“Dreaming is underrated, I think, so often dismissed as a fanciful, childish, passive activity for immature people not rooted in reality. But sometimes, reality is truly unbearable, not worth enduring, and dreaming offers the only way out of it: a light in impenetrable darkness, even if it’s an illusory one you conjured by your imagination… Dreaming makes us better people, because in seeing these wonderful, irresistible, beautiful images of a potential future, we ignite that desire to be around to witness them, to live and become part of the dream.”

Let’s be honest:

Sometimes, recovery can feel like a full-time job.

When you eat a minimum of three meals a day, having to constantly rally yourself to meet every new challenge is pretty mentally consuming, to say the least.

Thankfully, as you progress in recovery, habits of remission slowly start to take over. And this is amazing news! That’s exactly what you want to happen. But it can leave you feeling a little… lost.

At some point in recovery, it’s totally normal and expected to feel like you’re facing a whole new crisis:

Your sense of identity.

While this can feel existential, it’s important to state the obvious: this is one of the first signs that you’re on the path to remission. Once your focus starts to shift away from being 100% about food, you begin wondering about life beyond disordered eating. It means you have enough mental space to begin living outside of mental illness, which is (clearly) the end goal.

Thing is, if you’ve spent long enough being actively disordered, you kind of lose sight of who you are without your eating disorder. And in recovery, suddenly, all of these possibilities are open to you. Questions like:

What style of clothes do I like to wear?

What hobbies would I enjoy?

What would I like to learn more about?

What do I want to be good at?

What will I do for fun?

Thing is: without a clear idea of who you are or what it is you actually want out of this life, recovery can become really difficult. And sometimes, with nothing to hope for, you might wonder why it is that you’re trudging through the work of recovering at all.

Which brings me to my main point:

Dreams are essential to recovery.

Yes, there are a million solid reasons to push through recovery into remission. In my ebook, I list out 100 reasons to recover, copy and pasted straight from my journal. But the strongest reasons to recover are those that are most personal to you. As in: Who do you want to be? Or: What do you dream of accomplishing before you die? These are arguably the most compelling reasons to reach remission.

So, what am I proposing?

Nurture the dreamer in you.

Dream crazy, wonderful, fanciful dreams. Or dream something amazing in it’s simplicity. The only rule is: don’t hold back one bit. Because without your eating disorder taking over your life…

The truth is: anything is possible.

And as a dreamer, recovery isn’t just a long journey to some unknown land. It’s giving yourself the chance to see those dreams become reality.

So, if you’re feeling unmoored in your recovery efforts, here’s my question for you:

What do you dream for your life?

♥️

Maria

Nurturing the Dreamer