Link Love 6/12

Happy Sunday!!!! 🙂 I’m so excited for this week!! My Mom and I are going to Dallas later this week to do some shopping/visit the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum/just get away. 

Fun:

What Fashion Era Do You Belong In? by Kimia Madani via livingly.com

50’s Romance Era 🙂

This Is What the Perfect House Looks Like, According to Pinterest-by Angela Elias via Popsugar

Health/Body Image:

What Does Healthy Even Mean? – by Robyn via The Real Life RD

This was beautiful. It made my heart smile and feel good for a meager minute. I’m trying so, so, so very hard and even reading the same sentence of “loving and appreciating your body no matter what your pant size” is over and over again is how I find 5 minutes of comfort, I’m going to read those words every hour of ever day until it sinks in.

Side Stitch: What Causes it and How to Prevent It-by Lizzie Fuhr via PopSugar

This happens to me all too often.

26 People Share The Important Reasons They Stopped Dieting– by Sally Tamarkin via Buzzfeed

The Peanuts always make me smile, so here’s hoping they help you smile as well 🙂

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Peanut Butter Swamp

Stop Comparing Yourself To Others And Focus On You — Here’s How– by Lisa Quast via Forbes

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Do you ever feel like you are standing completely still and the world is just whizzing by? Like you are sprinting as fast as you can but the peanut butter you are trekking through is slowing you down? It just won’t let you move any quicker than you are already going? Am I the only one who feels like I’m trying so hard, exerting all the efforts and doing everything I can the “right way” but still coming up a little short than others? Am I the only one who feels like they are stuck in a peanut butter swamp?!

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Don’t get me wrong, I love my peanut butter; but I don’t love running in it.

We’ve heard it said before that comparing yourself to others won’t get you anywhere. It won’t make you feel better about yourself. It won’t make you more successful and it doesn’t mean you are better than anybody else. Comparison creates misery. It doesn’t matter what we are comparing ourselves to others on, whether it be our body, our job, our intelligence, relationships, cooking skills, friendships or anything else under the sun, it’s all so self-destructive and damaging.

Everyone is on their own journey in life. We are all in different places. Lately, I’ve noticed in myself that as I look at these snapshots of other people’s lives on Instagram or Facebook I feel a little discouraged. I see people around my age getting married or graduating (which I’ve done both), getting a job, becoming more physically fit, reaching diet goals, reaching life goals, having a baby, traveling and seeming to have these grand successes. And I’m happy for them! I truly am but I feel like I’m standing in thick peanut butter. I can’t seem to stop myself from comparing my life to theirs! What is wrong with me?! It’s not that I’m not content with where I am. I love my life and everything God has provided me. I think that at times I just feel discouraged because I feel like I’m trying as hard as I possibly can to get a job and just come up short. Or, I see other women my age having a baby and it starts to me nervous and think… “Oh, should I be trying to have a baby? Am I getting old?!” (I know that’s an irrational thought. I’m NOT old. I also know that starting a family right now is not a road I want to venture down. However, that doesn’t stop my panic every now and then.) Then I see all the ads, progress pictures or just already in great shape women I follow and think that I’m “letting myself go”. I begin to think that I’m not pretty enough, I’m not working out hard enough and I’m going to gain all this weight and not be happy.

Here’s where my history with an eating disorder does not work in my favor. When I’m stressed out (which I already am with working towards recovery) I originally found my eating disorder voice. When I felt like I wasn’t good enough I found myself masking my emotions and feelings aside and trading them in for workouts, food restriction and cutting myself off from others. I was scared just like I am now. I have to fight so hard to keep my mind away from those thoughts. Some days they get the best of me. Some days I have to coach myself and say, “It’s okay to eat. It’s not going to make you less of a person.” or “You don’t have to run more than 4 miles. Moving a little is better than not moving at all.” I’m so terrified by other’s success that I feel like my minor ones are insignificant or even worse, failures.

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The fact that I can run 4 miles now, is a success. However, when I see these Instagram posts, “super fit pregnancy” pictures or Pinterest things with photographs of way physically fit women, I suddenly feel like less of a person and my confidence is shaken. I just start to wonder what I’m doing wrong or what else I could do to achieve their success. I feel like I’ve fallen behind. When I see someone else finally get the job they have been looking for, I begin that exact same cycle of comparison and wonder what I could do differently…..to achieve their success.

