Those of you who have worked with the CEDRIC Core Beliefs booklet are probably familiar with these stages, but seeing as how June is ‘Natural Eating’ month, we thought that you might enjoy a quick reminder to help you grab the nutshell of where you are in your process, right in this moment, taken from our Natural Eating booklet.

1) Unconscious Incompetence: Something isn’t working in your life, but you are not aware of what it is or that anything could be done to change it. You may be looking to others or things outside of yourself as the source of your current difficulties

2) Conscious Incompetence: You are aware that you are not functioning well, but you do not know what to change about your behaviour. This can be an extremely scary and frustrating stage, but it also opens the door for you to take action to change your patterns. Clearly, until you know it isn’t working in your life, you are powerless to change it.

3) Conscious Competence: After becoming aware of your problem, you have sought some expert advice. You now have some tools to change your behaviour. Your conscious effort is required to replace old unhealthy habits, with new healthy ones. You are actively working at this stage and it can feel laborious. Therefore, it is important to seek motivation in the small signs of progress you’ll be seeing, rather than focussing on your end goal, which may seem far away at this stage.

4) Unconscious Competence: You have the tools. Thanks to all of your awareness and effort, your behaviour has changed. You don’t even have to think about what to do. The new, healthy behaviour has replaced the old unhealthy one, and it is now second nature.

Where are do you find yourself in your process of change?

Consider taking the time, this summer, for some group process as CEDRIC’s Transformative Weekend Workshops take off, the good news is that there’s still time to sign up. Join with others who share your journey to identify steps to your process that are ideally suited to you. For more on CEDRIC’s Transformative Weekend Workshops with Michelle Morand, please click HERE.

Tina Budeweit-Weeks is a member of the CEDRIC Success Team in the role of staff writer and executive assistant for Michelle Morand. Her philosophy has always been one of self-nurturance and dignity. In support of the complex difficulties clients may experience around regaining a healthy balance, Tina’s writing is designed to sympathize, support, encourage and inform. Although there are many similarities in Tina’s process, she is not a client, but a hard working, behind-the-scenes member of the team, dedicated to helping the CEDRIC Centre stay current and effective.

Yuppers, that’s what I said, your Drill Sgt. can be happily on vacation in Mexico in 24 hours, leaving you at home to peacefully and contentedly practice life-enhancing coping strategies and self-care. And I’m not talking about trying to talk yourself into loving yourself as you are or about settling for being the weight and shape that you are now.

So, what am I talking about? I’m talking about integrity. Integrity means that your words and actions are in alignment. You want to know the secret to happiness? It’s integrity. You want to know the secret to feeling peaceful and content in your body; in your relationships; in your career; etc?

It’s integrity: Words and Actions Aligning.

You do what you say you will. And not just to others, but first and foremost to yourself. That’s where most of us who feel controlled by food and loathing of our bodies stumble; integrity with ourselves. We’re all over taking care of others and honoring our commitments outwardly at all costs.

We could be on our death bed but we’re dragging our sorry little butts to work or out for that coffee date with our friend because we said we would and we don’t want them to be angry or disappointed in us. We’re so afraid of the potential of losing someone’s approval and respect we’ll do anything even, and frequently so, compromise our own needs for respect or rest or consideration etc.

Yes, from the outside we appear to be these amazing people who have it so together. We are super beings who can do it all and then some. From the inside however we feel totally fraudulent; a complete sham; and completely fearful of being discovered for the big phony we are. This creates great anxiety and what do we do when we feel anxious? We beat up on our bodies or we eat or we restrict etc. Not very helpful and certainly not very full of integrity. We put ourselves out there as these confident together people but our words within and the actions we engage in when we’re alone belie a different story: We are frightened; we are overwhelmed; we hate ourselves for being so; and we feel compelled to drink, toke, eat, restrict, purge, shop, or clean to take the focus off our anxiety and to numb out, if only for a moment.

When our primary focus is on obtaining the approval of others because we believe that we will finally then be able to feel safe and secure in the world and be able to feel confident in ourselves and our right to be and to take up space, we are unfortunately, chronically insecure. You see, if I am giving you the power to decide whether I am worthy and acceptable I am at the mercy of you and I’d better hope and pray that you’re a nice person who is healthy and balanced, who doesn’t engage in guilt trips or manipulation, who doesn’t think that their needs are more important than mine but sees that we’re both equally important.

I’d better hope that you truly want what’s best for me even if that means that you don’t always get what you want. If you’re not that ideal, healthy, interdependent person I’m in big doo doo. Because you’re going to take advantage of my desperate need for your approval and have me doing far more than my 50% share of the work in our relationship. That’s going to make me feel even more anxious and overwhelmed, hypervigilant and hypersensitive, and even worse about myself. Which will make me even more fearful of losing your approval which will make me work even harder and feel more overwhelmed when you’re still not giving me the love and approval I seek.

Clearly there is no sanity and no safety in looking outside of ourselves for validation and acceptance if we aren’t first able to authentically validate and accept ourselves. The only safe place to enter into any sort of relationship is from a solid sense of yourself as competent, capable, worthwhile, special and deserving of dignity and respect. If you don’t believe that about yourself and treat yourself that way first and foremost you’ll not be able to trust that you are entitled to that from others. And again, you’ll find yourself connected often to those people who are only too happy to take advantage of the fact that you’ll compromise yourself to make them happy. Not a recipe for peace and joy.

So, what the heck does this all have to do with body image, you say? Well, back to integrity, when your words and actions are in alignment you just don’t hear from that 24/7 critical inner voice. You just experience silence, peace.

