Word Of The Day #3~ Power

I thought that maybe I could write about power without mentioning the anorexia, but it was my ultimate power...the only thing in my life that I truly knew without a doubt I could control, or at least I thought I could. I knew what it was like to be stripped of dignity, to be left with nothing but shame. At first I used food as a way to comfort myself, until I discovered that I also could use it as a way to punish myself. Not eating became a game...how little could I consume. The sad part was that people would congratulate me, and ask me for my willpower secrets, and in the end when I was drowning in the disorder, I knew that no one could make me eat.  It was the first experience I had with power, and it both excited and terrified me. It took awhile for me to realize that it was the eating disorder holding all of the power. I was never going to be thin enough, and if I allowed it, the disease was going to kill me. True power is knowing we have choices, and being able to make decisions for ourselves. There is power in honoring your value and worth, and I'm reminded of this quote by Marianne Willamson~

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”