Never stop noticing your wins— big or small

Two weeks ago, I was zoomed into a room I hadn’t been in since the trenches of my eating disorder. I saw the curtains, the chairs, the fireplace behind the projector, and my heart started beating fast. Even after all this time, my recovery felt like it could be taken away from me at any moment. My eating disorder felt close again. “Imposter alert!” My brain was flashing red. 

I reminded myself that I had been asked to speak as an alumni at my old treatment center, and I was representing hope for recovery and the future beyond this moment in time. So with shaky hands below the computer screen’s eye, I pushed through and began to re-tell my story.

I hadn’t rehearsed or prepared what I was planning to say, and I found myself getting emotional when I spoke about my time with my eating disorder. I had just finished telling a woman how I encourage my clients to meditate on the past versions of themselves to get in touch with their emotional experiences of the past and comfort/validate themselves, and there I was doing that in real time. I was letting myself feel sad for past Lauren, because she was struggling so much. Like every emotion, I felt it fully and it passed, but the reaction got me thinking about how infrequently I reflect on my recovery these days.

This is a good thing in some ways, right? 

We don’t want our past mental health struggles, or our past mistakes to haunt us forever, or to occupy our minds so much that we’re not getting our shit done day-to-day. But in the days that followed my speech, I noticed my increased mindful awareness of a few things that I had been missing. And in missing these seemingly insignificant things, I noticed that I haven’t been giving myself credit for how different the current version of me is from the past.

A few days after, I sat down on the couch and was about to have a snack and it dawned on me that I had pulled out a jar of sunflower butter that had been sitting in my pantry for months. Small right? No. Big.

In 2015, having any kind of nut butter in the house simply wasn’t gonna happen. I would eat PB2 (low fat powder masquerading as a peanut butter alternative) after dinner as a “snack,” and then when I would drink on the weekend or decide to binge sober because I was STARVING, I would buy peanut butter at the bodega, eat as much of it as possible, and throw it away to avoid eating the rest. Nut butter was a symbol of my “lack of self control” and it had to go. So, having a jar that just sits in the cabinet and is used whenever I want it with no guilt was actually a huge accomplishment for me that I hadn’t noticed.

Then last week, I had a summer cold and had no appetite, but because of my nutrition education through recovery and my practice of day in, day out forcing myself to eat 3 meals a day for years, I made myself eat. I had smoothies, I got myself some Mac and cheese, ate some veggies, and I reminded myself that especially when you’re sick, your body needs fuel. Small right? No. Big. It was a huge accomplishment that I hadn’t reflected on until I was reminded of how far I’ve come. I don’t want to let these wins pass me by now or in the future as they become more and more natural to me.

With time, after you’ve gone therapy, or formal treatment, done a coaching program, read a self-help book, or simply worked on something within yourself by yourself, it’s easy to just be mad at yourself when you fall off. It’s easy too, when you finally get the hang of it, to accept the new normal and completely forget where you started. 

Even if something you’re doing feels small now, remind yourself of when it used to feel big, insurmountable, impossible to accomplish. You deserve credit where credit is due!