Weighing The Facts

Inspirational Recovery Quotes: Joy

Joy is prayer - Joy is strength - Joy is love - Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.
Mother Teresa

Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.
Henri Nouwen

Allow yourself to trust joy and embrace it. You will find you dance with everything.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The certain pathway to all things that you want is through the corridor of joy.
Abraham-Hicks

May your walls know joy; May every room hold laughter and every window open to great possibility.
Maryanne Radmacher-Hershey

Simplicity, clarity, singleness: these are the attributes that give our lives power and vividness and joy. Richard Halloway

Joy is a return to the deep harmony of body, mind, and spirit that was yours at birth and that can be yours again. That openness to love, that capacity for wholeness with the world around you, is still within you. Deepak Chopra

Joy is not in things; it is in us.
Richard Wagner

A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Don't postpone joy until you have learned all of your lessons. Joy is your lesson.
Alan Cohen

Begin today. Declare out-loud to the universe that you are willing to let go of struggle and eager to learn through joy. Sarah Ban Breathnach

We are shaped by our thoughts, we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
Buddha

Listen to the clues. The next time you feel real joy, stop and think. Pay attention. Because joy is the universe’s way of knocking on your mind’s door. Hello in there. Is anyone home? Can I leave a message? Yes? Good! The message is that you are happy, and that means that you are in touch with your purpose.
Steve Chandler

The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world’s joy. Henry Ward Beecher

My mind to me a kingdom is, such present joys I therein find, that it excels all other bliss.
Sir Edward Dyer

I am wealth. I am abundance. I am joy. David Cameron Gikandi

The closer you come to your core, the greater is your joy. Torkom Saraydarin

The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy.
Jim Rohn

Increase your joy by doing the good you wish to have done to you. Daisaku Ikeda

We learn in our guts, not just in our brain, that a life of joy is not in seeking happiness, but in experiencing and simply being the circumstances of our life as they are; not in fulfilling personal wants, but in fulfilling the needs of life… Charlotte Jojo Beck

Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.
Greg Anderson

Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God. Madeleine L'Engle

Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern. Henry Miller Joy, has no cost. Marianne Williamson We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world. Helen Keller The joy of a spirit is the measure of its power. Ninon de Lenclos

To attract something that you want, become as joyful as you think that thing would make you. Martha Beck Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties. Helen Keller

When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life. Jean Shinoda Bolen The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. William Blake

Not what we have but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance. Epicurus

One joy shatters a hundred griefs.
Chinese Proverb

You will find joy in overcoming obstacles. Helen Keller

The greatest gift you can give yourself is joy, not only because of the feeling that goes with it at the moment, but because of the magnificent experience it will draw to you. It will produce wonders in your life. Jack Boland I feel like a tiny bird with a big song! J.Van Amerongen Instead of asking 'How much damage will the work in question bring about?' why not ask 'How much good? How much joy?
Henry Miller

Joy is not the result of getting what you want; it is the way to get what you want. In the deepest sense, joy is what you want. Alan Cohen The only joy in the world is to begin. Cesare Pavese

Love, joy and peace cannot flourish until you have freed yourself from mind dominance. Eckhart Tolle Do not judge men by mere appearances; for the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over the depths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that covers a divine peace and joy. Edward Chapin Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy. Leo Buscaglia

Joy is what happens when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.
Marianne Williamson

Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. Joseph Campbell

The only true measure of success is the amount of joy we are feeling. Abraham-Hicks

All animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it. Samuel Butler

Sprinkle joy.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Be a dynamo of irrepressible joy! Babaji The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding. Leonardo da Vinci Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path to joy.
Sarah Ban Breathnach

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things. William Wordsworth

Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy. Lao Tzu Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough. Emily Dickinson He who binds to himself a joy does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity's sun rise. William Blake

He sendeth sun, he sendeth shower, alike they’re needed to the flower; and joys and tears alike are sent to give the soul its nourishment.
Sarah Flower Adams The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Richard Bach

