Finding Pleasure In Life Again!

Today I went to the theatre on a wild, spontaneous, spur of the moment decision!

I’ve always loved live theatre and can still remember the magic of seeing Cats on stage when I was a little girl.  Since then the magic of the live stage has always captivated me.

Sadly, for many reasons, my enjoyment of the theatre is just another thing that being ill with the eating disorder stole from me.

And that is also something that people just don’t understand about this illness.  That is, just how much living it takes from us.

Because when I was really sick, I couldn’t go to the theatre and so today was the first time in some years.

But why couldn’t I go before, when I was more deeply ill with the eating disorder?

There are several reasons for this:

• There is the big issue of being sedentary for a few hours, and not just sedentary during the show but also in the traveling to and from which when you have massive movement compulsions is impossible.
• Going somewhere like the theatre also means complete change to daily routines, rituals and compulsions.  This is in terms of eating, movement, other weird behaviours and rituals.  These changes would cause too much anxiety and it made the whole notion an ordeal that was far from pleasurable.
• There’s also the money spending that the illness hates.  Unnecessary spending when you have a scarcity mindset is just one more thing that creates discomfort, guilt and feelings of strong anxiety.  Definitely not ok!
• And when at my sickest there was just no space in my brain to find pleasure in anything.  I had zero interest in life’s pleasures or anything beyond my routine and rigid existence.  Enjoying the theatre became something that lay far beyond my blinkered existence in this world.

Therefore, now, when I can get up in the morning on a day’s holiday and completely spontaneously decide to go to a London show with excitement and pleasure and really engage in it, I realise how much life can return to us, if we let it, in recovery.

Yes, all of the issues above are still there to a degree but I can sit with the discomfort that arises from them now and hopefully keep pushing them out completely with practice and repeated recovery actions.

The gift of life in recovery is worth the pain so if you haven’t rediscovered some of life’s pleasures yet, keep pushing through as those old passions will return when you allow them in….

And after the show, the Christmas lights in London were pretty amazing too!

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I now work as a coach and mentor, working with people who are overcoming eating disorders, disordered eating or low body confidence. If you are interested in knowing more about my coaching work, then please take a look at my coaching website: www.hellybarnes.com