Foundation Golden Bricks may differ for each of us, but even if one doesn't have disorderly eating issues, there truly must be a foundation brick for nutrition, as well as one for physical exercise. In fact, these should be put in place in early childhood. Unfortunately, this was not the case for me, although I was very physically active as a child, up until the time I was married. While I always enjoyed sports, I never thought about exercise as being a part of my daily health regime. Regime? I have to laugh as I write this. I never thought of any regime whatsoever, simply living my life from the end of a swinging rope. On the other hand, it wasn't like I never thought about exercise, because I did. I joined many gyms, but never lasting very long. The same with purchasing other exercise equipment, books & videos. I tried leaving my exercise clothers out, running shoes by the door, packing a gym bag to keep in the car. Quite honestly, I was an embarrassment to mySelf. Despite being very disciplined in my work, nothing seemed to carry through into my own self-care. There were times when I thought about it, but my mind was able to keep those ideas well away from me....perhaps someday, but not now. There was simply no time to fit anything else into my busy life & besides, I had no energy.
Now, I know that I was not alone with my exercise woes. In fact, I had enough friends to help me stay in my unproductive & unhealthy state. We ate our unhealthy diets together & shared exercise horror stories, convincing each other that none of this was possible for people such as us. It felt so good to have such supportive friends, but the day I woke up & knew I had to change, was the day I felt very much alone & afraid. As I looked around, I honestly did not have one person in my life who had a healthy eating plan or exercised routinely. And so, I was going to have to design some very important foundation bricks & learn to live within them.
Designing hypnotic images truly saved my life. Without these living foundation images, I was easily swayed to return to my old procrastinations, for indeed, they were extremely strong & very well etched into my subconscious mind. You might say that I was a true expert at procrastinating about food & certainly with exercise. The first golden brick I designed was the one I discussed in the previous blog, the food golden brick. The second focused on exercise. I remember thinking that I would not be successful & was very worried about it, even more so than the food. However, it is a basic premise in hypnotherapy that negativity has to be completely removed....no images, no thoughts, no inner or outer discussion...nothing but positive & motivational thoughts & images. I knew that I was not to look for negative conversation from others & if I found others talking in negative terms about their experiences, or trying to draw me in, I was to leave the venue. I remember doing that a few times, but then realized that I could turn the conversation around without seeming like a preacher.
As a therapist, I've taught the ins & outs of these awareness techniques to all of my patients & students, for few of us have ever learned to view ourSelves & our issues through these lenses. I'll share some of these with you in just a moment, but first I'd like to welcome new readers...
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 GOAL-DEN EXERCISE BRICK
I utilized the "automatic writing hypnotic journal" to build my Goal-den Exercise Brick, the reason being that I had a tremendous history of resistance & failure to long-term discipline. Writing about my history helped to clear my "creative space." In order to make changes, just like in redecorating a room, everything must be removed. Then, you can put useful things back in place, while getting other things that you might need. This was my approach inside my newest Goal-den Brick. It is clean, clear, bright & happy. Remember, no negatives are allowed to exist. Emptying through journaling took care of this. I then remember hanging a calendar on one of the inner walls of my brick.
I remember not being able to circle the five days for exercise. Each time I went to do this, I hesitated. This was resistance. I then went deeper into my trance state, disallowing any inner conversation. I remember stepping away from the calendar & locating things I needed which included a gym membership because I live in a hot, humid climate & the weather had always provided an excellent excuse. In the past, rainy days were happy days! I also needed some new shoes & clothers that didn't hold moisture. Then, back to the calendar. Since I was still resistant, I called in my Higher & Therapeutic Selves to take care of this. What was extraordinary, was that it was accomplished "just like that." No discussion....just done. It was made clear to me about the timing & other details were simply presented. I remember feeling a sense of relief. It was decided & it was over. From that day forward I never, ever had another inner negative discussion about exercise....strange but true. Now why was this is different from my previous years of "exercise debate"? I'll share some thoughts about this in my next blog.
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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