Hi, Ladies. I just had to share with you - I'm a nervous flier, to the point that I didn't fly for several years, but have started up again in the past few years. I'm o.k. once we're in the air, but the getting up and getting down gives me a fair bit of anxiety. It's just something that I expect, and it begins in the airport, or even before I get there, so I bring work- related reading so that I can just put my head down and try to concentrate on tough concepts and distract myself from what's happening around me; I also bring my CD player and try to shut out the changes in engine noise as we fly (yeah, more coping strategies, right?) - although I didn't use the CD player on the trip over (I'm going to credit the work with Karen for that change), but I was anxious taking off and landing and did use my reading for distraction.

So yesterday, I was reading the paper in the airport, and just continued on the plane, not even thinking about digging out the "tough" reading. Nor did I bother digging out the CD player. It wasn't until I was almost in Calgary that I realized that there were no niggles, or twinges of discomfort at all. I was conscious of us taking off, but didn't feel the shortness of breath or clammyness or pounding heart. I'd been conscious of the changes in engine sound during the flight, but it didn't bother me at all. And I was conscious of us beginning to land, but was looking at a magazine and honestly was on the ground before I realized it. And all of this without once talking about my fear of flying.

So it's not about flying, or driving, or whatever. It's about the insecurity I felt, about my lacking trust in my own judgment because that's what I was hearing (rightly or wrongly, misinterpreted or not) from those around me. And once I started the healing process, the fears and anxieties about everyday things are no longer present. What a revelation. What a feeling of power! Thank you both, so much, for everything you've given me. It has to be the most important gift anyone can give. ML

Greetings to all the amazing staff at the Cedric Centre (Michelle, Beth, Karen and all)! Just wanted to take a few moments to deliver a heartfelt thank you to all of you for the consistently incredible newsletter that you put together and send out to former clients like me who still benefit enormously from your words of wisdom. It's been about two years since my recovery from compulsive eating and since then I've experienced my beliefs and my attitudes about my body and food transformed from a life sentence to a gift. Sure, I still freak out about food now and again BUT the miracle is that I now have the tools to create the space in my mind to view my "food stuff" as inner barometers pointing me to things (needs, feelings and beliefs) that need to surface so that I can live my life from a place of freedom and abundance rather than restriction and control. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!...for the insightful life-affirming and soul-nourishing articles and information that continue to provide on-going sustenance in my journey through the vast and wonderful smorgasbord of life!! Gratefully, Paula Pothier

And here's what Paula had to say when I asked her if I could print her feedback above! Hi there Michelle! Yes indeed, I would be delighted to have my feedback published in your next newsletter - and no need to make it anonymous as it's an honour to to be recognized for the work I've done to discern and transform my inner "blockages" to inner pathways - all with all your insightful, skilled and compassionate guidance. Thanks again Michelle. And don't hesitate to ask if there's anything else I can do or provide to support your fine work. (And you can quote me on that too!!) Take care and keep up your brilliant work! Love and hugs, Paula

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death. - Anais Nin

Here's this month's question - please let us know if you have a question you'd like answered for our next issue. "Since I began this recovery process my eating is getting worse. I feel more out of control. Is this normal or is something wrong?"

Beth's Response:

First off, let me say that I take this experience you are having to be very good news. It means you are really diving into the concepts regarding recovery. For example, I imagine that you are working towards eating naturally, by which I mean learning to recognize and honour physical cues regarding hunger and fullness. On route to this you are letting go of the restrictive element regarding food and probably the pendulum is swinging a bit in the other direction right now. That is ok. Let it. As you integrate more trust in your body, and recognize that you are in charge of what you decide to put into your body (not some diet guru), you will find that this experience settles itself out. Foods that you always saw as forbidden are now ok to eat, and paradoxically, with this freedom, we often experience less "craving" for them. The other part is that as your esteem grows you will look forward to nourishing your body with healthy food choices that you know are essential to your physical/spiritual/mental well-being. Again though, this change comes from within you, naturally, as opposed to from outside, from some expert telling you what is good for you.

