Posts Tagged exploring
Traveling with an Eating Disorder, Part 3 of 3
Posted by mmorand on August 21, 2009 Hello! And welcome! This is Part III of an article on navigating travel and vacation time in the easiest most relaxed way when you’re still on the path to recovery from the use of food to cope (ie. overeating, restricting, purging, or that annoying diet mentality). Part I spoke about creating a sense of peace and comfort around the variety and/or constraints of choice that vacationing can provide. In Part I, I provided you with a clear list of tools you can use to ground yourself and come back to basics regardless of what’s on the menu. I have heard from quite a few clients who have carried Part I with them on their travels this summer and have found these simple suggestions extremely helpful in remaining clear on what action to take to feel more at ease than ever before. (more…)Tags: acceptance, anxiety, binge eating, body image, body/mind/spirit, compulsive eating, core beliefs, drill sergeant, eating disorders, exploring, forgiveness, healing, healthy eating, nurturing, overeating, rebalancing, recovery, self care, self esteem, self love, self worth, tandem healing, triggers
Posted in: CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Others, Relationship with Self
Leave a Comment (0) →What Can I Know For Certain?
Posted by mmorand on August 21, 2009 If we have fallen into the behaviour of overeating, restricting or purging – in other words: If we use food to cope, we can absolutely know a few key things about ourselves that can really help us in our recovery.- First, we can absolutely know for certain that we struggle with insecurities about our abilities; our intellect; our lovability; our acceptability and our appearance.
- Second, we can absolutely know for certain that those insecurities are borne of old stories; messages we were told or that we interpreted from other people’s body language or treatment of us and that those old stories are shaping our perception of ourselves today.
- Next, we can absolutely know for certain that these old stories that trigger you to feel insecure trigger an emotion we call “anxiety.”
- And without a doubt you can know that it is the anxiety you feel, that arises from these old stories about what’s wrong with you, that triggers you to focus on your body and on food in a way that is critical, undermining and stifling of your energy and creativity in life.
Tags: acceptance, anxiety, body image, body/mind/spirit, compulsive eating, core beliefs, drill sergeant, eating disorders, exploring, forgiveness, future, grounding, healing, insecurity, nurturing, rebalancing, recovery, self care, self esteem, self love, self worth
Posted in: CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Others, Relationship with Self
Leave a Comment (0) →Trust in the Big Picture
Posted by mmorand on August 7, 2009 Hello All! It’s been a very busy time here at CEDRIC and in my own life. Thankfully both pieces seem to be settling down and August looks to be a time of catching up, relaxing and settling in. Here, here! I’m very much enjoying my patio, with its all day sunshine and watching my young son bouncing merrily on his trampoline. I was sifting through a journal from this time last year and recognized that many of the goals I had for my life last year have been realized and that the others are well on their way to manifesting. It occurred to me in that moment how incredibly lucky that makes me, and then it occurred to me that it wasn’t luck at all. It was the practice of first trusting that I was deserving of and could create the life of my dreams; then came the piece of conceptualizing that dream existence; then came the process of identifying the steps I needed to take to get from point A to point B.Trust in the big picture
All along the theme is trust. Trusting my deservedness, trusting my capabilities, trusting the key people in my life, trusting that, regardless of how things seem in the moment, they always, always, work out for the best. I don’t know whether you’re a spiritual person, a religious person or neither. The good news is it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to believe in a higher power or God or anything greater than yourself (although you certainly can) in order to be able to look back at your life so far and see that the events and circumstances you felt maybe “shouldn’t” have been happening then led you to the place you are now. Out of adversity comes strength. That has been shown to me time and time again. The greatest gift of my personal growth this past decade has been the development of a profound sense of trust that regardless of how things appear in any given moment, they are unfolding exactly as they should. And if I look for the gains, the positives in each situation, I will find them, just as surely as I will find the downside if I seek it. It is our choice, as beings with free will, to focus on what is working or on what isn’t; to attach to how we think things should be or to let go and be open to the silver lining in every situation. It is so easy to get hooked on how things should look and then get angry, sad, hurt, frustrated, scared, etc. when things don’t go as planned. It is far, far easier and far more strengthening to recognize when you’re holding on to things looking a certain way and to just let go and trust that something even better than you had imagined is coming your way. Again, you don’t have to look very far to see the truth of this. Most of us can recall a circumstance – say, the loss of a job or a relationship that we wouldn’t have chosen at the time and that we truly felt shouldn’t be happening or was just downright “wrong.” In hindsight though, wouldn’t you say that “it” worked out for the best; that the loss of that connection or career opened new avenues that led to people and places you wouldn’t now trade for the world? It’s a challenge in the moment to let go and trust in the bigger picture. In fact, it would be truthful to say it is “the” challenge of our lives. And the more we learn to recognize when we’re holding on and to instead, allow ourselves to just let go and trust, the easier, more peaceful, more fun, more amazing and beautiful life gets. 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 greatest 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. If you’d like to be able to choose the second scenario over the first and to develop a deep sense of trust in your ability to navigate life with dignity and grace, rather than with food and body image focus, I welcome the opportunity to work with you and support you to achieve that goal. It is possible. Whether you prefer one-on-one counselling (in-person, by phone, or email), our intensive and transformative workshops, or the self-help approach, take action today to have a stress-free relationship with food. Life is far too short to waste one more day. Love MichelleTags: acceptance, body/mind/spirit, core beliefs, drill sergeant, eating disorders, exploring, forgiveness, future, grounding, growing, healing, nurturing, past, present, promises, recovery, self care, self esteem, self love, tandem healing, workshops
