Enter Food Stress

In order to help with the amount of information that is a part of the BlogAlong Workshop for High Level Health & Performance, I've set up a separate blog to house it in an orderly fashion. Here's the LINK.

This workshop is reviewing several of my books & CD/mp3 programs. The focus of my work has always been high level health & performance. This goes back decades into those years when I was the director of staff development in a large hospital setting. My "theme" was & still remains that no one gets away free. This includes hospital patients, as well as staff.

If you are working with my books or programs, you do know that no matter what you are choosing to accomplish, I'll always be taking you to the major area or garden on your goal-den path, called the mindbody health garden. This is where your body parts live. Sometimes, especially very left-brained people, find this type of wording or description "bothersome" or "child-like." However, in the practice of self-hypnosis we work with active imagery & affirmations. These are programs that speak directly to the subconscious mind which is the "child-mind" & so we need to get over this hurdle.

Back to the mindbody health garden now.......& to the body parts. If we take the time to think about it, even if we tend to be a very serious, left-brained person, it is quite obvious that if we don't take care of the body machine, it will not work correctly. How is it that we can understand about computers, cars, DVD's, cell phones, etc., but we have such difficulty in applying our intelligence & creativity to our body? Why are we so complacent? Why do we think that we can do whatever we want with our body & get away with it? Why is it so difficult to understand that wear & tear applies to body parts, as well as to cars & other machines?

The most horrendous stress to the body & to the mind is food stress. When the body & mind are under this kind of stress, the effect of other stressors, both inner & outer are greatly enhanced, sometimes leading to complete break-down of one or several systems. We see this in a body reaction called reactive hypoglycemia or hyperinsulinemia. People can die from these reactions, as well as be responsible for deaths of others if they are driving or operating equipment.

While many of us understand that what we eat & drink can harm our body, few of us care in the moment that we are indulging in whatever it is. The common thread is "I'll change tomorrow, or better still, "I really have to stop doing this." There is no thought to the internal damage that accumulates, almost as if the body had no true response in any shape or form to eating the donut, skipping breakfast, sipping sugared caffeine during the day, eating fast food or those two gigantic glasses of wine on the way home from work. Add the ice cream while watcing tv, just to relax before hitting the pillow. I was telling a patient today that if the body had a calculator that could be easily read, I wonder if we would act differently. Probably not....... we are simply children at heart who are interested in the world of "right now."

If this weren't enought, there is usually little thought or care to the effect of all of this on the mind, not in the present nor in the future. There have been some interesting studies on the effect of food stress related to depression, anxiety, panic, cognitive functioning & even creativity. Unfortunately, these studies rarely, if ever, reach the public. I wonder if you can guess why this is? Feel free to write to me if you think you know or send an email to your discussion group that is following this workshop.

OH WHAT TO DO ....

Yes, it is difficult to change things that we don't want to change & that is why we need motivators, both positive & negative. Some motivators come to us personally delivered, like the doctor saying that one has cancer of the lung, or that one is a heart attack waiting to happen. I had a patient like that this week. He was the most motivated person I ever met. Yes, he could & would move mountains if I told him to do so. However, my very next patient, a woman who was more than 200 pounds over-weight continued to argue about her night eating habits & diet soda consumption. She was unable to even consider that she could change.

We tend to see ourselves as victims or weaklings. Big, serious motivators allow us to jump through the hoops, but without one of those, we are artisans of excuses, dilly-dallying or even liking living the victim life. We can't see or feel our personal power, almost as if we didn't want to. It's like no one ever showed it to us & perhaps that is true, especially if we were brought up with parents who simply didn't know better or who were abusive. However, we all have oodles of personal power. We were born with it. That is called our authentic self. In this workshop we will get back in touch with that part through the mind screen. If you are working with my mp3 or CD called the Authentic Self, you are already well on your way.

Now a question for you. Suppose I had met the man with the potential for the heart attack before he visited his physician & heard the magic words. Do you think his motivation would have been different? Based on my experience, I tend to think it would have been. So, do we need to hear the worst case scenario before we can change? For some of us, perhaps. But, there are other ways to effect change.

Here are some points of awareness for the mind screen. Right now we're talking about food stress. This also includes beverages, so alcohol, soda & coffee drinkers .... pay attention here. Locate your mind screen & place the following....

If it enters my mouth, it will have an effect on my body & my mind. The effect will either help or hinder me, now & in the future.( Feel that now)

I have to become educated about foods & beverages & know what they do inside my body, not just in general, but to specific parts as well. In other words, I must remove my head from the sand. I do not have special permission to get past the gate-keeper that guards my mind & body. I will pay the piper.( Feel that now.)

I have to become honest with to myself. If not, I will pay the consequences. ( feel that now.)

You need to change through the development of self-discipline. Some of us were never taught these skills & so we know nothing about it. Others of us were brought up in rigid environments & so we've become rebellious. Both need awareness & change.( Feel that now.)

I am capable of much more than I think. It is not too late, or any other excuse my child-mind would like to share with me in this moment. It's all rubbish & dangerous rubbish at that. (Feel that now.)

I believe that I deserve the best that life has to offer, no matter what anyone else has told me. This includes my health, prosperity in my work, relationships & my level of creativity. Only I can deliver this to myself & so the choices from here on forward are up to me. I get to build your own life bank account. Any moments I choose to lose, could have been gains. ( Feel that now.)

NEW MEMBER INFORMATION

Welcome back to the BlogAlong Self-Development Workshop. This online workshop follows my books/programs including Sugar....the Hidden Eating Disorder & How to Lick It, Beyond Disorderly Eating, the Mind & Body Fitness Boot Camp, Stop Nail Biting Now: 4 Steps to Success, as well as many of my CD/mp3 programs. If you are new to the Workshop, please read the early entries because this is like any other workshop you might attend. If you are late, there are things you have missed that will interfere with your understanding of the process for the attainment of high level health & performance.

The BlogAlong workshop is both didactic & interactive. The latter includes active discussions, mp3 downloads from my available library, as well as some designed specifically for this workshop. To participate in the discussions you will need to join one of my email yahoogroups. There are ten of them, located on my website or you can email me for an invitation. I suggest you work with a three ring binder &/or a journal. This will reinfoce your subconscious mind programs.