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Holidays: Like ’em or Lump ’em?

Posted by on Hello out there in the CEDRIC community. Okay! Is anyone other than me excited with the change in the season!? I love the fall! It’s fresh and crisp and often sunny-ish where I live. Its coming signals the start of the holiday run, with Thanksgiving and Halloween and Christmas and of course New Year’s Eve all on their way. If you don’t use food to cope these are fabulous times where you’re totally present and enjoying the company of the people around you, or even enjoying your own company immensely and in a life-enhancing way (ie. not with food, drugs, alcohol, isolation, procrastination, over-exercise, anger, self-harm, shopping….etc.). However, if you do use food to cope, this time of year can be extremely stressful.

Holidays, The Abundant Food and Your Weight

I want to invite you to consider something for a moment: How you feel about the holidays tells you a lot about where you’re at in your recovery and in your personal growth on the whole. Just as summer can be stressful for those of us who struggle with food and body image focus, because we’re forced to wear less or stand out like a sore thumb, not to mention sweat to death; the holiday stretch (as I call it) can be equally or more stressful. This is because it forces us into conscious awareness of each of the 3 key issues that we deal with in recovery: Our relationship with food; Our relationship with others; and Our relationship with Ourselves (a.k.a. our self-perception or level of self-esteem). Ugh! One is bad enough – but the 3 all together – and not just once but a few times in 2 months – that’s just unfair!!! If we overeat, restrict or purge as part of our day to day lives, we are going to feel a lot of stress just thinking about the food and family combo – let alone the issue of what the hell to wear!! Did I say Ugh already!? This used to be a very stressful time for me – darn it all – any time used to be stressful for me. I overate like the dickens, hated myself, thought I was worthless, felt less-than anyone else and like they were only talking to me or being my “friend” because they felt sorry for me. I felt like no one really knew me and so any family or party gatherings were so forced and phony to me and I felt so gross and fat and ugly…..I’d just go home, binge, beat myself up verbally, restrict, force myself to go to the gym, go home and overeat again! Need I say more? Not my favorite time of year at that time in my life! I used to believe, with all my heart, that the reason I felt so gross and so unacceptable was because of what I weighed, which, of course, was a direct result of what I ate. Thus, the culprit, the architect of all my woes, was food. If I could only get a handle on what I ate (for more than 5 minutes!) I would finally be happy, peaceful, free and acceptable. Life would be grand. The only problemo with this perfect plan was that because I needed food to cope and I was totally stressed just stepping out my front door, I couldn’t do anything to change my overeating/purging/restriction cycle (also known as the: Diet – Binge – Guilt Cycle). I was stuck. I felt like a total failure. I knew what I had to do, why the heck couldn’t I just do it? Was I too lazy? Didn’t I have enough willpower? Didn’t I care enough about myself? Was I always going to be overweight and hate myself? Should I just give up and get it over with and stay home and eat and gain 800 pounds!? What’s the use, I would wonder, daily, countless times. You can imagine how energized, enthused and optimistic I felt with these thoughts on constant repeat in my head! Well, the truth is, as long as I, or anyone else for that matter, was focused on food as the problem to be remedied I was going to be stuck. It’s like putting all of your efforts into bailing a leaky row boat without ever taking the time to see if you can find the source of the leak, or, to be more precise; without ever realizing that the water in the boat is coming from somewhere! Now that’s living with some serious blinders on! Think about it. Don’t we do that with food? Don’t we just focus on what we’re eating and how fat we are and how unacceptable our bodies are? Isn’t that like bailing the row boat without even considering that there is a source to the leak? Um….Yeah! Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that our food choices have no impact on our weight. What I am saying though is that if you have put effort into changing or controlling your food choices and you’re still struggling with food and body image issues, there’s a hole in the boat somewhere – guaranteed! Your efforts are far better spent looking for the hole for a little bit so that the next time you start bailing the water will not come back – ever. Oh, but the diet industry has taught us not to look for the leak, or certainly not to look too deeply. It’s about our poor moral fibre you see. We lack commitment, we lack strength, we lack willpower, we lack vision. Uh, huh, right. Think about it. How much commitment does it take to try the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over again for years even though it doesn’t provide the results it says it will? Isn’t that about the greatest sign of faith and commitment any human being can provide? Yes. And haven’t you done that with all the various diet plans and attempts at weight loss that you’ve made? Yes. And what have they all had in common? They all focus on food first. They all focus on the water in the boat without ever exploring fully the source of the leak. That approach will never be successful. It’s that simple. Find the leak, patch the leak, then bail the water. Soon you have a dry and fully functioning boat. Or for our purposes, a healthy, vibrant body that is a natural weight for you. Our holiday stress, to the degree that we experience it, tells us how much we are still focused on the bailing vs. patching the leak. If I’m stressed about seeing certain people, wearing certain things, or being around certain types or quantities of food, I’m still focused on the symptom of the problem and not the solution. My stress about seeing certain people tells me I have unfinished business with them and that I don’t feel confident and secure enough in myself to take care of myself verbally and emotionally, maybe even physically, in their presence. This is an indicator of a need to do some healing around your self-perception and your right and ability to set clear boundaries and to uphold them if they are pressed. It also indicates a need for some skills on respectful, direct, clear communication. My stress about wearing certain things or having to buy new clothes etc. tells me that I still think that what wear or what I look like in it, is a prime determinant of my worth and my acceptability and that people are going to be more focused on how I look than on who I am. This is a solid indicator of a strong external locus of control, where I am more concerned with others perspectives of me than I am with my own loving and valuing of myself as a deserving and worthwhile person. It also indicates that I believe that I will only be safe in social situations when I look a certain way and gain the approval of others. Here we have a strong need for tools to build a solid sense of our own values and principles and to know that as long as we are abiding fully by our own values and principles we truly don’t care what others think – we are doing our very best and we know it. But without this solid core we feel rudderless and constantly second guess how we’re doing and look to others to provide us with their interpretation of our “okay-ness.” Very dangerous stuff: turning our self-esteem over to someone else. And lastly, my stress about food: what’s going to be served; how much of it I’m “allowed” to have; how do I say no without standing out or offending; or conversely, how do I eat all the Nanaimo bars without anyone noticing??? If this is my focus I am in desperate need of the tools of natural eating where I have learned to eat when I’m hungry, stop when I’m full, everything in moderation, no guilt, no negative self-talk all leading to a peaceful and easy connection with food and a natural weight loss that is easily sustainable. So, the things you wonder or worry or outright panic about over the holidays will tell you a lot about where you’re at in your healing and what pieces of the process you need to focus on to cement your recovery. Take advantage of your awareness of the stories in your head these days about the upcoming festivities to ask yourself if perhaps some of the tools I’ve mentioned above might be helpful. And if so, get started on the healing process so that next season, if not this one, can be truly peaceful and fun and so relaxing you’ll wish it was time for a big gathering and feast every day! If you’d like some support or some new tools in your tool kit contact us and let us show you how to have a peaceful and free time with food and body image over the holidays and beyond.     Love M. Michelle Morand P.S. I’d love to hear from you with your thoughts on holidays, food, and the whole enchilada, or pumpkin pie as it were! e-mail me @ mmorand@cedriccentre.com and please know that unless you request otherwise your thoughts will be shared anonymously as a follow up to this article. Have a great day.

