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Stepping Free of the Comparison Game

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A pattern of thought that goes hand in hand with disordered eating, depression, anxiety and pretty much any other harmful coping strategy is that precious little gem I call the comparison game.

The comparison game is a harmful, thought level coping strategy that undermines your overall self-esteem and your ability to lead a peaceful life. How do you play? Well, simply put, you compare yourself to others and you either find things that you think are better about you than the other person or you compare and find yourself lacking. Either way you lose!

What’s that you say? How can I lose if I find myself coming out on top some of the time? Well for starters, the sheer act of comparing yourself to someone else in any regard whatsoever sends yourself a strong message that you believe you are lacking in some way and that you need to find reassurance through proving that you’re better than someone else. In other words, you tell yourself that you will feel better through finding flaws in others. Not such a great strategy. What if that person grows and those flaws disappear? Now you are less than they are. What if you misinterpreted that person and they really didn’t have those flaws in the first place – how do you feel then, having built your self-esteem on your perception of them as weak in some area? I could go on but hopefully you get the picture; building your “self-esteem” on the pretense that someone else is lacking in some way is really like building a house in a swamp – you’re doomed from the start. In fact you’ll be worse off in time because each time you try and make yourself feel better by hanging on to the story of what’s better about you than someone else, you diminish your self-esteem and you put the power for your positive self-regard firmly in the hands of that person that you’re telling yourself you’ve got one up on. Not such a bright idea really.

Now, the other side of the game – where you compare and come out on the bottom. The girl at the next table in the restaurant is slender and attractive AND happily eating chocolate cake! Arg! Or someone else in the clothing store you happen to be shopping in looks great in a dress that you couldn’t get over your thighs! Double Arg! Or that girl you work with who has the amazing figure and the great boyfriend just got the job you wanted! How bad can it get?! Well, as long as you’re telling yourself that anyone’s successes or “failures” impact you in any way it can get pretty bad.

We begin to be quite small and petty and our insecurity grows exponentially when we play the comparison game and try to build ourselves up by finding flaws in others. Try this experiment with me for a moment. Imagine that scene in the restaurant where that beautiful woman is devouring the cake and clearly savouring every last bite. Now you have two options as I see it. One, you play the comparison game and start to notice your own body in relation to hers; your perceived attractiveness in relations to hers; and what you’re eating vs. what she’s eating. You then take a tally and decide whether you’re “better” than she is, or “worse”. Regardless of your outcome, how do you feel? Are you peaceful, relaxed, grounded? Are you focused on your dinner companion and enjoying your meal fully? Are you comfortable in your body and happy with your life? If you’re playing the comparison game the answer will be no. It’s the only reason you’re playing it in the first place. Somehow, from somewhere, you got the notion that in order for you to be the best you can be, other people have to be less than you; others have to be less beautiful, less healthy, less successful etc. That’s what I call the scarcity mentality – ie. there’s only so much beauty, health, love, success etc. to go around and if she’s got it, somehow that means you can’t have it. Bologne.

Now, go back to the restaurant and imagine this scenario: You see the beauty with her chocolate cake and you grin from ear to ear. You revel in her happiness and you celebrate her happiness with her body and her comfort with food. You feel joy that the universe has given you a mirror in which to see the beauty and health and passion that lives in you and that only waits to be released. Your heart warms and you return your focus to your dinner companion, happier, more full of life and love and maybe even saving some room for that tasty looking chocolate cake. How do you feel when you imagine that scene being your reality?

Feels pretty good doesn’t it? Yeah! Celebrating happiness and beauty always makes us feel happier and more beautiful ourselves, every single time, no exceptions. Our self-esteem grows every single time we invite ourselves to feel happy for someone else’s happiness.

The comparison game makes you small. It only reinforces that old poopy belief that you’re not good enough and that something about you needs to change in order for you to be acceptable. The story goes that until that magical something (which you probably think is your body and your connection with food) changes you’re vulnerable to the beauty and passion and success of others. Actually, the truth is, that it’s the belief that makes you vulnerable because that old story, which isn’t true now, and never has been, is what makes you think that you are somehow lacking and are therefore vulnerable to rejection, ostracism and judgement.

Ask yourself this question if you’re still not fully convinced of what feels best and where you’d prefer to put your focus: If, in order for you to feel better about yourself, that woman in the restaurant had to be overweight and unhappy, would you wish that upon her? Truly? What about the colleague at work with the guy, the bod and the new job? If in order for you to feel good about yourself she had to gain weight, be dumped and lose the job due to ineptitude would you want that? Would you really want your self-esteem to be contingent on someone else’s demise? I know that deep down inside, you wouldn’t want anyone to suffer in order for you to be the best that you can be.

Well then, be real with yourself. Every single time you play the comparison game in any way you’re doing exactly what you say you wouldn’t do. You’re saying that in order for you to feel better about yourself someone else has to be less than the best that they can be: The folks you’re “better than” have to stay where they are and the folks who are “better than” you have to come down a notch or two and then you’ll be fine.

That’s a very closed and harmful perspective on the world. Instead of carrying that old, worn out story that has never served you in any way, how about exchanging it for a new one? How about a new story that goes something like this:

“I would not want anyone to be anything less than the best that they can be in order for me to feel confident in myself. In fact, when I see something in someone that I admire or appreciate, I smile and send them my happiness for their success. If what I am celebrating in them is something I’d like for myself I ask myself honestly: “What am I currently doing to create that for myself?” and ensure that I am taking healthy, honoring steps to achieve that goal. If not I get concrete on the steps I will take and when. I will then say an extra ‘thank you very much” in my heart to that person for reminding me of what was important to me and for challenging me to be the best that I can be. I will also appreciate that seeing their success has proven that my goal is a very real, attainable goal because they have done it and therefore, so can I!”

Free from Comparison and Build Your Self-Esteem

Wahooo! How’s that for a great, life enhancing, honoring, passion filled way of being in the world. Suddenly you’re walking around looking for things you find beautiful and successful in others because you appreciate how incredibly inspiring it is to see people who are self-actualized and loving life. When I started doing this instead of feeling jealous and resentful of others I practically began bouncing off the walls I was so happy! I haven’t stopped bouncing actually, I’m just more accustomed to it! And I am filled with gratitude for the joy I get from celebrating others.

