Archive for and Binging

Plus Sized Debate

Hello out there.

Plus Sized Debate

There’s a news story that came out a little while ago that I have been reflecting on. Here’s the link if you’d like to check it out.

I wanted to share with you the thoughts that it brought up for me about the Plus Sized Debate that currently rages in our world. 

This link will connect you to an article by a ‘plus-size’ model about clothing sizes and our cultural body image / weight obsession.

I am glad she’s speaking up and challenging the status quo and I also question the definition of this woman as a ‘plus-size’ model. 

I personally look at this woman and struggle to label her as plus-sized in any way. She looks simply healthy and balanced to me.

Maybe I have a distorted idea of what plus sized means…I guess if we look at it literally…plus = more…but more than what? Is it the fashion industry ‘what’…which we already know is notoriously dysfunctional and promotes the notion of bone-rack-at-any-cost? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being ‘plus’ that.

Are they referring to the fitness crazed 6-pack-ab, eating clean and lean crowd…not balanced. Not sustainable for most truly and a large proportion of my clients come from this population – dieticians, nutritionists, fitness trainers and coaches, body builders, athletes. Clearly folks can look ‘fit’ but be far from it in terms of balanced self-care. Remember this if you’re looking at your friend the fitness nut and feeling envious of her slim/toned body.

Look a Little Deeper…

Look deeper – how does she really feel about herself; how is her self-confidence; is her fitness focus about true enjoyment and health and wellness or about needing to be thin. You can be fit and toned and sexy without being a fitness buff and you can look great without having to diet or micro-manage calories and fat grams.

Maybe ‘plus-size’ to some means ‘bigger than normal people’…but, um…what’s normal? Different bodies, different genetic heritage and different interests are naturally going to produce different norms (is a pro-skater plus sized because her thighs are bigger than others?).

I suppose in reality, try as we might to avoid it…the ugly truth is that for most folks the term ‘plus-size’ conjures immediate connotations of being overweight. Why do we need the ‘plus’ in the size – can’t there just be different sizes? Again, ‘plus’ what?

I find the same confounding thinking in folks who get stuck on being ‘good enough’. There is no way, ever that you can be ‘good enough.’ It isn’t a thing or a place you can get to. The term ‘good enough’ on its own means absolutely nothing. You have to qualify it: Good enough for what? Good enough for whom?

Then you get the light bulb moment: good enough for my mom; for my ex; for the job I want; to travel to France, etc.

Some Questions to Ask Yourself

Once you qualify who or what you’re striving to be good enough for you can begin to ask yourself some very valuable and freeing questions:

  • What, in the first place, makes me think that this person or situation is the accurate determiner of my worth/good enough-ness?
  • What makes them ‘right’ and me ‘wrong’?
  • What specifically is the criteria that I believe would make me ‘good enough’ for this person or situation?
  • Is it true that I am not that now? Is it true that I can’t be that if I wanted to and spent some time gathering the tools/skills/knowledge etc.?
  • Would I really want to spend my precious life moments trying to be ‘good enough’ for that person/thing?
  • If I weren’t so busy trying to make others think I’m ‘good enough’ what would I really like to be ‘good enough’ at/for?

I could go on – it’s a very key piece of the healing / recovery / stop-overeating puzzle and it is a discussion and process I explore with every single client at some point in their work with me.

From my past experience, I can completely relate to not feeling ‘good-enough’ and to the chronic insecurity and depression that we live in when we feel that, at our core, there is simply something fundamentally wrong with us. There must be something wrong with us, we presume, otherwise wouldn’t so-and-so have loved us? Wouldn’t so-and-so have been kind to us? Wouldn’t we have been given such-and-such opportunity?

Not necessarily – there are many other possible explanations for why so-and-so did what they did that aren’t about you at all. But that’s a topic for another day.

Exploring Your Emotions

Back to being plus-sized: I used to eat my feelings (and anything else I could get my hands on). That only made me feel worse – fat, gross, ugly, stupid – I used to call myself that everyday and then some. I weighed 40+ pounds more than I naturally do now. (I’ve been my natural weight for 2 decades with no dieting or exercise regimes and haven’t weighed myself since…I dunno when.)

I’m 5’4 and I weigh 125-130-ish lbs depending on the time of year and how active I am – yes, my weight naturally fluctuates over the course of the year, and it doesn’t stress me out – my clothes fit me all year round, through the winter I’m less muscly and through the summer more naturally toned. I don’t diet and I don’t calorie count or ‘watch’ what I eat.

I pay attention to how I feel physically and emotionally. I engage in activities that I truly enjoy such as kayaking, Mixed Martial Arts, an occasional jog, hiking, swimming (in the ocean when the weather is right), snowboarding…etc. It all depends on the season and the weather – the point really is that it’s all stuff I enjoy and there’s a variety of activities that I feel drawn to explore depending on the variables of season, weather, how much time I have, etc.

I respond to my emotions by respecting them and exploring them and, if I’m having a feeling that I don’t want to keep having, I take the time to figure out what triggered it and what I can do to resolve that. This makes me feel like I can trust myself to respect myself and like I can always find a solution to the problems in my life. I didn’t used to feel that way at all – I felt constantly anxious and like everything was insurmountable, and my fault to boot. Somehow I believed that if I was just thinner, these things wouldn’t happen.

The way I see it now, feelings are signs for me to explore how I’m thinking and what’s happening in my life. There is always a solution to whatever is bugging me that will make me feel better about myself and help me to feel peaceful and confident.

If I can eat what I’d like, exercise moderately – have fun/play/dance/kayak/walk the dog – and not have to watch what I eat or weigh myself 5 times a day like I used to ‘to keep myself in check’, I believe everyone can.

I didn’t used to think I could be happy with myself unless I was eating a certain way or weighed a certain number on the scale or took a certain pant size. And I made that a self-fulfilling prophesy for quite a few years – I was miserable, insecure, anxious, isolating, and binging and dieting my face off. And I kept gaining weight.

I felt powerless and frustrated. I started every day by staring at and judging my stomach rolls while simultaneously hopping on the scale hoping that the binge I had last night hadn’t had a lasting impact and that the attempts I made at dieting during the day had at least some effect on the ‘bottom’ line. Inevitably I was doomed – even if, by some miracle, I had lost weight it would be 1/8th or 1/4 of a pound – no where near the 40+ pounds I needed to lose in order to be ‘good enough’.

This naturally led to yet another day of me feeling anxious and insecure and creating a desperate need for binge food while at the same time promising myself I wouldn’t do it again!!! Yep, many years of my life were spent that way.

At that time in my life I was plus-sized. I had to shop in ‘special’ stores, of which, 20+ years ago, there were 2 in all of Vancouver, BC. How’s that for the fashion industry delivering a message about my body?

Today, by anyone’s standards I think, I’m a reasonable weight for my body but I still have to buy large undies! It is what it is to me now – I need undies that are comfy and don’t give me panty lines – and these are often a size large – big whoop. But back in the diet mentality days of my life, I’d prefer to chafe and struggle to breathe over buying anything with a ‘large’ tag on it. I’d be mortified. It truly felt like the biggest and worst thing a person could ever be: Large! (Insert scary organ music here!!)

But that wasn’t me thinking. That was what I had been taught to think by my parents and their distorted, diet mentality approach to life. I just hadn’t even entertained the possibility that they may have been confused or downright irrational in their approach to happiness and self-esteem. 

Among those who have yet to truly feel ‘good enough’ for themselves,  there is often a desperate need to de-exist (I’m sure that’s a word…) Why are people so eager to be a size zero? What do they believe that will mean?

Are they thinking: ‘I’m finally good enough, attractive enough, lovable enough, sexy enough because I’m so small no clothes will fit me? ‘ 

How does that number on your pants correspond to your worth or love-ability as a human being?

