Defining Wellness

Thank you all SO MUCH for your comments and compliments! I’m glad the skinny jeans were a hit — I was nervous about getting them, but I’m glad I took the risk.

You know what I love best about blogging? I love “connecting” with the readers and other bloggers. Every day, I look forward reading your e-mails, comments and questions. Reading your thoughts with a cup of Swiss Miss Sensible Sweets hot chocolate (I’m completely addicted — there are always AT LEAST 2 boxes on stock in our house) in hand is the perfect way to start the day. There are so many interesting and genuine people out there, and it’s a joy getting to know each one of you. Thanks for making this hobby so much more — I’ve found true meaning and purpose through blogging.

Case in point . . . I received an e-mail from a reader last week that had me in tears at my computer. Sometimes I wonder if I am getting my points across the way that I intend to, especially in my “Eating, Exercise & Body Image” posts. These are the posts that I labor over the most because they are very important to me. I feel that they are my blog’s “signature.” If I accomplish nothing else with this blog, I want to empower my readers to love your bodies, to let go of disordered patterns of eating and thinking, and to free yourselves to live happy, self-accepting lives. So when I received these comments in an e-mail from a reader, my heart swelled with happiness. I really appreciated her taking the time to let me know how she felt about my blog — what an unselfish, caring act:

“And the point of this very long and rambling email (apologies for the condensed life story here!) is that during a particularly bad day a couple of weeks ago, I somehow found my way to your blog. To be honest, I’ve stopped reading all but a handful of the food blogs now, because I think it was a big part of the eating disorder – an obsession with food, basically, mostly because there were so many forms of it that I wasn’t *allowed* to eat! – and I find a number of them quite triggering, but yours is one that I now turn to whenever I’m having a bad day. The first time I found your site, I sat there and I read your posts about body image and food freedom, self acceptance and ridding yourself of black-and-white labels (which is something I’m absolutely chronic about doing – I was a “vegetarian”, I was an “A student”, I was this and that, and if I wasn’t those things, I was nothing and a complete failure), and I cried. I hope this doesn’t sound ridiculous, but I feel like I was falling
that day and you grabbed onto my hand with your words and pulled me back up again. Throughout all of this, my mother has been my biggest source of support. She’s carried me through it, even when it must have been total hell for her and for my dad, and I’ll never be able to thank her enough for it. Your blog is the only other source of support that I’ve found that made an honest-to-goodness *difference*. There are a hundred sites, a thousand of them, that reiterate the message of “everything in moderation” and “love your body and yourself”, but you can read those words over and over again, acknowledge the truth of them, but not find them compelling enough to actually make changes. Your posts are helping me to continue to make actual changes, to begin the journey towards accepting and valuing my body and myself.

I wish that every person out there who is struggling with the pure, destructive hell of an eating disorder could find their way to your blog, because I honestly believe it could be the first push to help them on their way back to a proper life.”

Wow. I mean, really. WOW. My husband looked over my shoulder when he saw me crying and just smiled. He knows how much this blog means to me and how much I want to help others in their journeys to recovery, and this was just such an pleasant and completely unexpected surprise.

So thank you to my reader (who shall remain anonymous) who was so kind to take the time to write this e-mail, and I wish you continued strength and persistence on your journey. And thank you to all of you, for taking the time to read my blog, for making me smile with your comments and questions, and for making the blogging community such a wonderful, cathartic experience for all.

Keep up the great energy, everyone!

I’m off to make my lunch (I’ve got a ROCKIN’ tuna sandwich planned) for my last day of work tomorrow. Boo hoo.

Filed under: Body Image & Self-Image, Eating Disorder Recovery | Tagged: blog, eating disorder, Swiss Miss