What is it about our addictions that make us think that engaging in the addictive behavior is somehow “romantic,” exciting, fun? Do you ever feel that way? When I decided to make a commitment to recovery, I started to notice how my mind was working. Do you ever get those flashes? It doesn’t matter where you are or what you are doing — the flash comes — where you imagine yourself engaging in addictive behavior. It comes out of nowhere — then you focus on it and desire builds. You start to make mental plans for following through with the addictive behavior.
Well, that’s how my mind worked anyway. I could see my husband eating cookies and the flash would come. The flash could set me off because I hated the internal struggle of deciding — “should I do it or not?” Usually I’d end up giving in because I felt like recovery should be easier — that I shouldn’t HAVE to have that internal struggle. In this post, I will talk about the evolution of how my mind worked and how I started to break the chain.
My Experience of My Mind in Addiction
So by now you know that since I hated the internal struggle, I decided (bad decision) to never try. For this reason, I never got to learn the skill of changing my mind. It’s not easy, but I imagine with practice you’d probably get better & better at it. I imagine that as the skill develops, you may win some, you may lose some — but if you’re taking note of lessons learned, you may end up with a new skill & better habits. My mind was like a child having a tantrum — I just didn’t think I SHOULD have to fight it. Why couldn’t it just come naturally??? As you can imagine, this made it very difficult to recover.
My Body & Addiction
At this time, I was also not eating differently — I was still eating sugar and flour products. I was trying to recover by doing less of the same thing I had always done — by eating less of the same foods. This method had its ups and downs. It was a constant struggle and I always felt bad digestively. The bad feeling that I always had made it harder to not engage in bingeing & purging — because not only did it release my mind from having to struggle — it also released my body from having the digestive pain (which I walked around with all day — it was not prompted by a binge). My body contributed, along with my mind — to locking me in a vicious cycle.
How I Stopped The Struggle & Tamed My Mind
Seeing the medical intuitive was an amazing experienced for me. What I got out of the process was an understanding of what it felt like to be free of the mind struggle I was going through. I could be around sugar, flour foods and other binge foods and not want them. My mind seemed to be at rest and was not engaging in the struggle. Now, as you know, I did switch addictions to overeating (healthy foods) & overexercising — so my mind was not completely healed. I obviously still had work to do — although I didn’t really want to admit it to myself.
Over the next 4 years, as I went through relapses & recovery, I became more and more aware of what my mind was doing — how it created a trap that I often fell into. At some point, I started to engage in the struggle — I actually did not give in to my flash-impulse. I noticed it and made decisions to not go with it. Sometimes I was successful and other times I was not. I tried all the distractions that everyone writes about (leave the house, go for a walk, call a friend, read, write, etc.). I do believe they are useful and worth trying, although I still had my ups and downs trying them myself.
Taming the Gremlin
For me, once I went on The Body Ecology Diet and started to heal my digestion, my body started to feel better for the first time EVER in my life. I went off sugar (again) and found that having a squeezed lemon in 6 oz. of water with stevia really solved my sweet cravings. If you had told me this before, I never would have believed it. I started to combine my foods properly. My body started to feel incredibly healthy. I no longer binged — for the first time in my life, I could stop eating & be satisfied.
My mind seemed freed at this time — all of a sudden, I was saying to myself, “I feel so good,” every day! I used to tell myself, “I feel so bad,” every day. Instead of much of my mental energy being focused on how bad my digestive system felt, I was free to just feel good and go about my day. This was a miracle for me. Remember how people say that if you focus on the positive, that’s what you’ll get? I really believe this — and I saw evidence of my mind healing as I was telling myself how great I felt every day. I was focused on this miracle of feeling great and my mind was able to rest — be at peace.
Watching The Addictive Mind – Developing Awareness
Okay, so I’m no longer eating or craving sugar, but do I still get the flash? Yes! Surprisingly, I do get it occasionally. I still will be walking along and have a flash of how romantic that addictive behavior is. Why? It’s like, stored in my mind, is still this little nagging voice of addiction. The big difference? I am very aware of it now. My mind, being freer, can watch my thoughts more closely. Now, when it comes up, I see it — and I see it for what it is. It’s just a thought. In that moment, I have the choice. Do I start focusing on the thought — or do I let it go? I am choosing to let it go. I look at it with curiosity — and stop my mind before it engages in a struggle. I catch the thought and make an immediate decision that the thought is just a thought — just a nudge from that “bad boy” or “bad girl” friend who was always trying to convince me to do something that wasn’t good for me.
Awareness — paying attention to my thoughts, has been the key in my lasting recovery. Understanding that the mind is full of all kinds of thoughts — thoughts created from past experiences, beliefs we bought into, habits we created, etc. Some of these thoughts are helpful to us and many of them are limiting or destructive. The addictive thoughts that swirl in our minds are the destructive ones — the bad boy/bad girl peer pressure.
Clean Sweep
The clearing up of my digestive issues was the final piece of the puzzle that freed my mind. That’s not all I did in the past 4 years though. I did a clean sweep in my life, removing all the debris that was cluttering my mind, body & spirit.
- I cured my workaholism while on the job & obliterated it when I left to start my own business.
- I identified and created a lifestyle that was truly right for me.
- I stopped hanging around with people who drained my energy or made me feel like less than I am.
- I cleaned out my house, my closets, my office — of all the clutter that made me feel tired just to look at it.