The other part is that you are probably beginning to experience feelings that you have been numb to for many, many years. This may feel scary and so your need for comfort is very strong right now. As you are still learning other ways of meeting your needs for comfort, reaching for food will still be a favorite and familiar coping strategy. That is perfectly OK. As your repetoire for meeting your needs grows you will be able to let go of food as a coping strategy and it will take its proper place as a source of nourishment for body/mind. Recovery requires a leap of faith and trust that you can support yourself, and that you can learn new ways of coping and getting your needs met. I invite you to take this leap, trusting that with your counsellor/ and or group support you will be able to move through this experience with a greater sense of trust in yourself.

Michelle's response:

The experience of our relationship with food feeling more out of control in the early stages of our recovery is perfectly normal and a really healthy sign. If it weren't happening I would be concerned that you were not fully allowing yourself to explore your feelings and needs and your natural cues for hunger and fullness. The following are some key things to remember during this stage - to reinforce regularly in any way you can - that will make the navigation of this stage less stressful and fear inducing (because it is scary to feel that we're losing control - even if we're losing control over something that we have to let go of in order to heal and move forward).

1. Remember that you currently use food to help you cope with emotions. 2. You will likely find yourself drawn to your key comfort foods right now. 3. The healing journey and counseling process can be very triggering initially in terms of the intensity and the subject matter explored and will likely bring up a lot of strong feelings including new perspectives on old experiences such as past relationships as children and adults. These new perspectives and the feelings they trigger will take some time to integrate and welcome.

4. Remember also that you're likely coming from a place of not only using food to cope but also the coping strategy of alexithymia (a-lex-i-thy-mi-a) which is a disconnect from our feelings and a difficulty in identifying what we're feeling when we do tune in to the fact that we're feeling something. So, the counseling and recovery process is healing your use of food to cope as well as your use of alexithymia - so that you can feel truly alive and feel all of your life experiences to their fullest.

5. This means that your need for your coping strategy (food which helps you to feel soothed and numbed and gives you something else to focus on and to pin those uncomfortable feelings on) is way up understandably (because of the thoughts you're having and because of the feelings that you're beginning to feel)

6. So, the fact that you're eating more or finding other of your coping strategies way up ( like purging / restriction/ isolation etc.) only means that you're feeling lots of feelings right now - very strong emotions and needing your primary coping strategy at this time. It's perfectly normal, perfectly healthy and it won't last!

7. The speediest way through this, and truly to the other side which is where we find greater self- awareness and no need for food to cope, is to take the time as frequently as you can to use the tool of a list of stressors - identify any thoughts/feelings/behaviours from the past/present and future that may be triggering you right now, acknowledge them, validate them, identify the needs they're triggering and then seek solutions to meeting those needs in any way that honors you.

8. Bringing yourself to consciousness by identifying your feelings and needs in the moment and no longer allowing yourself to focus on food as the problem is the solution and you're getting there. You've just stirred up a lot of feelings and are understandably feeling unsettled and fearful while the dust is settling. This is a new experience and it's very difficult to have a sense of peace and groundedness in a completely new experience, so feeling a little unsettled is a good thing! It means things are changing. Trust that things will settle and you will soon see things very differently and without your use of food to cope.

Hang in there, the outcome of a life free from food and body image obsession and truly connected to your and your worth is so very very worth it. Life truly becomes a play ground when you know that you can trust yourself to take care of yourself and meet your needs in any situation. And that is what you are learning to do!

By Michelle Morand, Founder and Director of The CEDRIC Centre.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes it can take you half an hour to say what you want to say to someone when one sentence would have sufficed? And even then you come away feeling that they didn't quite get it or you didn't quite say what you wanted to? Or do you ever find yourself entering a conversation with someone very clear in what you want to say and even how you want to say it only to find yourself stammering and stuttering, presenting your feelings and needs as questions rather than certainty; far more tentative in your tone and words than you had originally intended, almost to the point of watering your sharing down so much that the other person doesn't really have clue what you were trying to say or how important it was to you or even why it was important.

