Adapt Eating Distress

Throw out negativity and embrace everything and anything positive.  This probably sounds a bit silly but, when you think about it, who wouldn’t want to be surrounded by all things positive?  However, the trick is that it has to begin with you.  You can start by trying to turn your negative thoughts into positive ones.  For example:

Kate says: “I hate the fact that I didn’t finish everything I wanted to get done today.  I worked so hard but I couldn’t do everything.  I am a failure!”
Kate could turn this around by saying:  “Even though I didn’t get to do everything I wanted to do today, I worked very hard and feel like I achieved a lot.  Anyway, I am not Superwoman!”

Your negative thoughts may not be the same as Kate’s but try to use the same ‘turnaround’ philosophy to make whatever it is you think of as negative a positive.  Even if it seems trivial, if you try hard enough, you can find something positive out of any negative situation.  You just have to keep practising.  Give it a go, even if you don’t necessarily believe it at first.  The more you do it, the more easily it will come to you.  Make sure you say it aloud so that you can hear it, and keep trying and trying and trying.  The secret is to never give up!  Remember, nothing worth doing comes easily.

You are not the only one!  When you feel low about yourself, you can often feel like you are the only person in the world who feels that way.  Suddenly life becomes very hard and everything seems so much worse than it would if you felt good about yourself.  Just remember that there are a lot of people in the world, so chances are that other people do feel the way you do and that you are not the only one.  There is a strange sort of comfort in knowing that other people may be feeling the way you do.  This could be because it’s simply nice to know that your feelings are not abnormal and that you are not alone.  Negative feelings are just as natural as positive ones, so don’t beat yourself up about feeling low – you are only human!  Rather, try to express these feelings in a positive way by sharing them with someone you trust.  You never know, they may have felt similarly in the past themselves.