 Tools for a
Balanced Lifestyle
A Program of Recovery from Weight Related Problems
Going for the 3 increases: Increase of Health; Increase of Happiness and
Increase of Energy
Chapter 6: Impact of
Abuse on Problems with Body Image and Weight
II.
An ANGER Workout on Self-Destructive Responses to Program
Cavepeople were very aware
of their anger responses to the abuses of nature, which resulted in making their
survival a more difficult task to accomplish. They could not afford to ignore
their anger over the abuse of Mother Nature and their response to it, because if
they did they would not survive. Ignoring your anger at abuse in you life leads
to self-destructive behaviors, which sabotage your original goal of survival and
an increase of health, happiness and energy. Cavepeople were able to rid
themselves of their anger against the abuses of nature so that they could resume
their daily battle to survive. So too, you need to rid yourself of your anger
against the abuse you have received in your life so that you can resume or fully
implement the Tools for a Balanced Lifestyle Program in your life. To do this
well you need to do an ANGER Workout on your self-destructive responses
to this life-enhancing program.
You first need to accept
that you are angry about the abuses, which you have experienced in your life,
which determine your response to your body image and weight problems. You need
to recognize that you are not directly addressing your anger at the people who
abused you but rather you have turned the anger inward and grown in self-hatred
and exhibit self-destructive behaviors. In Stop Self-destructive
Anger Responses of the Tools for Anger Work-Out
a hundred self-destructive responses are
listed. Self-destructive behaviors occur when you hold your anger in instead of
expressing it in a healthy way. This holding in or stuffing the anger results in
depression, pessimism, resentment, the need for revenge, a chip on your
shoulder, holding grudges, masking your real feelings, bitterness, severe
disappointment, sense of powerlessness to get what you need out of life and a
desire to give up. The self-destructive response results in you becoming
self-defeating, sabotaging your growth, the root of your resistance to mature
and change, a habit which is resistant to being changed and not always so
clearly related to the abuse issues which have angered you. What follows is an
inventory of self-destructive behaviors, which are specific to the Tools for a
Balanced Lifestyle Program. Do this inventory to help you ACCEPT that
your anger over the abuse you have received in your life is keeping you
currently off track from your goal of changing the way you live your life, eat,
exercise and deal with your emotions in food-free ways.
Inventory of
Self-destructive Behaviors in Balanced Lifestyle Change Efforts
Rate each response to
efforts to implement the Tools for a Balanced Lifestyle Program in your life, by
circling the degree to which it is true for you.
1 = never
2 = rarely 3 = sometimes
4 = often 5
= almost always
(
1) 1 2 3 4 5 not taking the time to read the material or do the activities
contained in the Tools for a Balanced Lifestyle manual
(
2) 1 2 3 4 5 going on a starvation diet to lose weight immediately even though
you know it is unhealthy for you
(
3) 1 2 3 4 5 compulsively overeating on a daily basis since beginning this
program
(
4) 1 2 3 4 5 beating yourself up for not fully implementing the program by now
(
5) 1 2 3 4 5 using food to stuff or medicate your emotions instead of using the
ALERT, ANGER, CHILD, and LET GO Systems encouraged in this program
(
6) 1 2 3 4 5 not increasing your level of physical activity or exercise on a
daily basis
(
7) 1 2 3 4 5 telling others you are fully implementing the program when you are
not and feeling badly about lying about it to others
(
8) 1 2 3 4 5 ignoring the nutritional composition of the meals which you are
currently eating
(
9) 1 2 3 4 5 not using positive affirmations of unconditional self-love and
acceptance
(10)
1 2 3 4 5 maintaining a "diet mentality" about your relationship with
food
(11)
1 2 3 4 5 maintaining a perfectionistic attitude about how you should implement
the program and judging your current efforts "never good enough"
(12)
1 2 3 4 5 feeling shame and guilt for not implementing the program fully at this
time
(13)
