How to avoid eating disorders

How to avoid eating disorders:

I am one who has suffered from a very severe eating disorder. I'm 52, and my battle has been life long. I spent time in a multitude of programs like twelve step, therapy, humanistic development seminars. There was some progress but after 20 years it still was not enough to write home about.

There are some things that are known to have a tendency to cause eating disorders.. Yes, it can be develop out of sexual abuse and last I read there are some real numbers regarding this and this was part of my experience. Even so after all the self discovery about my alcoholic parents, husband, and dysfunctional family that I had so diligently work through I just had this gnawing feeling something else was still driving the punishment machine in me. I was getting no where. I mean there are plenty of women who endure rapes and abuse and don't form severe eating disorders. Somewhere along the way they were able to just let go much of of their negative experience than I had. What was my problem? Why wasn't I breaking the back on this "addiction to perfection" or just the "addiction to self punishment" because that is surely what it is about.

I did go to an eating disorder clinic at one point. I had been diagnose a classic anorectic. That means: youngest child of not one but a two parent alcoholic family and raised Catholic.

I didn't heal until I became a born again Christian.

It wasn't until I became a born again Christian that I found something that could really make a difference and start to really heal my body and all the emotional baggage the was penetrating in my soul.. I was blessed in the holy ghost spirit, bathed in His the blood of Jesus and redeemed. It takes the holy spirit time to undue the twisted esophagus and all the other body problems. Then I really started to study the bible and experience Christ in a very personal transformational way and I finally started to heal. I have the spirit of His blood inside me and every day there is more and more profound healing then I ever experience in all other attempts. My esophagus is nearly healed after 20 years of being harden, frozen and twisted off the esophageal flap to allow food to come up. It allowed me to remain numb and this was a self protection process so NOBODY was to hurt me like that again. Hey, nice try.

In this process of feeling the Love of Christ in my heart and feel it start to open up as it was when I was a child that I realized that the driving force that was keeping my self-punishment in place was the Catholic upbringing that I experienced growing up. It's called in the bible "living by the letter of the law" and God never meant for you to get perfectionist about his Laws, commandment, statues and precepts.He didn't want so to so absorb the judgmental places that wrong interpretation and legalistic approaches to the bible have inflicted on us. He knew we would fail and this is why he allowed His only son to be crucified for this purpose.

Here is the straight scoop for lots of women

So, how do you avoid an eating disorder? It's a tricky question. Make sure you are prepared and knowledgeable about your relationship with men and how they interact with their daughters. Sorry guys, I know you are not all bad but there really are numbers about this. It's the most difficult reality to address as an eating disorder person. Much of the time these are represssed memories because we are being such good little girls and never making a real fuss or problem or cause undo amounts of crisis. So we are acting out this rage from the past in a very dramic way through food. As I said it's not true for all but the numbers are truely overwhelming.

What is your church like?

Is your family full of strict rules, no measure of tolerance for mistakes, miscommunications or misintrepretations that nobody cares to clear up. You don't strive with each other for understanding and there is basically there is not alot of relationship that is positive but quite the opposite. Is there back biting, belittling, judgements, condemnation? Are their high achievement standards? You are expected to do things like get "A's " for verything and do it on little empowerment, love or encouragment.

Are your religious beliefs traditional orthodox religion such as Catholics and Jewish faith. Sorry, I'm not picking on any ones faith either. These are just the facts. Jewish women out rank Catholic women supposedly because of a higher degree of guilt or no true forgiveness and subtle or not so subtle religious abuse with that " living under the letter of the Law" approach to the bible and punishing with threats that a Go to Hell God is going to get you go a long way to create impossible perfectionistis thinking that can't be resolved finally in a sane way..