Posted in: CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Others, Relationship with Self
Leave a Comment (0) →Life is Beautiful
Posted by mmorand on July 22, 2009 Life is beautiful. It is complex and it has many twists and turns, but it has a quality of freedom and the opportunity for constant self-creationism that, with the right mindset, allows each of us to feel exuberant, passionate, alive and fulfilled whether we are accepting a Nobel prize, giving birth, beginning or ending a relationship, washing the dishes or stuck in rush-hour traffic. But what about someone who doesn’t have the “right” mindset? What about someone who, however it came to be, doesn’t see the world as their oyster of creation but instead sees themselves as undeserving of what they desire; who sees themselves as “not good enough”? How do they navigate the stress of accepting an award, having a child, ending a relationship or that inevitable traffic jam? Mostly likely they’ve developed patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving called “coping strategies” that allow them to feel some degree of safety and security in their world. Coping strategies take many forms. One primary coping strategy that many people in our society develop is a preoccupation with appearance and with their relationship with food, either in a restricting or overeating way. (more…)Tags: acceptance, body image, body/mind/spirit, CEDRIC Centre, control, core beliefs, drill sergeant, eating disorders, exploring, forgiveness, grounding, growing, healing, insecurity, nurturing, rebalancing, recovery, self care, self esteem, self love, self worth, tandem healing, workshops
Posted in: CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Others, Relationship with Self, workshops
Leave a Comment (0) →Exploring the Fear of Judgement
Posted by mmorand on July 21, 2009 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. Now, rather than feeling “outed” by this statement and that everyone you meet is going to “know” you’re out of balance, could you allow yourself instead to just accept the truth of it? Instead of trying to protect yourself from the truth of your lack of balance, how about asking the question: “What’s the fastest, most effective and lasting solution to this problem?” (more…)Tags: acceptance, anxiety, body image, body/mind/spirit, CEDRIC Centre, core beliefs, drill sergeant, exploring, forgiveness, grounding, growing, healing, insecurity, nurturing, past, present, rebalancing, self care, self esteem, self love, self worth, tandem healing, triggers, workshops
Posted in: CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Others, Relationship with Self, workshops
Leave a Comment (2) →Discomfort=Change=Good Stuff!
Posted by Cedric on July 10, 2009 Excerpted from Food is Not the Problem: Deal With What Is! When we actively begin the process of letting go of our old core beliefs, we frequently feel awkward, uncomfortable, phony, forced and inauthentic. I implore you: don’t judge this as an indication that you are doing something wrong or that you are doomed to fail at this recovery process. These feelings of discomfort and unfamiliarity are not bad, wrong, or in any other way inappropriate. The thoughts and behaviours you are asking of yourself are simply so very different from your “norm,” that is, from what you are accustomed to, that they naturally feel strange. And as human beings who have been schooled in all-or-nothing thinking, we have been trained to judge anything which differs from our regular experiences as wrong. This is simply not accurate. If you continue allowing yourself to think this way, you run the risk of not witnessing and experiencing all the benefits of the changes which are taking place. You are judging your experience in the moment as bad or wrong because it feels strange or different from what you are accustomed to. If you find yourself heading down this path, I encourage you to remember that you have begun this process of change because you want things to be different – because you recognize that you have a need for a change in your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours around certain things. This being the case, how much sense does it make to judge yourself as failing in your process because things are feeling different, when that is what you initially desired? (more…)Tags: acceptance, body image, CEDRIC Centre, core beliefs, exploring, forgiveness, future, grounding, growing, healing, nurturing, past, present, rebalancing, recovery, self care, self esteem, self love, self worth
Posted in: CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Self
Leave a Comment (0) →Traveling with an Eating Disorder, Part 1 of 3
Posted by mmorand on July 9, 2009 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. (more…)Tags: acceptance, body image, CEDRIC Centre, community, core beliefs, drill sergeant, eating disorders, exploring, forgiveness, future, grounding, growing, healing, natural eating, nurturing, past, present, rebalancing, self esteem, self love, self worth, triggers
Posted in: CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Others, Relationship with Self
Leave a Comment (1) →First Comes Love, Then Comes Obesity
Posted by mmorand on July 9, 2009 So reads the heading from an article in the July 6th issue of Time Magazine. Even though my skin was bristling at the glib headline, I felt obligated as a professional and specialist in the field of eating disorders and overeating to read it and find out what they had to say. I was not impressed with the simplicity and surface level of the conclusions they drew but I did find the statistics interesting. I’m going to share their conclusions with you and then take them a step further and explain, on a deeper level, why their results were so. (more…)The Main Barrier to Freedom
Posted by mmorand on July 7, 2009 Your rate of recovery from your stressful relationship with food depends on your readiness for change. For example, I have worked with many people who have struggled for years, even decades with overeating, restricting and/or purging, and within 5 or 6 sessions, they are transformed, feeling clear, purposeful and trusting in their ability to no longer use food to cope. Yet others may take a few months or a year or two to get to the same place. And that’s perfectly fine. There is no right or wrong way to move through the healing process. It’s a completely personal experience and the length of the healing journey depends on many factors but the most important thing for us all is this: (more…)Tags: acceptance, anorexia, anxiety, binge eating, body image, body/mind/spirit, bulimia, CEDRIC Centre, control, core beliefs, drill sergeant, eating disorders, exploring, forgiveness, grounding, growing, healing, insecurity, natural eating, nurturing, overeating, past, present, promises, self care, self esteem, self love, self worth, tandem healing, triggers, workshops
Posted in: CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Others, Relationship with Self, workshops
Leave a Comment (0) →