Emotional Eating

There is more to losing weight than just dieting. If it were then we'd all be thin. There are so many diets to choose from, but if you read my article Popular Diets 8/11/12, you will see that dieting actually has many negative effects.

In my case, I found that when I am contemplating going on a diet I end up eating more before the diet. Like if it were my "Last Supper". While on the diet I develop an obsession with food. But when I am not on a diet, I eat normally.

For emotional eaters, dieting can make things worse. Because of this and for many other reasons, which I have written about in several articles, I now refuse to go on a diet.

These are the steps I take which have helped me reduce my emotional eating even during my most challenging times and as a result I have lost weight in a natural and easy way. No fuss, no risking my health and no spending ridiculous amount of money on diets.

• The first step with emotional eating is to ask yourself if you are really hungry or are you feeling a certain way that is causing you to want to eat something when you are not hungry.
• Be more aware and mindful while eating. I now practice not eating while being distracted such as with the TV or reading something. When you are doing something else while eating, you don't pay attention when you are full and end you up eating more than you should. Plus you don't savor your food and when you are done, you have a feeling of being unsatisfied.
• Learn better ways to soothe and release your emotions. I have written many articles on just how to do that. One of the articles is called Writing to Release Negative Emotions 10/04/12. 
• Stop the negative chatter about your body. I still have some perfectionism in me and I could be somewhat critical about my weight. But I remind myself that I am doing things in a more loving way. This has helped me not to eat when I am not hungry.Before, when I felt bad about how I looked, I use to end up eating more to suppress how I felt. It's silly, but I know many other people who do this as well. You feel bad because you are overweight, but you eat to suppress the feeling which only makes things worse.

I have lost weight following the above guidelines and my relationship with food has changed tremendously. I have learned many methods to process my emotions which do not involve food. But I also realized how different my behavior was in the past when I was around food. I especially saw this when I was at a party with lots of food and I naturally stopped eating once I was full. Normally I'd overeat at parties. I use to think I did this because I just loved food. But now I know it was to soothe my anxiety and insecurities.

If you would like some more tips on losing weight the healthy way, please contact me at carbajalzulma@gmail.com

Emotional Health

When I first took a real look at my life a few years ago, I was filled with regret, remorse, and sadness. For one, it finally hit me how many years I wasted making the same mistakes, being in the same situations, dating the same kind of people, friends with people who were so unlike me, etc.

While I finally came to the realization that I no longer wanted to live that way, I had no idea how to proceed with changing my life. I was so overwhelmed by everything I needed to work on. Every area in my life was a disaster; my emotional health, financial situation, dysfunctional relationships, physical health, and even problems with my son. You name the problem I had it.

As a single mom, with all of the other obligations I had as well, I felt I did not have enough time for working on all of the areas that required my attention. However, I told myself that if I did not start changing my life it would only get worse and I would be forced to change my patterns. Already I was diagnosed with high blood pressure at the age of thirty and put on medication.

What transformed my life was taking baby steps. First on my list was healing my emotions; the deep sadness that would never leave me, severe anxiety and suppressed rage. I recognized that I was avoiding them by being a workaholic and excessive exercising. Later on I used food to numb my emotions which only made my health problems worse. The healing did not come all at once, but by taking small steps, little by little, things started shifting for me.

I recommend that if there is something in your life that you wish to change, and you are serious and committed, start off by taking baby steps. A lot of times when we look at the people who seem to have it all together, we tend to believe that they magically became who they are overnight. But we do not know the daily things they did in order to get to where they are now.

Another thing that I learned during the change process is that if your emotions are not balanced, it is very difficult to change your outer circumstances. I will give you an example from my own life. My relationship with my son was a mess. I was trying to fix it because I knew that once he entered his teens, it would be more difficult. But I was not emotionally healthy so I did not have the energy to repair things between us. In fact, my emotional issues were making me impatient and mean. Not until I finally took the time to center myself and learned to release my negative emotions was I able to focus on improving my relationship with him.

Prior to this, I felt I had no time to be dealing with emotions because I had way too many things going on at the same time that required my attention. However, things weren't getting resolved in other areas I was having challenges with either because of my emotional imbalance. So actually I couldn't afford not to make time for the emotions.

In our society we are taught to ignore our feelings or that emotions are only for silly women. But the truth is, that one of the major reasons that there are addictions is because people try hard to suppress emotions. Some of the emotions people carry since their childhood.

