Time is Your New Best Friend!

​​​​​​​My beautiful, kind niece contacted me the other day. She had sent a text message sharing how she was struggling with her self-confidence. A couple of things entered my mind at that moment: how very proud I was of her to reach out to someone, followed immediately by the question ‘what was I going to share with her?’ This conversation was very important to me, so before picking up the phone I took the time to reflect back on my own experience over the past 8 years. I thought about what had made an impact on me in hopes it would provide the same impact for her.

It didn’t take long for me to recall a moment when I was with my nutritionist- we were having one of our weekly meetings and frustration had set in. Reality was it had been 2 years and I was still so far from where I am today; far from my recovery state. She said “it takes an average of 5-7 years for somebody to recover from an eating disorder”. ‘OH MY GOSH’ I thought. Instant anger came over me. I was furious to hear that comment and quite literally stood up and announced that there was NO WAY it was going to take me that long. I was certainly not going to except that was even a possibility and it actually offended me that she would share such rubbish information with me.

As soon as I left that meeting I instantly contacted my BFF and shared with her how upset, angered, and mad I was about that comment. This anger stayed with me for quite some time; in fact, I would say for over 2 years it stayed in the back of my head. The thought of ‘5-7 years’ almost crippled my healing, or so I thought. What I didn’t realize back then is that time was my new best friend. Time was not to be treated as an excuse, it was not to be labeled as a negative source. Time was not to be disrespected, unappreciated, and especially not ignored. Time was my new best friend and I had taken all my frustration and anger out on it. The truth: is time was all I needed, time was what I had, what we all have, what we all need, and what we all owe ourselves.

We have spent so much time getting to where we are right now. It took time to create the addictions we may struggle with, so how can we not take the needed time to recover from such feelings? Why is time now the enemy? It isn’t, and it never was. It was part of my support team the entire time. What does it matter if it takes me or you 2 years, 4 years, or 10 even years ….. What I know now is that the best thing I ever did for myself was to commit to the time it would take to help me to love myself again, and to want to heal, and to want to feel at peace.

I was now ready to pick up the phone and call my niece, prepared to share with her how lucky she was to have time as her new best friend, and that I was going to be here with her to ensure that time is what she took to make a difference in her life. Because our time is deserved to be lived happy and healthy. The irony is it took me 7 years to feel alive again, to see the light at the end of the tunnel, to know that healing was imminent, and possible, and near.

I don’t regret a moment of time!

TK is a highly motivated self-starter with over 18 years of management experience. She has worked for some of the top Canadian Financial and Retail companies including starting her own production company with one of her best friends. TK continues to grow, learn, educate, support and nurture herself and those she comes in touch. Live, laugh, and love everyday with pride, harmony and respect for all.