Archive for CEDRIC Centre

Self-Respect in Relationships

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Our responsibility in relationships with others is to honor our values and principles and to communicate clearly and respectfully. If it seems someone is upset with us, our responsibility is to check in with ourselves as to whether we can identify something we did/said that compromised our values and principles in this relationship, and if we can’t identify any such action within 10 seconds of introspection, we must trust that our intention was good and that any action on our part that “hurt” someone else was either nothing to do with us at all or an unconscious oversight on our part, i.e. an accident, a mistake, and we must forgive ourselves and are entitled to forgiveness from others.
A healthy interdependent person will offer empathy and compassion, trusting themselves to set clear boundaries about what they need and thus be able to communicate clearly and respectfully about what isn’t feeling okay to them without shame, blame, or rejection.
Values, principles and best intention = Integrity = Peace

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Getting Out of the Maze Doesn’t Take Forever

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Many of my clients are moving through the bulk of their healing around using food to cope in just a few months or less. This isn’t “hard” work. It’s not about battling it out with yourself and others for the rest of your life. It’s about learning a new way of being; your natural state of being and simply noticing when you’re not in your natural state of being and bringing yourself back, gently, lovingly, to reality. Just because you’ve been told, or you’ve chosen to believe that this pattern will take forever to change, or that it’s “who you are”, doesn’t make that true and you don’t have to continue to believe it – just reveal the all-or-nothing thinking to yourself and come up with other possibilities and prove to yourself that you are safe, you are free – except when you tell yourself you’re not.

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Unchecked Overwhelm Fuels the Food Desire

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The truth is that your relationship with food will be free and easy, relaxed and peaceful UNLESS you are using food to cope with some underlying problem that you believe is out of your control.  You won’t overeat or feel the need to restrict because you’ll only feel called to eat when you’re hungry, and you’ll be present enough in your world and in your body to know when you’re full and to stop.  Therefore, whether you’re overweight or underweight, it’s a sign you’re using food to cope because of some underlying problem. Food itself isn’t the problem, neither is your body. Your relationship with food and your body are symptomatic of how overwhelmed you feel by other aspects of your life. Find out and heal what’s really triggering your overwhelm and you’ll have the key to forever overcoming your stressful relationship with food and your feelings of frustration and loathing for your body. The path is simple and lasts a lifetime.

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Don’t Binge – Try Natural Holiday Eating

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Don’t Binge – Try Natural Holiday Eating

If you look forward to the holidays with feelings of anxiety in the pit of your stomach at the thought of the food and the many opportunities to overeat that will be presented to you in the weeks to come, don’t fear and don’t binge – try natural holiday eating instead.
If you eat naturally, you have no genuine cause for concern about gaining weight or being a weight that is higher than your natural body weight at any time of year. If you’re a natural eater, you feel safe being around any kind of food in any quantity anytime because you know that you will:
  • Eat when you’re hungry;
  • Stop when you’re full;
  • Make honoring choices the majority of the time (choices that enhance your health and overall wellbeing);
  • And make choices to have the processed and refined treats that abound at this time of year in moderation.
That’s the natural eater’s experience of the holidays, they’re no big deal. Food is a fun, tasty part of the holiday package not some horrific peer-pressure test looming in the distance.

So, here’s how to get to the fun, peaceful side of food and the holidays.

1. Invite yourself to ask yourself before you eat anything: Am i truly hungry? yes? Then eat. No? Then ask yourself: What might just have happened or what might I be thinking about that is making me feel anxious or unsettled and therefore triggering me to want to eat or focus on food and my weight to distract, numb or soothe myself?

2. What is one thing I can do to take action towards resolving that stressor and to feel more peaceful in this moment?

Let’s say you’re thinking about going home for the holidays and seeing Uncle Jim who is a complete, mysoginistic ass and always has a snide comment to direct your way. And you’re naturally feeling anxious anticipating being the same room with him, let alone speaking to him. 

What can you do to feel more peaceful now?  

You could reassure yourself that you’ll simply ask him, whenever he lays his line on you: “What is your intention in saying that?”; or “I’m not sure I understand what you mean can you say that again?”  – Make him repeat himself – make him explain himself – don’t just absorb it – make him do his work and in so doing make him look like an ass!  Ahhh, I feel better already!

Of you could reassure yourself that he’s really just a dick and it doesn’t matter what he says – everyone thinks he’s a jerk, no one has the courage to say anything but no one takes anything he says to heart either. So, maybe we steer  clear of him and if he does happen to catch up with you we lay our line on him and let him know that things have changed. 

You could also just choose not to go if there isn’t enough in the way of warm, loving encounters to be had to warrant putting up with Uncle Jim.  That is a great act of self-care and will make you feel peaceful right away. 

If you choose this option you’ve got to call the host and let them know right away – don’t make excuses – just say you’re not feeling up to the social event at this time and you’re going to take some time out for yourself and just rest.