Words and actions aligning looks like saying to yourself: “I’m not going to spend time with Mellisa again, she is always criticizing me and others.” – and you don’t cave and agree to coffee the next time she calls, nor do you make some sort of excuse “I think I’m coming down with something” to avoid a courageous conversation. It also looks like saying to yourself : “I’m going to exercise 3 times this week and slowly reduce the amount of processed and refined carbs I have in my diet each day” – and then witnessing yourself following through on that commitment.

In this way you will immediately begin to experience a quieting of that Drill Sgt. and develop a strong sense of trust in yourself as someone who will put her needs first; someone who will not put herself in situations where she feels disrespected or compromised.

Take a few minutes now and ask yourself the following questions:

1. Where in my role as a friend do I say one thing and do another – even in my own mind?

2. What about my role as a parent? Employee? Volunteer? Partner?

3. What about in my role in my relationship with myself? Where here do I say one thing and do another? Even in such small ways as saying you’ll do the dishes and then leaving them in the sink overnight?

4. What could I do in each of these areas of my life to have a stronger sense of integrity; of trust in myself to do what I say and say what I do?

5. What might prevent me from taking action on these things?

Once you’ve taken a good clear look at the ways that you trigger the Drill Sgt. in you, you’re able to begin to make a plan for coming from a stronger place of integrity.

This is super duper important to you because I guarantee you that when you’re able to do this you will feel far far less anxious overall and your judgements about your body will practically cease and…..here’s the best part… your need to use food (or anything else, for that matter) to cope will stop.

Done like dinner!

If you would like help in learning how to remove any barriers to your acting with integrity and to quieting your personal Drill Sgt. once and for all, please send me an email. We can arrange for a one on one session or sign you up for our next amazing weekend workshop where you will get a 3 day dose of new tools and practice that will forever release you from food and body image stress.

I welcome your sharing.

Love Michelle.

Exercising my right to get off the couch

I’m in my portable office that contains a bench in the sun in a hidden corner of Saxe Point with my archaic alternative technology, namely my book and pen. My bike is parked behind me with my digital camera, a sweating, cold bottle of  fresh water rounding out my ensemble. A huge military helicopter rumbles by slowly, competing with the birds as I write.  My intention was to ponder the question ‘What makes me tick?’ as I rode.  I am at that place in my evolution that its high time that I ask myself that very good question.

These days, as I process CEDRIC’s philosophies and tools, as I gain experience applying them to the ups and downs of my life, I’m changing, evolving, refining and in the course of that, so are the factors that comprise what makes me who I am. For instance, I’ve changed my name, my career, my home and my life almost 10o% in the past year. That tells me that I know who and what I’m not any more, but what AM I? What stirs my crank? Gets me going? Gets me motivated?

What makes me tick?

The big M word (Motivation)  is the key, I think – what can I get excited enough about that it stirs me to action- to get off the couch or out of my comfort zone, which has been pretty cerebral and not a lot physical.

The weather has changed for the better and I’m back on my bike. I’m lumbering back to health, one pedal at a time. When I’m eliminating ‘snacks’ and the associative vernacular, I’m having small, healthy meals instead. The natural course of events that follows is that I tire of being inside when the weather is so sweet at last. I’ve lost patience with myself and feel haunted by the spectre of a shortened life because I chose to be voluntarily hobbled while I still had the chance to move or lose it.

I live in one of the top cycling cities in Canada and I have cycled since I was 3.  I love the smells of people’s gardens as I pass their carefully tended flowering trees and the forest roads that we are famous for here. I squeak and grunt and groan on my bike and feel much more alive than I ever do anywhere else. If the sight of this ungainly, poundly, pumping body rolling along beside the cars of the skinny offends them… I have to remember that I was put on this Earth, not to live up to the expectations of others, but to my own and I don’t judge myself based on what space I displace.  Nor will I apologize for taking up space.  Now I’m going to own the space I take up. Square my shoulders, lift my chin and pedal my hiney all over town.

I laughed as the idea grew in my pedalling mind to begin a blog for chubby women who still love to ride bikes. Maybe we can start our own club here in town. The Red Helmet ladies or something. Want to join me?

I read a quote just today along the lines of self-nurturance. It said that if we let outside influences dictate what our requirements are, then we stay in a mortal mindset, but when we delineate our requirements from within, we become like gods. It seemed to make sense, as I sat there, basking in a breath-taking panorama, enjoying my stimulating bike ride and pondering my question of the day.

So I pose the same question to those of you sharing this CEDRIC journey, given your experience with Michelle’s counsel, CEDRIC’s philosophy and the tools you’ve adapted to accomodate your challenges. What makes you tick?

Michelle Morand has a few workshops coming up this year. Summer is such a pretty time here in Victoria. Maybe a few of us can take the Phase 1 together and cycle to and from the event, together? Find out more about the Transformative Workshops that allows Michelle to convey much more, and deliver it much deeper with her gentle but intensive group dynamics.

Tina Budeweit-Weeks is a member of the CEDRIC Success Team in the role of staff writer and executive assistant for Michelle Morand. Her philosophy has always been one of self-nurturance and dignity. In support of the complex difficulties clients may experience around regaining a healthy balance, Tina’s writing is designed to sympathize, support, encourage and inform. Although there are many similarities in Tina’s process, she is not a client, but a hard working, behind-the-scenes member of the team, dedicated to helping the CEDRIC Centre stay current and effective.

The thing about having an issue with weight is that it translates to an issue with food. This relationship is something that is mismanaged and misunderstood by the best of them, but when you are dealing with personal challenges, the relationship gets even more murky.

There are so many opinions in the western world for the person who is having self esteem issues around the fact that they are considered overweight or are gaining weight.

