Success = Getting Back Up Again

I am privileged to travel quite a bit during this season of each year to share my story of recovery with college students. I never leave an event without fielding at least one question on the topic of ‘what does recovery really mean?’
 
My definition of humanity – of being a human being – of the human condition – is that we all have something. Behind our masks, underneath our strategically chosen clothing and in the shadows of our carefully selected words, we all struggle. We all have something that, without which, we imagine we could be bigger, better, brighter. I used to walk around secretly convinced that there was a much more wonderful me struggling to get out, and that I was blocking her way!
 
I didn’t know then what I know now, which is that recovery means nothing more nor less than getting back up again each time we suffer a setback. This is how it is done. This is how everybody does it. There is no one person who gets a secret ‘how to’ manual for living a successful life that the rest of us are denied. We are all in the same boat – all learning and growing by trial and error together.
 
True recovery looks like this - we get knocked down, like a fighter in the ring, and refuse to accept temporary defeat as life’s final answer. We retreat to a safe corner to strategize, acknowledge our learning curve, discover from our weaknesses how to get stronger, and then return to the ring to do battle again. With true recovery, not only do we refuse to accept the agony of a temporary so-called ‘defeat’, but we also train ourselves to perpetually look forward to the exultation of eventual true victory, IF WE DO NOT GIVE UP.
 
Success = GETTING BACK UP AGAIN. Period, the End.
 
Yes, I still struggle. Like my hero John Nash (for more on Nash check out the movie ‘A Beautiful Mind’), I too still see visions – of a smaller me, in a more allegedly ‘perfect’ form – and voices – of a past thinner me, chastising the fully-real me for making healthy, life-affirming nutritional choices. I still have to choose EVERY DAY, just like Nash, to ‘refuse to indulge my mind’s love for patterns’ in order to retain access to the REAL life I lost once and never want to lose again.
 
Every day, I make a new choice to continue to commit to and maintain my own recovery. I accept that I, too, have something – my something is not worse nor better than the something of the person standing next to me. It is just my own. It is the personal tempering fire that gives me the opportunity to refine my preferences and evolve into the human being that I have the potential to be in this lifetime. It is my experience that our struggles not only make us strong, but they illumine us from the inside out with the reflected glow of that inner struggle and make us luminously BEAUTIFUL.
 
So the next time you are tempted to let life get you down, or to get down on yourself for having challenges in life that take you more than one hour, one day or one year of life to overcome, remember that this is what being a human being is all about. This is the human condition. You, too, are a human being, having a human experience, confronting the unique challenge and choice to discover for yourself what TRUE beauty looks, feels, acts and lives like.
 
Recovery is worth it. YOU are worth it. Whatever happens, remember – JUST GET BACK UP AGAIN. This is your ‘key to life’ for recovery success. Remember, we all have something. You are NOT alone – in fact, you are in very good, and BEAUTIFUL company!

Warmly and with HOPE,

Shannon

Learn more about Key to Life & Beauty Undressed

P.S. Be sure to SIGN the ‘I Have A Dream of a World FREE from Eating Disorders’ petition to DEMAND mental health parity for eating disorders treatment!