And if you did end up putting it out that tentatively and/or with a bit of a question at the end instead of a confident statement of your needs and feelings, guess what? Not only is it very, very, very unlikely that that person really got the message that you intended to share, it is extremely likely that you have left yourself open to misinterpretation about the general statement you were trying to make, what you need and how you feel. This is how most arguments begin, how misunderstandings are born. The attempts at communication that get watered down, confused, come out other than we intend, set us up for failure in the meeting of our needs.

The good news is you have a great deal of power over this pattern and can change it quite quickly. Changing the clarity and conviction with which we communicate is valuable because not only do we then spare ourselves the unnecessary misunderstandings and arguments that can ensue, we also enhance our connectedness with ourselves and our trust in ourselves to communicate directly and effectively what we're feeling and needing.

This is huge, huge stuff because what we're talking about here is feeling safe and secure in our world! Trusting ourselves to say what we need to say in a way that connotes respect and confidence in ourselves. The primary benefit of this way of communicating our needs and feelings is that we feel more and more confident and trusting and secure in ourselves. The side benefit of expressing ourselves this way (which is huge in and of itself) is that others respect us more and are more inclined to listen to what we're saying, take the time to consider it, and ultimately to respond favorably. The truth is, and you can prove this to yourself by simply thinking of people you know who are confident and secure in themselves, the world loves people who know who they are, who know what they want and are willing to ask for it. It's like the world rolls out the red carpet for you when you step into yourself fully and truly embody a sense of belonging in the world.

What I mean is, when you finally get it, that you are worthy of belonging, that you do deserve to feel secure and loved and to have what you want in life, when you finally KNOW that, at the very core of your being, life becomes so much fun. It's a giant playground. Yes sometimes somebody will steal our swing! Yes occasionally I may fall off the monkey bars and hurt my knee. But the underlying feeling of being safe and of having a right to be there, of being held and cared for, takes the pain away almost instantly. This just reinforces the experience of the world as a safe and fun place and gives us the impetus to explore more, play more, enjoy more, to be.

Now, I do have a reason for telling you about all the wonderful benefits of directly and clearly asking for what you need and for sharing what you're feeling with others. The reason is, I want you to know how you're harming yourself by communicating in that tentative, disempowering, questioning way. You're robbing yourself of the experience of living on the playground and instead you're perpetuating your jail sentence. So, are you ready to explore anther option? Are you ready to stop beating around the bush and be direct in your expression of your feelings and needs? Are you ready to communicate with others in a way that says, "What I feel and what I need is valid and significant"?

Now before the co-dependent part of you kicks in (it may be too late already) and starts saying how you can't do that because it's narcissistic or you'll be a bitch or you'll alienate yourself or piss people off or you don't deserve it, you're not allowed, or that's true for everyone else but you etc. etc. (did I miss any????) let's just give that part of yourselves a gentle talking to. To whatever extent you're feeling resistance to exploring changing those patterns of communication and being more clear in the articulation of your feelings and needs, ask that fearful and protective part of yourself that is coming up with all the criticism the following questions:

What is important about us continuing to communicate in the way we currently do? (Hesitatingly, without conviction, looking outside of ourselves for validation about what we feel and need) (he or she will say something like the comments I put forth just a moment ago) Then ask that piece "And what's important about that" It'll give you some answer and to that you reply "And what is important about that?"

And you keep going until you feel like you've really got to the bottom of what is truly so important about that old, harmful, ineffective way of communicating that makes that piece of you feel fearful of letting it go (probably a total of 3 - 5 times you'll ask "What's important about that to get to the true root). That ultimate answer will be something like: I want you to be happy and if people are upset with you you won't be happy.

Remember I said that was the co-dependent part of you! He/She is most concerned with others being happy with you because that part of you was taught, and now truly believes, that she/he can only be acceptable and therefore only be happy and secure when others approve of him/her. Well, not so.

