“Recovery is about becoming more conscious of our life patterns and choices.  Over time, our growth experiences teach us to stay conscious.  We learn to walk around the hole or down a different street.  We wish we’d walk down that different street many times before.

Therapy and insight can bring us to walk around the hole.  But then we need a lot of courage and encouragement to help us make the conscious choice to take that different street.  The blessing and curse of recovery is that we become fully aware of what we’re doing.  We outgrow denial.  We stop lying to ourselves.  We learn to pray for the help and discipline we need to walk down our own intended street.

Bit by bit, our days begin to flow more easily.  We make plans, we’re more responsible and effective.  But we’re no longer driven.  At first, we may think that operating in a lower gear means we’re not working hard enough.  But before long we discover that we’re actually producing more and delivering a better quality of life to ourselves and to those around us.

We learn to trust and be guided by an intuitive, organic part of ourselves that we can’t really control.  And it’s that very lack of control that’s so exciting and scary – like an orgasm.  As we welcome ourselves into the world of intuition, we join a sisterhood of like-minded women who respect themselves, whilst continuing to own and embrace all the pain and joy of their lives.

For people like us, the outcome of all this effort and confrontation proves to be worth the price.  We begin to gain the right things, the right way – a body we’ve come to love and appreciate; our personal integrity; and a deep sense of inner knowing, trust, and peace.  The further we travel, the more we become who we always were.  We find ourselves facing life with a childlike wonder, coupled with a woman’s wisdom.  The fear and rage were all cover-ups.

We find, to our surprise, that we look and feel much younger and healthier than we did when we started this journey.  And other people are noticing it and telling us so.  So what has changed?  We haven’t had a face lift.  It’s been a lift all right, a spirit lift – a lightening of fear and the emergence of courage.  We’re lighter, but now grounded in the good and steady company of our Inner Self.

This connection with the Inner Self unites us with more power, wisdom, and confidence than we ever thought possible.  We find ourselves standing solidly on the Earth as whole beings.  We have an organic integrity and a healthy sense of self.  With this feeling of wholeness comes a sense that anything is possible.

We find ourselves doing more in a week than we used to do in a month, and with energy to spare.  That energy comes from more than just eating appropriately.  It comes from tapping into a whole new source of energy – the wellspring of life.  And we’re learning to trust this energy because it’s made us survivors.  No matter what life throws at us, we bounce right back.

We continue to do the footwork we need to change and to keep living our new lives.  And, just as importantly, we meditate, create peaceful alone time for ourselves, and practice loving self care.  We listen to and honour our Inner Self.  Then, when it’s time to get out there and participate in life, we do so with renewed energy and courage, following our intuitions.

We don’t have to work as hard as we used to to get things done.  We send out our intent in a burst of energy, and then sit back and wait for what comes next.  We create an atmosphere of cooperative interaction with everyone and everything in our lives.  Together, we create a third reality – not my reality, or your reality, but OUR reality.  We’re all in it together.  It’s like making love with the whole world!

We discover that we love our alone time, that we are content with our lives.  We keep ourselves focused on, and engaged in, things we find stimulating.  We bring people in as we feel the need, and we also keep to ourselves when necessary.  We now hunger for the filling we get from accessing that resonant empty place within.  We’re shedding our fears of not being liked or accepted.  Instead of wondering if we’re liked, we continue TO BE SOMEONE WE LIKE.  We want to surround ourselves with people who like this person, too, people who can share and benefit from the journey we’ve all been on.  We’ve given up on old, stuck patterns of relationships, as well as a number of old friends who haven’t been able to grow and change with us.  We now seek relationships that encourage us to open up.  We can no longer spend time with experiences or in relationships that force us to shut down.

We’ve come to trust and follow the wisdom of our organism.  Because of this our food consumption is moderate and healthy on most days, and we know how to listen to our body, as it keeps us conscious of how we’re living.

In learning to trust ourselves, the more we learn to trust that a Higher Energy than ourselves is operating in our lives.  We take full responsibility for the life we’re fashioning, but we also remain open and available to “a little help from our friends.”  This rebirth of the Self allows us to consume less, and to open up and let go more.  Our journey into consciousness has taken hard work and a great deal of love and help, but it’s been worth every step.”

From the book “Fat and Furious” by Judi Hollis