I spent a wonderful day yesterday teaching my Healing the Eating Habit workshop at Harmony Holistics, a beautiful shop plus therapy rooms in Ammanford Wales.
We covered the main concepts of how to lose weight permanently and naturally through eating when hungry and stopping when full. How to resolve those emotional issues that can cause eating when full and how to raise self acceptance.
I will be doing a other Healing the Eating Habit Day Workshop there on the 10th of January 2015. So if you fancy coming along to the serene and peaceful Welsh country town of Ammanford for an interesting and worthwhile, life-changing experience there are still a few places left.
To book simply contact 07530 531 655 or look up Harmony Holistics on facebook and message Helen. A £10 deposit will secure your place and the remaining £20 can be paid on the day.
Blessings
Sofia
Sunday, 23 November 2014
Thursday, 20 November 2014
Poetry
Here is a piece of poetry that came to me as I cycled home today.
Stealing time from fear.
Stealing time from stress.
and giving it to Grace,
giving it to peace.
I have always loved cycling and use it as my mode of transport in busy Cardiff city. I have recently taken a small chance on doing a workshop on the topic I love - Healing the Eating Habit - I risked losing money but I took the risk and once I made the decision to go ahead and do the workshop, I felt at ease because I knew I was being true to my heart. And that is all i have ever been doing in this life - being true to my heart.
And then I realized that I am totally supported in this like I have always been; even though I don't always feel it.
Being true to yourself becomes a way of life when you give up eating when full or any addiction for that matter.
Are you ready to make following your heart your way of life?
I thought of a time when I lived in London and had some financial challenges. I remember staying in my boyfriends flat in West Hampstead and sitting in the small living room looking out into the garden and feeling totally content, allowing, what I call today - Grace, into my being. Feeling at peace even though challenges were present.
And that is when the thought that we steal time from stress, worry and fear and give it to grace - isn't that what the ancient and modern Mystics do? Spend time in Grace instead of worry, stress or fear.
Thursday, 9 October 2014
Dysfunctional Families
Coming from a dysfunctional family seems to be the norm, and I often realize that I got things to say to my family, but what I really want is love.
After I left my family home, and when I was in my early twenties as a dysfunctional adult of dysfunctional adults, breathwork (Rebirthing) played a big part in my own personal healing journey. I wanted to learn how to make the pain go away.
I started on the adventure of life to discover how to create a supportive and validating family life. I had not felt supported or validated in my family, so a childhood of pain was my challenge to deal with. I dealt with it by becoming a compulsive eater at the age of 13, that developed into bulimia by the time I was 17. I healed at 18. More, deeper issues emerged and I was co-dependent by 22.
Breathwork saved my life when I was 26 and my further healing continued in earnest then with positive thinking, and much study into self healing.
Looking back, chunk of healing happened after chunk of healing as I continued to read and follow my heart. I rarely visited my family after I left at 19 and just focused on healing the wounds inflicted by those people who did not see me, hear me, or make me feel safe.
It was the best they could do and the power to heal from all of that was mine, and thankfully I was able to do so to the extent that I no longer eat when full, or smoke, or drink to deal with the pain of a dysfunctional upbringing - all of that I gave up twenty years ago.
An addiction free life is not necessarily an easy life, it is just we learn to cope with life in different ways. We no longer suppress our feelings and creativity by eating when full, drinking, smoking or doing drugs, rather we feel those feelings and seek to live the life we would like to live, by incorporating into it what we think we might like to do. We involve ourselves in our interests and stay clear of the original transgressors; or if we are around them, we can handle it in ways that don't harm us. We cut the visit short or we learn how to protect ourselves from their subtle or overt abusive ways. It is a difficult road to walk to hide from abuse, it is much easier to own up to the fact it happened and that we can stay away and be with people who truly like us. It starts with ourselves and our own self-care and self-appreciation.
After I left my family home, and when I was in my early twenties as a dysfunctional adult of dysfunctional adults, breathwork (Rebirthing) played a big part in my own personal healing journey. I wanted to learn how to make the pain go away.
I started on the adventure of life to discover how to create a supportive and validating family life. I had not felt supported or validated in my family, so a childhood of pain was my challenge to deal with. I dealt with it by becoming a compulsive eater at the age of 13, that developed into bulimia by the time I was 17. I healed at 18. More, deeper issues emerged and I was co-dependent by 22.
Breathwork saved my life when I was 26 and my further healing continued in earnest then with positive thinking, and much study into self healing.
Looking back, chunk of healing happened after chunk of healing as I continued to read and follow my heart. I rarely visited my family after I left at 19 and just focused on healing the wounds inflicted by those people who did not see me, hear me, or make me feel safe.
It was the best they could do and the power to heal from all of that was mine, and thankfully I was able to do so to the extent that I no longer eat when full, or smoke, or drink to deal with the pain of a dysfunctional upbringing - all of that I gave up twenty years ago.
