Inner Housekeeping

Inner organization is key to high level health & performance, so it's probably time for some housekeeping.... Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht

Sugar....the Hidden Eating Disorder - Who's Killing the Kids is a book/workbook/workshop in our Parenting the Parent Series.

I'm happy to share some complimentary mp3 downloads with you. Each is a full interactive self-hypnosis session. Current ones include...
Serious Goal Building &
Becoming Consistent

MIND EXERCISE

It’s a good idea to build a mind containment for each problematic area, especially the bigger ones. This technique is simple & easy to follow. Relax deeply, placing a movie of your daily life up on the mind screen. Play it in slow motion, noticing the areas that are more difficult for you to manage. Notice if you have fear around these. There may be a desire to procrastinate or difficulty focusing. These are simply blocks that need to be dismantled. Be sure to focus on your sugar addiction or disorderly eating. I suggest that you write down your difficult areas. This is another way to begin dismantling blocks.

Now return to the emotion list, locating the problematic emotions that attach themselves to these activities. They may be the same in each area or they may be different. Some people report resentment in restaurant images or fear in the supermarket. Middle of the night eating is often colored in secretive & inner satisfaction colors. Once again, being aware of the problem emotions places you in a position to manage them.

All self- management is accomplished through the position of writer/producer/director. You already know how to do this, as well as how to edit a small production on the mind screen. If you choose, you can practice an emotional switching exercise here. Decide which emotion would benefit you in this moment. Relax deeply, contact the desired emotion, bringing it forward into your moment.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

When there is a tendency towards addiction or disorderly eating, it's common to experience some level of compulsion. This is part of every addictive cycle & tools are needed to awake us to the presence of compulsive emotions, as well as those that pre-empt compulsive activities. Like any other emotion, they have crayons with all the usual levels of coloring available to them.

Just about any emotion can trigger emotional or compulsive eating. In some people it is more about boredom, while in others it is more about rage. Positive state emotions are also known to be responsible & sometimes there are an entire array that play out in different areas of life.

MIND EXERCISE

As you practice interactive awareness, you will begin to notice your emotions that connect themselves to emotional or compulsive eating. While you may have known about them before, seeing them from the position of writer/producer/director is very different indeed.

You have removed your self-judge. You are now open to learning much more about them. The more you to know your emotions, the easier it will be to change their behaviors. In this part of our work it is enough to see or sense them. They are always in more places than you aware of, so lets go ahead and place a subconscious mind request to be shown even more of them. You may wonder why you would want to do this, but remember that you can only change what you can see.

You have some ritual files in your subconscious mind for emotional & compulsive eating. Perhaps some of them have been playing out for years. Holidays bring up lots of these.

Relax deeply & pull out a holiday file. In the file you will find audio & video beliefs about this particular holiday. Play them & observe carefully. Now think seriously about making an addition to the holiday file, one about cutting back on sugar, alcohol, smoking, or food in general. Listen to the mind chatter. These are the emotions attempting to protect the ritual as it is.

The emotions have little to no interest in your managing your addiction or disorderly eating & so they present arguments that range from making sense, to making no sense. They will crayon these arguments as long as you continue to try to put the new addition into the holiday file. But, you have new tools now & you have choices.

These emotions come out in other times as well. Sometimes it’s in the supermarket, arguing about what you should or shouldn’t buy. Keep an eye out for compulsive activities, as well as the thoughts that pre-empt or trigger. Other times it’s at a buffet, or in a restaurant while looking at the menu, or when you are in front of the refrigerator. Some are involved in secret eating. If you have any of those, go ahead & observe them from the position of writer/producer/director. Take your time to observe the details. Listen and look just as if your life depended on it, because it just might. If shame or guilt try to block, simply notice, directing them to step aside as you go forward.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

Emotions are usually on automatic pilot, but they can be purposefully chosen. Those on automatic pilot, may begin coloring before you know it, but as you become more skilled in the practice of interactive awareness, you will be able to release early, make corrections, including changing some of the automatic pilot programs.

You can actually edit-in new automatic responses from healthier emotions. I suggest you take time in observing both the shirts & crayons of your most frequent emotions. The better the identification, the quicker & easier it is to identify them in the moment, as well as to work with them, including bringing them to health & balance.

MEET LAUREN

I’ve been addicted to food & especially sugar for decades. Both of my parents are alcoholics & my grandparents both died from diabetes & heart disease. My mood swings have improved, but for the most part I’m not very joyful. I’ve actually lost friends because of this! Now I have the food in order. How do I get the joy back without feeling like I’m making it up?

It’s helps to use imagery to explain a concept such as this. I see Lauren as being hard on her emotional visitors. She’s done a wonderful job of recovery & needs to celebrate in every moment that she works with new changes, as well as those already achieved. The emotional self is child-like & not about to display joyfulness if it is not rewarded. The joy will come from within, as the inner child is celebrated for a job well done.

Many children of alcoholics look outward for approval. Now you are working with inward self-approval that will shine outward. You might look for new ways to enjoy your life, noticing that others will see you as genuine, because that is who you are.

Also consider locating your other positive state emotions, especially the lower-level ones that haven’t been around for awhile. These are inner assets playing “hide and go seek”. As you begin to work with interactive self-hypnosis you will want to call them forward to help with the management of your addiction &disorderly eating, as well as in many other areas of your goal work.

Remember the “moment fragments” you have been working to identify? Remember that you can only change what you can see?

Well now, let’s pull these ideas together. You may come to realize that once you catch your moment, check the emotional states and their crayons, you will soon be able to enter a state of interactive self-hypnosis “right in the fragment”, changing both the emotions and their crayons!

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

You have many emotional visitors that are specific only to you. We all have negative, as well as positive ones. We all have “parts of ourselves” that we prefer to hide. Emotions that stay in the dark are headed for trouble in the future. It is important to become self-aware, to disassociate from the child-emotion, as well as to provide re-education to this part of your self.

There is no room for guilt or shame. Some of these emotions were given to you when you were very young, others being composites that developed to aid you in some way during your life journey to this point in time. Learning to know the shades of your self in this way is very powerful. They are key to high level health & performance in all areas of life.

Here you are learning to disassemble emotional mind states. It is much easier to manage emotions through the practice of interactive awareness & self-hypnosis. Observe the crayons as well as naming or isolating the emotion. The crayoning represents your mindset. These can be imaged as hats that you agree to place on your head. You know that you do have the freedom to remove any hat that doesn’t benefit you. If in real life you noticed you were wearing an inappropriate hat, or one that was too tight, too big or even un-becoming, I'm sure that you would not hesitate to take it off. You can do the same with any emotional mindset-hat. I'll show you how in the next part of this blog workshop...