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Alcohol and Drugs as Coping Strategies

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Alcohol and drugs as coping strategies are right up there together with Eating Disorders as among the most life-threatening, harmful ways to deal with life. The definition of a coping strategy is: Any thought, feeling or behaviour that allows us to remain in an uncomfortable situation without being aware of how uncomfortable we are.

It’s clear, from that definition, that food, alcohol and drugs can fit the bill.

Now to be fair, food, alcohol and some drugs also have their place in a healthy, balanced life.  Obviously we need to eat to live – and, while they’re fine in moderation, we don’t need doughnuts and certainly not 12 of them at once. Likewise, not permitting our body to have the nutrients it requires to keep us in optimum health isn’t serving us either.

A drink every now and then at a special function or social gathering is no big deal, even if we’re doing it to loosen up a little.Needing to drink in order to go to a function, or drinking on a daily basis, or drinking to get drunk is definitely a sign of coping rather than balance.

And sometimes we do need prescription drugs to deal with chemical imbalances or other concerns.  The body is a complex organism and sometimes certain things don’t work the way they should. I encourage you to release any shame or judgement you may be carrying toward yourself for needing any sort of medication to deal with something that our body needs help to do naturally. Where drugs become a problem is when:

  1. There is a natural remedy or solution that will resolve the problem entirely but we choose drugs and thus have a bandaid solution rather than a true healing. Often but certainly not always (see above) Anti-depressants and Anti-anxiety medications fit this category: In these cases there is a valid reason for you to feel anxious and depressed and until that underlying reason is resolved the depression and anxiety won’t go away, it will only be masked by the medication. In these cases it is imperative that you identify and resolve the underlying trigger so that you are then free to choose when and if to come off your medication and to see that you can now handle stress without becoming anxious or depressed.
  2. We use them to numb out to stressful life events (whether in the past, the present or anticipated future stresses).

Certain kinds of drugs make us want to eat when we’re not hungry.  Others make us forget that we even have a body and send us into orbit where, for days, we can completely tune out to any signals of hunger we may be receiving. Others still, make us feel so queasy or unsettled in the various stages of getting high and coming down that we don’t want to eat because we don’t trust we could keep it down. Or we feel drawn to eat foods that are high in sugar and fat content but low in any nutrient value just to shut our body up so that we can keep on drinking, toking, snorting or shooting.

Either way, we’re certainly not honoring ourselves or our body when we ignore its natural signals of hunger, fullness, fatigue and pain in favor of completely numbing out to the world as we experience it. (Here, I’m inviting you to consider the possibility that the way you perceive the world may not be entirely accurate and may actually be harming you.)

But, if we come back to our definition of a coping strategy we see that as mechanisms to help us not be aware of the underlying disease and discomfort in our lives, alcohol and drugs work like a hot damn. The only problem is they don’t resolve anything and they create problems of their own – just like the use of food to cope: It doesn’t make the original problem better and it creates its own overwhelming stress and depression which leads us to need to numb out even more.

If you know that you are drinking or using some form of drug, whether prescription or street, to keep you detached from your life then on some level you’ve bought in to some “Learned Helplessness.”

Learned Helplessness is a way of perceiving the world that underlies everything you do, say, think and feel. There are variations on the theme but over all it sounds something like this:

“I can’t do anything to change X.”

“I am powerless to do anything about X”

“There is nothing I can do about X so I just have to find a way to be okay with it.”

This learned helplessness story is at the root of our use of harmful coping strategies. Remember, a coping strategy is anything that allows us to remain in a harmful situation without being aware of how harmful it is.  So, if you are telling yourself that there is something that is bothering you in some way but that you are powerless to do anything about it, what are your options?

  1. Be aware of your discomfort eternally and of your powerlessness and feel increasingly anxious and overwhelmed as a result.
  2. or Numb out! And Pretend it isn’t happening/didn’t happen or that it doesn’t/didn’t really bother you.

Neither is a really exciting option.  Neither option is going to make us feel better in any meaningful, lasting way. But, if those are the only options we believe we have we’ll take #2 any day any time – we all would.

If you’ve chosen option # 2 there is nothing wrong with you. You are doing your best to cope with a situation that you’ve told yourself you have no power over. You simply haven’t yet come across option # 3. But you’re about to!