There just as many options as there are opinions for the person who is dealing with this and they come from all sides as our culture invests a fortune in keeping the superficial issue of body image in the forefront of the collective consciousness.

We have people on tv, in white coats, claiming to be specialists. They give us the gears for being hefty by informing the population that we are ‘less than’ if we don’t buy their plan for salvation, hook, line and sinker. We hear about Food for nurturing and Food for self numbing as an opiate. Martha Stewart tells us that we need to be making the meals pleasing to the eye, Rachel Ray says we should be making four course meals in half an hour to measure up. Even Oprah, who is a cultural icon in today’s world, has her own kitchen staff that includes a world class chef so she has NO idea what she’s eating as she’s passed that on to her dietitian and yet her weight STILL has more ups and downs than a staircase.

How can a little person from small town wherever, with shoelaces for a budget, compete? How can we get away from the constant berating that we are living with a ‘problem’ and if we aren’t constantly doing something about our ‘problem’, we may as well move to the Tennessee Ozarks into a decrepit trailer park right now. Its bad enough that the reality is our bodies need food for fuel and three times a day or more, we better gas up or we won’t have to worry about it, we’d be dead! How does one address mealtime without confusion when messages are coming at us from everywhere with an opinion of how to think?

As a person with a lotta heft in my left, a lotta junk in my trunk, I take offence at the skinny mini diatribe that besieges me constantly. I don’t WANT to be skinny. My loving hubby doesn’t want a stick. I just want to know what is safe to eat and do while keeping a quality of life that is nurturing and gentle to me. Michelle says that food is not the problem and that we should unearth what it is in us that is the real issue that sends us running to food for a crutch.

I can’t argue with that as in my case, she’s right, but now I’m not running any more. I use food as fuel for sure, but I also eat only what I want, what I crave, what is available at the moment if its not too big a common sense compromise and I stay within boundaries of freshness, proximity to home, organic standards rather than the old days where I would starve all day to eat anything all night, undiscerning between dingdongs and other fattening treats, to fried foods and snack products that have no nutritional quality whatsoever.

In spite of changing so drastically, now that I’m informed, I’m still not losing weight. So what’s up with that?

I am coming to realize that the shifts that have occurred in me are bringing about change, but it’s long term, behavioural change and that means the results will be taking long term to come about as well. This isn’t the ’24 pounds in 24 days’ gimmick; this isn’t some pie in the sky grapefruit and cabbage diet that will yoyo me back and forth through the sizes in my wardrobe. This is a long slow curve that will organically turn me around slowly as I begin to address the need I have to be patient and gentle with myself.

I’ve had harsh judgement and hard times, I’ve been shot, robbed, molested and lied to.  Now, I have to turn my back on my need to be nurtured and follow the tenets of ‘no pain, no gain?’ I don’t think so.

In fact, I’ve been thinking…  Why IS the diet industry so heartless towards us? Is it in the guise of ‘tough love’ or is it just that patriarchal need to be an authoritative force to motivate us off the couch because we are so fat that the chub is also between our ears and we don’t hear so good unless you’re yelling or berating us.

Case in point are the tv shows that pit people against one another in the ruse of losing the most weight. For days, morbidly obese people are filmed morning, noon and night wearing little more than a spandex jumpsuit in gawdy colours, forced to do unthinkably difficult tasks much to the entertainment and enjoyment of a slim and trim, uber critical audience that must figure as long as we’re pointing fingers at the fatties, no one will notice the cellulite secrets they hide under their girdles.

Not only do the contestants of these shows have to run themselves to the edge of death in order to lose the most weight, but they are also pitted against one another in alliances and secret arrangements that erupt when emotions are stretched to their limits. I’m surprised that these contestants don’t commit suicide in droves, they take so much verbal abuse on top of the humiliation of knowing that millions of viewers watch their bellies jiggle weekly.

To be honest, I began watching these shows out of initial curiosity from my natural sociological stance, but I soon found out that the experience was a little like witnessing traffic accidents. Each participant becomes the victim of her own intentions as they allow constant crap and abuse to belittle and diminish them in mind and spirit under the lame excuse that it would help decrease their girth.

I admit that watching people exercise while I sit on the couch with my sliced mango, stinky cheese and nut plate is far more fun than being in the front of those invasive cameras and a way for me to say to myself, see… that’s how NOT to do it… and this is how TO do it. (As long as somewhere in my day, I manage to disengage from the comfortable furniture to eject myself outdoors to do a bit of adventuring in the fresh air.)

I can’t support any process that isn’t gentle to me. Now, ‘Staying in the love’ is the mantra that helps me to judge whether something is for me or not. I’ve gotten to the point that ideally, i f I must suffer or sacrifice in order to manifest something into my life, then I take that as a signal to self assess why I am overriding my main intention, to be good to my self.

This is me, as I say time and again, your mileage may differ.

I’ve thought about this cultural acceptance thing a lot these past months. Its been frustrating as I picked up the CEDRIC principles and started applying them to my life because I wasn’t seeing immediate physical results. That really messed with me, as I have been diligent, moved through my life with integrity- to myself and to others, utilizing the coping skills I’ve learned, and still I strain to put on my socks with my poor squished organs groaning under the pressure of ribs without enough room, due to pudge. I want to lose weight, I want to fit in chairs, I want to fly without the imminent threat of thrombosis from getting scrunched into tiny seats without being able to move for hours.  But I don’t want it if I am going to have to experience one more effing hardship.

This means that changes aren’t going to come overnight. They didn’t pack on overnight, after all.