Um….it doesn’t – unless you’re trying to make someone with a small brain and huge judgement finally see you as ‘good enough’ – which I recommend strongly against.

Someone who is truly that ignorant of what true love and true acceptance are about will never be able to be rational enough to have a healthy relationship with you in the first place (probably why you feel so insecure around them in the first place – they can’t meet your needs for reassurance and acceptance because they don’t have a clue how! Not because you aren’t worth it!).

You’ll never be able to feel truly loved by them because they don’t even understand the term. So, move on if that’s you. Even if it’s your mom or dad or auntie or grandma doing the slamming – If they are not simply concerned for your health and happiness and demonstrating they love you and accept you as you are – move on – fast.

The need to be accepted and loved is a perfectly healthy human need – persisting in trying to find acceptance and love from folks who judge your worth by your weight is not healthy or helpful and will never, ever, be successful.

You Deserve Better

You truly do deserve better – but you won’t find it if you keep beating your head against that brick wall. And if you’re out there buying it – thinking there is something not lovable or good enough about you and that’s why they aren’t more loving or warm or considerate or accepting of you it’s time for you to learn how to think for yourself and to build real self-esteem and to prioritize values like respect, dignity, compassion, self-care, reliability, integrity and trustworthiness (to yourself and others).

This clear thinking makes you feel more confident and less anxious and naturally leads you to feel excited to take better care of yourself. 

Self-esteem means you trust your ability to think clearly and reasonably and you have to have confidence in your perspective. That is the foundation for good self-esteem and a happy life and it also naturally leads to the ability for you to change, effectively and respectfully, the things you see in yourself and in your world that don’t make sense.

Then instead of waiting for everyone around you to feel secure enough in themselves to be able to give you the love you desire, you are naturally, fully, giving it to yourself and through your behaviour you are naturally teaching others how love really looks and feels, at any size.

In the U.K. there is a current initiative to change all the mannequins in clothing shops to a size 16 (from, I think, a size 6)  because the real average size of women in that region is much more 16 than 6. I believe it’s long overdue that a more accurate form of the average female in any region be modelling clothing, jewelry, and anything else that requires modelling to sell.

In my opinion, if folks are naturally a 16 or 20 or 2, so what? Are they nice? Are they honest, trustworthy reliable folks with a good work ethic? Are they capable of rational thought and action? If so, I love them!

If someone has extra weight on their body because they eat when they aren’t hungry to try and pass the time or calm their nerves or soothe or nurture themselves, I help them to feel happy and peaceful and confident in themselves for real – i.e. without needing food to make that happen for a moment.

Whatever the number on their pants or on the scale when they reach that sense of inner confidence and strength and genuine happiness has truly no bearing on their deservedness for love and caring or on their intellect or ability.

I say, unless we know how the person we are looking at achieves their current weight or maintains a certain look, we cannot begin to offer comment on the healthiness or appropriateness of their appearance. I’ve had way too many clients over the past 20 years who are starving themselves or vomiting many times a day to maintain a certain weight while the people around them praise them for their will-power, slimness, and small size. Ya never know what goes on behind closed doors.

For me, I’m far more interested in how happy and confident and secure in yourself you are than in the size of dress you just bought – ‘plus’ or otherwise.

And I know that anyone who is capable of a truly healthy, loving relationship of any kind is going to think the same.

What do you think? Let’s discuss the thoughts that come up for you when you consider these concepts.

Love Michelle

Posted in: 2014, All-or-Nothing Thinking, and Binging, Anorexia and Bulimia, CEDRIC Centre, Complete Recovery, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Others, Relationship with Self

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Magical Thinking: The Real Cause of Your Unhappiness

Understanding How Your Thinking Impacts Your Self-Esteem, Your Ability to Create Healthy Relationships and Prevents you From Getting a Grip on Food, Binging and Weight Loss

You’re a magical thinker.

Michelle Morand - Magical Thinking and Self-Esteem

That’s not a criticism, or a flaw. It’s the reality of the human brain. Magical thinking is a part of our wiring and it is also a key component of many of the most enjoyable parts of our culture and entertainment and a great way to release tension and stress. And it’s called magical thinking because it is not based in reality or on the facts of the situation as they truly exist.

It’s why kids so readily believe in Santa and the Tooth Fairy and monsters under the bed. Magical thinking is the equivalent of clicking your ruby heels together, saying ‘there’s no place like home’ 3 times and expecting yourself to be transported from the gridlock you’re stuck in on the freeway to your front door.

It’s also why, since the dawn of humanity, each distinct culture has had their own spiritual or religious belief system, often with similarities that can only be seen as direct plagiarism, and yet still, each group of believers believes, with absolute certainty, that theirs is the only ‘real’ one.

And, perhaps, closer to home, magical thinking is the reason that, despite the many times your partner has not followed through on doing what he said he’d do, or has treated you disrespectfully, you still think that you’re going to get what you need in that relationship.

In reality, it makes no sense to hang around, expecting someone to change a behaviour that is hurting you unless they admit they need to change AND get help to learn why they do what they do and what to do to change it. Anything else is pure magical thinking on your part and will keep you stuck in a relationship that will never truly provide the love and security you seek.

What is Magical Thinking?

Essentially, magical thinking is an instinctual thought process, designed overall to make us feel happy and hopeful in the face of the many hardships in the reality of life.  The day dream that I’m going to win the lottery helps me, if I’m struggling financially, to not worry so much, at least for that moment, about my financial future and winding up on skid row with my home in a shopping cart.

Hence the magical thinking I engage in at that moment really does make me feel happy and that plants a little seed in my brain – creates some neurones firing in a certain way – that may lead me, the next time I get stressed about my bank account, to revisit that lottery win fantasy and get a break from the stress of my reality.

That’s all well and good if I don’t get stressed too often about money and if I remember that my imagined lottery winnings are a fantasy and not some psychic indicator of what my future holds. If I quit my job and wait for the winning ticket, or I don’t save for my future because I expect my windfall, that’s taking my magical thinking too far and forgetting to include a healthy dose of reality in my planning.

Addictions are a prime example of magical thinking. Imagining that drinking or taking drugs or binging is really going to make things better, beyond the immediate chemical release of feel good hormones into my blood stream, is complete magical thinking and yet, it is because it makes us feel good in the immediate moment and because we don’t know what else to do to solve our problems and feel good in a long-term, big picture way, we keep reaching for those magical solutions.

Relationships are often approach the same way. I know I’m not happy and that I’m not getting what I need in this relationship and yet on occasion things feel good and it’s familiar and so I stick around, allowing my magical thinking to transport me to a time in the future when things will change. And in the meantime I stay put in a crappy relationship rather than leave and create the space for the relationship I really want.

Telling Ourselves Stories

You see magical thinking works two ways – it can tell us fantasy stories of the lovely things that will come, if for no other reason than because we desire them, and it can tell us horror stories of the terrible fates that will befall us if we take a certain action – particularly if we change the current familiar setting of our life such as change our job, move towns, end a relationship or stand up for ourselves with someone.

It is natural for the human brain to lean towards belief systems and explanations of events that will make us feel happy. This has been proven beyond a doubt in many solid scientific studies and is spoken of with great, easy reading detail and wit by Daniel Gilbert in his fantastic blend of science and human interest, ‘Stumbling on Happiness.’

So we come by this magical thinking thing honestly and it serves a purpose in our lives at any age. But it has a serious downside.

You miss out on the reality of life and on many opportunities it naturally provides you to create what it is you really want and to build self-esteem and healthy relationships.

So, you need to be able to be aware of when you are in magical thinking and when you are in reality. This allows you to make a conscious choice and to therefore be in control of where your mind takes you and of the actions you choose in your efforts to make yourself happy.

If you are not trained to think rationally and clearly; If you haven’t been shown how to assess a situation for the actual facts vs. your fantasies, your brain will naturally default into magical thinking – what you wish were true, rather than reminding you that you don’t have enough facts or information to form any sort of opinion yet.

