Dearest Chocoholic,

Wow, all I can say is the magic of laughter knows no bounds, as yesterday I set the intention to laugh as much as I could, and believe I laughed a lot and I woke up laughing! Am seriously considering training in as a Laughter Therapist as I feel so incredibly well:) I will let you know:)

Today, I am intent on continuing with the giggles, as I feel it’s so the way forward, with it’s transformative healing powers and also helping me to continue to get my stuff done with the biggest smile on my face, even doing the for me challenging stuff, like structuring work I am writing which for a blonde -dyslexic I find a bit tricky, am getting there with the help of gorgeously-coloured post stick notes, which are really helping!

I would like today to chat about your chocolate addiction and forgiveness! Generally, we have all been conditioned to come more from our heads than our hearts so when we make a mistake, offend someone or do not feel that we live up to our idea of perfection, whatever that might be in terms of how we look, what we do, where we live, what we have and how we are, we more often than not actually are extremely tough on ourselves and I am sure that this happens at times with your chocolate addiction.

Let me get a bit more explicit here. For example: you ate a number of chocolate bars, and felt down after your initial high had subsided and then you were incredibly hard on yourself afterwards which really did not actually help you to move forward from your feelings as you we re overcome with guilt and ‘punishing yourself’ for what you had done and that is mostly because you are coming from you head more than your heart, as your head or ego is making you just feel worse than you already do without any let up, like ever!

Well, where forgiveness comes in here, for me, with your chocolate addiction, or with like anything! Let, me explain:  I am all for feeling your feelings, so if you are feeling guilty or low because of excessive chocolate consumption feel those feelings! What I feel is unhealthy though is  to continually keep feeling guilty, for example, as you will remain stuck both mentally and emotionally and that will not help you to overcome your chocolate addiction, or anything really!

For example: I might say feel very guilty that I have say eaten five bars of chocolate and then punish myself and then I decide to get in touch with my deeper feelings and realise what I really need to do to transform these feelings  is to acknowledge them through noting them  down mentally or literally in a notebook to build up a deeper picture of why I ate the chocolate in the first place, for me it was often due to loneliness, stress and boredom!!!

Chocolate Rehab Tip: I would then invite you to simply connect with you heart and forgive yourself! Simple I know! When you truly do this, it  really works and is really rather powerful to help you through each and every stage of your chocolate addiction! Even forgiving yourself for being so addicted in the first place really really helps you to feel better about yourself, which of course is key to healing yourself and loving yourself and coming out of your chocolate addiction!!

I’d love to know how you get on, so please do let me know!

Much love, light and LAUGHTER and as much self-forgiveness as you can muster!!

Love Carriexxx

Chocolate Addiction help

Dearest Chocoholic,

 Long -time no post- whoops! Sincere apologies for this I having  being planning out lots of cool and fun Chocolate Rehab workshops close to where I live in the West Midlands, in the Uk. All is exciting, and a little scary, which I feel is good as that for me is a sign that I am doing something that makes my heart & spirit sing which is very important to me

So, lovelies, back to you, here is a little post about the importance of having some fun!

When you are feeling trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of eating chocolate and feeling worse off for it, and you have identified through recording how you are feeling before, during and after eating it; I would intuit that many of you would benefit from looking at raising your vibration!

What do you mean here Carrie? Well, by vibration, I just mean your energy, as everything emits an energy, high or low, good or bad and when we want to feel instantly better about something, a great way is to raise your vibration!

So, where am I going with this? Aha, well, imagine you have eaten one too many chocolate bars, felt pretty low afterwards, and identified you true inner craving was for more happiness, lightheartedness, connection and fun! Then, by going out into the world and giving yourself this, will absolutely help you to transform your energy and feel so much better!

Naturally, when you go out with the intention of having more fun, for example, in might not last forever, what it might do is give you an insight into how you can powerfully transform yourself through raising and transforming your vibration by simply having more fun, whatever you deem that to be!! 

Of course, the more you do this, the better, like with anything you will become at it and you are better able to centre yourself and ground yourself with more of it and sustain it much much longer until it becomes who you are much more regularly, ie like daily!

