Geneen Roth Session #6

This is the last online session that happened back last summer. Since I am dusting off all my Geneen Roth materials I decided to finish the last session that I never got to.

Geneen has many practices that she outlines throughout her books and her session. She wants us to pick one practice at a time and work on that. Not to try to do this all at the same time. It's too overwhelming to make all the changes at once. But change isn't going to happen on its own- we have to work the practice one at a time. Master one and move to the next practice. Continue to work all the past practices. What are you willing to put into practice?

Notes -

1. We do not change ourselves by force, deprivation, guilt, fear, shame, or punishment. This results in a counter force that makes your rebound in some way at some time.
2. Force closes the heart.
3. Change happens from love to love.
4. When we practice being kind to ourselves and listening to ourselves it becomes impossible to binge. (what is going on, am i hungry, am i full, why do i want to binge) - be quiet with yourself and listen.
5. Take in the good in your life - what's positive, appreciate it, acknowledge (not necessarily huge things - small accomplishments are great too).
6. Do you feel safe at the weight you are at? Do you need to feel badly about yourself to feel safe? Do you identify yourself at a certain weight?
7. Who are you loyal to? What are you loyal to?
8. What do you need to do to feel loved? Is it maladaptive?
9. How do you realign? Be curious about it, inquire about it, sit with it, disengage from "the voice"
10. Brain likes familiarity. Outside of this creates dissonance, lack of safety feeling, pull to go back
11. Expect to be very uncomfortable getting outside of your comfort zone.
12. The more you turn to food when you are not hungry the more powerless you feel about taking action on your own behalf. You feel younger, more hopeless, more dependant.
13. Food is not teaching you to trust yourself, feel more powerful, not serving your best interest, not bringing you closer to yourself
14. It's good to have an inquiry partner that you can meet with regularly to talk. Follow the inquiry steps in the back of Women, Food and God.
15. Change your orientation or relationship to your experiences and redirect from food.
16. It's not about the experience itself it's how you react to it.
17. Meditation - don't feel like a failure if this is hard to do.
18. Meditation - time to be with yourself, know what is going on in your mind, getting to know your mind
19. Don't let your thoughts send you to a binge. They are just thoughts and shouldn't have that power. No matter how horrible or mean. All thoughts should be welcomed and questioned.
20. Thoughts are uncontrollable, what you can control is where you place your attention (relationship to them)
21. "When I get to the end of my life I want to a bride that was married to amazement."
22. Our life is not about the number on the scale or how good we did last week or our pants size. It's about knowing who we are. Use our relationship with food to know who we are.

Geneen Roth Session #5 Notes

This isn't a must read all for all. I am just using the blog as a place to take my notes from the Geneen Roth session that was held, just a short 8 months ago. I never finished listening to the sessions. Something about listening without seeing is hard to do. I don't know how they did it back in the day when a radio was all people had. YIKES!



"Relearning Loveliness"

1. Change needs to be taken slowly. It doesn't happen overnight. Make your choices and start to make small changes and build on that new habit.


2. How do you change a habit? By wanting to make a change.


3. Binge = bolting from yourself and avoiding discomfort


4. Become aware on a daily basis your goals.


5. Every binge = a lost opportunity to be with yourself and to break free from your pattern.


6. Question the beliefs that lead you to think that it is not OK for you to be happy.


7. Sometimes it is necessary to retreach a thing its loveliness. To put a hand on its brow on the flow and to retell it in words and in touch that it is lovely.


8. Question the belief that you are not lovely (i.e. always a failure, not loveable, not fixable)


9. This process is not an intellectual process.


10. When your mind stops you can reach your true being. Tap into essense.


11. Know your patterns and you will be able to divert more quickly. You don't have to keep rexploring it.

Some Updates

Hi all -

I haven't posted in awhile. Been a bit busy, super tired, and not really motivated. But wanted to touch base so I don't fall out of habit again.

1.) Just found out today that the kitty i fostered a few weeks back was adopted to a nice family. I am happy for her and happy for me that I didn't have to make a decision on whether to adopt her myself. :o)

2.) Heading to Arkansas tomorrow for a quick business trip. Should be OK on the food front. My only problem is that its hard to stay on schedule so I tend to find myself really hungry and then make bad decisions. So I am taking some snacks with me to have on hand.

