I’m not going to lie. I’ve been feeling horrible lately. It’s not a physical illness, but stress. It’s that feeling where you have 50-pound weights on your shoulders, you can’t sleep well, and you cry at anything that doesn’t go the way you thought it would. I feel like all I’ve done the past weeks is go to class, do homework, miss my yoga classes, happy hour and my friends, and sleep. Oh, and I’ve eaten. That is important.

As a blogger, your life can get pretty transparent depending on how much you share. As an advocate for body image and at times, eating disorders, not only is your life or story transparent, but some people can get caught up in trying to be the “perfect” advocate which can do more harm than good. You think that because you’re healthy and strong again, you have to be healthy and strong all the time. But that can’t be true all the time because let’s face it, we all have bad days.

I’ll even tell you a secret here too. I may be a blogger and I may be an advocate, but I’m far from perfect. Even I have bad days and that’s ok. Tonight was actually one of them. I’m in an Entrepreneurship class and am writing a business plan for a cookie store. I love making all kinds of chocolate chip cookies and since the third class, my professor has actually set up a fund for me to continue to bring cookies. So I do.

Making cookies doesn’t seem like a big deal or a reason to have a bad day, but as I said in the beginning, we’re all stressed out, right? Well assignments this morning and meetings in the afternoon were just taking longer than I thought, my printer was acting up and oh right, I had to make the cookies, which of course with it being my own recipe, I’m very perfectionistic over it.

Luckily since I know the recipe by heart, it didn’t take long, but what happened next made me realize 1. how far I’ve come, 2. bad days happen and 3. respecting yourself does your body a whole lot of good in a bad situation. When I was sick and I’d make cookies, I’d usually make extra and either binge on the dough itself or the freshly baked cookies and then purge. Was it smart? Of course not, but at the time, it helped to soothe me. Well between the stress and the extra dough, you might have guessed what happened next.

I made the cookies, wrapped them up and took them to class. End of story.

Something that’s hard to realize is your true need, especially when emotions, or stress levels, are high. I realized something while I was making those cookies- I didn’t want them and I didn’t need them. What I needed was to go to my class, eat a snack when I got home and go to bed. I was tired and needed sleep so that’s what I gave my body. I needed to take care of MYSELF.

It’s taken me almost 2 solid years of no bad behaviors, but taking care of myself actually gets easier everyday and with the help of programs like Reflections, you have the support of your sisters to do it too. I’ve started listening to what my body wants and respecting it. I can describe my emotions with words and not hurt myself in return.

Oh, and I’m also a friend to myself which is so very important. We live in a culture and society where women either tear others down to make themselves feel better or treat themselves horribly which they’d never do to a friend. I was the latter. I’d be mean to myself, destroy myself all because I wanted control, but nothing I ever said or do to myself would be something I’d want a friend to do to herself. Double standard? I think so!

Be the sister you are to others to yourself. Love yourself. Love your body and if you take care of it, it’ll take care of you!

In the meantime, here are some healthy stress reliving tips:

1. Talk to someone. If you’re stressed out or have a lot going on in your life, talk to someone else about it. Tell them what’s going on and how you feel about all of it. Even if you can’t put your emotions into words, sounds (think “grrrr”), screaming and kicking can be very therapeutic too which leads me to…

2. Don’t be afraid to cry and ask for help . I used to think that crying in front of sometime or asking sometime to help me meant I was a weak person. Instead I’d internalize everything and at the end of the day, hurt myself. When I started to actually feel my emotions again, I cried all the time and actually realized that showing people how I felt and asking for their help meant they respected me more and also gave me the support I needed.

3. Do something special for yourself. Do you like manicures? What about that new movie in the theater? Or does curling up with a book under a tree appealing? Whatever small thing makes you happy, block out a time for it during a week of stress. Now you’re probably about to tell me that you don’t have time for it, but that block doesn’t have to be long- an hour will do- and it will give you a time to relax and be treated well so you feel refreshed afterward and ready to seize that next thing on your to-do list.

4. At the same time, fuel yourself well. Sometimes food can be an enemy during stressful times or hunger even disappears or gets exhilarated, but no matter what happens, you must still eat properly. Nutrition is important not only for your body physically, but for your body mentally. A well-nourished brain is a happy one and also a productive one.

5. Know that you CAN do it. More times than not the only reason we can’t do something is because we tell ourselves we can’t. Fear or self-loathing is the only thing holding us back, so before that monster says you can’t do something, reverse it and just tell yourself you can. You will fight through the stress and you’ll actually do it simply because you said you could!

Jacquie blogs regularly about body image at http://sweetestthingdc.wordpress.com/.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.