Anorexia: Love Your Body

Women with Anorexia have issues with their body image and a feeling of helplessness and inability to control their life. The combination of these challenges makes them seek control in any way and not eating seems to them a great way to gain control.

Society around us obviously contributes a lot to the negative body image and self image girls have during childhood, through their teenage years and later on into adulthood. The image of an anorexic teen girl can be misleading. There are also many women are anorexic who need help.

One way of healing is learning to love your body.

Loving your body is giving yourself the permission to feel good physically and it must be done slowly, with love and with patience. If you are a parent or someone who wants to help an anorexic person, just saying, “You need to love your body”, will not make the required difference.

The best idea is to help the anorexic person search for good things – positive thoughts, encouragements, small bits of progress and every little achievement – to help change their perception of their life’s reality.

This post is part 6 of 8 in the series Anorexia

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Not Fair!

If you have ever spent more than 5 minutes around a group of children, you have heard at least one of them cry, “Not fair!” If you have more than one child of your own, or worse yet, you live in a “blended family” and have some kids who are yours and some who are not, it is very likely you have also heard this cry many times at home. “Not fair!”

In sober grown-up moments, we all know life is not fair, but when things get out of hand and we feel down, that innocent cry rises up inside us too. “It’s not fair! I’m a good boy/girl. Why is this happening to me? I don’t deserve this”.

Young human beings can only experience the world through their own senses. When they are unhappy, they cry and someone makes everything all right again. Later on, they learn to identify that someone as “Mommy” or “Daddy”, but the world still revolves around them and Mommy and Daddy still do whatever it takes to make the child happy again.

As the grow up, kids begin to notice other people, but they only perceive these other people’s effect on them and do not understand that the other people have their own (different) thoughts and feelings. The most they can imagine is that other people feel exactly the way they feel themselves, that they are as cold, as happy or as sad at the same time.

Experimenters asked children what they believed to be the contents of a box that looked like a particular brand of sweets. After they guessed that the box contained sweets, they were shown that the box in fact contained pencils. The experimenters then closed the box again and asked the children what they thought someone else, who has not seen the contents of the box, would think was inside. Children up to age 4 or even 5 said the other person would say, “Pencils”, because they already knew.

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Accepting vs. Expecting Bad Luck

It has been a little while since I last wrote a post (OK, a long while). Sorry for the extended hiatus. I was recently accepted into an honors degree in Psychology and in order to graduate before I am old and grey, I took on some extra subjects. A lot of study and not a lot of sleep going on, but in any case, I have been bursting with ideas for posts. I thought I would put in a quick one for your reading pleasure. The topic: accepting vs. expecting bad luck.

A friend of mine, Ashleigh, has been having a bit of a hard time. Things have been going a little pear shaped and getting a bit too much for her. Unfortunately for my friend, this is somewhat of a recurring theme in her life. In any case, we chatted one night about life, love and the universe, and Ashleigh decided to justify her predicament by saying that bad periods in life should be expected. Things HAVE to go wrong at some point and we should not be surprised when they do.

Well, I do not know about that. I would be the first person to concede that life is a rollercoaster (especially my life!). It has its ups and downs, and you cannot truly appreciate the good things if nothing bad ever happens. But there is a huge difference between accepting bad things and expecting them.

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Complaint-free Life: How to Stop Complaining

There are simple rules to know if you complain and could benefit from doing something about it:

1. If you behave aggressively, rudely, sarcastically or critically towards yourself or others, these are forms of complaint

2. If you want someone else to change something and you tell them so, that is a form of complaint

3. If your feedback is focused on what does not work, that is a form of complaint

4. If you stress about things not happening the way you want them to and you say it, that is a form of complaint

5. If you tell others that they need to appreciate you for not complaining about something, that is … a form of complaint

Before and After

The first thing you need to do is measure your starting point. Rate your level of complaining from 1 to 100. If you complain a lot or are frustrated a lot, give yourself a higher number. If you do not complain much, give yourself a lower number.