So, take advantage of those twinges of jealousy that might come up for you right now. They are indicators of old bogus stories of how you are lacking and each time you get that old twinge you are being given an opportunity to examine your old story of lack and to openly challenge its validity. And if you do find that you aren’t as fit, or as successful or as happy as you perceive the other person to be and, most significantly, as you’d like to be, ask yourself what you can do to begin to change that. Immediately turn your focus from what that person has, to what you can do to be the best that you can be in that area. Let go of needing to look or be exactly like that person and instead focus on doing your best, on living with integrity – where your words (to yourself and to others) are in direct alignment with your actions.

That’s how you create self-esteem. That’s how you live a life filled with passion and love and happiness and peace and beauty: By focusing not on what others have or don’t have in comparison to you, but by focusing on what you desire and setting concrete and clear goals for how you are going to attain that.

Have fun celebrating all the beauty you see this week.

Love Michelle

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Tips for Natural Eating: II

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Last week we talked about simply stopping to “check in,” before we ate, to determine if we were physically hungry, or if it was an emotional need we were seeking to fill.

If you did that exercise you gained great insight into any resistance you might have to being honest with yourself; how strong your belief is that you need to use food to cope; how often you eat when you’re not hungry; and perhaps even some situations that will trigger you to use food to cope that you hadn’t previously seen as triggering.

Tips for Eating All Natural

This is all great information as there is something you can do for all of those potential scenarios that will take away your need to use food to cope when they arise. It’s simply a matter of being open to seeking new ways of thinking and behaving. Often the thing that will shut you down faster than anything else to the concept of checking in is what I call “all or nothing thinking.” All or nothing (aon) thinking is a character trait of the Drill Sgt. (that critical voice in your head that tries to motivate you through criticism). All or nothing thinking leads you to buy in to a bogus, fear based story of what will happen if you are conscious in your use of food, that shuts you down before you even know you’ve had that undermining thought. For example, you might be about to eat something and think to yourself, “Hey, Michelle says I should ask if I’m really hungry or not.” This thought is immediately followed by another thought, far more subtle, that goes something like this: “But wait, if I check in about that then I won’t get to eat this thing and I really need/want it right now. I’d better not check in!” That thought triggers you to feel fearful of being conscious because you’ve just told yourself that the only possible outcome from checking in to see if you’re truly hungry is that you’ll still want the food but not be allowed to have it. Is that true? No. You could check in and realize that you’re not at all hungry and that in fact, something else was upsetting you and you were going to eat instead of deal with it. Or you could check in and discover that you’re not hungry and still allow yourself to have that food while you check in about why you’re wanting it (ie. what triggered you to want food to cope). Or you could find that you are in fact a bit hungry and that the thing you were about to eat was not a choice you’d like to make and so you have something that feels more honoring and triggers less criticism from the Drill Sgt. Or….you could find that you’re hungry and you’re truly fine and peaceful with what you were going to choose and that now, after checking in, you can really consciously enjoy that food. All of these possibilities are more likely than the original one – in fact the original fear based thought can only exist if you don’t bring it fully into your consciousness and ask yourself if it is true. As soon as you do that, it disintegrates because it is an aon thought and all aon thoughts dissolve when brought out to the light of day. More on this next week. For this week, I want to encourage you to identify 3 or 4 food items that you would enjoy eating, that are relatively non-perishable (ie. can last in your bag or car for a few days at least) that you will begin to carry with you at all times. Doing this means that you have foods you enjoy and feel comfortable eating (ie. don’t trigger the Drill Sgt.) with you any time you might begin to feel hungry. This benefits you in three key ways. First, you are exhibiting self-care by thinking ahead and this act alone increases your self- esteem which makes you less likely to harm yourself with food. Second, you are less likely to grab for foods that don’t feel like honoring choices when you’re out and about and you get hungry. And third, you are far lesslikely to binge when you next get around food if you’ve allowed yourself to take the edge off your hunger by having a snack rather than coming home, ravenous and tired because you haven’t eaten for so long and then bingeing because you’re so hungry. When you set yourself up to have honoring choices around you at all times you are doing your best to make it easy for you to choose foods you enjoy when you’re hungry and this decreases the likelihood of binging later and of choosing foods that make you feel tired, bloated or depressed (ie. anything processed or made with white sugar). Foods that I carry with me at all times are things like almonds, apples, perhaps a granola bar/protein bar, some good quality dark chocolate. The high, healthy fat content in good quality dark chocolate gives our bodies a great sense of satisfaction and also slows the release of the sugar into the blood stream – thus preventing an insulin rush and the emotional high then low, that typically comes with it. Just a few squares of good quality dark chocolate – preferably organic – will give you a great boost and tide you over if you’re almost home and don’t want to have much to eat because you’re truly eating in the next half hour or less. A few squares of dark chocolate are also great after a meal if you’re wanting something a little sweet and desserty but don’t really have room. So identify your 3 or 4 things, carry them with you in your bag, in your car, get used to having them around all the time – in your desk etc. – and to offering yourself the choice of having one of those things rather than the doughnuts in the coffee room or the muffin at the coffee shop. This is a great approach to reducing the amount you eat when you get home at the end of the day too, because, as I mentioned earlier, you’ll be less ravenous and that means you’ll have the time and energy to cook something healthy and you won’t feel the need to overeat it; that is, unless you’re using food to cope….more on that next week.