Option #3:

  • Be open to the possibility that you’ve told yourself that “X” didn’t bother you and that there’s nothing you can do about it anyway.
  • See how it really did hurt you and that you have a good reason to feel anxious because that happened and because you’re telling yourself it’s beyond your power to change it or stop it.
  • See how your anxiety from that Learned Helplessness story leads you to need food and body image focus, drugs and/or alcohol just to keep yourself from going off the deep end.
  • Trust that someone can teach you how to deal with “X” in such a way that you actually can do something about it; you actually do have power over whether it happens and how you respond to yourself and others when it does.
  • Allow yourself to begin to receive support to let go of your Learned Helplessness story and to learn how to create the most peaceful and passionate life possible and to deal with life’s natural stresses in a way that enhances your self-esteem and reinforces your belief that the world is a safe place for you to bring all of yourself and to be the very very best you can be at all times!

If Option #3 sounds like something you’d like to experience in your life, even if you doubt your ability to have a life like the one I’ve described, let us gently guide you from where you are now to where you truly deserve to be.  And know that if any part of you is doubting your ability to have a peaceful and passionate life that is free from food and body image stress or alcohol or drugs, that’s only the learned helplessness kicking in and it’s going to kick in until you prove to yourself that it’s wrong and you are capable.

Don’t let the old nasty learned helplessness mindset prevent you from reaching out and moving forward with your life. Remember we’ve been there. We know firsthand that all of these harmful coping strategies can be overcome and left behind once and for all.

Let us show you how.

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Alone. Isolated. Frustrated…

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Alone Confused and Frustrated

Those are just some of the feelings that described my mental and physical state for so many years. I lived in that state for so long that I figured “Well, even though I am not happy, I don’t know what else to do. Losing weight is all that matters to me, and I don’t care what I have to do to achieve it” It started with a combination of many events in my life that lead me to this point. I was bullied, I was insecure, I was bigger than my other friends for most of my life, I felt bigger than anyone in the world.

I tried my first diet pill when I was 13, I went on my first diet at 14. At first it worked but soon my motivation diminished and I just went back to me old ways; sugary drinks, chips and all sorts of deep fried fast-food.

After years of feeling fat but not doing much about it, I went on a diet and ended up loosing 20lbs. That wasn’t enough, though; I was still “fat” and felt horrible. I continued to use diet pills for years, worked out and slowly weaned almost everything out of my diet. I kept losing weight over the next few years but it never made me happy inside as I had promised myself it would.

 

I developed this all-or-nothing thinking and decided that I needed to be strict with myself in order to get results. My strict habits turned obsessive really quickly, I figured I had to stay on top of myself or else I’d slip and gain a million pounds. It was deadly, I would go online and seek “support” when really, I was developing an even deeper eating disorder.

Soon, nothing was enough. I fasted, I cleansed, I did extreme “all vegetable” diets and worked out very, very intensely for hours at a time, budgeting myself to a few hundred calories a day and while I lost a little bit of weight, my mental state was lost faster than the weight. I would secretly cry alone in my closet, because I was so empty inside. My boyfriend was very concerned, but I had put up such a huge wall around me, no one was allowed into that area of my life. I had drawers filled with information on anorexia, pictures, and poems, anything that fed my habit. I had numerous books and logs to track every morsel of food that went into my mouth and every minute of exercise. No one knew. I hid everything. People would congratulate me on my weight-loss, as much as you’d think it felt good – it only fed my eating disorder.

 

I got to a point when my boyfriend turned into my fiancé, I realized I was getting older, wanted to have kids  and basically said to myself “This is NOT working. I don’t feel good, everyone is worried about me and I feel so lost inside” One huge motivator was I did not want to pass on an ounce of this to my children, when I have them.

 

On a bit of a whim, I called up the Cedric Center and spoke with Michelle, who sounded so kind and understanding right off the bat. Through our sessions, she not only made me see certain events in my life that may have a part in why I am the way I am, but also gave me tools to use in times when I felt that lost, frustrated, alone and felt like regressing into past behaviors. Those tools are so valuable.

 

During my first few sessions I thought everything she was saying made perfect sense, it was logical, practical and eye opening. It wasn’t until I implemented those tools she taught me into my everyday life that I really started seeing (and feeling!) the results, for me it only took a few sessions to notice a huge change. My drill sergeant in my head has taken quite a vacation. I am now able to go out for dinner (which was NOT a pretty scene previously), cook healthy meals anxiety-free, eat lunch during the day and most importantly I am learning to do everything in moderation – exercise, natural eating, listening to my body, and also being able to have a cookie or a dessert if I’m so inclined. Before Michelle, NONE of that stuff would be able to happen. I was a ball of anxiety, always calculating calories, crunching numbers of how much I ate versus how much I had worked out. Nothing was healthy enough for me.

 

That is now my past. I love saying that! I look forward to a bright, happy and balanced future. I am feeling excited an optimistic. I seriously can say I would not be here, like this, today if I did not call Michelle. She is so educated, experienced and in tune, she helped me realize that I am not alone, she understands this journey.

Thanks so much T. for this wonderful feedback. If any of you readers can relate and would like some support to let go of your food and body image stress, contact The CEDRIC Centre and begin your healing today. 

