July 2010 Newsletter – Overcoming negative thinking and emotional eating

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Hello to you all

I hope you are all getting to enjoy the soccer fever of the world cup wherever you may be?

One of the big issues many of my clients talk about is emotional eating. Food can often become the ‘drug of choice’ when there is stress, pain, loneliness, boredom etc or it can be simply used as a diversion from what you are truly feeling.

What many of us don’t realise is that emotions are not our enemies. They are there as an indicator of what is truly going on inside of us. They are there to guide us

If you occasionally have a pity party (I've had many, and I'm sure some of you have too?), it's okay; there is nothing wrong with taking some time to feel sorry for yourself or your situation. What does matter is how much time you spend in that energy and how long it takes for you to pick yourself up and take action. Looking at your thought processes can be a huge step in returning your power into your own hands and helping you walk away from emotional eating.

The number one thing to realise is that the cause of emotional eating is in your mind, not your emotions. Emotions are virtually always responses to thoughts. Every thought leads to an emotion. Every emotion creates an action. Every action creates a reaction. And it all begins with your thought. The wonderful news is that we can change our thoughts - deliberately. We do this by developing awareness of what we are thinking: by listening to our thoughts, questioning them and creating new more empowering thoughts in their place.

A popular concept today is think only positive thoughts, as positive thoughts attract positive outcomes. This can be very much true—our mind-sets and thoughts are very powerful resources in living the type of lives we desire. With every thought comes a choice in that moment. Even so, we need to accept that sometimes we aren't thinking a positive thought, and that's truly okay too. If we keep being hard on ourselves because we aren't thinking a positive thought, then we may head into a downward spiral. So when a negative feeling or thought enters your mind, instead of becoming upset with yourself for allowing negativity to sneak in, simply accept that you having it, observe it, acknowledge it (ask yourself the questions below to help you understand it) and then send it on its way. Suppressing negativity simply gives it the power to revisit you, and each time it will come back even stronger.

So at this point, just realise that your thoughts have power in themselves. Your deeply held beliefs, your fears, your hopes, your worries, your attitudes, your desires, and each and every thought you think, all have an effect on you, others, and your environment.

How we feel in the moment is the way we represent an experience to ourselves. We create the meaning of every moment in our lives and it’s our interpretation of these moments that can lead to emotional eating!

Every emotion, even the negative ones, serve us by giving us a message about what is happening inside us and how our environment (people, work, home, health etc) is affecting us. Appreciate the signal your emotion is sending you and be curious about how the signal can serve you in your growth and understanding around eating!

ACTION PLAN TO MASTER EMOTIONS:

1. Identify the emotion you are feeling  - What exactly am I feeling?

2. Appreciate the message this emotion is giving you. It’s there for a reason!

    Check your thought processes:

• Is this emotion appropriate for this moment with this person / situation?
• Am I overreacting?
• Am I taking things more personally than I should be?
• Is my emotion real or am I reading into a situation?
• What evidence is there that this thought is true or untrue?
• Could there be another way to view this situation? What is it?
• What is the effect of my believing this thought and what could be the effect of changing my thinking?
• What is the most realistic outcome of this situation?
• What would I tell [a friend/loved one/ family member], if he/she were in this situation and had this thought?
• Is there anything I can do to change this situation this minute? If yes, what?
• What should I do now?

3. Get curious:

• What do I really want to feel?
• How do I change how I’m feeling to what I want to feel?
• What would I have to believe to feel positive right now?
• What am I ready to do now to feel positive?
• What’s great about this? What did I learn? (In these questions lie your growth/ self development)

4. Now you can overcome!

• Think how else you can behave in this situation?
• Rehearse other options in your mind.
• Try on other behaviours, other ways of communicating/ reacting.

5. Get excited! You have found other empowering ways of being. Your are developing new resources for the future J! You are now on the road to ending emotional eating!!

Kind regards

Lesley Wood

021-4182843

082 3 782 782

www.weight-masters.com

All feedback appreciated!! I love receiving your questions, recipes or queries! Email me at info@weight-masters.com. I will endeavour to return your mail within 48 hours.

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depend upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. Plato

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A post script: This one may make you think!!

       
THE SITUATION

In Washington, DC, at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, a man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about an hour.  During that time, approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After about 3 minutes, a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule. 


About 4 minutes later: 

The violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk. 

 
At 6 minutes: 

A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again. 


At 10 minutes:

A 3-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly.  The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent - without exception - forced their children to move on quickly.


At 45 minutes:

The musician played continuously.  Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while.  About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace.  The man collected a total of $32.

After 1 hour:

·        He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed and no one applauded.  There was no recognition at all.

 No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.  Two days before, Joshua Bell sold-out a theatre in Boston where the seats averaged $200 each to sit and listen to him play the same music.


This is a true story.  Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro Station, was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities. 

This experiment raised several questions: 

* In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? 

* If so, do we stop to appreciate it? 

* Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?


 

One other possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this: 

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made, how many other things are we missing as we rush through life?