Binging happens because you’re stressed and not handling it well. End of story. Learn how to respond appropriately to stress and how to diminish it in your life and the binging disappears and you lose weight naturally – without effort – without diets.

I’ve been there and I’ve done it and so have many clients I’ve counselled over the past 20 years. Let me show you how. 

Love Michelle
mmorand@cedriccentre.com

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Posted in: CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Food, Relationship with Others, Relationship with Self

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Safety Issues Fuel Stress

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Emotional stress is directly related to our use of food to cope. In fact, our level of emotional stress is an indicator of how much we will feel the need to restrict, binge or purge on any given day. Therefore, understanding the triggers of your emotional stress and what to do to decrease your overall emotional stress are two fundamentally important pieces in the process of recovery from any form of eating disorder. The sense of a lack of safety that triggers emotional stress arises from a real or perceived threat to our physical, psychological, emotional and/or spiritual well-being. In other words, as long as we lack trust in our ability to keep ourselves safe with anyone or in any particular situation, we will experience emotional stress, which then, if left unchecked, can trigger the use of food to cope.

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The Food and Travel Dilemma

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The Food and Travel Dilemma


Traveling with an eating disorder packs a triple whammy for the already beleaguered spirit in desperate need of true rest and relaxation. We refer to this as the food and travel Dilemma.

We are often reluctant to speak up and ask for certain foods and certain quantities, or even to ask for food at all if no one else is eating, when visiting friends or relatives because we feel we would be drawing attention to our weight and our relationship with food, an area of our lives around which we already feel quite conspicuous and self-conscious. 

So we end up eating things that trigger bad body thoughts and self-judgement, and/or eating at times when we’re not at all hungry because that is when the meal is being served and we don’t want to stand out by not eating. Honoring ourselves and our needs is a challenge in these situations, but it is possible to travel and feel in control of our food choices rather than the other way around.


Here’s a snippet of an article series I wrote about Travelling with and Eating Disorder.  Have a read and get some understanding and tools for how to stay grounded and feel good about food and about your body while on vacay and when you return.

Traveling with an eating disorder packs a triple whammy for the already beleaguered spirit in desperate need of true rest and relaxation. Whether you struggle with dieting, overeating, purging or a general dissatisfaction with your physical form that prevents you from settling peacefully into the moment, a vacation can be a stress-filled experience that makes you want to just stay at home instead with the covers pulled high.

In this 3-part article, I will not deal with the obvious stress of the obligatory attempts at dieting in anticipation of any vacation that requires the baring of any skin above the elbow or knee. That is a topic for another day. Instead, I will address the 3 key ways in which traveling can challenge the tenuous grip most disordered eaters have on their relationship with food and weight: limitations/abundance of choice; change in routine; and the emotional impact of traveling. As I explore each of these confounding circumstances I will provide you with some suggestions on how to approach them in the most simple and life-enhancing way so you can relax and enjoy your well-earned vacation.

First let’s explore the physical constraints of choice and their impact, depending on where you’re traveling and where you’re staying. Many vacation destinations (all-inclusive resorts and cruise ships for example) have an abundance of choice that does include, if you commit to looking for them, choices that are healthy: foods low in processed and refined flours and sugars and trans fats.  But these types of resorts, for the disordered eater, are typically disasters waiting to happen. The abundance of foods and the temptation of fattening desserts and entrées will lead even the most healthy and natural of eaters (those who eat when they’re hungry and stop when they’re full and choose life-enhancing foods overall) to tune out to the natural rhythms of their body and overeat at most meals. The natural eater will often return home from one of these vacations with a few extra pounds but they won’t carry a lot of energy and guilt about that. They will simply return to their normal routines of eating when hungry, stopping when full, exercise in moderation, and find themselves back at their natural weight within a few weeks. No muss, no fuss.

On the other side of the equation we find the individual who has an uneasy relationship with food, doesn’t trust themselves to eat naturally, and has no confidence in their ability to return to a natural weight. They will be devastated by a few extra pounds and will become convinced they’re doomed to fall down the slippery slope back into uncontrolled weight gain again. For this person, these all-inclusive / buffet-style holidays become not about fun and play, sightseeing and rest and relaxation, but about food and what they will or won’t allow themselves to have, plus the guilt, shame and Drill Sgt.-self-loathing that follows the consumption of any “forbidden” food.

Read more…

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Islolation and Needs

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There’s always a way for you to get what we need. If you’re feeling anxious or resistant to something it’s because some aspect of you is hooked into approaching something a certain way that doesn’t feel right (aka meet needs) for another aspect of yourself. There are no exceptions to this rule. You use food to cope because you don’t honor this rule and you force yourself to act in ways that may meet some needs but severely compromise others.  Make a commitment that if you feel any anxiety or resistance to something, even leaving the house to get groceries, you’re going to stop and dialogue with yourself about what needs you have that you’re telling yourself won’t be met in doing so, and you’re going to ask what needs would be met in going.

