Discomfort=Change=Good Stuff!
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…)Posted in: CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Self
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by Michelle Morand
The thing about having an issue with weight is that it translates to an issue with food. This relationship is something that is mismanaged and misunderstood by the best of them, but when you are dealing with personal challenges, the relationship gets even more murky.
There are so many opinions in the western world for the person who is having self esteem issues around the fact that they are considered overweight or are gaining weight.
There just as many options as there are opinions for the person who is dealing with this and they come from all sides as our culture invests a fortune in keeping the superficial issue of body image in the forefront of the collective consciousness.
We have people on tv, in white coats, claiming to be specialists. They give us the gears for being hefty by informing the population that we are ‘less than’ if we don’t buy their plan for salvation, hook, line and sinker. We hear about Food for nurturing and Food for self numbing as an opiate. Martha Stewart tells us that we need to be making the meals pleasing to the eye, Rachel Ray says we should be making four course meals in half an hour to measure up. Even Oprah, who is a cultural icon in today’s world, has her own kitchen staff that includes a world class chef so she has NO idea what she’s eating as she’s passed that on to her dietitian and yet her weight STILL has more ups and downs than a staircase.
How can a little person from small town wherever, with shoelaces for a budget, compete? How can we get away from the constant berating that we are living with a ‘problem’ and if we aren’t constantly doing something about our ‘problem’, we may as well move to the Tennessee Ozarks into a decrepit trailer park right now. Its bad enough that the reality is our bodies need food for fuel and three times a day or more, we better gas up or we won’t have to worry about it, we’d be dead! How does one address mealtime without confusion when messages are coming at us from everywhere with an opinion of how to think? 
This weekend was a lovely combination of solitude and company as my hubby and I went through our various routines. His involvement with the Anglican church means that I am able to have a fair bit of alone time, and we spent the rest of the time puttering or having a couple of nice drives and meals out.
He shows me he loves me in many ways, but this past week, he managed to drive a major point home.
I was bemoaning that I couldn’t find clothes to fit my 6 foot, 200 mumblemumble lb. frame and that what I did find was available in one store only and everybody else that was dealing with weight issues had the same clothes. We were in traffic in the car and I can remember that we were sitting in the left turn lane to the Blue Bridge when he turned to me and said ‘I love what’s in your head, I love your heart and I love you. I don’t see girth, I see beauty. Would you just appreciate the fact that you have what the majority of the population strives for and quit being so down on yourself?’
That was truly an ‘AHA’ moment for me.
What did he mean?