Beautiful You- Day 2 & 3

"The key to feeling better isn't looking better.  It is feeling better about our lives and better understanding our bodies really are- vehicles in which we can experience life.  Our bodies are not life itself; they are objects of motion, not admiration."

-Excerpt from Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance

Day 2- Pledge Allegiance to Yourself

Allegiance- [uh-lee-juh ns] loyalty or devotion to some person, group, cause, or the like.

-therefore-

Allegiance to myself= showing love, respect and loyalty to all of me- body, mind, soul and spirit.

The exercise for Day 2 is to read through and sign a Body Warrior Pledge.  To be put simply this Pledge is a commitment to being true to your whole self...

• Celebrate the temple God has given me.
• Allow God & myself to be my primary sources of confidence & worth
• Replace envy with admiration
• Stand up for myself
• Renew my mind
• embrace my imperfections
• Give my body what it needs
• Recognize strengths
• No longer put off things I want to experience

Day 3- Consider How You Feel about Yourself

Where I've been, where I'm going and

how I would like to get there....

How do you feel about yourself?

  Right now, I feel like I am trying to really figure out who the real Meagan is apart from what I have found my identity in for quite a while.  Its exciting, but at the same time scary.  Its a day by day, moment by moment process of letting go that is uncomfortable, but at the same time freeing.  Its a faith walk- trusting God to guide me in discovering who I am as His and a willingness to submit to His ways for me.

        What I know about myself is- the good, the bad, 
the ugly...

• I don't love myself
• I have a lot of doubt the concept of God and his love for me
• I worry about what other people think 
• My family means the world to me
• I am too hard on myself
• I am too independent and prideful
• I want more than a life consumed with ed
• I love to laugh
• I enjoy good food and that scares me
• I want a husband and kids
• I fear being alone
  

      So the next question is why do I feel this way about myself?  I believe this answer is simple, probably too simple for my liking, but sufficient in explaining why I feel the way I do about myself... I feel the way I feel about myself because I do not fully trust the Lord with every aspect of my being-- His love for me, what He says about me, His faithfulness and His sovereignty.  If I can just let go of what I think I know is best because obviously it has gotten me nowhere and step out blindly trusting Him, what do I have to lose??

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;  in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight."  --Prov. 3:5-6

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”
 declares the LORD.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."  --Isaiah 55:8-9

By walking by faith and not by sight I am trusting that this walk will bring me to a place of deeper trust and relationship with the Lord as well as a healthy, more loving and accepting sense of myself.  Through establishing these things I hope to discover my true self and God's purpose in my life....

Sweet nothings

Sweet nothings- [pl.n.]: Endearments, affection addressed to a lover.

Jesus being the lover of my soul has been whispering to me sweet nothings, that mean everything....

"For where your treasure is...

there your heart will be also."

-Luke 12:34

~~~~~

"As a woman thinks, so she is..".

-Proverbs 23:7

~~~~~

Out of obedience, love, gratitude and worship, 

do what is right even when it does not feel good or don't want to.

"We walk by FAITH [believing] and not by SIGHT [seeing]."

- 2 Cor. 5:7

~~~~~ 

“Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit”, says the Lord. 

- Zech. 4:6

Not what I do, but what He does THROUGH me.

~~~~~

Which will you choose?

Fear = enemy's faith

Obedience & Believing = God's faith

 

Freedom is the oxygen of the soul.  ~Moshe Dayan 

"In Him we live and move and have our being..." -Acts 17:28

"He is my freedom, He is the oxygen to my soul. " ~Meagan

  

http://www.flickr.com/photos/caitianne/

Home Sweet Home

I could not have asked for a better time at home, except maybe replacing the first few days with the desire and willingness I God gave me about 5 days after I was home.  I don't know what exactly triggered the change, except I knew I wanted more than wasting my life away to an ed that ultimately gave me nothing in return.  Once I was able to swallow my pride, let go and begin trusting things started to shift in a positive, life-giving way making my time at home that much sweeter and refreshing spiritually, emotionally and physically!

Here is a recap, in pictures, of my break...

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree....

Christmas Day... PRESENTS!

Rootbeer!

My precious brother

Our 'Cajun Christmas' Dinner- 

(Notice the HUGE stuffed porkchop my bro had!  Stuffed bell-pepper was my entree of choice)

Jesus' Birthday Cake

 

Cousins at Grandma's house

Banana Doughnuts mom & I made, mmmm, mmm GOOD!! 

 

Photo Fun!