This leads you to continue to see the world in a way that isn’t based on facts and therefore limits you to repeating old patterns and prevents you from taking advantage of the real opportunities that do present themselves.

Functional Relationship Basics

If you haven’t had solid role models who taught you the basics of functional relationship:

  1. What good communication looks like – how to ask effectively and reasonably for what you need and want;
  2. What is reasonable to expect of others and them to expect of you; and
  3. What you are responsible for in any situation vs. what other are responsible for,

you, and anyone else lacking that training, will naturally struggle with knowing how to feel confident and secure in yourself and in your relationships with others and this will lead your brain to lean more on the fantasy / magical thinking to make you happy rather than looking for solutions to the actual problems at hand.

Unfortunately, sometimes the magical thinking part of our brain believes that telling you that you’re stupid or fat or ugly or useless or unlovable or unworthy or just plain ‘not good enough’ is going to help you to be happier.

The ‘logic’ behind this irrational thought process is that if you are not getting what you need in the way of caring, support and reassurance it is easier for you handle –ie. you’ll be happier – if you think that it’s about you and that means there’s something you could possibly do about the situation to make it better.

Thus, lacking functional relationship skills, and lacking the ability to think beyond the immediate moment and therefore explore long-term solutions to our present day stress, our magical thinking brain will default to making pretty much everything that isn’t going well for us (and pretty much everyone else), about something that is bad or wrong or unacceptable in us.

Our rational brain can see that this is irrational. How can I possibly be responsible for my partner losing his job or having a bad day? And even if I did or said something that upset him, how does it make sense that it’s okay for him to yell or to threaten or to withdraw his affection for me? How is that rational, reasonable or at all loving?

There are lots of appropriate and loving ways to express frustration and hurt in a relationship. You may not have experienced them as a child and as such you’ve got a magical thinking idea that, even though it didn’t feel good and you felt anxious and insecure a lot, the way that your parents or teachers or ‘friends’ expressed ‘love’ is normal and how it should be. In reality, if it isn’t feeling good and respectful and safe to you it isn’t right. End of story.

Are You Settling?

If you’re settling for a relationship where you are being told you’re at fault for how someone feels or whenever you bring up a concern about the way your partner is behaving they say something like ‘it’s just how I am,’ your brain is stuck in magical thinking mode and your relationship will not improve until you learn how to master your thinking and to see when others are thinking irrationally vs. reasonably.

Instead you’ll stay stuck thinking that something is wrong with you and that you need to figure out what it is and change it and then you’ll be able to get the love and acceptance you seek.

In reality, any time you compromise yourself for a relationship (partner, parent, friendship, or job) you are in magical thinking. You’re telling yourself a story that the only way for you to get what you need (love, support, acceptance) is to agree to something that really doesn’t feel right to you.

Dieting, as it exists in our 21st Century culture, is, for many North Americans (and Europeans and Africans and Asians too as statistics show) a form of magical thinking that has been cultivated by the multi-billion dollar per year diet industry, to such epic proportions of fame and notoriety that the likes of Santa Claus and Justin Beiber could only dream of.

Diet Mentality Magical Thinking

The Diet Mentality magical thinking goes something like this:

I am not getting the love, acceptance, job, validation and support that I desire. I am feeling anxious and depressed, stuck and insignificant as a result. If I were thin I would a. feel better about myself and b. others would find me more desirable as a partner, friend or employee.  So, I’d better get thin, fast!

Forget that I’ve felt this insecurity and self-doubt as long as I can remember. Forget that there are people who do love and care about me and even some that have professed, or currently do profess to find me desirable. Forget even that I’ve tried a bunch of diets before with no lasting success.

The diet centre people (or the commercial or the magazine cover or the fitness trainer at the gym) said that this diet really works! And if I can lose X pounds per week for X weeks all my problems will be over!!! I’ll be feeling so much better about myself that I’ll be able to figure all the other bits out no problem. All I have to do is just stick to this plan for X weeks!

Forget that I’ve never been successful with sticking to the plan for that long (like most North American women, you may find that sticking to a diet beyond 2 weeks is highly unlikely) or that some inner part of you is tugging at you, niggling at you, and saying ‘we tried this before and if nothing has changed it doesn’t make sense to assume it’s going to go any better this time!’ 

You don’t know what to do to make yourself feel more confident and to solve those issues of money, relationship, career etc. so, even if it makes no sense and some part of you is pretty sure you’re wasting your time, you’re going to try the latest diet and hope for the best!

 Sound familiar?

The diet industry sells a great fairy tale. It’s a lovely story of a brief journey of deprivation which will ultimately provide you the happiness and self-confidence and love and security you seek in the world. How long have you been feeling crappy about yourself or your body? How many times have you tried to feel better by dieting or rigorous exercise programs?

The reality is, if you have extra weight on your body because of anything other than an illness or injury, you use food to cope. No diet will fix that.

 If people around you say you look fine, even sexy or great, and you still think you need to lose weight, the truth is, no diet will fix that either.

What Real Self Esteem Is

 You don’t need to look a certain way or eat certain foods in order to be lovable or to feel confident in yourself.

You need to trust that you’re seeing the world and the people in it clearly and that you are capable of communicating clearly about what you feel and need and of setting reasonable expectations for yourself and others. That’s what self-esteem is. That is what makes you feel confident and secure in yourself.

No amount of listening to someone else tell you what or how to eat is going to provide that for you. No amount of ignoring your body’s cues of hunger is going to build the confidence and security you seek.

Learning the basics of relationships and self-esteem is the key and then, as if by magic, your relationship with food will change. And you will lose weight and feel great without dieting or being preoccupied with exercise or with what you’re eating. That’s reality.

But that doesn’t make any money for the diet industry so you won’t hear them telling you that.

Next time you start to think negatively about yourself or your body or what you’re eating, instead of starting to think about diets and weight loss, try this instead. Ask yourself:

‘Separate from food and body image, what was I just thinking about or what just happened that might have triggered the magical thinking part of my brain to make me think of dieting and weight loss as a way of making me feel better?’

You’ll quickly uncover the really stressor in that moment, which will always have a solution that is much simpler and faster than the diet mentality one you’ve been trying for years with no ultimate success.

You can train your brain to stay in reality and use the magical thinking consciously for fun and play. Right now, if you’re stuck in the Diet Mentality approach to problem solving, your magical thinking is running the show. The path to real happiness lies in learning to master your brain and be in control of how much time you spend in magical thinking vs. reality.

This is actually a pretty simple fix. Some basic life skills and self-awareness tools is all it takes to master your brain and stop the magical thinking in your brain from running your life.

Posted in: 2013, All-or-Nothing Thinking, and Binging, Anorexia and Bulimia, Brain Chemistry, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Others, Relationship with Self, Relationships 101, Uncategorized

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The Secret to Creating Great Relationships

The Secret to Creating Great Relationships

Michelle Morand - The Secret to Great Relationships
The Secret to Creating Great Relationships by Michelle Morand,MA, Founder of The CEDRIC Centre for Counselling

Hi all, this article began as a response to a question I received from an on line program member as part of our group chat forum and it’s such a common experience for everyone who uses food to cope I thought I’d turn it into an article and share it with all of you out there in our global community. 

The topic is that of our relationships to other people and how we can get what we need in our relationships with others directly and confidently and not feel so obligated and responsible for everyone else. 

The truth is, everyone who struggles with addictions like binge eating, eating disorders, alcoholism, substance abuse, gambling, over-spending, internet, raging, isolating, procrastinating and all other harmful patterns of behaviour struggles first and foremost with this pattern. So, if this is you, you come by it honestly – and the good news is there is a simple fix.

It took me many years of therapy and some fairly crappy relationship experiences a.k.a. significant learning opportunities to figure this one out. My response below is intended to spare you that time and energy and provide you with what I wish I had all those years ago – a simple way of understanding what’s not working and a simple first step for what to do about it.

