belief patterns

A Look at Eating Disorders

I used to treat only eating disorders because I was the chief psychologist of an inpatient program as part of the teaching hospital of the medical school at the University of CA Irvine.  We were sent the toughest cases because of our reputation.  (Later I developed, chose the staff for and then directed an inpatient and outpatient eating disorder center at a prestigious psychiatric hospital in another state).  As a result of these experiences, I have many, many stories of extreme cases.  I remember one time a beautiful flight attendant came into the program (she had great pressure from the airline to stay at a particular weight and was taken off of a flight if she was weighed by them and found to be one pound over the limit).  She was a challenge because of her desperate internal struggle between “minding” the authorities and deciding to be a person with her own choices.  One day, she shared with me in a session at the hospital, she came home after a trip, drove to her home in one of the canyons where no stores stayed open very late and found that she had absolutely nothing in her cabinets or refrigerator to eat.  She didn’t keep extra food because she would devour it, no matter how full she felt.  It was late.  No possibilities were open to her to get anything.  She opened the one can she had of dog food and began to eat it.  Suddenly she caught a glimpse of herself in her mind, got very scared and called for help.  There are lots of experiences like that I could share with you.  No one but an eating disorder person could relate fully to this woman.  She wasn’t crazy, she wasn’t mentally ill, she had an addiction.  All of those who have any kind of an addiction, no matter what it is, can also understand her desperation at that moment in time.  It is powerful, it has taken over one’s life when it has gotten to this point.  What can a person do?  Not just because I am a psychologist but because I know this to be absolutely the truth – get professional help.  Go to someone who has experience for several reasons – they have the tools, they have the knowledge and they have a deeper understanding of the depth of your compelling desire to eat until you are overly full and then either purge or use laxatives or…  

Actually, there are two kinds of bulimics, which we are speaking about now, another day I will talk at length about anorexia nervosa but today, it is the bulimic I am describing.  The first kind is drawn to how it feels to get full – they erroneously think that getting full means they are finally feeling fulfilled.  Not a chance is that true, but it feels like it is true, until the next time they feel empty – which is most likely very soon, a day or less.  Then they must do it again, to get that false feeling of fullness.  I once had a bulimic say to me words that I’ll never forget:  ”I will binge to the point of unconsciousness until my Soul is no longer starving.”  Our work together could certainly begin in a deeper way once she had “gotten” it that binging was about a Soul-hunger, not a stomach hunger.  Her Soul was crying out to be listened to, to be honored, to be fed.  Soul-food is very different from regular food, as of course everyone knows. Or do they?  

The other kind of bulimic gets addicted to purging.  That person feels that if they vomit out all the food they had just binged on they would no longer feel the awful feelings they were feeling at that time.  They felt that they would be free of them if they just got rid of them by purging.  Again, not a chance is that true, but ut feels true to them at the moment – every moment- that they go to the food.  ”Maybe this time it will work and I won’t ever have those feelings come up again, or those images, or…”

What is the similarity between these  2 types?  They both have a belief that enough food or enough purging will “cure” them.  That they will never have to deal with emptiness or a myriad of horrid feelings again.  When either of those ways don’t work after awhile, they just do them again, hoping that this time they will have success.

Of course I have only touched on all the complexities of bulimia, but I wanted to bring these particular points up today to have you examine if you or anyone you know is battling with something that does literally take over one’s life.  If so, perhaps awareness will bring a bit of clarity as to what needs to happen next, not repeating the same pattern but interrupting it by getting help.  It doesn’t go away on its own.  It doesn’t solve any issues you may have, it only increased them.

One other thing, it isn’t a good idea for anyone in a family who suspects (or knows) that another member is having this challenge to get in between the bulimia and the behavior you know is going on.  You aren’t the one who can solve this kind of huge issue.  Make a phone call instead.  I have known partners who try to assist with this issue and the relationship suffers because of it.  

No matter how long someone has been having this major challenge, it is very possible for them to recover.  Never think that a person is doomed because they have an addiction of any kind (and I have dealt with really tough ones besides this one).  It is totally possible, with a willingness to reach out, not  for food, but for professional help.

belief patterns

10 Steps to Step into the World of Possibilities

1. Focus your attention on what you believe about your world now, at this moment.  Ask yourself if YOU think you’re experiencing your family, work, environment, friends (everything with that world) as a place of “all things are possible here, it is exciting, open, challenging…” or “things are about like they have been for several years, some ups, some downs, mostly status quo.”  

2. Next, be willing to take 100% responsibility for EVERYTHING that is happening in your world, whether you believe you are the “victim” of certain circumstances of not.

3. Begin immediately to do at least one action that is outside of your ordinary way of doing or being.  In other words, be outrageous (not endangering yourself or others), just step outside of the limits you unknowingly have placed around your life.

4. As you do the above activity, make it uncommon, far out FOR YOU to consider and one which can benefit you in some way, like building a birdhouse when you’ve never picked up a hammer or driving over to a friend’s house and leaving a note (or flowers) on their doorstep.  I imagine you’ve thought of a few by now.  Don’t censor yourself, rather unlimit yourself.  

5. Next, write a paragraph about how it felt to move beyond your “normal” way of thinking, acting, doing, and being.  Write about what you imagined before doing your uncommon activity, and how you see yourself and your world now that you’ve accomplished the action.  If you have really experimented with and been honest about the above steps, you are moving into the land of possibilities, a land where new vistas can be seen.  The horizon of your particular life has just expanded and YOU did it.

6. Okay, now focus your attention on what you think a miracle is.  I am guessing it is some form of “I’d like one but I don’t know how to have it occur” or “I don’t really believe in miracles.”  Think of a time in your life where something extraordinary happened, something you didn’t think could occur AND it did.  I know you have at least occurrence you can consider here.  When you have one in mind, notice that the miracle happened in spite of your particular belief.

