Sofia Bothwell

  How is addiction 'encouraged' within society? Well, have you ever seen a TV series or watched a film where one or other of the characters says - 'I need a drink!' Maybe they have had a hard day at work and head for the bar, and with a sigh it is their well deserved reward or pick-me-up. The party just is not a party without alcohol. You see the depressed business man pour himself a stiff whisky. It is in all our films and TV series as the go-to method of life to feel better, drown your sorrows or celebrate. It is tied in with relationships and love, loneliness and problem solving. The truth is, it rots our kidneys and liver, and does little to solve our problems. Again and again I promote the idea of emotional resolving as your only way through this life with any healing and peace. Without food when full, without alcohol, without addiction period, your life is more authentic and an adventure. So look at where you are not looking. That means look at where you are avo...

Emotions are a precious gift of life. You are human, you have to have emotion. It comes with the body. You cannot have a day without weather, and likewise you cannot be a human without emotion. You can try to suppress your emotions, ignore your emotions and generally deny your emotions but that just creates a mess. A big mess. The thing is, people do not like being aware of their emotions. People do not like to be in a body if what is experienced in that body is emotional pain. That is the driving force within every drug taker, every over eater, anorexic, alcoholic, workaholic, gambler etc etc - that force that says consciously or unconsciously ''I do not want to be here.'' Sad but true.  We experience pain a lot in this world because of widespread ignorance of the kindness that is so important in living. When all of society becomes kinder, more aware, less materialistic and more spiritual if you like, we will have less drive towards addiction. Care and attention to one...

There is something 'in it' that makes you addicted (processed foods). It is such a ''high'' you get addicted (drugs like heroin or cocaine). Statements such as these are you giving away your power to give up or take up the addiction. Always remember - You have a choice. No matter how high the high or what is 'put in processed food' you are the one who decides (consciously or subconsciously) to partake of addiction. You can get addicted to anything. People get addicted to things because they have unresolved emotional issues and traumas that they do not know how to heal. Because this can be unconscious further complicates things. To hear someone say 'Well I am addicted'' is like they are throwing their arms up in the air in resignation to the fact that they are powerless to change. and nothing is further than the truth. You can change if you want to, and so you have to ask yourself - Do I really want to change? If the answer is - Yes - then you...

 To be able to stay away from the foods we know are bad for us, to be able to stay away from the activities that we know are bad for us, is the essence of what I teach. Avoidance tactics that distance us from our feelings, avoidance tactics that numb our emotions are what we are avoiding. So what are you avoiding? Are you avoiding your emotional issues or are you avoiding life. By avoiding life, I mean, Are you avoiding facing up to and healing your own very personal emotional wounding? This healing of emotional wounds may not have been taught to you by your parents or teachers. Even grown up you discover little or nothing to help you heal your emotional wounding. Whenever that topic arises it is easily squelched, not talked about or discussed, so you conclude that there is no other way to deal with your emotional stuff other than to suppress it through eating when full, eating food that gives you an adverse reaction in your body, and / or drinking, smoking etc etc ad infinitum....

 There once was a young man who went to the spiritual Master asking the Master for help with his anger.  ''Where is your anger?'' Asked the Master. ''Show it to me.'' ''I can't show you my anger now. I don't feel angry now,'' replied the young man. This highlights the transient nature of emotion, as does the Buddhist saying ''Feelings are like clouds in the sky - they pass.'' I thought my own interest in Eastern Spirituality was separate from my work (both on myself and with others) around eating disorder recovery and emotional healing, but lately I've been considering that anyone who starts to heal emotionally, tap into their intuition and heal their addictions also invariably end up on the ''spiritual path'' for the want of a better phrase. Over the years as my interest in Eastern philosophy / spirituality increased, I realised there are some Western, genuine ''gurus'' doing mu...

 I have to say the old timers in positive thinking are the masters. My first introduction into positive thinking (I was raised by a very negative thinking father) was through the books of Norman Vincent Peale and Catherine Ponder among others.  Yes, they talked of God, and yes, I often replaced the word ''God'' with the word ''Love'' for that was my God. But, what they did, was teach me of the power of my thinking mind. To reverse it from negative to positive and thus reap the positive benefits in my life.  I was a young woman woman living in a rented room in London. My family (who were wealthy) were of no financial help whatsoever; nor were they of any emotional help, but that is another story (see my biography My Life My Way) My Life My Way So why now in these interesting times am I yet again drawn to talk about these great teachers?  Well, they lived in times, dare I say it, even more difficult than these. They spoke to people who had suffered and we...

 If we think of being overweight as being simply a food issue we are just ineffectively scratching the surface of the problem. Once we realise that ''eating when full'' is the cause of our excess weight, and then, in turn, realise that ''eating when full'' is what we do to suppress our emotional issues, we are really getting somewhere. We are getting to the truth of the matter!  The truth of the matter being, that unresolved emotional issues are really the leftovers of instances of abuse in our lives. That unresolved issue of fear, anger or boredom. That unresolved issue around your teacher, dad, priest or mother. This is why so many people are overweight and stay overweight all their lives. They simply do not want to ''go there.'' And because the facilities for ''going there'' are often expensive therapies, even ridiculed, little known therapies that are not mainstream yet, venturing into the unknown seems just too much t...