I generally struggle to be positive. I have a very negative outlook on everything. At the moment, particularly with my job and with Christmas approaching, my negativity is heightened. I am, however, trying to change my overly pessimistic outlook. There have been some changes recently that I have made which have been positive and which, actually, I feel quite proud of and which have given me hope and positivity.
Firstly, I have been making good changes to my walking regime. I mentioned in my blog about a year ago that I wanted to reduce my walking and I had started devising plans with my therapist to do so. However, with the workload from university, these plans got put on hold. However, the past couple of months I have set about trying to make progress again.
Originally I was walking for 50 minutes a day and now I have managed to reduce it to 40 minutes four times a week and 30 minutes three times a week. It is a very scary and daunting prospect trying to reduce my walking and I was very tempted to just let it carry on as it was. But I had to challenge myself and force myself to try and change. I want to be able to control my walking and not have it control me. So I have been pushing myself to make the changes. And although it may not seem like much to others, for me to have reduced my walking to what it currently is, this is actually a major achievement. And I’m not going to let myself stop there. I’m going to keep making the changes – yes they are very gradual and over a relatively long period of time, but I am making them and in the future I will reach a point where I am able to decide whether I walk or not and for how long. Positive tick number 1.
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| I believe I can fly |
Over the past week, I have also made positive change to my eating regime. In a recent blog I spoke about how I have been introducing breakfast and lunch and increased my protein at dinner. Along with this, I have also been challenging a routine I have followed for the past 7 years. When I was discharged from hospital 7 years ago, I had a meal plan in place that said for my dinner I was to have fish four times a week and some other form of protein three times a week. Making me have a different form of protein three times a week was to stop me restricting my diet to just eating fish all of the time. And this structure is what I have followed ever since I left hospital. Until last week. I decided that if I wanted to make progress, if I wanted to stop letting life pass me by, stop letting anorexia waste year after year, then I had to force myself to make changes. I have to take risks. So I replaced one of my fish meals with something else, with the plan to replace another fish meal next week. Which would just leave 2 fish meals a week and 5 of something else. I was actually terrified about making this change and I did try to back out last minute. But ultimately, I knew I just had to do it. I don’t want anorexia to keep restricting my life. To someone else, eating a chicken breast is an everyday occurrence. To me, it is a huge challenge. But I am achieving it and I am going to keep going. Positive tick number 2.
My final positive tick is about my mindset. As I said earlier, I am very negative. Part of this is for protection. I feel that if I am ever positive and hopeful then it just sets me up for disappointment. So I protect myself from this disappointment and misery by remaining negative all the time and never feeling hopeful. But I am fed up and tired of feeling so miserable all the time. But my negativity is so ingrained that it is going to be incredibly difficult to change. But I am going to give it a try. Life is short and I am missing out on pleasures and happy moments because of anorexia. Anorexia has ruined so much of my life and I cannot let it ruin any more. So I am going to try and start thinking with a more positive attitude. And to start this, I am going to think of one positive thing that has happened every day. This completely goes against my natural instinct because if I ever think of something slightly positive, I instantly counteract it with a negative, and any positive thought gets dismissed. But from now one, I am going to have at least one positive thing everyday…and it will remain positive. I am going to write it down and post it on Instagram/Twitter (rebecca.quinlan.319, @LittlebexQ) so that is there in writing. And I am hoping this small change will have a huge difference. Positive tick number 3.
And I just want to say that if I can make these changes, anyone can. I know it’s not easy, believe me, I have struggled greatly over the years and still struggle today but often, you are stronger than you ever believed or realised. You have to look for the rainbow in every storm.
There are miracles in life I must achieve. But first I know it starts inside of me. If I can see it, then I can do it. If I just believe it, there’s nothing to it. I believe I can fly.
It's good to have a positive outlook towards life. Yeah, sometimes we become negative when things don't go a certain way like we planned. But that shouldn't bring us down. Instead we should rise up with more power the next time.
Beautiful blog!
Thank you. I do find it really hard to not think negatively but I am still working on it. I love your positivity xxx