Archive for CEDRIC Centre
Posted by Cedric on March 16, 2011
Take a moment and offer yourself some empathy and compassion. Give yourself some acknowledgement for all that you have experienced, for the load that you have been carrying in the form of past experiences or fears about the future. If you can, express your appreciation for your strength and resiliency in the face of all that you are carrying. Take this opportunity to acknowledge the magnitude of what you are dealing with in terms of unfinished business. It makes sense for you to feel overwhelmed and want to tune out with food.
For those of you who are not quite ready to be so generous with yourselves or perhaps fear that offering yourself some validation and support will make you weak and complacent, it is okay. Let yourself hang on to your resistance to this self-compassion. Just let it be okay to be as resistant as you are to cutting yourself any slack.
Posted by Cedric on March 15, 2011
Michelle will be at the Community Wellness Fair in Port Moody, BC on Saturday, April 2 as part of a group of over 40 different local exhibitors specializing in health and wellness for you and your family. Admission is FREE.
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Location: Port Moody Recreation Complex 300, Ioco Road
Website: http://www.cityofportmoody.com/Recreation/default.htm
Topic: The Food-Emotion Bond
If your relationship with food is at all stressful and your weight is not where you’d like it to be, you must attend this presentation by CEDRIC Centre founder Michelle Morand. In 40 minutes you will learn exactly why you do what you do with food, why your relationship with food is so frustrating and what exactly you can do, right now, to begin to have a peaceful and easy connection with food and to come to a natural weight for your body without dieting. Really!
Michelle Morand, MA, is a recovered binge eater, Registered Clinical Counsellor, founder and director of The CEDRIC Centre, and originator of the highly effective and simple CEDRIC Method. She has appeared as an expert speaker frequently on TV, radio and in print media. The CEDRIC Method, her unique program for recovery from disordered eating and dieting has helped thousands of men and women to heal completely from their stressful relationship with food and weight. The CEDRIC Centre offers counselling, workshops, the groundbreaking book “Food is not the Problem: Deal With What Is!” and an interactive web based program which teaches the simple and effective tools you need to step free completely from your stressful relationship with food. Visit The CEDRIC Centre www.cedriccentre.com for more information.
Posted by Cedric on March 15, 2011
Verbal and physical abuses are traumas. Most everyone has experienced the humiliation and damaging effects of verbal abuse. If our ego strength and our sense of esteem are solid when these events occur, we can slough it off or work through it with some help. If we are already feeling a lack of security and acceptance in our world, every experience of verbal abuse, for example: judgements, name calling, put downs, and yelling will constitute a trauma. Physical abuse, slapping, hitting, spanking and outright beatings, regardless of their purpose in the eyes of the punisher, are traumatic events. Neglect is trauma. The act of having your needs and your Self ignored or devalued is traumatic.
Those who use food to cope have no doubt experienced some form of trauma which triggered the development of and dependence on a series of coping strategies. People seem to think that trauma only happens to a few unfortunate victims. This point of view has allowed much trauma and abuse to be overlooked. The truth is that most people will experience some significant trauma in their lives. We can gauge this from the rampant use of powerful coping strategies such as food use, alcoholism, shopping, gambling, drug and sexual addiction.
Posted by Cedric on March 14, 2011
Aside from fear of the unknown, the obvious reason people choose to hang onto their old core belief is that they still believe it! It still feels true on some deep level. And because the confused logic of the Drill Sgt. says that they need to carry this belief or they will be unsafe and unloved, they cling to that old, painful, bogus story. They are fearful that, if they start to behave in accordance with their desired belief, they will be judged, criticized, and risk the limited security they currently experience in their world.
Much of your life experience has been lived through the lens of your old core belief. Every interaction has been framed by that thought about yourself and interpreted as though it were true. Every choice you have made has had that story about yourself at its core. So, of course you still believe it on some level. You have to come to see it as part of you or who you really are. Deep down, in your gut, you are going to require some life experience to shake it loose.
Posted by Cedric on March 12, 2011
The pattern of assuming that your perception is the “right” one may have helped you to separate from past abusive or co-dependent connections. You may have needed such an all-or-nothing approach to life in the past to be able to stand strong and reinforce your needs with key people in your life. The problem is that the best you can do when you are wedded to the practice of assumption is to be in the independent stage of relationship. Interdependence cannot exist with all-or-nothing thinking. It is impossible. At best, you have two strong, independent people who have learned to cohabit and keep their distance. At worst, you have a co-dependent connection or abusive relationship where one person consistently gets their way and the other doesn’t.
