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. (more…)

Never let it be said that just because you are middle aged, your life is merely a banal repetition of experiences that make for zero excitement quotient. I for one, am going to age with a bang, kicking and screaming all the way. What I’m talking about now is no exception. At 52, I’m too excited to sleep. I’m so full of tomorrow I can’t get today out of the way fast enough. Like a kid at Christmas, I’m so stoked.

Tomorrow is my Graduation. I’ve managed to gather enough credits over the past six years to be able to share this achievement with my alma mater and family tomorrow. I managed to hobble along with a Grade 9 education until I turned mid 40 and suddenly avenues of academia opened up to me. Six years later, I’m plotting my accomplishments in a blog made possible by what I garnered from those rigorous years of schooling. (more…)

One of the things I know for sure about body image, from my own recovery experience and from hundreds of conversations with clients, is that your negative self-talk and feelings of loathing, disgust and heaviness in your body can change to peaceful acceptance in 24 hours, even when nothing has physically changed in your body.

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. (more…)

Today, I’m finally exercising.

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?

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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? (more…)

When I think of my body and brain functioning together in the miraculous way it does, I have been known to compare it to a carbon based operating system and hard drive that runs the machine that is my body. The way mind and body works together is very much like the way a computer functions, software, hardware, the ‘Blue Screen of Death’ when pushed beyond its capabilities.

In Michelle Morand’s book, Food is Not the problem;  Chapter 4 introduces the Matrix,  which is a chart developed by former professors of Michelle’s, Elisabeth Bennett and Paul Hastings, designed to help ground our carbon based hard drives, to provide that rebooting to default mode, by outlining where we find ourselves in this moment.

This is where my latest evolution goes through its paces. Chapter 4 identifies where my thinking goes back to default when faced with challenges, from within or externally. It brought back that old familiar mental image of the brain as my organic hard drive rebooting and going through this process of assessment and taking action. (more…)

As the garden takes shape on my balcony and I delve deeper into sustainable techniques for providing my little family food that grows  fresh from my planters as well as my garden, I have also been spending a lot of time thinking about my process as I read the CEDRIC book’ you’re probably familiar with by now, ‘Food is not the problem- Deal with what is‘.

It is an interesting position that I find myself in with my job at CEDRIC as well as my process utilizing the different books, cd’s and philosophy that are now available to me. I find my life has become a rapidly evolving series of events and ponderances that result in it becoming richer, deeper and ultimately, happier.

I have to give credit where its due as its the humble and kind Michelle Morand’s teaching and energy that are contributing to the vast improvements in how I see myself. I am finally at a critical stage of recognizable achievement in this process as it is not because I am recieving external validation, but because of the diametric opposite of that, I find myself no longer requiring external validation of any sort in order to feel ‘right’ or ‘acceptable’. (more…)

The new Twitter phenomenon is upon us and this tiny little social utility has entered the discourse of our culture in a big way recently. When we turn our televisions on, it seems that every celebrity, everybody at all, has gotten on the Twitterwagon and is supporting it.

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!

This weekend was a lovely combination of solitude and company as my hubby and I went through our various routines. His involvement with the Anglican church means that I am able to have a fair bit of alone time, and we spent the rest of the time puttering or having a couple of nice drives and meals out.

He shows me he loves me in many ways, but this past week, he managed to drive a major point home.

I was bemoaning that I couldn’t find clothes to fit my 6 foot, 200 mumblemumble lb. frame and that what I did find was available in one store only and everybody else that was dealing with weight issues had the same clothes. We were in traffic in the car and I can remember that we were sitting in the left turn lane to the Blue Bridge when he turned to me and said ‘I love what’s in your head, I love your heart and I love you. I don’t see girth, I see beauty. Would you just appreciate the fact that you have what the majority of the population strives for and quit being so down on yourself?’

That was truly an ‘AHA’ moment for me.

What did he mean?
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There is a popular saying that claims that the squeaking wheel gets the grease.   The role of the Drill Sergeant is a huge squeaking wheel in CEDRIC philosophy, and it’s true that since this is the part of the problem that is the most vocal and apparent, it is what garners all the attention. I have come to view the role of the Drill Sergeant as the canary in the coal mine, in that if I have an inner voice that belabours and berates me, it is a sign that all is not right, and that there is a inadequacy of my self-esteem, which should be balanced enough to keep the negative internalizing at bay.

If most are like me, they’ve misunderstood and compounded the harm of this enormous squeak of this wheel by giving it credence for years, without really recognizing its value. Years of trying not to hear the harsh, hateful criticisms that blindsided me made me exceptionally good at one thing. Denial. I could block it out like I blocked out the immature noises my son made as a child, but was I doing myself any favours in this solution? In hindsight, I see that the answer to that is ‘hardly’.

In Gavin de Becker’s book ‘The Gift of Fear‘, he speaks of how our responses to threats are hardwired in us to protect us. He gives an example by showing how we listen to the protective instincts within ourselves when we get behind the wheel of an automobile. We look around us and subconsciously take in signals from others that indicate to us wether the car beside us is going to switch lanes or the vehicle ahead of us is about to turn right or left, but Becker says, the minute we get out of that car and shut the doors behind us, we turn off that instinctive personal radar and cease to listen to its warnings.

This phenomena of recognizing our protective reflexes in one situation yet negating them in others is very interesting to me. When I’m driving, I don’t hear the Drill Sergeant at all. I simply do what I have to do with him kept busy keeping the car where it should be, I guess. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed driving so much, it gave me a break from the relentless diatribe.

In Michelle Morand’s book, ‘Food is not the problem – Deal with what is‘, Michelle says that the Drill Sergeant likely uses the same tone of language and respect or disrespect as we experienced when we received when we were traumatized or forced to endure a difficult life passage. In my case, I know this explains why my DS sounds so much like my mother, with her clipped British tones to the never-ending German accent. She was very angry at her own life and would direct that rage at me whenever she decided I had let her down again. Now, I see that I am a textbook case for Michelle’s message and in a way, I’m lucky to have found someone who can help me to internalize a new kind of self understanding in order to move on. In a way, I feel like I’m being untangled, unscrambled, like the funhouse mirror is becoming less wonky and I can now trust my internal perceptions without the doubt that was generated by such a diminishing canary. (more…)