I'd like you to gently, gently, and respectfully say to that piece of yourself: "Thank you for wanting me to be happy and secure in my relationships with others, and first and foremost I want to be happy and secure in my relationship with myself. Your current focus on what others feel and need makes it impossible for me to keep myself safe in my relationships with others. This means that I am likely to draw to me people who are not able to support me to be the best that I can be. I deserve to be peaceful and happy in everything that I do. I deserve to live my life without feeling responsible for others feelings and needs and that is not a bad thing! So, would you be willing to explore a new way of communicating our needs and feelings that lets us be clear in what we're saying and feel grounded and secure in our right to say it?"

Well, what's the answer? If that part of you says "Yes, but..." Just ask what reassurance he/she may need and if it's authentic for you, offer it. If it's not authentic for you, or you feel stumped, e-mail me and we'll tweak it together!

Now, for the next few weeks I want you to do some reconnaissance. You're going to be observing yourself in your communication with others. You'll be on the lookout for any of your cues (some suggestions of these are offered below) that let you know you're more concerned with their approval or with what they think than you are about what is true and what feels right for you. Observe yourself any time but you'll find it easiest to pick this stuff out if you focus mostly on situations where you're asking for a need to be met. This is because the co- dependent part of yourself (that is more concerned with what others think, feel and need and thinks it's selfish to have needs of your own) will be telling you that same thing you discovered above: that if you ask for what you need you are risking your needs for security and/or love, acceptance and belongingness. Which as you may recall from Maslow's Hierarchy of Basic Human Needs, are, well, basic human needs!

No worries, all you have to do here is have the same or similar conversation as you did before: . Reassure the scared part of you that has bought into that old co-dependent way of thinking that you appreciate their intention is to support you to be happy and secure and that they think that being authentic and direct in your communication is a risk to that. . Then let that piece know that you are learning that focusing on the approval of others more than your own needs and approval is a big part of how you came to feel so overwhelmed and insecure in the first place. . Then just reassure that piece that you are ready to begin to let it be okay to ask directly for what you need, and/or to directly share your thoughts and feelings and needs without first checking in to see if others will approve or agree. . You're ready to begin to live from an internal locus of control - you're in the driver's seat and learning to trust yourself to keep yourself safe and secure in your world rather than being at the whim and mercy of others in order for you to get what you need.

Some cues you'll likely notice in yourself are: You find yourself speaking rapidly; you have a hard time making eye contact; you wring your hands or fiddle with something while you're speaking; you're holding your breath; your stomach has that permeating level of anxiety feeling; you find yourself speaking in a little child voice; you are posing your statement of needs as a question and/or your tone is shy and fearful.

If you notice any of these cues and you've done the reassurance piece above (please don't skip that because you're trying to build integrity and trust with yourself and bulldozing over that fearful part of yourself will only serve to perpetuate your feeling of fragmentation and alienation from yourself) just stop, even in mid-sentence, it's okay to do that! Breathe, put your hand on your stomach (you can do this!) and check in. Ask yourself, what specifically do you need? What are you trying to say and what is your intention in saying it? Is how you're saying it now going to achieve that objective? If not, you have two main choices that are honoring of you: 1. If you can't get clear in the moment what you're trying to say or you're just not able to say it without the undermining behaviours listed above: Stop the conversation, tell that person that you're having a hard time figuring out how to say what you want to say and you'll come back to it when you've got a clearer sense of your message. 2. Or, If you're clear on what you want to say after checking in, allow yourself to just take a deep breath and be courageous and say, clearly and directly, what it is you're trying to say. You will feel an immediate sense of relief regardless of the outcome because you'll know that at least for your part you did a good job of communicating, you have not contributed to any confusion or misunderstanding or drama. And that's all you can ask of yourself in your communications with others. Even if they choose to misinterpret you, or, because of where they're at in their growth path they just can receive your message in the way you intend, you can let go of that, you won't feel responsible for that when you know you've communicated as clearly and directly as you can. Let me know how it goes. Michelle

Be aware that falling in love is not a basis for commitment. Falling in love not a basis for commitment? What is then?