I suggest that staying in the love is critical.  Feed yourself in ways that feel right and responsible for you. Eat fresh, eat lots of leafy green and whole nuts and grains, stay away from artificial ingredients, sugars, refined foods and fried things. Eat till you’re full, eat when you’re hungry and stay in the love. And hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

I haven’t felt a hunger pang that has sent me packin to the snackin since November. Even when faced with trials and tribulations that used to drive me to the snack aisle or worse, the liquor store, I’ve managed to pull out my shiny, wise, newly acquired coping tools and slay that weakening willpower almost effortlessly. I don’t WANT junk in me.

I’m going to persevere.  I KNOW that as the weather improves and I ride my bike more, I will finally see what I truly crave, the return of my healthy, whole self. The mind has trimmed up, the rear is always the last to go.  But know that once one begins the journey that is loving oneself as one is losing, if you are anything like me at all (human, mortal, alive) your hungers will indeed take a permanent holiday.

ps. I realize that the issue of Hunger is very real. The world has people who are struggling to get enough to eat and I don’t use the word disparagingly.  In seeking a graphic to illustrate this article, I google-imaged the word and was reminded that many don’t make it due to the simple need of having enough to live on.

It also reminded me that many might not have the fiscal resources to acquire Michelle Morand’s book, or to take advantage of the Web Program we are developing, or to come in for workshops or counselling sessions… but take heart, as over the next year, ‘Food is not the problem’ will be the theme for my articles and even without the book, follow my ‘Tina’s Journey’ thread, here and in the CEDRIC newsletter (Food is NOT the problem- Find out what is!) to travel through the exercises and processes along with me. Computers are freely available in local libraries so the technology IS available to anyone who desires staying in touch.

There are many hungers,  and this article outlines a different kind of hunger, that is, a yearning that becomes a hole needing to be filled, no matter what, no matter how, when we are broken and hurting. CEDRIC suggests that once you have healed that emptiness inside, the rest will follow.

Having a social conscience is a part of being whole and I strive, when I can, to make a difference in the world by volunteering. The issues I choose to support aren’t always about hunger but they are about giving the marginalized a leg up or helping young women realize their full potential, starting with body image.

I’m kicking my old ways of coping to the curb, giving hunger a permanent holiday.

Tina Budeweit-Weeks is a member of the CEDRIC Success Team in the role of staff writer and executive assistant for Michelle Morand. Her philosophy has always been one of self-nurturance and dignity. In support of the complex difficulties clients may experience around regaining a healthy balance, Tina’s writing is designed to sympathize, support, encourage and inform. Although there are many similarities in Tina’s process, she is not a client, but a hard working, behind-the-scenes member of the team, dedicated to helping the CEDRIC Centre stay current and effective.

So who are we to be left in the dust of an evolving cultural phenomenon?

Do you Twitter? If you do, add the CedricCentre and be alerted when new blog posts, and hot off the presses copies of our newsletter ‘Food is not the problem ~ Find out what is!’ hits the media waves. We promise to not clutter up your technology with useless bits of fluff, and would love it if you stayed in touch via this clever little means of communication.

Have you twittered today?

We have!

As I write this, it’s beautifully sunny outside and warming up. Yay!!

My dear friend Mark is planning to come and visit from a far away warm and sunny place but he won’t come until it’s warm enough to wear shorts!!! Says he doesn’t even own a pair of long pants! Can you believe it!!?? So, I’m hoping the warm weather comes soon. I’ll let you know when he arrives as that’s a sure indicator that summer is here.   Mark is a great spiritual teacher for me and I always learn so much about myself in his presence so no doubt I’ll have lots to share about my own personal process in the next few months.

I just wanted to check in with you ladies and gents and see how your inner feedback balancing was going.  Who has taken up the challenge? How are you doing with it? (Don’t have a clue what I’m talking about? Check out this link and start to heal your negative self-talk and all or nothing thinking!)

If you haven’t started the exercise even though you read the article ask yourself “what’s creating the procrastination?”. Is it true that you don’t need to enhance your ability to allow authentic feedback on both sides of the equation (positive and “constructive”)?  Is it true you don’t have time today to take 10 minutes to write out things you’re grateful for from your past/present and future?  Is it true that you can’t begin to allow yourself the constructive feedback you feel is true while also offering yourself gentle reminders of what is working in your life?

Ask yourself what may be preventing you from taking this next step in your healing of your use of food to cope?

Chances are, it’s an all or nothing story that when brought to light is easily debunked! Don’t let those old bogus stories of how you don’t have time or how it won’t work for you. Don’t listen to the Drill Sergeant who says you need so much more help than this little tool can offer so there’s no point in doing anything. Don’t let these initial hazards stop you from taking the next step on your path to healing.

It’s the all or nothing thinking that keeps you stuck using food to cope. Don’t let that old harmful mindset be the thing that drives the show and prevents you from moving forward. Remember dear old Einstein said “The same mind that created the problem can not be used to solve it!” And don’t leave it up to your old all or nothing mindset to determine whether there is any point in you using a new tool to help you overcome your restriction or your binging or purging.

Let me know how it goes!

Love Michelle

Make a quick little list of these three categories (past, present and future things you’re grateful for) and just allow yourself to carry it with you over the next week. Look at it each day and let yourself acknowledge that, even though you have patterns of behaviour (ie. food stress) that are harmful and that you would like to be rid of (and one day soon you will be!) there are things in your life that are positive and that are indicators of your inner beauty and deservedness.

Allow yourself to balance your inner feedback. If you’re offering yourself a criticism or a judgement right now, make sure you acknowledge whatever you see as the truth of that judgment (in other words don’t try and talk yourself out of your judgment if it feels true for you) and then offer yourself another truth from the list of things you’re grateful for.

Balance that feedback and you’ll begin to see your all or nothing thinking lessening and thus, your use of food to cope diminishing as well.