1 2 3 4 5 over exercising or maintaining a compulsive or obsessive level of
exercise
(14)
1 2 3 4 5 refusing to believe that you do not need to go on a diet or weigh
yourself on a daily basis to maintain a Balanced Lifestyle in your life
(15)
1 2 3 4 5 unwilling to accept your body and you just the way you are right now
(16)
1 2 3 4 5 eating all the food on your plate even if you are no longer hungry
(17)
1 2 3 4 5 holding on to the belief that you need to be perfectly thin in order
to gain personal happiness (holding on to the "Swiss Bank Account Body"
mentality)
(18)
1 2 3 4 5 not taking time for you and losing yourself in spending time in being
over-responsible on your job and in your family
(19)
1 2 3 4 5 not dealing with your anger in healthy ways and expressing your anger
and rage on others and then feeling guilt and remorse for doing so
(20)
1 2 3 4 5 putting no effort into meal selection and preparation and disregarding
the fat and caloric content
(21)
1 2 3 4 5 making no effort to cut back on unnecessary eating or eating when you
are not hungry
(22)
1 2 3 4 5 blaming others for you not being able to maintain the new Balanced
Lifestyle model in your life
(23)
1 2 3 4 5 disagreeing with the tenants of the Tools for a Balanced Lifestyle
Program and not removing yourself from the program for fear what others will say
about you if you do
(24)
1 2 3 4 5 blaming yourself for everything negative which has happened in your
life and not forgiving yourself for negative things you actually did do
(25)
1 2 3 4 5 hanging onto the belief that "Things would be better if I were
thin."
(26)
1 2 3 4 5 being concerned about what others think of you and being obsessed with
the need for others' acceptance, recognition and approval
(27)
1 2 3 4 5 letting the fear of the loss of the gains you have already made in
this program paralyze you into inactivity lest you make further gains which you
could also lose
(28)
1 2 3 4 5 continuing to use food and fat to insulate you from real or imagined
dangers
(29)
1 2 3 4 5 allowing the fear of the loss of the safety from being fat to
immobilize you
(30)
1 2 3 4 5 allowing the fear of the loss of the "old me" to immobilize
you
(31)
1 2 3 4 5 frustrated with yourself for not losing more weight by this point in
the program
(32)
1 2 3 4 5 refusal to lose weight, due to the pressure from others to lose weight
once they find out you are in this program
(33)
1 2 3 4 5 refusal to accept that your problems with food, weight and body image
are based in your psychological view
of self than in how much food you eat
(34)
1 2 3 4 5 offering excuses to yourself and others why it is so difficult to
change your life
(35)
1 2 3 4 5 lying to yourself and others to hide your resistance to implementing
the Tools for a Balanced Lifestyle Program in your life
If
you have rated a response with a 3 or higher, it is a self-destructive response
to implementing the Tools for a Balanced Lifestyle Program in your life. It is
based on your anger about the abuse you have received in your life due to who
you are; what you have done and your body shape, size, looks and weight. You
need to ACCEPT you are angry, by identifying the self-destructive responses,
which originate from your internal anger about your abuse and your self-hatred
stemming from your abuse, which keep you immobilized from doing what you need to
do to change the way you live your life in relationship to food, exercise and
handling your feelings. Once you have completed this task you are ready for the
second ANGER step.
You
now need to NAME, for each self-destructive response identified above,
the abuse event involved, the person (s) involved and what about the event and
person (s) angered you so that it led you to internalize the anger and turn it
against yourself in the self-destructive response identified. You need to NAME
how the event affected you when it happened and how it affects you to this day.
You also need to NAME why this anger over the abuse event has so much power over
you to this day. You finally need to NAME how it is that the identified
self-destructive response does not seem to be directly related to the abuse you
received in the past and how this angers you, that you would take out the abuse
your received in the past on yourself today in such a negatively self-hating,
self-defeating and self-sabotaging way.
