Archive for 2010

Challenge Media Messaging

Posted by Cedric on December 13, 2010

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.

Allow yourself to question the conclusions of the columnist or reporter. Ask yourself if the message 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.”

Tags: media, messages

Posted in: 2010, CEDRIC Centre

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The Weight and Needs Connection

Posted by Cedric on December 12, 2010

All weight problems are simply a reflection of a lack of balance within. That’s all. Emotionally and physically you’re out of balance. Your priorities are skewed and they need to be tweaked so that you really embody the belief that your needs and your health are the most important things in your world.

Think of it like this: if you’re not healthy and balanced physically and emotionally, everything in your life, including you, suffers in a big way. Maybe you’re not as active as you would like to be, you’re a little more down than you otherwise would be, or you feel overwhelmed, leading you to feel a little more reclusive than you otherwise would be – thus you miss out on many opportunities for play and to deepen your relationships with others. It makes sense, because you’re not feeling great about yourself, you’re a little more sensitive to the comments and gestures of others which results in more hurt feelings, more arguments and greater strife in your primary relationships. True freedom lies in identifying the root of your external preoccupation and bringing the focus of your life and your decisions back, firmly, to your feelings and needs in any moment.

Tags: needs, weight

Posted in: 2010, CEDRIC Centre

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Resist Resisting

Posted by Cedric on December 11, 2010

I challenge you to recognize some of the things in your present life that you’re resisting letting go of or resisting accepting and see what happens if you just challenge yourself to say, “Well, this is what’s happening. It may scare me. It may not be what I expected or wanted. But I know things always unfold in a way that leads me to bigger and better things. Can I just relax and open myself to this experience as best I can?” If you can repeat this mantra when you catch yourself resisting change, you will find a sense of strength and peace, even in the face of a great challenge, that carries you through. We are human, we have feelings. That’s healthy and normal. It’s what we do with those feelings that makes the difference. Do we stuff them and tell ourselves we shouldn’t have them or that what’s happening in our lives shouldn’t be happening? Or do we recognize them for the indicators they are and look beneath them for the situation or story that is triggering them? The first scenario leads to the use of food to cope. The second scenario leads to freedom.

Tags: feelings, freedom, mantra, resisting

Posted in: 2010, CEDRIC Centre

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The Fastest Path to Self-Confidence

Posted by mmorand on December 11, 2010

If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile then you’ve heard me say it before: Affirmations, just like diets, typically only work when you don’t really need them, and the path to self-confidence is the only real long term solution. By this I mean if you can actually diet successfully: Eat a lower number of calories than you have been eating consistently enough to lose weight and then maintain that weight loss with no continuous effort to restrict (otherwise you’re a chronic dieter and haven’t really accomplished your goal), you actually don’t need to diet in the first place because being able to do that means you’re a natural eater (which is what you’re here to learn how to be, I suspect). (more…)

Tags: acceptance, CEDRIC Centre, self care, self confidence, self esteem, self worth, triggers

Posted in: 2010, CEDRIC Centre, newsletter, Relationship with Self

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Peaceful thoughts = present moment

Posted by Cedric on December 9, 2010

Peaceful thoughts = present moment

Any thoughts of food that trigger you to feel anything other than peaceful are all or nothing thoughts. Don’t let them run your life – Don’t let yourself spend one more day stuck in anxiety and tension in your life that doesn’t need to be there. Peaceful thoughts = present moment – that means if your mind is peaceful you’re in the present and not stuck in stories about the past or worries about the future.

If you notice you’re beginning to feel that old familiar sense of push/pull, I love you/I hate you, just this once….I’ll start again tomorrow…., what is really happening is you’re into coping strategy mode and not in the present moment. Something has stressed you/ overwhelmed you and you’re reverting to old, instinctive responses to stress that are not rational or helpful and that will only serve to make you more anxious and have bigger problems.

The majority of your conscious and unconscious energy in that moment is either in the past or the future ie. this happened last time and that means it’s going to happen again… or…I wasn’t able to do X last time so I won’t be able to this time. Those are all or nothing thoughts because they are not allowing for the reality that something that hasn’t happened yet could clearly happen any number of ways not just the way it happened before or the worst case scenario way that your brain has attached to.

It’s all part and parcel of the instability and insecurity that is all-or-nothing thinking that stems from unmet needs within you for connection (with yourself), for reassurance (from yourself), for validation and acknowledgment of your feelings and needs (from yourself) and safety and trust (with/in yourself). Did you notice a theme there?

All of the unmet needs that trigger you to binge or purge or restrict can be met by yourself, easily.

You might not know how but don’t doom yourself to a life half-lived simply because you don’t know how to change something that is not working for you.

Reach out, get support and simple, easy tools that you can apply any time anywhere to change the way you think and behave for good.

Love Michelle
mmorand@cedriccentre.com

Tags: thoughts

Posted in: 2010, All-or-Nothing Thinking, CEDRIC Centre

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Learned Helplessness and Eating Disorders

Posted by Cedric on December 8, 2010

Learned Helplessness and Eating Disorders

What you’re eating or how much isn’t the real problem when it comes to eating disorders. Neither is what you weigh. The connection between learned helplessness and eating disorders is really what keeps you stuck stressing about food; binging; dieting; struggling with eating disorders and other forms of harmful coping strategies like drinking, drugs, internet addiction and isolation.