For me fun involves having a good laugh  as many times a day as I can be it with strangers or with my friends! This can involves dancing and singing both on my own and or with others; watching live music and recently pooh-picking- I know-the later might not sound like fun to you, it is just that my friend has a horse sanctuary and a group of us went to help with the pooh-picking and we had such a laugh and we came away feeling amazing! Esssentially, for me I just set an intention to have much more fun, joy and laughter each day now and just see what happens, as I feel better and better the more I do this!!

By just adding a little more love and sparkle and fun into your life it can help you to get more in touch with your feelings, and help you to come much more from your heart than you head so that you can transform your addiction to chocolate towards a feeling of self-love and self-acceptance where you will be much more inclined to honour your gifts, to honour your feelings and  go for what you really, really want in your life!!!!

I trust you have found value in this post, I’d so love to hear your feedback here or via email to me personally: carrie@chocolaterehab.com

Much love, light & giggles,

Carriexxxxxxxxxxxx

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Reason for chocolate addiction

Dearest Chocoholic,

Here in the UK, I am gearing up for Wimbledon next week, as I am keen follower of tennis and I am really looking forward to watching my favourite tennis tournament of the year! I wonder will this be the year Murray triumphs; quite possibly given his recent form at Queens, you never know!!

Okeydokie, so here’s a post about reasons for chocolate addiction,’ as I am often asked why I feel people are really addicted to chocolate! 

For me, there is little logic really, as there is no general view as chocoholics are all different to be quite honest! For example: I remember being in Sydney at their amazing Mind, Body & Spirit event seeg hundreds of people come by my stall, there was absolutely stereotypes amongst them! Admittedly, there were mostly female; and that’s about all that I could say generally about them!

Many of them confided me in their own ‘reasons,’ for their addiction ranging from lack of sex drive, lack of sex, little or now self-esteem or self-confidence, boredom, stress ( one of the most common reasons!!), lack of direction, their only ‘guilty pleasure,’ which they had ‘overplayed,’ ‘the only thing that made them happy,’ ‘what they most looked forward to at the end of the day,’ loneliness, being fed up or or depressed and heartbreak… were the main ones! One lovely lady confessed it was the most exciting part of her day, which  I felt rather sad about:( Another chap, openly confessed that he knew his female friend who admitted to eating chocolate whilst having sex!!  Many confessed to having a ‘romance’ with their chocolate, as they found it easier and safer..

For me, I would suggest that most of their reasons were more emotional than mental! Believe it or not, the most common feedback from both the chocoholics themselves and those who were not chocoholics, as so many people who were not addicted to chocolate came up to speak their mind to me anyway, those confident, talkative Aussies, was that it was assumed that ALL chocolate addicts were overweight! So not true!  Of course, some are, many are simply not; one Aussie opened up to me, about her three hour gym habit to keep her in her skinny jeans; seriously stuff!

Another common assumption made was  that they were all female- partly true, I would say at least 80% were who spoke to me! They cut across all ages groups too, so not typical age group appeal, just EVERYONE, which is really no shocker is it now!

I would love to hear your own personal ‘reasons,’ here on my blog, via twitter, or even via email: carrie@chocolaterehab.com  Even if you just get clear yourself privately in your own journal why you are addicted to chocolate it will absolutely help you to overcome it!

Love, giggles & light,

Carriexxxx

Chocolate Addiction & Change

Dearest Chocoholic,

Sincere apologies for the lack of posting recently, I just honestly experienced writer’s block Seriously, I did;  thankfully not ‘talker’s block,’ that would be almost impossible!

I would like to talk a little bit today about chocolate addiction and fear as I have been in recent months very inspired by Hilary Phelps, a Fashionista/ lifestyle guru/ motivational coach extraordinaire!

Hilary recently set herself a challenge of trying out a new way of working out for thirty days and tweeted and blogged about it. OMG, that lady is mightily inspiring, and it even made me think, ‘doing a Hilary,’ (making a change) could become a verb  / metaphor as she did so much stepping out of her comfort zone, which as she reported was rather painful and uncomfortable at times!

Her seemingly innate family trait of having a ‘will to win,’ pulled her through some of her most trying moments, bless her soul indeed!( In case you do not, her brother Michael Phelps, is the world best’s Olympic Swimmer!)

( She can be following on )Twitter@HilaryPhelps or found: www.hilaryphelps.com)

How on earth Carrie is this relevant to helping me with my chocolate addiction? Aha, well I figured that perhaps many of you are painfully stuck in your chocolate addiction, and have too much fear to step out of it:( So, I wonder could you set yourself little ‘HilaryPhelpseque,’ challenges to help to do a little something to help you out of your addiction to chocolate?