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Emotional Stress

Posted by on Emotional Stress is directly related to our use of food to cope. In fact, our level of emotional stress is an indicator of how much we will feel the need to restrict, binge or purge on any given day. Therefore, understanding the triggers of your emotional stress and what to do to decrease your overall emotional stress are two fundamentally important pieces in the process of recovery from any form of eating disorder. Emotional stress occurs when we are in a situation that makes us feel unsafe in some way.  Emotional stress will likely manifest in one of the following ways:

1.      Anxiety (fear, resistance, desire to flee or avoid a person or situation).

2.      Anger (irritation, annoyance, frustration, judgement, blame).

3.      Sadness (feel teary and down, pain or heaviness in chest).

4.      Depression (disinterest, fatigue, isolation, hopelessness).

The sense of a lack of safety that triggers emotional stress arises from a real or perceived threat to our physical, psychological, emotional and/or spiritual well-being. In other words, as long as we lack trust in our ability to keep ourselves safe with any one or in any particular situation we will experience emotional stress, which then, if unchecked, can trigger the use of food to cope. The following are some examples of situations where we undermine our sense of safety and trust in our ability to keep ourselves safe:

·        We have a relative who frequently makes comments about our weight but we don’t say anything because we don’t want to “make a scene” or hurt their feelings.

·        We’re in a meeting at work and a colleague has just said something that we believe is untrue but we don’t call them on it because we don’t want them to be angry with us.

·        We know we aren’t that interested in dating a certain someone but we agree to go out with them because we don’t want to hurt their feelings.

Notice the theme? It’s all about what others are going to think and feel. We’re so very concerned with what others think of us and feel about us that we’ll compromise ourselves time and time again just to avoid any possibility of judgement or rejection.  We can’t possibly begin to feel safe in the world and to feel the sense of peace and happiness and trust in ourselves that we need in order to cease using food to cope if we’re going to keep putting what others think of us ahead of how we feel and what we need. Where does that seemingly insatiable need for external approval come from? It comes from the belief that we are not good enough as we are. Thus we desperately need everyone’s constant approval, regardless of what we have to do to get it, or we will feel the painful sting of the “not good enough” story. One of the primary experiences in childhood/young adulthood that sets us up to believe that we are not good enough is Emotional Abuse.  You’ve probably heard the term but you may not truly understand what it is and how it impacts you – specifically how it is the most significant contributor to your lack of trust and safety in yourself and in the world around you. 
Emotional Abuse occurs when someone manipulates our feelings intentionally. As adults, we are ultimately responsible for what we choose to respond to and for how we choose to respond. As children, we look to the adults around us to model healthy and appropriate behaviour. We look to those same adults to demonstrate, through their caring and treatment of us, our worth or value in the world. If our role models were unable to ask directly for what they needed while respecting our boundaries, should we say no to their request, it follows that we would mature into adults who feel unable to ask for our needs to be met. Given this scenario, we would naturally have a limited concept of what boundaries are and why they are necessary for healthy and respectful interpersonal relationships.The use of guilt, manipulation, threats and the withdrawal of love and affection are all examples of emotional abuse.
 
Emotional Neglect occurs when our most basic need for love and acceptance isn’t met. As children we all have a need for love and acceptance. It is natural, and it is our right as human beings to have that need met effectively, and consistently. When we do not receive consistent love and acceptance, we tend, as children, to try to make sense out of the pain and suffering we feel by imagining that we are somehow to blame. Somehow, we are not good enough, not loveable enough, and so we don’t deserve love and affection. That is what we tell ourselves to make sense of the lack of healthy emotional connection in our lives. This is a common circumstance and it is a very harmful one. It sets the stage for the internalization of many critical messages that continue to play in our heads long after we have left our family of origin.    The Impact
A study in the Journal of Counselling Psychology, 2002, identified emotional abuse and / or emotional neglect as the experience in childhood most likely to lead to an eating disorder or sub-clinical disordered eating. The experience of emotional abuse or neglect forces us to find ways to cope with the pain of our unmet need for love and belongingness. It is just too painful for us to be conscious of our need for love and not have any effective way of getting that need met. As children or young adults, the best coping strategy that we can think of is to distance ourselves from our feelings and from any awareness that we have emotional needs at all. This is a state of being called “Alexithymia”. It means a lack of connection to and awareness of our feelings and it is the mediating factor between childhood emotional abuse or neglect and the onset of disordered eating. 
 
The Solution
 
The answer to overcoming the use of food to cope or other substance abuse concerns is not to ignore your feelings. The answer is not found in berating yourself for having feelings or for not being stronger and more able to cope with the traumatic events of your life. That approach only serves to continue the abuse and neglect from within. It perpetuates the harm that was done to you when you are now an adult and able to have a life that is free from abuse and safe from harm.The answer is found in taking the time to build trust in yourself, and in others, so that you can create the space for the compassion and love that you never had. It is possible and so very rewarding for you to meet your own need for love and compassion. Doing so does not mean that you won’t get that need met outside of yourself – in fact it truly creates a far greater likelihood of getting the need for love and acceptance met in all areas of your life.
Imagine what that would feel like! To truly trust yourself to respect your feelings and needs in any situation with anyone creates such peace and joy within and such loving respectful relationships with others that the use of food to cope just falls away.  It becomes incongruent with who you really are and you just let it go. No fear, no pressure, no pain, just freedom.
If you think that emotional stress may be triggering you to use food to cope let us support you to heal this piece of your life. You deserve to have a life that is free from harm. 
Send us an email and let us know how we can be there for you.

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Procrastination

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Overcoming difficult tasks. 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.

Overcoming Difficult Tasks with Easy Ones – Procrastination

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.

 

A great place to start to attend to our use of procrastination to cope is to notice that we’re procrastinating and to ask ourselves the following questions:

“What specifically am I telling myself about this thing/event/task that is leading me to procrastinate?”

“Is there any all or nothing thinking in that story?”

“What are some other possible ways that that thing/event/task could be handled or could turn out?”

“Could I allow myself to choose to believe and act on one of those other stories instead of the original, all or nothing, one?”

Give that a go and see what you discover about your thought processes and what happens to your use of procrastination to cope.

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.

