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The Genuine Article |  |
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Greetings, Well, hello there! We’ve got lots of changes coming up with the genuine article in the next few months and we’re willing to bet you’re going to enjoy each and every one! First off, we’ll be issuing The Genuine Article on a weekly basis – starting your week off right with a little dose of reassurance, support, information and growth! The Genuine Article will be, as of July, issued in four smaller pieces. This means that you’ll have an easier time making your way through our articles and you’ll get something new every week to support you in your healing and self-awareness journey. We’ll still have the same great features: Ask a Counsellor; Tools for Recovery; On the Path and our findings from great teachers and authors around the world. So, tune in with your morning coffee and start your week off right with The Genuine Article. Oh, and to those of you who didn’t get the notice! We’ve got Phase I and Phase II intensive weekends coming up. Phase I is July 21st – 23rd and Phase II is July 28th – 30th. Great opportunities to get a blast of support and healing and make some giant leaps in your healing process. Call or e-mail for more details! mmorand@islandnet.com 250-383- 0797. For more information on all the new ways you can access the services and information The CEDRIC Centre has to offer read on! Remember, food is not the problem, deal with what is! We’re here to support your journey. Love Michelle And here's a little gem from Eckhart Tolle: If you can neither enjoy nor bring acceptance to what you do stop. Otherwise, you are not taking responsibility for the only thing you can really take responsibility for, which also happens to be one thing that really matters; your state of consciousness. And if you are not taking responsibility for your state of consciousness, you are not taking responsibility for life. Michelle, Beth, Karen and Virginia
Oky doky! We're making this a summer of new and
exciting ways for you to explore all of the services
The CEDRIC Centre has to offer. For starters we're
issuing our newsletter weekly - as you already know!
And we're in the final editing stages of the DVD
programs. Not to mention that I just took a whole
week off to sit in front of my computer and
put the finishing touches on the book: "Food is not
the Problem; Deal with What Is!" Wow! Good Stuff!
And, on top of all that. We've got three new ways that those of you who want to explore healing your relationship with food can gain new tools and support anytime, anywhere: Our new Blog; Weekly Podcasts; and Webinars (the new Teleclass)! This month also marks the first edition of our blog! Yes, The CEDRIC Centre has a blog – www.cedriccentre.blogspot.com We’ll be adding a new article at least every week and probably more often as you all know how much I love to talk about the recovery process! You can visit the blog any time and you can arrange through that site to be notified of any new articles so you’ll be in the loop. Also, very very exciting!!!! I’ll be offering a weekly podcast. Podcast, yes! For those of you who don’t know that’s an on line recording of about 7 – 10 minutes that you can download onto your computer and copy onto your iPod (if you have one) or onto a cd – so you can take me with you wherever you go! Further to that, we’ll be coming out with some cd’s in late summer – 60 minutes of me sharing new tools, reminding you of some you already know, and enhancing your self-awareness anytime, anywhere! And last but not least, we’ll be offering some Webinars in August for those of you who live elsewhere and want a taste of what a CEDRIC group has to offer as well as for those of you who live anywhere and like to learn verbally rather than visually!
So, stay tuned over the next two weeks as I give
you specifics on how to access the podcasts, and
when the Webinars will start!
As you can see, we’ve got lots of new ways to
support you in your healing. Between the
Here's the question of the month: "I realized not long ago that I see food as the one reliable friend in my life. I am using it to meet many emotional as well as physical needs. it's always there, I am always happy to see it, it is so reassuring and comforting. Sometimes food is like a fine lover. I can actually feel rapture from the right combination of smell, taste and feel. Trouble is, I am not getting those feelings from many other aspects of my life, and I feel things getting out of balance. How can I break through the illusion of seeing food that way?" Beth's Response: Wow, your self awareness around this issue is very apparent. I think the key word for me in your question is “illusion”; as in you see food as a friend, a fine lover etc and yet you are also aware on some level that food is not a friend, it is not a lover, it is only the illusion of food being a friend and lover. Alas, it is just food. This process of coming to see food as food rather than as a friend or a lover is very important in recovery from disordered eating. Which isn’t to say you can’t enjoy the sensual experience of pleasure you get from a wonderful meal. Enjoy the meal, for what it is, allow full connection through all of your senses, touch, smell, sight, and taste, and then let it go. It is important to remind yourself that friends and lovers are about give and take, in that your needs might take precedence and then your friends might. And with a lover, you give and they take and then they give and you take, there is risk involved in relationships with other people. They might disappoint you, you might disappoint them, they might leave, you might leave. This is the risk of growing up, of deciding to risk connection instead of staying “safe” and lonely and isolated. Using food as a coping strategy has been an effective way to stay safe, on one level, but I imagine it also reinforces your loneliness and sense of isolation at the same time. Starting to sort this out is a great step in learning about your needs for love and connection and friendship. And recognizing that although you might have an enjoyable experience while eating, it is no substitute for the richness and complexity of friendship and intimacy shared between two people. And then, what a bonus, you can still enjoy a good meal, for what it is, and also, get your needs for connection met in a healthy way. You can even say to yourself when you are enjoying a meal or a particular food, “This is