Most of us operate from the experience of a great deficiency of love. We often didn't experience enough love in our childhood, and our hearts hunger for this satisfying feeling. We are on the lookout for people who seem to accept and love us. And when we find a person who appears to feel some love for us, it's a tremendous event. We believe that love is so scarce we have to do something about it. Cage it. Tie it up. Don't let it get away! Marry it! As we develop skill in loving everyone unconditionally, including ourselves, we begin to create lives that are not deficient in love. We increasingly create and live in a warm world of appreciation, emotional acceptance, heart-to-heart feelings, and unconditional love with more and more people.

As we reach past our separate-self demands, we learn to emotionally accept people as they are. Our hearts feel the preciousness of each person. By working on our addictive models of how people 'should' be, we begin to experience an ever widening compassionate acceptance and love for each human being as they are right now - with all their foibles and failings. The people around us notice the way we are increasingly radiating unconditional love for them even when we don't like what they say or do. They like being with someone who is living love. It's like finding an oasis in the desert.

As I learned to love unconditionally, I began to live in a world of love. I've now learned to operate my mind and heart so that I can feel love and acceptance toward everyone - most of the time. And I work on my programming quickly if my ego hits me with a demand that throws me out of my unified-self feelings. Thus I can no longer use love as a basis for involvement in an intimate relationship because love becomes my general experience of everybody. I no longer live in a vacuum in which I am blown around by every breath of lovely fresh air.

So if you are effectively working on yourself to love everyone unconditionally, you cannot use love as a basis for commitment. You'll increasingly be loving everybody - and you can't be intimately involved in a partnership with everyone you love.

How Do We Choose? If we don't use love as a basis for commitment, what on earth do we use? There are over five billion people on earth. It's important to carefully select a partner with whom you can create the higher levels of communication, caring, and commitment. How do we go about choosing a life partner? (If we decide we want a life partner, that is)

1. Do you like just being with him or her? You may be so busy entertaining yourselves doing things together that neither of you knows if you just like being with each other. Try going on a camping trip for a week with no one else around. Do you really enjoy being near each other? Continuously? Do you like them as a human being - or as a human doing? 2. Are you willing to live with the other person's programming (addictive, 'injured child' and otherwise?), and is that person willing to live with yours? Emotional honesty during dating lets a prospective partner really get to experience your programming as much as possible, and vice versa. The 'game' is not just to get into a committed relationship - it's to live 'happily ever after'. Can your prospective partner emotionally accept your moods and attitudes? Does this person explode or sulk or cower when you are irritated or upset? Are they 'addicted' if they respond this way? Can you handle it if both of you start bouncing off each other's demands? Can you usually feel compassion instead of threat if they blow up? In my second marriage, which ended in divorce, I planned on my partner's changing in ways I wanted after we were married. It didn't work. I learned that I shouldn't choose a mate the way I might a house - not responding to things as they are, but as they'd be when I got them remodeled!

3. Do you like to do many things together? Or do your egos compete or clash as you try to cooperate? Are your interests, goals, values, tastes, and philosophies sufficiently similar so that you can enjoy creating the adventure of life together? If a loving person were to use only love as a basis for choosing a partner, it would be like using the existence of a steering wheel for deciding which car to buy. Since all cars have steering wheels, we need other criteria for deciding. When you're doing a good job of handling your demands and loving unconditionally, you life will be filled with love! Then you can choose a partner who likes to play the same life games together - to celebrate life together. Thus love no longer serves as a definitive guideline for selecting a partner. You are learning to love everyone unconditionally - including yourself.

From The Power of Unconditional Love, by Ken Keyes, Jr.

by Kim Eng copyright September 2004 source Eckhart Teachings

During my travels, one of the most frequently asked question is "What is it like to be in relationship with an enlightened being?" Why this question? Perhaps they have the idea or image of an ideal relationship, and want to know more about it. Perhaps their mind wants to project itself to a future time when they, too, will be in an ideal relationship and find themselves through it.