Laughter

Dinner @ Jason's with Katie

Staying warm with Rootbeer

....only the beginning of much more joy to come!
^"The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows). " -John 10:10

I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas, except maybe trading in the first couple of days for a more willing spirit... but I know that the Lord had His perfect timing in each moment at home.  When I finally let go, He was more able to really move and work everything out for good.  Some key factors that contributed to my change of heart included: 

• Discontentment & conviction in my heart; loneliness and shame
• A longing for peace, happiness and freedom that was enhanced with the festivities of the Christmas season
• Christmas Eve service message
• My time at home being an opportunity to have extra support when sought
• The unconditional love and support of my family; words can't express how blessed I am to have parents, a brother, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who all support and believe in me and the power of the Lord through me
• The break from school and work giving me the opportunity to take time to refocus nourish my whole self
• Other admirable bloggers: Jenny, Katie, Dana, Angela, Jenna,  & Rebecca ... so many others too!
• Prayers & renewing my mind... 
• This awesome book my dear friend Jeanette gave me has really been speaking to my heart...  Come Away My Beloved - original Edition
• The message God gave me in my quiet time... He reminded me of a verse that I cherished while I was at Mercy: Psalm 45:11- "The King is enthralled with your beauty, honor Him for He is your Lord." This verse speaks for itself, my God thinks I'm beautiful just the way I am, because He is my God, a faithful and loving God I am able to worship Him, which enables an even greater overflow of beauty... inner beauty.
• This verse is was instrumental in presenting to me prior verse, "Listen, daughter, and pay careful attention: Forget your people and your father’s house." - Psalm 45:10;  To me, the Lord is saying to me in this verse, "Meagan, at this time in your life it is time to depend on ME and not be overly dependent on others..." I love this message, it is perfect for me and such reassurance as I prepared to go back to Denton.  I was able to use the support of my family while there, but it's now time to fully rely on God.  I will admit, sometimes it is easier to go to a person for support rather than the Lord, but I know that He is the only one that can truly give me what I need.  
• This lovely necklace to take home as a reminder of the significance of these verses and what they mean to me. 

Between December 23 and December 28 I was stuck in a deep, dark pit where my heart was torn between being with my family and being with ed for the break.  But God, in His loving-kindness, shined His light into my pit of destruction giving me a new-found willingness, desire and hope.  At the beginning of my time at home I never would have dreamed I'd end up staying over 2 weeks, nor be in a better place all around.  God is so good, Praise Him!  

"You take my mourning turn it into dancing, 

You take my weeping turn it into laughing,
You take my mourning turn it into dancing,
You take my sadness turn into joy ."

-Restoration Song

Day One- Beautiful You

I mentioned in my goals for 2011 that I would like to do a few exercises a week from the book Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance.  I had stumbled across this book on Dana's blog before Christmas and received it from my family for Christmas.  It's a neat book if I do say so myself and the author, Rosie Molinary, created this video about her inspiration behind the book.

 

So today's exercise asks what are your hopes both personally and for the world with regard to body image and beauty perception and how can you begin to live your hopes today?

For Myself-

• See and love myself as God does; be kind, gracious, loving and merciful to myself just as the Lord is to me... a good metaphor for me is to treat myself as I would this precious, innocent, little Meagan...

 

The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing" (Zephaniah 3:17).  

How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. (Psalm 139:17-18)

• Treat my body as God's temple
• Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. (1Cor. 6: 19-20)

• Be a good steward of my body so that He may use me
• self-care through nourishment, hydrating, exercising, vitamins...
• For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph. 2:10)
• Let go of weight, clothing size and the identity I find in them.
• I am chosen of God, holy and dearly loved. (Colossians 3:12)
• Accept myself at a healthy weight for me and maintain this long-term.
• For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:13-14)

• Believe in my heart that my beauty has nothing to do with outer appearance, but God radiating through me.
• Don't depend on things like fancy hairdos or gold jewelry or expensive clothes to make you look beautiful. Be beautiful in your heart by being gentle and quiet. This kind of beauty will last, and God considers it very special. (1Peter 3:3-4)

• Remember that the people in my life who truly love and care about me will love and accept me no matter what I look like, but more importantly I am loved and accept by my God.