An addiction free life is not necessarily an easy life, it is just we learn to cope with life in different ways. We no longer suppress our feelings and creativity by eating when full, drinking, smoking or doing drugs, rather we feel those feelings and seek to live the life we would like to live, by incorporating into it what we think we might like to do. We involve ourselves in our interests and stay clear of the original transgressors; or if we are around them, we can handle it in ways that don't harm us. We cut the visit short or we learn how to protect ourselves from their subtle or overt abusive ways. It is a difficult road to walk to hide from abuse, it is much easier to own up to the fact it happened and that we can stay away and be with people who truly like us. It starts with ourselves and our own self-care and self-appreciation.
Saturday, 4 October 2014
The Price Tag on Freedom
It has been said that the price tag on freedom is responsibility. And in doing yourself the great favor of freeing yourself from the habit of compulsive eating, you are developing the ability to respond to life, and food, and feelings, in different ways. Ways that allow you to stop when full. Ways that allow you to be who you are. Ways that allow you to ask yourself - How do I feel about that? What is my opinion on this?
This is your ability to interact with life rather that stuffing your feelings down with food when full and stuffing yourself into a stereotypical image of womanhood.
I personally have discovered that I grew up in a family that had very limited ideas about what a woman could, or could not do. Rather Victorian and very patriarchal. Stifling to say the least. Maybe it was no coincidence that I moved to a different country only six short months after overcoming my eating disorder. My stuffing my feelings down with food when full was all to do with living in a family that was trying to shove me into a shoe box, and call it living.
In my ability to cease eating when full, and my getting into the habit of asking myself - What feeling is this I am trying to suppress? every time I felt like eating when full, enabled me to discover what I wanted in life.
I am very blessed to have been able to leave that stifling upbringing to emerge into a life that allowed me to live in London, study what I loved, work and follow my interests.
Seek your own ability to respond to your life in a way that allows you to truly live. No longer eat when full and allow yourself to feel the feelings that eating when full suppressed. Seek to resolve those feelings. Seek the way to feel and heal. Ask yourself - Given the fact I feel this way what would I like to do now? And let it guide you to responding to people a little differently. Staying away from some, spending more time with others. It is your adventure now. It is your pilgrimage. It is your life.
Allow it to flourish.
Let your life get bigger as you get smaller.
Blessings, until next time
Sofia
This is your ability to interact with life rather that stuffing your feelings down with food when full and stuffing yourself into a stereotypical image of womanhood.
I personally have discovered that I grew up in a family that had very limited ideas about what a woman could, or could not do. Rather Victorian and very patriarchal. Stifling to say the least. Maybe it was no coincidence that I moved to a different country only six short months after overcoming my eating disorder. My stuffing my feelings down with food when full was all to do with living in a family that was trying to shove me into a shoe box, and call it living.
In my ability to cease eating when full, and my getting into the habit of asking myself - What feeling is this I am trying to suppress? every time I felt like eating when full, enabled me to discover what I wanted in life.
I am very blessed to have been able to leave that stifling upbringing to emerge into a life that allowed me to live in London, study what I loved, work and follow my interests.
Seek your own ability to respond to your life in a way that allows you to truly live. No longer eat when full and allow yourself to feel the feelings that eating when full suppressed. Seek to resolve those feelings. Seek the way to feel and heal. Ask yourself - Given the fact I feel this way what would I like to do now? And let it guide you to responding to people a little differently. Staying away from some, spending more time with others. It is your adventure now. It is your pilgrimage. It is your life.
Allow it to flourish.
Let your life get bigger as you get smaller.
Blessings, until next time
Sofia
Thursday, 7 August 2014
Have Your Cake and Eat It
To have your cake and eat it depicts the best case scenario. So how does that relate to compulsive eating and carrying those extra pounds?
Well, I hear again and again from folk - 'I just love food and that is why I carry extra weight'.
I am here to tell you that you can still love food and be slim. Remember - What gets you slim, keeps you slim. Eating when hungry and stopping when full gets you slim. And eating when hungry and stopping when full keeps you slim. I've been naturally slim for twenty years and it is all because of that simple act of eating when hungry and stopping when full.
So back to our cake, I love chocolate cake, but I only eat it when I am hungry. And this is what I advise you to do also, with the help of the free 'Am I hungry?' download from my website
www.trueslimness.co.uk
Another important point I would like to make here is the fact that is the answer to this question - Do we really enjoy food when full? Sure when I was a compulsive eater I loved food when full because of the momentary good feeling it gave me, but the after effects of being bloated and an over full stomach and resulting weight gain and how horrified I would be when I stepped on the scales to see yet more weight went on, was not so much fun.