From joy springs all creation, by joy it is sustained, towards joy it proceeds, and unto joy it returns. Upanishads Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies. Erich Fromm

When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness…all the good things. Maya Angelou
The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment. Pema Chodron

When we are centered in joy, we attain our wisdom. Marianne Williamson

To awaken each morning with a smile brightening my face; to greet the day with reverence for the opportunities it contains; to approach my work with a clean mind; to hold ever before me, even in the doing of little things, the ultimate purpose toward which I am working; to meet men and women with laughter on my lips and love in my heart; to be gentle, kind, and courteous through all the hours; to approach the night with weariness that ever woos sleep and the joy that comes from work well done - this is how I desire to waste wisely my days. Thomas Dekker

We laugh to survive. Then, with joy we thrive. Mary Anne Radmacher



*See Sidebar Menu for more Recovery Quotes and Quotes of the Week. pic source:http://www.flickr.com/photos/supersonicphotos/4444746911/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Eating Disorders Seen Around The Web: August 2, 2011

Profile: Sam Thomas-Men Get Eating Disorders Too
The Mirror

Sam Thomas, founder and project leader at Men Get Eating Disorders Too, entered the TalkTalk Digital Heroes Award in 2010 with the aim of making more people area of the issue of eating disorders amongst men and be a port of call for those affected or worried by it. And like many of the best projects, it was one that was born from personal experience.

Sam got the idea for Men Get Eating Disorders Too from his own experience with bulimia, which he experienced during his time school: “I used to get bullied quite badly, and used to run out of lessons and hide in the boys’ toilets. I’d often binge and purge, but didn’t think too much of it; of course, as a thirteen-year-old you don’t think about eating disorders and you certainly haven’t heard of bulimia.
“When I did start looking for help, I struggled because I was male. Only once I had recovered did I think to myself ‘hang on a minute, if I was a female....
Read Men Get Eating Disorders Too in full

Sexualization of Young Children Linked to Eating Disorder Development
AOL Healthy Living

As early exposure to themes of sex becomes the norm, children of younger ages are expressing discontent with their physical appearance. Results from a recent survey suggest that children rank body image among the highest of their concerns, above both self-confidence and social life. Recent research also suggests that nearly 50 percent of females between ages 11 and 16 would consider cosmetic surgery to improve their appearance.

These findings have striking implications about the factors comprising young children's self-image and esteem. Eating disorders are now presenting in children as young as 6 years old, with dieting becoming more common among those under the age of 10.

Such ardent focus on physical appearance also comes in response to overly-sexualized messages from the media.
Read Sexualization of Young Children Linked To EDs in full

Mental Health: Eating Disorders
BBC News

Every year about 20 people in Britain die from anorexia - the eating disorder which compels them to deprive their bodies of food.

It is thought that about 165,000 Britons have some sort of eating disorder.
Most sufferers are female, although the latest evidence suggests about one in ten is now a male.
One person who developed anorexia at the relatively late age of 27 is Victoria Buchan, who lives near Grampound Road in mid Cornwall.

She admitted for a while she did her best to hide the anorexia from her doctor.
"There was always a response, always something I could hide behind," she said.
"Because of wearing baggy clothes they might not have seen I was losing weight."
Read Mental Health: Eating Disorders in full

Quick Hit: The Fat Femme’s Guide to Lovin’Summer
Happy Bodies

Aimee Fleck, a fantastic student at the Maryland Institute College of Art, made a little zine called The Fat Femme’s Guide to Loving Summer. Inside there are interviews with some really foxy ladies, instructions on how to make friendship bracelets, a recipe for beignets, new hairstyles to try, a playlist, and lots of suggestions for great summer fashion. It’s all beautifully, colorfully drawn and very well designed, plus sassy and fun. The zine is also getting plenty of tumblr love, which makes me really happy.
Read The Fat Femme's Guide in full