The two key words here are their success. Wait, why do I have somebody else’s success?! I AM capable of my OWN success. I just have to be patient. I have to work on myself. I have to be content with where I am in my journey in life. I don’t want someone else’s used gum, so why would I want someone else’s success? It’s already being used there. I want my own! Just like I want my own York patties, pizza and peanut butter sandwich 🙂

We haven’t “fallen behind” as we so often feel. We aren’t less of a person because we don’t look like someone else or aren’t in the exact same place as some people in our journey in life! We don’t know how long the person we are comparing ourselves to has been stuck in their own peanut butter swamp or what it took to get them to their current success. We are just us. We are all just doing the best we can. The best thing we can remember is this:

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And to remember to be patient and content-even in hard times-in our own peanut butter swamp.

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Society Is A Real WhatChaMaCallIt!

Today I found myself at a job fair. I’m on a major hunt for a steady teaching job right now. At this job fair, I wandered around and spoke to some schools but that’s not the point I’m getting to. I visited this one particular table where they had a fun-size candy bucket. Once I left the building, I sort of aquatinted myself with being “that kid” at Halloween. We all know the “one” I mean; the “one” who takes one than one single piece of your fun-size candy in the bucket. That was mean today…I took like 3..maybe 4. That’s what they are for, right?

As I was leaving the building to go run some other errands, I got to thinking about something that I didn’t realized bugged me until today. You know all those articles that pop up around Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Easter about ‘how long you have to run to work off holiday treats’ or ‘what 100 calories really looks like in your candy’? I decided that they really infuriate me!!! It makes me mad in my deep, down core for multiple reasons. Here we go, deep breath.

Oh! Do you get the title now? A real WhatChaMaCallIt??? You just gotta Rolo with my Mounds of Gummie jokes here.

Article examples:

These Photos of 100 Calories of Valentine’s Day Candy Will Probably Break Your Heart– by Jenny Sugar via PopSugar

How Long It Takes to Burn Off Your Favorite Fun-Size Treat– by Leta Shy via PopSugar

How Much Exercise It Takes To Burn Off Your Favorite Valentine’s Sweets– by Kaylin Pound via Elite Daily

First of all: IT’S A DANG HOLIDAY!!!!!!!

Aren’t these the days that we aren’t supposed to be worrying about calories or what we are eating. Aren’t we supposed to be enjoying these holidays? Are we not allowed to divulge a little bit?! It’s Christmas/Halloween/insert your favorite holiday here for crying out loud! Heck, even if it’s not a holiday, maybe you just had a really crumby Thursday and wanted to eat your fun-size Snickers. I don’t think you should be judged.

Second of all: WHY are we so hyper-focused on ‘burning off’ our food?

Personally, because I’m still in the process of recovering from an eating disorder I do sometimes think about how I’m going to get rid of whatever I just ate later. However, I don’t think normal people are doing that. That’s not normal or intuitive eating. That’s disorder eating!!! These articles are having people think disordered thoughts! This is how eating disorders begin, y’all! When you begin to think ‘oh, how many miles am I going to have to run later?’ or ‘how many minutes of spin class/yoga do I need to do?’ if I eat *this specific piece of candy/chocolate* that’s when you are no longer enjoying what is supposed to be a treat. That’s when you begin to not want to eat anything be vegetables and water. We shouldn’t constantly have to feel like we need to have “food guilt” when we eat a fun-size snack! It’s highly dangerous in my opinion and these articles are just thrown around on just about every holiday I can think of.

Third of all: Why does society feel the need to constantly tell us to ‘be fit’ or workout?

I see it everywhere. Magazines, Facebook, random ads that pop up, news sites, radio, there are more places I know but those are all I can dish out right now. I see these headlines of ‘shrink 3 sizes in 2 weeks’, ‘look hot from behind’ and ‘look great naked’ among countless others. This one almost takes the cake for me: ‘how I got my body back’ wait, was it lost!? Good gosh, can’t we just be happy how we are?! These articles and magazines go around preaching ‘self-love’ but it really seems like are leaning towards promoting self-hate. Why do we need any articles about this at the grocery store? Where’s the article about how to like yourself more? I NEED that one!

I can’t really say it any better than how this Instagram user I follow said it. Her account is Nourish And Eat and her name is Gina and she promotes loving yourself and eating disorder recovery. She’s pretty inspirational.