If you would like some assistance releasing emotions please contact me via email carbajalzulma@gmail.com.

　

To Love Yourself Means...

When love flows in our lives, it opens our hearts, our arms, our eyes. We Blossom, like a flower in the Springtime sun. When love is missing, we wither and close, protecting ourselves against the harshness of life. Imagine being full of love that no matter how much you gave, there was always more than enough, and any love you received was just icing on the cake. - Marci Shimoff

Self Love is so important, yet most people do not even know what it means to truly love themselves. Here are some guidelines on what Self Love means:

• You set healthy boundaries. You allow people into your life that are good for you. When you feel self love you do not get involved with dysfunctional people and if by accident you end up with one, you lay down your rules. When it comes to family it is a lot harder, but you can still set boundaries.
• You stand up for yourself. You do not let anyone bully you or make you feel less than.
• You are not co-dependent. Which means you are not so needy that you will do anything and everything to keep love in your life.
• Self-love means that you are not a doormat. You do not respond to people's last minute request. You do not do more than you could do. You make sure your own cup is full before you give.
• You take care of yourself; mind, body, heart and soul. Yes we are all busy, there are others to take care of, time flies, etc. But when you love yourself you make time for yourself a priority.
• You learn to hush the negative self talk. You know the one that tells you things like, you are not good enough, you are too fat, you are not attractive enough, you are not smart enough ,etc. This voice is not coming from your true self. Your true self is very loving and would not put you down in any way.The critical voice was developed because of the things we heard growing up from parents, culture, siblings, family, environment, teachers, classmates, etc. Some people are not even aware they have this voice. However, it could have a very bad impact in your life.
• When you are hurting you seek out wise, compassionate, and understanding people. You don't go to those who make you feel worse.
• You are not satisfied being around people who only pretend to love you. You also listen to your intuition in order to indentify true love from hypocrisy.
• You don't deny your negative feelings. You either either release them by yourself or you talk to someone who could really be there for you and help you let the feelings go. 
• You do not rehash your old pain repeatedly, you know this only hurts you more. You simply heal what comes up as you go through your life journey.
• You love yourself based on who you are within, not based on the superficial and external.

"Once you experience even the palest glimmer of self-love, it becomes increasingly difficult to feel comfortable in relationships where all it exist is the pretense of love."

                                                       - Geneen Roth


"Most important, find a safe outlet to surface your feelings. Airbrush nothing. Take all the time you need to sort them through. Then-and this is critical-move on. To persist in rehashing issues (sometimes for years!) without progress is counterproductive. There still may be some loose ends. That's okay. You can return to them when the right time comes. Many of us get in the enchanted realm of childhood traumas rather than utilize the knowledge we've gained to move forward."

                                                    -Judith Orloff, M.D.

Writing to Release Negative Emotions

"I'd like to address a common misconception: If you're spiritually evolved you wont have emotional conflict. Well, maybe if you reach Nirvana-but not in this world. The earth is not an enlighted planet. Surprised? It's a place where we learn: there is light as well as adversity." -Dr. Judith Orloff 

I still have not met anyone who has reached Nirvana. Although I have done much healing myself, some negative emotions still come up from time to time. This is normal, I am a human being afterall, not a robot. For most of us, in this lifetime we will not get to a place where all we experience is peace and love. We could do what we can to increase peace and love in our life, but don't be disappointed when life experiences bring out negative emotions.

The truth is, there really is no such thing as a bad emotion. Low energy emotions are actually messengers that tell us that something is amiss. The following are things that I have learned because of my emotions.

•  I have learned to practice self care.
•  I have learned to be assertive and not let others take advantage of me.
•  I have learned how to maintain healthy boundaries.
•  I have learned to love, honor and respect myself and to expect nothing less from others.
•  I have sought out new like minded friends.
•  I have made positive changes in many areas of my life.
•  I have healed many childhood wounds.
• I  have learned to stand up for myself when no one else did.

The above are only a few examples. There are so many more, which I have shared in other articles and will continue to share in the future. If we did not have emotions then there really would be no reason for us to do much of anything. For example, if you did not feel sadness at the thought of losing a romantic relationship, then you would not try to make things work. If you did not feel anger at someone who was treating you poorly, you would not stand up to that person and demand justice.  Or if you did not feel anger at not having money to feed your child, you would not have the energy to find ways to make money.