10 Questions To Ask Yourself About Anger
Hope Forward

By no means am I suggesting that the answers to the following questions are easy, readily available to you, or in any way obvious, though some may be. I think, rather, that they may serve as guide posts toward progress, relief, and insight. While anger is not always the culprit, it does often lurk underneath depression, anxiety, restlessness, discontent, or irritability. While certain angers are clear and apparent, others are more subtle. I think it pays to pay attention to them. Having anger does not mean that you are an angry person, that you have a temper; it just means that you have real feelings, some old, some new, and that tending to them may improve your life in many ways. How we feel anger, what we do with it, is usually based on a mix of genetic, hormonal, biochemical and socialcultural factors. Given that, we can ask ourselves the following questions in our quest to feel better.

1) How was anger expressed or suppressed in my family?

2) What are my earliest memories of feeling angry? With whom? For what? What other feelings do these memories bring up?
Read 10 Questions in full

Genetics Complicate Recovery From Eating Disorders
Psych Central

Sadly, people with eating disorders often face a long-term battle. Those with anorexia nervosa, for instance, are often severely underweight and have a high likelihood of dying from malnutrition.

Now, a new study sheds light on why some people have poor outcomes.

An international team of scientists has identified possible genetic variations that could influence a patient’s recovery from an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. Researchers believe their findings may augment development of effective interventions for the most treatment-resistant patients with these disorders.
Read Genetics Complicate Recovery in full

Recovery Quote Of The Week: July 29 2011

Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.
Henri Nouwen

*See sidebar drop down menus for more Recovery Quotes Of The Week & Inspirational Recovery Quotes

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Body-Positive Billboards Make Debut In Utah

The nations first non-profit body-positive billboards are now gracing the roadsides of Utah!

Identical twins, Lindsay and Lexie Kite, creators of Beauty Redefined, are on a mission to take back beauty by helping girls, and women, recognize and reject the negative messages about body image and beauty.

"...we hope these billboards will provide a reminder for people of all ages that women are worth more than the sum of their parts. Women are capable of much more than being looked at. There is more to be than eye candy. If beauty hurts, we’re doing it wrong. And your reflection does NOT define your worth."

From their site: " Profit-driven media, hand in hand with the multi-billion-dollar beauty and weight loss industries, rely on us believing a lie. The lie tells us beauty comes in one form that anyone can attain with enough money, time and effort. It tells us that women who don’t fit the ideal are doomed to be undesirable and unhappy. This sinister lie that female worth is dependent upon appearance is incredibly successful, but now that we recognize we’re in a battle for women’s worth and well being, we can actually start to defend ourselves!"

I'm so excited about these billboards. WTG, ladies!

You can find out more and donate here.

pics courtesy of Beauty Redefined

Recovery Poetry: I Lie Still, Listening

I Lie Still, Listening

I woke
and in the barely-there light of the new day
I felt it
a faint tug
a softly whispered promise
and taken with the newness of it
I lie still, listening

sweet of words
warmed with hope
and tender encouragement
it spoke to me
of possibilities
and self-love
and recovery

gently it coaxed
comforting and strong
and in the barely-there light of the new day
I listened
to a softly whispered promise
and finally...

I believed.

written by: Emmy M.

*See sidebar menu for more Eating Disorder and Body Image Poetry/Writings

Be Featured on Weighing The Facts: Share Your ED and Body Image Poetry, Writings, and Stories.

Share your Recovery Tips for an upcoming post.

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RECOVERY: Fostering Positive Self-Esteem In Children

Positive Self-Esteem is essential to a happy, healthy life. It gives us the ability to adapt, grow, cope, and survive. It allows us to successfully navigate the frustrations, difficulties, and problems that we will inevitably be faced with along the way.

Parents are crucial to a child’s positive sense of self. A parent’s role is to provide stability, security, and love so children will flourish and grow to be self-confident, responsible, and capable. It is of great importance that parents are role models who display a positive view of self so the child will learn by example.