What is it like to be in relationship with an enlightened being?

As long as I have the idea in my head "I have a relationship" or "I am in a relationship," no matter with whom, I suffer. This I have learnt.

With the concept of "relationship" come expectations, memories of past relationships, and further personally and culturally conditioned mental concepts of what a "relationship" should be like. Then I would try to make reality conform to these concepts. And it never does. And again I suffer.

The fact of the matter is: there are no relationships. There is only the present moment, and in the moment there is only relating.

How we relate, or rather how well we love, depends on how empty we are of ideas, concepts, expectations. To read more, follow the link.

With the current interest in mental health topics, a mental health language has emerged with words such as manipulation, boundaries, limits, rescuing, dependence, and codependence. Many people are unclear what these words mean when applied to relationships. I would like to bring some clarity to one of these terms - MANIPULATION - and how it relates to the other terms mentioned above.

Webster's New World Dictionary defines manipulation as: "managing or controlling artfully or by shrewd use of influence, often in an unfair or fraudulent way; to alter or falsify for one's own purpose."

In relationships, manipulation can be defined as: any attempt to control, through coercion (overt or covert), another person's thoughts, feelings or behaviors.

From this definition, manipulation would seem to have no advantages. However, if you are codependent and defined by others, there can be many advantages. When you allow others to control your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and make decisions for you...

To read more, follow the link.

I am honored to share this amazing feedback from the participants of the 3 day intensive in March. Shared with you, our newsletter subscriber, with their permission of course.

It was a wonderful weekend and the ladies who attended were so ready to experience change in their relationship with food, with themselves and with others that many great shifts and epiphanies occurred. It was an honor to witness and I enjoyed my time with each of those women immensely. Let's hear what they had to say!

"This was essential to my emotional health. I can't imagine how my life would carry on as it was without this. The master's was dragging me down but now I'm looking forward to continuing it with joy and passion. You are an outstanding facilitator. I have no suggestions for improvement. The tone of your voice, the peace and clarity with which you speak, are a wonderful gift. I have come away from this weekend with a fresh understanding and a newly minted tool kit to enable me to navigate the relationship with my sister. I also feel much more confident about my abilities to continue in this journey. I know that I will have some setbacks, no journey is without its detours - but I feel that I now have the capability to pick myself up and dust myself off and carry on. I look forward to other workshops I'll be able to attend and especially to the DVD you're creating! The group dynamic was excellent. I know how a particular mix of people can make or break the session, but your skill made this one of the most wonderful experiences I've been involved in."

"I very much responded to the "Scientific Approach" - the logic and how well you explained the process as well as the guidelines for speaking. I felt we were all allowed equal time and attention. I did not feel rushed or brushed off in any way. The atmosphere was so caring. The experience and physical surroundings more than exceeded my expectations. I learned new tools to use and look forward to taking them home to put into practice. Thank you Michelle."

"The logic of the material made sense; how you directed the conversation to allow us to come to the needed conclusion was awesome! Spending the needed time on each one of us was wonderful. I learned so much just listening. The amount of time was a great beginning of recovery. I look forward to more. I'm realizing that how we see things and what we tell ourselves isn't always accurate!"

"I want to thank you Michelle as I just see things much more clearly. I'm not sure whether I was just in a different place in my life and was more ready to hear it or if it was all in your presentation (which I could really relate to) but it just mad so much sense, and you made things feels so much more simple and doable. I really liked the way you spoke to everyone, never putting anyone down, just so calm and coming from a place of knowing - it was so incredible to just watch you speak to the others in the group. I think you are an incredible person and with your help and work on my end I really feel like I am on my way to healing and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for that."

"Wow, wow, wow! A lot of personal insight was sparked by hearing others speak. At first I felt out of place in the group, maybe because there was quite an age gap but I felt more at ease sharing after getting to know the other women. Love your white board diagrams and drawings. They are very helpful to understand the concepts. A lot of this information was review for me from our past work and going through it again with these other women helped me to grasp the concepts much more than I had before. Thank you."

