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Body Focus Hides Emotional Pain

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Body Focus Hides Emotional Pain


When we automatically focus on what we are eating or shouldn’t be eating, calorie counting, and losing weight, whenever we start to feel anxious or unsettled about anything we effectively keep ourselves in a state of denial about painful experiences in our lives. Your emphasis on body focus hides emotional pain that you don’t want to feel or aren’t sure how to manage.  If you want to stop feeling so anxious, insecure and stressed about your body and food or any other harmful coping strategy like eating disorders, binging, drinking or drugs you’ve got to change the way you’re thinking about yourself and the world around you and not allow your instinctive brain to run free telling you stories of doom and gloom and of what’s wrong with you.

If you’re using any of those coping strategies I mentioned above it means you have a strong need for acceptance from others and will go out of your way to please others, even if it means sacrificing yourself.

This need for acceptance, coupled with feelings of low self-worth, keeps you stuck in a world of perfectionism, where your primary focus is on your body, how unacceptable you perceive it to be, and what life will be like when you finally have the body you desire.

As long as you believe that your body is the source of your unhappiness, you are able to stay in denial about the underlying causes of your distress.

What you fail to understand, because of past life events and your confused interpretation of them,  is that you are a capable human being, who can safely be responsible for your emotions and experiences, and who can learn to feel confident and secure in yourself and to show respect for yourself and your needs, without losing the support and respect of others.

Trust this. Just because you haven’t experienced it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or that you can’t create it. You don’t really believe you know everything there is to know do you?

You may be afraid that you can’t change but that fear is very different from an absolute fact and I know from my own experience and 20+ years as a counselling specialist that if you just show up and you’re willing to try something new, you will be amazed with how quickly and simply patterns that may have plagued you for decades change for good.

Reach out and let me show you how.

Love Michelle

mmorand@cedriccentre.com

Posted in: All-or-Nothing Thinking, CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Self

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Food is not the problem!

Posted by on You know all too well how distressing and overwhelming it can be when you observe yourself doing something you don’t want to do, for example, overeating, because this action will be of no assistance to you in reaching your ultimate goal. But you can’t stop yourself; you feel as though you have no control and that your life is out of your hands. You feel simultaneously comforted and soothed, in that anxious and strangely familiar way. You feel as if you are going crazy. You feel stuck and hopeless, and you begin to make plans for what you are going to do differently next time because this gives you a sense of power and makes you feel a little better in the moment, even though you know you are not likely to be successful then either! This whole scenario used to play itself out countless times a day for me at the height of my compulsive eating. Never once did I stop to think that they may be something else going on. I never once asked myself what just happened (past, present, future, thoughts, feelings, behaviours) to make me want to use food to cope. I did not have a clue that anything other than my own weakness and lack of willpower was at work. I bought fully into the story that it was I who was ineffective.

Posted in: CEDRIC Centre

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The Diet Mentality enforces external approval

Posted by on I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve had – and this is also true of myself in my days of coping with food – who were just devastated with a one- or two-pound weight gain. They were certain it showed, that everyone was noticing, and they felt like the fattest, grossest person in the planet. Conversely, those same clients would feel much more confident and secure if they were down one or two pounds. One or two pounds! Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Truly, not even noticeable to anyone, but to someone who believes that external approval will only come when they look like a super model, one or two pounds is truly devastating. The Diet Mentality takes us out of our Authentic Selves: out of what we are feeling, thinking and needing. Instead, it puts the power in the hands of the weight loss centre, latest diet book author, our friends, family or media. We are blown about by the wind, constantly trying the next fad that comes along in an attempt to achieve that elusive goal of the “right” weight and thereby achieving happiness at long last.

Posted in: CEDRIC Centre

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Acknowledge the load you carry

Posted by on Take a moment and offer yourself some empathy and compassion. Give yourself some acknowledgement for all that you have experienced, for the load that you have been carrying in the form of past experiences or fears about the future. If you can, express your appreciation for your strength and resiliency in the face of all that you are carrying. Take this opportunity to acknowledge the magnitude of what you are dealing with in terms of unfinished business. It makes sense for you to feel overwhelmed and want to tune out with food. For those of you who are not quite ready to be so generous with yourselves or perhaps fear that offering yourself some validation and support will make you weak and complacent, it is okay. Let yourself hang on to your resistance to this self-compassion. Just let it be okay to be as resistant as you are to cutting yourself any slack.