We experience all of the emotions for a reason. The problem comes when we hold on to the emotion for a long period of time. For example, let's say that you are sad because life has been hard. You lost your spouse, job, home, your child is in trouble, etc. If you stay in sadness, you will only sink further into it. You develop feelings of hopelessness and maybe find yourself becoming severely depressed. What needs to happen in order for things to improve is that you allow yourself to feel anger for what has occured and use that energy to make positive changes.

I have often heard from psychologists that sadness is suppressed anger and anger is unexpressed sadness. In my experience, and what I have witnessed from others,  this has certainly been the case on numerous occasions.

When I find myself stuck on an emotion, I change it. One of the ways I do that is by using Dr. John Gray's method. Here is how it works. Below I listed twelve negative emotions. 

1. I am angry
2. I am sad
3. I am afraid
4. I am sorry
5. I am frustrated
6. I am disappointed
7. I am worried
8. I am embarrassed
9. I am jealous
10. I am hurt
11. I am scared
12. I am ashamed

You pick the emotion that you are currently in and write about it. Then you go down four levels.  Let's say that you are experiencing anger. The emotions you would focus on are as follows:


Level One: I am angry
Level Two: I am sad
Level Three: I am afraid
Level Four: I am sorry

Or if you are feeling shame:

Level One: I am ashamed
Level Two: I am angry
Level Three: I am sad
Level Four: I am afraid


Now let me show you an example of how it would look using anger as the main emotion.

Level One:
"I am angry at my current situation. While I know it is just temporary, it still makes me angry to have to be in it at all. I am hoping that I soon see evidence of positive change."

Level Two:
"I am sad that I have to let go of much from my old life in order to leave space for my new life. I wish it were not necessary."

Level Three:
"I am afraid of getting out of my comfort zone. I am afraid to go out and date again. I wish dating was easier."

Level Four:
"I am sorry that things got so bad. I wish I was not such an emotional wreck and would have been more focused on being proactive instead of reactive."

"However, I trust that somehow things will work out. They always do. I am at least doing my part to get there."


Notice that in each level I expressed my wishes, wants and likes. You can stay writing on each level as long as you need to. Then, when you are ready, move one to the next level/emotion. It does not have to be seperated by levels like I did above, you could write in paragraph form. As long as you stay with the same emotion until you are done writing about it, then stating your desires before moving on to the next level/emotion.

Also, notice that at the end of the process I wrote something positive.  Dr. Gray states that this is an important part of the process. He says, "Write your feelings of love, understanding, trust, appreciation, or gratitude."

If you have so many feelings at once and don't know where to start, start anywhere. Also, if you do not feel better after the process go down another four levels. Sometimes it's because we thought we felt one emotion, but it turned out it was something else. Like maybe instead of angry or sad you were really feeling hurt.  You could find more information in Dr. John Gray's books, Mars and Venus Starting Over, or What You Feel You Can Heal.


 I hope that this was helpful. If you need more information, please contact me at carbajalzulma@gmail.com.

"There is a misguided expectation that we are suppose to be happy all the time. Let's set this straight. None of us is immune to the ups and downs of being human. Emotions-all of them- are precious nuts and bolts of the spiritual journey. Heal from the inside out and you can set yourself free. I often work with patients who appear to have everything. Yet many are lost, unhappy. More isn't always better. no matter how many houses you own, or how impressive a bank account, if you're full of self-loathing, even the most exquisite rose can't touch you. We view the world through the lens of how we feel about ourselves." -  Judith Orloff, M.D.

Mother Hen

"Mother Hens have low-self-esteem, either because of a bad breakup or body issues, and they smother potential dates with their well-meaning but completely unsexy motherliness. They're classic enablers who find it easier to focus on others than to think of their own need to take care of everyone else except themselves. Someone who always has to take care of and fix everyone else is often the oldest sibling in her family and probably was a caregiver to the younger children when they were growing up." - Patti Novak


I read a story in Dr. Laura Schlessinger's book called Bad Childhood Good Life, about a woman who was always putting her brother's needs before her own, even after she got married and had her own family. The reason she did this is that she took on the "Mother Hen" role as a child because her parents were not emotionally available to do so. As the oldest she felt responsible to provide care for her younger sibling.

