A Job Change and How That Is Impacting My Recovery

 Dear Reader,

  It's been a hot minute since I've posted on my blog and that's been (mostly) because I started a new job!  It is a complete 180 from anything I have ever done and the first month was rough.  Not because of the people I work with, my supervisor, or my boss, but because of even more unhelpful thought patterns that surfaced as I took this chance on something new.  My new job is as an "Amazon Delivery Associate" and well, to put it delicately, it's been challenging.  Physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Amazon makes it as simple as they can, but there is real life stuff that comes up and you have to be able to make quick decisions.  I knew it would be hard to do this new thing but there is the thinking about the hard and then the actual doing of the hard.  I may have cried a few times.  Strike that.  I have cried.  More than a few times.

  One major characteristic of being in recovery from an eating disorder is that I feel all my emotions.  No more binging to numb myself.  No more restricting to keep my mind off of what's going on.  No more exercising to try to make myself small, pleasing, and socially acceptable.  No more being consumed with the new diet, the next binge, the hiding, the dismissing, or the exhaustion from trying to handle it all.

  So, I feel.  I cry.  I ask for help.  I accept help.  I rest.  I try.  I mess up.  I try again.  I reframe thoughts in order to show myself kindness and compassion.  I remind myself that I am doing my best.  That I am worthy not because of what I can do, but simply for being who I am.  I cry myself to sleep in my husband's arms (totally freaked him out, but he's learning, too) and then I wake up and try again.

  Here I was thinking that living in recovery while I deliver for Amazon would simply entail making sure I brought enough food with me every day.  Little did I know that new emotions would ride along with me. That as I worked at learning all the new things, my body's hunger and fullness cues would get set aside and I would forget to eat.  That the nasty little voice inside my head would surface and tell me that with all the steps I was getting in, eating less than my meal plan suggests would help me lose weight.  Help me be smaller.  Help me be beautiful.  Help me be accepted.  That I would have to use the energy I had to loudly remind myself that my body was doing hard things and that I was going to nourish it so it could do the best it could.  That I would have to eat and drink on a schedule again instead of intuitively.  That even more dieting rules would surface and I would have to work through them with my dietician.

So many things have happened since I started this new job, but those tales will have to wait until another post...


I've put in pause on rebuilding my business after the damage the pandemic caused.  I am able to fit voice lessons in but the classes that I loved, that I love, can't fit in just now.  This makes me sad.  To not know.  To not have a plan.  If you were part of my classes, I miss you all terribly and I miss creating music with your kiddos and you. 

 

That's the thing about recovery.  I get to try new things AND experience the emotions, raw, often conflicting and always unfiltered, that come with being human.


Here's to being beautiful, messy, complex, and amazing humans.  

May you give yourself permission to be.


With love,

Wendy




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