Author Archive
The new Twitterphenomenon 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?
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…)
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I read an article in a local mag recently that was touting the use of food journals as being key to success in losing weight. I am incensed by publishers that give writers free range to put out this kind of information when it is nowhere near the approach for weight loss. This kind of general advice seems harmless enough and I can understand how it could be perceived as being helpful but I take it personally when people suggest that my issues can be solved so easily.
If all it took was to write down everything that I eat, recording caloric intake as well as nutritional content, I would have done it a long time ago. Unfortunately, the things that make us rely on food for comfort or problem solving run deeper and more complex than that and in my case, focusing three times a day on my mealtimes with a critical analysis of each one’s contents would just trigger me with food cues MORE!
Not only that, but who has time to plan, prepare, eat a meal, and then record the entire meal. Food journals are purported to make for more personal accountability. The article criticizes and diminishes the overweight by referring to them as underestimating their intake, and panderers of their indulgences. What scientists who advocate food journals don’t take into consideration are all the social, personal and emotional issues that the person with a food disorder is up against. Taking a person who should be gentle with themselves, who should feel redeemed and appreciated and instead, making them feel less than, in light of all their former failures at weight loss, is hardly a solution that stands a chance of being any use at all. (more…)
The sap must be rising, because my eyes keep leaking. On the verge of tears these days, a commercial can set me off about some non-crying thing and away I go, boohooing again, with streaks on my cheeks. Also, I was so anxious yesterday as I performed tasks that I am competent at, although it involved dealing with strangers. I am always leery of random people, I have good reason, but that’s another story. But this is out of character for me. Its not like me to be timid, to trip over my tongue when talking to strangers or to feel so fragile.
I realize that in reading about how to cope with my issues, in the book that my boss, Michelle Morand wrote (Food is not the problem- Deal with What is!) I am learning things that are making my internal censor incensed. He’s kicked it up a notch and the infernal belabouring has increased to fever pitch. I notice that I over-analyze, read too much into things, second guess myself, talk myself out of things that I need like to go for a walk, before I’ve even solidified the thought. I seem to have a black cloud over me that makes me be a negative nelly about anything. And don’t let me hear that the bears are skinny in the Great Bear Rainforest. I carried THAT bit of grief around all week when I found out about it.
Normally I would note the ecological travesty and then get on with my life, but for some reason, these days, as I process the things from my misbegotten past that have given me enough grief to pad my self with this much excess, I am noticing that I not only have to deal with loose cannons in my physical world, but that I have a loose cannon in my own mind, as the Drill Sergeant has amplified his messages, deepened his nosiness and is acting like he’s on steroids. (more…)
Dictionary.com describes ‘synergy’ as the combined action of one or more stimuli. What could possibly be more stimulating that the smells and sights of early spring after months of slogging in the cold and wet?
With the tiny green buds erupting everywhere, vivid purple and orange crocuses exploding in flowerbeds and banners on the sides of city buses pleading for daffodil pickers, spring is in the air and the sentiments it brings are contagious. The long sleep of winter is showing every indication of giving up the ghost and with it, we can lay our bad habits and deliberate nutritional ignorances to rest once and for all.
June will be our month to focus on Natural Eating in the CEDRIC newsletter, but I wanted to bring it up in this issue to go along with all the green that is cropping up everywhere. We need to be in full throttle of eating right by June, where we will augment the process with tips and yummy ways of integrating a wiser nutritional path for ourselves, but we have to start somewhere and there’s nothing like using the encouraging shoots of green as our incentive.
I am using the impetus of all this burgeoning growth to inspire me to be good to my self, to become more active and to look at the heavy, deadening parts of my life with a critical eye, ready to eliminate anything that doesn’t contribute to improving my situation, in order to make me physically light and to make my spirit lighter. “The body will follow” is the lesson I’m learning from those who have already been through the difficult baby steps of beginning to be aware in a body/mind/spirit philosophy. (more…)
I fell off the wagon on Spring Break week. I fell off so bad that the skid marks are everywhere on me.
I knew better, but did what I did anyways, and I blame that darned dialogue that rattles on in my mind. I thought I was better equipped to resist the arguments that came up but I caved royally and now I am paying.
I knew better than to ingest the very things that I’d identified as being problems for me. High fructose corn syrup had almost totally been eradicated from my diet. For a month, I experienced the equivalent of a ‘detox’ as I cut back on sugars of all kinds, on dairy, on highly refined foods.
I’d been so good. All last month I ate organic, followed my hard-won advice around the ingredients that I wanted to avoid, I shopped in the outside aisles of the supermarket and avoided fast food completely. As a result, my bloat dissipated, my ankles ceased their endless swelling, I had more flexibility and I didn’t feel as creaky in my joints. My skin cleared up and my slacks were JUST starting to have a little bit of give in them.
I was optimistic that my health was on the upswing and I was on the road back.
And then I had three days where I gathered up all four of my daughters where we had a little road trip that found us traveling long distances, staying in hotels and eating out a lot. Well, finding good food on the ferry was easy if you wanted nothing but salad and vinaigrette, but watching the girls mow down fat french fries, that gooey brown chemical gravy and the smell of fried chicken burgers made my resolve weaken. By the time we made it to the mainland, and hunger reared its head again, we were headed for hell in a gasoline hand-basket as I took the kids to not only Wendy’s but to Mickey D’s as well as Burger King AND Chinese food over the course of the weekend. I tried to stick to my confirmed new way of eating, but the chicken strips called my name and before I knew it, I had to eat them. Then the coffee with its cream and sugar of dubious origins… then the gummy bears… and later that night in the hotel, the bags of chips came out. Granted I ate the ones marked ‘organic’, they were still full of chemical contents that I couldn’t pronounce. (more…)
By Tina Budeweit-Weeks, Ed.
We want to share the feedback we get with our readers. Here is a little collection of the nice things people are saying about what the CEDRIC Centre is doing for them. In one of the comments, our process of achieving wellness is refered to as ‘slaying dragons’. Its kind of fun to think of the ‘Drill Sergeant’ as having scales and breathing fire. I think that with the continued influence of CEDRIC philosophy, people can start seeing the fillibustering roaring dragons for what they are, meek, tiny, feeble little energies that are out to get us.
Hah!
The first little write-up is from participants of our Phase II Weekend Workshops.
“Thank you for making this opportunity available. Coming together with other people that use food to cope is not only comforting but motivating. You provided a platform where others like me could learn in parity, by sharing our stories, experiences and challenges. This past weekend has not only given me further insight into myself as a person but has also left me feeling very inspired to be (as I am learning) the individual, wife, mom and friend I want and can be. I look forward to continuing on this journey with you as my guide and support. You are an incredible counselor, teacher and woman. I cannot thank you enough. L.”
This next testimonial is much longer, but says so much that we wanted to share it with you in its entirety. (more…)