This post is part 3 of 3 in the series Complaint-free Life

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Parenting Research

Ever since I started studying for my degree in Education, the science of parenting has appealed to me. I remember that for my third year of studies, I registered for a special course to become a facilitator of parenting workshops, but I was not accepted. I was so upset. I told the girl in the office, “What do you mean ‘not accepted’? I’m the best student in my class. You can’t get anyone better than me around here”, and she said, “Only parents can be facilitators of a parenting course”.

As soon as Eden was born, I understood what she had meant.

The search for what makes a good parent and teacher did not stop when I was told I could not do the parenting course. I went on a personal journey to try to find the pieces of my most valuable puzzle in life – the makings of a great parent.

I think this constant search has brought me to where I am today. Working with the “education triangle” of parents, teachers and students to understand what makes great kids. At one stage, I remember, it hit me that although some pieces of the puzzle would reveal themselves as time went on, I could already see the picture of a great parent clearly. I had found the most important pieces and I started sharing them with as many parents as I could through my parenting workshops and this parenting blog.

My daughter, Eden, who is now 23 years old, was one of the participants in my lifelong research. In some ways, she still is. She has even shared some of her feelings and thoughts as a participant on this blog (see Eden’s posts).

I am not sure if this was the reason she decided to study psychology, but she did.

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Complaint-free Life: What are you complaining for?

Complaining for sympathy

Complainers find at a very early stage of their childhood that crying, originally a form of communication, is in fact a wonderful way to get attention. Crying was OK and normal when they were young, but in a way, complainers that use their complaints to get sympathy and attention are like children who have not evolved. They are a lot like 3-year-olds throwing a tantrum because things are not happening the way they wanted them to. Complainers often complain about themselves and draw attention to their bad heath, lack of skills, abilities and looks and include self-pity.

To overcome this tendency, think of good ways to get attention, use Pride Therapy and draw attention to your successes. You will get much more attention that way.

“The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity”
– Samuel Johnson

Complaints as justification

Many complainers use this strategy to avoid changing. When they are in conflict, they complain about others to force them to change and direct the responsibility away from themselves.

Another reason is to justify being rude or aggressive. If they complain, it means the other person must have done something that deserved their rudeness and aggressiveness. This is a very dangerous belief to have and the associated behavior is a form of abuse.

The third reason is to complain to justify avoidance. If I complain, it means I can postpone making decisions or doing something that I am afraid of doing.

This post is part 2 of 3 in the series Complaint-free Life

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Overcoming Hurts and Anger

In the past few days, I have been reading a book called Overcoming Hurts & Anger (How to Identify and Cope with Negative Emotions) by psychiatrist Dwight L. Carlson M.D. The book was published in 1981, so it is not hot off the press, and there are many references in it to the Christian Bible, which generally took place sometime before 1981 ;P

Nevertheless, the most important thing about books is how they affect our life and how much useful information we find in them, and this book turns out to be quite useful to me. By writing about it here, I hope to make it useful for you too.

Here’s a quick summary of the key ideas in the book:

Anger is the result of unresolved emotions, like frustration, disappointment and rejection. When negative emotions are dealt with, anger does not develop

Anger builds up in layers. We are all creatures of habit and relive our patterns every day. Any dysfunctional situation we encounter is likely to take place again and again, each time adding another layer to what the book calls our “unresolved anger fund”

Regular tantrums, even violent outbursts involving breaking things, are not the same as resolution. They are a desperate attempt to get attention that may lead to resolution, but they resolve nothing. In fact, as you might expect, they make things worse and even worsen the violent person’s feeling of self-esteem, safety and human connection

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Complaint-free Life: Complaints and Complainers

Some people think that life is hard and that the harder it is, the more people complain about it. I tend to think it works the other way around – the more we complain about life, the harder it becomes.

