Thursday, February 11, 2010

Workbook Day 13 - Thoughts & Etchings



The ancestor of every action is a thought."......Ralph Waldo Emerson

Working with though processes is a major part of our work. The tools for this include both body scanning, awareness and active meditation. You read about these earlier in this book. It is important to work with the tools and to wake up to the fact that they are always available on your tool belt. Living in awareness is like driving a bus. Thoughts and emotions are street signs. They let you know when you are on the right road, as well as when you are not. You will come to learn that being on the right road does not mean that you don't steer the bus and look to avoid potholes. Awareness also helps us to understand that being on the wrong road is not a crime and that there are important lessons to learn including where you made the wrong turn.

For this work you will be utilizing the visual and auditory metaphors of the internal radio station. Right now begin to listen to the chatter in your mind. This has been playing as background music continually. Unless you purposefully turn this radio off, or change the station, it will continue to play. Not even a chance the batteries will wear out!

It is most important that you take time to give the radio a rest, as well as to evaluate the quality of programs you are playing. You will be doing this through awareness and meditative work. Earlier in the book you learned some basic techniques. In your work with the Inner Coach, you will be experiencing some different applications that are built on the basic techniques. This will give you more flexibility as you go through life.

When I began my practice in stress management and optimum mindbody functioning, I found some students balked at the words meditation and self-hypnosis. I started addressing these tools as the "M" work and the "H" word. Even today I find myself having to educate on the benefits of meditation and self-hypnosis. You learned some of these earlier in this book. These wonderful tools help us to direct our body physiology, as well as our emotions and thoughts. Perhaps this is a new experience for you. As you come to work more and more with these tools you will see how they benefit your life in so many ways. They are key to managing sugar addiction and eating disorder, but you will come to find that they are so much more.

As you practice begin to notice you are paying much more attention to our mind and body functioning. Perhaps you are beginning to notice your body sensations at much lower levels than before. This is real progress. The earlier you notice the body sensation, the easier it is to release it and to free your body from the production of stress chemicals. As you begin to notice thoughts and emotions at much lower levels you will become aware of the triggers to the body sensations. A familiar example is saying that someone pushes your buttons. While that can be true, what is important is not only how you push your own buttons, but the level of sensitivity of those buttons. This work will allow you to notice and adjust this sensitivity.

MIND EXERCISE.

For many years I taught nursing students the management of psychiatric patients. They learned to look for the prodromals, those triggers of behavior that preceded the patient's outburst. You can utilize those same ideas for yourself. . As you observe your body sensations, start to work backwards. What emotion has been hanging around you? Now go back even further..........what types of thoughts have been playing on your radio station? Think way back in your day. What were you thinking about upon awakening.? What was the very first thing you noticed on your mind? How about in the shower, or when you were brushing your teeth? How about at breakfast? What type of conversations did you have with family? What about your thoughts in the car, etc.? You get the idea.

You are continually writing happenings in your book of the day. The happenings are colored with emotional crayons. These become memories and connect up with past books and future books. Past books reinforce beliefs about your experiences and future books spell out expectations that are also colored and reinforced. Slow your brain waves now and ask your Inner Coach to bring you the book you are writing about today. Remember, you are the writer/producer/director of all your happenings. Open this book and review the following.
Some thought patterns I experienced today and the emotional crayons I utilized to color them.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

NUTRITIONAL INSIGHTS:

Many people in our country eat a very poor breakfast, some do not eating. stating loud and clear, " I hate breakfast." "I have no time for breakfast." "I am nauseated in the morning." "I'm not even awake." "I find the whole idea revolting." It's not uncommon for sugar addicted people to have a coke and a donut. When I ask these same people what time do they eat first in the day, most will have something after arriving at the office, usually coffee and whatever is available in the kitchen. Certainly there is no nutritional plan in place here and the day is now set up for major sugar addiction issues. But since you are reading this book the assumption is that you are hanging up your old behaviors for healthy change.
The nutritional plan is absolutely necessary for recovery and certainly without it there can be no thought of high level functioning. Your mind and body need this nutrition to function. It also sets the discipline for your internal machinery. Make no mistake, if you do not give your body what it needs throughout the day, it will continue to let you know about it, even to goes far as to interfere with your sleep process! I have had many students who complained of sleep disorders. Once their nutritional intake was corrected sleep was not a problem.