wonderful, the tastes, the smell, etc and alas, it is not a friend or lover, it is only food, I need to connect with other people in order to meet my needs for intimacy and relationship.” This type of self-talk will help you to put food in its rightful place, and remind you about your desire for connection with others. Speaking to yourself in this way will help break through the illusion of seeing food as a friend or lover. Good luck on your journey, and thanks for asking such a wonderful question. Michelle's Response Food as a lover, food as a friend, food as a punisher and double edged sword. How many relationships have you had in your life that are truly healthy? That truly support, inspire and enhance your life? That allow you to be the very best you can be and don't undermine your self-esteem or what you need? By virtue of the fact that food as a coping stratgy feels so positive in your life. I am willing to bet that your relationships with others and with yourself are painful and contain many experiences where your needs are not only not met but not even acknowledged by you or by others. Now, believe me my own recovery experience included me feeling very similarly about food for quite some time before I began, as you are now, to question whether this really was the loving and supportive connection that I had allowed myself to believe it was. As you begin to heal your connection with yourself and come to realize your right to exist; your right to have needs of yourself and others; you will naturally lessen your use of food to cope. It just won't be necessary and the sickness and sense of frustration and despair that follows the use of food to cope just won't feel like something you want to experience any more. You'll come to value yourself well enough that you no longer feel deserving of the double edged sword and you'll allow yourself experiences that are purely positive and life-enhancing. You see, we so frequently come to this process believing that food is the problem. It's not. Food is not the problem. Whatever it is that happened during your day to lead you to feel that food is the best you can do for a lover and friend - that is the problem and the more energy you put into identifying that and healing those behaviours and beliefs the less you'll even think about food. Relationships are supposed to support us and help us to grow. They are not meant to hold us back or undermine us or control us. If any relationship you have, whether it's with your spouse, your mother or your food, holds you back and undermines your trust in yourself, it is not a healthy loving connection. It is abusive and it's time to let it go.
Hello there! You know as we move forward on our path to recovery from food as a copong strategy it is not only beneficial but absolutely necessary to come back to basics. It is so easy to get ahead of ourselves becasue of our desire to heal and be over this issue. And getting ahead of ourselves means that we don't always have a clear sense of what we're doing that harms us and why we're doing it. So for the next few weeks we're going back to basics! Starting with The Diet Mentality. We'll explore the diet mentality this week and if you choose to take part you can do the homework at the bottom and enhance your awareness of the diet mentality that's still alive in you. In the weeks to come we'll look at basic needs, coping strategies and natural eating and regardless of where you are in your healing journey you are guaranteed to have a stronger sense of what triggers you to use food to cope and what you can do about it. The Diet Mentality is a way of thinking that has been ingrained in us by messages we receive from our family and friends, from advertisements and media messages and from diet and exercise programs that we may have tried in the past or may currently be pursuing. These views about how we should look, feel and behave have become a part of our way of life. Without these guidelines many of us feel like we would have no restrictions and would just let go and “go crazy” – eating whatever we wanted with no ability to control ourselves. What would follow, we fear, is uncontrollable weight gain. At The CEDRIC Centre, we believe that true control comes from being able to trust yourself and your body around all foods and all situations. Outlined below is a list of behaviours and/or thoughts that epitomize The Diet Mentality. So long as you are clinging to any of these misconceptions, you will not be able to develop a trusting relationship with yourself and to truly overcome your obsession with food. As you read the following characteristics of The Diet Mentality, make a note of the ones you have believed in the recent past.
•You restrict the amount of food that you
are “allowed” to have. • Exercise: If you don’t do it you judge yourself as lazy or worthless and feel intense negativity and disgust towards yourself/your body. If you do exercise it often feels good but you continue to beat yourself up for not going more often. You set unrealistic expectations and rigid standards of how often you will go and what you will do when you do exercise. If these standards are not met you berate yourself repeatedly. Likewise, we may be inspired to exercise by feelings of fear of gaining weight or slipping into laziness and not for the benefits to our health. • You catch yourself thinking about a family function or big party in the not to distant future and begin to daydream "If I lost X pounds per week for the next x weeks I’d be a lot happier and more confident heading to the X and seeing X” or worse – you begin to feel a cold sweat steal over your body and tell yourself you are not going to that function because you are just “too fat and who would want to see me anyway?”
• Clothes! You don’t allow yourself to buy
any new clothes that would fit your body as it is now
and be comfortable because: You’ve likely got the gist of the Diet Mentality by now. Quite possibly you’ve been living your life this way for many years. Remember that diet’s don’t work and that 90% of eating disorders begin with dieting. So if you catch yourself thinking or behaving in any of these ways just pause and remind yourself that this is The Diet Mentality and that it just keeps you stuck in overeating. Let it go. If you can remember that compassion and self-trust is the key to overcoming overeating, you can begin trust that you are doing the best you can and that truly, that is enough.
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