A few years ago a mentor recommended a book called “The Soul of Money: Reclaiming the Wealth of Our Inner Resources.”

As always when a mentor recommended a resource, I promptly went out and bought it.

I then (again, as always) read it. But it didn’t really resonate.

I was having struggles with money back then – struggles that looked less like an inability to balance my checkbook and more like a love triangle where the third party insisted on remaining anonymous.

I had hoped reading the book would help me discover the identity of the mysterious (and seriously pissed-off) second suitor….and the cause for my ongoing financial crises. But as it turned out, all it did was make me feel guilty for not wanting to immediately run out and give away all my money to the poor.

Such was my limited understanding back then.

A few months ago, thanks in large part to a “mystery health problem” and the several expensive diagnostic tests the doctors ordered, I found myself back in that very same love triangle once again. Why couldn’t I just get ahead and STAY there? Why must a financial crisis always arise at the precise moment when I had reassured myself (just five minutes prior) that all things green and profitable were finally right side up for good?

I remembered “The Soul of Money” at this time and went hunting in my book case for it.

In this second older and somewhat wiser reading, I was immediately struck by what author Lynne Twist calls the “three scarcity myths”: there is not enough, more is better, and that’s just the way things are.

In each of these myths, I could clearly perceive my own financial thinking hard at work affirming and proving each one. I saw how I believed these things – or at least had been living like I believed. I saw my own money hopelessness unfolding and growing, rising higher and expanding wider until it touched all other elements of my life from love to career to fun and health and faith and …

Click on the image and get a free preview of “Chasing Silhouettes!”

My colleague and fellow author Emily Wierenga has written a book called “Chasing Silhouettes: How to Help a Loved One Battling an Eating Disorder.” She actually sent the manuscript to me a few months ago, which I assume is when her book was first released.

Me, being the ultra-efficient and organized person that I clearly am not (but sure wish I was!) saved it for after the annual holiday hecticness had ceased and ended up reading it right in the middle of the spring eating disorders awareness hecticness instead!

But as it turned out, that was a perfect time for me to read this helpful, supportive guide for loved ones of eating disorder sufferers.

A word of insight first, however. “Chasing Silhouettes” is Christian-based. As such, not every reader will resonate with the author’s specific approach to spirituality’s place in recovery.

That being said, what I suspect every reader WILL resonate with is how deeply loving, empathetic, compassionate and supportive Emily strives to be through her words on each and every page. You can see it for yourself in this quote from the book’s introduction:

“And I wish I could hug you and tell you that it is enough. You are enough, and one day, you’ll laugh with your loved one again.”

Emily also – helpfully – takes some of the potential fear-factor impact out of words like “anorexia” and “binge eating disorder” by relabeling them as “forts” – walls suffering people build around themselves to keep the super-scary, angry, vicious-seeming world away from them. This makes perfect sense to me. Or as she writes:

“It’s a scary place to be in, this place where you have no one, so you have to become bigger than life itself in order to carry yourself through the pain.”

She talks about why people start to suffer so much that they take their pain out on their bodies. And she talks about why people with loved ones surrounding them might feel like they have no one (I …

This month’s edition of “Good News for Eating Disorders Recovery” is now available and I wanted to share the inspiring message with you here in honor of NEDAwareness Week 2013 (February 24-March 2). I hope you enjoy it!

You Are Aware

If there is one thing I have actually managed to learn well over the past 42 years, it is that my struggles, more than anything else, are what have given me the cherished ability to empathize with others when they are struggling.

While it is always great to enjoy happy moments, and to do whatever we can to make those moments last and grow, in truth it is our struggles that allow us to enjoy happiness when it comes, and to celebrate with others when they emerge from painful places into happiness again.

If you are anything like me, you probably don’t particularly enjoy feeling sad, anxious, depressed, lonely, angry or fearful, but you can also see how your very awareness of these states has created a more compassionate, loving, giving, gentle, kind, caring person living right inside your own skin.

Because you have first felt pain, you are aware of the pain in the people around you.

Because you have struggled, you can extend compassion – and respect – to others when they struggle.

Because you have experienced personal weakness, you can encourage loved ones to use weakness as a tool to strengthen and grow.

Because you have endured loss, you can extend a hand of comfort to grieving people just with your presence and listening ears.

Because you have been afraid, you can encourage others who are anxious or fearful that they are not alone.

Because you are still here, learning and growing and stretching yourself through all of the ups and downs and in-betweens of life, you can offer your hope to those caught in a dark valley that the sun is absolutely waiting for them just over that next mountain peak.

You ARE aware. You are awake. You are alive.

Just by waking up again each morning and choosing to get out of bed, …

It is that time again. Thank goodness.

Each year, the National Eating Disorders Association spearheads a nationwide, growing movement to put eating disorders on everyone’s radar. For some of us, we already know all about eating disorders. Perhaps we (me) have recovered from one. Or we know someone who is struggling to recover. Or we know someone who struggled but didn’t make it. Or we know someone who struggled and did make it.

Or all of the above.

There are many ways to help and support people with eating disorders during NEDAwareness Week. In fact, there are many ways to help and support people with eating disorders all year long. But a particularly good time to offer your support is during NEDAwareness Week, which is happening from February 24 – March 2 this year.

One great way to help is to support a NEDA Walk. Or a Virtual Walk for that matter. MentorCONNECT, the nonprofit eating disorders mentoring community I founded, just happens to be sponsoring a Virtual (online) Walk at this very moment!

Here is how to participate: http://neda.nationaleatingdisorders.org/site/TR?fr_id=2300&pg=entry

And you can spread the word by sharing the Facebook page too: https://www.facebook.com/events/523674577653447/

Thank you for supporting eating disorders awareness in any way that feels right to you. And I mean that from my personal eating disorder survivor’s heart and soul!

<< HUGS >>

Today’s Takeaway: My particular passion and focus happens to be eating disorders awareness. But yours might be something different. What are some causes that really resonate with you? Perhaps it is because you have had personal firsthand or secondhand experience, or because you just really feel connected for some reason. What might you do to recognize and support those causes in ways that feel good and connecting to you?