Have a beautiful day, inside and out.

Love Michelle

You know, it’s been a long time since I binged. It’s been a long time since I even wanted to. I used to binge many times a day, and think about it constantly.

I was either planning a binge; binging; or feeling guilty for binging and trying to restrict myself, which very quickly led to me planning another binge and so on and so on and so on. This is what we refer to as the “diet-binge-guilt” cycle, and it used to be a 24/7 companion in my mind and in my life. Trying to fight off the urge to binge and trying to numb out to the guilt and shame I felt afterwards was a full time job. I don’t know how I managed to work and smile and look like I had it all together.

My nickname at work during those most horrendously out of control years was, if you can believe it… sunshine! Oh, if only my co-workers knew what went on inside my little noggin. It was exhausting being at work and having to appear happy and together when inside I felt so fat and gross and ugly and my clothes were too tight and I could hardly breathe (I wouldn’t let myself buy anything new because, of course, I was going to lose weight soon don’t you know!!). Not only that but I also had constant thoughts of what I should be eating fighting a serious but losing battle with thoughts of what I craved but “shouldn’t” have. Ah, yes, was it any wonder that by the time I returned home at the end of each day I felt so fatigued and so overwhelmed and so depressed that I binged just to soothe and numb out; damn the consequences of weight gain and certain drill sgt. verbal lashing. I needed food now!!

I’d deal with the consequences of that choice later.

Ah, yes, later. We who need to numb out to various circumstances in our lives love that word. It’s fabulous. Just listen to how it rolls off your tongue, later; lllllllllllater. It’s fantastic. I don’t have to do it; think it; be it; experience it now because, guess what? I can do it….later! Yesssss! But damn if there isn’t something of a major catch in that philosophy! Later never comes. Later never becomes now. We never grow up. We never learn to take responsibility for our now when we’re constantly putting off making honoring choices until later. We never learn how to identify and resolve our problems or stresses when we keep waiting for that elusive later to arrive.

You may not know how to take the steps to make the changes you want to make in your life to your restriction or overeating; your preoccupation with food and body image; your feelings of anxiety and depression. That’s where we at The CEDRIC Centre come in. All you need is a readiness for things to be different. If you’re desirous of change and you’re ready to manifest that change; if you’d like to stop waiting for later and begin to reclaim your life and start living in earnest now it’s definitely time to dig deep and reach out and let us support you to let your food focus go and become all you can be.

For me, change truly began when I reached out and started seeing a therapist who specialized in compulsive eating. She helped me to see that food was not my problem, it was my drug of choice and I was using it to numb me out from the things in my life that I had told myself were too big, too much or were just a flaw in my character and I had to live with them. Something was “wrong” with me I believed, and it seemed much easier and safer not to look at that and prove how fundamentally flawed I was – of course it never occurred to me that I might be wrong, that perhaps I wasn’t fundamentally flawed and therefore didn’t have to drug myself every night for the rest of my life just to make it through the next day.

If you’re stuck in the diet-binge-guilt cycle and you’re waiting for “later” to actually take steps to make things different how about you change your definition of the word later to mean: Now! And give us a call or send an email and begin healing today.

Love Michelle

We want to share the feedback we get with our readers. Here is a little collection of the nice things people are saying about what the CEDRIC Centre is doing for them. In one of the comments, our process of achieving wellness is refered to as ‘slaying dragons’. Its kind of fun to think of the ‘Drill Sergeant’ as having scales and breathing fire. I think that with the continued influence of CEDRIC philosophy, people can start seeing the fillibustering roaring dragons for what they are, meek, tiny, feeble little energies that are out to get us.

Hah!

The first little write-up is from participants of our Phase II Weekend Workshops.

“Thank you for making this opportunity available.  Coming together with other people that use food to cope is not only comforting but motivating.  You provided a platform where others like me could learn in parity, by sharing our stories, experiences and challenges.  This past weekend has not only given me further insight into myself as a person but has also left me feeling very inspired to be (as I am learning) the individual, wife, mom and friend I want and can be.  I look forward to continuing on this journey with you as my guide and support.  You are an incredible counselor, teacher and woman.  I cannot thank you enough.  L.”

This next testimonial is much longer, but says so much that we wanted to share it with you in its entirety.

“Hi Michelle,

Family and friends have been witnessing this for quite some time already and have watched us through our individual processes.  They have had many conversations with us about what we are doing and asked how we were able to make the changes we have done so far.  We shared with them about how we are free to create anything new…but sometimes….we don’t know what the ‘new’ is.  We shared that sometimes we can figure it out by ourselves or by something we have read or seen, but sometimes we get stuck on the old and require assistance.

We shared that we have read books, taken courses or counselling so that we can seek new information and new techniques and also so that we have the support and help as well in being able to move out of our old habits and behaviours that aren’t healthy for our personal and family living.  Sometimes when our brain muck is way too deep and our thinking gets stuck in this negative mire….we need a hand.   Many of our friends, single and couples, have now gone on to reading books about creating positive changes, have taken courses and gone to counselling too and have been making good changes as well.  We’ve been told that they felt motivated and encouraged to do this after talking with us and hearing our stories about our challenges and good outcomes.  If our life journeys inspire another…even only one…to take heart….and courage….to design a better life than the one they had….and to feel okay to seek information when needed or call for help if needing some professional help…well wouldn’t that be absolutely lovely!  I am always delighted when my life or the life of another….becomes more enriched and enhanced.

Rather sad to say…but most people take better care that their cars run okay, that their cars are maintained and that they take their cars go in for repair and have professional help if not running right, take a course on how to drive a car and run it safely on the road with others…but how much and how often do we think about our own lives and how well we drive it or make sure it is running okay?  Oh the things that make me go…hmmmmm??  lol.