Self-esteem isn’t arrogant, self absorbed, or narcissistic. It’s a healthy understanding of who you are. It is liking yourself for who you are.

When a child (or adult) has a positive self-concept they are empowered, and protected. Understanding yourself, your beliefs, strengths, and even weaknesses, strengthens a child’s ability to understand, withstand, cope, and handle difficult situations and decisions.

Self–Esteem = our self-perceptions

How we define ourselves - which influences:

· Motivation

· Attitude

· Behavior

· Emotional adjustment

· Fluctuates as kids grow

What affects a child’s self-esteem?

· How much they feel loved, wanted, appreciated.

· The child’s view of himself

· His/Her sense of achievement

· How he/she relates to others

A child with good self-esteem learns flexibility, communication, resilience, and problem solving.

These skills help the child adapt and better handle:

· Stressful situations

· Negative pressures

· Conflicts with peers

· Peer pressure

A child with low self-esteem will experience:

· Difficulty finding solutions to problems

· Passiveness

· Withdrawal

· Depression

· Fearful of challenges

Patterns of Self-Esteem start early in life.

· Reaching milestones gives a sense of accomplishment

· Continued attempts to accomplish after failed attempts teaches “can do” attitude (try, fail, try, fail, try again, succeed. This helps develop positive ideas about their capabilities)

· Success follows persistence

Parental Involvement = accurate, healthy self-perceptions

· Feel loved.

· Feel capable

· Feel appreciated (by parents and others)

· Feel confident in decision making

· Feel independent

· Feel that they heard

· Feel their opinions count

· Feel encouragement

· Develop mutual respect

· Feel successful

Warning signs of Unhealthy Self-Esteem

· Hesitant to try new things

· Frequently speaks negatively about self

· Easily frustrated

· Gives up self power easily

· Looks for someone else to take over/lead

· View temporary situations and set backs as permanent

· Pessimistic

· Behavioral problems

Signs of Healthy Self-Esteem

· Easily interacts with others

· Enjoy others. Is comfortable in social situations

· Can separate self from disappointments

· Can ask for help and admit they don’t understand something

· Knows and accept their strengths and weaknesses.

· Optimistic

· Sense of identity

· Independence

· Motivation

· Persistance

What Parents Can Do

· Love, unconditionally

· Start from the time they are born to make them feel safe, secure, loved, and valued.

· Mind your words. Kids are sensitive to what parents say.

· Praise your child for both efforts and for jobs well done.

· Praise frequently

· Be honest

· Positively acknowledge their efforts and completion of tasks despite the outcome.

· Be a role model. Nurture your own self-esteem. Watch what you say in relation to yourself. They’re listening and affected by it.

· Help develop a healthy self-concept by helping them set more accurate standards for themselves.

· Be affectionate. Your love will boost their self-esteem.

· Give positive, accurate feedback.

· Acknowledge their feelings

· Reward positive choices (will foster right choices in the future)

· Give them a safe, loving home environment

· Be aware of signs of trouble outside of the home

· Help kids get involved. (Mentoring, volunteering, helping a younger sibling will boost self-esteem)

· Encourage them to express themselves (both the good and the bad)

· Teach them to respect the opinions of others and not let others disrespect them

· Teach strategies to help them say no to things that go against their values and beliefs.

· Make them feel special

· Let them make mistakes

· Encourage them

Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words. Be careful of your words, for your words become your actions. Be careful of your actions, for your actions become your habits. Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character. Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny.

Ryan Caffro

See also:

Body Image and Self-Esteem links

Self-Worth: The Unconditional Love Of Self

Self Worth Quotes

©Weighing The Facts

Pic source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinkpoppyimages/5894557456/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Sources: http://www.more-selfesteem.com/child_self_esteem.htm
http://extension.missouri.edu/bsf/selfesteem/index.htm

Inspirational Recovery Quotes: Choices

Life's not about expecting, hoping and wishing, it's about doing, being and becoming. It's about the choices you've just made, and the ones you're about to make, it's about the things you choose to say - today. It's about what you're gonna do after you finish reading this.