Posted in: CEDRIC Centre

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Port Moody Community Wellness Fair April 2

Posted by on Michelle will be at the Community Wellness Fair in Port Moody, BC on Saturday, April 2 as part of a group of over 40 different local exhibitors specializing in health and wellness for you and your family. Admission is FREE. Time: 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Location: Port Moody Recreation Complex 300, Ioco Road Website: http://www.cityofportmoody.com/Recreation/default.htm Topic: The Food-Emotion Bond If your relationship with food is at all stressful and your weight is not where you’d like it to be, you must attend this presentation by CEDRIC Centre founder Michelle Morand.  In 40 minutes you will learn exactly why you do what you do with food, why your relationship with food is so frustrating and what exactly you can do, right now, to begin to have a peaceful and easy connection with food and to come to a natural weight for your body without dieting. Really! Michelle Morand, MA, is a recovered binge eater, Registered Clinical Counsellor, founder and director of The CEDRIC Centre, and originator of the highly effective and simple CEDRIC Method. She has appeared as an expert speaker frequently on TV, radio and in print media. The CEDRIC Method, her unique program for recovery from disordered eating and dieting has helped thousands of men and women to heal completely from their stressful relationship with food and weight. The CEDRIC Centre offers counselling, workshops, the groundbreaking book “Food is not the Problem: Deal With What Is!” and an interactive web based program which teaches the simple and effective tools you need to step free completely from your stressful relationship with food. Visit The CEDRIC Centre www.cedriccentre.com for more information.

Posted in: CEDRIC Centre

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Trauma as food trigger

Posted by on Verbal and physical abuses are traumas. Most everyone has experienced the humiliation and damaging effects of verbal abuse. If our ego strength and our sense of esteem are solid when these events occur, we can slough it off or work through it with some help. If we are already feeling a lack of security and acceptance in our world, every experience of verbal abuse, for example: judgements, name calling, put downs, and yelling will constitute a trauma. Physical abuse, slapping, hitting, spanking and outright beatings, regardless of their purpose in the eyes of the punisher, are traumatic events. Neglect is trauma. The act of having your needs and your Self ignored or devalued is traumatic. Those who use food to cope have no doubt experienced some form of trauma which triggered the development of and dependence on a series of coping strategies. People seem to think that trauma only happens to a few unfortunate victims. This point of view has allowed much trauma and abuse to be overlooked. The truth is that most people will experience some significant trauma in their lives. We can gauge this from the rampant use of powerful coping strategies such as food use, alcoholism, shopping, gambling, drug and sexual addiction.

Posted in: CEDRIC Centre

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Believing the old core belief is beguiling

Posted by on Aside from fear of the unknown, the obvious reason people choose to hang onto their old core belief is that they still believe it! It still feels true on some deep level. And because the confused logic of the Drill Sgt. says that they need to carry this belief or they will be unsafe and unloved, they cling to that old, painful, bogus story. They are fearful that, if they start to behave in accordance with their desired belief, they will be judged, criticized, and risk the limited security they currently experience in their world. Much of your life experience has been lived through the lens of your old core belief. Every interaction has been framed by that thought about yourself and interpreted as though it were true. Every choice you have made has had that story about yourself at its core. So, of course you still believe it on some level. You have to come to see it as part of you or who you really are. Deep down, in your gut, you are going to require some life experience to shake it loose.

Posted in: CEDRIC Centre

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Assuming is a one-sided perspective

Posted by on The pattern of assuming that your perception is the “right” one may have helped you to separate from past abusive or co-dependent connections. You may have needed such an all-or-nothing approach to life in the past to be able to stand strong and reinforce your needs with key people in your life. The problem is that the best you can do when you are wedded to the practice of assumption is to be in the independent stage of relationship. Interdependence cannot exist with all-or-nothing thinking. It is impossible. At best, you have two strong, independent people who have learned to cohabit and keep their distance. At worst, you have a co-dependent connection or abusive relationship where one person consistently gets their way and the other doesn’t. If you have noticed this pattern of assuming in any of your key relationships, now is the time to ask yourself what type of relationship you want with this person. If you want a good, healthful, open, honest and trusting relationship, you must be willing to allow for the possibility that your perspective is not the only one. You must be willing to allow for the possibility that the other person is not out to “get” you or to pull one over on you.  

Posted in: CEDRIC Centre

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Contemplating compassion

Posted by on Many of us have a hard time with the concept of offering ourselves compassion. It could be because we never received compassion growing up, or we had no positive role model for compassion. It could be that no matter how troubled our past, we feel that we are undeserving or wasting our time being compassionate toward ourselves; others have had it worse. There are many other reasons why we may resist compassion toward ourselves. Some of us may view self-compassion as a pity party and see it as a sure path to wallowing, depression, and complete powerlessness and victim-hood. Some of us may feel that we can only be motivated by criticism and pressure. Being compassionate and supportive toward ourselves is as though we are admitting defeat or inviting complacency. The truth is, if pressure or criticism worked for you as a motivational tactic, you would have achieved your goal ten times over by now.

Posted in: CEDRIC Centre

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