See you in 2 weeks my dear friend,
Glenda  : )

And finally, Michelle presented the CEDRIC philosophy to the dieticians at a local Victoria hospital last month and the following is a bit of feedback from that session.

“Just a note to say thanks very much for the information and resources you shared with us last week.  It was interesting and helpful to hear about your background and the Cedric Centre services….for my personal, family and
professional purposes.  My sense is you’ll have slayed many dragons along the way with your collaborative, creative and client focused approach!

In appreciation, and with best wishes.

Jane Tosney,
KCC Renal Dietitian “

Slaying dragons… yep… that’s what we’re doing alright.

The CEDRIC theme for March is ‘Procrastination’ and how we deal with it as we journey towards wholeness and balance. When we chronically procrastinate, we are cheating ourselves and delaying the evolution that will contribute to the success of our efforts. The world around us lures us to stay in denial, but part of taking back the power of our success is to become more vigilant with the products that we use in our day to day process.

It might seem to be advantageous to blindly barrel on and start halfway through the process by letting our eating habits remain the same as we realize that ‘Food is not the problem’ but its still necessary to do the work needed that accompanies dealing with past issues, and that is to address the fact that the world around us is not as it would seem.

Look at the instant oatmeal in your cupboards. It was purchased in an effort to eat healthy, but the purchase occurred in haste and the label wasn’t read before it was tossed into the cart. Now in hindsight, take down that box and assess its contents. Realize that, a box of real oats takes the same time to prepare, and you are more aware of what you added to whole real oats. Can you say the same for that box of instant breakfast that lauds how it promotes good health? Do you need all the highly refined additives that keep the ingredients fresh on the grocer’s shelves? Where you would add REAL butter, sugar and milk, reconstituted skim milk and artificial sugar and butter-like substances pretend to be just as good while harming us in the long run by causing our bodies to stockpile toxins until critical mass is reached.

Everywhere we turn today we are besieged with pleas to accept data at face value. A friend used to joke with me “If it’s on TV, it must be true!’ We are expected to take the information that is produced before our eyes as fact and to not question the integrity of the sources that disseminate this information. From the TV’s ad campaigns, magazine ads, reality shows espousing the ‘true beauty’ of an individual and from other sources of authority in our lives, we are expected to take it all with a spoonful of sugar and stay optimistic. And for heaven’s sake, don’t question what’s in that sugar!

So where does that leave us? It’s hard not to come off as a paranoid idealist when it takes me three hours to get through grocery shopping that used to take twenty minutes because its in my best interest to study every label as if my life depended on it. Which it does.

All around us, the so-called authorities of every retail industry make claims that we are to accept without question and as a result, put our hard earned money down and not worry our little heads about it. Speaking of our little heads, take for example the hair dye commercials that use starlets from Desperate Housewives as the authority for hair, who admonish us about our tell-tale roots, and then encourage us to accept the ‘natural’ ingredients added to their chemical hair dye soup so that our hair will look like the star’s. Does no one realize that a star who pulls in a few G-notes for every performance would NEVER deign to allow some cheap, over-the-counter hair dye on their expensive tresses? Here we are, talking about chemicals that would be banned in wiser countries, applied for an extended period within inches of our brains, that we are led to accept as a benign substance.

Ask yourself, ‘Why, within moments of putting this shampoo on my scalp, can I taste it in my mouth?’ and then use that as inspiration to seek another kind of less invasive shampoo when you’re in the store. Its not SUPPOSED to be ingested by our skin to that level of insidious absorption!

There’s that Pampers commercial that admonishes us for allowing third world children to suffer and in response to the problem, they are providing a shot of preventative vaccines to a third world child for every pack of Pampers that you buy. What kind of fools do they take us for? First of all, they are promoting a product that is unsustainable by any measure of planetary upkeep, a product that not only fills our landfills but will take thousands of years to break down; Disposable diapers not only absorb the detritus from an infant, but also leeches an infant’s skin for moisture as it has no way of discerning, liquid is liquid. The makers of this product are doing the slight of hand when they turn the viewers focus onto the 3rd world woes of infants so as to take the heat off the fact that their product is harmful to infants AND environmentally destructive. If people were conscious enough to worry about the vaccines needed by 3rd world infants, then they are likely conscious enough to understand that cloth diapering is the only acceptable method and would never lower themselves to take on the enormous environmental footprint that disposable diapering leaves behind.

Clothing companies tell us that the sizes are universal, however, why is it when I’m shopping, as a woman of size, clothes that fit will vary between an 18 to a 4X. And as far as the large women’s clothing industry goes, how is it that a company can say that it supports the needs of large size women while all along they are depicting mannequins who have bodies smaller than the clothes the store sells?

And lastly, the food industry is an enormous part of the lie. When I started learning about nutrition as I was raising my first child in the early 80′s, I was able to buy a product and read a label that I could understand. Every year, people feed tons of sugar to their kids unerringly. They feel that if Chef Boy Ar Dee says its good for you, it is. Remember that the good Chef is actually a patsy for the corporation that wants your money, and don’t believe a word he says.

Now the labels are written in scientific jargon and can contain any number of unpronounceable chemicals and additives all while professing to be ‘natural’. How natural is a soup that contains 40% sweetening that isn’t even sugar but a horrendous chemical that is comprised of syrup, fungus and a bacteria? As one friend says, ‘cyanide is natural too!’

Ask yourself just how nutritious are the highly refined food products found in the centre aisles of the supermarket? And what about the trusted outer aisles that contain vegetables, fruit, fresh baked breads, dairy and meat? How much do you trust that washing your fruit and vegetables will actually rid it of the pesticide residue that the growers deem needed to make the fruit appear perfect for the consumer? What is in the antibiotics fed to the chicken you plan on feeding the family? Have these cows been fed meal that consists of the brain stem matter of their companions in steerage?