Happy reading.

M.


Question From A.S.:

Something I’m a bit unclear about is the idea that it’s not my responsibility to guess other people’s needs. I spend a lot of time feeling responsible for other people and believing I have to figure out what they need and then make sure they get it. I can see how this causes great stress for me and makes my life much more stressful and complicated than it needs to be.

But I get stuck in my efforts to change this because I believe in treating others the way I would like to be treated myself and the truth is I would absolutely love it if everyone could pick up on my most subtle needs and wants without me ever having to articulate them!

So, when I am taking on responsibility for other people’s moods, needs, and desires, I’m actually wishing that they cared enough about me to do the same. How do I sort this out so I can stop feeling so obligated and insecure in my relationships and get what I really need from others?

Michelle’s Response:

The Inside Scoop: What is Really Preventing You From Creating Great Relationships

 This really is a great question because it is an issue we all deal with when we are healing a stressful relationship with food and struggling with negative body image. These two very common coping strategies are key indicators of anxiety/insecurity triggered by confusion about what is healthy and reasonable vs. harmful and unreasonable in relationships.

First, let me reassure you that it is perfectly natural and very healthy to want to be cared for, to feel safe and nurtured and to trust that we are important to other people.

The problem isn’t you. It’s not some fundamental flaw in you or something about your weight, hair color, your style, your laugh or your intellect. And it isn’t your need or desire to feel loved and cared for either. The problem is in the way that you, and most others on the planet, have been taught to go about meeting those natural needs for connection and support that is the real issue.

The old approach to relationships is doomed from the start because it’s based on manipulation, guilt, and poor communication which can never lead to a healthy, loving, safe and secure connection with anyone.  Instead it leads to chronic anxiety, insecurity and self-consciousness; second guessing everything we say and do; and ultimately feeling hurt and resentful because despite our best efforts we don’t seem to be able to get what we need from the people in our lives.

And this leads to you focusing on food and body image as a means of self-medication and distraction and, so you believe in the moment, empowerment to change so that you can feel better about yourself and these painful and awkward relationship experiences will stop happening….right?….No, actually, and that’s why these patterns get worse, not better, despite your repeated and determined efforts.

So, you come by it honestly – in fact most of the population of the planet has been trained to approach relationships from this co-dependent perspective – so you’re in good company. The answer to why this training is so rampant is another article entirely. You can find some of the answer in an article I wrote a year or so ago which is posted on my blog and entitled:  The Way We Were: The Influence of our Ancestors on our Lives Today  

So, What Actually Does Create Solid, Loving Fulfilling Relationships?

The fact is, instead of this old, rampant but harmful co-dependent training, what people really need to be shown, if they want to feel confident and secure in themselves and in their relationships, and stop leaning on food, isolation, procrastination, drugs and/or alcohol to cope with their insecurity and stress, is a way of relating to other humans that makes sense, feels safe, and most importantly, gets you what you need (most of the time).

In this adult, interdependent approach to the world:

1. We prioritize respecting how we feel – we don’t dismiss and judge ourselves for having feelings;

 2. We take the time to identify and show respect for our needs – we don’t call ourselves weak and needy for having them or let anyone else stop us from respecting them, speaking up about them, or meeting them. We do not give anyone else the power to decide if our needs are reasonable or appropriate – we decide this for ourselves based on how we feel and on our trust in our ability to think rationally and behave reasonably (if you use food to cope, or other harmful coping strategies, you lack this trust and need help to build it – it’s not hard it just takes some guidance and support);

3. We ask confidently and directly for what we need and work with others to find solutions that will work equally well for both of us – and 99.9% of the time there is one! Truly.;

4. We feel strong and confident in ourselves – we trust our perspective and trust ourselves not to compromise ourselves for anyone or anything. We know, in our gut, that we have just as much right as anyone else to take up space and get what we need.

And because we also know that there is almost always a way for both parties to get what they really need we don’t feel obligated to compromise ourselves or to push others into meeting our needs. We feel like we belong. We feel truly grown up; a feeling that only comes from taking full responsibility for ourselves while letting others be ultimately responsible for themselves.

In case you’re wondering, everything we do in The CEDRIC Method, whether it is through individual counselling, workshops, books, workbooks etc., or our online education and support program, is geared towards teaching you how to change your approach to life from the old, irrational, harmful insecure one (a.k.a. Co-dependence) to a strong, straight-forward, confident one (a.k.a. Interdependence).

We do this by teaching you how to identify what you feel; what that means about what you need; and how to meet those needs in ways that demonstrate respect for you and for the others in your life.

If you’ve been engaged with CEDRIC for any length of time, you know already from your experience with this process that your need for food to cope with stress lessens the more you approach life from this adult, rational perspective.

I’ve written a more detailed response to your question below if you’d like to understand my answer a bit more, but in addition to the above, the short answer to your question is:

If you want something –  anything, from anyone – you need to ask for it, clearly and respectfully, unless you’re prepared to be just fine with not getting it and you are committed to not telling yourself stories about how people don’t care about you because they’re not reading your mind or don’t care enough to think about what you need.

Those are your options if you want to think and feel the way I described above. It’s that simple.

There are ways of asking for things that will create a greater likelihood of a positive response and they all include self-confidence, self-trust, reasonable expectations, and simple, concise requests. In all my work with CEDRIC members and clients these skills are a key component and lead to increased confidence and happiness overall as well as to a complete release from food and body image stress.


Ultimately If You’re an Adult, The Truth Is You Always Have a Choice:

A. Ask directly for what you need and commit to finding a way to meet your need that demonstrates respect for yourself and others. Or

B. Accept that you aren’t ready or willing at this time to ask directly for what you need and get the support to do the work you need to do to identify what is preventing you from doing so and offer yourself empathy and compassion for the life experience that has led you to feel so frightened of direct and honest communication. (By the way, there is nothing about you that will prevent you from figuring this out – if you haven’t mastered this yet it’s only because no one showed you how.)

C. Keep hinting, manipulating, using passive-aggressive techniques and continue to feel insecure and take things personally, damaging your relationships along the way, thus creating “proof” that you are not lovable, worthy, deserving, and therefore shouldn’t dare ask outright for what you need.

I personally am a fan of options A & B in tandem while you’re learning – some situations and people will be easier to be direct with right away and others will require a little processing and coaching – which you can get through the forums and classes on the web program or through an individual session with me. Ultimately you’ll naturally begin to just live in option A – it’s so much easier once you’re thinking clearly. On that note – let’s look a little deeper into what prevents you from thinking clearly.

What Gets In the Way of you Mastering the Secret to Great Relationships?

In order to sort this out first let’s clarify the key assumptions you’re making here that are harming you. Then let’s explore how to shake them loose and start approaching relationships in a way that will truly bring you happiness, peace, and confidence in life.

 Assumption 1:

If I compromise myself for others they will see that I am doing this and

  • a) Like/love me more for doing it; and
  • b) Do the same for me.

Assumption 2:

This will make me happy and lead to healthy relationships where I feel secure and loved.

(Pan to image of green, grassy field with colorful flowers dancing gently in the summer breeze; sun setting as a couple walks peacefully hand in hand over the rise and out of sight.)

Reality:

Sorry to trash your dream (and mine too in the past) but both of these assumptions are complete fantasy. That’s why we (and soooo many others) feel so unhappy and insecure in our / their relationships.

No matter what we do; how much we bend over backwards for others, we can never feel safe and secure in our relationships and trust that the other person really loves and cares for us if we continue to approach relationships from these assumptions.

Think of it this way, if you know that someone close to you doesn’t ask directly for what they need, but instead:

  • hints,
  • uses silent treatment or manipulation or anger, or
  • plays the martyr or victim card to get people to do things for them out of pity;
  • or says or does nothing at the time but laments after the fact about what they needed/wanted/wished someone would have done.