Once
you have completed the NAME step you then need to proceed to do your GET IT
OUT step by doing rage, hatred or revenge workouts on all events and persons
involved in each of the self-destructive responses identified in the above
inventory. You need to do aggressive anger work of Read, Write and Burn; yelling
and screaming; hitting inanimate objects and breaking unneeded objects until you
feel exhausted in your anger and are ready to forgive the persons involved and
forget the events so that they have no more power in your life. You need to
recognize that it is only until you have unstuffed and expelled this anger will
you be ready to more readily implement this Balanced Lifestyle Program in your
life. Once you have expelled your anger you will be ready for the next step of
the ANGER System.
As
your anger is expelled and you are successful in GETTING IT OUT of your system
you will begin to experience the next step, which is, ENERGIZE. You will
experience an increase of emotional energy to pursue the tough work of
implementing the Balanced Lifestyle Program in your life. You will feel the
energy to read and do the activities listed in this manual. You will have the
emotional energy and increase love of self to take control of the planning and
preparation of your meals so that it is based on the tenants of this Program.
You will have the energy to monitor that your meals do not have more than 30% of
their caloric content in fat calories. You will have the energy to eat small
meals only when you are hungry instead of eating three large meals a day even if
you are not hungry. You will have the energy to use tradeoffs of desired foods
with less desirable foods to maintain a balanced nutritional intake in each
meal. You will have the energy to trade off with increased physical activity and
exercise when you have allowed yourself to indulge in your "favorite
meals" which are high in fat or calories. You will have the energy to let
go of the diet mentality and accept that you do not need to be on a diet to lose
weight. You will have the energy to increase your physical activity and exercise
and decrease your caloric intake if you want to experience a drop in weight. You
will have the energy to increase the amount of physical activity and exercise
you do on a daily basis. You will have the energy to select those physical
exercise activities which you can do on a daily basis which are not dependent on
the weather, nor must be done with others, nor cost a lot of money and time
which you cannot budget for on a weekly basis. You will have enough energy to
address your emotional issues in food-free healthy ways by use of the ALERT,
ANGER, CHILD and LET GO Systems promoted in this book. You will have the energy
to be more open to hearing the hope filled messages of the 3 Increases of
Health, Happiness and Energy which are promised by this program. You will have
more energy to let go of your "thin" obsessions. You will have more
energy to work at accepting yourself just the way you are at the present time.
You will have the energy to let go of your conditional acceptance, shame and
guilt, perfectionism, need for invisibility and self-worth based on externals
which are the roots of your self-hatred and poor body image. You will have the
energy to accept personal responsibility for yourself and put healthy boundaries
between yourself and what others say about you so that the W.G.A.S.(who gives a
shit) affirmation will become more operative in your dealing with your body
image and weight. You will have the energy to accept yourself as a human being
who is subject to making mistakes and failing. You will have the energy to be
more self-forgiving and not being so rough on your self. You will have the
energy to continue to rid yourself of the idealism which keeps you angry and
unable to accept life the way it is rather than how you would like it. You will
have the energy to accept that your self-regulated, nutritionally balanced fed
body might not be the "thin" which you thought you needed it to be.
You will have enough energy to accept that a "healthy" alive body is
better than a dead "fat" or "thin" body. Once you have been
ENERGIZED you are then ready for the last ANGER step.
Once
you feel ENERGIZED you are ready to RESUME your efforts at implementing
the Balanced Lifestyle Program in your life. You need to insure that you do not
fall back into the self-destructive pattern, which has slowed or derailed your
efforts in this program. You need to give the members of your support system
permission "to call you on it" when you are falling back into your
self-destructive patterns. You need to ask them to watch for your "...Yes
...But" resistance messages when you are talking about or describing any
component of the program. You need to ask them to confront you when you fall
back into your self-hatred, self-loathing or self-deprecating ways of talking
about yourself. You need to ask them to identify for you when your talk with
them is reflecting a "diet mentality" rather than the human and hope
filled language of the Balanced Lifestyle Program. You need to ask them to
confront you when you fall back into self-pity or pessimism about how hard it is
to implement this program in your life because of the myriad of excuses you can
come up with. You need to ask your support system to remind you that: "The
program works only if you work the program." You need to ask your support
system to remind you that you already have the tools identified to help you deal
with your emotions in healthier food-free ways, which are the ALERT, ANGER,
CHILD and LET GO systems. You need to have your support system help you to
remember that you are OK just the way you are and that you do not need to be
"thin" so that you can be seen by others as "good enough."