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Kindness and Compassion

Posted by on This Quote comes from the Dalai Lama and a preface he wrote for the wonderful book “The Power of Kindness” by Piero Ferrucci. “On a simple, practical level, kindness creates a sense of warmth and openness that allows us to communicate much more easily with other people. We discover that all human beings are just like us, so we are able to relate to them more easily. That generates a spirit of friendship in which there is less need to hide what we feel or what we are doing. As a result, feelings of fear, self-doubt, and insecurity are automatically dispelled, while at the same time other people find it easier to trust us, too. What is more, there is increasing evidence that cultivating positive mental states like kindness and compassion definitely leads to better psychological health and happiness.” I love this quote because it speaks so clearly to the concept of physical and emotional security being the underpinnings of self-esteem. You know I love Maslow’s Hierarchy of Basic Needs and this just reinforces the truth that if we are in relationships that don’t feel safe emotionally or physically because the other person is not consistently acting in a kind or compassionate way, we will naturally feel self-dout, fear and insecurity – ie. our needs for physical and emotional security won’t be met. This will directly undermine our self-esteem and our ability to realize our full potential in the world. However, if we engage only in relationships where we feel safe and loved and accepted as we are then we have the resources to love and accept others fully and to offer the same great love, and kindness and compassion to ourselves, thus solidly planting us in positive self- esteem and allowing us to make manifest our gift to the world. So, perhaps you could take advantage of this insight to stop and ask yourself if there are any people or situations in your life presently that undermine your sense of security: ie. You feel judged, belittled, ostracized, “not good enough”. Or you receive feedback in a tone that carries a message of contempt or shaming. Or you might have someone in your life who frequently brings up painful topics (ie. your weight!) as a means of “motivating through criticism” or of establishing their superiority. These would all be examples of situations where your emotional security needs wouldn’t be met, thus undermining your ability to feel safe and secure and also, often leading you to use harmful coping strategies like food or negative self-talk to take the focus of the painful situation with that person. So, make a list of those situations or people that trigger feelings of fear or doubt and begin to explore the possibility of either spending less time with those people or of having courageous conversations and asking for what you need in order to feel safe. You will be pleasantly surprised how often people will gladly meet your need when you tell them how to do so. Often the people in our lives are undermining our sense of security emotionally simply out of ignorance. They just don’t understand how their behaviour impacts us or is interpreted by us and, more often than not, simply clarifying that for them and letting them know what we would like, is enough to change that harmful pattern of relating. The world needs you to be the best you can be; to bring your kindest, most compassionate self to the table. You can’t do that if you have harmful relationships that undermine your self-esteem because you won’t have the emotional or physical resources to bring your best self to others. So consider it your duty to create the healthiest relationships you can with all the people in your life. You will benefit in so many ways, not the least of which is that you’ll stop using food to cope! Michelle

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Tips for Natural Eating: I

Posted by on Tips for natural eating – One of the most significant things you can do to make the change from the diet mentality to natural eating is to allow yourself for one day to just ask yourself before you eat anything: “Am I physically hungry right now?” If the answer is no, you’re emotionally eating and there is an underlying need for physical or emotional security that you are seeking to meet in having that particular food at that time. If the answer is “I can’t tell if I’m truly hungry or not.” You’re not. Encourage yourself to wait until you’re certain that you are physically hungry. There is no uncertainty about that. You’ll feel empty physically; you’ll have a growly tummy; if you’ve left it quite a long time before eating you’ll likely also feel cranky, tired and a bit shaky – a.k.a. hypoglycemia: low blood sugar. It is important as you begin to experiment with inviting yourself to wait to eat until you truly feel phsyical hunger that you have with you at all times snacks that you enjoy and that you can eat as soon as you start to feel true physical hunger. This exercise alone will reveal to you the true extent of your disordered relationship with food. It will show you immediately how often you use food to cope; how unconscious that pattern has become; and it will even reveal to you the relationships or situations that are likely to trigger you to feel unsafe or insecure. This is incredibly powerful information to be able to gather in just one day. It sets the stage for you to safely and forever change your use of food to cope and to begin to have a life that is truly peaceful and completely free of food and body image issues. Next week we’ll look at some strategies for setting yourself up to make honoring choices. Have a great week! M

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Media Messages: Why Do We Keep Buying Them?

Posted by on Media advertisements on weight loss, the media takes a lot of flack for the messages they portray of the “thin ideal.” The focus placed on weight loss and appearance by the media far outweighs the air time given to the concept of health, wellness and balance. The underlying message than many of us draw from this imbalance is that, regardless of how healthy and happy you are, if you do not look like the ideal you are not acceptable. Put another way, the core message of our media is that the image you portray to the outside world is far more important than who you really are at your core or what you do in relationship with yourself or others. Consider that many of us have grown up to trust, without question, the messages put forth by the media. We have been raised to assume that the perception of the media is “right” and that their recounting of events is “the truth” and therefore we put our faith in those messages and live our lives accordingly. Now consider that most newspaper and magazine articles and many documentaries and news shows are thrown together at the last minute by journalists who have to fill air time, often know nothing about the issues they are reporting on and who are trusting a source, which they may have found in the yellow pages, or through a friend of a friend, to be providing them accurate and unbiased information. And keep in mind that a great many of the articles in your local paper that actually seem like “reporting” are actually paid for by the person being written about. Thus the article about the latest diet centre in town happens to coincide with that same centre purchasing a large block of advertising in that very paper. Now consider the marketing psychologist. There is an inherent belief in most human beings that we are not good enough. No, you are not alone in that one. Certainly it is there in all those who struggle with food and body image issues; the story that there is something in us that needs to change in order for us to be acceptable and loveable. Marketing psychologists and the media they work for have exploited this undermining belief for decades and used it to make us believe that owning their product or using their service will make us “good enough” and finally provide us with the fundamental sense of peace and security that we all believe we lack. Thus we are bombarded with messages and images that are at best, simply an attractive image that we can enjoy amidst other images, and at worst completely unrealistic (ie. airbrushing and graphic engineering of photo images) ideals that we are meant to spend our hard earned money to emulate. The frequent media message that there is “one way” to be and only “one way” simply reinforces the all or nothing thinking that is so rampant in our society. All or nothing thinking is also one of the key underpinnings of a disordered relationship with food. It sets us up to believe that there is a “right” way to look and the unspoken message is that if we don’t look that “right” way, we are wrong, bad, flawed, and just plain unacceptable. This meshes perfectly with that part of ourselves that believes deep in our core that who we are is not good enough and we often buy those media messages about “the right way” to look without even questioning them simply because they match our core belief so well that they feel like “the truth.” The media has spent millions of dollars researching human behaviour and psychology and coming up with just the right phrases and images to spur us into a buying frenzy. We’ve all had the experience of seeing food marketed on T.V. and, even though we aren’t hungry we begin craving that food or a reasonable facsimile and find ourselves eating, where before that moment we had been perfectly content. Or, likewise, we see a show about the latest top model or hot actor and begin to inspect our body to see how closely it compares. Our “not good enough” belief ensures that we will always come out on the bottom end of any such comparison and we will often conclude that something about us needs to change in order to be acceptable to society at large. As long as we believe we aren’t slim enough, attractive enough, smart enough, wealthy enough etc. we are vulnerable to the media and its promises and comparisons. That’s the power of effective marketing. It elicits a sense of need which creates a thought (“hmm, that looks good, I want that!”), which creates a feeling (desire, longing, discomfort) which leads to a behaviour (foraging in the fridge for the closest thing to the image on the screen, or perhaps hopping in the car and zooming off to the closest D.Q., or shopping mall). According to visionary psychologist Abraham Maslow, and his Hierarchy of Basic Human Needs, one of the most fundamental basic human needs is for love, acceptance and belongingness. Next only to core needs for food, air and water and a roof over our heads this need for love and acceptance will drive our every behaviour (often unconsciously) until we find a way to feel secure in our connections with others.