Love M

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The Stages of Grieving

Posted by on The following is a tale of a recent experience of grief in my life. It centres around a relationship but truly, the stages of grieving apply to any big change or loss. Even happy changes trigger a natural grieving process because as we are moving into something new (marriage, new home, new career) there are always people, places and things that are being left behind. Being aware of the stages of grief can help us to more gracefully and lovingly let go and move on in the constant process of change that is life. My story centres around my sweetheart and his decision to end our relationship due to a fairly major misunderstanding and some mutual, however unintended, button pushing.  His decision came as a total shock and in the following days I observed myself moving naturally through the stages of the grieving process. When I say naturally, I don’t mean it felt free and easy like natural eating does (eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full is a total breeze compared to the grieving process!), what I mean is that I wasn’t choosing to move from step to step. It was as though there was some natural, inner guidance system saying “Okay, you’ve had enough of that now, you’re ready to move on.” At which point the next stage would naturally arise. In essense whatever stage of grief we’re at at any moment is a representation of how much consciousness we can handle at that time and how safe it feels to open our heart fully to ourselves, to the other person and to the experience at hand. We start out completely disconnected – in the stage of shock and move from stage to stage until we find ourselves in the open-hearted stage of acceptance. As you read my experience below consider a time, in the distant or recent past when you’ve experienced a loss or big change in your life and notice how you went through the same stages to come to a place of acceptance.  Also, consider how the act of forever changing your relationship with food from a harmful coping strategy to a peaceful and natural flow is a big change that, however positive, has the potential to move us through each of the key stages of grieving until we not only come to a complete and total acceptance of ourselves but of how the use of food to cope has impacted our lives.  From this place of acceptance we are truly free to detach with love from our old buddy and move on to more healthy and honoring ways of being. It’s all good! When I heard that my love wanted to end things I immediately went into a state of shock which lasted about 2 days. I was in disbelief – complete and total disbelief. I kept expecting him to change his mind and at the same time, some deeper part of me believed he wouldn’t and that even if he did the trust and security of our relationship was deeply shaken, likely beyond repair. No matter how hard I tried to imagine ways that it could be different I had to accept that the relationship we had had was over. I noticed my mind coming up with scenario after scenario of how I might have done things differently; how I might wrap my head and heart around a reconciliation should he be open to that; how I will navigate the future when the plans I had for who I was spending it with have abruptly and forever changed. None of these musings made me feel any better. They answered no questions and changed nothing. They just preoccupied me and made me feel sad and anxious and down right crappy. It was / is morbidly interesting to watch myself going through the stages of grieving, knowing what they are and what’s next and challenging myself to keep my heart open to myself and to the love I felt/feel for this man. Like watching a car crash in slo-mo – you know exactly what’s going to happen, you know it! But you keep hoping that somehow, some miracle will occur and the car won’t hit the wall, everyone will escape without a scratch and live to see another day. So, any way….did I mention my mind has a tendency to wander these days!? As I was saying, I started with Shock – that is the first stage of the grieving process.  Where you’re just in a state of disbelief – expecting the person to say “just kidding” or come waltzing through the door at any minute or that there’s some thing you could say or do that would make everything okay. That’s the stage of Shock. And that’s where I spent the first 2 days or so.  Yes, I felt sad but mostly I just couldn’t believe it and was fairly disconnected from my feelings – all but the feeling of anxiety – the “what if it’s really real?” feeling. Well after day 2 the shock started to wear off and the next stage of recovery appeared – lucky moi!  Anger arrived with a vengeance.  I was still in my head, playing scenes over and over and over only this time I wasn’t calmly and rationally trying to explain why we should be together. I was yelling (in my head at least!) I was speaking in “the tone.” You know the tone! The one that lets everyone know that you mean business and they’d better listen up! I played scenes in my head where I was picking apart his letter about why we weren’t a fit. I was picking him apart and naming, one by one, all the things I had been willing to just accept as part of the package that prove that I was the better person; better for loving him through all those things and seeing the big picture.  Better for not walking away; Better for holding fast to my commitment and being willing to commit my life to our growth together. (Yes, the anger stage can make us a tad victimy and self-righteous – not the most pleasant mix. Lucky for my friends I kept this mostly to myself!) All the things I never said, the many times I held my tongue about his little idiosyncrasies;  I could feel the anger repeatedly rise in me and my almost overwhelming eagerness to call or email or write or ……..or……..or….something! I urgently wanted to release this pain and frustration and impotence. What is there to do? I kept coming back to this. What is there to do?  I can be as hurt and angry as I like but it’s not my style for starters, and it’s not going to change anything. If I have the choice to feel happy in every moment and to be coming from a place of love every moment do I really want to spend time in anger?  Do I really want to pick apart the man I love(d) and find fault with all the things that just a short while ago I was happy to love as part of the package? No, not really. And so enters the next stage of grief – Depression – This is when you’re all pooped out from the anger and the reality of the loss is setting in and you’re just flat.  Tired and flat. Yup, that how I felt. Blah, grey, dull, yada, yada, yada. Somewhere, some part of me knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel and that I would not feel this way for ever but frankly, when you’re depressed, as many of you know, it doesn’t matter what might happen tomorrow or next year. You feel like crap now! You’re depressed and dark and blah now, as though a dark cloud is over your head or as though every where you go you’re wading through chest high water. It’s a labour just to be. One day during the depression stage (short lived I am grateful to say) I thought I was going to lose it in the grocery store. The clerk at the deli took forever to slice the turkey and then forgot the roast beef altogether. These things wouldn’t have made me bat an eye or feel anything on a regular day but that day of depression they just about sent me into hysterics. I just couldn’t be out in society, carrying on as if everything was okay when it wasn’t and it wasn’t ever going to be okay again. Tears were so near the surface I swear if the check out girl dared to ask how my day was going, it was all over! Voila, I had arrived at the next stage! Grief, sadness, what have you. This is where the tears really flow and you just let it out. The loss has finally hit home. I was blessed to be with some dear friends who just held me as I cried and encouraged me to just let it out. They didn’t try to tell me it would all be all right or that things would work out etc. They just let me be where I was, in my sadness, with my loss.  My heart felt as though it was cracking right open and again, through it all, there was this inner sense that all is as it should be and that the greatest gift I could give myself was to just be with whatever I was feeling at that time. Throughout these stages those stories kept popping up of what I could have done differently, what might happen in the future to change the situation etc. and each time I noticed I was in one of those stories I noticed that I was feeling very sad and anxious and I just invited myself to let it go.  My article on Hopelessness shares a bit about how I went about being here now even when here and now wasn’t the most happenin’ place to be ( http://www.cedriccentre.com/blog/?p=52 ).  Works like a hot damn – when you remember to do it! Ah, then comes acceptance; Where you see that it’s all for the best. You see the gift in the pain; The good old silver lining and so on. To be truthful – I haven’t made it here just yet. I’m still cycling around in the shock, anger, depression, sadness stuff; Which again, is a very normal part of the grieving process. But it’s getting lighter and easier and it is very early days. I know acceptance is just a week or two away – maybe sooner!  Meditation helps. Time with great friends talking about things other than my pain helps. Time with my son helps. And, you poor souls! Time writing blog articles helps – being creative, sharing helps. My higher self asks: How does it help me to hang on and want things to be different?  It doesn’t really. So, can I just allow myself to let go? Can I allow myself to let go of wanting to change the way things are as much as I do? Yes.  Can I allow myself to celebrate the gift of loving as much as I was blessed to do with this man? Yes.  Can I allow for the possibility that this loss is actually a blessing in disguise?  That, as with all previous traumas and losses something amazing in the way of growth and perspective and new people arrive in my life and things are better than I ever imagined? Yes. And can I allow myself to just be here now, grieving this loss as much as I am? Yes. Feeling the fullness of my heart, my gratitude for the gift of loving this person, even for a short while? Yes. Perhaps I am a little more in the acceptance than I thought? Wahooo!

