I called my mom tonight because I was feeling pretty lousy, and she dropped some wisdom on me:

• “You have the power to release the eating disorder. To demand it to leave. You are strong, and you’re acting like you’re not strong because you don’t believe you are … you are not this disease. You are stronger than this disease. You have all the capability and all the tools and all the inner strength to get rid of it – you just need to start to do it. Just take baby steps, try and do one thing each day.”
• “Every day do something – every day do one thing that is in direct conflict to what this disease is telling you. If you don’t start physically doing something – not complaining about it, not thinking about it, not discussing it, but physically doing something - then all your work is in vain, Alexa; it’s never going to go away. Talking is good but not if that’s all you do.”
• “You have to stay positive, Alexa. Negative begets negative. Whenever negative energy gets a chance to seep into your life it will seep in, even if it’s just a thought. It’s an invitation. You’ve got to stay positive. You really got to start replacing the negatives in your life with positives; you’ve got to get the energy flowing.”
• “Acknowledging it isn’t enough. You’ve got to physically change something in your life.”
• “Start getting angry at this. Get mad. Don’t be afraid to scream at it and fight it with all your might. You can do anything you want, Alexa – anything you want, you can do. You wanna travel, you can travel. You wanna write, you can write. You can do anything you wanna do so go out and start doing it.”

She always makes me feel empowered and confident in taking the next step! I’m re-reading this over and over until I go to sleep because tomorrow I’m waking up ready to be more proactive with positivity. It all begins with me.