Bulimia Tips No 5 - Work on Loving Yourself

It's a vicious circle really. You're not happy with yourself and your life so you try to lose yourself in your eating disorder. When you're binging and purging up to 10 times a day you avoid people, feel awful about yourself and just want to curl up and die. It's the self loathing that perpetuates this destructive behavior. The 5th of my bulimia tips series has to do with restoring self love and learning to love YOU again.

Lack of self esteem is frequently associated with eating disorders in women. As a recovered bulimic, I can tell you the need to please others, especially parents, is very high. A significant number of women with bulimia also are perfectionists, lack self-worth and are constantly striving to live up to ideals they set for themselves or perceive in society.

Self love is not about conceit or vanity; nor is it something that diminishes your ability to love others. Self love is simply about valuing yourself for who you are and recognizing you are whole and perfect just as you are. Feelings of inadequacy keep bulimics from realizing their value and locked in their destructive patterns. When you can learn to love yourself just as you are, then you are free.

Here are 10 bulimia tips to learn to love yourself again:

Don't compare yourself with others. There is only one YOU in the world. Stop looking at other people's lives and beating yourself up because you don't have what others have.

Surround yourself with positive people. Don't be around people who drain your light, love and energy. Be with people who bolster your sense of self and who know how wonderful you are.

Speak kindly to yourself. We all engage in self-talk. Negative self talk will pop up, but do your best to cancel it and ignore negative thoughts, too. Speak to yourself in a gentle and caring manner and forgive yourself when you make a mistake.

Learn to trust your judgment. This is an important one of my bulimia tips that you learn to trust your instincts. If you have a gut feeling about what is good for you and your bulimia recovery then your feeling is probably right.

It's OK to say you're OK. Thinking of yourself as being a good, kind, competent, intelligent person is a good thing! Don't feel guilty about feeling good about yourself. Self love is about valuing yourself without guilt and about seeing all that the good there is inside of you.

Learn to accept and enjoy compliments. When someone says something nice about you acknowledge and accept it. Try not to be suspicious of people who compliment you and instead let their words soak in and feed your inner being.

Don't bend over backward to please others. To incorporate these bulimia tips into your recovery you need to prioritize yourself. If this means not striving to please others or doing what others want you to do, so much the better!

Accept that you are lovable. When you begin to love yourself you will let others love you and be able to love others, as well. You are probably pushing away intimacy (or are at least uncomfortable with it). Come to a new awareness that you're deserving of love from others and there are others who want to love you - and many who already do.

Be OK with not being perfect. The drive to be perfect gets in the way of being the real YOU. Your job in this life is to be you... not perfect. Love and accept yourself as perfect just for being you.

Have fun without feeling guilty. This is so huge I can't scream it loud enough. If you feel that you somehow don't deserve to be happy or if you feel guilty each time you're happy, LET IT GO. Feeling good and enjoying yourself is what life is all about. It is our divine nature to be happy.

You deserve to be happy, you deserve to be loved and equally you deserve to love yourself. You are wonderful and unique. You are the most perfect expression of you that you can be and that's all you're supposed to be. Cherish yourself. Love yourself. This is one of the most important bulimia tips I wish for you to really take to heart.