Nutrition - The Early Years

The number of individuals with disorderly eating issues is staggering. While there are statistics for anorexia & bulimia, there are none for the myraid of eating disorder patterns that lead to adult onset diabetes & other killer diseases, as well as to addictions. And while it's not just about food or beverage consumption, it is much easier to locate the disorderly eating patterns that connect to addictions, be it smoking, alcohol, drugs, caffeine, sugar or high carbohydrate intake. My years of research show that many of these originated in childhood & so this is where they need to be addressed. Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht

I'm currently working with Jennifer who has a stress-related compulsive & emotional eating disorder that is interfering with her current health & emotional well-being. She is also a secret eater & has hidden her involvement with these behaviors since she was a child. So besides her health issues, this is also playing havoc with her self-image & self-esteem.

Earlier on, Jennifer came to understand that in order for her to change her many destructive patterns, it was best for her to return to her childhood source.......traveling as a mature adult with the express desire to understand & then to gift healing & power to her child-Self. She went prepared with a list of questions for her subconscious mind...

Here's Jennifers first experience with this type of self-exploration...

In the past my mind was always too busy to focus in this way. I've always felt obstructed by my guilt & shame, especially around my food issues. Just knowing how to stay in my mature adult position was empowering & rewarding to me. I loved the way that felt. As I sat quietly & watched the pictures of my younger self on my mind screen, I could feel compassion, not only for myself, but for the situation in general. I was so little & had no power over what was going on. My father had died when I was three, leaving my mother to raise my two brothers & myself. The household was happy on the surface, but it appeared as if we were play-acting. My mother worked & when at home she was very busy. This was when my bingeing & secret eating began. No one really paid attention to what I was doing & so I had my own secret life that served as a haven for my lonliness & powerlessness. I can appreciate that I needed that then, but I realize that I don't need it anymore. I also understand that I can edit those early memories & bring closure to some of the pain my child suffered, simply by self-mothering her. I look forward to doing this.

Just like a puzzle has many pieces, emotional & compulsive eating behaviors have many facets that need to be addressed by relaxing deeply & then asking the right questions. Self-hypnosis allows us to do this while staying in our mature, adult Self position. This is called detachment. While some individuals prefer to do this exploration with a therapist, especially if there is deep abuse, the majority of us can do this level of inner work quite easily & with no negative repercussions. In fact, for most the results are just the opposite, just as in the case of Jennifer who felt empowered in situations that she had uncomfortably repressed for so long.

JENNIFER CONTINUES HER INNER WORK...

I'd like you to open your subconscious mind book to the nutritional area. This is where all of your early eating behaviors are noted. For those of you who are reading, you might like to read this paragraph first & then go deeper down into relaxation before inner exploring with Jennifer. Notice if you were breast- fed or bottle fed. Once you were weaned look at the following areas in ascending years of your life. Notice your family at dinner & the kinds of foods you were offered. See this as a toddler, & then early childhood to middle & late childhood. If nothing comes forward simply relax deeper into the picture. You may get the answers now, or later, but they will come. When we bring a picture up on our mind screen & then relax into it, the subconscious mind will add more detail. You may be surprised at what is served to you!

Also look to notice the ongoing attitudes during meal times.
Were they quiet or noisy?
Was the atmosphere friendly, loving or stress-filled? What else can you see or intuit here?
What were your favorite meal- time foods?
Can you taste them now?
How about snacks?
Were there lots of starches & sugars?
Were snacks controlled or did you have the open cupboard policy?
What sorts of beverages were offered?
Be sure to visit many different years in your life to get a good over-view.

If there were major stress events such as divorce, illness, deaths, view these separately. This will give you good insight as to how your family handled food in relation to stress. You might see where some of your early stressful eating was born. Once this is clear, you can edit these subconscious programs later on with interactive self-hypnosis.

If you were the Producer/Director of any of these memories or mind- scenes you are exploring, is there anything you would change? How would you edit it? Be very specific. Mind-editing is a positive experience. Even through you remember something happening in a particular way, remember this only a perception & therefore it can be changed.

Even if you are quite sure that it happened in the way you remember, you mind files will still benefit from editing. The reason for this is that memory files are coded with chemical emotion & if the chemical emotions do not work in your behalf, mind-editing gives you the opportunity to change this coding. What a great gift to yourself!