- I addressed issues in my relationship with my husband & started asking for what I wanted & needed.
- I took things off my “to do” list and started to add in time for ME.
I did many more than just those things over the past 4 years. Basically, I started to remove all the straws off of the camel’s back — one by one. Bulimia was a result of too many straws piled on my back. Too many negative thoughts & belief systems, too many bad habits (workaholism, etc.), too many responsibilities (when I really wanted a simple life) and not knowing who I am. Once I freed myself of these things, I freed up my mental capacity and energy to NOTICE my thoughts. I was able to watch them and decide what to buy into and what to let go.
Focus – Letting the Flash Pass
I learned that when I focus on the flash and all its related thoughts, I start to focus on bingeing and purging. My mind would start to imagine myself doing it, the pleasure I could get from it. The more I focused on it, the more I’d give in. When the flash comes now, I don’t follow it down the path. I stop it in its tracks and see it for the bad girl it is.
Your Powerful Mind
The key for me? Don’t go looking for it. If you find that you aren’t thinking about bingeing all day, why wonder about it? Why go looking for it? The more you look for it — “Hmmm, I seem to be free of those thoughts, where are they?” The more you’ll find it. When you find it, if you focus on it, imagine it — in all its steps in your head, you are now focusing. Your mind does not know the difference between you THINKING about it and you doing it. That’s how powerful your mind is!
Your Mind As A Container Of Thoughts
If you think of your mind as a tupperware container, what is it full of? Are the contents of the container positive thoughts or negative thoughts? One way to identify this is to look at what’s showing up in your life. What are you thinking about? What are you writing about? What are you watching on TV? What are you talking about? What circumstances are showing up? If you find a lot of negativity, chances are, your container is mostly filled with negative thoughts. This was true for me. This was why I was so depressed — I was carrying around a container full of sad, negative thoughts. Once I opened up the container, let go of the negative thoughts & let in the positive ones — things started to change for me.
Think of a container with some healthy food in it. Would you put a moldy piece of food in that container and close it up? What would happen if you did? It would spoil the rest of the food. Our minds work in the same way. If we choose to close the container of our minds with some negative thoughts we’ve bought into, we end up contaminating the rest of our thoughts. Since our minds/thoughts/perspective creates our reality, we end up with a negative reality. So that’s how I was living most of my life before recovery.
Creating Your Vision
What helped me clean out my container was coming up with a vision of my life. I focused on how I wanted to feel, how I wanted to live — rather than what “things” I wanted to have. I made the vision as detailed and specific as I could. I used positives — left out the words “don’t, not and no” and other negatives. I put all the words in their present tense, as if I was living my vision now. And I read it every morning and every night.
This allowed me to start putting positive thoughts into my container. It allowed me to start believing that what I truly wanted could be possible for me. In my vision, I had statements like, I go with the flow of life, I am peaceful and joyful. I am healthy, vibrant and strong. Every day, I wake up and eat breakfast looking at the ocean. I have time in my day to prepare and enjoy fresh, healthy foods. I have plenty of time to relax, do yoga and my hobbies, etc. And in one year, I accomplished my vision and this stage of my recovery.
You may wonder how this could be true, if it really works. I did too — I was skeptical, but after trying it, I am a believer. As a life coach, I get to work with clients from all over the world. Each of them has written their vision in working with me — and they all start to move toward it right away after identifying what they truly want. I have seen miracles — people moving toward true happiness that they hadn’t been sure was possible. It is proof that this works. If you’re not sure, do an internet search on how athletes use visualization to improve their performance. These techniques have been used countless times successfully by people in all situations and all walks of life. It can work for you too — with the right amount of dedication and belief.
Your Actions
- Pay attention to the thoughts in your mind – are they negative or positive? Write down the thoughts you catch yourself having during the day. How do they make you feel? Who would you be without that thought? Could another perspective be more true than the thought you are thinking? What would you like to believe? Write these in your journal.
- ***Watch your mind — catch it if you start to engage in addictive or destructive thoughts. Experiment with catching them immediately and immediately letting them go. See a door closing on the thought so you are not able to follow it down a path. Consciously move on to positive thoughts in your mind. Make a choice — give yourself the power to make a choice to think thoughts that support your health. Focus on your recovery and how good it feels.
- Create positive affirmations for every negative thought you catch yourself having — see if you can immediately catch the negative thought and replace it with the positive affirmation (all written in the present tense and with positive statements — without “don’t, not and no” statements).
- Write your vision of your ideal life – include all your senses. Read it every day — maybe 2 or 3 times per day. Believe it — even if you don’t know how it will happen, trust that the how will work itself out.
If anyone would like support in creating a vision for your recovery, please let me know. Use the contact me form and send me an e-mail — I’d be happy to work with you on creating your vision and taking steps to make it happen.
Heather,
The ED has been telling me how boring my life will be and how much I will suffer if I don’t comfort myself with overeating.
I am not giving up.
It has been nice to discover your site. Every day I can go and read something that inspires me.
So far I am using some of the positive affirmations that you have written as examples. My thoughts are still in the “what I don’t want” phrasing. The “door closing” on the destructive thought has been helpful.
Sincerely,
Kata
Comment by kata — March 30, 2006 @ 7:46 pm
Heather,
I am only now getting to some of your previous posts. I just wanted to let you know I enjoy and draw inspiration from every one of them!
Emily
Comment by Emily — March 31, 2006 @ 5:35 pm