If you have noticed this pattern of assuming in any of your key relationships, now is the time to ask yourself what type of relationship you want with this person. If you want a good, healthful, open, honest and trusting relationship, you must be willing to allow for the possibility that your perspective is not the only one. You must be willing to allow for the possibility that the other person is not out to “get” you or to pull one over on you.
Posted by mmorand on March 12, 2011
This article is part of a series: Relationships 101: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4.
Oh yeah!!! We’re back with Week 5 of Relationships 101: Seeking to Understand Relationships
This series is my gift to you because I want you to have the greatest happiness and peace you possibly can in all your relationships. If you read and re-read this series until you really get it, and practice these key tools, you will find that all your connections get simpler, easier, deeper and more pleasurable for you and almost all of that happens without you having to have any “big” conversations and confrontations.
This week’s article and homework assignment (should you choose to explore it) will prove this, and you’ll be so amazed at how easy and safe relating to others can be. Oh yeah!!!
This week’s article “Seeking to understand” could just as aptly be called: “Allowing for the possibility that you have misunderstood someone.”
(more…)
Tags: co-dependent relationships, exploring, forgiveness, grounding, growing, healing, insecurity, past, present, rebalancing, relationships, self care, self esteem
Posted in: CEDRIC Centre, Relationships 101
Posted by Cedric on March 10, 2011
Many of us have a hard time with the concept of offering ourselves compassion. It could be because we never received compassion growing up, or we had no positive role model for compassion. It could be that no matter how troubled our past, we feel that we are undeserving or wasting our time being compassionate toward ourselves; others have had it worse.
There are many other reasons why we may resist compassion toward ourselves. Some of us may view self-compassion as a pity party and see it as a sure path to wallowing, depression, and complete powerlessness and victim-hood. Some of us may feel that we can only be motivated by criticism and pressure. Being compassionate and supportive toward ourselves is as though we are admitting defeat or inviting complacency. The truth is, if pressure or criticism worked for you as a motivational tactic, you would have achieved your goal ten times over by now.
Posted by Cedric on March 9, 2011
If there is any part of you which feels resistant to the concept of goal setting, it won’t be your Drill Sgt. He loves setting goals. He loves creating rigid guidelines and ridiculous expectations to “support” you to achieve your needs for security, acceptance and esteem. No, any part of you that feels resistant to fully engaging in this discussion on goal setting would be your Authentic Self. She is deathly afraid of schedules and structure.
You see, your Authentic Self is accustomed to the Drill Sgt.’s high-pressure tactics and “motivation through criticism”. She is understandably very reluctant to set herself up for any potential failure which is bound to be the outcome of the old method of goal setting. To your Authentic Self, having a clearly established goal right now is like walking into the lion’s den. It is to be avoided at all costs.
Posted by Cedric on March 8, 2011
The Diet Mentality is all about the future. The Drill Sgt. is only interested in what you have done that wasn’t good enough and what you are going to do to make it better – to redeem yourself, so to speak. So your goal setting and your thoughts about life in general will be centered around what you are going to do in the minutes, hours, days and months to come that will finally make you an acceptable being, bringing all that you desire and deserve.
If you are not conscious of what you are doing, thinking, and feeling, the moment will pass you by, and it will become another of those past experiences for which you are criticized by the Drill Sgt. In the Diet Mentality, you are all about that future fantasy of what you are going to do; how you are going to feel; how you are going to look; what life will be like when…The obvious problem is that, if you are out there fantasizing about the future, there is no one home to actually take action in the moment and change the patterns that keep you from realizing those goals.
Posted by Cedric on March 7, 2011
When it comes to talking about feelings as an indicator of their needs, I have heard many clients say that they don’t know what they feel. This is both true and not true. Clearly, you have an ability to tune out to your feelings. What you will discover, if you haven’t already, is that you are able to identify certain feelings when you simply take the time to stop and be present with yourself and ask the question: “What am I feeling right now?” To make it simple, give yourself just four choices: Mad, Glad, Sad, and Scared.
These are four basic human emotions. All the feelings you will ever experience can be boiled down to one or a combination of those four feelings. So for the next while, each time you check in to see what your Authentic Self is feeling, offer yourself just those four basic choices. You will find that what you are feeling will fit one or a few of these options. What is important to understand about feelings – yours and anyone else’s – is that they are simply flags. Feelings are just indicators of what you need or want at any given moment. They also tell you what needs are being met, that is, when you are feeling peaceful, joyful, and relaxed.
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