An ode to growth – a poem by our Eating Disorder Associate

Nia is an Eating Disorder Associate at Orri (and our resident poet!). To inspire you in recovery today, she has written a poem on the experience of growth in life and eating disorder recovery.

It lies in the uneasiness

The in-between

The unfinished sentence

In the letting go of what could have been

It is in the snotty tissues and painful hearts

In the fact it is making you braver and stronger than you were at the start

It is in the fear and blind faith and letting go

It is in the patience while things feel slow

So I think where to begin? How do I grow?

When there’s more safety in the now, in its knowing and consistency

When I’m fearful of the unknown and chaos and growth being messy

Fearful of the process

Of feeling better and then being the same as before

What if I can’t change? What if it’s flawed?

But then I think

What if I were to learn I were living in a pond

And I never got to know there was such thing as the ocean, and beyond

For holding onto something that felt good enough, where I should be and belong

Was the very reason something better never came along

So I brace myself and prepare for what might be

But in the knowing that there will be something better out there for me

Because I’ve learnt that there is so much  beauty on the other side of discomfort

And that growth however hard it is will be triumphant

So step forward and I let go

And I tell myself

This is growth

This is pain

This is being alive

We hope this resonates with your recovery journey and inspires you to hold onto hope and grow today.

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