Archive for CEDRIC Centre
Posted by Cedric on November 20, 2010
Conscious Competence
The healing journey begins with conscious awareness. We must be aware of what we’re doing in order to change behaviours, thoughts and feelings that are not serving our goals for health and happiness. Conscious Competence is a key step in this process.
Initially, frequently our awareness will come after the fact – after the binge or after the purge or after the bad body thought.
That’s not a failure or a sign of your ability to recover, it’s simply the natural process of changing human thinking and behavioural processes. Like it or lump it – that’s how it goes.
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 – for example, 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.”
Even the term “conscious incompetence” makes our Drill Sgt. want to cringe and deny that anything is wrong – he’s such a perfectionist! But, hang in there. If you can allow yourself to admit that you do not have a perfect grasp on yourself when it comes to self-esteem and your relationship with food, then you can actually be successful in changing those patterns and step into a wonderfully esteem-enhancing place called “conscious competence.”
And as long as you don’t let yourself buy into the story that there is something wrong with you because you’re thinking and feeling and behaving as you are you’ll find it much easier to open yourself to getting help and change will come more rapidly.
Once you get tools and support to understand why you do those harmful behaviours or feel so anxious or insecure or depressed in the first place you can begin to change the way you think and respond to life.
This is the stage of conscious competence. In this stage your conscious effort is required in order for you to use new ways of thinking and behaving instead of the old default ones, but it gets easier each time and soon becomes your natural approach to life (unconscious competence) and the old one just doesn’t fit or make sense any more.
If you’re ready for change and you want to make sure you’re not wasting your time or energy – reach out and let us help you.
Love Michelle
mmorand@cedriccentre.com
Posted by mmorand on November 19, 2010
One of the most ironic things about those of us who use (or have used) food to cope is that we’re very smart. We’re also very intuitive. We’re also very trusting and as such, very vulnerable. This above all else means that if we ever hope to be truly free of binging or purging or restricting and any stressful focus on food, we need first and foremost to learn to listen to and respect ourselves about what we’re feeling and needing, and we need to absolutely trust ourselves to respect those feelings and the messages they contain about our needs at that time. We are not fools, and try as we might, we cannot pretend that we’re okay when we’re not or that something isn’t bothering us when it is.
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Tags: acceptance, all-or-nothing thinking, anxiety, binging, CEDRIC Centre, past, present, purging, self care, self esteem, self worth, stress, triggers
Posted in: 2010, CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Self
Posted by Cedric on November 19, 2010
It’s clear if you want to have success in letting go of using food to cope, you have to first address the connection you have with yourself. You have to love and regard yourself positively before you’ll really care enough about yourself to change your coping behaviours and make honoring choices around food, friendship and self-care. Loving yourself means that you believe you are worthwhile.
The Drill Sgt. makes it very hard for you to love yourself because he keeps telling you everything that is wrong with you and why you will never get to where you want to be. The problem is you believe him. You’ve been listening to him for so long that you don’t even realize that there is another part of you in there who actually has the power to do things differently. It’s time to begin to connect with that piece of yourself and to allow that part to invite the Drill Sgt. to share with you his concerns in a way that allows you to hear them without harm. ?
Posted by Cedric on November 18, 2010
If there is any part of you that resists engaging in the process of goal setting, I’ll bet it’s your inner child who is deathly afraid of schedules and structure. You see, your inner child is very, very accustomed to the Drill Sgt.’s high-pressure tactics and motivation by criticism. And she is so very reluctant to set herself up for any potential failure. To your inner child, having a clearly-established goal, especially around food and body stuff, is like walking into the lion’s den. It is to be avoided at all costs.
Your inner child’s reason for all this resistance is quite understandable. It is directly related to the perfectionism that we carry as disordered eater’s (which is personified by the Drill Sgt.). We received the message from key people in our lives, that we are not acceptable as we are, and many of us have been carrying this belief since we were small children. In our efforts to distance ourselves from this painful thought, we strove to be the best. And so, in a misguided effort to prove our value, we strive to do more, be more, produce more etc., repeatedly compromising our needs to gain that elusive external approval. Take some time to consider how you might meet the needs of both the inner child and the Drill Sgt. With conscious awareness, you can remove the stress around goal setting and step out of the avoidance cycle.
Posted by Cedric on November 17, 2010
Wearing comfortable clothes mean you’re not punishing yourself any longer and harming yourself with truckloads of bad body thoughts. Nothing will make you think nasty thoughts about your body faster and more frequently than tight or uncomfortable clothing. And if you’re one of many who use food to cope with your feelings, then your frustration, disgust, anger, sadness, fear, etc., that is triggered by your bad body thoughts will lead you to eat for comfort faster than anything else!
