly with a psychotherapist who understands the underlying issues of eating disorders. This can be helpful as your history unfolds and your secrets emerge.

(See articles on ethics and choosing a psychotherapist in SelfhelpMagazine.com.)

7. Explore your relationship with your body. Give yourself the opportunity to release the tensions and emotions your body has been carrying for years. Give yourself the opportunity to discover what joy you can feel as your body becomes more strong and flexible.

• Take a dance class.
• Participate in a sport.
• Do yoga on a regular basis.
• Do some kind of aerobics exercise regularly.

8. Explore the creative arts. Give your newly emerging feelings and ideas opportunity for expression. You may not be able to say in words what these new feelings are. But you may be able to paint them or sculpt them or dance to them.

Take a class in anything creative:

• painting
• sculpting
• dance
• gardening
• flower arranging
• home or office design
• web page design

9. Take on a learning project where you are a total beginner. Start to learn a skill in which you have no previous training or background. Putting yourself in the position of being a beginner, being kind and supportive to yourself as you are awkward and open, will give you appreciation for what you can learn and become.

It will also teach you the value of being kind to yourself as your new skills develop and become proficient over time. Patience and kindness for yourself over time is very important for a successful Triumphant Journey.

10. Read personal affirmations out loud several times every morning. Read them out loud to your furniture, garden and pets. Read them out loud to your face in the mirror.

Pick one or more from the Affirmations Lists [1]and [2] and consistently read them every morning for 30 days. After 30 days, add, subtract or change your choices. Then read your new choices out loud every morning for 30 days.

Pick the statements that you want to be true for you. You can't make a mistake in which you choose or how many you choose. This is a way to nourish your deep self in precisely the way you need in the moment.

You may be spending a great deal of time, money, emotional grief, numbness and energy in isolation because of your food related behavior. How much energy you put toward the forms of help listed in this section depends on how ready and willing you are to respect and work toward a better life.

You may be willing but only ready to do a little for yourself right now. That's okay. That's your beginning and beginning is what counts.

You can choose any, all, or a combinations of these options. There need not be any competition here. Each of these avenues help empower, inform, support, encourage and allow you to become strong enough to know and appreciate yourself. Each contributes to your learning to care for yourself.

Return to Triumphant Journey Index

5/28/98

Joanna Poppink, M.F.C.C., licensed by the State of California in 1980, is a Marriage, Family, Child Counselor (License #15563). She has a private practice in Los Angeles where she works with adult individuals and couples. She specializes in working with people with eating disorders and with people who are trying to understand and help a loved on who has an eating disorder. Contact Information: 10573 West Pico Blvd. Suite 20 Los Angeles, CA 90064 (310) 474-4165 phone (310) 474-7248 fax