Growing Archives - Jamie English

July 16, 2021 by Jamie English Leave a Comment

Gratitude Practices

This blog post is about gratitude. If you want to click away, I get it. I feel like most of us know that gratitude is a good idea. Quite a few of us may even see it as a practice that helps us further along the recovery journey. But then, many of us, knowing these things, struggle with practicing gratitude. I have even had gratitude practices over the years that were successful, yet here I am… working on getting one going again.

Maybe one of my most successful gratitude practices was when I listed 3 to 5 things that I was grateful for every day. I shot for 100 days, did that, then kept going…for more than a year. It was nice and became a habit. I would notice things throughout the day that I wanted to add to my gratitude journal.

One year, I made a collage of some of the top things I was grateful for that year. I ordered it from an online photo printer and titled it “Epic Gratitude 2013”. I had intended to make it a yearly ritual but have one done the one year….so far.

Others just have a list of things they are grateful for, and they add to it and see how many things they can add. Or you can have a gratitude jar that you add slips of paper, writing out what you are grateful for. Maybe you take turns with a friend or family member sharing what you are grateful for.

Whatever appeals to you to turn gratitude into a practice, find a way to make this a practice and see how it impacts your life. What ideas do you have? What have you tried that has worked?

January 15, 2021 by Jamie English Leave a Comment

Let’s Look a Little Closer

As we are on this journey of figuring out this new way of thinking, I remembered an exercise I did about a year ago. Make a timeline of the times you have dieted over the years. Give yourself space on each of them to journal your mindset at the time–what you had hoped (maybe fantasized) the diet would bring you. When I did this exercise a year ago, I made two connections. One was adding to my community, which I wrote about previously. Another was my wish for life to be effortless. I fantasized that “when I get my life together and lose weight, everything will be so much easier.” If you do this exercise, be gentle with yourself. Allow me to offer a couple of thoughts as you go forward with any connections you make.

You may need to grieve. Grief is universal, and no one can tell you how to grieve, as we are each so unique. Many of us may not realize that grief is not just the loss of people from our lives, but sometimes the loss of an aspect of ourselves….or a belief about the world. For me, in the fantasy about life being effortless, I had to grieve that maybe that isn’t a thing. Maybe effort will be required, at least to some extent, forever and always. Acceptance can sometimes be freeing. It seems like a paradox, but in accepting that effort may be required, I found some peace, and life seemed a bit easier.
If you uncover a need, as I found that I needed community, see if there is a way to meet that need without dieting and diet culture. We often believe that we have to have a particular body to go to school or pursue a career, pursue a relationship, or do something that brings us joy or pleasure. Often, body size is not a requirement. See if you can do the thing now, in your right now body. And if you meet actual resistance from the outside, it might be time to do some research and advocate. A lot of times, that resistance is simply a story inside our heads.
Don’t be afraid to call in the troops. There can be support on this journey. It might be online through social media or all the various options that the Internet brings. And it might be a therapist. Healthy people have therapists. If you don’t have one, look for one that is HAES aligned, eating disorder informed/trained (maybe even if you don’t think you have an eating disorder), and/or body positive.

November 13, 2020 by Jamie English Leave a Comment

Do What Is Hardest

Our brains like things to be comfortable. Sometimes, if we aren’t paying attention, it will automatically go to what is easiest. To take our healing and growth to the next level, we need to AT LEAST notice what is hardest, so we can make an informed decision. It is still a-okay to choose not to but don’t merely rely on your brains to do what is automatic. If it is uncomfortable and feels risky, that is often precisely the best place to go for the magic.

Take a deep breath and notice. What would be the hardest to do? Have that conversation? Set that boundary? Go to therapy? Make a note of what is hardest. When you are ready to grow, really consider doing the thing!

March 20, 2020 by Jamie English 1 Comment

In This Together

I was watching something recorded a year ago about community. It was said that community is defined as a group that is greater than the sum of their parts. And in a book I was reading, not related to what is going on in the world, the author said that community is how we get through stressful events. It seemed like it was a message worth noting

As I write this, the United States (as well as many other countries) experienced a dramatic shift this week. COVID-19 is spreading, and the various government leaders have declared this pandemic a state of emergency. I am pretty sure we are all feeling the fear, the stress, and the overwhelm. We simply do not know how this will play out, when it will peak, and when we can breathe a sigh of relief.

Community then? Community is how we get through stressful events. Where is your community? It seems to me we are getting creative from many different corners. I saw a few posts where people are putting different things in their windows or writing messages on their sidewalk with chalk so that neighbors going on walks (yet keeping their distance) can connect on some level. I’m seeing people meeting up online, drinking coffee together, or having roundtable discussions I have emails from businesses saying they are “here for me.” As cheesy as it sounds (or even if you are getting sick of it or cynical that it is in their interested more than mine), it is still nice to hear.

I am sadly reminded of a time in 2001, when the future of the US was uncertain and scary. The Internet was not as be-bopping as it is now, but I felt the community. Churches had special meetings to come together. I was in graduate school, and classes met and discussed our thoughts and feelings, while class content stepped aside and waited. I look back on these times, times when community helped us get through a tough time. COVID-19 and self-quarantining and social distancing are different from 9/11, but community is how we will get through this. I am so grateful, so very grateful that many resources can be accessed online. A community really is a group that is greater than the sum of its parts. That’s the key to getting through anything….together.

Connect with your community. Call your family, your friends, your people. Not sure who your community is? This is the time to take notice…..they are there. Look around your neighborhood or your town. Right now is the time we are all intentionally connecting. We are in this together!

Gratitude Practices

Let’s Look a Little Closer

Do What Is Hardest

In This Together

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