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Hopelessness

Posted by on Hopelessness against the present moment. According to Buddhist thought it is hope that creates suffering for us all. Hope creates fear which is suffering.  Think about it for a moment. If you weren’t telling yourself that something in the future was going to change or that someone was going to change and therefore things in the future would be better what would you be feeling right now? Truly. Buddhist Nun, Pema Chodron writes, in her book “When Things Fall Apart:” “Hope and fear come from the feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment. We feel that someone else knows what’s going on, but that there’s something missing in us, and therefore something is lacking in our world.  We can know the nature of dislike, shame, and embarrassment and not believe there is something wrong with that.  We can drop the fundamental hope that there is a better “me” who will one day emerge.  We can’t just jump over ourselves as if we were not there. It’s better to take a straight look at all our hopes and fears. Then some kind of confidence in our sanity arises.  If hope and fear are two sides of one coin, so are hopelessness and confidence.  If we’re willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated, then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation.  This is the first step on the path.” If I’m truthful with myself, when I am hoping for someone or something in the future that is not the way I want it now, or not in my life at all now, I feel anxious.  Perhaps I might define that anxiety as excitement, anticipation or hope but it all boils down to me feeling unsettled.  This means that as long as I am still “hoping” for something in the future to be different from what is now I need to find ways to deal with my anxiety, excitement, anticipation etc. This is where my use of food and my negative body focus used to come in.  I would be thinking about what’s wrong with my life now and what I hoped would change and I’d feel naturally unhappy and unsettled and I’d want to distance myself from that discomfort. My coping strategies (my ways of distancing) of choice were food, negative self-talk, judgement and blaming of others, relationship addiction, co-dependency, all or nothing thinking and anger (irritation, resentment, annoyance etc.). In my early 20’s I first stumbled upon the concept of “letting go.”  The premise that in accepting what is in this moment we free ourselves from the pain of wanting…longing and we create a genuine sense of happiness and peace at our core.  When we’re loathing what is it’s a pretty big challenge. How can we authentically say to anyone we love our body or we love ourselves when we’re filled with judgement about what we’re not? Ahhhhhh, but that’s the answer. When we stop hoping for things to be different and we just see what is and accept what is right here and now we have immediately released the loathing and disgust and disappointment and shame and replaced it with love and compassion. When we allow that we feel emotional pain when we want things to be different, and only then, it makes pretty good sense to let go of wanting things to be different.  That doesn’t mean nothing will ever change.  In fact, it opens the door for the greatest success. How successful have you been so far with the Drill Sgt. motiviation through criticism approach? How effective has withholding love and acceptance from yourself until you’re “good enough” been for you?  Not so good I think – and it certainly has never ever worked for me. Now, this concept of letting go of expectation, that interests me and resonates deeply.  When I let go of expectation I am not giving up on myself. I am instead, for the first time ever, making a loud and clear vote of confidence in myself. I can handle what comes. I don’t need to orchestrate every facet of the future. In truth I have no control anyway. I’m far better off to spend my time here, now, appreciating the gifts in my life now even if they are sometimes hard to see through the many things that aren’t the way I want them to be. Over the years of my growth I’ve gone from not being able to see anything good in myself and feeling entirely fraudulent and insecure to having many authentic experiences of confidence and security and seeing many good qualities and skills in me.  Still though I get caught up in wanting…..wanting something or someone (often me) to be different  or to feel or behave differently. The story is that if that happens I’ll finally be safe, I’ll finally find that elusive security.  Well, I’ve had enough relationship and life experience to know that security is elusive because the way I’ve been trying to make it manifest in my life doesn’t work. Security doesn’t come from what you look like, who is in your life, how successful you are or how much money you have. It doesn’t come from where you live or where you vacation or what other people think of you. In other words, the things that I had always thought would bring me peace and that final big sigh of having arrived are just coping strategies. They’re just filler. They’re just things I’ve been doing or focussing on to take my mind off the fact that there is no “there.” Peace and happiness are truly not contingent on what I look like, what I eat, whether I have a partner or not, whether I have professional success or not, etc.  Those things change, they are not stable or secure.  And the more I try to manipulate any of those facets of life to feel more secure and safe in my world the more anxious I become and the less happy and accepting I am in my life this moment. Just stop for a moment and ask yourself has your happiness level increased or decreased the more you’ve tried to find happiness through manipulating your food or weight? There were many times in my son’s early life that I was so very sad that his father and I weren’t able to make our relationship work that for a period of a few months I hardly really was present with my little guy. I mean I was there feeding him, bathing him, putting him to bed but I was so sad about what wasn’t there (ie. Dad) that I felt resentful at times rather than grateful to have Ben and just couldn’t really engage and celebrate him.  This to me is a perfect example of being so attached to hope that I couldn’t be here now, feeling the sadness and seeing it as part of the healthy process of life; the inherent insecurity in all things.  I was so caught up in wanting Ben’s dad and I to work out or wanting someone to complete my family that I couldn’t see that I had a family, it looked different from how I imagined it but it was a family and it was mine.  My attachment to how it had to look prevented me from seeing the gift of what was there. I felt regret and some guilt when I started to realize how unavailable I had been for Ben during that time and I acknowledged that to him and to myself. And I committed myself to, from that day forth, being present with him and with whomever I’m with, wherever we are. How often are you so focussed on what you weigh, how you look, what you’ve just eaten or what you’re wanting to eat that you don’t even celebrate who you’re with, what you’re doing, the health you have, the food you have access to etc. etc.? How much happier and more peaceful and loving to yourself and others would you be if you just invited yourself to notice when you’re focussed on food and body image and acknowledged that you’re using a coping strategy because you’re telling yourself that there’s something wrong because you feel anxious.  What if you then said something like: “there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with me feeling anxious – I’m only anxious because I’m telling myself there’s something wrong with me or with my life. If I let go of that thought I’d lose the anxiety! Could I let go of the belief that I need to be any different or that anything in my life needs to be any different in order for me to be happy?” Each time you pose that concept to yourself you are giving yourself a great gift. A gift of returning to the present. A gift of seeing what truly does create security in life: love and compassion for yourself. Let us all commit to letting go of our attachment to the future and things being different or better there and instead allow ourselves to see what is working in this moment and know that in being here, now, we are setting the stage for things to unfold in the most peaceful and rewarding way possible and we’re awake and present for the whole journey!! Have a lovely day and thanks for reading. Love M