Media Advertisements on Weight Loss, Why Do We Keep Buying Them?

With such strong messages in the media about the importance of matching that ideal physical appearance (regardless of the methods used to achieve it) and the fundamental human need for external approval, is it any wonder that 80% of girls have already tried a diet by the time they are 10 years old? Likewise, is it any surprise that at any given time in North America 25% of women are just ending a diet; 25% are just starting; and 25% are on one!? That translates to 75% of the female population of North America constantly in some stage of the dieting cycle. And you must have heard by now the statistic that only 2% of people who lose weight on a diet actually keep it off. 2%!! Now consider that over 90% of eating disorders begin with a diet and things start to get rather scary. To summarize, we all have the same basic need for approval from others. We have also all been raised in a society where, just like Doctors, the media is considered by many to be above us and an authority on all things and therefore, to be believed without question. This same media, in whom we have put our faith, constantly bombards us with the message that there is but one right way to look and that if we fall short of that ideal our lives will be filled with sub-standard people and things and experiences. That message when coupled with our basic need for approval and belongingness leads us to compromise our health and wellness, our quality of life, and in some cases, our very lives in the pursuit of the thin ideal and the sense of love, acceptance and happiness we believe it will bring. We don’t have to look very far to find someone who was at one time their “ideal” weight and who still didn’t feel “good enough.” I see many clients in my practice who remember with anguish that very situation in their own lives. It is proof positive that our happiness does not come from what we look like or what we weigh but from how we perceive ourselves; from the beliefs we carry about ourselves. This is great cause for celebration. It means that everything you need to be truly happy and peaceful and to feel accepting of your body is within you at this very moment. While this excites me to no end, many clients groan when they hear this even though they see the truth of it. They groan because they see the number they’ve been doing on themselves all this time, and because they realize that they truly are responsible for the quality of their life and that means that no person or thing outside of them can or should do it for them. These clients now see that it is their thoughts and perception of themselves that need to change in order for them to ever be truly content. In other words, they are beginning to realize that they must learn to meet their own need for love, acceptance and belongingness. This is actually very simple. What can be difficult initially is letting go of the story that you need anyone else’s approval in order to be okay. Let it be okay to no longer buy in to the messages from the media and other people in our lives that we must look or be a certain way in order to be acceptable. Realize that “the media” are really just people like you and me who were raised in families like yours and mine, often with some dysfunction and confused messages about what is healthy and about how to gain the much needed love and approval that they sought from the key people in their lives. They too were raised in a society that focused on external image as paramount to inner values and principles and many of the media personalities and marketing psychologists themselves are caught up in the diet mentality and truly believe, regardless of the depressing statistics, that diets are the solution and that there really is an “ideal body.” I am not for a moment suggesting that the media are not responsible for their actions. I am suggesting that, just like us, they can only do the best they can with the knowledge they have at this moment. They have no more knowledge and wisdom on how to be in the world in a healthy, honoring way, than the average person. Given the number of people with harmful coping behaviours like alcoholism, drug addiction, eating disorders and retail therapy, the average person clearly struggles just to get through the day, let alone live in a conscious and honoring fashion. And just like us, the members of the media can only continue to do what they know until they become aware of another way. It is important for you to allow yourself to become a skeptical viewer of the media. Remember their own blind spots or unconsciousness, like each of our own, limit their capacity for perspective and open-mindedness. Also, remember that it’s a business. The media is all about selling things and often what sells is sensationalism and extremism. This means that the majority of the stories that make it to the paper or on the T.V. are going to be the most far out, the most attention grabbing, and not what is truly representative of society at large. Allow yourself to question the conclusions of the columnist or reporter. Ask yourself if the message that they are putting forth creates a sense of peace and ease within you or a sense of resistance and anxiety. A sense of peace means that the message is in alignment with your inner self. A sense of resistance and anxiety means that the message is in direct opposition to what your inner self knows to be true. Cultivate your consciousness of your feelings and allow yourself to respond first and foremost to your feelings and needs and not to the messages from anyone or anything outside of you. Lead by example. Or as the Dalai Lama (among others) said “Be the change you seek.” Have a wonderful day out there! Love Michelle

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Health Show Thanks!

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Health Show – Something You Can Do

Hello All! I just felt compelled to write an e-mail expressing my gratitude to all of you who came to visit me at the Health Show in Victoria this weekend. I was incredibly touched to hear that some of you came to the health show just to see my talk or buy my book.  Wow, what an honor! It was a very reinforcing experience too to have my presentation so full that I ran out of handouts and chairs!  It’s testament I believe to how many people are beginning to really understand that food is not the issue; that diets dont’ work; that it’s not about willpower or being lazy; and that there is something that you can do to step out of the diet –> binge –> guilt cycle once and for all. So, thank you all for making this Health Show so incredibly successful and so much fun! M.