Yes, we live in a world that is spun from lies. From the newspaper that greets us at the door each morning with its overblown conspiracy theories and tales of woe, from its articles that put a certain spin on information to lead the reader down a path of its, not your, choosing, to ads that encourage us to deny accepting ourselves as naturally beautiful, we are constantly fed a ration of ‘bull. Ads belabour us for not being more thin, more beautiful, better dressed, driving a better vehicle. From start to finish, where the last thing we see on tv at night before we turn out the lights are ads for rapid weight loss if we just ingest these new drugs, that expendable commandment espousing truth is ignored as nothing sells better than the ‘sizzle’ of seemingly reliable facts that are anything but.

How does one deal with a personal ethics barometer of integrity when all around them, lies are the accepted discourse of the material world?

My solution is to become a skeptic. Doubt everything until proven otherwise. And if it involves being in or on our bodies, be double doubtful. This is the temple that houses your spirit and don’t be so quick to undermine its success by accepting the word of strangers motivated by greed as truth.

Investigate the ingredients you find on the boxes of prepared foods in your cupboards. If you can’t understand it, don’t eat it, and don’t feed it to your family or pets either! Ask your grocer where products are made, she might know more about the sources of the ingredients because she is the one who brings the products into the store in the first place.

Most of all, research, research, research. Knowledge is power and today’s world brings true knowledge closer to our fingertips than ever with the advent of the internet. Put that questionable ingredient into an internet search engine and read every entry on the topic for a few pages. Then decide what you want to conclude from the array of insights you just garnered.

Sodium Laureth Sulphate is a good one to start with. Read the entries on this toxic carcinogen that is in literally every soap product in your home. Its’ history as engine degreaser is forgotten as it is in everything from baby soap to toothpaste, to your favourite brand name bath gel. Like high fructose corn syrup, it extends the product by acting as filler and also extends its shelf life when added to a product. It is also a ‘suds’ inducer, the factor that assumes consumers need bubbles to believe a soap works all while having some pretty disastrous effects on the vulnerable who have issues around their already compromised immune systems.

When we begin to refocus our lives to accept our past and learn from it, we move on and become more positive with our future. Part of taking responsibility for the ‘new us’ is to watch what goes in and on us. Everyone knows that the world today is an unfamiliar place that is filled with dangers and pitfalls. The obvious things that we should be afraid of, crime, corruption, global warming etc. are used as distractions (fear propaganda, like the Bush mandate to address the ‘Axis of Evil’ every 10 days in the media to keep the population opiated) while the industry slips questionable ingredients and chemicals into us, just under our radar. We just want deodorant, not lymph node cancer or advanced dementia! But by looking on the label, the aluminum that is inside that pretty pink gel indicates that all is not as it seems.

As we work our ways back for imbalance to harmony, take back your personal power by educating yourself about products that promote your health and the future of the environment. Let the lies act as warning flags as you go through your day, waving red flags of inspiration that lead you to wholeness by AVOIDING that which you used to accept blindly.

Believe in yourself. Question everything else.

Tina Budeweit-Weeks is a member of the CEDRIC Success Team in the role of staff writer and executive assistant for Michelle Morand. Her philosophy has always been one of self-nurturance and dignity. In support of the complex difficulties clients may experience around regaining a healthy balance, Tina’s writing is designed to sympathize, support, encourage and inform. Although there are many similarities in Tina’s process, she is not a client, but a hard working, behind-the-scenes member of the team, dedicated to helping the CEDRIC Centre stay current and effective.

Look at the instant oatmeal in your cupboards. It was purchased in an effort to eat healthy, but the purchase occurred in haste and the label wasn’t read before it was tossed into the cart. Now in hindsight, take down that box and assess its contents. Realize that, a box of real oats takes the same time to prepare, and you are more aware of what you added to whole real oats. Can you say the same for that box of instant breakfast that lauds how it promotes good health? Do you need all the highly refined additives that keep the ingredients fresh on the grocer’s shelves? Where you would add REAL butter, sugar and milk, reconstituted skim milk and artificial sugar and butter-like substances pretend to be just as good while harming us in the long run by causing our bodies to stockpile toxins until critical mass is reached.

Everywhere we turn today we are besieged with pleas to accept data at face value. A friend used to joke with me “If it’s on TV, it must be true!’ We are expected to take the information that is produced before our eyes as fact and to not question the integrity of the sources that disseminate this information. From the TV’s ad campaigns, magazine ads, reality shows espousing the ‘true beauty’ of an individual and from other sources of authority in our lives, we are expected to take it all with a spoonful of sugar and stay optimistic. And for heaven’s sake, don’t question what’s in that sugar!

So where does that leave us? It’s hard not to come off as a paranoid idealist when it takes me three hours to get through grocery shopping that used to take twenty minutes because its in my best interest to study every label as if my life depended on it. Which it does.

All around us, the so-called authorities of every retail industry make claims that we are to accept without question and as a result, put our hard earned money down and not worry our little heads about it. Speaking of our little heads, take for example the hair dye commercials that use starlets from Desperate Housewives as the authority for hair, who admonish us about our tell-tale roots, and then encourage us to accept the ‘natural’ ingredients added to their chemical hair dye soup so that our hair will look like the star’s. Does no one realize that a star who pulls in a few G-notes for every performance would NEVER deign to allow some cheap, over-the-counter hair dye on their expensive tresses? Here we are, talking about chemicals that would be banned in wiser countries, applied for an extended period within inches of our brains, that we are led to accept as a benign substance.