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Feedback Please

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Your Feedback is Welcome and Important to Us

Please Send Me Your Feedback. With all the new plans for CEDRIC (Web Program, new books and new web site) it’s imperative to me that I know what is working for you and what isn’t in terms of the support I offer you as a client and/or reader of the blog and newsletter. I would greatly appreciate any feedback or suggestions you might have about how I could do what I do better. What do I do well? What do I do poorly? What do you think I should change? I ask you to ensure that your feedback is kind and constructive. I cannot guarantee that I will implement all of your suggestions but I can assure you that I will welcome positive and constructive feedback as equal blessings. Please send any thoughts, feedback, invitations for change to: michelle@cedriccentre.com Thank you in advance for any thing you share. Love M.

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Speaking Your Truth

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Speak the Truth Out of Love – A True Relationship

I think that what often happens when we begin to speak our truth is that the truth of the relationship we have with that person is revealed. We see three key pieces clearly for the first time:   1. How much co-dependency there is in our relationship with that person (ie. how much we feel responsible for their feelings and needs or vice versa); 2. How that person offers and receives feedback, ie. How they deal with respectful honest communication; 3. And what, overall, their ability and desire to be in a healthy interdependent relationship is at that time. We also see what is still alive in us in the way of co-dependency, caretaking, lack of self-esteem and self-trust and self-care etc. etc. by how we do or don’t take on the other person’s reaction and by whether their reaction leads us to back down on our boundary (ie. to meet their needs at cost to ourselves – a co-dependent pattern) or to hold our ground in a way that is open to hearing the other person’s needs and perspective without immediately doubting and abandoning our own.I say, if you’re being respectfully (with your words, tone and body language) truthful about where you’re at and what you need and someone is reacting as though you’re rejecting them or doing something wrong it is simply an indicator that your truth doesn’t meet needs for them.   This is not necessarily a sign that the relationship can’t meet your needs for respect and intimacy in the long run or even in the next few minutes/hours/days.  That is up to the other person in terms of how they deal with their own feelings and needs and whether they are able to, with some time and space, see your point and work with you to a solution that meets your needs and theirs.  It is exceptionally rare that we are unable to find a way for us to get both of our needs met in a relationship. It may look different from how we initially thought (eg. I might not get my night to myself until Friday when I was hoping for Wednesday but if my need is for some time to myself without kids and partner and cats etc. I will get my need met.) This is how we discover whether the overall need of the other person is simply to control us or the relationship or if their need overall is to have a loving, respectful, mutually rewarding life-long connection. If you share a need with someone in a respectful way and get a strong resistant or critical reaction back it is for you to determine:   1. Whether you think this person is just surprised at your request and needs some time to see you setting boundaries in a healthy way and still being present and loving them and then they will ultimately feel safe to come around and join you in your new, more direct and open relationship;   2. Or whether you think the relationship has been one of the other person needing to control and have things their way, and now that you’re not into being controlled or at least, not into giving them their way at cost to you, they’re not interested in the relationship. If it’s ‘2’ I say – good information for you to have now rather than later and time to step back. If the other person has a change of heart later on and comes around to a more mutual way of relating you can re-evaluate and decide if you want to give it another go. Otherwise, you’re wise to place your relationship focus on people who are willing to consider your needs as well as their own. If it’s ‘1’ I say – yipee! Now your relationship with that person can begin in truth, in reality – the two of you can now connect with who the other person really is, what they really feel and what they really like and don’t like etc. and love all of that person. How beautiful and how freeing. If you are challenging yourself to be more honest and direct with others either with the support of others or because you feel, in your heart, the rightness of speaking your truth, keep the following in mind:You deserve to be acknowledged for doing your very very best to be healthy and balanced and respectful to yourself and others in a world with many people who received the same confusing co-dependent training you did. I encourage you to trust your gut and know that someone’s discomfort or downright dissatisfaction with your behaviour is in no way an indicator that you’re doing anything wrong.  It’s simply that they believe that their needs will not get met if yours do. And their own all or nothing thinking makes it a contest for whose needs will get met rather than an interdependent, open, mutual meeting of everyone’s needs.   As long as you keep in mind that you’re not responsible for meeting someone else’s needs, it’s okay if they feel frustrated and resistant (you don’t have to stay in their presence while they’re exhibiting that resentment and frustration by the way, you can take some space and wait until they’re more grounded to return to the discussion) and it’s okay for you to have your needs met. It’s not all or nothing; it’s not either or. It’s your needs and their needs.   Love M.            