Really? How much trust and safety will you feel in your relationship with that person?

Or what if someone you know allows themselves to be manipulated by such tactics even though they really don’t want to do those things and they feel frustrated, resentful, obligated, and manipulated, how confident are you going to be that they really mean what they say to you?

How solid are you going to feel in that relationship when you know they aren’t honest with others about what they feel and want and need, and that they express frustration behind the others’ back but seem to do nothing to address things directly so that they can actually be resolved?

You’re not going to feel at all solid or secure or peaceful in those connections. Your trust in that person will be very limited. This is the problem with the co-dependent approach to relationships. The co-dependent approach creates a belief that we have to continue to compromise ourselves.

It says that we can’t possibly just be honest about what we need or feel, or do or don’t want, because if we did the other person would not like us or want to be with us, they’d leave us / reject us, and we would be alone and unlovable. Pan to grubby bag lady on skid row…

This is what I call all-or-nothing thinking (or irrational thinking) but like all irrational thinking, until we are able to see why it doesn’t make sense and learn other ways of getting our needs met, we won’t see how harmful it is or even that our approach needs a tweak.

Sure, we’ll experience the feelings of dissatisfaction and insecurity of this confused and doomed-to-fail approach to getting what we need, but we will mistakenly and confusedly assume that we just need to try harder, do more, be thinner or prettier…and then people will appreciate us, never leave us, and start giving back in kind. Right?? Nope. And you’re living proof of that – as are we all.

It’s the same line of confused thinking that makes us believe that even though every attempt we’ve made at dieting has ended in disaster, we should keep trying the diets because certainly there can’t be anything wrong with dieting – it’s so normal, it’s so popular, it must work, right??

And therefore (the story continues), the problem must lie with us and our intellect (we’re just too stupid), our laziness (we never follow through; we just didn’t try hard enough), our willpower (we just don’t have the inner strength to stick to a commitment), our self-esteem (we just don’t care enough about ourselves to take better care of ourselves) etc. etc.

Not! The problem with diets is that they don’t get to the root of why you have extra weight on your body in the first place.

Why are you eating more than you are hungry for?

What leads you to eat the things you do even when you know they aren’t the best choices for you?

Those are the issues that must be addressed for you to be successful with weight loss and your relationship with food. And once you’ve figured that out your relationship with food will naturally shift and you won’t need any diet program to tell you what’s healthy and what isn’t and when you’re hungry and when you’re not.

The Two Types of People You’re Most Likely To Attract – And Why That Isn’t a Good Thing:

In the same vein, it isn’t that you’re not lovable or worthy of respect and caring that makes people ignore your needs or not pick up on your cues, however subtle or otherwise. It’s the fact that you believe in the first place that you can’t just directly ask for what you want and need and still be loved and cared for. Instead you think that you have to be sneaky or hint or manipulate or just sit back and hope for the best or risk abandonment and rejection and the affirmation of your ‘not-good-enough-ness.’ That is what leads you to experience the pain of doomed relationships and why you will inevitably find yourself repeatedly in relationship with one of two kinds of people:

1. The ‘takers’ are very willing to accept your willingness to compromise and use you as long as you’ll let them.

These people aren’t willing or able to reciprocate in kind and the way you approach your relationships makes it so they never have to. Then as soon as you start to want a little more balance in the give and take department suddenly you’re labeled as selfish, demanding, manipulative etc. and they move on to find another who is willing to meet their needs without them having to reciprocate and you’re left assuming you’re the problem and that it’s all because you asked for what you need. In reality it’s because you were willing to accept a relationship where you met their needs without asking for anything directly in return that got you into that pickle in the first place. 

2. Folks like you who don’t feel confident enough in themselves to ask directly for what they need either. 

Those that hint or guilt trip or manipulate or sit quietly, giving, giving, giving and then either just leave the relationship, assuming that you’ll never be able to meet their needs or they finally explode with their pain and frustration from their unmet needs; telling you that you’re selfish, inconsiderate etc. etc. when all the while you’ve been desperately trying to be respectful, read their minds, and meet their needs.

This kind of relationship naturally ends with you either feeling highly insecure and dissatisfied because of the lack of direct feedback and communication, or with you feeling totally confused and frustrated because you thought you were meeting their needs – they didn’t say you weren’t – and now they’re telling you you’re selfish or that you can’t make them happy? Argggg!!

Now do you see why this approach is doomed? No wonder people choose the monastery!!…or food…or alcohol…or the internet…

The Real C-Word:

Where things go sideways is in the expectations we have of others and the definitions that we have for what caring, consideration, and importance should look like:

As mentioned above, the approach to relationship that you currently struggle with is what is referred to as co-dependent – and that term simply means that we feel responsible for what other people need and feel, above our own needs, and we expect that they should think and behave the same way.

From the co-dependent perspective someone only loves you and really cares about you when they are willing to intuit your needs and meet them without you asking and when they are willing to compromise themselves for you and do what you want whether it’s what they really want or not – in fact, many co-dependents take this one step further, believing that what they want should be what you want if you really cared about them because your life would be about them being happy first and foremost. Clearly there is no room for different needs or opinions or for individuality here.

If you believe that can’t be yourself and truly respect what you want and feel and need as well as consider the needs of others, you never get to feel the confidence and trust and intimacy that comes from knowing that the other person really sees and fully loves you for who you are. The relationship is doomed to stay in a state of infancy and insecurity and that gets tiring after a while and many people become disillusioned because their fantasy of their needs always being met has fallen through and rather than exploring the rationality of this expectation they end the relationship, move on, and start again with someone whom they believe will really meet their needs this time.

This is a pattern that can play out not just in romantic partnerships but in parent-child and sibling relationships, in friendships, on school PAC’s and in work settings. And if you have this way of thinking it will permeate all of your relationships not just your romantic partnership.

It is helpful in shedding our old co-dependent approach to relationship to see it not as a flaw of character or some innate dysfunction but for what it really is:

A kind of developmental delay (due to poor role modeling and relationship training) that we can outgrow fairly quickly with the proper education and support. 

The Secret to Creating Great Relationships – What Healthy Human Relationships Really Look Like:

Think of it this way:

It’s perfectly appropriate for a little child – an infant, toddler, or preschooler, to expect that their caregivers are going to meet their needs without them having to ask for it because these little people are largely incapable of meeting their own needs or even communicating what they are.

Sure, the little one cries or screams and smiles or laughs to indicate their needs and pleasures but the adults around them have, ideally, been thinking ahead to when they’ll need feeding, changing, clothing, napping etc. and have been meeting those needs without being asked to do so. In essence the world truly does revolve around us when we’re little people, and given we have no other frame of reference for life at that point, this experience gets lodged as peachy keen and as the way we can expect that things will always be.

As we get a little older, we naturally want to explore the world a bit more and unconsciously we still expect our parents or caregivers to be at our beck and call and to solve any problem we might have, usually without us asking. Tantrums ensure when boundaries are set but these can be reduced and set aside with caregivers who demonstrate through their words and actions that they are there for us, they care, and that things are changing and that it’s okay to start thinking about other people as well as yourself.

Ideally at this stage we are gently encouraged to step out on our own a bit, take a bit more responsibility for ourselves (put away our toys, put our dishes in the sink, tidy our room with some help etc.) but ideally the safe container of our caregivers is always there, gently supporting us to take steps to independence but there to catch us if we fall or just to hear about the day’s events and keep us safe from harm that we are too young to foresee or understand. 

At this stage, which carries through into our adolescence, we should feel safe and supported to explore the world knowing that we have reasonable, loving people who have our back and will help us to sort out things that don’t make sense, and who will also set reasonable boundaries to help us understand what is healthy and what is harmful, and what is reasonable human behaviour.