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The Co-Dependent Training Manual

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The old co-dependent training manual says that you have to agree with everyone because if you don’t you’ll upset them, hurt their feelings, or offend them. The old training manual says that there can be only one “truth” and you are either right or you’re wrong and you do not want to be wrong, because that means you’re stupid; but you should be willing to stifle your truth and play dumb or agreeable if holding fast to your perspective would possibly make anyone else feel dumb or anger them.
In this case you should pretend that you think you’re wrong but really believe that you’re right and begin to carry resentment towards that person and distance from them emotionally if not also physically. In the co-dependent manual you are being bad if you assert your beliefs or rights, regardless of how respectfully you do it. That’s not exactly a recipe for fulfilling relationships with yourself or with anyone else. But it’s in the manual so you have to do it. Or do you?

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Good Enough for You is Good Enough

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Good Enough for You is Good Enough


Your good enough-ness can’t be dependent on anyone else – it can’t ride on you being the best looking, the smartest, the fastest, the richest, the kindest, the nicest, the most generous, etc. Good Enough for You is Good Enough.

It has to be determined by you clearly identifying your core values and principles; the key roles in your life that you have now or would like to put in place; and the goals that you have for yourself in each of those roles.

Once you are clear on what is reasonable to expect of yourself, rather than just desirable, in all areas, given the goals you have (including those for balance and self-care), you will be able to set reasonable goals to maintain or attain your highest ability in each of those areas. You will never be good enough if you try to set goals or identify standards in any other way.

All other approaches put too much emphasis on what others think, feel and do and have an element of competition with others rather than a challenge from within to be the best you can be.

You can`t ever truly hope to feel confident in yourself if you`re taking your cues of right and wrong and okay and not okay from outside of yourself.

You must identify your own set of values and principles and trust yourself to follow through on them. Values like honesty, integrity, reliability must be honoured by yourself first or else they mean nothing and you will not feel good about yourself nor will you feel entitled to expect those things from the people you relate to. Hence you`ll find yourself in relationships that are unsafe or at the very least, unsatisfying and you`ll keep on feeling not good enough and assume there is something wrong with you.

In fact, it isn`t something wrong with you, it`s something missing in your thinking; in your understanding of how functional, healthy, stable, truly fun relationships are established and maintained. And you`re only missing that because you`ve never seen in modeled – no one ever showed you how to make that happen.

If you`d like to start feeling truly good enough and get on with living life to the fullest – whether you`re 25 or 85 – I can help.

Reach out and let me teach you some simple tools for changing the way you relate to others and the way you feel about yourself.

Love Michelle

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I Don’t Binge Anymore

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I Don’t Binge Anymore

I Used to Binge but I Don’t Binge Anymore


aug to xmas 09 069I don’t binge anymore. It’s been over 20 years and I don’t diet or focus on food, my weight is stable and healthy – I wear the same clothes from year to year instead of needing to have 3 wardrobes to keep up with my yo-yo dieting and ricocheting weight. I don’t binge anymore.

Back when I used to binge to cope, I felt incredibly afraid and lonely, bad, wrong, impossibly screwed up and believed that everyone who saw me, saw that.

With these beliefs in my head 24/7, it was exhausting to leave the relative safety and privacy of my house, and so of course, upon arriving home, I needed to do something to decompress; to detach from the pain, sadness, loneliness and fear that was always threatening to break through and overwhelm me.

So, out came the food. It was something to do; something to distract myself with; something to soothe myself with; and then, later, as I came to, something to focus on, beat myself up with and to make dire resolutions to do things differently the next day. So completely absorbed was I in my use of food and subsequent self-loathing that I never had the time or the clarity to look beneath it and question why I did it.

I was just fat, ugly, stupid, lazy, unlovable and unworthy. That was the reason. Or so I thought.

In reality, I was sad and lonely and scared because I hand’t been treated very well as a child and I had terrible role models for how to create solid relationships. I was doing exactly what I had seen my parents do but for some reason no one was sticking around to be my friend or partner or those that did were people with anger management issues or difficulty being honest and reliable. 

This led me to believe I was flawed, fundamentally broken and therefore doomed to be unlovable. It led me to hide my true self from others which led me to attract people that didn’t fit and to me feeling like I couldn’t be myself in the relationship du jour.

It was these ideas I was carrying about myself and about how to be in relationships that led to me being so alone and anxious and those things led me to use food to soothe myself.

Once I got clear on that and started thinking more clearly about myself and the world around me, food became a non-issue; or rather it became what it should be an enjoyable, pleasurable experience of nurturing and sustaining my health.

If you’d like to experience that kind of true and lasting freedom from binging or dieting or any weight loss or body image stress, email me and I’ll show you how.

Love Michelle
mmorand@cedriccentre.com

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