Dear Chocoholic,

I wonder how many of you last week decided to commit to giving up chocolate for lent? If you did, well fair play to you, go for it!!!!

I am just writing a little post here, that might support you through until Easter Sunday on 31st March. ( And beyond, of course!!)

For me, to help you to give up chocolate it would be helpful to you, to write down, and get really clear just why you are wanting to do it! Yep, really, as it will help when it could get a bit tough.  So you could write this in your phone, on your computer, or in a special journal, I find it hard to resist a good journal to write my thoughts and feelings in, but that's just me

I would suggest buddying up with at least one other person so that you can support each other when you might be having serious withdrawal symptoms and you could keep each going and keep each other committed, you know those times when you might be dreaming in chocolate, or not being able to get it out of your head!

You could have your 'buddy,' on speed dial for those moments when you are feeling very weak, and have back up plans for what you might do instead? For example: how could you do something that will give you pleasure without chocolate? Could you exercise, could you take the dog or someone's dog a walk, could you meet your friend for a cuppa, could you snuggle up to your lover, or child, could you practice deep breathing, or make yourself something nourishing and tasty to eat, and so the list goes on!!

And finally, I would very much love to know what your reward for this time of giving up chocolate would be? Can you identify something that would inspire you to keep going? Would it be that feeling of self-control? Would it be to bet with your buddy that you could do it and treat each other to lunch or something? Whatever feels right here, go for it. It can help some of us to have an end in mind when we attempt to do things like this, it could even be that just starting and committing to do with a friend could be enough to get you through to the end, quite honestly.

I trust you have found value here, in the meantime, do let me know if you have any questions about overcoming chocolate addiction, that I am happy to respond to here!

Just email me at: carrie@chocolaterehab.com

Much love,

Carriexx

Dear Chocoholics,

Happy Valentines Day to you! I imagine you will have celebrated it with lots of chocolate; unlike though rest of the world, this is likely just a normal day for you? Right?

If so, then stick with me as I might be the person who is able to help you once and for all overcome your chocolate addiction with my own Chocolate Rehab Programme.

It's all  about relationships, learning from your relationships with chocolate; and how this reflects your relationship with yourself and the world.

It's all about listening to and honouring and indeed experiencing your feelings as the role of a feeling is to be felt. The more you suppress and repress your feelings, especially the negative ones, with lots of chocolate, the more you just stay stuck.

It's all about looking at parts of yourself you would rather hide behind chocolate; as really you are truly wanting to be perfect, and not have anyone know the 'real you,' as that would mean you could lose someone's love or attention.

It's all about realising that you could go through Chocolate Rehab and in time you could revert back to old habits as we are not robots, and I am not offering you a magic pill or cure-all.( Obviously, I am going to give you a lot of ideas of how to get back on track very fast though!!)

It's all about the idea that the more you develop a love affair with yourself instead of with chocolate you will become more loving, forgiving, and accepting of yourself and more willing to seek help from other things than chocolate bar, you so will!

I will be releasing my newly updated version of Chocolate Rehab, before Easter, so watch this space.

Check out my Chocolate Rehab Shop for my special Valentine's coaching offer!

In the meantime, I look forward to hearing your chocolate addiction questions which I will answer here on the blog!

Happy Valentines, remember you are always loved, no matter what!

Love Carriex

Dearest Chocoholic,

 Long time no posting, it’s not personal I have just been busy updating my Chocolate Rehab Programme and indeed simplfying it which is all exciting.com!

 I wonder, have you ever considered that your addiction to chocolate could actually be one of your greatest teacher’s or greatest growth opportunities, as my Reiki Master, the lovely Sue Gessey would say! Seriously Carrie? Absolutely, as it reveal to you, just where you could allow yourself to feel better, become better and indeed let go of things, ideas and  even people in your life that are no longer making you feel good! For me, this has happened a lot recently and maybe for you, if you took a few moments and considered, okay here are a few examples that might well help you.

 I am eating a lot of chocolate as I am feeling very stressed out a work- so… I could look at this that my addiction to chocolate is showing me, that looking for extra support in my role at work could help, or looking at other ways of dealing with my stress at work or even it could be a change in jobs! So, you could set an intention to deal with the stress at work, which feels right for you.