From this place we naturally launch, often still with natural trepidation for the newness of it all, into a life that is more independent – whether living on our own or simply spending more time with school, work, and friendship pursuits. The safe container is still there but we feel supported to launch and live our lives, free from any sense of emotional burden or guilt or need to compromise ourselves for our parents or anyone else. 

Caring but not Compromising

From this place, we naturally care about others and what they feel and need and we are more than happy to help people out when we can, but we know that we are not in any way obligated to compromise ourselves or our needs for others and that if we want something it’s up to us to ask for it and make it happen.

From this perspective it also becomes clear to us that if someone else wants something the same is true for them: They need to not expect us to meet their needs unless it’s been previously agreed that we will and they need to ask clearly and respectfully for what they need or experience the natural consequences of their needs not being met as they would like or perhaps even at all.  

From a healthy independent place we also know that we are not obligated to meet anyone’s needs and that our responsibility is, first and foremost, to be clear on what we feel, what that means about what we need, and identify ways that we will get what we need that do not compromise or demand things of other people.

We know that if someone feels they have to compromise themselves or their plans to meet our needs it will only damage the relationship and create a sense of burden, obligation and resentment on the part of the compromiser and some sense of expectation of us making a compromise in return. This, we know, is not an acceptable choice if we value our connection with that person and so we will not knowingly support others to compromise themselves nor will we do that ourselves.

Instead, we will talk with the other involved to explain our needs and to understand theirs and to find a solution that works for both of us, if we can (and 99.9% of the time you can) and if we can’t, we agree to go our separate ways on this subject, and possibly, depending on the issue, for good. But even in that worst case scenario parting-of-ways outcome we know we did our best and we have no guilt, no regrets and move on feeling clear and clean.

If you’re not approaching your relationships in this way you are stuck in the old co-dependent training but you don’t have to be.

The First Step to Changing from Co-dependence to Interdependence:

Try a little experiment this week: You’ll learn a lot and it will set the stage for safe, stable, simple, respectful change.

For this week (or for as long as you’d like):

Notice: anytime you’re feeling annoyed, irritated, resentful, resistant or impatient with someone. Or times when you are avoiding seeing or speaking to someone or responding to their communication via text or email.

 Then: Ask yourself these 3 questions as often as you notice the above (Hint – making notes makes things move faster…):

 1. What is it that I really need from/with this person in order to feel open and peaceful with them? 

2. What would I need to say to them to communicate this clearly – what specific, concrete, request could I make that would allow me to feel more safe and respected by this person?

3. Can I commit to doing that asap? If so – go for it!!!  If not – why not – what am I telling myself will happen if I ask for what I need.

This exercise will teach you a lot about what you think of yourself and others and what beliefs you carry about asking directly for what you need – prepare to learn lots and then reach out and let’s get cracking on making the shift from co-dependent to interdependent.

Remember, it’s natural to have doubt about anything new, but change doesn’t have to be hard, slow and painful – in fact it can be simple and even fun and exciting when you’re ready and you have the right guide and the right tools.

Love Michelle
mmorand@cedriccentre.com

Posted in: 2013, All-or-Nothing Thinking, and Binging, Anorexia and Bulimia, CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Others, Relationship with Self, Relationships 101, Uncategorized

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Katharine’s Story of Recovery from Dieting and Binging

Katharine’s Story

This is the story of my client Katharine’s*recovery from dieting and binging. Katharine came to me for support after struggling for years with dieting and restriction and binging.

Her vicious cycle with food had triggered consistent and painful sensations in her stomach every time she ate, or even thought about eating, and it was therefore very difficult for her to trust when she was really hungry and to feel safe eating anything at all.

As I heard a bit more about her story and life experience overall it seemed likely that much of Katharine’s stressful tummy trouble was triggered by the perfect storm of stress and binging (which happens to be my area of expertise). I mentioned my hypothesis to Katharine but also that we couldn’t know for sure until she was able to eat naturally (wait until she was hungry, stop when full, have everything in moderation) and we could see what symptoms were left then.

At the beginning or our work together Katharine was naturally quite anxious about food and quite despairing of finding a solution given her years of struggling. After 10 individual sessions and one 3-day live event, she was able to step free. The whole process took her 2 1/2 months. 

Katharine’s Feedback:

“When I decided to sign up for Michelle’s workshop, I was ready to do just about anything and everything to CHANGE my relationship with food. After having read Michelle’s book and seen her a handful of times, I was at a point where I felt more conscious than ever about what was going on with me but I did not truly know what I could do to change it.

The workshop was the catalyst into real change. Knowing I had the entire weekend just to focus and work on this very real vital problem openly and honestly with professional guidance and with a group of wonderful people that have astonishingly similar stories to myself was, in and of itself, therapeutic.

The brilliance of having such an intense and long period of time, is not only that you get to learn and practice the tools in real time, but also that you can come back with real life obstacles you encountered from the evening prior. This is invaluable because you can really begin to question certain things you do/think/feel that you might completely not see. And, since you are in a compassionate and supportive climate, you learn how to handle such personal revelations healthfully.

I had a few “aha moments” throughout the workshop that built upon each other over the course of the three days and it still amazes me how we all could get so personal and so deep about such sensitive issues in that group context. I exaggerate not when I say that this workshop truly changed my life.

I have increasing awareness and compassion for myself in so many areas of my life ever since meeting Michelle, and while it might make you cringe in the short term to have to jump into three days of discussing some very difficult and painful subjects, the long-term gains are beyond priceless.

THANK YOU MICHELLE and LOVE and COURAGE to all those struggling with using food to cope. There is a light at the end of the tunnel: we are human and that means, by our very nature, WE CAN CHANGE!”

– Katharine

Thank you Katharine!

Naturally I’m thrilled that this was her experience and that her life overall is so much more peaceful and enjoyable.

That is my goal as a counsellor and my purpose in creating the CEDRIC Method and all the resources and programs that we offer.  Her experience is not unusual, it is  not an exception – and neither are you! If you’d like things to be different in your life – fast – reach out, tell me a bit about yourself and together we’ll put together a plan that will meet you where you’re at and take you where you want to go. Change is possible, and it can be fast when you’re using tools that work!

Michelle

*Name has been changed to respect the client’s privacy and this feedback has been presented with their approval. Her written portion, in quotations, is exactly as she sent it to me.

Posted in: and Binging, Anorexia and Bulimia, CEDRIC Centre, Complete Recovery, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Self, Tips for Natural Eating, workshops

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How to Stop Binging: The First Simple Steps

How to stop Binging, my article from last week, focussed on The Diet-Binge-Guilt cycle: Why we often binge in the first place and began a discussion of how to stop binging for good.

This week I’m going to enhance that discussion with a more detailed exploration of how our intention to limit the kinds (or quantity) of foods we eat can go sideways and, instead of supporting us to achieve our goals and have more self-esteem, our plans, more often than not, actually make us feel more anxious and depressed and more like a failure than we did the day before.

When we’re stuck in this Diet-Binge-Guilt cycle we feel lots of guilt and shame and hopelessness. The last thing we want to do is admit it to anyone, which makes it hard to get help and makes us want to withdraw from people and isolate. This often leads us to have increased social anxiety and insecurity in relationships and to lean even more heavily on those BAD foods to numb and soothe ourselves in order to simply make it through our day. Sound familiar?

My goal is to make sure you have a clear understanding of why it is you binge in the first place and exactly how to stop binging for good; not just for a day or a week, but really, truly, once-and-for-all good. You see, I know you can stop binging for ever because I have (decades ago) and I’ve helped many hundreds of men and women worldwide to stop for good too.

The best part about getting over binging and learning to trust yourself around food is that you now get to enjoy eating whatever you truly want and you no longer feel guilty or ashamed or like you need to exercise like crazy just to lose weight.

When you simply eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full, you will naturally lose weight (if you have weight to lose), there will be no need to diet or exercise your way there. Really.

