How I built an emotional strength-training program

Slow and steady wins the race. But also—wow! Feelings are hard!

Hello! This week we’re talking about feeling our feelings.

In childhood, authentic, messy feelings were not allowed. So I learned to control them, first mentally, and then with my eating disorder behaviors. But when I went into recovery, I was no longer a child, and I wanted more for myself. 

I knew it was time to finally learn how to regulate my feelings without using my eating disorder. And while I didn’t know what that would mean, I was willing to give it a try. I quickly realized that years of therapy and reading self-help books had been interesting, but they were sort of like reading a book to learn how to ride a bicycle.