It’s Okay to Not Feel Ready

Something I hear often from clients at the beginning of our work together, and that I remember very clearly from my own journey, is the fear: What if I never truly feel ready for recovery?

You might know how your eating disorder is costing you so much. You might feel exhausted, lonely, sad about all you are missing out on, and part of you truly does yearn for something different.

However, when you imagine truly challenging the eating disorder's rules, letting your body change, feeling your feelings without your familiar coping strategies, it can feel unbearable and simply like too much. Your whole system might flood with anxiety, panic, or a heavy numbness.

If this is where you are, just know that this is absolutely normal, and that you are not broken or uniquely hopeless at all. Simply, and of course painfully, you are in the place where recovery actually often begins for almost everyone: ambivalence. Wanting recovery and fearing recovery at the same time.

 

You don't have to feel ready in order to begin

I used to believe that one day I would wake up with a clear, decisive feeling inside of me, a clear inner 'yes'. The movies in my mind told me that I would suddenly feel brave enough, strong enough, fed up enough to walk away from my eating disorder and never look back.

However, this was not how it happened, and in reality, most of my meaningful steps in recovery happened when I was not ready, or when I was ready for only the smallest change, and so I simply did this tiny thing, that seemed so inconsequential to others and that even I feared might not even make a difference. However, just this tiny step got the ball of recovery momentum at least moving inside of me, and when this happens, it can set off a pace that is not constant, not linear.

Looking back, what I see is that readiness for all of recovery was not a feeling that arrived first. It was something that grew slowly, as a result of taking many small, shaky steps while feeling completely not ready for recovery as a whole.

 

Two kinds of pain

I also remember that for a long time, I felt stuck between two kinds of pain.

There was the pain of staying with my eating disorder - the exhaustion, isolation, and fear of my life never moving forwards in a meaningful way.

And then there was the pain of recovery - the anxiety of breaking rules, the fear about my body changing and that I would never feel anything but miserable and terrified in it, and the terror of having to constantly face my inner critic and eating disorder voices that seemed to scream even louder when I tried to do something different.

Both paths felt unbearably terrifying, and so looking back I can see how it made sense that I kept circling in place, waiting for one of them to begin to feel easier.

Over time, though, a distinction started to become clear for me: that the pain of staying in my eating disorder felt stagnant, heavy, and did not open into anything new. It was the same day, over and over, and in fact it seemed to only become more rule-bound, more constricted, with time.

And on the other hand, the pain of taking recovery steps felt different. It was sharp, sometimes overwhelming, and it often brought me to tears. However, after each step, there was the tiniest bit more space inside. I would feel a flicker of pride, a moment of presence with a friend, a glimpse of a life that might be possible for me.

I started to really notice the differences in these as two different kinds of pain: the heavy, sad pain of staying stuck, or circling in the same loop, versus the clean pain of growth and very understandable terror of thinking about a life without the coping strategies I had learned to use for so long.

Neither one feels good at all in the moment, but only one of them carries the hope of easing up, and of not constricting you more and more as you venture in that direction, however terrifying it may feel at first, and perhaps for a very long time.

I also wrote more about these two types of pain in my blog post When Eating Disorder Recovery Feels Bad, and How to Keep Going. 

 

Ambivalence is not a sign to stop

It is also so important to know that ambivalence is not evidence that you are not meant for recovery.

Rather, it is evidence that your eating disorder has been doing something very important for you - it has helped you feel safer, it has given you a set of rules that help you feel in control, and it has helped you manage feelings and needs that likely felt too big or too unacknowledged to hold in any other way.

And so of course there is going to be a part of you that resists giving this up. Of course that part will wait for iron clad guarantees that life will feel better, that your body will be acceptable, and that you will never regret your choice.

If we can begin to see this resistance as a protective part that makes sense then I have seen that it can begin to soften a little, and that we can practice listening to it, reassuring it, and still taking action in small ways, in the direction of recovery, without needing it to be completely silent first.

 

You don't have to choose a whole life today

Another thing that made recovery feel impossible to me for a long time was the idea I had that I had to say yes to everything all at once, to be 'all in' or nothing: yes to all the fear foods, yes to giving up all behaviours, yes to unlimited body changes all at once, and yes to feeling all my feelings without any of my familiar ways of coping. And so no wonder I did not feel ready.

What started to shift things a bit was letting recovery become much more modest, gradual, and specific.

Instead of asking: Am I ready to commit to full recovery for the rest of my life? I began asking: What is one small way I could make my life a bit less ruled by my eating disorder today? Or, What is one step that is slightly more aligned with the life I long for, even if I do not know how to get there yet? And these were small changes.... one small thing added to a snack, of my safest foods; one tiny amount shaved off of my workout routine; one tiny thing changed - and then I would maintain there until I felt ready to try one more.