For the World-

• I want the same for the world as I do for myself.  I think that people would be so different, more peaceful and joyful, if they could just love and accept themselves right where they are at and quit trying to be someone else.  
• I wish that there wasn't so much focus on size, image, agelessness, food, diet, exercise, I could go on and on and more positive focus on who we are as people not as bodies.  We are not our bodies (I say this for you just as much as I say it for me), they simply house our true selves.  I believe by acknowledging this we are better able to take care of ourselves based on God's desires for our entire being rather than on the world's.  (this is not easy, trust me, I know)

Action Plan-

• Renew my thought life through the Word
• Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.  -Rom. 12:2

• Choose to think happy thoughts
• Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.  Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.  -Philippians 4:6-10

• Be a good steward of my body, mind, soul and spirit.
• Do what's right even when it doesn't feel good... feelings are NOT facts!!! 

• Allow Christ's grace, mercy and unconditional love in my life overflow into the lives of others so that they may truly experience Him and come to a place of accepting and loving themselves. 
• Be active in helping others see their true inner beauty. 
• Leave 'You are beautiful' notes as part of Operation Beautiful

  

Beautiful By: Mercy Me

Identity

Choosing Sin...
Since being home from Mercy I have failed to fight against the enemy.  Mercy was an incredible experience that I am truly so grateful for, but leaving I was not yet comfortable or confident in my new-found identity in Christ.  I quickly started to believe and take to heart the lies of the enemy had been feeding me and... the biggest one, 'you are not free because you still struggle, freedom isn't possible for you.'  Believing the lies led to me compromising my freedom through actively choosing to restrict.  I can honestly say that I have continued to choose the eating disorder over the Lord.  I am not proud of this by any means, but I have continually chosen to do what was comfortable for me, my 'normal', gone the easy way rather than what was right in the eyes of the Lord. The guilt and shame I feel through my continual wrong choices has only fed into the enemy's attacks more.  Let me just tell you, sin is a scary, dark, lonely place and once your deep in that pit, its very difficult to dig out.

I want more for my life than this all-consuming, life-stealing behavior and yet over and over I have convinced myself 'it's not that bad,' or I continually put off the action of positive, life-giving change till tomorrow.  But I fear that if I don't change I will live a very selfish, lonely, sad life or die.   Neither sound appealing to me by any means!

Double-minded..
I have dabbled back and forth with making changes over the past semester, but nothing ever lasting more than a few days.  Once it started getting hard I gave up thinking it was easier to stay with ed than fight against the attacks from the enemy.... what a LIE!  I still wanted control (although it's really all an illusion, ed really had control over me), I was too fearful to completely let go and trust God- I thought I knew better than God.  I was never fully surrendering to God.  I love what Katie says in her recent post about surrendering and I can totally relate.

Who am I.... ?
Part of my problem is I do not know who I am without Anorexia and I am scared to completely let go and trust God to show me, to lead and guide me into a true discovery of myself.

How sad is that? My identity is anorexia. It is who I am, what I do, what I am good at. It's all I know and have known for 13 years, it's what I expect of my life and what people expect of me (or so I tell myself). The best way to understand the anorexia in my life is by equating it to being in an abusive relationship with someone.  It's not a lifestyle that I am proud of by any means.  Its ugly as all get out and I wouldn't believe all that I've done to engage in, to be in a relationship, with ed (eating disorder).

It's so ironic because I despise who I am with ed, and yet I don't cut off the relationship because I don't know who I am without it.... what do I truly love, enjoy, desire??  With ed I am a lonely, a liar, selfish, obsessed with nonsense, waste money on food, selfish, lethargic, spiritually dead, prideful, anxious, guilty, shameful, un-peaceful, selfish and soooo much more.  I do not want to be any of these things and when I choose to replace my relationship with ed to the relationship I know I have with Christ I can be and do differently!  I have finally, truly come to a place where I am truly committed to take care of myself.  I can't say that there was one thing that triggered the desire to change, God has been working on me for a while.  All I know is that I hate the way I feel physically, emotionally and spiritually when consumed by an ed and I want more in my life, so much more than ed.

Choosing Life...
Being home with my family for the holidays has really caused me to re-evaluate my life and my choices.  The first few days I was home I felt tense, shameful, guilty, sneaky and detached and I hated it.  My family means the world to me and I hate to see them affect by my choices, but more importantly, in thinking about the grotesqueness of what my life has looked like for the past several months, I knew deep down I was making a choice every time I practiced my ed to to choose over life, to sin against my God and that just didn't sit right with me.  And in seeing families enjoying one another through the holidays, I also knew that to have that, a husband, kids and a career one day, it would not be possible without doing different.  To do what is right even when it doesn't feel good.  I am finally at a place where I am willing and ready....