Finally: If we analyze everything we put in our mouth…..are we really living and enjoying life?

That’s the whole point of eating disorder recovery. It’s about feeling all your emotions and enjoying life and everything in it. I don’t know about you, but this girl needs her chocolate and I’d like to be able to savor it and not worry about what I just consumed and how I’m going to rid myself of it later. Life is meant to be enjoyed not merely in fun-size, but all the time. I think we just need to focus less on the ‘what’s in my holiday candy’ and enjoy eating the holiday candy we love! Because let’s be honest, it’s so so so very good and one perk of being an adult is getting to take more than one piece out of the Halloween candy bucket that night 😉

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These Wildest Dreams

The world isn’t black and white. Recovery isn’t black and white either. Not too long ago, I thought it was only in my wildest dreams. It’s not though! Recovery is about forging a new path in the snow. It’s like the coach I met with me said, “Recovery is like taking a sled and going down a snowy hill. You’ve been going down the same path for SO long that the tracks from the sled are carved so deeply in the snow that making a new path seems absolutely terrifying. But that’s recovery. That’s what we have to do!! The first couple of times, it’s bumpy, you may fall off, there are unexpected twists and turns, but eventually you get to the bottom. Then, you climb back up and do it ALL over again. The more we create and form the new path, the easier it gets.”

That’s what I’ve been doing for the past 2 weeks, forming a new path in my head and creating new habits. I’ve been trying to let go of fear and learn more about me. Recovery is about a journey to your true self. The actual person you are, your authentic self. The self without the eating disorder. I have goals, wants and needs outside the eating disorder part of me. That part of me doesn’t call all the shots! The part of me that’s constantly scared, fearful of other’s opinions, anxiety ridden, and that walks around so bogged down from fear that I’m tired and can’t be happy sometimes is NOT my authentic self! I have to learn to listen to myself, to listen to my body and what it wants. Without constantly catering to what the eating disorder part of me wants, I can have more time to focus on other things….like finding an actual hobby. This week alone, I read books I wanted to, cleaned, changed our bed set up, and even baked something (that was a slight fiasco). Nevertheless, I did have some time to focus on other things. Don’t get me wrong, it was hard as hell some days. You know that saying, “fall down three times, stand back up four times”? Or whatever it is. Yeah, that’s what I’m living.

Not every day is easy. Not every day is even fun. Life isn’t happy-go-lucky as soon as you decide to just stop listening to the eating disorder part of you. It’s still there. It’s still real. It still hurts! But, that’s what recovery is about. It’s about saying “hey, eating disorder voice, I hear you, I hear what you’re saying, but I’m not going to deal with/listen to you right now. I’m going to go do….” Eating disorder recovery is about healing and part of that healing is learning about yourself. Which brings me to my next point…it’s about loving, accepting and being proud of yourself.

We live in a world where people preach confidence and then turn right around and criticize you for being confident and proud of yourself. I’m about to tell you that I’m learning to accept myself by saying “I am who I am. If you like me, great and if you don’t like me, that’s great too. But this is me, and I’m going to go on and be myself.’  I’m learning to try to be an actual friend to myself. I’m proud of myself for realizing that I need help. I’m proud of myself for meeting with someone. I’m proud of myself for being about to try and make a new path. I’m proud of myself for almost being through with student teaching (I finished my last evaluation this week.) I’m proud of myself for doing student teaching and somehow managing to get married in the middle! I’m proud of all of the things that my body can somehow manage to, and finally, I’m proud of myself for about to be a college graduate. I’m never actually thought it was okay to be proud of myself, but I had a short conversation with my coach today and she said to write down all of the things I was proud of myself for. She also said it’s great to be proud of yourself! That’s self-acceptance!!!! So, there is it. I’m proud of myself. You should be proud of yourself too.

In the spirit of the season of thankfulness (considering Thanksgiving is less than a week from today), on my way home I realized that I have so many things to be thankful for. I’m actually happy. I’m so incredibly blessed by everything that surrounds me and that has happened to me in the past couple of months. I’m thankful for my family (the new and old), my friends (especially the ones who have been with me through thick and thin…nudge, nudge), KIDS to teach, music, writing, books, GOD and the opportunities that I have been given in this life BY HIM. I find myself full of gratitude and looking at the world in a positive light rather than negative. Life is beautiful.  Stay Fearless, y’all ❤