"Beating Ana" Book Giveaway!

Happy Monday all!

Today is a very exciting day for me. I have had the amazing opportunity to work alongside Shannon Cutts, founder of MentorCONNECT (an online community that supports eating disorder recovery by connecting mentors with mentees), and I wanted to share her new book with you.

Y'all... this book is such a great tool for recovery. If you have struggled with an eating disorder (or known someone close to you who has), you know how hard it can be to find support.

Healthy support, that is.

So many eating disorder books on the shelves today glorify their struggles. So many eating disorder books trigger readers further into behaviors. So many eating disorder books feed the addiction and leave us in a bigger mess.

Not this one.

The thing I absolutely LOVE about Beating Ana: How to Outsmart Your Eating Disorder & Take Your Life Back is it is none of the above. Shannon doesn't talk about specifics. Shannon doesn't glorify or give the eating disorder any credit. Shannon gives you the tools to find recovery and walk in freedom.

Not only that, but Beating Ana takes on a new approach that no eating disorder book has taken; she emphasizes the importance of mentoring relationships to the recovery process. She stresses that we cannot do this on our own. Eating disorders are lonely little devils, and the best way to fight for freedom is to join forces with someone who has already "been there, done that, and taken their life back".

Complete with "Recovery Workshop" assignments at the end of each chapter, Shannon allows you to work through the process for yourself as she guides you toward the direction of freedom. Basically, she is the best teacher you could have in this thing called "E.D. school" .

Today I will be giving away a signed copy of Shannon Cutt's book Beating Ana: How to Outsmart Your Eating Disorder & Take Your Life Back. This book is perfect for anyone in the recovery process, so if you know anyone with an eating disorder or personally struggle yourself, leave a comment (make sure to fill out your email so I can contact you if you win... it won't show publicly!) and I'll enter you in the giveaway drawing. It ends tonight at midnight, so don't waste time- enter today!

On that note, I'd like to introduce you to Shannon. She is an inspiration to anyone wanting to recover from an eating disorder, and I just know that you'll love her as much as I do.

Shannon, your book is such an inspirational tool for people who struggle with eating disorders. I know you touch on it a little in Beating Ana: How to Outsmart Your Eating Disorder & Take Your Life Back, but what tools did you turn to when you were trying to recover? Were there specific books, people, or programs that helped you along the way in recovery?

Unfortunately, when I was first struggling to recover from my eating disorder in the late 1980’s, no one was talking about eating disorders or sharing their stories. I wasn’t diagnosed until 13 years after I had first begun to restrict and later binge and purge, so I didn’t even know what resources to look for to try to learn about how to recover. The only real “tool” I had was my first mentor, Annie, whom I write about in Beating Ana. She won my trust and convinced me to open up to her and talk about my fears of eating and “getting fat”, and she reassured me that together, we could figure out how to outsmart my fears and regain control of my life and dreams. She helped me identify good books to read about other people’s inspiration stories of triumph over hardship. She taught me about journaling and meditation to calm myself down and create an atmosphere of mindfulness when it came to the eating disorder voice’s influence over my life. And she would cook for me and sit with me while I ate to help reduce my fear. We have such a wealth of resources today and I always encourage those who write to me for help to take full advantage of all the knowledge and assistance that is available. And for those who think that having only one person in their life who understands will never be enough, I say that to me, when I was recovering, finding just one person who was willing to walk with me was unimaginable wealth. We cannot recover alone, which is why on MentorCONNECT we always say “relationships replace eating disorders”. But even one person standing with you against the eating disorder really is enough – I am living proof of that.

My favorite quote from Beating Ana is “RECOVERY IS NOT OPTIONAL”. Can you tell us how you came to that point in your own recovery?

I realized that recovery is not optional right about the same time I realized that I had something I needed to recover from. Interestingly, this was a few years before I was formally diagnosed with an eating disorder, but my eating disorder had already cost me the loss of my music career, my college scholarship, and the closeness I had formerly had with family and friends. I woke up to the fact that whether I knew what was killing me or not, whether I had any idea how to fight it or not (let alone win), I was not a coward and not a quitter, and I simply was not going to let it take me down without a fight. I adopted what I now like to call the “Braveheart Approach” – simply fling myself into battle, give it absolutely everything I had, try everything I could think of, and if I still lost the war, at least I could look myself in the eye as I was going down and call myself a hero in my own life. And who knows – maybe I might even WIN!

What was the hardest thing about the recovery process for you?

Accepting that the work I would have to do to recover from my eating disorder was very hard – maybe the most difficult work I had ever done, or would ever do in my whole life. I often receive letters from sufferers who tell me that they’ve relapsed over and over again and they have convinced themselves that they aren’t the “kind of people” who can recover. I always wonder where they got the idea that this work was easy, or that if it was hard it was because they are doing it wrong. For years I have told my mentees and those who write to me that if recovery feels like walking across the Grand Canyon on a tightrope without a safety net, then that is how they know they are doing it right. Recovery work is hard, hard, work. But it is worth it, because if you can persevere and achieve recovery then you don’t have to be afraid of your limitations anymore. If you can recover, you can do ANYTHING you put your mind and heart and spirit to.

There has been a lot of talk recently about “sustained recovery”. Are there any key factors you can think of that have helped you maintain your recovery?

