Happy New Year to all!
Often this is the time of the year where we summon all of our willpower to break those negative cyclic patterns from the past year, such as quitting smoking, losing weight, or becoming more active. By making that New Year’s Resolution, we are trying to positively affect our well being. Unfortunately, most of us fail by February 14th, but why?
Most interventions, whether it is from a health care practitioner or by yourself, fail to look at why we do things in the first place. Those unwanted behaviours began for a reason and serve an emotional purpose. Those emotions are almost never explored by either you or with your health care practitioner, as society and the prevailing scientific thought put very little worth on emotions. However, consider the following…
When you buy that gym membership, is it based on guilt? When you are hurt or depressed, do you reach for that triple chocolate truffle or perhaps your favourite potato chip? When your boss has been on your back all day long and you come home to a stressful environment, do you reach for a cigarette?
Many of our day to day decisions are based on emotional needs, and they are insidiously done unconsciously to ourselves. We don’t even know we are doing it until after the fact, then the emotion of guilt rushes in adding to our already fragile emotional psyche, questioning our self confidence. This formula leads to our New Year’s Resolution failure.
So what can be done? The first step for anyone is to explore those emotions while being honest about the connections with the unwanted behaviour. Undoubtedly, you will find an emotional debt attached to that behaviour. In other words, that behaviour is filling an emotional void or gap that needs to be nurtured. Unfortunately, we are often doing this with a self destructive behaviour.
Once you understand the emotional needs that you need to nurture, you gain the upper hand in keeping your promises to yourself. With some self-unconditional love (total acceptance of yourself without guilt or self-punishment), you will be able to begin moving forward, replacing the negative acts with more constructive behaviours.
As a Naturopathic Doctor, mental/emotional therapies are fundamental in my practice in supporting you in achieving your goals.
Dr. Derek Cook
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