And in order to live in that space (that may sound really impossible to imagine right now) you just need to understand how your thinking and your behaviour is getting in the way of your relationship with food, then you can side-step that whole power struggle once and for all and get on with living life for real and to the fullest.

Last week I explained how our plans for how to eat on any given day seem, on the surface at least, to be well-intended and you believe they will help you achieve your goals of weight loss; feeling in control of food; and feeling better about yourself overall.

Your initial self-commitment of the day may sound something like this:

“I’m not going to eat anything after dinner tonight because if I start I won’t stop and if I don’t binge or snack after dinner tonight I’ll feel lighter and less doped up tomorrow, have less negative self-chatter in my head, and ultimately, if I keep that up, I’ll lose weight and stop being so preoccupied about my body. Then I’ll feel better overall, have more self-esteem, start wanting to have sex with my husband or start dating a great new guy and life will finally be the way it should be.”

That’s definitely a motivating image! Who wouldn’t want that?!!

However, we forgot one tiny, wee, little detail.

We made the same promise yesterday…And the day before that…And the day before that…

In fact many of us have made that promise to ourselves every day for years (Moi included before I got a good solid grip and learned how to stop binging once and for all).

So much so that it begins to feel more like some ritual we need to do to get some peace from our nagging self-chatter. Sort of like, “If I can pretend / sort-of-believe that I’ll be ‘good’ today, then I can forget a bit about last night and feel like I can at least get out the door and look other people in the eye today.”

So…what’s up? What’s stopping you now from following through on your commitment to eat well and not binge? If you’re so miserable and you really want to stop binging, what’s preventing you from making it a reality?

Well, think of it this way:

Let’s say, hypothetically, that yesterday you promised yourself you weren’t going to binge at night. But, you did. Or at least you had something that you told yourself you weren’t supposed to have.

So, this morning you wake up and the first thing on your mind is how anxious you feel and how you failed yesterday and what you’re going to do food wise today to make sure you don’t do the same thing again tonight.

Right?

Well…ummm…isn’t that what you did yesterday?

So, what’s changed? Why would today be any different? Think about it for a mo’.

Nothing has changed between yesterday and today.

Your desire to not binge is the same; your commitment to changing is (with the addition of a little more inner frustration given yesterday’s failure) the same; your plan is the same…so why would today be any different?

Well, if you’re thinking reasonably and rationally it won’t be. Therefore, the wisest thing you could do would be to not make another commitment about not binging because there really is no legitimate reason for you to expect yourself to keep it, is there? That is, until you have reason to trust that you know how to stop binging.

Now before that voice in your head freaks out too much and your anxiety level goes through the roof and sends you rushing for the Pringles, hear me out:

Letting go of the commitment not to binge doesn’t mean giving yourself licence to binge. In fact it’s just the opposite.

This is key so I’ll say it again, and I invite you to say it out loud to yourself so you can hear it and see what pops into your head as you hear it:

Letting go of the commitment not to binge doesn’t mean giving yourself licence to binge. In fact it’s just the opposite.

You will prove this to yourself very quickly so don’t worry you don’t have to take my word for it or pretend to accept something that, right now anyway, seems like a very foreign concept.

It will help to remember that a big part of your urgent need for something to eat, in addition to the fact that you use food to manage your stress, is the restriction that you have placed around that food and your subsequent preoccupation with not being allowed to have it.

So, contrary to suggesting you just give up and binge your face off, what I’m actually saying is this:

1. Let’s be real. You haven’t been able to solve your problem with diets and restriction and promises so far. Despite your years of effort, hard work and focus, you still don’t know how to stop binging, so let’s just admit that what you’ve been trying doesn’t work, for anyone, and grant yourself permission, even for the next 3 months (as a little test) to move on to something that does.

2. Let’s figure out what it is that happens during your day and in your head that makes you bail on what we both know you really want, which is to eat sensibly, have a little fun with food, feel good about yourself, and be a natural healthy weight for your body without dieting and constant stress about food.

So here’s the plan to begin to experience significant and lasting change in your binging, overeating, emotional eating, eating disorder…whatever you want to call it:

1. Reassure yourself that you’re never going to (or at least for the next 3 months) make yourself promise not to binge anymore. Remind yourself that this doesn’t mean that you’re urging yourself to binge or setting yourself up to just let go and make overeating okay. It simply means that you’re allowing yourself to live in reality and see the truth about what you can and can’t do right now and that you’re no longer willing to cause yourself added stress and make yourself feel bad about yourself by setting goals that you have no way of keeping.

2. Acknowledge that you are committed to finding a solution to your binging, that doesn’t involve restriction (because, despite all of your efforts, that hasn’t worked yet in any lasting way remember).

3. Take action: The first step for how to stop binging is to learn how to figure out what it is that is actually triggering you (Hint –it isn’t the food!).

A simple exercise that I ask my clients to do at the start of our work together so that they can see for themselves what’s really triggering them to binge, and therefore stop beating themselves up, is this:

Invite yourself to notice a. when you’re thinking about eating and you’re not hungry or b. when you find yourself eating more than you’re hungry for.

When you notice this, don’t let yourself get stuck in judging yourself, simply ask: Just before I reached for food, what was I thinking or what just happened, separate from food, that might have made me feel anxious or unsettled at all?

Write your answers down so you can see, out of your head, what’s really going on for you and you will be amazed at how that one piece of information alone helps you to feel less stressed and overwhelmed right away.

Now we’re talking! You’ll very quickly be able to see the link between daily stress or stressful thoughts, and your desire for certain foods or to binge. And here’s where we come in…

4. Learn how to notice your triggers immediately and how to feel peaceful and confident in your ability to find solutions to any problems or stressors that present themselves in your life. This is actually surprisingly easy when you know what to do because most of our problems are actually caused by 2 or 3 simple factors. And once you know how to take care of those factors in one area of your life (like work or in a key relationship) you will naturally know how to do so everywhere in your life.

In fact, it is very common for me to be able to support people completely through their recovery from binge eating and from the underlying, triggering issues in 3 months of regular sessions.

Many people, perhaps even you, believe that change that lasts has to take a long time and be really hard. These beliefs often lead us to procrastinate on reaching out for help as we believe we don’t have the time or energy and that it will not work anyway, so why bother.

But the reality is, we only believe this pack of lies because we’ve been stuck trying to learn how to stop binging by focussing on food and not the real root of the problem. No wonder we haven’t been successful!

I can tell you with confidence that when people are given tools that work and the support to learn to use them well, their whole life can change, forever, in just a few minutes a day.

I have been working as a specialist with men and women who binge for 20+ years now. I know that you don’t need to struggle any longer and that change truly does happen quickly when you have simple tools that work and a guide who really understands what you need.

That’s what my team and I at The CEDRIC Centre provide you.

You can read some feedback from many CEDRIC Centre clients here if you’d like to get a sense for how simple this process is and how quickly it can change your life.

Love Michelle

Posted in: and Binging, CEDRIC Centre, Complete Recovery, Tips for Natural Eating, Uncategorized

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Overcoming Your Love-Hate Relationship With Food

Overcoming Your Love-Hate Relationship With Food

Overcoming Your Love-Hate Relationship With Food


If you’d like to understand, once and for all, why you feel so frustrated about your weight and why your relationship with food is so stressful, this article will explain it all and give you a simple exercise to experiment with so you can start overcoming your love-hate relationship with food. Regardless of whether you are an emotional eater, a compulsive eater or struggle with an eating disorder such as anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorder this article will help you understand a key piece of the puzzle of what you need to do to change how much room food takes up in your life and in your brain, for good! 

Last week I told you about the relationship between certain foods and your brain chemistry. I gave you the scientific data behind why you are naturally drawn to eat certain foods (like chips, bread, cheese, ice cream and chocolate) even though you know they aren’t the best for you nutritionally and won’t help you reach your weight loss goals. (If you prefer to watch a video rather than read, my video on sidestepping the food-emotion power struggle explains it all and then some.)