 Another scenario might be- I am eating a lot of chocolate because I  am feeling depressed. Here. I  would suggest here digging at bit deeper and asking yourself what do you feel depressed about. For example:  say it is your body-image. Then,  I would then encourage you to look at loving all parts of your body even the parts you might hate! Go for the ‘size sexy,’ rather than the ‘perfect size,’ you are absolulte wonderful, sexy and beautiful right now, by affirming: " I am sexy, lovely and beautiful now!"

A final scenario could be.. I am eating a lot of chocolate as I am feeling like I am lacking love in my life, the romantic kind that I really want. Okay, so, I would look at how you can fall in love with yourself first off, and feel grateful for your singledom, honour yourself, take yourself out on dates, and treat yourself like the Goddess you are right now! Also, I would wholeheartly suggest reading one of the most amazing books I have ever read about Romantic Relationships too, by the lovely Lauren Frances called: ‘Dating, Mating & Manhandliing, as it gives you so many gems of wisdom about men, how to flirt with them and how to treat them, it’s ooozes class and I am sure will help you get a love life, it’s working for me!!!!

 Do let me know your feelings about the above post and do email any questions you would  like to me answer on the blog!!

 Remember, there is life after your chocolate addiction, even if you might not feel this to be true right now, there so it!

Much love,

Carriexxx

Dearest Chocoholic,

I trust you had a lovely Easter and enjoyed your chocolate! Yep,  I did just write that! One of the most common questions that I am asked is if I am anti-chocolate, I am absolutely not; rather I am pro-balancing the role cohcolate plays in your life. Typically, for a Chocolate addict it plays are ‘overly active’ role as a way of compensating for lack of love, joy and pleasure in their life, where they tend to give into to feelings of fear over feelings of love

Today I would like to help support those of you who feel drawn to Chocolate Rehab make a conscious commitment to take your addiction to cohcolate seriously and set the intention to do something about it:)

It is a powerful time, after Easter as we start a new part of the seasons, so why not go for it, give yourself the gift of embracing this amazing growth opportunity of looking at how you can overcome your addiction to chocolate!

I know, it always helps having people who have been there and done that do it, and I so have, and so I can support you all the way be it here on my blog, on the facebook page, or even via the self-coaching modules on my site or by having one-to-one coaching and shortly via group coaching! A wonderful way of setting an intention to commit to overcoming your addiction to chocolate could be to write it down in your phone or diary and let a close friend or your partner know of your commitment; or better still buddy up with someone you know who will help support you through this journey!

The best place to start once you have a set this intention is to actually raise your awareness of your chocolate eating habits as you have likely  been eating chocolate unconsciously and not really being fully aware of your emotional or behaviourial triggers. So start this by tracking when you eat chocolate, and how you feel before during and after! Yep really, I am completely serious here!

This process helps you enormously to truly build an accurate picture of just where you own growth opportunities are in terms of how your addiction to chocolate is affecting your life and so how to it is showing up in your life. This could be through low self-esteem, low self-confidence, boredom, loneliness, overwhelming stress, heart-ache or just plain fear! Okeydokie, I look forward to hearing from you about how you find this process ! Oh and set a time frame on tracking your chocolate eating habits; such as for a week, two weeks or even a month, go for whatever feels righ to you!  

Much love, light & giggles, Carriexxxxxxxx

Dearest Chocoholic,

Happy Easter! I know, it’s that time of year where chocolate is pretty much everywhere!!! LOL! It’s the time of year too, where if you are a chocoholic you can quite simply ‘blend,’ into nearly everyone who celebrates Easter, at least, scoffing their way through ‘mountains’ of chocolate!

For me, this is not a bad or good thing, it just is! Honestly, I would just surrender to this moment of madness, these hours and then just commit when you are ready to balancing our your chocolate addiction, as I am firm believer in ‘what you resist, persists,’ so sometimes it is absolutely vital to actually surrender to the moment, and to our feelings! Your feelings this Easter could be initially of joy and happiness about chocolate and then could change to be sad, and depressed. Whatever your feelings are this Easter just surrender to them, as they will pass!

