{on bloglovin, via pinterest}

I’m beyond honored to get to share this guest post by Mara Glatzel, as she is the queen of self-love in my eyes. Without further ado…

–

We’ve all seen the movies or TV shows – there she sits, all alone, without a date for Valentine’s Day, wallowing in a nest of chocolates and chick flicks, while her mascara runs all over her face as she cries.

Because she’s sad, right? Of course.

Because it’s Valentine’s Day and it is crucial to have a super romantic lovefest on Valentine’s Day.

Now, I love Valentine’s Day. I love an opportunity to skip around and hand out love letters. I love the permission to wear both pink and red, at the same time. However, the dark underbelly of such a holiday is the correlation between romantic love and happiness, as if you are only whole if you’ve got someone to love you. This is not going to be that kind of Valentine’s Day post.

This is the kind of post where we talk about you crazy awesome you are and all of the wonderful things that you can do today to celebrate your awesomeness. This is a call to action kind of blog post, designed to make you feel like jumping up out of your chair and running to do something that makes YOU feel loved and cared for.

Activities to Improve Feelings of Self-Love

1. Random act of kindness: Make a valentine, cover it in glitter, and magazine clippings. Collage to your hearts content. Make ten valentines if you are so inclined, and spend the rest of the day handing them out to strangers, putting them under windshields, and giving them them to the person bagging your groceries.

2. Treat yourself to a deluxe spa day, or whip up a DIY face mask out of stuff in your cabinets. Take a bath, luxuriate in the shower for an extra ten minutes, give yourself a mani/pedi, or buy yourself the brand new moisturizer that you’ve been pining after that smells like roses. The crucial aspect of this activity is carving out time in your day to treat yourself to something special, and to focus on not feeling remotely guilty about putting your phone on silent and spending time on YOU.

3. Move your body. I know that it’s February, and that for many of us that means it’s too cold to run around outside all afternoon. However, making an effort to get your blood pumping and endorphins circulating can make you feel all sparkly and new, despite the cold weather. Take it as an opportunity to go to that new yoga class, or try out something new, like Nia, which can be a great way to sweat a little and get comfortable in your skin.

4. Tell someone that you love them, without expecting anything in return. Give a present, without wanting to get one back. Do something kind for someone else, just for the sake of how it feels in YOUR heart to do it. Pay the toll for the car behind you. Call up your best friend and leave them a this is why you’re amazing and thank you so much for everything voicemail.  Write your favorite blogger/writer/artist a fan email. Thank your teacher profusely for how much they’ve taught you. Do it because of how it makes you feel.

The important element in all of these activities is the the emphasis on self-care and putting yourself first. Now, you might say, it makes me feel awesome to sit on my couch and eat chocolate while watching Bridget Jones Diary, which, well, is hard to argue with. However, I challenge you to think about how you feel during the activities that you do today – do you feel energized? excited? enthusiastic? Do you feel like you can accomplish anything that you put your mind to? Does it make you feel like you are worth loving? Does it make you feel happy to be in the skin that you’re in?

Because that’s the feeling that we’re shooting for today, and you are oh so worth it.

–

Mara Glatzel is the highly caffeinated maven behind the body image + authentic living blog, Medicinal Marzipan. If you enjoyed this post, catch up with her (almost) daily body-loving antics and general rabble-rousing on facebook, twitter, or shoot her an email at medicinalmarzipan {at} gmail {dot} com.

Dear NTS:

I was very overweight as a child, and in high school I developed an eating disorder. I also used to self-injure.  Fortunately I’m healthy now.

I’m about three months into a relationship, or the start of a relationship with a very nice guy, and I’d like some insight into how my issues and past issues may come up in the relationship, and how I might best address things to avoid problems. I think, for instance, that although I do not engage in disordered eating or self-injury now, a) some of the causes of these separate issues are similar or overlap and b) some of those causes might still come up in my life and possibly affect my relationship (all relationships, potentially) in a negative way.  An example: I have more anxiety than the average person, I often take responsibility or blame for situations that aren’t in fact my fault, and I like what is probably a higher level of order/control over things than most people. All of these characteristics can potentially affect a relationship very negatively, and they do not seem on the surface to be related to eating issues (but I believe they are).

I realize issues very specifically related to eating and body image issues may come up – weird eating habits, concern about how I look – which I’m a little more comfortable dealing with than the others.

Any insight?

Curious Reader

[Please Note: This post is not meant as a direct communication with any single person.]

Your experience and intuition has informed you well, and you’ve recognized something that it often takes individuals a very a long time to unravel – eating issues and relationship issues are intricately interconnected.

It’s important to note addressing the serious (and often life-threatening) symptoms of an eating disorder is vital. You mentioned that you are healthy now, and I hope that you feel truly proud of having recovered from the abuse of food and from self-injury. That is no small feat. Getting those behaviors under control is necessary to have the emotional and mental wherewithal to take on other issues in one’s life as well. That said, I believe that the insight that you are looking for is important in remaining well and involved in healthy, connected relationships.

In her truly transformative work, Gaining, Aimee Liu talks about how life after eating disorders can be fraught with remnants of the disordered past, especially if these issues aren’t addressed as part of the recovery process. She talks specifically about how some individuals who have recovered from eating disorders at times continue to struggle with issues that previously took the shape and color of food, but now show up in other forms. One of these can be relationship difficulties.

This is not to say that all people with eating disorders have tenuous relationships. Far from it, in fact. But as you astutely acknowledge, issues like perfectionism, control, and self-blame, when standing in the center of an interaction between human beings, can create struggle.