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Choice

Posted by on Responsible, conscious choice is the road to authenticity and empowerment.   The choice not to choose is the choice to remain unconscious and disempowered – this often leads to a feeling of being controlled by another – or by a substance   If you have ever felt or thought:   “They always get what they want and I never get my way”, “What I want isn’t important” You have chosen to ignore your needs.   The truth is that you have sent someone the message that whatever it is, it wasn’t that important to you.   When considering a choice: We must take into account the potential consequences of our actions.  Ask yourself:   “What will come from this choice?”   “Do I really want that?”   “Am I willing to accept the consequences of this choice?”   When you consider the consequences of your actions and remain conscious of your power and your right to choose your path, you have just made a responsible choice.  Whatever the outcome you chose the best option for you at that time and there is no shame or need for guilt in that.   Choices are often made out of a need for security now and not for long term happiness or fullness of life. The choices you make from anger, jealousy or fear and the education that comes through self-doubt and anxiety costs you personal power.  It drags you down and distances you from your goal of integrity and authenticity.   Choices made from love, forgiveness, humility and clarity and opening yourself to the wisdom of experience create power and authenticity.  This gives you the strength to face life’s challenges head on without the need for defense mechanisms such as disordered eating, anger and denial.   In a nutshell the choices we make directly influence whether we gain or lose personal power.   What is a fragmented personality?   The fragmented personality is not content.  It is continuously conflicting with different aspects of itself.  Our response to those internal struggles determines the way that you will evolve, consciously or unconsciously, through fear and doubt or wisdom.   It requires effort to remain conscious during life’s struggles but it is easier than living through the consequences that follow a decision to act in anger, or selfishness or fear when you know that with each decision to act without compassion you will experience the discord, or fear, or anguish that you create in another.   Isn’t it worth it to project ahead to the probable consequences of your actions, at each point of choice, and see how you will feel in each instance, how you will feel about those consequences and if making that choice will foster love and compassion for yourself and for others.   Choice: Self-Exploration   Remember, if your goal is to become authentic and to have integrity, making conscious choice is a key part of this goal.   Take some time now and reflect on choices you have made in the past.   What choices have you made unconsciously in the past?   What was the result?   How did you feel about yourself as a result of the outcome of unconscious choice?   Have you ever made a conscious choice?  Meaning, a choice that came from giving thought to the questions:  
  • What will come from this choice?
  • Do I really want that?
  • Am I willing to accept the consequences of this choice? 
If you have what was the result?   Your consciousness does not guarantee that things will go your way but it does guarantee that you did everything you could to ensure that it was the right thing for you at that time.  Knowing this means that we have no grounds for self-recrimination or shame for a choice that didn’t work out.   Make an effort over the next week to ask your self these 3 questions when faced with a choice that can have consequences on the future. (Keep in mind, this process doesn’t pertain to just the “big” events in our lives, even not brushing your teeth has consequences!)   Have a great week!  M

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Why Do I Keep Doing This To Myself?

Posted by on Obesity is Not Mental Illness, It is a Symptom of Food Overeating Hello, and welcome. It’s Michelle Morand here.

Last week I was a guest speaker on a talk radio station in Vancouver, BC, CKNW. It’s not my first time on the show. In fact I’m becoming something of a regular, which I find really fun and exciting. But that’s not the point of this article. The point is, one of the callers during the phone in portion of the show said something that I hear so very often I felt compelled to write about it. I was grateful for this man’s statement/question as it made for a wonderful and natural opportunity for me to educate the listeners on a key error in thinking that often keeps us stuck in harmful patterns. On the show I had 2 minutes to respond, so I had to keep it brief. On my blog though, I can expand and I will.

So, grab a cup of tea, curl up and read on.

The CKNW interview so far had been on the topic of using drugs to treat obesity – you may have caught the article in your local paper during the week of (September 11 – 13th, 2007). I made a comment which caused quite a stir among listeners and garnered some strong reactions. My comment was this:

“Obesity is not a mental illness. For most people* it is a symptom of the use of food to cope by overeating, otherwise known as Binge Eating Disorder, which, is already classified as a mental illness. Using drugs to treat a symptom will only leave those who take them dependent on the drugs and not looking beneath their symptoms to the true cause of their use of food to cope. Therefore, the individual never gets to heal and trust that they can live life without medication. This is similar for many people with depression and anxiety who are depressed and anxious for very good reasons, past and/or present who are given medication to dull their awareness of their body’s natural signals of stress or dissatisfaction. Those individuals aren’t healing, they’re just coping.”

The announcer, John, then asked me what those folks were coping with. I responded by saying that most people who use food to cope, or who struggle with depression or anxiety are doing so in an attempt to cope with the trauma of having unmet needs for security and for love/acceptance as children or young adults.

Well…, that was pretty close to what I said and I got a few calls from people who felt that I was saying that medication should never be taken and who clearly felt very strongly to the contrary. That wasn’t difficult to attend to, since I don’t believe that medication should never be used and I hadn’t said that I simply clarified that I do support the use of anti-depressants/anti-anxiety medications in acute circumstances (ie. panic attacks, suicidal ideation etc.) given that the individual is using the medication to take the intensity from the emotions while they are actively engaged in therapy to attend to the true cause of the problem. And given that medication is seen for most people as a temporary measure and not a solution in and of itself. That seemed to help clarify and those callers went away satisfied.

Then, the big piece! A man called to say that he had an issue with my statement that overeating, depression and anxiety stem from trauma/unmet needs from childhood or young adulthood. The host, John, asked him, did you ever experience trauma or a lack of security or love as a child? The caller responded “sure, I did, and I struggled with depression later on, but everyone goes through those kinds of things.”

I became immediately aware that he had just made a key statement and that I had 2 minutes to respond effectively and educate the listeners on a key misunderstanding that leads to much grief and self-harm. Needless to say I said something general in response that invited him to challenge his assumption without opening a can of worms in the process – very unsatisfying to me but that’s radio!

His argument essentially was that since most people experience some unmet needs for security and/or love, acceptance and belongingness as children or young adults it is therefore not trauma and not the reason that people become depressed or anxious or turn to food to cope.

The most obvious response to that statement, which, I chose not to offer on the radio with only two minutes to respond, is to pose the following argument: In Iraq for example (insert any region in any time period that has experienced war/ or military dictatorship) millions of people have been forced to leave their homes, guns firing around them, bombs dropping intermittently, their basic human rights taken away, members of their families killed, lost, whereabouts unknown, future uncertain, no personal power…I could go on but you get the picture. Now if this caller’s argument holds water we would say that because everyone in those regions has experienced, or is experiencing, those circumstances, ie. because they were “normal”, they weren’t traumatizing? You tell me?

Now, let’s say that someone from Iraq moved to Canada recently and was sharing with you, over coffee, that they felt quite anxious and depressed and found themselves eating when they weren’t hungry. Would you think that person was weak? Would you judge them as having no willpower? Or might you suggest that because they had just come from a very stressful situation in which they didn’t feel safe they would naturally feel quite anxious and overwhelmed and that as they came to feel safer and more secure in their new environment they would likely feel less anxious, depressed and compelled to use food to cope? Consider that for a moment.

I was at a workshop yesterday and the facilitator spoke of a cartoon that I had seen a few years back in a psychological journal. It was a picture of a large auditorium, rows of empty chairs but for two people. A banner reads “convention for people from non-dysfunctional families” and one of the two folks is saying to the other “I think I’m in denial!” Quite funny – and quite true.

