Often in my office I hear from my clients how they need to recover. The word need is often followed with words like should or have to and the burden my client feels is palpable. I don’t blame people for feeling this way or for feeling as though they need to recover, the challenge is that when something feels like a need or a have-to, it often feels like something we have great resistance to, and therefore something that we feel more 
inclined to want to put off until tomorrow versus tackling it today. In many ways, every person who struggles with an eating disorder needs to recover so that they can regain their life back and live life on their own healthy and happy terms.
I don’t believe anybody chooses to have an eating disorder, but I am a big believer in the idea that recovery is a choice. When we frame it that way, it also puts the power back in our own hands and makes us think about recovery differently. When we want to recover, it implies it is of our own choosing and that our motivation is aligned with the task at hand. It can give us more reason to try taking that small step forward today instead of putting it off until “tomorrow.”
Recovery in many ways is a full-time job, and it is daunting and overwhelming often at the best of times, but when we choose it we choose freedom and joy and start creating the life that we genuinely want for ourselves. It will be really difficult while you are walking the path of recovery, but isn’t walking through life with an eating disorder also really difficult?