This week I want to introduce you to the real issue; the thing that is at the root of it all.

What is it that makes you want those foods, even when you’re not hungry, regardless of your diet plan or your intention to eat well and your true heart’s desire to lose weight and feel great in your body?  Well, through my personal recovery from binge eating disorder and my 20 years as a specialist in the field of eating disorders, addictions, depression, anxiety and trauma, I came to see clearly that the cause of your overeating or diet dilemma, had very little at all to do with food and instead was triggered by some faulty wiring in the supercomputer that is your brain.

I am happy to say that, through the use of neural mapping and the marvels of brain imaging, science has since proven this to be true.  So, we now know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if you often eat more than you’re hungry for or binge or diet more than once or twice in your lifetime or struggle with anorexia, being eating disorder, or bulimia or other forms of eating disorders the fact is, right now you have in your brain, some mis-wiring and mis-firing that has created what I call ‘a confused stress response.’

This confused stress response is also present in those who find themselves dependent on alcohol, drugs, tv, the internet and other common human coping strategies. As frustrating as this might have been for you until now, it is actually quite easy to change once you know what to do and how to do it. (more…)

Posted in: 2013, All-or-Nothing Thinking, and Binging, Anorexia and Bulimia, Brain Chemistry, Complete Recovery, Natural Eating 101, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Others, Relationship with Self, Tips for Natural Eating, Uncategorized

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What’s Causing Your Love-Hate Relationship With Food?

love-hate relationship with food, Woman making a decision Do you have a love-hate relationship with food? Do you love the taste of certain foods and find that once you start you can’t stop? Do you find yourself drawn to eating certain foods even when you know they’re not good for you and you’re going to feel crappy afterwards?Do you find that even when you know that eating as much as you are eating, or the kinds of foods that you’re eating, is only going to put fat on your body and make you feel bad about yourself, in that moment you just don’t care? …And then you beat yourself up afterwards? (more…)

Posted in: 2013, and Binging, Anorexia and Bulimia, Brain Chemistry

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Food, Brain Chemistry and Binging: Understanding the Link and the Solution

Brain Chemistry and BingingHello all, Welcome! I’m going to bet that you’re reading this because you’re frustrated with your relationship with food and you want to be able to simply eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full. Also, you would like to maintain a natural weight for your body without stress and without rigorous exercise regimes. Right? If this described your thoughts, then, you’re going to love the next series of articles. If you’re just joining me I urge you to take some time over the next few weeks and read the series on The Diet Mentality that I just completed. It will be extremely helpful to you. For the next 6 weeks (or so) I’ll be sharing with you, a little each week, about certain foods and how they impact our brain and body chemistry. After reading this series of articles you will have a better understanding of why you feel drawn to have certain foods at certain times. Frequently I say to my clients that empathy (understanding) is the key to lasting change. This is because once we understand what’s going on, we automatically have genuine compassion and patience for ourselves, coupled with a willingness to change our behaviour and a sense of hope and trust that our efforts will be worthwhile. In other words, once we understand why we’re doing what we’re doing we can set about finding a solution that truly will provide the results we seek. (more…)

Posted in: 2012, and Binging, Brain Chemistry, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Self

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Anxiety and Eating Disorders

Anxiety and Eating Disorders


This brief article will help you to appreciate the connection between anxiety and eating disorders. Eating disorders of any kind,whether binging / overeating, emotional eating, anorexia, bulima, or orthorexia or others all have an underlying root of anxiety that is triggered by a combination of painful life experiences and confused thinking. 

It is the confused thinking part of the equation that really has the most lingering impact.

Long after the traumatic or unsatisfying event has occurred, the confused thinking will be telling and re-telling us stories of what’s wrong or unacceptable about us that triggered that traumatic event to happen in the first place and how we will always be lacking.

This thinking creates chronic anxiety and insecurity and influences our choices and our interactions with the people in our lives, thus keeping that old trauma and that confused thinking alive and well long after the triggering situation has ended.

Too often we focus on the most obvious issue (the food, what we weigh, how much we’re drinking etc.) and try to make changes to that without understanding that those behaviours are truly just symptoms of the combination of painful past experiences and confused thinking that are triggering anxiety and insecurity that we are then responding to with the food, alcohol, overspending etc.

In other words – when we are stuck in harmful coping patterns we think it looks like this:

Binging makes me feel bad which makes me not like myself and feel insecure and anxious. If I stopped the binging I’d feel less anxious and insecure and things would be better so let’s impose a diet and control my food and it will all work out. Right?

I imagine your life experience is evidence that this is not the case. Mine sure was.


In reality what’s really going on is this:

I have some painful experiences in my past where I felt unsafe or unimportant or unloved. I interpreted these events as being about something wrong or lacking in me. This made me feel anxious and insecure. This led me to interact with others in ways that made things awkward because I didn’t feel safe sharing myself fully with others. This led me to assume that I was right and that there was something wrong with me which made me feel more anxious and insecure etc. etc. etc.  The side-effect of me feeling so anxious was that I reached for food (or drugs, alcohol, internet etc) to cope with my anxiety and to numb and soothe myself. 
Because the thinking and anxiety have been a part of my brain and body for so long they didn’t stand out as the root of the issue – it is the behaviour that is more obvious and the consequence of being overweight or intoxicated that stands out and so I assume it is the problem.
In reality, my thinking and the emotions that those thoughts trigger is my real problem. And if I really want to change my food/drinking etc. I need to learn the tools I need to change how I think.


If you’re ready to learn how to change the way you think and therefore change how anxious and insecure you feel and naturally change the grip food has on you, send me an email mmorand@cedriccentre.com  or visit our web program or products pages and get started learning the tools that will change your life for good, today.

Love Michelle

Posted in: All-or-Nothing Thinking, and Binging, Anorexia and Bulimia, CEDRIC Centre, Complete Recovery, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Others, Relationship with Self

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Building A Balanced Life is Key to Recovery

Building A Balanced Life is Key to Recovery


It’s possible that you are feeling anxious and insecure often in your life, or that you hear yourself say things about your frustrationg with certain situations and relationship(s) which are clear indicators of unmet needs, and yet you are still ignoring those emotional cues of unmet needs which leads you to feel overrun, unbalanced, and to use food or other substances to cope. If you’d like to stop binging or struggling with diets and weight loss, or drinking, or any other harmful coping strategy then it’s important that you know that building a balanced life is key to recovery.

It’s a simple fact, like it or lump it, that as long as any aspect of your life remains unbalanced or your needs are unmet in certain areas, you will use your coping strategies.

For example. Those of  you who have a disordered relationship with food, unconsciously use thoughts about eating or about what you weigh, and the act of eating or of restricting (and possibly purging through extreme diets, laxatives, exercise or vomiting) as a means of self-medicating and self-soothing. The chemistry you create in your body with the thoughts, sensations, and behaviours associated with your coping strategy of choice (drinking, binging, purging, drugs, t.v. etc.) raises your dopamine level artificially and temporarily triggers feelings of release, peace, nurturing and comfort.

Only problem is, as you know, that sensation is short-lived and soon you’re needing another fix to numb the negative chatter in your brain and the emotional sensations of anxiety and depression that accompany it.

The key to stepping free for good from any eating disorder or addictive behaviour is to have a 2 pronged approach which teaches you how to relate to your substance/coping strategy of choice is a natural, balanced way while also teaching you how to build solid self-trust and self-esteem.

The solution is simple and can be speedy when you have a skilled guide with simple tools. I can help you step free of the chaos and create balance and passion like you’ve never known.

Reach out and let’s discuss what’s going on in your life now that you’d like to change and how we can make that a reality.

Love Michelle
mmorand@cedriccentre.com

Posted in: and Binging, CEDRIC Centre, Complete Recovery, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Others, Relationship with Self

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