Posted by Cedric on January 18, 2011
Reset Your Inner Alarm
Want to stop automatically reacting to stress by binging and feeling insecure and crappy about yourself. Then try the Reset Your Inner Alarm exercise.
What sense would it make if every time your alarm went off to wake you in the morning, you said “Oh, there’s my alarm. I guess that means I’ll go back to sleep?” Not much sense in that at all.
Well, every time you notice you’re feeling anxious or depressed or starting to think about using food to cope and then actually restrict, binge, or purge, you are doing exactly that.
You are, in essence, noticing the alarm (your anxiety, your depressed feelings, your thoughts of using a coping strategy) and then going back to sleep through numbing out and focusing on food.
That’s why, despite your strong desire for things to be different you find yourself staying stuck going round and round in circles with food and weight loss struggles.
How about you try this instead?
The next time you notice a. you’re hungry but aren’t letting yourself eat or b. you aren’t hungry but you’re wanting to eat or you’re binging and can’t stop, just ask yourself –
a. What’s going to happen if I allow myself to eating something now? Is that the only thing that could happen? What else could possibly happen? What would I like to see happen?
b. What’s going to happen if I don’t have something now or if I stop eating now? Is that the only thing that could happen? What else could possibly happen? What would I like to see happen?
Take the time to start to notice the stories you are telling yourself about food and about you and to question them – that will make it almost effortless to side-step them and begin to relate normally to food. Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full, everything in moderation and handle stress from other aspects of life in rational, functional ways not by denying your body food or by force feeding yourself.
Make it safe to check in and try this experiment by reassuring yourself that no matter what the answers to your questions are you are not going to force yourself to do anything any differently. If you naturally want to eat or stop eating that’s fine, if you don’t that’s fine too. The key for now is to start to understand what is driving you to do what you say you don’t want to do.
The behavioural change will come naturally once you have developed a good understanding of yourself.
I’m here to help. Reach out for some individual sessions or for some information on our workshops and web program. Change is speedy and simple when you have a supportive, knowledgeable guide and simple tools to follow. And that’s what I will provide for you.
Love Michelle
mmorand@cedriccentre.com
As I was walking from my friend’s house the other morning on my way to work, my mind had time to muse. It started to wander to you, my readers and the work we’ve been doing on all-or-nothing thinking. I was enjoying the warmth in the air at 8:00 am. The sun was shining. It seemed that everyone I passed had a bounce in their step as we welcomed each other warmly and celebrated the long-awaited arrival of summer.
As I walked down one quiet street, a young couple emerged from their home and waved at the elderly lady next door who stood, watering her garden out front. After thanking her profusely, for what I do not know, they got in their car and zipped off down the street.
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