One of the major issues that I observe in individuals with a history of these struggles is having a weakened and fragile sense of self. Perhaps it has broken down through years – or a single instance – of trauma. Perhaps the eating disorder itself ravaged it. Perhaps – for whatever reason – it was not fully developed to start. Regardless, entering into a relationship with another human being without a sense of one’s self that is secure and grounded can lead to a great amount of strife. For some, this shows up as giving everything to the person, and ignoring their own needs and desires. For others, it’s creating and keeping secrets to prevent intimacy. For others, it’s reacting to demonstrations of affection with anger.  For others, it’s feeling terrified of becoming vulnerable enough to develop a real connection.

Recovering from an eating disorder means creating a sense of self – one that is deep and rich and complex. Eating disorders – and self-injury and substance abuse and long periods of isolation – cover over this self and dull its color. It becomes flat and sterile. Love and relationships can breathe life into the self, but they cannot sustain it alone. That’s why it’s so important to do ongoing work to build this self in the context of relationships and outside of them as well.

One of the most important keys to a healthy relationship is being able to identify and express emotions, and feeling secure in sharing these with another person. For individuals who have a history of using destructive behaviors to express what they could not, it’s important to develop the tools to do this in a healthy and productive way. This often takes hard work, therapy, and lots of practice!

The bottom line is that body image issues, disordered thoughts about food, feelings of depression and anxiety – they are all going to come up in relationships. [If your partner is struggling - or you are and you want your partner to know how to help, check out this post.] They do for all of no matter our past! What signals a healthy relationship is one in which those feelings can be explored and validated in way that feels safe. If that’s not the case, it might be worth talking to a professional.

Have a question that you think others might be wondering about as well? Email it to nourishingthesoulblog [at] gmail [dot] com. Please remember that this site is no way a replacement for consultation with a mental health professional. Assessing your individual situation and needs should be done by someone who knows your situation and is specially trained to work with you.

photo © 2009 Sasha Wolff | more info (via: Wylio)

I wonder if you’ve ever felt the release that comes from letting go of the shame that surrounds something you’ve kept from the rest of the world. If you have, you may have felt that unmistakable sensation of free-falling that comes with it – that stomach-your-chest, uncontrolled, scary-as-hell tumble into the unknown.

There is a phrase that is often thrown around in recovery circles that says we are only as sick as our secrets. It’s catchy, right? Pithy, even. And utterly true.

Within our secrets lies our shame. What we withhold from others becomes a hidden truth, when in fact its reality might be questioned were it allowed to reach the light of day.

A friend spent years hiding the fact that she had been adopted at age two from those who knew her. She worried that if others knew that she had no genetic ties to her Princeton-educated parents, but rather spawned from a lost girl addicted to cocaine, they would question her intelligence, her judgment, even her potential for addiction and mental illness. Karen was terrified that all that she had created for herself would be questioned, that even her relationship with her parents would be called into cynical question. She found herself getting anxious when the subject of adoption would arise in conversation, her stomach clenching into rigid knots.

You might guess how the story ends. When Karen was finally able to share a piece of her history, she realized that the feared reality she had created in her mind was just that – in her own mind. Her storied outcomes were never realized, and in fact those to whom she opened herself felt a closer and deeper connection with her. They – I – grew to respect Karen and her journey with a new understanding for the complexity of her experience.

This isn’t to say that Karen shared her secret with wild abandon. And this doesn’t mean that freedom comes from shouting about your parents’ divorce or your affinity for South Park on the rooftops. It means, rather, that allowing yourself to be known – truly known – can be a liberating experience.

When we lay bare our truest selves to select others, we make space for a new kind of connection in our lives. Just as Shannon Cutts so eloquently says that relationships replace eating disorders, I would suggest that honesty replaces brokenness. If we can withstand that fear that grips us and can share with even one other human being our deepest shames, we can begin the process of healing.

This is why I think therapy is so powerful. It is an opportunity to have another person bear witness to things that may have felt too painful or too embarrassing to reveal to others. Through the development of a relationship built upon a deep trust, a person can use the experience of making themselves known in a safe place to develop comfort in making themselves known in other areas of his or her life.

Creating a space for honesty doesn’t have to be done in the context of therapy, of course. It can be done among friends or family, so long as those to whom our secrets are revealed can protect our sense of safety. Releasing shame doesn’t mean telling strangers on the train about our darkest deeds; it means cultivating a few key relationships in which we can be our most vulnerable selves.

So today I encourage you to share a secret with someone you trust – a friend, colleague, relative, therapist, your pet. Someone you respect and can hold your confidence.  If you’re not ready for that, I encourage you to write about it, sing about it, or even dance or move about it. Whatever you do, don’t allow it to intoxicate your being. We’re only as sick as our secrets, and as well as our honesty.

How honest do you feel like you can be with others? How honest are you with yourself?

p.s. Don’t forget the #endED twitter chat TONIGHT at 8:30 EST! I’ll be the guest expert discussing all kinds of fun topics related to body image. I hope you’ll join us! For more information, click here.

Have you ever been totally stumped about how to help a friend who is struggling with something major? Or even just how to respond when he or she wants to vent about the ridiculous thing S.O. did yesterday? I certainly have. Fortunately, I’ve learned a thing or two as a therapist about what people really need when they are in crisis, and I’m sharing my thoughts on this over on the absolutely incredible Carolyn Rubenstein’s site, A Beautiful Ripple Effect. After you hop over, please check out all the wise and wonderful things she has to say as well.

Here’s a short excerpt:

There’s no place where the urge to offer unsolicited advice pulls at you more than in group therapy. Laura is sitting there with tears welling up in her deep brown eyes, telling the group about how her beloved home is days away from going into foreclosure while her wealthy brother just bought his daughter another BMW (she wrecked the first one). The group starts shooting words of wisdom at Laura before she’s taken a much-needed breath…

Go read more…