Your Circle of Influence

Something I have been pondering lately is the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people when in recovery. Our culture today is so saturated with weight loss/exercise obsessed individuals that encountering one of them on a daily basis is almost unavoidable. The main issue to deal with is what you do with the words they say to you and the influence they have on your life. I know for me, I have many friends around me that are obsessed with weight loss and working out. It makes things difficult for me when I am with them and they carry on about such subjects. This is where being assertive comes into play. Assertiveness is a valuable lesson that I learned in rehab, it's something I will never forget and that I carry out each day in my conversations. I have learned to stand up for myself and my battle against my eating disorder, I reply to their comments with a kind and loving request for them to not talk about those things around me. I explain to them my feelings and how it affects me. If I were to let them keep talking about it and just try to brush it off, the conversation would only replay in my head later and my eating disorder would use it to its full advantage to plant even more lies in my brain. One of the most important things while in recovery is nipping any negative thoughts in the bud before they even have a chance to blossom into something further that could potentially hurt you. Another thing I have learned recently is being careful to surround myself with others in recovery that are struggling with their eating disorder and having regular symptoms. I have about a year of recovery under my belt but still don't feel mentally ready to be a a strong enough leader in a group of individuals with eating disorders. I am very vulnerable and the place that certain people are at is going to be different than mine and it's necessary for me to recognize that and while loving them and caring also being mindful of myself and my own struggles. Ideally, a person in recovery from an eating disorder should be surrounded by encouraging individuals that know exactly what to say and when as to not trigger the eating disorder, however, this is not reality and so it's important to prepare for all of the outside influences and learn how to tackle the hurdles. I find it helpful to have a select few people in my life who fully understand the eating disorder and who can be there for me to go to and talk about struggles I may be having with those around me that are influencing my eating disorder in a negative way. Communication is one of the keys to freedom, the eating disorder will of course tell you differently and to isolate but that's the worst thing to do. Stand strong for yourself and your new thought process, don't let the opinions and obsessions of others take over your life <3