I twisted myself in knots, quite literally, trying to find a way to please my saintly Catholic mother and found myself to be such a spiritual failure. She has managed six kids with an alcoholic husband- she had endured. I could not endure the infidelities, alcoholism of my first husband the way she had endured these things with my father. She had stuck to her belief of no abortion and I had had an abortion in my first marriage. A selfish act? You bet it was of two young people not wanting the responsibility of a child just yet. But there was no tolerance for myself to forgive, think of things like my mothers generation had not been so forcefully dedicated to regarding terminating inconvient life. The life style that began in the 80's for a women to be of the world and have a career and a future. She had never had to move in with a man she didn't love because of being so ill and there was just no helping each other in my family or no help in rural Minnesota at the time. In fact back then no one really even knew about eating disorders, extreme PMS that women suffer from abortions and you weren't allowed to acknowledge you needed a to grieve a child that supposedly was never alive. I mean-it didn't die of a disease. It never lived so- you have no right to an emotional problem from something that caused as a fallopian tube infection and left you infertile. No way out. No way to release or forgive yourself. I had failed, failed and failed my mothers saintly Catholic ideals from birth and her pursue of perfections from her daughter to mend and ad meaning to her difficult life.

You want to avoid and eating disorder? Or Alcoholism or Cancer or, or, or. There is really only one way that I know of. Make yourself extremely available to the Lord Jesus Christ. Get on your knees and surrender and ask for forgiveness. You will receive the holy ghost and start to experience the blessing and the amazing power of God as you learn to walk in His path. It's like an energy exchange. The more you forgive and let go- cast your cares on Him and stop trying to handle everything yourself or with large amounts of control and perfection; the more your body heals because the holy ghost can do its work with- in you. You are freed up to heal, grow, love. Christ can now move into your life with blessings, love and the one- on- one relationship that He has so desired for you.

Ready to grow

I do believe our society is ready for more understanding and a broader scope view of our Lord. They see that leaning on technology and our own understanding was not what God had in mind for us. He never meant for us to be so alone in this life. i.e., "Man can not live by bread alone". You weren't meant to be the the only one nourishing your spirit with worldly band-aids- that do work to some degree unfortunately. But my Lord and Master came into my life and has done and is doing a complete healing of my body with- in a two year time span since becoming a Christian. What I tried to do on my own for 22 year with not much success is nearly complete in this short time span.

So if you are a mother be aware that the devil can strike the most loving of husbands and they can abuse your children sexually. Make sure the church you belong to is bible driven and is aware of more than just the law. You can't get around that any church is full of human being and even the best pastors fall short. Look to support them, encourage them, coach, teach, and most of all forgive them. All knees shall bow one day. We were not meant to elevate clergy, pastor, priest to an idolatrous, all knowing and all judgmental position. We were not meant to be on our knees to kiss the ring of a holy bishop as he walks by. I would suggest a very careful review of your churches approach.. Do your clergy, pastors, priest have a demeanor of empowerment, support, encouragement and know that they are simply a senior servant from God. Question if their demeanor is authoritative, controling, manipulative or they play favorites with the parish or congregation.

Paradigm Shift

Children pick up on role models and they see even more than we do many times because they have no filter or are not blinded from life experience which can blind us. Am I running down and condemning the body of Christ? People who are trying to make a very high level commitment to God? Not really but I also happen to know there are many churches aware of this problem and have set out to change the leadership model for their pastors. The top four evangelistic churches in the country are conducting a quite revolution to shift this old paradigm. Biblical Coaching is now being made available through upper church leaders to address the problem. We are I think in the best light- growing. Growing in compassion and understanding, revealing our sins to know we can be forgiven and are not perfect. We are reaching more for the truth of what it means to stand in the fruit of the spirit( love, kindess, patience, joy, long suffering [means tolerance] and are expanding our definition of Christ who was the original coach and the creator of the paradigm shift. He coached the Samaritan women at the well. He didn't get involved in her history he went deep fast and sharpened the iron of her life with His truth- in a loving way. He confronted her problem of many husbands and shifted her thinking about her life and the limiting beliefs she had about her self as a person and a Samaritan. He let her know that there is a water that if you drink it- it will never leave you thirsty.

Feel free to add comments or questions:

Blessing

Paula Mary- The Garden Coach

Paula Mary was a coach in the secular world 20 years. She is now a certified Biblical Coach. She has coached teams, small businesses, start- ups, and one fortune 500 company. She was a CEO of an Internet company in the midst of the dot. bomb when Christ found her. She has doubled results many times and in many environments but now she lets the Master Gardner do the increase.

Available for speaking engagements.