The result was that instead of the brother growing and healing, he blamed her for his bad behavior and problems. He felt "entitled" to get what he wanted from her such as money, room & board, or any other form of assistance even though he was a full grown man and should be doing this for himself. The bigger problem is that Mother Hen accepted the blame and did what she felt she had to do to make up for it even if it meant it will be at the cost of her own health, well being and happiness.

I very often hear similiar stories from my clients or women I just happen to meet. Just the other day a woman from http://first30days.com shared her story in the "Talk To Us" section. My heart went out to her because the challenges she was experiencing are typical of a woman who has taken the Mother Hen role. I completely understand Mother Hens because that has been my role for most of my life. In fact, not until three years ago did I realize how unhealthy my behavior was and I began to make changes. It has not been easy though. I slipped a few times over the years. But I have gotten a whole lot better.

This is what Dr. Laura has to say about to the Mother Hen in her book:

"Janeen, if your brother was 'messed up', let's look at the larger truth. Your father was absent and your mother was busy. He didn't have a parent. You did the best you could, but you were a kid. Kids can't really raise kids...I think you have been in denial also-taking all this responsibility on yourself. No wonder you brought him into your home; it's how you tried to fix the 'bad mothering' you think you did. But that was the past you both shared. You both suffered from the loss of Mommy and Daddy. You denied your childhood angst by burying yourself in your brother and his issues. Your brother denied his childhood angst by blaming you-which fed into your denial...and so it went, around and around."

Until I had challenged her decision to bring her brother into her home during our first conversation, she was like a missile- blindly trying to make up to her brother what she indentified as her "bad mothering" of him, when in fact neither of them wanted to confront the fact that they both were virtually abandoned by both parents. However, Janeen had made a better life choices, was educated, married and a mother. Her brother, jealous, resented all she had, and wanted to hurt his "surrogate mother." Sick. Sad.

These are typical signs which may indicate that you have taken the unhealthy Mother Hen role:

• You are a giver, but do not allow yourself to receive.
• You work hard to provide and give to others even though you are exhausted and depleted.
• You take blame for the feelings or challenges of others, even adults.
• You let others walk all over you. Especially your spouse, siblings, friends and children.
• You have low self-esteem or you base your value on how much you give to others.
• You always sacrifice your needs and well-being because you can't say "no".
• You attract low energy men: Addicts, abusive, selfish, cheaters, dishonest, self centered, etc.
• You help your friends at a moments notice, but when you need their help you just hear the sound of crickets.
• You attract selfish people in general. For example, your boss takes advantage that you never say "no", even when you really need to in order to finally get home at a decent hour and get some much needed rest, so he regularly piles on a bunch of last minute work on you so that he could leave at noon to play golf with the buddies. To top it off you are on salary so you are not even getting paid overtime.
• You are an enabler to your spouse's or boyfriend's addictions.
• You think that it is your fault that he cheats or you take blame for other serious character flaws.
• You do not set healthy boundaries with others, in fact you may not even know what boundaries are.

If you need my support to learn how to stop Mother Hen behavior, please contact me at carbajalzulma@gmail.com


"Even in a serious state of denial, you know you have been hurt and damaged in ways that cause confusion, pain, fear, and even anger. While you may be clear on the big picture of the difficulties you experienced in childhood, the "fine details" may not be so obvious...Those fine details have to do with..fixing everyone and everything to make up for the sense of powerlessness as a child...constantly creating in your adulthood your early bad situations in order to magically fix yesterday, and so forth."

                                                              -Dr. Laura Schlessinger

My Personal Love Lessons

Recently I was thinking about how much romantic relationships have taught me. I had many difficult moments. Sometimes the same scenario repeated itself over and over again. I did not understand that the reason this was happening was that I was not getting the lesson. I even lost my faith in God for a while. But I finally figured out that life was giving me an opportunity to choose again.

The following are my personal life lessons when it comes to romantic relationships. Review your relationship patterns and see if maybe you have the same lessons to learn as I did.

