Posts Tagged self esteem
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) →What are Boundaries and Why are They Important to Me?
Posted by Cedric on July 15, 2009 Healthful boundaries are a fundamental piece of creating balance in our lives. The things which we allow and don’t allow to happen around us, and to us, tell people a lot about our self-esteem and how we regard ourselves and ultimately, what they can get away with in their relationship with us! In other words, if you have good self-esteem, you have strong and healthful boundaries. You feel capable of asking for what you need and letting people know clearly and directly when your needs are unmet. This lets the people in relationships with you know that you expect honesty and integrity from others, and you are willing to bring this to the table yourself. You wouldn’t be able or willing to tolerate dishonesty or lack of responsibility in any relationship. Someone who isn’t ready for honesty or directness in their communications with others, or who wants to be able to blame others for their behavior, wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with you because you would be constantly challenging them to take responsibility for their actions. So the clearer you are in your boundaries and what you expect and are willing to accept from others, the more you draw healthful, balanced, responsible people to you: people who have the same goals for honesty and integrity in their relationships as you do.What are Boundaries
Excerpted from Food is Not the Problem: Deal With What Is! Take time to reflect today on how boundaries with others has affected you and see where you can take a stand. You might find some of the focus on food will ease a little in the process!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) →My Wedding and My Drill Sergeant
Posted by Cedric on July 3, 2009 (Nadine) Women want to look their best every day, and I think most would agree that your wedding day is the one day you would want to look your very, very best – and your slimmest! However, every wedding magazine and website is plastered with tall, slim women who look fresh, ethereal, and sensuous all at once, like they come from some secret fairy world only to model wedding dresses and accessories. How can a normal, average woman possibly live up to those ideals? How can a plus-size woman possibly manage to look fresh, ethereal, and sensuous? It’s easy to understand the boot camp crash diets brides go through when faced with such unrealistic images. Dealing with these issues myself, pending my upcoming elopement to Tofino mid-September, I began to dig deeper. What else is really going on here? My past experiences at the CEDRIC Centre have taught me that when my Drill Sergeant starts badgering me about my image, it’s a smokescreen that covers a deeper and possibly more painful issue. After a little bit of reflection, I decided to question my Drill Sergeant about what IT thought about marriage and weddings, and here is what it said:- Look at all those beautiful brides, you’re not going to look like that – you can’t possibly get married at the size you are at – you should wait until you lose weight to get married! (“Why?” I asked)
- You need to look beautiful and perfect on your wedding day! (“Why?”)
- If you don’t look perfect on your wedding day your fiancé will regret marrying you. (“Why?”)
- You have to be perfect or your marriage won’t last and your fiance will figure out that you are flawed and unlovable!
My Wedding and My Drill Sergeant
AHA! I uncovered a core belief! My Drill Sergeant has been trying to protect me from this core belief so I wouldn’t get hurt. If I work on healing the faulty core belief, my Drill Sergeant will have nothing to protect me from and the badgering will stop. There are a few things I can do to heal that core belief – and just uncovering it and acknowledging it as faulty goes a long way! I can also try to love myself by listening to my fears, looking after myself physically and emotionally, and showing myself compassion. By healing the underlying core belief about how I’ll look on my wedding day, I can revel in the joy of the event. I can be excited about the exquisite dress I bought (ivory French lace over pale gold satin with clustered bursts of crystals) and I can be excited about all the other details like cupcakes, photographers, venues, flowers, and writing heartfelt vows. I can enjoy the process. I am more able to accept that my fiancé wants to marry me and (no surprise here) already knows that I am imperfect. We have been together for three years and he has seen me sick, seen me binge, seen me frustrated, and seen me freak out at him for something that has nothing to do with him. And he still loves me and wants to marry me. My goal for my wedding day is to be PRESENT. My goal is not to look perfect but to feel joyful, blessed, and authentic, and to remember my wedding day with more than just pictures.The Power of Thought
Posted by Cedric on June 26, 2009 For thousands of years many cultures have held a belief in a very powerful philosophy, the gist of which is: we create our thoughts, and our thoughts create our life as we know it. Because our thoughts are our very own creation, we alone have the power to change them and therefore to change our entire experience of life as we know it. (more…)Tags: acceptance, anorexia, anxiety, binge eating, CEDRIC Centre, core beliefs, eating disorders, exploring, forgiveness, future, grounding, healing, insecurity, nurturing, overeating, past, present, rebalancing, self esteem, self worth, workshops
Posted in: CEDRIC Centre, Relationship with Self, workshops
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