Most of us experienced some fundamental unmet needs for safety and security and/or love, acceptance and belongingness as children. That’s true. What is not true is the assumption that those events do not impact us today.

Of course they do.

Not feeling safe; not feeling loved or accepted is very painful and prevents us from feeling solid and secure in the world on the whole and in relationships with others. This then prevents us from developing our hearts and minds fully as we become so desperate for external safety and approval that we stifle and compromise our authentic thoughts and feelings and desires and instead try to create the least disturbance, draw the least attention and struggle to feel safe and secure for just a moment.

Now, if only we were aware that we were stuck because of the pain of past unmet needs we could actually attend to those unmet needs in the present and step into ourselves as the confident, secure, beautiful beings that we are capable of being. But, for the most part, our society has the following story attached to it:

  1. That because those things happen to everyone they didn’t really hurt you.
  2. No one else has a problem dealing with them.
  3. Therefore, if you have a hard time coping with or getting over those events you are too weak and too sensitive and you should just get over it.

This is a story of denial. It’s a bunch of pahooey! As we saw in the example of the war torn region – just because many people experience unmet needs for security or for love and acceptance as young people doesn’t mean that those experiences don’t have an impact.

And rather than helping you heal and step beyond those past experiences, telling yourself that the past didn’t impact you or doesn’t impact your thoughts and behaviours today only keeps you stuck blaming yourself for feeling anxious and depressed and for using food, alcohol, drugs etc. to cope.

The definition of a coping strategy is: Any thought, feeling or behaviour that allows you to remain in an uncomfortable situation without being aware of how uncomfortable you are.

Based on that definition it becomes obvious that the solution to healing any coping pattern (such as depression; all or nothing thinking; disordered eating or alcoholism to name just a few common ones) is not to focus on the coping pattern itself but on the underlying situation that triggered the need for the coping strategy in the first place.

If you focus on the coping strategy itself you’ll only spin your wheels on the surface and never achieve and lasting healing. That’s why, for people who use food to cope, no diet will ever bring lasting success.

The only real and lasting solution is to establish a strong foundation of respect and security within yourself, in the present. This may seem like a tall order, or perhaps, if you’re still buying into that old message of judgement and shame that society dishes out, you’re starting to scoff at the notion that any value can come from feeling safe in, and accepting of, yourself. But truly it’s not as difficult a prospect as it may seem. In order to establish that strong inner core and really know that you can trust yourself to meet your own needs for security and acceptance you must first begin to understand how you came to be as you are. That understanding is what we call empathy and only through self-empathy and compassion can you step free of the harmful coping strategies you’ve erected to barricade yourself from harm – past, present and future.

Perhaps you’re tea is cold and you need a refill – take a break – and, when you can, come back and read on as we get to greater clarity and most significantly, a solution.

Now, let’s back up the bus a little bit and look at your past. But first, I challenge you to notice if, as you read on, you hear a voice that says anything like: my experience wasn’t as bad as some people; so and so had it worse; it doesn’t impact me anymore; I’m over that…..etc. Just notice. And if you spot any of those dismissing thoughts and you know that you currently use food, anxiety, depression, alcohol or other harmful coping strategies then you know, with absolute certainty that you have bought into that societal story of denial and it’s time to refresh your perspective.

Or perhaps you’re feeling some resistance and annoyance at my proposal that your parents or other caregivers in your young life didn’t meet your needs for love or security. You may be saying “I don’t want to get stuck in blame, they did the best they could. What happens in my life now is up to me and I don’t want to dump it on them.”

Well, I support you and congratulate you for wanting to take responsibility for where you are now and the choices you make/have made as an adult. It is important that you see yourself as the person in charge of your life at this time.

It is also important for you to allow your primary caregivers or anyone who undermined (consciously or unconsciously) your basic needs for safety and love to be allowed to take responsibility for their choices at that time. Nothing is gained by blaming others and wallowing in the harm that was done to you. And in the same fashion, nothing is gained by pretending that your needs were met by key people in your life if they weren’t.

You see, both can exist: You can take responsibility for the choices you make in life now while also allowing your primary caregivers to be responsible for the choices they made as your parents/teachers/etc.

In fact, from this stance of seeing yourself as a responsible adult and seeing them as also having been responsible as adults in your life, you are in a much stronger, more balanced place from which to heal yourself and your relationships and to move through any past harm.

Allow yourself to imagine that when you were born you came into the world with peace at your core. The very centre of your being was peaceful and felt immense trust and faith in the world and in the people in it.

Had your basic human needs been consistently met from infancy onward you would have maintained conscious contact with that sense of peace and tranquility and you would now move through life from a place of balance and security, trusting that all is as it should be and that overall the world is a beautiful and safe place to be.

Now, allow yourself to imagine that for each experience as a child of your basic needs for food, security/safety, or love/acceptance and belongingness not being met you felt pain. In those situations you felt an appropriate and healthy response of sadness, fear or anger. In response to these healthy, but painful responses to your needs not being met, you began to erect a barricade around your peaceful, trusting core. You began to wall away and protect your authentic self from those painful experiences of insecurity and rejection.

Therefore, instead of experiencing life from your natural state of feeling balanced and centred and peaceful, you began to respond to life from a more defensive stance of anxiety and agitation, feeling unsettled and ungrounded. This is what is otherwise known as the “flight or fight” response. And, if you use food to cope or anxiety or depression among other common harmful coping strategies you can guarantee that you are still approaching life from this flight or fight place – on guard constantly and ready to fight or flee as the situation demands.

In essence you can picture yourself as a whirling tornado, spinning through life; frantic to find your lost sense of peace and acceptance, at all costs. You are perpetually looking outside of yourself for a sense of peace, acceptance and security which cannot be found anywhere but within.

Now, it would be bad enough if this pattern of being harmed and walling more and more of your authentic self away stopped when you reached adulthood and became responsible for yourself. But the reality is, because you have become so accustomed to feeling anxious and agitated, and to interacting with others in a certain way, you continued, in a manner of speaking, to do the same thing to yourself that was done to you: To engage in circumstances where you do not feel safe or loved and respected.

The “solution”? First and foremost you must learn to become aware of when you feel that your needs for security or love and acceptance are not being met by learning to notice when you are using your harmful coping strategies to survive. Then you must learn how to take steps to protect yourself (if you truly are being threatened) or learn new tools for challenging your patterns of thought that lead you to feel threatened when no threat is really present. That’s where counselors like myself come in. We help you to understand what is really going on underneath your coping patterns and how to heal those old patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving.

