1. What are you willing to put your faith in ABOVE the eating disorder? This does NOT need to be any conception of God or even a “Higher Power;” it can be:
   • Goals and wishes for your life
   • Nature
   • The universe
   • Love for family and/or friends
   • Your own inner wisdom and desire to recover
   • Trust in treatment team (like a therapist) or peer group
   • Music
   • Art
   • Books
   • Animals

Write about how your life might be different if you relied on this and put faith in it over the eating disorder.

2. What experiences or parts of your life/the world give you hope? What experiences or parts of your life/the world give you strength? Again, these can be small things and things outside of traditional ideas of spirituality or religion.

3. Write about a time when you had a gut feeling, an intuitive sense of something or a decision was very clear for you. Maybe you KNEW you needed to take an action or you otherwise became very certain about a decision you had been mulling over. Describe the situation. In what ways did “knowing” come to you? How did you experience it physically? Emotionally? Did it feel like the “knowing” or wisdom was coming from inside you or from an external so5.urce? Both?

4. List different ways you can make room to hear your inner wisdom. These could include:

• meditation
• therapy
• talking to friends/other trusted people
• walking outside or just being outside
• gardening/taking care of plants
• taking care of animals
• journaling
• making art or looking at art
• reading books

When you have a list, choose two to prioritize for a week. Journal about the experience. What was most helpful? Did certain activities open you up to different voices or ways of understanding your life and the world? The next week, choose another method or two, etc.

5. Think about the qualities you would want in something that could replace the eating disorder in your life. Would you want a force that is wise? accepting? loving? truthful? enduring? How would you want it to show up in your life? What would you want this force to do for you when your put your faith/trust in it? How would you want it to make itself known to you to guide you?

Write a “Help Wanted” ad for this conception of a loving force that could replace your eating disorder as a “higher power” or “higher purpose” in your life.

Then, for a week, try to live as if you DO have trust in this force and you prioritize it over the eating disorder. Seek out it’s guidance. Try to act on it’s wisdom for the “next right step” when you’re stuck. Then, journal about your experience. What felt different? Did your behaviors or thoughts change? How?

Many Roads is a peer support group for people who want to recover from their eating disorders. We have free, virtual online meetings. We take an expansive, feminist, lgbtqia+ affirming, trauma informed approach to the 12 steps. For more information, www.manyroadsedrecovery.com.