Ask yourself, ‘Why, within moments of putting this shampoo on my scalp, can I taste it in my mouth?’ and then use that as inspiration to seek another kind of less invasive shampoo when you’re in the store. Its not SUPPOSED to be ingested by our skin to that level of insidious absorption!

There’s that Pampers commercial that admonishes us for allowing third world children to suffer and in response to the problem, they are providing a shot of preventative vaccines to a third world child for every pack of Pampers that you buy. What kind of fools do they take us for? First of all, they are promoting a product that is unsustainable by any measure of planetary upkeep, a product that not only fills our landfills but will take thousands of years to break down; Disposable diapers not only absorb the detritus from an infant, but also leeches an infant’s skin for moisture as it has no way of discerning, liquid is liquid. The makers of this product are doing the slight of hand when they turn the viewers focus onto the 3rd world woes of infants so as to take the heat off the fact that their product is harmful to infants AND environmentally destructive. If people were conscious enough to worry about the vaccines needed by 3rd world infants, then they are likely conscious enough to understand that cloth diapering is the only acceptable method and would never lower themselves to take on the enormous environmental footprint that disposable diapering leaves behind.

Clothing companies tell us that the sizes are universal, however, why is it when I’m shopping, as a woman of size, clothes that fit will vary between an 18 to a 4X. And as far as the large women’s clothing industry goes, how is it that a company can say that it supports the needs of large size women while all along they are depicting mannequins who have bodies smaller than the clothes the store sells?

And lastly, the food industry is an enormous part of the lie. When I started learning about nutrition as I was raising my first child in the early 80′s, I was able to buy a product and read a label that I could understand. Every year, people feed tons of sugar to their kids unerringly. They feel that if Chef Boy Ar Dee says its good for you, it is. Remember that the good Chef is actually a patsy for the corporation that wants your money, and don’t believe a word he says.

Now the labels are written in scientific jargon and can contain any number of unpronounceable chemicals and additives all while professing to be ‘natural’. How natural is a soup that contains 40% sweetening that isn’t even sugar but a horrendous chemical that is comprised of syrup, fungus and a bacteria? As one friend says, ‘cyanide is natural too!’

Ask yourself just how nutritious are the highly refined food products found in the centre aisles of the supermarket? And what about the trusted outer aisles that contain vegetables, fruit, fresh baked breads, dairy and meat? How much do you trust that washing your fruit and vegetables will actually rid it of the pesticide residue that the growers deem needed to make the fruit appear perfect for the consumer? What is in the antibiotics fed to the chicken you plan on feeding the family? Have these cows been fed meal that consists of the brain stem matter of their companions in steerage?

Yes, we live in a world that is spun from lies. From the newspaper that greets us at the door each morning with its overblown conspiracy theories and tales of woe, from its articles that put a certain spin on information to lead the reader down a path of its, not your, choosing, to ads that encourage us to deny accepting ourselves as naturally beautiful, we are constantly fed a ration of ‘bull. Ads belabour us for not being more thin, more beautiful, better dressed, driving a better vehicle. From start to finish, where the last thing we see on tv at night before we turn out the lights are ads for rapid weight loss if we just ingest these new drugs, that expendable commandment espousing truth is ignored as nothing sells better than the ‘sizzle’ of seemingly reliable facts that are anything but.

How does one deal with a personal ethics barometer of integrity when all around them, lies are the accepted discourse of the material world?

My solution is to become a skeptic. Doubt everything until proven otherwise. And if it involves being in or on our bodies, be double doubtful. This is the temple that houses your spirit and don’t be so quick to undermine its success by accepting the word of strangers motivated by greed as truth.

Investigate the ingredients you find on the boxes of prepared foods in your cupboards. If you can’t understand it, don’t eat it, and don’t feed it to your family or pets either! Ask your grocer where products are made, she might know more about the sources of the ingredients because she is the one who brings the products into the store in the first place.

Most of all, research, research, research. Knowledge is power and today’s world brings true knowledge closer to our fingertips than ever with the advent of the internet. Put that questionable ingredient into an internet search engine and read every entry on the topic for a few pages. Then decide what you want to conclude from the array of insights you just garnered.

Sodium Laureth Sulphate is a good one to start with. Read the entries on this toxic carcinogen that is in literally every soap product in your home. Its’ history as engine degreaser is forgotten as it is in everything from baby soap to toothpaste, to your favourite brand name bath gel. Like high fructose corn syrup, it extends the product by acting as filler and also extends its shelf life when added to a product. It is also a ‘suds’ inducer, the factor that assumes consumers need bubbles to believe a soap works all while having some pretty disastrous effects on the vulnerable who have issues around their already compromised immune systems.

When we begin to refocus our lives to accept our past and learn from it, we move on and become more positive with our future. Part of taking responsibility for the ‘new us’ is to watch what goes in and on us. Everyone knows that the world today is an unfamiliar place that is filled with dangers and pitfalls. The obvious things that we should be afraid of, crime, corruption, global warming etc. are used as distractions (fear propaganda, like the Bush mandate to address the ‘Axis of Evil’ every 10 days in the media to keep the population opiated) while the industry slips questionable ingredients and chemicals into us, just under our radar. We just want deodorant, not lymph node cancer or advanced dementia! But by looking on the label, the aluminum that is inside that pretty pink gel indicates that all is not as it seems.

As we work our ways back for imbalance to harmony, take back your personal power by educating yourself about products that promote your health and the future of the environment. Let the lies act as warning flags as you go through your day, waving red flags of inspiration that lead you to wholeness by AVOIDING that which you used to accept blindly.

Believe in yourself. Question everything else.<-->