I know we talked about stepping in faith despite fear earlier this week, but it is an emotion that exists in abundance during eating disorder recovery [and sometimes life in general], and I felt it deserved its own post.
Fear is a powerful human emotion. It is a prompting/feeling embedded into our being by God, to indicate the presence of danger or the threat of harm, allowing us to escape before that harm is done either physically or psychologically. This emotion can be incredibly strong, even causing physically experienced, distressing symptoms as a result.
Fear itself is not BAD,
but….
like everything else, its goodness can be distorted in a world overrun with sin.
This distortion I am referring to is ANXIETY, which is an excessive and unfocused fear of either a real or imagined scenario, and can be rooted in both the present or past. Often, rather than provoking someone to escape a situation, it causes them to freeze and panic, as they get stuck in a spiral of anxious thinking and feeling.
So, how can we work through this fear in recovery?
One of the first steps is identifying our fears. What about the process has caused us to be anxious about progressing in our recovery, thus holding us back.
Is it the fear of change in weight or body image?
Is it the fear of losing control?
Is it a fear of what life is like outside of ED?
Is it a fear of what comes next?
Identifying the cause of the anxious thinking and racing thoughts helps us put a name to the faceless thing that disrupts our inner peace. Once identified, we are also able to dig deeper and uncover the root of these thoughts/emotions, finding the “WHY.” We can do this by asking ourselves what about __________ gives me a reason to be afraid? Why do I think ___________ might be dangerous or bring harm to my person?
Then, with the roots in site, we can begin to pull and tug, removing the weed of anxiety from our beautiful garden. This is accomplished when we move from simply acknowledging our anxiety, to taking those thoughts captive and restructuring them according to the truth and reality of the situation. By making this process habitual, we learn to work through our fear rather than letting it rule over us.
Take a fear of change in weight or body image for example. This is a common concern in recovery, as it is a major unknown. What will our new body look like? Will we like it or find comfort in it? Will it be too much? And soon the “what ifs” thoughts regarding body image take over. If we let them continue their endless string of panic in our minds, we will soon be overcome and give in to our fear. However, if we stop and determine what is driving the fear, we can start moving in a positive direction, replacing fear with faith. Perhaps, this fear is rooted in a misplaced identity in our appearance, or a desperate need for control in which we are not trusting God with our future. These realizations are something we can work with and through. If the root is misplaced identity, we can remind ourselves that, as believers, our identity is not truly found in our appearance but in Christ. In turning to the Bible, we can then remind ourselves of what GOD says is the truth regarding our identity, being His children, created fearfully and wonderfully for a beautiful purpose. If we are concerned with releasing control to God, we can find in the Bible stories of faith filled people who put the control into the hands of God and their lives were better for it.
Knowing this truth will not instantaneously remove the anxiety and bring freedom, but by working through fear in this way, in time we will hide these truths in our hearts, learning to live by faith, thus fearing LESS.
On earth, our lives will likely never be free from fear, as it is a natural human response, a primary emotion built into our human nature. However, we can learn to become obedient to our faith rather than our anxiousness, bringing more peace into our lives. Rather than letting anxiety keep us from recovery, we can decide to step into recovery despite the unsettling feeling in our stomach, embracing the life of freedom and beauty that results.
Fear might be a part of life, but it does not have to dictate the path of our lives, for our faith is bigger and the object of our faith far greater, and by acting in faith despite fear we can find freedom from the prison our fear once kept us within.
Don't let the fear of WHAT IF keep you from pursuing the life of freedom you DESERVE!