The Joy of Being Who You Are

I grew up with a deep-seated sense of mistrusting myself. Not being sure where this came from, I always assumed it was connected with that same inability I had to easily make up my mind. This started at a very early age. When I would be in a restaurant with my family, as frustrating as it was, I couldn't make up my mind about what to order on a menu.

As I got oler, this sense of doubt or mistrust often carried itself into social situations I found very frustrating. I also found it haunting me at work when I was particularly stressed. This made it even harder to concentrate in stressful, intense, hospital and clinical settings working as a nurse. Imagine how frightened I was as a first time manager!

Along about this same time I noticed an increase in one of the ways I coped with stress. I was eating more emotionally in attempt to cope with my feelings of anger, fear, and stress from working as a nurse and raising a family; yet I wasn't consciously aware of it. This created more stress and fear from weight gain. I felt less and less effective both at work and at home. It didn't help that my oldest child was full-swing in the intensity of his teen-age years.

You might ask what does this have to do with growing up with a sense of mistrust, stress, emotional eating and weight gain? It has a lot to do with it. Thankfully, just as my oldest son was in highschool, I stumbled on the Solution Method. I thought I was just learning something new to help me with losing the stubborn weight that I always carried. I learned so much more!

The incredible blessing of having been able to be a Solution participant and go through the developmental skills training has transformed my life. I learned how to find out what I'm feeling and what I really need, and what it takes to get those needs met. Often it wasn't a cookie that I needed at all. It was some down time, away from the stress of life. Maybe it was a walk outside listening to the birds or listening to great music. Sometimes I indulged in "magazine therapy" or just delicious solitude.

It felt so wonderful to learn how to nurture myself without food! Once I was able to check in with myself and identify my state of stress with the 5-point system, I could choose to use a tool to change from stress to feeling much better, even joyful! As this secure connection inside grew with practice of these skills, the cravings for extra food and emotional eating began to fade. One of my favorite skills became the loving, appropriate limits I was able to set with my kids. Their positive responses surprised me.

This work has taught me how to nurture myself in a way that food never could. It also lead to a weight loss of over 25 pounds. I've been able to keep it off for over 5 years. When real life stress occurs I am able to handle it differently without even thinking about it now. Today my oldest son called me just before I left work to tell me he got laid off from a really great job. I felt really sad. It was just balanced sadness, a feeling that I needed to feel; not eat a bunch and dwell on it like I would have before having these skills.

I also noticed another incredible thing happening during my devlopmental skills training. I began to be able to trust myself and my decisions unlike I never had been able to before. At about this same time, I developed a solid sense inside, that no matter what happened, I was going to be ok. It was at this time that I decided even though I was working as a clinical nurse manager with people that I loved, I wasn't sure that I was fulfilling my life's purpose, and I decided to make a career change. Even though it was really scary, I left the health system I had worked for over 14 year, and started over at 48 years old to become a diabetes educator.

The Solution Method and developmental skills training has been so life changing for me, I decided to become certified in the method myself. This way I can share the profound blessings and changes with people right here in the community I live in. I am passionate about helping others experience and make the changes in their lives they never thought were possible.

It's funny how feelings like fear, and mistrusting ourselves start early in our lives. Neuroscience now tells us that a lot of these feelings are from neural pathways that are laid down early in our lives in the feeling (limbic) brain. These neural circuits can trigger repeatedly, causing us to have stress reactions from childhood we aren't even aware of. This can cause us to feel like the stress button got stuck on "high volume." Neuroscience also shows we can literally change this old brain neural circuitry and unwire old circuits or habits we want to change and rewire newer, healthier ones.

When this happens you increase your resiliency to stress, create a sense of trust and connection within yourself and learn how to create more pleasure and joy in your life! As Joseph Campbell said, "the privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." The Solution Method allows you that privilege with love, acceptance and more joy than you can imagine!

You can read more about this method by goin to the website at www.thepathway.org, where you can sighn up for a free Wired for Joy orientation on Monday eveings @ 5:30pm PST. You can also receive a complimentary 10 day membership in The Solution internet community to begin learning the tools of the method.