And each small act is a way of saying to yourself, I am willing to experiment with the possibility that something else is available to me.

You can start wading out into the waters of recovery, letting yourself acclimatize as you go. You don't have to either stay on the shore, or cliff jump into the deepest part in one go.

 

Letting your Wise Mind Self have a voice, even if it is small

In my own recovery and in my work with clients, I have found it really helpful to imagine different parts inside.

There is the part of you that is terrified of weight gain, of losing control, of being seen in a new way. This part speaks loudly and has a lot of energy and a lot of urgency. It will have many reasons why now is not the right time to change.

And there is also a quieter part of you that knows your life is meant for more than counting, comparing, and shrinking. A part that lights up at certain books, or conversations, or moments of real connection. A part that feels a tug of recognition when you hear someone talk about peace with food, or feeling at home in their body, or experiencing themselves as more than their appearance.

And I don't believe we have to wait, or can wait, until that second part is the strongest one.

Rather, we can begin by simply giving it some space, and consciously trying to listen for it, to ask it for its thoughts, its guidance. I have also explored different ways of doing this in my blog post here.

I like to think of this part of us - what some traditions might call our True Self or our Authentic Self, or even our heart, or our soul, or from Internal Family Systems therapy our 'Self' - like the sun. It is larger, more powerful, and more all-encompassing and life-giving than any cloud. Yet on a cloudy day, we can be very unaware of it, we can't directly experience it, and as powerful as it is, it can be blocked out by the clouds, which feel closer and more immediate. And I think of these clouds as our loud, urgent alarm systems, coping strategies that feel like life or death, part of our fight or flight system that have solidified as rigid coping strategies over time, which of course feel more urgent than our innermost sense of Self. But the sun never goes away. It is there waiting for us, in all its brilliance, once the clouds thin and part.

 

The importance of support when you don't feel ready

Something else you might believe about recovery is that it is something you are meant to do once you feel strong enough or motivated enough to do on your own. However, I believe that this would be like expecting someone to repair their own broken leg at home and to only go to the hospital once they can walk on it.

When you feel the least ready is often when you most need other nervous systems in the room with you, other hearts and minds to help hold what feels impossible to hold alone.

This support might look like:

• A therapist or dietitian who understands eating disorders and does not judge your ambivalence.
• A recovery coach who can sit with you in the moment when you are deciding whether to eat the snack, or whether to exercise, or whether to buy a larger size of clothing.
• A trusted friend or partner you can text before and after meals for some added support.
• Online communities, books, or podcasts where you can hear the voices of people who were once where you are and who now live in ways that feel impossible yet inspiring.

It's okay if asking for support feels vulnerable and if you don't know exactly what you need. You might simply start with, "I am struggling. I don't feel ready for recovery yet I don't want to stay where I am either. Could we talk about it?"

 

You are allowed to take as long as you need

I've found that often there can be a lot of pressure in recovery spaces: pressure to be all in, to have a clear stance, to move quickly, or to want it enough. And so for so many (all?) of us who struggle with perfectionism and a loud inner critic, this can feel like just one more arena where you are not doing enough.

I strongly believe that recovery is a gradual, spiralling process. That there will be advances and retreats, weeks where you feel more open and weeks where you feel locked down, and moments when you are sure and moments when every cell in your body seems to be saying no. And this is so understandable, and normal, for something as deep a change and transformation as recovery asks of us.

You are not incapable incapable of change if it doesn't look like you think it should, or like some recovery spaces seem to be telling us it should.

You are someone whose nervous system has been doing everything it knows to keep you safe. And now, supported by others and by the deeper, wiser part of you that is absolutely still there, you are finding a different way.

This is monumental, and will understandably take time, and be anything but a linear process of change.

 

In closing

In short, if you never feel ready for recovery, nothing has gone wrong.

You are in the very human, very understandable, very tender crossroads of 'I cannot bear this anymore' and 'I do not know how to live without it.'

You don't have to leap from one side to the other. You don't have to decide between staying on the shore and jumping off of the cliffs. You can begin by simply softening around the idea that readiness is a feeling you must wait for, and instead experiment with tiny, supported acts of courage.

One more bite. One less minute of exercise. One more time of tuning into your quiet, wise part of self, even as the fear and doubt feels so much stronger and more sure.

Over time, these small acts begin to weave a different story inside of you. Not the story of someone who woke up one day and felt completely ready, but the story of someone who walked their way into change, into a different future, one small and shaky step at a time.

With so much love and trust in your timing and in your unique journey,