You need to give the support system in your life permission to confront and call
you on it when you begin to imply that the 3 Increase of Health, Happiness and
Energy are not enough to aim for and that you would prefer to lose weight and be
thin as your ultimate goal. You need to give your support system appropriate
feedback so that they do not pressure you to lose weight as your ultimate goal
in this program.
To
continue in your RESUMING your life after letting go of the self-destructive
responses to this program you need to begin to use assertive "I feel"
messages with people who are pressuring you to revert back to the "diet
mentality" and "thin is in" belief systems. You need to use
positive assertive confrontation to stand up for your rights when others begin
to abuse you verbally, emotionally, physically or sexually in the future. You
need to stand up for your rights and let them know how their behaviors are
affecting you and ask them to stop them immediately. You need to continue to
grow in self-love by use of affirmations and positive healthy visualizations so
that you grow in self-confidence and self-deservedness which help you to stand
up for yourself when being abused about your body size, shape, looks or weight.
You need to grow in self-monitoring skills so that you can more readily identify
when you are slipping back into self-destructive modes of dealing with the
Balanced Lifestyle model. You need to confront those people in your support
system who are also trying to implement this lifestyle change but who are doing
so in a negative or self-destructive way which is challenging your own
commitment to the program. You need to give yourself permission to take the risk
of offending a fellow traveler, on the road to a Balanced Lifestyle, who by
words or actions seems to encourage you to get off track. You need to recognize
that by hanging out with negative people, who are self-destructing in this
program of lifestyle change, you could sabotage your own efforts and fall back
into self-destructive responses yourself. You need to give yourself permission
to discontinue associating with negative forces in your support system who are
not bolstering your courage to take the risk to change and grow in your life.
You need to give yourself permission to "take a break" from the
negative people who seem to be successful in saying things which tend to
"derail" you from working harder on changing your lifestyle. You need
to confront the self-destructive people in your support system with their own
self-destructiveness and if they are unwilling or not able to hear and respond
well to what you have to say, you might need to stay away from them until you
are strong enough to handle their negativity and not let it influence your own
thinking, feeling or acting.
To
RESUME your efforts at implementing the Balanced Lifestyle in your life, you
need to look at the TEA system and recognize that you cannot afford to wait to
implement the Balanced Lifestyle model in your life until you are fully
emotionally ready to do so. There is a good probability, which if you wait for
your emotions to catch up with your thinking, that you will never act to begin
the change. You are a food addict and as such need to stop your food addiction
now, even if you do not feel like you want to. If you do not stop your food
addiction you could die and then you would lose all the way around. You need to
try to "fake it till you make it" in implementing all of the
components in the program. You might think it is "stupid or silly" to
do ANGER workouts, but if you do not do the ANGER workouts you will stay stuck
emotionally and continue to deal with this program in a self-destructive way.
Self-destructive responses are at the root of your inability to mobilize
yourself to get going in this program. Get yourself in gear and either do the
work of this program at this stage of your participation or drop out of the
program until you are more motivated to do what it takes to be successful in it.
The choice is yours. Be honest with yourself and face the truth no matter what
the choice needs to be.
Related
Tools for Coping
Readings
1. Self-Esteem Seekers
Anonymous: The SEA's Program Manual
2. Tools for
Anger-Workout
To assist you to go on to other sections of Chapter
6: Impact of Abuse on
Problems with Body Image and Weight in
the Tools for a Balanced Lifestyles, click on
to the topic you wish to go to next:
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