Practice with one memory. Just as if you were looking a page in your file that holds this memory, go ahead & re-write it. Perhaps you will diminish some of the emotions, or see your baby as very strong….. super baby! Even though you are planting fiction, & in this instance very humorous fiction, the subconscious mind will love it & the re-editing will be successful. This particular memory now has a healthier emotional code.

JENNIFER...

I'd like to give myself some new memories, especially when I was about seven. For some reason my disorderly eating accelerated in those years. While I'd like to find out more about that, right now I'd like to gift that particular child.

Jennifer can relax deeply into the moment & return to her mature, adult self. On the mind screen she can bring forth her seven year old child & image her opening presents chosen to heal & empower the child in some way. I'm going to suggest that Jennifer give her pictures of her mature, adult self, letting the child know that "everything turned out just right." Perhaps another gift could be an audio tape of soothing affirmations in the voice of her mature, adult self. Notice the child relaxing & practicing healthy eating behaviors. Remember, the subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between what is real & what is made up.

This blog is the workshop for thoughtWARE Books. The series includes Help.....My Life is Killing Me - Lifestyle Change Made Easy, Beyond Disorderly Eating & Bingeing, Holistic Weight Loss , Sugar....the Hidden Addiction, Nail Biting & Skin Picking & Small Change - The Power of Interactive Self-Hypnosis. At the present time I am seeking an agent and/or publisher.

Preparing for Change

We all want everything yesterday, but champions are not made like that. Every moment in a championship performance contains thousands of knowledge-gathering & practice moments. It's the same for lifestyle change & self-rehabilitation. Short-cuts simply don't make a champion.... Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht

What is it about not wanting to do the work necessary to achieve? Yesterday I met Jane, a 30-something professional with a rather serious alcohol problem. It didn't take long for her to get into denial, despite the fact she sought my help. While this may sound incongruous, it's quite common. The belief goes something like this.... "If I seek help & it doesn't work, then at least I tried." This is a door-knob or escape technique, taking the individual back to addiction "jail."

It's seems so much easier to stick one's head in the sand & ignore reality. Yes, it does take work to change lifestyle behaviors & to break old patterns that take one down roads that are potentially dangerous. My take on this, is "either you do or you don't & no matter what you do or don't do, you will be getting outcomes.

The severity of the outcomes will depend on where you've been, where you are & where you have chosen to go. For Jane, the outcomes are going to be quite severe unless she chooses to awaken. For some reason, younger adults seem to think they can wait to employ change. This is a very dangerous belief & sets the stage for all kinds of trouble. For Jane, this could mean severe damage to many different organs in her body. Jane's reaction to this was "it's just wine." Just another attempt to deny & grab the door-knob.

SO WHAT'S A GIRL TO DO?

For Jane, this is about much more than putting down the bottle. Careful observation told me that her wine drinking was connected to a low self-esteem, self-image & lack of maturity. She was totally disconnected to her authentic self, therefore not allowing her to manage incoming stress in a healthy fashion. Work with Jane is going to involve rescue & rehabilitation of her true Self.....not a journey for weaklings.

The basic tool Jane & I will utilize is called Interactive Heightened Awareness. It involves becoming very aware of specific behaviors & the emotions that are coloring them. Jane cannot change what she isn't willing to see, or what she can't see at all. Many of her behaviors & emotional reactions are very ingrained, although she may know them as part of her personality or "just the way she is". These behaviors may or may not be perfectly fine. Rule of thumb.....if they are interfering with quality of life experience & health, they need to go or to be changed.

Most of us are bogged down with behaviors & emotions that work against us. Some are hidden & some we hide from because it just seems easier to do that. You don't have to look far to know how true this is. It's easier to see this in others, so try to notice what you criticize in others. More than likely this is your own short-fall.

GETTING TO KNOW YOURSELF - THE POWER OF PERSONAL ASSESSMENT

Take a moment to deeply relax & just as if you were looking in a big filing cabinet, find the folder that contains your current lifestyle patterns. As your mind scans the material, notice that some appear familiar, but others may not be quite so clear. While you think you know yourself & how you spend your time, you are about to find out that you know less about yourself than you thought. That is because a good part of your day is spent in a very limited conscious state known as low-level awareness, or automatic pilot I call this is day-sleep walking, a form of automatic self-hypnosis.

