How many times do you ‘reward’ or comfort yourself because you feel you deserve it?  Often we reach out for ‘comfort food’, a cigarette or glass of wine because the mood strikes us or it has become a habit. The reasons we find may be varied. Sometimes it is boredom, it seems to make you feel better, you feel you deserve it – it helps you unwind at the end of the day or it gives you a few moments to yourself to contemplate the world. Whatever need that caused you to use that comfort the first time, most likely works at a subconscious level today.  In order to change that habit you may want to pause and reflect on that ‘first’ time and what it represented to you and how it is still relevant today.  It may stem as far back as when you were a child. That sweet treat may represent a feeling of being loved or that cigarette may be something that you did that your parents didn’t know about and gave you a feeling of power. What form does your comfort take?  Is it food, laying on the couch, inactivity, a cigarette or a glass of wine?  How many comforts do you give yourself each day or each week and what do you tell yourself to justify it? Many times the feeling afterward can be guilt, the reward is short lived and sometimes some people feel ashamed. This then makes you feel worse so you do it all again to make yourself feel momentarily better again! It may be that you forgot about even feeling better and now it is just all a bad habit that you wish you could shake. 

Instead of comforting yourself when you deserve it – try celebrating yourself. How do you like to celebrate? Do you want everyone to know or would you want to keep it to yourself? In what ways could you celebrate yourself so you don’t continually reward yourself with things that are not good for you?  How many bad foods or bad habits do you need to have before you realize you are not comforting yourself and in fact disrespecting yourself? Will it be a bar of chocolate, a few lollies or chips every day for the next 5 years? Who is that respecting and how worthy do you feel?

 You may like to think that if you eat or drink you may as well have something you like and enjoy – and rightfully so in this world of plentiful food and plentiful choices. If you choose to have something on the less than healthy food option – do you have a boundary or do you eat so much of it all the time it is now an ingrained habit more than a comfort? By creating a boundary you can know that when you have it – you do deserve it and you won’t be left with that feeling of guilt. There are plenty of guilt-free options if you want to consider them. When do you decide how much is too much?  How do you know and when will you tell yourself?  What will be the alarm bell in your head going off to say it is time to stop and think?  Perhaps first, you need to consider some of the consequences of living an unhealthy existence.  What health problems do your parents have? Genetically inheritable diseases play a major role in the health outcomes we can expect.  Do you have a family history of diabetes or heart disease? If you are a smoker you may feel the warnings on cigarette packets do not necessarily apply to you. What would be your wake up call? The reality may be for 10, 20, 30 or even 40 years of pleasure you may have the same number of years in a diseased state. At what point would you consider your comfort is no longer a comfort?  The impact of any chronic diseased state will affect others around you and  impact on the options you have for your own life and independence. When the pain of staying the same out weighs the pain of changing, most likely then a shift will happen. How much more powerful would you be, if you could beat that challenge now before the pain gets so bad and it really gets tough? So how else could you take a moment to celebrate yourself – to say “I had an achievement today!” – no matter how big or how small?  What could you do for yourself that respects you and respects your body?  As you are reading this – try patting yourself on the back – how does it feel?  It may feel a little contrived but you could admit it did make you feel that little bit better. Think about your hobbies or things you really enjoy doing. Perhaps there is something there that you could take to enjoy for 1, 5 or 30 minutes? You could also ‘save up’ for a big celebration – buy  something nice, take a night off, pamper yourself. Make a little brag book for yourself with all the great and wonderful things you have accomplished – from the little stuff to the big stuff. This is also a great tool to look at when you have your “down” or less focused days. If you really want to look – you will have something to celebrate in each and every day. You may celebrate the fact that you took time to exercise, you helped a friend, you helped yourself, you said ‘no’ when you usually say ‘yes’. You could celebrate the great health you and your family have today.  If you think about your day and it doesn’t seem that great, celebrate the fact that it could have been even more challenging than it was. If it was challenging – what did you learn? Now -  there is cause for celebration! If you look at life in a more open and grateful way – you will find less need for the comfort and more reason for celebration. What could happen if you celebrated all the great things or small things in your life just a little bit more? Take a look at my ‘Place for gratitude’ and share some of yours if you like.