Self-Worth 101

It has been far too long since my last post. I recently got a new job and adjusting to my new schedule has been difficult. Those of you who joined the virtual recovery group I talked about in my last post have already heard this (thank you, by the way! Anyone else interested in joining, the offer still stands. Just let me know!) Trying to eat properly during all of these changes has been particularly challenging. Some days I've been working doubles (two shifts in one day) and it would have been easy for me to skip lunch, skip dinner, restrict like crazy. It would have been easy, but it would have been wrong. I've had to make a conscious effort to find time to eat and eat correctly. Being busy is no excuse to go without food. Anorexia says it is, but anorexia lies. Today is my first day off after working 10 days straight. Needless to say I'm exhausted.

I had originally intended to write about something completely different today, but I received an e-mail from one of my dear friends that really struck a chord in me. She forwarded a quote by David Foster Wallace that says,

"If you can, think of times in your life that you've treated people with extraordinary decency and love, and pure uninterested concern, just because they were valuable as human beings. The ability to do that with ourselves. To treat ourselves the way we would treat a really good, precious friend. Or a tiny child of ours that we absolutely loved more than life itself. And I think it's probably possible to achieve that. I think part of the job we're here for is to learn how to do it."

Sometimes I just need to be reminded of that. Sometimes we all do.

We are all valuable as human beings.

We all have something special and good, something uniquely our own to offer the world.

We are all imperfect, but we are all important.

We have value.

We have worth.

We are too good to be wasted.

It's easy to remember those things when we've done something good, or when something good has been done to us. But it's hard to remember our worth when times are bad. But we are just as worthy. For so many years, my eating disorder held me down an tricked me into believing I wasn't worth anything, that I didn't matter, that no one cared, that the world wouldn't miss me if I was gone. But, like I said, anorexia lies.

Please remember that.

Be good to yourselves.