Relationships – real, supportive, quality, intimate human relationships – are essential for maintaining recovery. Also, I have carefully cultivated a realistic attitude towards the ups and downs of daily life that has allowed me to give myself the same break I would give someone else I cared about if I found I was struggling more on one day than in others past. We never know what life will hand us, and it is important as we get stronger in our recovery to be able to do two things: 1) Recognize that “relapse” is just a new lesson in disguise, and 2) Distinguish between a relapse and a normal human response to the unexpected losses and changes life brings (for instance, am I not eating as much today because I am sad or because I am having eating disordered thoughts). I also highly recommend service. Giving back is essential to maintaining strong recovery process. When we volunteer our time to help others who are struggling, we remember why it is so important to stay strong in recovery ourselves, and we also have that compassion for ourselves and others that struggling evokes.

If someone with an eating disorder were to come up to you today and ask you, “What made the difference in your life? What brought you to where you are today?”, what would you tell them?

I would say my mentor, Annie, and other mentors I have had over the years. Recovery, and the desire to recover and to live life, always boils down to how much love we invite into our lives, and how much love we give back to others. I have had so many people over the years who for one reason or another refused to give up on me even when I wanted to give up on myself. Seeing their steadfastness made me realize that maybe they knew something about me that I didn’t, and I wanted to find out what that was. It also humanized my struggles because they taught me that we all have struggles in life, and that my struggles with an eating disorder weren’t harder or easier than other people’s struggles with divorce, cancer, grief, or other issues that life brings. We are all in this together – this is the human condition – and we can only get through it (and remember why it is worth it to endure) when we do it together.

Beating Ana has such a unique structure. The “Recovery Workshops” included in each chapter serve as great tools for addressing behaviors and beliefs, and the movies you highlight in each chapter are terrific thought-provokers. Why did you choose to format the book this way?

Over the years I have received hundreds upon hundreds of letters from individuals all over the world asking for help to recover. In Beating Ana I wanted to highlight recurring themes that seemed common to many sufferers as they progressed along the recovery path. I also knew that for my mentees, it was often hard for them to sit still for long periods of time and read or concentrate. I also knew that they found great satisfaction in being given the structure of completing assignments as a way to find their own answers to their questions. So I simply applied the same format I use in my own mentoring work to the wider readership of Beating Ana. That was the reason I chose to write the book in the first place – I was receiving an increasingly large volume of correspondence and I was running out of time to be able to mentor everyone who wrote to me seeking help. So I thought if I assembled some of the most frequently asked questions into a book format, with exercises and affirmations included, that more people could develop mentoring relationships with themselves and within their significant relationships, and they could receive help that way. As far as the movies go, well, over the years movie characters have actually been some of my greatest mentors! When I first started re-entering my life and interacting with people, I didn’t have that many social skills or a lot of confidence. So when I would be faced with a situation I didn’t know how to handle, I would find myself thinking about a movie I liked and imagining what the character I identified with in that movie might do to handle the situation and then I would try that. If it worked, I could add it to my coping skill toolbox. Those movie characters were like my best friends when I was first trying to relearn how to be with people socially again.

It’s obvious from your book that you are passionate about leading people to freedom. How did your organization Key To Life get started? What inspired you to start MentorConnect?

Key to Life: unlocking the door to hope is actually an organization that covers my involvement in music as well as speaking, writing, and advocacy work. The name refers to my experience that choosing to recover comes down to choosing what matters most to us in life. For me, that was my music. I didn’t realize how important music was to me until I lost the ability to pursue my dreams due to my eating disorder. So that became my battle cry, my reason to fight back against the eating disorder – I wanted my music back. For years I have done my best to guide my mentees towards unlocking their own door to hope by setting their priorities and then ordering their choices to reflect those priorities. When we know what matters most to us it is easier to make good choices, and to say yes to things that preserve what we love and no to things that tear what we love down.

MentorCONNECT formally launched in February 2009, and we have grown so incredibly fast that it makes my head spin every time I think about it. As I mentioned earlier, I decided to write Beating Ana in the hopes of offering the power of mentoring to more people since I could no longer help everyone who wrote to me looking for support. But somewhere in the middle of the writing process I realized that it really wasn’t fair to write a book about mentoring without providing readers with a way to locate a mentor and have that experience themselves. Along with the letters asking for help I had also received a number of emails from individuals in strong recovery who wanted to give back. One day I thought, “wouldn’t it be great to be able to match up the people who want to help with the people who need help!” I looked around online to try to find a place where they could do that, and couldn’t find anything. So I assembled a team and we brainstormed what the community could look like. Today, that community is MentorCONNECT.

Now that you have a book published, an online pro-recovery community launched and growing, and numerous speaking engagements on the schedule, what are your plans?

Well, I would have to say a lot of my plans revolve around MentorCONNECT, because the community is growing and needs a lot of my time and attention. I am also in the very early stages of researching a second book, but it may be some time before my schedule permits me to focus on that. I also have plans to record a new album, but again it maybe awhile before I can fit that into my schedule. We have a lot of exciting possibilities as MentorCONNECT grows and I am committed to being there for the community and offering it my time and talents so that it can serve more people who need to know that recovery is possible.

Thank you so much for your time today Shannon! Any parting words for our readers?

Remember that you are irreplaceable, unrepeatable, and unique. You are the only you who ever was, is, or ever will be, and there is a reason that you are here. So keep fighting – never ever give up – and know that you are equal to any challenge that life hands you. You DO have what you need to tackle your challenges head on – and triumph over them! And if you need support, please visit www.key-to-life.com/mentorconnect and consider joining MentorCONNECT.

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Now doesn't that make you want to read the book???