What makes a good breakfast? Please go back to your "blueprint" , reviewing the suggestions made for you. It's also a good idea to look at breakfast creatively. What are some protein foods you enjoy and would consider eating in the AM? Remember, you don't have to wolf this down the minute you wake up! Many people prepare breakfast the evening before, micro-waving it at work.

MIND EXERCISE.

Perhaps you would like the help of your Inner Coach or inner librarian. Go ahead and induce a visit to your alpha state. You know how to get there. Envision your Inner Coach coming forward, chatting along the way with your inner librarian, perhaps about foods you enjoyed as a child or when on vacation. Ask for the book all about creative ideas for breakfast. Notice you are walking through the supermarket and are taking new choices off the shelves, of course reading the labels. Take yourself into that wonderful little restaurant over there. Sit down and read the menu, inwardly knowing that you can prepare these things for yourself. Take some mental notes from this creative book and follow through with some notes below to further etch this important program into your subconscious mind.
Some creative ideas for breakfast include:
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________

Since you are planting and etching, go ahead and plant these.

• I care for myself at high levels.
• I always eat breakfast.
• I respect the needs of my body and mind.
• I care for my body and mind and they reward me!

MINDBODY WORK.....

Lets go back to your garden. A few days ago you were planting some powerful seeds. You planted your desires, sense of purpose, clear sensory goals, the all important planning and organizing seeds, as well as patience and perseverance. Do a mind check now and notice if you are developing a certain ease and willingness to acquire new learning and skills. Adults learn differently from children and this book is written to meet those needs. I hope you are also developing a positive relationship with your Inner Coach and that you are brining a sense of play and pleasure in relation to your work. Perhaps you might like to draw a little picture of your garden plan and place it where you can admire it during the day.

All gardens need nutrition or fertilizer of some sort, mulch to keep down the weeds, as well as a good supply of light and water. There are certain thoughts and emotions that appear as weeds in your beautiful garden. You want to be on the lookout for these. The weed you are going to look out for today is a cluttered mind, one where the thoughts just keep zooming through, like taxicabs on a busy New York street. Take a moment to stop now and observe the activity of your thought processes.........are they zooming? Don't get in any of these cabs, just observe them.

MIND EXERCISE:

Today I would like you to practice noticing the appearance of this cluttered mind state. Every time you catch it being present, simply notice and follow this noticing by bringing your attention to your belly breath. Ride the breathe for a minute or so. This is a letting go or release application. Know that it only takes 1/200th of a second to pluck these weeds. Once you begin to wake up to them, the brain will start to be re-trained to help you with this work. The focused mind state is a very powerful ally in reaching your ultimate goals and creative thinking.

When visiting your subconscious library, ask your Inner Coach for the book about weeds. Open it and spend some time in this area. Take a moment now and locate some of your common weeds. Remember, the more you notice the better your outcomes. You cannot release what you cannot see or feel. Make some mental notes as well as some written notes to etch these ideas.

Common weeds I'm aware of include: ________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Take a moment to place some affirmation plants in the areas where you just weeded.

• I can see many weeds in my garden and I know their names.
• I'm becoming an expert gardener.
• I plant affirmations in place of weeds.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR...

This experiential blog/workshop is based on my new book, "How Many Cookies Will It Take to Make Me Happy?" This book is not published as yet, but you have the opportunity to read it in it's unpublished state. If you are new to my writing, you might want to read the earlier mini-chapters. They are available on FaceBook, The PublishersMarketPlace & at the following link. Remember to scan down to find the earliest chapters & work your way up. http://beyonddisorderlyeating.blogspot.com/
A bit of background.... we are working with creative Interactive Self-Hypnosis imagery, planting suggestions directly into the creative subconscious mind as you read along. What appears like a story is a series of self-hypnotic sessions, designed to bring about desired lifestyle changes. The inner mind is creative & rather child-like, loving to play with images, especially when they are emotionalized. Just like the saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words", well-planted mind images, can be worth hours of therapy. We can actually change or motivate in 1/200th of a second. So come along & look forward to some lifestyle-changing events.


Copyright 2009 Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht
May not be copied or reproduced without permission of the author.

Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht is author of Sugar...the Hidden Eating Disorder & How to Lick It. She is also the writer/producer of over 350 mp3/CD programs in the areas of medicine, health, prevention, addictions, self-development & sports for adults & children.

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