Feedback from the Participants

When I came to The Cedric Centre, (virtually and over the phone, as I was living in Halifax ), I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't stop eating and I couldn't diet anymore. I was in school, but I couldn't work, I couldn't sleep, I wasn't taking showers or changing my clothes, and I couldn't pretend that everything was OK anymore. I felt completely and totally hopeless. I had really hit the bottom (what I thought was the bottom). I searched the internet for anything that could help and when I read on The CEDRIC Centre's website that I had to be willing to do the work, I knew I was ready. I had to be because I was going to die if I didn't. I think it helped to talk on the phone because I didn't have to look anyone in the eye when I admitted things I was ashamed of, when I cried, or when I tried to avoid accepting something about myself. My therapist's way of describing my self-defeating beliefs and behaviours as coping techniques helped me accept myself and take steps to change. Basically, I have had to learn how to give myself all the comfort, company, support, caring, and nurturing I needed from food without the food. I also had to learn when to put the food down. This was difficult to do, but as I learned to accept myself and support myself, my gut screamed out to be heard: deep down I knew I didn't need food anymore. As long as I trust that, I can handle anything. Recovery is a difficult thing to explain because it sounds so simple. Simple yes, easy, no. I have had to give up a lot of behaviours which I wanted to hang on to, especially my perfectionism and critical voice. Life isn't suddenly perfect when we put down the food, but if I wanted to recover, I had no choice. I had to want to change, which meant that I had to hit bottom first. The past brought me to where I am, and for all the gifts I have been given in the past year, even the hardships and the struggles, I am eternally grateful. Being freed of my food obsession tastes better than anything I have ever eaten.
- Submitted by A.

It really helped me to find more acceptance around my eating behaviors. Excellent course!
- Submitted by an Anonymous course participant

I have had years of receiving various forms of bodywork, acupuncture, Reiki, cranial sacral therapy, massage therapy. But never have I experienced such a shift of deep release and energy connection through my body than with my Zero Balancing treatments with Karen Stein. Every session left me more grounded and peaceful with myself and the world.
- Submitted by E.

Michelle you were terrific during my group! Incredibly sensitive and skilled at pulling out people's feelings. Thanks!
- Submitted by P.

Read all testimonials

For an Assessment call:
1-866-383-0797 or 250-383-0797
or click here
read the blog

Procrastination

One of the primary coping strategies that all humans use from time to time is procrastination: The art of leaving to tomorrow what you could and possibly even “should” do today.  When we procrastinate every now and then with things that aren’t so big it has no harmful or lingering impact on our lives.  We’ve simply chosen to pick up the dry cleaning Friday rather than Thursday and it’s stuff we don’t need until Monday so no biggie.

However, those of us who use food to cope in any way also typically struggle with procrastination in a big way and that has a nasty impact on our overall sense of peace and trust in ourselves. This inevitably leads us to need to use food to cope even more to numb out or to feel that at least we’re on top of something.

The underlying triggers that cause us to reach for food to cope or to restrict set off a chain reaction that looks something like this:
  1. We feel unsafe or insecure about something in our lives – either because it’s new and different or because we’ve been told by others it can be difficult or we’ve tried it before and it was hard, or for some other reason altogether.
  2. We then tell ourselves a nasty story that it’s not going to go well or that we won’t be able to be successful.
  3. This story naturally triggers feelings of anxiety and overwhelm.
  4. These feelings are so uncomfortable that they lead us to want to numb out or avoid this thing we’ve told ourselves won’t go well and we do that numbing out and avoiding by using food to cope in some way and by putting off any effort towards the thing that we’ve said won’t go well.
  5. Thus our stress level rises and we have even less chance of success, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy and greater likelihood of procrastinating even more furiously next time around.
Not the most life-enhancing course of action when we’re coming from a rational and balanced mind.

But….it makes perfect sense when we really believe at our core that we are incapable; that we are not good enough; that we are undeserving of love and success and freedom and peace and all that we desire. From that standpoint it seems perfectly reasonable to assume we won’t be successful and to just give up before we even start.

Ironically this typically leads us to have to rush around at the last minute and stress ourselves out much much more than we needed to in order to complete whatever “it” is. Or we just get so overwhelmed and we buy so fully into the story that we can’t do it/won’t be successful that we don’t do “it” at all and then have to live with feelings of shame and guilt and embarrassment and all the self-judgment and the “I told you so’s” from within our own head and perhaps even from some key people in our lives.

Procrastination is a killer of peace and of self-esteem and it’s also caused by a diminished sense of self-esteem and the nasty belief that: We just aren’t good enough and we never will be so there’s no point in even trying.

If you’re ready to break free of the cycle of procrastination and learn to meet new and old challenges from a place of excitement and self-confidence it’s time to contact The CEDRIC Centre and let us support you to be the best you can be in all ways.