As you pass through your feelings  and allow them to be felt, then they will have less of a ‘hold’ over you, especially if they are negative feelings. For example: guilt, if you feel guilty about eating too much chocolate, feel the guilt and then just let it go as otherwise it just keeps you in the guilt!  This is because your ‘head or ego,’ just wants to constantly punish you and keep you unhappy and suffering, so just forgive yourself and move on as the guilt just keeps you in the negative and will very likely keep you just having and wanting more and more chocolate making you feel more guilt, making you feel worse and worse!!

 I know, you know, and I know and we often find this hard to do, especially when our head is involved! So, I invite you to let yourself off the hook and after your Easter chocolate eating, just see how you can let it go with love and move on!

Say you felt lots of very positive feelings about your chocolate eating, fully feel them, feel your feelings of joy and yummyness around the chocolate and then let them go! As more positive feelings will arrive in your life, it’s natural!

Once you get into the habit of acknowledging your feelings before, during or after eating  chocolate you will be able to notice the triggers for your excessive chocolate comsumption and start to be able to then address the underlying issues of it which will then ultimately help you to balance out the role that chocolate plays in your life!

If you are in denial of how you feel about chocolate,or you are incessantly bingeing on it,  or even constantly thinking about where you next chocolate bar is coming from with a ‘chocolate brain’ , then the more you acknowledge this and often just eat some, you are often more able to move on!

So surrender, eat some chocolate this Easter  and  then after Easter see how you feel, how you deeply really feel and then see what you would like to do about it, be it addressing your feelings and needs such as low self-worth, and look at ways you can improve this!

Love, light & giggles, Carriexxxx

Much love & light & laughter,

Carriexxxxx

Dearest Chocoholic,

I wonder if you have been following the Austrailian Olympic Swimming in Adelaide recently? Maybe some of my Aussie followers? Can you tell I am a bit of a swimming fan? Well, Ian Thorpe, Australia’s most successful swimmer, mounted his comeback and bless his soul got so so close to qualifying for the Australian team for the London Olympics but he did not qualify…He got so so close but ‘failed.’ He put all his energy, efforts and soul on the line, he put everything and was just seconds away from qualifying for the semi-finals in either the 100m freestyle or the 200m freestyle.

And guess what he did discover? He discovered a love for something, swimming that he had lost during his years out of swimming, around 5,  after many years of being pheneomonally successful. He discovered that he still wants to continue swimming as he just loves it and wants to see what can happen as he develops further.. Interesting!!!

Carrie, what’s your point here? Aha, well you see I feel that many of you might not be taking your addiction to chocolate seriously as you are fearing that you might fail?mm does this resonate? I understand completely and you know you might well fail. Yep I just wrote that. You might ‘fail,’ ie get a completely different outcome that you expect, and?…

I know I have been there and done there and got many t-shirts during my rather extended journey in overcoming chocolate and you know I do have my odd challenges and moments when I have and need some chocolate, it is just that they are no longer as intense or as extensive…!

For me, I can provide you with a number of tools that you can draw upon, and hyou can apply them in your daily life; but as we all emotional beings and life happens there are no guarantees whatsoever as it all depends on how you respond to your own unique challenges in life! For example: what I personally have discovered is that as you learn each lesson, be it overcoming your addiction to chocolate or learning to love yourself more, another lesson magically appears; which is what life is all about!

So by embracing the prospect of ‘failure,’ and really acknowledging your fear of it, actually makes it less likely to happen and more likely that you will become successful at whatever it is you have set your heart on, and often it what you have set your heart on does not manifest in the way that you intended it to, something even better often does!

For example, as I made my way through my own ‘Chocolate Rehab,’ I ‘failed,’ and ‘failed,’ and ‘failed,’ throughout many months but each time I discovered invaluable feedback which I will be sharing with you in my forthcoming book such as the importance of a multi-level approach, ie not just looking at chocolate addiction from a mental or nutritional or even emotional level!! Yes, I screamed from the top of my lungs repeatedly at the time, yet now I see the gold in it!! 

So, I wholeheartedly invite you to fear your fear of failure and do it anyway! In this case, take your addiction to chocolate seriously and commit to overcoming it be it with Chocolate Rehab or something else, as you so deserve to feel and be happy which I honestly feel is the sole purpose of our lives!

