Bulimia Tips No 6 - Acknowledge and Be Grateful for What Is Working

This is just one of my bulimia tips in a series especially focused on women looking to overcome bulimia. As the title of this article suggests, gratitude is the central. If you've read the book or watched the movie The Secret, you may recall the line "what we focus on expands". After living with bulimia for 20 years, when I started to recover I learned the more I focused on the good I already had in my life, the more good came into my life.

There's an old adage that goes something like this:

Look at your problems through a telescope and your happiness through a microscope.

The point here is that you need to focus on what's going right (or positive) in your life. We are all made up of energy, tiny atoms and subatomic particles in vibration. We're literally magnets and attract to us anything that's a vibrational match to us. When we're focusing on the positive in our life, we're attracting (or magnetizing) more positive to us.

When we begin to realize and focus upon the good, the positive in our life, we see more positive and more positive comes to us.

Bulimia Tips - Be Aware

Women with bulimia are likely to be type A personalities - perfectionists who set exacting standards for themselves. There is the tendency to have very little tolerance for failure or inadequacy. Because of Western society's unattainable standards of beauty, many women fall short of the media's ideals of perfect.

The first part of enhancing your power to attract good things into your life is to become aware of your attention, what's influencing your thoughts and attitude. If you're working on overcoming bulimia I strongly encourage you to tune out today's media channels. Turn off your television (or at least the commercials), stop buying magazines in line at the grocery check out, and learn to tune out the messages from advertisements all around you that suggest unhealthy body images.

I found during the first 90 days of my bulimia recovery process that the more I turned off the mass media, the easier it was for me to feel good about myself. My outlook became brighter and I wasn't constantly comparing myself to the uber-thin models that graced the screen or pages. Learn to recognize how the world around you influences your feelings about yourself. Check in with yourself the next time you see a thin model on TV or in a magazine and if it triggers negative self-talk.

Bulimia Tips - See the Positive

Life is made up of opposites. Up and down. Black and white. Good and bad. Just as you may be seeing all of the bad things in your life right now, I guarantee there are good things, too. Ask yourself:

What is good in your life today?

Becoming aware of what is positive in your life is a healthy way to start retraining your brain to become more aware of the positive. Like attracts like. The more you become aware of the positive, the more there will be to see. It's up to you to start the process by looking for the good in each day.

Bulimia Tips - Focus on Gratitude

First you become aware of the positive in your life and then it's up to you to continue to direct your attention on the positive. You may have a loving and supportive family. You may enjoy good health. You may have a nice house and no real financial worries in your life.

What do you have to be grateful for today?

When you can start to become grateful for the positive things in your life, your inner energy and vibration will begin to shift. The negative energy and vibration you maintained because of your eating disorder cause you to attract and see more negative. By being grateful for the positive you start to send a signal to the universe to send you more positive.

A gratitude journal is an excellent way to help you learn to focus your energy. Each night before bed write down in your journal 5 things you have to be grateful for today. They can be small or big things - you get to choose. Feel the feeling of gratitude when you reflect upon them each night and write them in your journal.

Bulimia Tips - Energy Expands

There's another line from the movie The Secret that I really enjoyed, "That which you think about and thank about you bring about". So, in order to focus on the positive it's important you become aware of what is going on in your life that is good.

Let all that is good in your life motivate and strengthen you. Capitalize on your strengths and see how well these bulimia tips can work to help your recovery. Change your perspective to see more of the positivity and less of the negativity and see how empowered this makes you feel. Once you focus on the positivity you will see all that you have to be grateful for, and this will further strengthen your resolve to recover.