Now could be the best time to start your gratitude journal. It will be ready to welcome and support your emotional life on New Year’s Day,
Begin by placing a reminder note on your bathroom mirror that reads, “Add one item to your gratitude journal, no matter how small.” This give you motivation and moves your energy away from binge eating.
Meet Your Critic with a Smile
The “no matter how small” is essential. Looking in any mirror at any time fora person who binge eats can be a trial. Mirrors, like scales, bring out the ferocious and unrelenting inner critic, merciless and condemning.
Meeting your critic with a gratitude reminder can help prevent you from spiraling into a bleak emotional state.
Benefits of Gratitude
A gratitude journal can help all of us open our minds and hearts to the positive aspects of our lives.
You might think, “Well, I can’t do that because I have nothing to be grateful for. My life is a mess.”
If you are caught in that kind of downward thinking we need to find a way to reverse the direction and bring you up, not to elation but to a normal steady state that can perceive realistically.
Get Down to Basics
So we get very basic. If you don’t like a particular body part you can still be grateful that you have that body part. Some people don’t.
If you don’t like your residence, you can still be grateful that you have shelter.
If you don’t like your shape you can still be grateful you have a body that functions, however imperfectly.
If you are isolated and alone you can still be grateful that telephones, e-mail, pen and paper exist. You can be grateful that you can make moves to connect with others when you are ready to make that choice. And you can be grateful for your private time that allows you to be creative and plan your next chapter in life.
A gratitude list can help all of us stuck in bleakness for a short or long time to awaken to new and better possibilities.
Right now, I’m grateful for the Internet and the development of the blog. This blog and social media gives me an opportunity to speak more directly to you and share what I’ve been learning all my life about what it takes to recover from an eating disorder.
Gratitude can open a door to a more healthy and happy New Year.
We are right on time when we start our recovery work. Now is always the right time.
Joanna Poppink, MFT, is a psychotherapist in private practice with a specialty in binge eating and eating disorder recovery.
All appointments are virtual. For a free telephone consultation e-mail her at
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