After reading over my last few blog posts I feel like I need to better explain what I am going through and where I am today. Just because I have written about two very serious issues in my recent posts does not mean that my desire for my blog to be a positive place has changed. Reality is that sometimes we have to put on a serious face to effectively get our point across. I have always been honest with you all about my own journey and I never intend to write any other way. So, here we go:

Did/Do I have an eating disorder: Yes.

Am I in recovery: Yes.

Am I capable of cultivating relationships, building a career and living my life to the best of my ability: Hell Yeah.

I don’t want anyone to take my honesty about my disease in the wrong light. My ultimate goal when I started my blog was to create a forum where I could speak openly about my feelings and finally put into words all that was going on within me. I desperately wanted to know if others could relate to me, but at the time I begin PrettyBrittyShines I had no idea if anyone would understand what I was going through. Unfortunately, I learned all too quickly that MANY of you could relate to my struggle and although I never want anyone to suffer, all of you who have shared your experiences with me have taught me that I am not alone.

But, most importantly you have all showed me that just because many of us are dealing with some heavy duty emotions doesn’t mean that we are incompetent or less than. By creating a dialogue about our feelings we are addressing our issues head on and allowing ourselves to still live our lives. It is the time we are taking out of our day to really focus on bettering ourselves, whether we struggle with anxiety, an eating disorder, or any sort of physical/mental health issue that is MOST important in our journey. It doesn’t matter how we seek help whether it’s from therapy, treatment programs, acupuncture, support groups, meditation, yoga, etc. what is important is that we are cultivating and putting forth an effort to focus on our inner selves. By doing that we are not only helping ourselves, but we are learning to empathize with others. Empathy is key folks and I hope we can all learn to embrace this emotion.

So, Happy Friday ladies and gentleman and I hope that we can continue to keep a positive light even through our most challenging times and remember that everyone has a story and a struggle.