When you start to think about changing your relationship with food and then immediately feel a stuck, sinking sensation inside – that is the sign that your mind just told you a learned helplessness story such as:

It’s too hard;
It’ll take too long;
I can’t change;
I’ll fail;
It might work for others but it won’t work for me;
There’s no point in trying;
I’m not smart enough / deserving enough of good things;
Better not to try than to try and fail;
I may as well not even bother.

Or, when you say to yourself “I don’t really think anything but food can make me feel better and I don’t really think I can learn to resolve my underlying stressors so I have to keep my numbing tactics at the ready,” that too is learned helplessness.

The fact is, no one who uses food to cope ever does so from any place other than learned helplessness. But there is a quick solution to that auto-default way of thinking that will free you to move forward towards the fulfillment of your goals.

The irony is that the thing that keeps you stuck in your efforts to be free of binging, dieting, and weight loss stress is that same thinking that tells you there’s no point in trying something new to change.

You’re being driven by an irrational, limited and extreme – also known as all-or-nothing – way of thinking. That’s the same thought process that makes you think it makes sense to eat more than you’re hungry for to solve a problem at work or in a relationship; or to not let yourself to eat when you are hungry as a means of building self-esteem. Irrational? Definitely! Common? You bet! Curable? Absolutely.

Let me show you the simple steps to change that learned helplessness thinking and free yourself to stop binging, stop dieting, stop weight loss frustrations and any other pattern that keeps you stuck feeling crappy about yourself and out of control.

Love Michelle
mmorand@cedriccentre.com

My role in your life is to shift you out of that stuck, all-or-nothing head space asap and get you into a possibilities mindset where you genuinely realize the many options in each situation and feel trusting of yourself to respond to the stresses in life in ways that are reasonable, respectful, fair and healthy.

Tags: food, learned helplessness, stressors

Posted in: 2010, All-or-Nothing Thinking, CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Self

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Natural Eating vs Diet Mentality

Posted by Cedric on December 6, 2010

Natural Eating is a term which describes the simple and easy relationship with food. You eat when you’re hungry, and stop when you’re full. It’s that simple. This is the basis for a natural relationship with food. Most natural eaters feel drawn to make honouring choices, choices that are in alignment with their overall life goals and passions. But whatever they choose to eat, natural eaters do not think about it much at all. They certainly do not carry guilt and shame, not do they fear the judgment of others around what they have eaten or what they would like to eat. Those of us fueled by the Diet Mentality are so busy fretting and worrying over what to eat and how much, and letting those decisions be dictated by external forces, that it really is amazing to us to see someone who knows within themselves when they’re hungry and when they’ve had enough. But we can learn to be like them! We can learn to tune into the signals from our body about its level of hunger and fullness and we can come to a place of truly respecting ourselves so well that we won’t eat a lot of foods which make us feel sluggish, bloated, or headachy.

Tags: diet mentality, natural eating

Posted in: 2010, CEDRIC Centre

Judging Food Feeds Emotions

Posted by Cedric on December 5, 2010

Certain foods which you have labeled as “bad” become loaded with energy and judgement. This judgement is passed on to you for eating these foods or for even thinking about eating them. While you gnaw on a carrot, you may judge or envy others for eating certain foods that are on your “restricted” list. You may feel as though everyone is watching you, watching what you order or noticing the more-than-ample portion. Eating in restaurants can be torture for someone who has rampant Diet Mentality. Their worth is completely wrapped up in their body and their relationship with food, and they believe that everyone else thinks the same of them. Therefore, everyone must be watching what they have ordered and judging it in the same way they are judging themselves. This is not so. You may have noticed when you’re eating with friends and family, you can’t even really be present, pay attention to what they’re saying, or really enjoy their company because you are so focussed on food and your body. This is just a coping strategy, trying to draw your attention to the unmet needs for security and acceptance in that moment, which your Diet Mentality only serves to exacerbate.

Tags: diet mentality

Posted in: 2010, CEDRIC Centre

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Awareness Brings Change in the Moment

Posted by Cedric on December 2, 2010 The healing journey begins with consciousness. We must be aware of what we’re doing in order to change our response. Now, initially, frequently our awareness will come after the fact: After the binge or after the purge or after the bad body thought. That’s the process of change. We start out in a place of unconsciousness and we don’t really even know what isn’t working for us. Then we come to a place of consciousness about what isn’t working – namely our way of perceiving ourselves and our relationship with food – but we still don’t seem to be able to change anything about it just yet. This is a very uncomfortable stage of change called “conscious incompetence.” In conscious competence you actually have the awareness and the tools to change your old, automatic responses to situations in the moment, not after the fact. You get to witness yourself doing things in a new, life-enhancing way and that does wonders for your self-esteem and it also begins to do away with the old sense of helplessness and hopelessness that was a part of you for so long.

Tags: awareness, healing

Posted in: 2010, CEDRIC Centre

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