So since I have been on break from school and work (this coming semester is my LAST!!!), I have used this time and the support of my parents to help me get a good foundation of taking better care of myself before I go back to Denton.  I've been taking it one step at a time, surrendering multiple times a day, praying... doing what I need to do to claim the victory that is already mine through Christ!  I am more in Him than this ugly, life-stealing disease!

You are More- Tenth Avenue North

Goals for 2011

 And the LORD answered me: "Write the vision; make it 
plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.
For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—
it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay."  --Habakkuk 2:2-3

Daily

*Be more gentle with myself

*Be consistent with my vitamins

*Set aside quiet time for each day

*Work on balance, variety & moderation in every aspect of my life

*Drink more water

*Laugh more

*Allow my inner desires, wants and intuition... the Holy Spirit, 

to shape the choices I make throughout each day

Weekly

*Hang out with a friend at least once a week

*Eat out 1-2x a week

*Work on a few exercises from Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance

*Treat myself to dessert

*Pamper myself (massage, pedicure, movie)

*Journal

Monthly

*Attend Recovery at The Village Church

*Meet with support system

*Give to church

*Save some $$$$

For the Year

*Attend Passion 2011

*Graduate from University of North Texas

*Hawaii with my family

*Start searching/interviewing for a job

*Hopefully get a new car, or at least start looking for one!

*See some of my Mercy Sisters

Things I want to work on incorporating throughout the new year:

*Read more

*Face some fear foods

*Get to a place where I can workout again

*Better manage my free time
*Love & accept myself as a person & my body as God's temple

*Cook more actual meals

*Go to the grocery store less

Hopes, Dreams & Desires of my heart...

VISION BOARD TO COME!

**Disclaimer: Additional goals may be added throughout the year**

What's most important to you for 2011?

my blog

 

I have debated for the last several days about whether or not to get back into blogging some and decided my debating was turning into worry, fear and procrastination.  I knew if was going to do it I just needed to quit thinking about it and analyzing it, like I do with EVERYTHING, and write!  My thoughts and concerns varied:

• what will my first post be about??
• will I have the time to do this??
• should I switch to a different blogging site/platform??
• do people really want to hear what I have to say??
• what will my first post be about? .... it needs to be something good ??
• what will other people think??
• can I stick to the goals I so desire to publicly acknowledge??
• what will my first post be about??

Im sure there were MANY more thoughts, in fact I know there were, but most of them were fleeting-- that crazy, negative self-talk that time and time again has done nothing but keep me stuck.   So, rather than answer all these questions (which if I did u might not see a posting till Summer 2011), or allow those fleeting thoughts to tear me down, I said to myself,

Everything that you are doing is keeping you from writing, from moving forward, from doing yourself a favor... Meagan, this blog, at this time is not for anyone else, but you and your health and well-being.   You know you want to make positive, but tough changes in your life and believe that working towards that will helpful through writing, but by not getting your butt in gear and starting you are allowing yourself to stay stuck.  You are doing what you have always done, you are living in fear.  Your blog is just that, YOUR BLOG! You can do whatever the heck with it you want and it DOESN'T have to be perfect, nor does what you share have to be perfect.  This season in your life is about you, your healing and growth, your journey with the Lord, allow Him to speak through you and to you in the process to touch others and quit trying to run the show, or think things have to look perfect... quit trying to control things like you know better than GOD!  He doesn't ask for perfection, just progress.. He makes up for where you are lacking. (this is me talking to myself... not out loud, ha!)

Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.  2 Corinthians 12:10

So my friends, this blog, my blog, at this time in my life is for me.  Its to help me rediscover who I am apart from who I have been and what I have known for the past 13 years.  I so desire to have much, much more than what I have had in the past years and know that the Lord desires to give it to me if only I would trust & obey....

As a preface to my upcoming writings I want to state several things for accountability and my own sanity...

• I will do my best to have no expectations about what I write and how often I write
• What I post doesn't always have to be fancy or decorated (as my dad would say: 'KISS- keep it simple stupid')
• I will write from my heart rather than what I think people want to hear
• I will challenge myself openly physically, emotionally and spiritually and allow myself to be challenged by others.
• I will do my best to have no expectations (this needs repeating)
• I will not spend an unreasonable amount of time on my blogging escapades
• I will be honest
• I will remember that this blog is for me and if God chooses to use it to touch lives then so be it

So here is to a fresh start in the New Year! 

"greater things are yet to come, greater things are still to be done..."