Posts Tagged promises

When You Have to Restrict for Your Health

health2A few weeks ago, I gave a presentation at the Victoria Health Show entitled: Practical and effective tools for overcoming emotional, psychological and physical barriers to optimum health. Yes, quite the mouthful, but….interestingly enough it was the most well-attended talk I’ve ever offered in my 10 years of Health Show lecturing. Things that make you go, hmmmmm. Obviously one reason for the increased attendance is that the topic is broader than my usual “Food is not the Problem: Deal With What Is!” educational presentation. But based on the feedback I received after the lecture and in the weeks that have followed, I am quite clear that the real reason for the greater turn out were the words “overcoming” and “barriers.” (more…)

Posted in: 2010, CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Others, Relationship with Self

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Self-Care Part 3: Sustainable Change Begins!

Self-CareHello Members of the CEDRIC Community!  I hope you had a very productive week and that you were able to make some time to explore your values and principles in the ways I suggested, and maybe a few new ones of your own. This week we are going to pick up your key roles work from two weeks ago and weave your values and principles into your primary goals to ensure that the goals you’re putting effort into will provide the outcomes you truly value. This is fundamentally important to your recovery from any harmful or frustrating coping strategy as it provides you a solid foundation on which to stand in the face of any storm, and it gives you a sense of peace in your tummy rather than anxiety and insecurity. If you have to compromise your integrity and values to achieve a goal, it’s not at all worth achieving, so set it aside as quickly as you can. (more…)

Posted in: CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Self

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Self-Care, Part 2

Self-CareHello All!  I hope you had a positive and forward-moving week. This is week two in our series on Self-Care.  If you haven’t read last week’s post, click here to access The First Step to Self-Care. Last week we explored the different roles you have in your life and took a look at what you currently do in those roles vs. what you expect of yourself or what you’d like to see yourself doing based on your core values. Next week we are going to pick up where we left off with the identification and articulation of our goals and come up with three small steps that you can take over the next little while for each of your goals to ease your transition from “here” to “there.”  Any lasting change to our thinking and our behaviour comes gradually. It just doesn’t stick if we try to rush it. That’s because we don’t have the understanding or the life experiences that help us see the value in sustaining that change when we rush it rather than truly embody it.  We also need to learn to make space in our daily lives for these new and different behaviours and, when we already have full-to-bursting lives where many things are falling through the cracks, it takes some time to create the space for something new without simultaneously increasing your stress level (which rather defeats the purpose of any new life enhancing behaviour, I think). (more…)

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

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Trust in the Big Picture

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 Michelle

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

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The Main Barrier to Freedom

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…)

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

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Overcoming Late Night Promises

Overcoming Late Night Promises  You know how you make those heartfelt, serious, absolutely for certain promises late at night that you’re for sure not going to do “X” tomorrow? You know the promises I mean.

Whether it’s overeat, or restrict, or purge, or yell at the kids, or call that guy, or get to work late, or skip your meditation, or drink coffee, or put something on your credit card that you can’t afford, or shop on eBay, etc. you likely fall prey to the late night promises as a way to try and feel a little more peaceful about the day you’ve just had and a little more hopeful about the day to come.

You are sincere. You absolutely mean it when you make that promise to yourself. But, within a few minutes or a few hours, maybe as soon as you open your peepers, the promise is toast and you’ve assured yourself you’ll start with that particular behavioural change “tomorrow.

Now, this doesn’t exactly reassure you. You’ve heard this from yourself before. You know yourself well and you know that unless some sort of miracle happens you’re going to have a day of seeing yourself compromise your integrity / break your promise and then make the same promise that night followed by another day of diminished self-trust and inner security as the promise is neglected once again. It is this cycle of making commitments and then breaking them with just the slightest provocation that triggers that lovely inner companion, the Drill Sgt., to begin his litany of self-contempt and condemnation.

If you could find a way to do two little things your life would change immeasurably – I promise. And if you’re not ready or able yet to do both, pick one! It will make a world of difference. (more…)

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

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Happy New Year? by Michelle Morand

Happy New Year?

Michelle Morand

Hello and welcome to the CEDRIC blog. Did you make any new year’s resolutions? Did you promise yourself this would be the year that you finally got your food, body image, life, under control?

How’s it going, so far?

Remember that Einstein said “the same mind that created the problem can’t be used to solve it.” What that means to me is that, regardless of how much I want to change something that’s bugging me about me or my life, if I don’t get some new information or learn some new tools, no matter how hard I try, I am going to find myself back in the same place that I started – only likely feeling a little more defeated and despairing. If you are still wondering how to create a peaceful and easy relationship with food, chances are you just need a bit of new information and a few new tools and you’ll be on your way. You can identify yourself as someone who uses food to cope if any of these statements describe you often: 1. You’re wanting to eat and aren’t hungry; 2. You’re eating past the point of fullness; 3. and/or You’re aware you’re hungry but aren’t allowing yourself to eat because a. no one else is; b. it’s not a socially prescribed meal time; c. you’ve had your caloric allotment for this time / day; or d. the you think that pushing yourself to wait when you’re hungry is going to make you lose weight faster. If any of the above statements describe you, you use food to cope. (more…)

Posted in: CEDRIC Centre, Tips for Natural Eating

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