Just so you’ve got a sense of the kinds of things to be on the look out for when you’re asking yourself to keep an eye out for coping patterns here is a list of some harmful coping strategies that you could be using:

Behavioural Coping Strategies:

  • Overeating
  • Restriction (not eating when hungry)
  • Purging
  • Alcoholism
  • Drug Addiction
  • Retail Therapy (shop to feel better rather than because you really need something)
  • Relationship Addiction (can’t be without one and be happy)
  • Co-dependency (believe you are responsible for the feelings and needs of others and/or that they are responsible for your needs and feelings)
  • Procrastination
  • Avoidance
  • Isolation

Emotional Coping Strategies:

  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Alexithymia (unable to identify what you are feeling, or that you are even having a feeling)

Thought Coping Strategies:

  • All or Nothing Thinking
  • Bad Body Thoughts
  • Intrusive Ideation (worst case scenario thinking)
  • Self-Criticism
  • Self- Blame
  • Harmful Core Beliefs (I am not good enough, etc.)
  • Paranoid Thinking
  • Suicidal Ideation

This list is not complete but it’s a good solid start to get you going.

Some of you would have seen these patterns of thinking and behaving modeled for you by parents, grandparents, teachers etc. and either naturally took them on as “the right way to be” or rebelled against them only to find yourself with an equally harmful and overwhelming way of being in the world.

So, if you’d like to change any of these patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving, start by inviting yourself to be more aware of when you’re doing them. Perhaps even ask people in your life that you feel safe with to gently point out those patterns when they see you using them to cope.

Your awareness of these coping strategies is the first and most important step in changing their strangle hold on your peace and happiness. But remember, awareness without compassion is just a set up for self-judgement and shame. That’s why understanding where your coping patterns came from, ie. why you needed to develop them in the first place, is so important because once you understand that piece you cannot help but have empathy and compassion for yourself.

Stay tuned for more guidance on what to do now that you’re tuned in to your coping strategies – but always remember – there is a reason for why you do what you do and I absolutely positively assure you it has nothing to do with willpower or your capacity to heal and grow.

You are a beautiful being. Regardless of what you may currently believe about yourself, I assure you, you deserve the same peace and happiness and freedom that everyone else does. You can create a life that is filled with passion and abundance. All you need to do is begin to allow for the possibility that things are not as they seem, that your perspective on the past needs a little tweaking and that you truly are worthy of all that you desire.

Love Michelle

*I say for most people because there are some who would identify themselves as overweight but have become so due to hormonal imbalances (thyroid concerns) or through accidents which have left them temporarily or permanently unable to exercise and they have yet to find a new balance with their nutritional intake.

Posted in: CEDRIC Centre

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It’s Springtime!

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There is something magical about the spring where I live.  Days get longer and the sun begins to shine more and more each day.  Flowers pop out of the ground and off the branches of trees giving the whole village the appearance of one big blossoming garden.

The snap that has been present in the air has been replaced by a freshness tinged with warmth and the promise of summer days that are perfectly long and baking.  Ahhhhhh, spring.  I love it.

At one time in my life, when I used food to cope, I used to languish over the change of the seasons: “Another year gone and I’m still at this unacceptable weight;”  “I promised myself that I would be in shape enough to feel comfortable wearing shorts this year. A bathing suit is absolutely out of the question.  How could I do this to myself? What is wrong with me? Am I ever going to stop eating!?”

It was excruciating for me to feel that warmth stealing in to the air and see the blossoms bursting forth.  It meant…..(insert scary organ music here!)  SHORT WEATHER!  I feared it. I loathed it. I loathed myself.  I began to avoid going out unless it was cool enough to keep on wearing my full armor of long pants and baggy sweater.  But at some point every year I had to give in and wear something less sweltering.  And at those points in time I always began to berate myself and to focus with razor sharp intensity on certain aspects of my body that were not as they “should be”.

And I was absolutely certain that everyone around me was zeroing in on those very same aspects and thinking exactly the same thoughts: “Who does she think she is wearing shorts in public?”  “Why did she even leave the house?” “My god, look at that cellulite!”

Agony!  It was sheer agony being in my body at that time in my life.  Year after year I would swear it would be different but it never was.  Spring would arrive, as it always did, and I would be pretty much the same degree of overweight and under-fit that I had always been.  I would feel that same self-loathing and helplessness that I had the year before – only now I felt one year more intense and hopeless.

No amount of inner Drill Sgt. pressure and criticism could create the motivation to change my relationship with food and exercise.  After a few days – usually by Tuesday! – I always reverted to my old patterns.  And at the height of my use of food to cope I was lucky if I could stick to any sort of diet for two hours (until the next coffee or lunch break).

What ultimately made all the difference for me, and what has led me now to almost 14 years of freedom from food and body image stress, was to come to a full understanding what lay beneath my use of food to cope.

Now, I mean no disrespect.  This is coming from the greatest respect and regard for you and your process, and, if you just read that and said: “I know what it is that makes me use food to cope I just can’t do anything about it,” you are lying to yourself – consciously or unconsciously, it doesn’t matter.  If you truly know and understand what it is that leads you to use food to cope you would not continue to do so.

You might “know” what it is – in the sense that you recall Mom’s diet mentality and modeling of that to you, or the abuse experience you had when you were 10, but, trust me, if you’re still using food to cope you haven’t truly come to know and understand the full impact of those events on your life.

Some part of you is still harbouring judgement, shame, fear and anger towards yourself for those events that really doesn’t belong there; it didn’t then and it doesn’t now.  And, until you come to see that fully and completely for yourself it will be impossible for you to shift out of the fear based and self-doubting mindset that leads you to use food to cope.

It is impossible to develop true respect and regard for yourself when you are constantly berating yourself for past life experiences.  And it is only through respecting and regarding yourself that you will find the strength and true desire to change your relationship with food and to begin to move your body in a way that focuses on health and wellness and not calories and fat.  Lasting change comes through self-love and compassion and that requires empathy – a true knowing and understanding of who you are and why you do what you do.

So, let it be okay to acknowledge that perhaps, while you “know” what happened to trigger you to use food to cope, you might not fully understand how that impacted you and how it continues to have ramifications on your day to day existence.

