Resistance in Eating Disorder Recovery
Where are you noticing resistance on your eating disorder recovery path? And importantly, how does it show up in your body? What does resistance feel like?
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it is very common to come up against resistance as you walk the eating disorder recovery path. In fact, feeling resistant indicates that you are at meeting an important growth edge.
Maybe you experience resistance to rest, or to include a different ingredient to your cooking, or to try a new restaurant.
Maybe you experience resistance to eat when you’re hungry rather than at a predetermined time, or to allow someone else cook a meal for you.
Maybe you feel resistance to communicate more openly, or to share when you feel nervous, anxious, sad, happy, or excited.
Maybe you notice resistance when going clothes shopping, or when confronted with a mirror.
Maybe you feel resistant in allowing in more connection, play, or pleasure.
Resistance is a beautifully revealing sensation to work with in your eating disorder recovery. When you meet it (which can happen at any moment), stay at the boundary of the resistance. Stay with it. Feel it. Notice where it is in your body.
When we can stay with the resistance for a few moments, rather than pushing it away through food and body strategies and coping patterns, we may notice that the resistance has something to share, that it has wisdom to impart, and that it has clues to give you about what your next step may be in your recovery.
So, take a note for yourself when you come up against resistance:
How is your body telling you there is resistance? How do you know it’s there?
What does resistance feel like?
Where does the resistance live in your body?
How much space does the resistance take up in your body?
Does it have a texture or colour?
Does it have a sound or some movements that want to be expressed?
What is the resistance trying to protect?
What is the resistance afraid of?
In this way, we move from the mind and into the body, and we start to befriend the resistance.
The moment the resistance spins stories of “I can't do this” or “I'm not good enough”, we actually want to pause, notice, and get into the body.
Feel the inner resistance and sense what it actually is. Observe what is lying underneath the body sensations. Is there an emotion? Is there movement that it wants to express? Are there sounds it wants to make? Are there words that are waiting to be shouted? How does it want to breathe? When you can give the resistance form and “three-dimensionality”, it has the opportunity to express itself and to ultimately move through and out.
Remember, resistance is normal and is part of recovery, change and growth. Often when there is big resistance, the growth potential and life force that we can access is huge!
When we pause with the resistance, we are bowing to the parts within us that have worked very hard at protecting us over the many years - and so they require gentleness, respect and kindness.
Rather than pushing past the resistance or collapsing in defeat upon meeting it, we take a breath, and give it space to express its needs. Embody your resistance, give it space to be heard, seen, and recognized.
Bring it to life and see what is has to share about your recovery, your history, your patterns, and what it is needs.
Don’t push past the resistance, force it out the way, or pretend it’s not there (as this is thesame energy that the eating disorder operates in).
Rather, when we can meet it, stay with its shape, and hold it with compassion, we go at a pace that can maintain equanimity, acceptance, and capacity.
This ultimately, eventually, softens the resistance and we unlock a new layer within our recovery.
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash