communication is key.

For a relationship to work (to thrive, to grow), there needs to be communication. One lesson I have really had driven home in the past two years is how necessary communication is to maintain a healthy relationship, be it with a friend, a significant other, a roommate, or a family member. We all know this, but it can be difficult to really get a grasp on and it takes a lot of work. For any of us that have really put time into it, we know how much stronger a connection grows between two people when things are being talked about rather than kept to oneself. It feels great when everyone's on the same page, doesn't it?

Somehow, we seem to think that because we live within ourselves, there doesn't need to be communication. That would be considered "talking to yourself," which is wrong and makes you look like a crazy person, am I right? ..I'm so not. Talking to yourself is not necessarily talking out loud, although, that's also rather healthy for you (despite it not being a societal norm). Making out our concerns towards ourself and our lives is much easier for us to work out audibly than it is visually, like how "thinking out loud" is often necessary to really work through a thought.

With body image issues, especially eating disorders, there is a strong disconnect between the mental and the physical. Hunger/satiation cues are lost and confused and our body's needs are silenced to what our mind thinks we need. I often told my treatment team I felt like two people trapped in one body, which I now realize were the physical and the mental. Both were screaming bloody murder for things they needed and drowning each other out. Can you imagine if that's how you and your best friend tried to solve a problem? No one will ever be heard and no one's needs will be met.

I stumbled over a really beautiful blog tonight. It's called "letters to my body " and is written by an anonymous actress who struggled through years of Hollywood's poking and prodding at her body image and has decided to bring communication back where it matters. I thought it was such a genius idea. I can't believe this isn't used in treatment programs.

We need to start learning how to talk to ourselves again.