Every day is such a blessing really. Each day we are given can be lived in a state of joy and pleasure when we allow ourselves to release old painful stories and step fully into ourselves in this moment.

Spring is a time of rebirth.  You deserve to look forward to the lightness and freedom of warmer weather. So rather than letting this year be like any other and kicking in to self-judgement or some new exercise or diet plan, let yourself seek support and information; true understanding, of why you do what you do.

Begin to change those underlying patterns today so that next year, instead of lamenting about what you didn’t do, you’ll be able to celebrate the change that you have made and know it is a lasting one.

Love Michelle

Posted in: Relationship with Self

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Ready? Or not.

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Ready or Not it will definitely come true, loving and caring for someone. Not so long ago I had the blissful experience of falling fully, deeply, soulfully in love with someone. It was truly unlike any experience I have had before.  I had recently completed a 5 day workshop called “Opening to Heart Consciousness” and had learned many things about loving and opening my heart.  The biggest learnings from that workshop were:

  1. How closed my heart had been; I could actually feel the walls around it, deep and solid that kept me from truly loving anyone and thus from feeling truly connected and intimate with a single soul.
  2. How incredibly wonderful and safe it felt to open my heart and love another being; to invite myself to truly love all beings. I felt so much more connected to everyone I came across and so much safer just crossing the street than ever before in my life.

Naturally I was drawn to want less of the walls and more of the open and safe experience.  I therefore began to focus consciously on keeping my heart open and those walls down.  My experience of life was so much happier and lighter.  I felt so free and so safe to be in the world in a way I had never felt before.

And the amazing thing is, the world responded by sending me lots of safe and loving, healthy, mature human beings. It was like they all started popping out of the woodwork and into my life.

So, back to this man.  A few months after the course, with my heart open and feeling truly light and free I met a man who was just wonderful. If I had had all of the things that I ever wanted in a partner written down on a list he had every single possible quality that I had ever hoped for, except one: He wasn’t available.

And I don’t mean that he was married, or even dating someone else, he really just wasn’t open to a deep and committed relationship.

It took me a while to cotton on because I was so full of love and so open to the experience I completely ignored/missed the signs that he was not as engaged and invested as I was.  It was only a few months before things became abundantly clear and the relationship came to an end.  Of course in the twilight of that fading romance I could see all of the signs and signals that had been present, pretty much since day one, that the relationship was not meant to be.

I have since read something that was written by Dr. Neil Warren, the founder of E-harmony (an on-line dating service) and author of a great book: “Falling in love for all the right reasons,” that I wish I had read before meeting this man as it would have absolutely made things crystal clear much earlier and spared me a few months of turmoil.  So, I share it with you in the hopes that any of you men and women out there who are in relationships that aren’t quite feeling secure will be able to more readily determine whether it’s a piece of work that you need to do on trust and opening your heart, or whether the person responsible for the other half of the relationship just isn’t there!

Ready or Not, To Commit

The phrases that Dr. Warren suggests you be on the look out for as an indication that someone is absolutely not ready to make any sort of relationship commitment are as follows:

“I’m so confused.”

“It’s not you—it’s me.”

“I just don’t know what I want right now.”

“I love you, I don’t think I’m in love with you.”

“I’m kind of going through some changes right now.”

“I don’t know what’s the best for us right now.”

“Why do we have to get so serious? Let’s just have fun.”

Each one of those phrases is an indicator that the individual uttering them is not ready, and equally as important, not able, to commit to the relationship in any long term fashion.

Two other key indicators of someone’s readiness for connection and true availability are their level of consideration of your needs and their demonstration of gestures of love and affection.

If you have been direct in asking for a need to be met and your partner is not respecting that request that is a red flag issue.   Now it’s one thing if your request is something that the other finds too challenging or outside their value system. And if that’s the case, a keeper is someone who openly tells you that: “I understand that this is an important need for you and I am just not comfortable with that particular thing but I would be willing to do ….. instead.”  That’s what you need to hear in order to know that your partner is capable of hearing and honoring your requests even if he/she can’t meet them.  We can’t expect our significant others’ to meet all our needs and respond affirmatively to all of our requests but we absolutely have the right to have our requests acknowledged and validated.  And if our partner can’t meet them then together we brainstorm ways of getting them met.

Gestures of love and affection are different for each of us.  Many of you have likely read the book “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman.  It’s a beautifully simple and clear explanation of the different ways people like to be loved and the mayhem that can ensue when you’ve got two people in a relationship with different love languages: both are doing their best to love completely and demonstrate their love and commitment and the other is feeling completely unloved and unseen because they are not being loved in the way they need to be.  I invite you to visit Gary’s web site or pick up one of his books on the subject of love languages: www.fivelovelanguages.com

And, you know, even though my love experience ended rather abruptly I regret nothing about it. I learned some valuable lessons. The most significant……?  It is safe to love. You will not die, the world will not come to an end if you love someone completely and they do not reciprocate. It is safe to completely open your heart to someone, even if they don’t or can’t love you back. In fact in my lived experience it is more harmful and hurtful to ourselves to restrict our love and to try and stifle our feelings of love and appreciation and respect for others. It is not only safe to love, it is imperative to a full and passionate life experience.

As don Miguel Ruiz (author of “The Four Agreements” and “The Mastery of Love”) says “Your heart is most full when you are giving love.”  It is so true.  It feels so good to keep my heart open and to love others.  It truly feels bad to close my heart and “protect” myself from potential harm, rejection, ridicule etc. that may or may not ever come. So, I choose to keep my heart open and to love, regardless of whether I am loved back equally or even, at all.  And I feel so full of love as a result.

Don Miguel Ruiz also says, “Your heart is like a magical kitchen.” He means you can manufacture, in your heart, enough love for the entire world and then some. You don’t need anyone else’s love in order to feel loved and fulfilled.  And when you get to that place, even for moments a day, of feeling and knowing that you can completely meet your own needs for love, you are capable of creating a truly loving and blissful partnership with another human being.

There is so much to discuss about relationships that I can not possibly hope to cover it all here, and hopefully I have given you some things to think about and explore in your own relationship past or present.

If you would like to discuss these pieces further as they pertain to your own healing and life experience please arrange for an individual session by calling 250-383-0797 or e-mailing mmorand@islandnet.com.

Have a wonderful day and may you open your heart a little more each day to yourself first and foremost.

Love Michelle

Posted in: Tips for Natural Eating

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