When my youngest sister traveled to the Far East at the age of 20, I made her a journal with many quotes and wishes to accompany her on her journey, which was supposed to take between 6 months and a year. I clearly remember writing “May you stay away from whining, complaining people, for they suck the energy from you”. That happened about 20 years ago, but I still think that complainers make life harder for those around them.

I was a complainer myself until the age of 16. My life has had very distinct turning points and 16 was a big one when I switched from being a complainer to being “action girl” and that was empowering and gave me a lot of control over my life.

We all have things we are not happy about. We just have to be careful not to allow them to take over our entire life. If you are a complainer, there is probably one big reason happiness does not knock on your door – complaints repel happiness. While one occupies your mind, the other one runs away.

The dictionary defines a complaint as a statement that a situation is unsatisfactory or unacceptable. A complaint is a statement that “something is wrong”, but when you see too much “wrong” around you, you start to believe it to be reality. The problem is that some people consider complaining to be a useful form or expression and even part of their identity. Constant complaining starts from insecurity and is very unhealthy for your mind, body and soul.

This post is part 1 of 3 in the series Complaint-free Life

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School Horror: Lazy Kids

A few weeks ago, I starting writing about horror stories that happen at school when teachers are not aware of how their actions affect the children and when they do not know what is happening in kids’ lives outside of school. The teacher in today’s story is kind, loves her students and does an amazingly great job under tough circumstances, but despite her best intentions, something went horribly wrong.

While my previous post was about events that happened 38 years ago (you can calculate my age now), this event took place just recently at a school nearby.

Sharon was a 6th Grade teacher and tried very hard to make Josh participate in class activities. Josh was just a lazy kid. He did not do his homework, he was rude and violent towards other kids and was a typical troublemaker. Every day he was absent from school was a great day. She tried giving him tasks, helped him and did all the regular behavior management things to get him interested and engaged, but nothing worked. When she thought she had exhausted all her options, she decided to call his home and tell Josh’s parents about his behavior. His parents said, “Thank you for letting us know. We’ll talk to Josh and make sure he never causes any more trouble at school”.

The following day, Josh came to class and was very quiet. It was a summer day, but he was wearing a long-sleeved jumper. Sharon felt something was wrong with that and asked him to stay with her after class. She asked him about the jumper. At first, he said he was a bit cold in the morning, but eventually, she asked him to take off his shirt, just for a second. When he took his shirt off, she discovered that all his body was bruised. She started crying. She called the office and asked someone to come straight away, because she felt she could not cope with the enormous guilt. She knew he had been beaten because she had called his parents.

This post is part 2 of 3 in the series School Horrors

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Anger Management: Be Prepared

When I was a kid, I joined the scouts and spent many days in fun, social and character building activities. The Scouts motto is “Be prepared” and that stuck with me as an excellent idea, although as an adult and a parent I have to be prepared for very different things.

One of the things I think we should all be prepared for is pressure. Pressure comes in a wide variety of shapes in our life – lack of sleep, hunger, a looming deadline at work, a baby screaming, physical pain, a growing debt, an accident, an illness, someone’s death and so on. Each one of these presents a different challenge, but the common theme to all of them is that we are overwhelmed by emotion and all too often, reason goes out the window.

In a normal situation, when somebody cracks a joke at our expense, we may laugh along, but when we are under stress, we are more likely to lash out. Later, when we remember the situation, we may regret our outburst, but it is often too late to change its effects.

So how can we be prepared for times of stress?

First, we need to learn to pay attention, both to our internal universe and to how the world around us flows. Second, we should develop subconscious anchors that will help stop us before we do too much damage and allow us to remain productive even under pressure.

This post is part 1 of 3 in the series Anger Management

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Anorexia: Love Your Body

Not Fair!

Accepting vs. Expecting Bad Luck

Complaint-free Life: How to Stop Complaining

Parenting Research

Complaint-free Life: What are you complaining for?

Overcoming Hurts and Anger

Complaint-free Life: Complaints and Complainers

School Horror: Lazy Kids

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