Well, here are few ideas to help you on your way.

1. Confide in a close, trusted friend or relative your addiction to chocolate, as it is common for chocolate addicts to be enormously secretive about their addiction!

2. Start your own chocolate anonymous group, with a group of friends to help support and encourage you. ( see my article about how to set up your very own chapter here:http://bit.ly/lEVctm

3. When you eat chocolate, before, during and after if possible write down your feelings about it and yourself. For example: " I am feeling stressed,  (before)  I need some chocolate. I am feeling relief now, thanks to the chocolate (during). I am feeling annoyed with myself and stressed again as I have eaten too much chocolate ( After.)

4. Identify the common feelings and needs which keep reoccuring in your Chocolate Addiction journal, to see the patterns so you can do something about it.

5. Go cold turkey for a day, or a week, depending on how bad your addiction is, and  record your feelings in your journal! Make sure before you commit to this, you have some people will help you stick to this and support you through this challenge!

6. Identifying at least 10 things which you know will make you happy and then when you have your chocolate cravings do those things, as many of them as you can so that you can deal with your feelings and needs without numbing them or medicating yourself with chocolate.

 7. Phone a friend and let them know what is happening and receive that emotional support and encouragement you are likely to be craving from the chocolate!

8. Face the issues underlying your chocolate addiction. For example: if it is stress-related, start a list of all of your key stress sources and see how you can start to reduce and even eliminate them. Some of them might take a while, so identify some short and easy ‘wins’ to help reduce your stress levels immediately.

I look forward to hearing how you get on and would love to hear your feedback!

Love, giggles & light,

Carriexxx

Comments about being addicted to chocolate

Dearest Chocoholic,

Today, I am relieved that our lovely Mister Chilli, our cat, is safe and sounds as he got stuck on our neighbour’s roof last night :( Quite a tramatic experience, bless him. Thankfully, he was able to get down, even if he did slip on to our neighbour’s porch and then was able to come down!

Okeydokie, ladies, today I would like to make a few comments about being addicted to chocolate, for a  change!! 

LOL!

a) When do you feel that you really started you chocolate addiction? Are you able to pinpoint it to a particular happening in your life? For example: the breakdown in a relationship, loss of job, financial stress?  Maybe even a combination of a number of events which happened to you.  You might  have you been addicted as long as you can remember?

b) What do you feel it would take for you to address the underlying issues of your addiction to chocolate?For example: do you feel it might take support from someone who understands and takes your addiction seriously? Or something else?

c) Can you at all imagine how you might feel to be able to resist chocolate and just have it now and again? Or do you just see it as major source of pleasure, escapism, avoidance in your life? Can you then imagine having your feelings and needs met through other means?

d) How would you feel if you just keep on feeling how you feel and just ‘maintained,’ you addiction to chocolate in 6 months time? Would you feel worse, the same, angry, frustrated, depressed?

e) What really is the pay off for your addiction to chocolate? For example is it avoiding facing your natural brilliance, is it avoiding facing your feelings as you are too scared, is it avoiding love, success, fun, or even life? -ie you find it ‘easier’ to keep stuck with your addiction, with your feelings and needs than facing them?!

This mini and mighty blog post, is just to invite you to ponder about these key questions surrounding your addiction to chocolate in order to perhaps stir something up inside of you to actually DESIRE to do something about it, honour yourself and your life and face it; which of course takes courage! I understand. By just taking the first step and settting an intent to do this, through answering these questions and  you can really help to symbolically show the universe and yourself that you are seriously keen to face this issue and look at how, in your own time you can overcome it!

I wholeheartedly look forward to hearing from you here, on twitter, facebook or via email: carrie@chocolaterehab.com

Love, light & giggles,

Carriexxxx

Chocolate Addiction & Personal Power

Dearest Chocoholic,

 Today, I’ve spent a lovely day helping  a gorgeous local animal charity, who have rescued 22 gorgeous horses! Wow, such an inspirational day seeing how Rich & Sue, such lovely people have created such   a heart-felt charity and have such loved, supported and cherished horses, it’s a miracle to witness; takes your breath away! Really! Take a peak: animalhealingtrust.org

Anyway, ladies back to you! Here’s a few words from my heart to yours on chocolate addiction and person power!!