So, if you’re resisting buying comfortable clothes because you don’t feel deserving or you want to “motivate” yourself to lose weight, please remind yourself that this line of thinking is all Drill Sgt. and no compassion, and that all you’ve ever gained by listening to the Drill Sgt. is low self-esteem and more weight. Unmet needs are at the bottom of your food and body image focus. Now it’s time to create a safe and respectful environment for yourself so you can meet your needs without harming yourself in the process.
Posted by Cedric on November 16, 2010
The Diet Mentality is a way of thinking that has been ingrained in us by messages we receive from our family and friends, from advertisements and media messages, and from diet and exercise programs that we may have tried in the past or may currently be pursuing. These views about how we should look, feel and behave have become a part of our way of life. Without these guidelines, many of us feel like we would have no restrictions and would just let go and “go crazy” – eating whatever we wanted with no ability to control ourselves. What would follow, we fear, is uncontrollable weight gain.
Remember that diet’s don’t work and that 90% of eating disorders begin with dieting. So if you catch yourself thinking or behaving in any of these ways, just pause and remind yourself that this is The Diet Mentality and that it just keeps you stuck in overeating. Let it go. If you can remember that compassion and self-trust is the key to overcoming overeating, you can begin to trust that you are doing the best you can, and that is enough.
Posted by Cedric on November 14, 2010
Your negative self-talk is a coping strategy. It is simply a tool you use to try to create a sense of control and security in a situation which triggers you to feel unsettled. At the start of your recovery process and while you are learning to be connected to your feelings and needs in the present, there are lots of reasons for you to be feeling anxious or using your harmful coping strategies.
There is a definite correlation between the unsettling present moment experience, future thought, or memory and your negative self-talk, feelings of anxiety and use of food and body focus. The sooner you understand this, the sooner you will catch yourself heading down any of those old harmful paths and redirect your course to what is really going on. Underlying issues are what trigger coping strategies. Once you set about the task of identifying what those underlying triggers are and heal them, you’ll be free from the Drill Sgt., the old core beliefs, and the use of food to cope.
Posted by Cedric on November 12, 2010
Feelings are signals from your body about what you need or want. They are not good or bad, right or wrong. They just are. You have a need which triggers a thought, and immediately a feeling arises. A spiritual leader by the name of Ramana, refers to this pattern as “thought/feeling bundles”. The thoughts arise from the sense of an unmet need, and immediately, with seemingly no space in between, a feeling is elicited, and to the extent that we are conscious of them, the feeling is felt!
It is practically impossible to have a thought without a feeling attached to it. And it is not necessary to the healing process to try to separate them. What is important is that we begin to trust – to know on a gut level – that what we are feeling has arisen from a thought which was triggered by a need. That’s all. When we absolutely know this, we no longer spin our wheels and harm ourselves by judging the feeling. Instead, we just ask ourselves “What need do I have that is unmet right now, and what can I do about it?”
Posted by Cedric on November 11, 2010
I can’t tell you how many times in my process of recovery I was wrapped up in all-or-nothing thinking; absolutely certain it was truth and feeling very anxious and overwhelmed because my story was not a happy one, only to discover upon speaking it aloud, or writing it down that I was in all-or-nothing thinking! At that point I had a choice. I could choose to continuing giving energy to that all-or-nothing thought; I could continue to buy into it and live my life as though it were true OR I could remind myself that that is all-or-nothing thinking and ask myself what other possibilities exist.
Inevitably when I challenged my all-or-nothing thinking, it fell apart every single time! Not once was the Drill Sgt. able to sustain his all-or-nothing thinking when I wrote it down and asked myself what some other possibilities were. I was freed! I could stop myself from using food to cope every time by enhancing my abilities to expose my all-or-nothing thinking. You see, the more frequently you check in with yourself, the more readily you will identify any unmet needs as they arise. Then you can set about the amazing journey of self-discovery and self-esteem building as you begin taking action towards meeting those needs.
Posted by Cedric on November 10, 2010
Many people hear the term “Natural Eating” and immediately assume it’s about eating whole grains and non-processed foods or has something to do with organics or locally grown produce, etc. Well, those are all great ideas and your body will love you for eating as unprocessed as possible, but…that’s not what we mean when we say “Natural Eating.” “Natural Eating,” also more recently dubbed “Intuitive Eating,” refers to the simple process of eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full.
As a natural eater, you are conscious of your body’s signals of hunger, fullness, lightness, energy, or bloating, lethargy, fatigue and heaviness.These are your cues about what your body likes and needs vs. what it doesn’t. In a natural eating approach, you honour those cues and are drawn to choose foods that allow you to feel light, full, and energized after eating rather than heavy, bloated, and pooped out. It’s all the old confusing diet mentality messages that make this process harder than it needs to be. CEDRIC’s Natural Eating Workbook is a perfect resource to help you understand the thought process behind using food to cope and being a natural eater.
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