An eating disorder. Bet you didn’t see that one coming, but it’s true. For anyone that has struggled with Binge Eating Disorder, or another addictive behavior (drinking, smoking, drugs, gambling, shopping, etc.), I feel your pain. And it is this pain for which I am most grateful.

Had I never experienced the personal agony of binge eating, I don’t know that I would have sought for answers and healing with the tenacity that I did. I needed a way out of the mental prison. Without that fire under me, I would not have taken up meditation to learn to tame my wild mind, nor would I have reached into the depths of my being to locate some part of me that was higher and stronger than my addicted self. I would not have read hundreds of books on spirituality, meditation, mindfulness, and personal growth.

It was through this process that I truly started to know my “self” as well as the human mind and it’s habitual tendencies and biases. Through a fierce dedication to a mindfulness practice, I’ve learned how to navigate my inner experience more skillfully and to utilize awareness itself in a way that allows for more peacefulness and eases suffering – the powerful craving for release from present pain.

Without Binge Eating Disorder as a companion for about a decade, as well as other heart-breaking losses and experiences, I wouldn’t have sought truth and a deeper meaning to life. It’s more likely that I would have remained on an auto-pilot mode, thinking everything was “good enough,” going through the motions, like many people do for an entire lifetime.

If you are facing some challenge in your life that you feel is torturous and unfair, I encourage you to embrace it. It is your greatest teacher. It is pushing you to grow and evolve in away that you would not be motivated to had you not had this experience. It is an opportunity. A gift. So if it feels like there is a rope tied around your heart, you can use it to strangle yourself further, or to climb to a new altitude. How you see your circumstances will affect your response. How you respond will affect your life.

Today, I am grateful for the pain that lead me to seek peace. I hope anyone reading this can today, or someday, say the same.

May we be happy, peaceful, and awake.