So food when full is not so enjoyable, but food eaten when genuinely physically hungry, is very enjoyable, especially when it is exactly what you want to eat. If you fancy a tuna sandwich when hungry, and eat a tuna sandwich when hungry, it really tastes sooo good. Now that is loving food. Food when hungry is a pleasure, and we don't have to give it up in order to be slim and healthy.
So in this way you can have your cake and eat it.
Until next time
Sofia
Well, I hear again and again from folk - 'I just love food and that is why I carry extra weight'.
I am here to tell you that you can still love food and be slim. Remember - What gets you slim, keeps you slim. Eating when hungry and stopping when full gets you slim. And eating when hungry and stopping when full keeps you slim. I've been naturally slim for twenty years and it is all because of that simple act of eating when hungry and stopping when full.
So back to our cake, I love chocolate cake, but I only eat it when I am hungry. And this is what I advise you to do also, with the help of the free 'Am I hungry?' download from my website
www.trueslimness.co.uk
Another important point I would like to make here is the fact that is the answer to this question - Do we really enjoy food when full? Sure when I was a compulsive eater I loved food when full because of the momentary good feeling it gave me, but the after effects of being bloated and an over full stomach and resulting weight gain and how horrified I would be when I stepped on the scales to see yet more weight went on, was not so much fun.
So food when full is not so enjoyable, but food eaten when genuinely physically hungry, is very enjoyable, especially when it is exactly what you want to eat. If you fancy a tuna sandwich when hungry, and eat a tuna sandwich when hungry, it really tastes sooo good. Now that is loving food. Food when hungry is a pleasure, and we don't have to give it up in order to be slim and healthy.
So in this way you can have your cake and eat it.
Until next time
Sofia
Sunday, 3 August 2014
Work You Love
All of us at one time or another have experienced the 'quiet desperation' of not enough money, and maybe even the panic and fear around not having enough money. It is very similar to the fear of 'gaining even more weight'. If you suffer from both overweight and poverty, then this indeed is a very difficult cross to bear. How on earth can we heal, overcome, grow out and away from such demeaning circumstances that we often feel we have no control over?
No matter how hard we try, and what methods we try, the situation improves little, or not at all, or has even gotten worse.
I feel globally this is what we are facing - How to deal with the issue of excess weight on our body and the issue of lack of finances not being something to push us into work we loathe.
As I have mentioned in previous blogs, creativity otherwise known as work you love is an essential part of getting free from addiction and staying free from addiction, and it starts with being able to handle the fears of dealing with questions such as - How do I provide for myself and my family? How do I get into work I love? How can I make the work I hate be more tolerable? How can I navigate a way to leave this work I hate? How can I navigate a way into the work I love? How can I deal with, this one aspect of work, that I dislike so I can hang on in there for a few more months to save for that training course I want?
I love the Hay House Radio Show - 'Messages From Margaret' - in it, Margaret often gives her callers affirmations that start with the phrase - Why is it so easy for me....?
For Example: Why is it so easy for me to bring in a large financial income from work I love? Why is it so easy for me to deal with that difficult person? Why is it so easy for me to find and keep work that I love? Why is it so easy for me..... Fill in your own thoughts to do with what you are struggling with right now in your life. This is yet another tool that helps us cease turning to food when full.
True Slimness Workshops to start Wednesday Evenings Albert Road Methodist Church, Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales 7pm - 8pm Drop -in £3
True Slimness Lunchtime Workshops 1pm - 2pm on the first Monday of the month starting Monday September 1st, then Monday 6th October and Monday 3rd November at Friends Meeting House, 120 Heath Street, Hampstead, London
For Further info contact: 07530 531 655 / 02921 155 512
Until next time x Sofia
No matter how hard we try, and what methods we try, the situation improves little, or not at all, or has even gotten worse.
I feel globally this is what we are facing - How to deal with the issue of excess weight on our body and the issue of lack of finances not being something to push us into work we loathe.
As I have mentioned in previous blogs, creativity otherwise known as work you love is an essential part of getting free from addiction and staying free from addiction, and it starts with being able to handle the fears of dealing with questions such as - How do I provide for myself and my family? How do I get into work I love? How can I make the work I hate be more tolerable? How can I navigate a way to leave this work I hate? How can I navigate a way into the work I love? How can I deal with, this one aspect of work, that I dislike so I can hang on in there for a few more months to save for that training course I want?
I love the Hay House Radio Show - 'Messages From Margaret' - in it, Margaret often gives her callers affirmations that start with the phrase - Why is it so easy for me....?
For Example: Why is it so easy for me to bring in a large financial income from work I love? Why is it so easy for me to deal with that difficult person? Why is it so easy for me to find and keep work that I love? Why is it so easy for me..... Fill in your own thoughts to do with what you are struggling with right now in your life. This is yet another tool that helps us cease turning to food when full.