• Prince Charming is not coming to rescue you. The fairy tales, media, movies, magazines, and culture make us believe that without a man we will not be happy and that we can't live a great life until prince Charming comes and rescues us. I got a major wake up call after a series of prince Charmings who turned into frogs. I was forced to take a lot of time alone and finally see that I could lead a happy life without a man. Plus the kind of man that I want to attract is not looking for someone to rescue.
• Assert your needs and feelings no matter what. We are taught as little girls to be pleasing and not make any waves. We are told that we need to give..give...give..give, give...give...give.. and never ask for our needs to be met. So women end up compromising themselves in order to keep a relationship. Many men know that most women are too afraid to leave. Some women cling to a man even when he is emotionally, mentally, or physically abusive.
• Honor, love and respect yourself. Some men are like little boys, they are always testing women to see how far they could go. Unfortunately most women let them go way too far. Low energy men need to be retrained to respect, love and honor women. But for that to happen we need to honor, love and respect ourselves. We teach men how to treat us. Let's start teaching them the right way.
• Your self-esteem is not dependent on anyone or anything. If a man leaves your life it does not mean that you are less of a person. In my experience it has always been a good thing that the person left my life because it led me to be free to meet someone much better. Just make sure you get the lesson and heal first so that you do not get the same type of guy (or the same one) again. You will be hurting your self-esteem thinking there is something wrong with you. It's not you, it's him. You just need to do what you got to do to stop attracting him.
• It is better for you to be alone than to be with someone who treats you poorly. You deserve better than a man who is selfish, abusive, chemically addicted, emotionally unavailable, etc. Or even if he simply does not get how fabulous you are. If a man does not see you as a beautiful goddess and cherishes you as one, then he does not deserve you.
• You can't fit a square peg into a round hole. Sometimes women are much less picky when it comes to men than men are with women. I can't tell you how many men I dated who thought they were God's gift to women. The reason for this is because women act like men are everything. Even when a man has serious character flaws. Or he conflicts with her values, interest, and beliefs. Women still compromise themselves to make things work. Don't do this. Don't compromise on the big things that should not be compromised, you will enventually regret it.
• Trust your intuition no matter what. There are many low energy people out there. They tell you what you want to hear for many self serving reasons. It's not always their intention to mislead you, but they get all caught up in infatuation. Once infatuation is over they can't deliver. So learn to trust your intuition.
• Have your own life. As women we tend to revolve our life around men. We drop everything for men, sometimes even our good friends. Men rarely change their life and schedules so drastically even when they develop feelings for a woman. Be more like a man in that you ensure that you don't give up the things in your life that keep you feeling good about you. Especially do not drop your friends.
• You can't change a man, you could only change yourself. We focus so much on fixing men when they do not want to nor do they think there is anyhing to fix. The worse part is that we are so busy trying to change them that we neglect our own life. So if you are with someone and think that as soon as you can you are changing this and that, forget it. You are wasting time and energy. Just start all over with someone who already has those qualities.
• I recommend that you find someone who wants to grow with you. I recently met a happy couple who has been married for fifty-four years. I asked the husband what was the secret. He told me that when him and his wife were dating for eight months, he asked her to marry him, but only if they both worked on growing together. They are an inspiration to me and many others. I know that their children have followed their footsteps. I met one of their daughters who has been married for many years as well. Someone who does not know them would probably assume they were newlyweds because they are so into each other.

Following Your Dreams

Every time you suppress some parts of yourself or allow others to play you small, you are in essence ignoring the owners manual of your creator and destroying your design. - Oprah Winfrey


It took me many years to understand that material things will never make me happy. At least not long term. Neither would diplomas, credentials and titles. What I have found that keeps me happy (even on the worse days) is following my dreams. Being of service to others has made my life more fulfilling and joyful. Sometimes I am so excited to get to work that I jump out of bed at 5:00 a.m. full of energy. I even want to work weekends.

I believe that most of us want our lives to have meaning. To make a difference in someone else's life. But people get so stuck on the day to day stuff that they do not pursue their dreams. They don't seek help from others either for direction.

I am going to encourage you to follow your dreams and not to let things get in the way of them. Instead of using the Law of Attraction to accumulate more stuff, I suggest you use it to get you closer to your calling. When you pursue something that has meaning to you, all other areas in your life are enhanced. You get along better with family. You are even friendlier with strangers. Your health improves. You meet like minded people. You are also so sparkly that people are instantaneously attracted towards you.

It's interesting that now work seems more like playtime. Even to go to parties I am reluctant to leave my work, that is how much I love it.

You may have success in life, but then ....what kind of life was it? You've never done the thing you wanted to do in all your life. ..go where your body and soul want to go. When you have the feeling, then stay with it, and don't let anyone throw you off.
                                                                                                
                                          - Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth


If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are- if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.


                                           -Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth



Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
                         
                                               -Henry David Thoreau


The best things in life aren't things.
                                              
                                                -Anonymous