It is difficult to honestly see oneself & even more difficult when one doesn't know what to look for when looking in the self-disclosure-mirror. This is where the power of personal assessment comes to help & guide you.

Let's practice some self-exploration. You already know that most of your mind programs are automatic & well-woven into the fabric of your life. The subconscious mind is available to help you wake up, but you are going to need to know how to communicate very specifically concerning what you truly want & for this you will need special data collection. Once you have the information or data, then you will be free to examine it carefully without judgment & then to decide if you would like to change or mind-edit this information before returning it to your subconscious mind library.

Even though you may think that you know everything you need to know to make changes in your lifestyle behaviors, most likely you do not. Like the octopus, the head of the behavior may be above water, but the tentacles or roots of the behavior are below the surface. We sense these as blocks, resistance or procrastination. We want to change & know what needs to change, or so we think & then we simply can't move, just as if our feet were sitting in tar or cement.

So you will be needing additional information that may not be in your current memory bank, but waiting for you in your subconscious mind library & you will have to ask directly for this information. Some of these things will pertain to your family of origin, as well as from your own health, emotional & behavioral history starting from the time you were an infant & up through this very moment.

You will also be reclaiming memory files about your beliefs, how you got them & whether or not they are blocking your current progress. Beliefs are like coats, many of which were placed on you when you were a child or perhaps unaware as an adult. Some may have been forced on you by someone who appeared stronger than you in that moment. But that was then & now is now. You are taking back your personal power & ownership of only the beliefs you choose to wear at this moment in time.

You will be guiding yourself with images of what you do want. That is why we must spend time in thinking about this. It's important to review your life & notice the areas, both big & small that do not reflect what you want & also to notice areas that do reflect those positive aspects. They need to be divided, just as if you were cleaning & clearing your home. When you have accomplished this, you can enter any area of your Inner Library & start inner exploring. The lights will go on & it will easier to see in the corners of your belief closet & the past experiences that are connected to these.

When your Inner Librarian or Coach spots something that may be of interest for a self-review, you will find yourself receiving the message. This is rather like having a wonderful personal assistant who is completely attuned with you.

The library of your mind is vast. You began collecting subconscious experiences & corresponding belief coats in the beginning of your life, even though you cannot consciously remember these. All coats & experiences, old or new, big or small can hold important information & keys to your success, as well as reasons for past failures. You may have a desire or tendency to rush through this kind of self-detective work. Perhaps you even recognize this as a past behavioral trait of yours. This is a good example of Heightened Awareness. You may have uncovered an unhealthy source that leads to procrastinating or self-blocking. When you spot these tendencies, pretend that they are colored child-blocks, labeled with their name. Place them in a pile over there.

While it's just fine to read through the thoughtWARE Book material to become familiar, don't fall into the trap of hurrying & not doing the detailed detective work. You will be cheating yourself & taking away from the quality of what you are capable of doing, perhaps even taking you down past roads of failure.

There is no easy road when looking to achieve high level health & optimum performance. If it were, more people would be experiencing it. thoughtWARE Books offer you the opportunity to see & address your short & long falls, as well as your potential. As you build your commitment to this self-development work, you probably will want to review this area more than once so as to build on the already presented memories.

You probably know plenty of people who want to change something, but simply can’t figure out how or when to get started. Somehow it never seems to be the right time. Excuses abound that keep them engaged in procrastination. Perhaps you have had this personal experience & are wondering right in this moment if you can do this. This is another colored child-block called "doubt". It usually accompanies "lack of self-confidence."

Do know that this time it will be different than before, because I’m going to help you get started & find your balance. In fact, you are already in the process because you are reading this workshop blog. It’s said that when a rubber band is stretched, it never returns to it’s original position, & so with reading material such as this. The actual process of reading engages your right brain, or subconscious mind & so inner motivators are already etching. Notice if you can sense them.

Throughout this inner detective work you will be activating the different areas with a light application of Interactive Self-Hypnosis. Managing health issues, addictions or getting to the heart of any problem involves the act of beginning. You must commit & step onto the merry-go-round of life. Life does not stand & still & wait for you. So reach out & grab on to the golden ring.