True Slimness Workshops to start Wednesday Evenings Albert Road Methodist Church, Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales 7pm - 8pm Drop -in £3
True Slimness Lunchtime Workshops 1pm - 2pm on the first Monday of the month starting Monday September 1st, then Monday 6th October and Monday 3rd November at Friends Meeting House, 120 Heath Street, Hampstead, London
For Further info contact: 07530 531 655 / 02921 155 512
Until next time x Sofia
Sunday, 20 July 2014
Good Moods and Bad Moods
Well all of us know how our moods effect our eating.
It is exasperating to find yourself in a bad mood and wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to shift yourself out of that bad mood at will.
Well, a good part of my work is pretty much about that - the ability to handle feelings. Feelings are energy. E-motion - energy in motion if you like. So because feelings are energy, and energy is a fluid thing, by it very nature it shouldn't be too hard to have it flow and leave, or be transmuted into something better, more pleasant. This has been referred to as a high vibration, or in more every-day terms feeling high. Using drugs as a means to 'feel high' however is a false thing and not what I recommend, but rather the natural highs of the resolving of an emotional issue, and the natural highs of doing what you love be it gardening, tending to your animals, or spending time with a friend you love - these are the sorts of 'highs' or 'good moods' you can seek as you give up eating when full.
So when the inklings of a bad mood or the thunderstorm of a bad mood erupts (the type of mood that would normally send you to the fridge when full) see if you can take a step back from it and act differently in relation to it. If you are stuck not knowing what to do about it then ask my much repeated question - Given the fact I feel this way, what would I like to do now? What are your responses to that question? Sift through them. Are their any healthy answers? Are there any that you can start to act on? Such as open a bank account to save for a training course or holiday that you would like. Ignore answers such as - A glass of wine or a shopping spree on an already pretty full credit card, my rule is only spend cash, not plastic, until you are out of debt or until you really feel you know about good debt and bad debt. If you are angry, beat the mattress not your kids. If you are jealous of your sister in law, don't see her next Thursday. If you feel belittled by your sister-in-law, don't see her next Thursday. If you hate your job, really address that, brain storm, work less hours, look for another job that may be less pay but you'll feel happier, freer, or stay in there and avoid the person that is making it uncomfortable for you while you seek training in the field you've always dreamed of working.
And while doing all of that - stop when full, stop when full, stop when full. And don't beat yourself up if you ain't doing all of that already. It is okay.
Drop in to one of my lunchtime workshops 1 pm - 2 pm at the Friends Meeting House, Hampstead, 120 Heath Street, Hampstead, London, England on the first Monday of each month from September 2014 - To book in advance call 07530 531 655 or 029 2115 5512 they are (for now) at the brilliant price of £7.50
It is exasperating to find yourself in a bad mood and wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to shift yourself out of that bad mood at will.
Well, a good part of my work is pretty much about that - the ability to handle feelings. Feelings are energy. E-motion - energy in motion if you like. So because feelings are energy, and energy is a fluid thing, by it very nature it shouldn't be too hard to have it flow and leave, or be transmuted into something better, more pleasant. This has been referred to as a high vibration, or in more every-day terms feeling high. Using drugs as a means to 'feel high' however is a false thing and not what I recommend, but rather the natural highs of the resolving of an emotional issue, and the natural highs of doing what you love be it gardening, tending to your animals, or spending time with a friend you love - these are the sorts of 'highs' or 'good moods' you can seek as you give up eating when full.
So when the inklings of a bad mood or the thunderstorm of a bad mood erupts (the type of mood that would normally send you to the fridge when full) see if you can take a step back from it and act differently in relation to it. If you are stuck not knowing what to do about it then ask my much repeated question - Given the fact I feel this way, what would I like to do now? What are your responses to that question? Sift through them. Are their any healthy answers? Are there any that you can start to act on? Such as open a bank account to save for a training course or holiday that you would like. Ignore answers such as - A glass of wine or a shopping spree on an already pretty full credit card, my rule is only spend cash, not plastic, until you are out of debt or until you really feel you know about good debt and bad debt. If you are angry, beat the mattress not your kids. If you are jealous of your sister in law, don't see her next Thursday. If you feel belittled by your sister-in-law, don't see her next Thursday. If you hate your job, really address that, brain storm, work less hours, look for another job that may be less pay but you'll feel happier, freer, or stay in there and avoid the person that is making it uncomfortable for you while you seek training in the field you've always dreamed of working.
And while doing all of that - stop when full, stop when full, stop when full. And don't beat yourself up if you ain't doing all of that already. It is okay.
Drop in to one of my lunchtime workshops 1 pm - 2 pm at the Friends Meeting House, Hampstead, 120 Heath Street, Hampstead, London, England on the first Monday of each month from September 2014 - To book in advance call 07530 531 655 or 029 2115 5512 they are (for now) at the brilliant price of £7.50
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