There you have it! It was a wonderful and transformative weekend. And for those of you who have a desire to experience this transformation personally, we'll be holding the intensive weekend phase I workshop again in July (21st - 23rd), and a phase II the following weekend (July 28 - 30)! More details to follow shortly.

I love hearing how people take the tools of consciousness around food and run with them in their own unique way. Here is one clients sharing of how they are using the principles of natural eating in their life.

Hi Michelle! I have taken what you taught me and flown with it! I am legally separated. I took out a mortgage, bought out my husband's half of the house and moved back in, paid off my VW camper, and replaced the missing items in the house. My budget balances (I wasn't sure at first if this would be possible), I have money in the bank, I got custody of our dog, bought a river kayak, have made some wonderful new friends, and made peace with my family. I am going to New Mexico for a cycling tour in May-- Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos, Los Alamos, and back to Albuquerque. I have signed up for sea-kayaking lessons in June, and I am showing my dog. I've lost over 40 lbs by being away from my husband's alcoholism and Kentucky Fried Chicken and by making healthy choices. I have resumed commuting to work by bicycle, so I am fit too. People tell me I look 10 years younger.

Am I minimizing? I've read dozens of books on the process of getting over divorce and I accept that it's hard work, two steps forward and one step back. Things have been dawning on me one after the other- -e.g. that there is NO chance of my husband responding by getting healthy for me and facilitating a fairy-tale ending; that marriage is a VALUE, not a need, so I can shift its priority in my life (whereas until very recently I thought it was the whole purpose).

On and off, I still have difficulty with feeling at loose ends (and taking it out on food), especially in the evenings after work, but I don't beat myself up for it.

I have had a persistent problem with gobbling just anything as soon as I got in the door from work. Nothing I tried, including eating just before I left the office, worked to help me prepare and enjoy a nice dinner.

That is, until I ran into the concept of "mis-eating". As in, "I mis-ate yesterday". I made up the attached and posted it in plain view in the kitchen. And when I got home yesterday, I was able to choose to steam the broccoli, slice the red peppers, slice and sauté the chicken, mix the curry, garlic, lemon juice, and sour cream, STEAM THE RICE (unthinkable to have that much patience!), and sit down with a place mat and napkin and enjoy a Hot Curried Chicken Salad. Delicious, gracious, fulfilling, pleasing, rewarding, satisfying. I am so excited! I have a feeling I have found what I needed

Miseat: i.e. To eat when not hungry; to start eating when hungry but keep on eating after becoming full (unless you have an appropriate reason; e.g. the food is the best you've ever had of its kind), to NOT eat when your body is sending signals that you need to eat (or not plan for it); to prepare and/or gobble food in a panic; to eat thoughtlessly as when completely distracted from body signals of pleasure and fullness.

Misadventure Misbegotten Miscalculate Mischance Mischief Misconceived Misdiagnose Misemploy Misery Misfire Misfit Misfortune Misgivings Misgovern Misguide Mishandle Mishap Misidentify Misinterpret Misjudge Mislead Mismanage Mismatch Misplay Misread Misstep Mistake Mistreat Misunderstand Misuse

To realize your true nature, you must wait for the right moment and the right conditions. When the time comes, you are awakened as if from a dream. You understand that what you have found is your own and doesn't come from anywhere outside. - Buddhist Sutra

Your anguish is seeking a way to attain to Me: yesterday evening I heard your deep sighs and I am able, without any delay, to give you access, to show you a way of passage, to deliver you from this whirlpool of time, that you might set your foot upon the treasure of Union with Me; but the sweetness and delights of the resting place are in proportion to the pain of the journey. Only then will you enjoy your native town and your kinsfolk, when you have suffered the anguish of exile. - Rumi

If your heart is in pieces, you look for the truth. - Phil Collins

email: info@cedriccentre.com

phone: 1-866-383-0797 / 250-383-0797

web: http://www.cedriccentre.com