"Yeah, I think it do it all time. After I judged myself for not knowing answer, then I judged myself for eating too much and having desert. And then I felt even worse."

"So what did you hope for by judging yourself?

"I guess I hoped that I could control my eating and also get myself to work harder so I wouldn’t forget things."

"It doesn’t seem to be working."

"No, it just makes me feel terrible. In fact, I can see that judging myself for not knowing answer made me feel so badly that then I wanted to eat more. Instead of giving me more control, it gave me less!"

"So you are trying to have control over yourself through your self-judgments, but what actually happens is that you feel awful and behave in addictive ways to avoid pain. I think what also happens is that some part of you goes into resistance to being judged and told what to do, so you end up doing opposite of what you tell yourself you should do."

"Right. As soon as I tell myself not to eat so much and judge myself for eating, that’s when I really want to eat. So I’m eating to not be controlled and also because in judging myself I’m abandoning myself, which makes me feel sad and empty, and I’ve always used food to fill up that emptiness. Whew! How do I stop this cycle?"

"You can’t stop it until you are conscious of it. As long as you are doing it unconsciously - on automatic pilot - you have no choice over it. So first thing you can do is not try to change it but just notice it. As you become very aware of this pattern, you will have choice to change it. You will have choice to be loving and caring toward yourself instead of judgmental once you become aware of what you are doing. You can start by noticing every time you feel that empty sad feeling, and then exploring what you were telling yourself that led to painful feeling."

Karl did start to notice and over time was able to stop judging himself. Not only did sad empty feeling that he had experienced so often in his life go away, but he was able to keep to his medical nutrition plan for his heart. When his Inner Child felt loved instead of judged, he didn’t need to eat to take away pain.

You want to ask a question or questions that will move you forward and empower you to take action. Like: “How can I accomplish this project and enjoy process?” Now you have directed any negative thinking to a more positive flow. This positive flow will encourage action and give you results.

If you are tackling a big problem ask questions like, “How can I break this down into workable steps?” “How can I solve first step, second step and so on?” Or “What is first action to resolving this first step and so on?”

Should you be going through a “bad” experience -- if there is such a thing, for while we have experiences we don’t enjoy, are they truly BAD in long run? Don’t we gain valuable knowledge and experience we can apply later? But I digress. Let us get back to topic at hand. If you are going through a “bad” experience, then channel your flow with questions like; “What can I learn from this experience?” “How can I grow from this experience?” “How can I keep this from happening to me again?” “How can I make lemonade out of this lemon?” (Remember Velcro was actually a failed experiment so was glue that now is used on Post-It Notes – both of these lemons have become sweet profitable lemonade for inventors and their companies)

Now that you have asked your question(s) really let your mind run with it. Don’t just ask question once, ask it again and again. Whenever you have a minute of spare time or when your alone driving home, seriously mull over question and let your mind turn over to you ideas and actions that will bring you to positive results of changing your flow of thought.

(Oh, and remember don’t think about your shoes!) Think Successfully. Tracy