 Welcome to part 2 of Dawn Green's 3-part series on "Building a New Relationship with Food. If you missed part 1, you can find it here!
There are few things more all-consuming than obsessive thinking about food, health and the weight and appearance of the body. With both women and men this pre-occupation often over-shadows all other goals, enjoyments and experiences in life. The focus on food and the body fills the same need that alcohol, drugs, gambling and compulsive shopping, to name a few, do: It is a strategy to shut down the inner experience of emptiness, aloneness, disconnection and lack. All of these activities create in initial feeling of excitement and satisfaction, but it’s short-lived. You can’t get enough of what you don’t really want, so you keep repeating the same behaviour, in progressively more extreme ways, hoping for a different result. This preoccupation with finding an exterior solution to an internal problem blocks access to the real solution. To get to the root of the problem, it is necessary to address your relationship with your inner Self.
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“Mommy, I’m Bored!” Now that it is mid-summer and the children are not in school, there’s a good chance you’ll have heard the words: “I’m bored!”.  There’s a likelihood that it’ll trigger you in some way and cause an irritation or worse. Perhaps you’ll feel guilty “Oh no, I’m not a good parent –otherwise my child wouldn’t be bored –I haven’t provided enough activities or encouraged sufficient independence for them to find something to do on their own!”
Job #1 then, is to process your own upset over the statement. Remember it’s about....  What’s the worst thing that could happen during a workshop you are facilitating? I used to think that it would be having a client die – until one did.
On the morning of the last day of the workshop I was co-facilitating with Gadi and Saskia in the South of France, Christoph passed away peacefully in his sleep. What followed was a wonderful day of healing, peace, introspection and celebration. I guessed that he had died when I saw Gadi and Axel (one of the retreat’s employees) walking past my studio towards Christoph’s which was next to mine. Sure enough, as I stepped out of my studio, Christine, Christoph’s sister, confirmed what I already knew. Christoph had been given two weeks to live back in January. It was now mid-June. That he was at the workshop at all was miraculous and that he had the energy to participate as fully as he did was remarkable. Christoph’s body was fighting the immune system introduced eight years ago to combat his leukemia. He was partially blind and deaf, could In the previous posts, I have established that we all grow up with barriers to love that can be removed when we tackle our negative beliefs. In this week’s post, I’ll explain give some strategies for helping your children to own their Inherent Worth so that they can receive the love that you offer. A child who has a strong belief that he is not good enough, bad, unworthy or any other belief, will find it impossible to let love in. That child will think, consciously or unconsciously “If only you knew how bad, unworthy, unlovable (fill in the blanks) I am, you would not choose to love me. You have to say you love me because you are my parent, but I can’t believe it.” This is the subconscious thinking of any child who has a strong negative belief about themselves. We may not be able to tell what that belief is, so the antidote to all negative beliefs is to own our Inherent Worth. We cannot be Inherently Worthy and unlovable or worthless at the same time. Therefore, it is imperative that parents spend some time helping their children to tune into their Inherent Worth.   The process of creating "Choose Again - Six Steps to Freedom" began six years ago when Diederik finally gave in to some very persistent persuasion and reluctantly started work on the book.
Diederik was so busy at the time between the centre in Costa Rica and running workshops internationally that we chose the route of a ghost writer to put the book together. It soon became clear that without an intricate knowledge of the work of Choose Again, and the personal stories of how Diederik came to develop the Six Steps, the book would not be a success. We knew we had the makings of a wonderful book because it has all the elements of a 'best seller' - a great personal story, a sound practice that can change lives and work that challenged established norms. More importantly- we also knew this was an incredible opportunity to share the Six Steps to Freedom more broadly so it could transform more lives for the better. The incredible Anne Andrew got involved at this point, and applied her knowledge and experience to the task.  How to do Positivity Training (You'll need a little notebook):
When you think a certain way for a long time, you strengthen the pathways in your brain that run these thoughts, and it takes deliberate attention and perseverance to form new pathways. This week's practice is scientifically proven to forge new, more positive pathways in the brain, helping you be more naturally aware of the good that already exists in your life. It's a practice we do at dinner every night at all our retreats and workshops, and clients report experiencing a profound shift in how they view their day as a result.  As strange as it may sound, emotional pain is an experience that I have come to appreciate, deeply.
No, I’m not a masochist. When I feel bad, or hurt, or upset in any way I still want to be free of that painful experience. But along the way, I have come to see my pain in a new light. I don't avoid it anymore. Instead, I found a new way of appreciating pain. It has opened me to more joy, more peace with myself and with others. In the past, my usual way of dealing with pain was to suppress or repress it. Faced with emotional suffering, I tried to push the uncomfortable feelings into the dark corners of my mind. From those corners, the pain would eventually find its way into the body, appearing as disease.  As many of you know, if you have been to El Cielo or a Choose Again workshop, each day ends with gratitude. Around the dining table, everyone shares the things that they are grateful for or the people they are grateful to from the day - ending it on a high note. It feels terrific!
Studies by psychologists and psychiatrists have concluded that grateful people
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