To succeed in recovery & life in general, it's necessary to take back your own power& to own your own problems. Many people with disorderly eating tend to stay involved, not only with their caregivers, but with pseudo-care-givers...those people who share the same problems. While I can appreciate the need to have support, like everything else, I'm a firm believer that this needs to be kept in balance. In my own life, as well as in the lives of my patients, I see the co-dependent patterns over & over again. Sometimes the co-dependency is disguised in some sort of organization, other times as simple as choosing to only hang out or build friendhips with those who share the same problems, thereby limiting one's life experience. I lived a good part of my life like this, attending all sorts of meetings that allowed me to stay inside the problem, instead of taking responsibility for what needed to be done. My friends, in & out of work, were mainly fighting the same battle as I was, although I never let them inside my personal secrets, thereby still leaving me alone in my personal prison.
One day & I can't really tell you why, but I decided that I had enough of thinking about my weight, wishing that I could lose weight, wondering if I would ever lose weight while still inhabiting a healthy body. I was tired of buying magazines that promised the solution, clipping articles, attending meetings & never being fully successful, watching programs related to weight, chatting about it around the water-cooler & discussing it with people I didn't even know, like in the supermarket line. Good grief...I had spent so much of my life involved in the subject matter of "my weight & eating issues" that I could have earned several PhD's. I truly needed it to be over.
You know the saying, "the teacher appears when the student is ready?" Well, that day I stayed home from work because I truly didn't feel well, or so I thought. I was wrapped in a quilt, sitting in front of the television with a bowl of popcorn balanced on my lap. A program came on that was addressing obese people & their difficulty in flying. I didn't want to listen to that & certainly not after deciding that I had enough, but something told me to keep listening & so I followed that inner coaching. The guests on the program began discussing the glycemic index & problems associated with something called hyperinsulinemia. Despite being an RN, I knew nothing about this, but I was soon to become a life student of the subject, for here was the answer that had eluded me for decades. I wish I could tell you that it was easy after that, but it wasn't. However, I finally knew what had to happen & that I was to be free from my self-imposed prison, but I would be walking alone.
After being co-dependent for my entire life, I remember feeling a level of panic when everyone seemed to step back from me. It really wasn't clear to me why that happened, but I think it was more about my unwillingness to keep talking about the problem. Perhaps I was ready for the exit, while others were not, but for whatever reason, I was quite alone & that immature part of me that loved being co-dependent was sad & scared.
I was now on a very different path to recovery, one with many more obstacles, but as I progressed I came to understand why those obstacles were there & why they were so important to my long-term health. I'll share some of this with you, but first...
A NOTE TO NEW READERS:
This experiential blog/workshop is based on my new book, "How Many Cookies Will It Take to Make Me Happy?" 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.
THE ALONE-NESS FACTOR & IT'S POSITIVE NATURE
I had been on, what I thought, was a quest for weight loss for most of my teen & adult like. On the day I mentioned earlier, I was placed on a very different course, one that would mean my changing just about everything I had been doing, literally "forever." No one else was doing anything like I was about to do & when I look back, I do have to laugh, for the things I started doing were all super-healthy things & the idea that people would actually be angry with me & even "feared for my life" is so ridiculous. For some reason, I simply could not care about any of this. I wanted to be free & I needed to follow something that made medical sense to me. This meant letting go of old habits, old behaviors & even old conversations.
I mad a set of rules for mySelf that included not discussing what I was doing. I know from being an RN in the mental health field, that it's best to stay away from critics, especially if they are emotionally irrational. For me, this included just about everyone I socialized with, from family, to friends & work-colleagues. So now, I was out of their loop & there was no new loop for me. I was alone, or so I thought. Soon I was to understand that I was far from alone, but needed that "shift" to find the inner parts of me that would guide me through my Recovery, as well as to open new creative doors in my life, doors that would never have been opened if I hadn't moved out of my unproductive & unhealthy circle.
You may be wondering, what about my current relationships with the "old circle". Did they all just drift away? No, but they did move away from me in the beginning & that was a good thing. I needed that space for my shift. But, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, others change when you change & this is what happened with my old circle. They came back, but our relationships were different. Some remained with their unhealthy behaviors, but felt better once they realized that I had no intention of pulling them into my new habits. Others decided to make some changes that they learned from observing me & I just simply observed them, without any comment. To me, the best mentor is one who exhibits healthy behaviors, but is quiet about them. When someone is ready, they will follow.
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.
http://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.bohorquez
http://www.twitter.com/elizRN
http://www.hypnosis-audio.com
http://www.sugar-addiction.com
http://www.international-medical-health-writers