As always, I look forward to hearing from you and I absolutely invite your questions and suggestions for blog posts which I will post and even coach you in; just email me at: carrie@chocolaterehab.com

Much love, light & giggles,

Carriexxx

Carriexxxxx

Dearest Chocoholic,

Chocolate addiction help

Long time no blogging hey! Not to worry, here I am, back here blogging!

I have been avidly watching how the British Olympic Trials have been panning out since Saturday; paying particular attention to Rebecca Adlington, bless her soul:) I love her honesty as she expressed she was very scared on not qualifying for the Olympics in any of her two main events being 400m and 800m freestyle; even if on paper she is at least five seconds ahead of her nearest rival in the UK.

For me, Becky’s honesty and that she owned her fear of not qualifying for the British Olympic Swimming team for the 2012 Olympics, made me think of people like yourself trying to overcome an addiction to chocolate  and the possible fear you could have about NOT overcoming your addiction to chocolate; which I completely understand!

In life, as with anything there are no guarantees; life happens to us, and is an ever-changing dynamic daily, hourly and even second-by-second our lives can literally transform for better or worse before our eyes. What changed for me on my own journey towards the development of my Chocolate Rehab programme was that I just felt ready to ‘feel this fear and go for it anyway,’ so just thought and felt it was worth a try whatever the outcome.

It’s tricky as we are so conditioned; especially in the Western world to try to control and allow the mind or ego to rule our hearts when really, the more we embrace our hearts and follow our fears and feelings and just go for it whatever the outcome, let go of the outcome then magical things can in fact happen, as there is space for them to ‘arrive in!!’  So quite simply, acknowledge your fear, even writing it down, about not being able to overcome your addiction to chocolate, dissipates the power that it has over you and allows you to the energy to go for it even more; it’s when we do not allow the fear to come through that is when further issues come up and manifest!

So in short, ‘what you don’t own, owns you,’ so by Becky Adlingtin, owning her fear of failing to qualify it allowed her the space to qualify,-obviously she needed to swim fast; it still was very wise for her to honour her fear! For you, as a chocolate addict, by owning your own personal fears of overcoming your chocolate addiction it will, I feel help you on your own personal journey with me or someone else to overcome your own addiction chocolate addiction!!

I trust this helps and very much look forward to hearing your thoughts and feelings about this post!

And I’m thrilled to say Becky qualified in her first event, 400m on Sunday, bless her, she cried with joy as did I and many others I can easily imagine; bless her soul:)

love, giggles & light,

Carrie Eddinsxxx

Dearest Chocoholic,

First of all, Happy New Year! I wish 2012 to be your best year ever!

I wonder whether this will be the year when you will be ready, willing and prepared to take your addiction to chocolate seriously and really really look to overcome it using whatever ways feel right for you?

I know when I decided to take my own addiction to chocolate seriously, I did feel rather scared and overwhelmed about the possibility of it actually both working and not working as I had honestly become so used to it having such a hold over my life I found it pretty challenging to see how I could actually imagine my life without it. It had quite simply become a ‘painful comfort trap,’ that I often felt stuck so stuck on this seemingly relentless addiction to chocolate, even though often hardly experienced the taste of it, as I just had had so much of it!!

I know chocolate addiction can affect each of us very differently, from affecting our self-esteem, self-worth, stress levels and even impede our ability to go about our daily activities as dramatic as they can sound, it can actually be that challenging…

I would very much encourage you to listen to your hearts this year and really go for what you want and if your addiction to chocolate is stopping you or slowing you down then go for ways to overcome it; be it with my Chocolate Rehab Programme or  any other method that you feel attracted to, as life is all really about making yourself happy, following your heart, and absolutely feeling good about yourself and creating and having a meaningful life with meaningful relationships and if your addiction to chocolate is preventing or limiting this then you deserve to made the conscious choice to transform your life to realise and manifest all of the above! You are so worth it lovelies x

I would very much like to invite you to post on the blog, questions which  I will happily answer here about overcoming chocolate addiction or indeed about chocolate rehab, as I intend to answer one of these a week!

