Chapter 6 How Healing Happens

WOW!!! 3 Posts in one day? I'm pretty sure this will be the last one today...but you never know, I really am loving this book.

So, this chapter is leading into Chapter 7 which I believe is the first Chapter about how to really start getting off this food addiction!

She explains that there are nerve fibers in our brain that show the pattern of habit...again I'm not way scientific so I don't understand it enough to explain it without directly quoting her..." New synapses are formed and new connections made with each new experience. If an experience is repeated, the connection is confirmed. Through practice, one route becomes a major throughway. Through neglect, another route becomes a country road. here we have a possible physiological explanation for the effectiveness of habit or compulsion. This research present a possibility. If we want to change our lives and try something very different, perhaps our new effort, repeated often enough, will cause a rerouting in our brains and the old throughway to fall in to disuse." She goes on to say that through her own experience this is exactly what has happened and her new habits are easier to do and repeat then her old habits, I sure this happens to me!

She also goes on to say how to truly overcome an addiction you have to do it from inside out, such as understanding everything that is going on inside of your brain and body to be able to change whats happening on the outside. She outlines the following steps of healing....

*We become abstinent from the drug foods that could our thinking and that perpetuate cravings and the need to eat.

*By reconnecting with our feelings and needs, we stop neglecting ourselves.

*We get the support needed to break survival rules that limit us from getting our needs met.

*By ceasing to give what we cannot afford to give we stop abusing ourselves.

*We attend to our insides, no longer sacrificing our inside self for outside impressions, and stop abandoning ourselves.

She also talks about how we really need to understand and act on our feelings and we can really not do this process alone. It's going to be hard but I'm glad that I have a good support system that is going to help me get through this!