Forgiveness Prayers

I have recently come across the Forgiveness Prayers of Howard Wills and they have been like a missing piece of the puzzle of life to me.
I have known about, and intermittently practised, forgiveness affirmations since I first learned about them many years ago.
They are a powerful healing tool.
And over the years I have noticed that self acceptance and forgiveness are the things that often need a lot of explanation when teaching them as concepts and tools that actually aid recovery from addiction and/or compulsive eating.

Firstly, Forgiveness does NOT condone the event or situation that you are forgiving - it actually honours and claims an injustice has been done.

Secondly, forgiveness clears you from any negative effects that wrong doing is having on your present day life, health, relationships, well-being or finances.

I love Howard Wills explanation that forgiveness is like taking a shower and it cleanses you of any negativity - It cleans you!!

I have been practising his forgiveness prayers (which are free to download from his site www.howardwills.com) every day for about three weeks now and I can only say they help - they help a lot, in subtle and overt ways - they work.

So, if you feel drawn to - check out his You Tube videos under the channel SusanAllen and see for yourself if this Healing Tool of Forgiveness is something for you.

Bringing into your life, blessings and peace,

Sofia Bothwell Author and Weight Loss Consultant

Life Pieces

I fell like I am continuing to put the pieces in place. My heart is warmed when I look at the front cover of my new book Sacred Pilgrimage which I actually wrote in 2011 and published now via the on-line publishing company LULU



http://www.lulu.com/shop/sofia-bothwell/sacred-pilgrimage/paperback/product-23260088.html

Integrating Feelings - what it means

When we allow our discomfort, it can be allowed to flow into comfort. Transmute, if you like, or integrate. To integrate a feeling all we have to do is feel that feeling, not suppress it, not even necessarily express it, but just feel, experience, allow that feeling room in your life, room in your experience to simply be, and thus as you are aware of it you can also be aware of it transmuting, flowing, changing into another feeling. Feelings are like water they flow.
Suppressing a feeling through eating when full is an inappropriate and damaging-to-ourselves activity. It causes us to gain weight and suffer health issues related to excess weight.
From my years of compulsive eating and my experience of recovering from compulsive eating I draw these conclusions on how to lose excess weight for good.

• Loving and taking care of yourself as regards emotions and feelings has not been taught appropriately or accurately via our families or the diet industry.
• Often fat is a layer of 'protection' against life and its 'knocks' - so in endeavoring to lose excess weight, we, on a subconscious level, don't want to 'lose' our layer of protection. so we have a subconscious sabotage going on that needs to be addressed before weight loss can be successful and permanent.
• Uncovering and addressing the previously hidden fears around being slim and the slim lifestyle we feel we would have slim, is necessary.
• Emotional work is key in weight loss - permanent weight loss. If you are not prepared to feel the feelings that eating when full helps you suppress, you will be overweight forever.
• It is not as hard as you think, but your ego will fight you every step of the way, because weight loss this way, is the death of the ego. 
• The death of the ego simply means the birth of your creativity, your uniqueness, and a life deeply rooted in unconditional love, like a phoenix rising from the ashes of the death of the ego you emerge as a permanently-slim-you: a you who no longer suppresses his/ her emotional stuff by eating when already physically full of food.

Harmony Holistics

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

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.

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.

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