Mike Dooley

This bright, new day... complete with 24 hours of opportunities, choices, and attitudes… a perfectly matched set of 1440 minutes. This unique gift, this one day, cannot be exchanged, replaced or refunded. Handle with care. Make the most of it. There is only one to a customer.

Unknown

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.

Randy Pausch

The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.

Flora Whittemore

It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

Joanne Kathleen Rowling

Once you have started seeing the beauty of life, ugliness starts disappearing. If you start looking at life with joy, sadness starts disappearing. You cannot have heaven and hell together, you can have only one. It is your choice.

Osho

Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.

Cameron Crowe

Every morning when I get up, the first thing I decide is: What do I want? Misery? Blissfulness? What am I going to choose today? And it happens that I always choose blissfulness. It is my choice, it is my life.

Abdullah

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success - or are they holding you back?

W. Clement Stone

You have many choices. You can choose forgiveness over revenge, joy over despair. You can choose action over apathy.

Stephanie Marston

We can try to avoid making choices by doing nothing, but even that is a decision.

Gary Collins

In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions, which a minute will reverse.

T.S. Eliot

It's choice--not chance--that determines your destiny.

Jean Nidetch

Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: it is not to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved.

W.J. Bryant

You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be, or not to be.

Chuck Palahniuk

I discovered I always have choices and sometimes it's only a choice of attitude.

Judith M. Knowlton

The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.

H. Norman Schwarzkopf

While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.

Stephen R. Covey

Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious.

Bill Meyer

We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.

Thomas Merton

There are always two choices. Two paths to take. One is easy. And its only reward is that it's easy.

Unknown

Decisions become easier when your will to please God outweighs your will to please the world.

Anso Coetzer

What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.

Leo F. Buscaglia

Remember, there are no mistakes, only lessons. Love yourself, trust your choices, and everything is possible.

Cherie Carter-Scott

The artist is the only one who knows that the world is a subjective creation, that there is a choice to be made, a selection of elements

Anais Nin

Until a person can say deeply and honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise.”

Stephen R. Covey

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

Theodore Roosevelt

When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.

William James

Every human has four endowments- self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... the power to choose, to respond, to change.

Stephen R. Covey

Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions.

Unknown

When one bases his life on principle, 99 percent of his decisions are already made.

Unknown

A true hero is not someone who thinks about doing what is right, but one that simply does what is right without thinking!

Kevin Heath

We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us, and make us kinder. We always have the choice.

Dalai Lama

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

Henry David Thoreau

Choices are the hinges of destiny.

Attributed to both Pythagoras and Edwin Markham

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.

Robert Fritz

Indecision becomes decision with time.

Unknown

To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there.

Kofi Annan

Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.

Karen Kaiser

You may believe that you are responsible for what you do, but not for what you think. The truth is that you are responsible for what you think, because it is only at this level that you can exercise choice. What you do comes from what you think.

A Course In Miracles

Do not plant your dreams in the field of indecision, where nothing ever grows but the weeds of "what-if."

Dodinsky

Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past.

Tyron Edwards

There are two primary choices in life; to accept conditions as they exist,

or accept the responsibility for changing them.

Denis Waitley

When it snows, you have two choices: shovel or make snow angels.

Unknown

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Using the power of decision gives you the capacity to get past any excuse to change any and every part of your life in an instant.

Anthony Robbins

We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.

Jim Rohn

There comes a time in the spiritual journey when you start making choices from a very different place. And if a choice lines up so that it supports truth, health, happiness, wisdom and love, it’s the right choice.

Angeles Arrien

... everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms … to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

Viktor Frankl

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