Tip #2: Focus On The Facts
Your mind is being starved, your thoughts are distorted, you cannot see the truth because your emotions are clouding your judgment. All the fear, guilt, frustration, worry is consuming you.
Often when we aren’t given the full story we’ll fill the gaps in ourselves. For example, if we go into a shop and the sales assistant looks at us and gives us a half smile. How would that feel? Would you think she was being friendly? Or would you interpret it to mean that she feels sorry for you, you won’t find anything that looks nice on you in this shop, and you may as well turn around now?
I know this because that’s exactly what I did.
But instead of letting yourself think these things, try this exercise:
Imagine you’re in a courtroom and you’re presenting evidence to the judge. You’ve told the court that you went into the shop and that the sales assistant looked at you and smiled, but that you were sure she was being patronising. What would the judge say? Where is your evidence? Where are the facts to prove this is true? You haven’t got any, have you? It’s only your opinion. The judge would throw the case out of court. And so should you.
If you’re anything like me, I didn’t like myself at all and would always beat myself up. It’s no wonder that I imagined people were thinking hateful things about me, because that’s what I was doing. I’d think that people were looking at me because I looked so awful.
But if you try and focus on the facts, rather than your current opinion of yourself, with continual practice, it’ll help to change the way you think and feel about yourself.
And if you feel better about yourself, it’ll be easier to let go of your eating disorder.
Originally published at medium.com