Watching Good Films!

Last night I watched The King’s Speech.

It’s a film I have wanted to see since it came out 9 years ago!

Films are one thing I have missed out a lot on during the years of having an Eating Disorder & I know that I am far from alone in that.

The primary reason I found it hard to watch films in the years of illness was due to the inability to sit still enough for that length of time & if I did try, the discomfort & anxiety at doing so would be so intense that concentrating on the film was impossible.

At various points both during the illness & more recently in this recovery though, I have ‘allowed’ myself to put a film on but when selecting it I always choose a film that I least want to see.

I often do the same with TV shows & books I want to read.

It is as if my brain wants to save anything that might be good for an unspecified time in the future when I will urgently need only fantastic films or TV shows to watch or incredible books to read & to do so now would be to deny my future self.

Seriously??

As if there are not hundreds of films & TV shows being made & books written every day & already thousands of excellent ones out there that I haven’t seen!!

Why do I keep choosing the least entertaining of options?

I’m sure this is largely also down to the scarcity mindset that a restrictive ED brings.

Not only is the brain terrified of food scarcity (understandable when we don’t feed it enough) but it then extends that scarcity to everything else…
Hence the difficulty spending money most of us experience & it would seem the brain believes that there is also a huge scarcity of good films, TV shows & books so they too must be used sparingly -Saved for a ‘rainy day’!

Well, last night, I started to change that & allowed myself to watch a good film!! And I loved it…

Now, as I have so many highly acclaimed films, books & TV shows that I have not yet entertained myself with, I choose to do so in recovery.
I will watch & read things that I really want to -not save them for a future that never comes.

I will teach my brain that not only is food no longer scarce – neither are sources of entertainment!
Life’s too short for crappy movies!!