7. Other miracles can show up in your life now IF you consciously choose to look for them and you have shifted your perception of the “way things are,” “the way your world is set up,” to the impossible happening.  For the next four days, take the time to be in the world of miracles (unlimited possibilities)/  They are happening around you right now but your perception and your beliefs keep you from noticing them.

8. After 4 days, it you haven’t yet seen and or experienced at least one miracle you are probably still in the land of skepticism.  Open yourself to the unknown more.  Stay tuned in to what is present right now in your world that you hadn’t paid attention to before this moment.  At first, it may seem small or not even in the category of the miraculous.  Look again.  Expand your fenced-in notions of what a miracle, a possibility, an unlimiting thought would be.  Remember, giving up the small area of the room you’ve lived in a lot of your life to explore a mansion with open doors everywhere is necessary for possibilities to enter.  Begin walking out of the room towards the rest of the house immediately.  This action means literally stepping out of what you know is comfortable, secure (and a little boring) to vast realms of adventurous, mystifying, but intriguing explorations.

9. Allow, allow, allow the old beliefs of what your world has been and must be to fade away and let in the newness, the glory, the ecstasy of that splendor you are beginning to unleash, to unimprison.

10. After all, what DO you want to do with you one wild and precious life??? Whatever it is, continue to know that, if you are having fun, playing this life intentionally but lightly, you can dwell in this world of possibilities.  The reward is inherent in the process and this possibility world gives back to you the magic and wonder a child naturally creates.

belief patterns

Be Bold, Be Brave, Be Brand New today

What do I see, what do I hear and what do I encounter every day as I go to one of my five offices, four in Los Angeles area, one in Santa Fe?  Discontent of some kind, either with themselves or with their relationships.  I rarely find people who directly say – I am fed up with the me I’ve created so far, the life I have chosen up until now.  That very statement, though, is what I hear as I listen between the lines.  What are people fed up with?  Their unwillingness to take the chances necessary to have a great, joyous and free life.  Bound by their old belief patterns, imprisoned by their own decisions along the way, these people need to break out of their safe, little shells and become somebody they don’t even recognize – that can happen in an instant, once a choice to break free has been made.  Do it, see what happens.  You can always go back to the old, habitual ways of being.  For today, do something different with your life, even if it is just driving a totally different way to work or deciding you are going to talk about things and to people that you ordinarily would not do.  I was working with someone last week who told me some very moving experiences he had had about 6 years ago, before he moved to another state.  As we talked, he almost in a whisper said, “what I’m describing to you is what I know I came into this world to do, yet, I’m not doing it now.”  He almost wept.  He was somewhat startled to have heard these very words come out of his mouth.  But, they were out in the room now, those words, his admission, his jarring understanding of how far off course he had gotten.  It was very moving to be with him during this moment and the time that was left for us to process what he was uncovering from the depths of his awakened mind.  

What do you think your purpose is?  How close to your calling, your message from your Soul, are you?  Is what you are doing what you know you are to do here at this time in your life?  If so, hurray for you.  If not, when do you think you might start doing and being what you came here to do and to be?  The time is now, the openings you have missed are probably many, due to your just not paying attention to what was being whispered into your “ear” (through hunches, nudges, intuitive waves of clarity).  You are here for something so much greater than you have been willing to embrace, I am imagining.  You haven’t even touched the huge calling that has been waiting  for you to embrace it and run with it.  What have you been doing instead, what have you said to yourself that made it okay to ignore this enormous, glorious undertaking that only you are here to do.  No one else was given this particular assignment, you were.  I sense that you have an inkling of what it is but don’t want to think about it for very long – just a fleeting second, a fleeting glimpse of what it truly is.

Oh yes, your Soul has been trying to get your attention, yes it has.  When will you get still enough to let It tell you Its Knowings.  Now?  Next week?  Next year?  What are you waiting for?  I mean, really, what are you doing to stop yourself from “going for it, whatever “it” is?  I know, fear, in all its many disguises.  Underneath it all, it is fear – fear of failure and fear of success.  That about covers it, doesn’t it?  Well, I urge you to reconsider the timing, the world is waiting for you to come out of hiding and gift us all with your doing your thing, your particular, unique thing.  You don’t have to study anymore to know how to do what it is – you have the knowledge inside of you, the answers came in with you, your Soul has kept them very neatly in a place that is immediately accessible to you, you just have to be open to receiving.  Open, like a beautiful bud that gives us its inside majestic part at the exact moment it is meant to open.  Have you ever watched that bud from beginning to the end, have you noticed that most of the buds open up at night?  That seems like a great metaphor for us today, doesn’t it?  We usually don’t even think about changing what we are doing or questioning our calling until we are “in the dark times” of our lives – things aren’t feeling too great that we are doing day after day.  We are a bit depressed, perhaps, or just discontented with where we are at this time in our lives.

Come now, walk into the Light, the wisdom is right beyond your mind’s excuses for staying where you are. Stop listening to your mind and start listening carefully to your heart, your Spirit, your Essence, your Soul.  What a magnificent discovery you will find, not when you reason it all out, but rather when you turn off the analysis of it all and just flow with your revelations as they come to you – they don’t make “sense” sometimes but you follow those hunches, those intuitive inklings and a whole new world will appear – it will seem out of nowhere, but really it has been there all the time.  You had to take off the old pair of glasses and the worn-out ear plugs and allow the astounding True Self to appear.  Welcome that Brand New You, unrecognizable yet somehow familiar.  Life is just beginning – again.  Things will now become effortless.  Energy will be boundless and you will be a new alleluia from head to toe.  ”Thank you, O my Soul, for this new me” you will be whispering.