3.) I have started reading Geneen Roth again and am working on her thoughts on not dieting and trying to focus on eating when I am hungry and eating what I am hungry for. Crazy thought! But I lost a few pounds this week and I even had some wine and ate lunch out with friends. I also had chocolate. YUM! So going to focus on this for a bit.

4.) Signed up for a retreat in California with Geneen Roth in October. Kinda expensive ,but it seems like a great 5 days. If I work on her thoughts between now and then I should have a lot of questions and should be able to get a lot out of it. I am really looking forward to it!!

5.) Happy Valentines Day Everyone!!! Hope you are all having a great day.

That's about it for now. Off to pack for a 6am flight in the morning.

Hormones Suck!!

About 6 months ago my pharmacy decided that it would be a great idea to switch me from my normal pill to the new generic that was available. Well that was the start of the upheaval. I hated the new pill and went through a bunch of changes. I recently asked to go on my old pill again. Now my hormones are adjusting to going back on that pill. For 2 pills that are supposed to be identical I can tell you that they aren't. I am exhausted!!! And can't focus on anything. I skipped the gym tonight because I was so tired at work that I really thought I was going to fall asleep. This morning I woke up, got the animals fed, had some breakfast and then crawled back in bed for 30 minutes. This is crazy!! My hormones are all over the place. I wish guys could understand what we go through with rising and dipping estrogen. It sucks so much and is so intrusive on my life.

It really doesn't help your resolve when all you are craving is carbs. And I mean craving! Anything for a boost of energy. Which of course is only a temporary fix and it just makes it worse in the end. So, going to limit my carbs for a few days to try to rebound from this and get back to some natural energy.

Well, signing off now at 6:00 pm to go to bed. :o(

Snow = Comfort Food

Well another snow storm and the desire to eat comfort food becomes a bit overwhelming. I think that we all end up being conditioned from childhood that snow means hot chocolate, marshmallows, warm cookies, etc. Mom always treated us when we came in from the snow. Things were different then - running up the hill with the sled just to slide back down really burnt some calories so all the added treats didn't seem to bother you. Now we see snow, think comfort food and cringe at the thought of going out in the snow to sled! So I stay inside and want the comfort food. So let's try to recondition ourselves to make snow = salad instead of snow = cookies. :o) Yeah right!!! Happy shoveling!!!

Today's Emotion - SAD

Well - today I am a bit sad. For those of you that know me you know that I LOVE animals. I have had a foster kitty in my house since Saturday and she is SUPER sweet. I sent her off today to the rescue organization that is going to get her adopted out to a great home. It was so sad letting her go. There was no way that I could have more animals in my house. I have enough already. It's amazing though how quickly she worked her way into my life. So I am feeling a bit blue at the moment. :o(

The urge to binge today wasn't too strong. It did cross my mind. But I was really busy this evening and went to the trainer tonight. I find that trainer days are binge free days. I guess after working that hard I don't feel the need to eat. So I walked Roxie, came home, had a bit to eat and here I sit typing a message. It feels good to write it out and let it go.

I'll get over letting Finley go. She will find a good home soon. I just have to remember that I was able to give her a warm home for a few days on her way to find her forever home. She will be adopted soon. She is too adorable not to be.

2011 IS MY YEAR!

So - it's been 6 months since I have written. What have I been doing? Well it hasn't been focusing on choosing the healthy options when it comes to eating. I have been working out with a trainer twice a week so that has helped. But the scale has only gone up recently. I joined Weight Watchers again - not because I don't know what I should be eating but because it provides me another level of accountability and tracking.

I have a simple goal for the next 3 weeks - make healthier choices. They say it takes 3 weeks to change a habit. So this 3 weeks is writing down my food in my food journal. That is what I am going to focus on. By writing down I will see my food choices and where I can possibly improve moving forward.

I am going to focus on this blog again as a way to journal my feelings. I am still an emotional eater that uses food to suppress my feelings. I know that my issues with food completely revolve around my inappropriate use of food to soothe my feelings. I hardly eat when I am hungry because I don't get hungry. For those that don't eat through emotions this must be such a crazy concept. But for me it's a daily struggle.

So I will welcome myself back and pledge to blog at least once week as I work through my issues.