For me, your chocolate addiction is really about fear and love and choosing to follow which one of these. The more you ‘feel the fear and do it anyway,’ about overcoming your addiction to chocolate and face your own feelings and fears the easier your life will become and the less hold your addiction to chocolate will have over you!  If you want ‘virtual hand-holding,’ through this process then you can sign up for my chunks of Chocolate Rehab, from  just ten British pounds per chunk!

Whatever method you choose, do it for you, for your happiness, do it to honour yourself and demonstrate to yourself just how much you love yourself and treasure yourself!

Much love, giggles & light,

Carrie xxxx

Dearest Chocoholic

Sincere apologies for not writing to you any sooner! It’s been all change here some ‘forced’ which on reflection have been very healthy albeit rather challenging at the times! Not to worry life happens and the more we face our issues and our feelings and fears the easier life becomes is how I feel:)

Only 31 days to go until Christmas and quite honestly I have not done anything about it yet… all gud as I know what I am going to get and for whom so it is just a matter of doing it! I have my Christmas card list to write and then my Christmas cards to invest in which without a shadow of a doubt will be from my friends Sue & Rich’s charity-www.animalhealingtrust.org as they have some absolutely stunning and uplifting pictures of their 24 horse.. omg.. you’d love them..so beautiful!

So, back to you:) With anything in life the more we face our feelings the easier life becomes as the role of a feeling is to be felt and often we can be particularly challenged by facing our feelings especially those of a negative nature! I know I can be! We are human after all and sometimes we can all forget this and’ beat ourselves up’ for not being able to move on quickly or transform our lives at the pace that we desire! Sometimes it absolutely is a matter of facing your feelings and fears with oodles of self-love and self-compassion as often we have oodles of love and compassion for others and hardly any for ourselves and we allow our egos to punish us for feeling low, negative or even depressed!

The more you feel you feelings the quicker they can move on so this is particularly important for the negative feelings you might be experiencing being a chocoholic! By becoming more conscious and aware of your feelings around your chocolate addiction you will be able to identify patterns and issues which you can start to address and fully face; as you do this you will find in time that you will become less addicted to chocolate! I know this might sound at the moment to some of you like a far-flung fantasy but trust me it can absolutely work for you!!  For example: you might feel lonely so as you start to become your own best friend and look at the multitude of ways of making yourself happy and honouring yourself and your gifts as well as tapping into higher realms which for me are with the spiritual realms you will likely feel less lonely and more comfortable in your own skin!!

For some support with this you can sign up for my Chocolate Rehab self-coaching chunks which will walk you through the Chocolate Rehab process on chunk at a time at your own pace as I will not be personally coaching you; you will be doing that yourself under my guidance and coaching via the emails which will be delivered to you throughout each chunk! I have decided also to offer until 31.12.2011 the free option of having the opportunity of emailing me three questions about your chocolate addiction per module at no extra cost to you!

Here’s the link and the benefits of the Chocolate Rehab self-coaching chunks!  http://bit.ly/gSM7pC

and….

Here’s a reminder of what benefits you could potentially gain from the Chocolate Rehab chunks of coaching:

* You will be guided by someone who knows just how you feel and has been there and has overcome her decade-long addiction!

* You will be able to pace yourself according to your own needs and your own lifestyle, so it can potentially be a very liberating process for you!

* You will be guided to face your feelings and fears around your addiction to chocolate, in safe, secure and also very private sacred space, which you will create; which will I feel will resonate with quite a few of you, as I know many of your are both ashamed and embarassed by your addiction to chocolate

* You will have the affordable option of hiring me for personal email coaching sessions, enabling you to have direct and very private support and encouragement!

* You will feel like a trusted friend is helping you to transform your life from within, with as much fun, laughter and joy as possible( ie I’m the trusted friend!)

* You will feel better and better with each Chunk of Chocolate Rehab and feel increasingly empowered and in love with yourself and your life, provided you keep taking the steps and following through on the exercises:)

* You will come away, at the end of your Chocolate Rehab with a much greater level of self-awareness, self-love and have in your heart such a strong connection with who you are and who you are destined to be that you will, ooze positivity, self-acceptance and love-which is my intention!!!!

Any questions just ask me; I’d be happy to help: carrie@chocolaterehab.com

Many thanks:)

Love, light and oodles of giggles

Carriexxx carrie@chocolaterehab.com