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Asking For Our Needs to be Met in Sensitive Situations

Posted by on Hi All! Below is a great question I received last week about how to address a sensitive issue in romantic relationship.  My response can be adapted to any issue that comes up between two people so even if the issue of physical intimacy doesn’t resonate you can apply this concept to other issues easily. Question:   Hi Michelle, I have been doing a lot of work with needs this week and got stuck on something that I was hoping you can shed some light on…if that is OK.I was very brave and went to my partner and expressed my need for him to be more present during sex because fun adventurous sex is important to me and I felt that need was not being met. He responded by saying his job is stressful and he is tired all the time…which is an ongoing problem. I said that it was his responsibility to learn how to deal with that and to his credit he is trying to change jobs to something he feels more fulfilled by. That likely won’t happen until next spring and even then he will be in more courses and situations which will be stressful. So I am not sure if I really see an end in sight for this issue unless he learns how to manage his stress and dissatisfaction with work better. So right now I feel like my need for fun intimate sex with the man I love has been “shelved” until he learns how to deal with his stress and dissatisfaction in his job. Now, I understand that if after a certain amount of time with no action form his end to address his issues then I will need to reconsider the whole relationship but in the interim how do I meet this need in another way that doesn’t involve cheating or leaving him (neither of which I want to do)? My Answer: I agree it was very brave of you to speak with your man about this – and so important that you did articulate your needs. It’s very distressing when we do our best to be clear about what we need and meet a wall.  This happens for a few reasons: 1. Our partner doesn’t share the same need and just doesn’t value and have the willingness to meet ours. 2. Our partner doesn’t understand what we were asking for specifically, how important it is to us and what the consequences of that need going unmet will be to the relationship as a whole. 3. Our partner understands # 2 but has his own insecurities/blocks/needs that are taking precedence and making it impossible for them to move on meeting our need. It is important to ask questions to get clear on which scenario is at play in an unsatisfactory situation.   If it is # 1 – there’s not much you can do except reiterate the importance of the needs and the consequence of them not being met and ask if your partner would be willing to reevaluate his perspective. If it is #2 we need to write out and speak to him clearly and briefly what our needs are, how specifically he could meet them and the consequences of them remaining unmet for any length of time.  If we do have this conversation we want to make the space to hear how our partner feels about our request and what barriers might exist to them following through on our request – and what they are willing to do to overcome those barriers. In this way you’ll be able to get clear on what’s been going on for your partner and what has prevented him from meeting your needs (ie. you’ll find out if it’s just “how he is” or if he just hasn’t understood your need and how to meet it). If it is #3 we talk about the barriers to follow through (as spoken about above for # 2) and with our partner come up with a plan for moving through those barriers and a general time line by which you’ll see some action and some change. Again, the consequence or natural outcome for a lack of follow through needs to be clearly articulated so you both know where the boundaries are and so you can both assess growth and change.

Understand Your Partners Feelings and Needs

You will find that once you’ve had a conversation in which you feel understood and you feel you understand your partners thoughts, feelings and needs, and the boundaries or natural consequences are clearly stated, you’ll feel peaceful regardless of the outcome. You will know you’ve done your best and that you’ve honored your needs and your relationship to the best of your ability. You’ll also have reinforced to yourself your ability to have courageous conversations and your right to ask for a get what you need.I would ask your partner if he is truly happy with the current level of sexual play and intimacy – would he be willing to have this be the situation for the remainder of your relationship.I might also ask how he would feel in a relationship where his needs for intimacy and play weren’t being met and where they may not be met for years if ever.These questions would help you to gain deeper understanding on where he’s at and what the possibilities are. I think gathering as much info as you can about his level of satisfaction and what he is willing to do differently now (if he’s not completely satisfied) is an important step to determining whether there is hope for this pattern to change. Without that information you can’t make a clear decision about whether to stay or leave.I would invite you to let him know (to whatever extent you haven’t made it abundantly clear) that you can’t commit to a life partnership with him when your key needs for fun, play, intimacy and sex aren’t being met. Again, once you’ve had this conversation you’ll feel more peaceful regardless of the outcome.  Should he agree to make some changes or to seek outside help to explore his barriers you’ll need to find a way to meet your own needs for physical intimacy and play for the interim. I appreciate that’s not the same as meeting those needs with your partner – but there’s no reason why you can’t have some fun and play on your own. In fact it will probably be more fun when you know that either way it’s temporary as an only means of meeting those needs.Let me know if that helps.

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