Okeydokie, imagine that chocolate was someone, I know this might feel and seem a bit odd- humour me, and give this a whirl!

Well, so, say chocoate was someone you were having a relationship with, like a friendship, I’m talking about.  So, here are a few questions to ponder about this idea..

How would you feel if you kept on ‘listening,’ and ‘giving in,’ to their demands and their calls on your attention at the expense of listening and dealing with your own feelings and needs?

How might you feel, if you just kept on supporting, helping and encouraging their dreams whilst you left your own ‘alone,’ just unactioned in your notebook?

 How do you imagine you would feel if you kept on looking to ‘this person,’ for love, approval, confidence, happiness and indeed pleasure or excitement; instead of looking at how to love yourself, approve of yourself, be confident within yourself, make yourself happy, and find your own pleasure or excitement?!!

aMmm.. I wonder if this has triggered anything within you at all? 

I appreciate this might sounds and read a little odd, it’s supposed to!

Considering your answers to the above,  I wonder if you can see how your own chocolate addiction is in essence like you giving away your own personal power to ‘someone,’ namely to ‘chocolate,’ at the expense of yourself. When you are addicted to chocolate, often you are eating it, at the expense of dealing with your own feelings and needs, and in the process ‘trashing your personal power.’

How can I look at remedying this Carrie?

To begin with, start to become more conscious of your feelings and needs before you eat chocolate, as you eat it and after you eat it! – see my free mini chocolate rehab at: www.chocolaterehab.com for this!

With a clearer picture you can .

If you are looking to chocolate for love- you can love yourself more! ie by loving yourself, as Bruno Mars, sings,’ just the way you are!!!

If you are looking to chocolate for a confidence boost, you can do something that you know will boost your confidence! For example: you could make that call, speak to that person, apply for that job, do that thing you have desired to do for so long!!!!

If you are looking to chocolate for excitement, what could you do to have more fun in your life? What makes you smile, giggle, and ‘sets’ your soul alight with joy & pleasure?!! Well, do it, go do it!

I’d love as always to hear your feedback!

Much love, light & giggles,

Carriexxxxxxxxxxx

Chocolate Addiction and mood

Dearest chocoholic,

Mmm. I am sure I could say that pretty much all chocolate addiction is down to mood; all kinds of moods! Moods that are celebratory like the birth of Christ, this coming Sunday, or celebration of a personal achievement, or even the end of a stressful week! Moods that are on the downward turn can be ‘celebrated,’ with chocolate equally; hence the reality that chocolate addiction is often both underplayed and ignored, as I have mentioned in previous posts!

I wonder what other ways apart from chocolate can you draw upon to lift your mood?

We are all different and there is no right or wrong here, just go with what feels right, is a great guide!

Here are a few suggestions for you!

a) Exercise, the endorphin release boosting you, helping you feel good for often hours after you have exercised!

b) Having hot sex, with someone you truly love!!! ( Chocolate is widely known as the sex replacement, or even the orgasm replacement, especially for women!!)

c) Having a heartfelt chat with one of your girlies, helping you feel better through being truly listened to and supported!

d) doing something different; like going on a mini adventure if you are that way inclined, and

e) Mediate to connect with your eternal self and higher realms!

f) Dance to your favourite music!

g) Sing your favourite songs!

h) Take time out and have a hot soak!

i) Watch your favourite, uplifting series or movie!

j) Doing something for someone else, helping others and making a difference is something that really makes us all feel good!!

Whatever you decide to do, go for it! If it is to eat chocolate to lift your mood, so be it!

By being more conscious of eating your chocolate will ultimately help you to, if you truly want to, balance out your addiction to chocolate when you are ready!

Much love & happy Easter to you all!

May the Easter Bunnies bring you lots of magic too!

Love, light & giggles,

Carriexxx

Rehab for Chocoholics

Dearest Chocoholic,

I am writing to you today about Rehab for Chocoholics…mm many people laugh, really when they hear what I 

have called my business! They are instantly curious and are intrigued to know more. Chocolics often laugh and either say they are happy with their addiction thank you very much or they actually ask me what I do rather intently!!  LOL!

Why Rehab for Chocoholics Carrie?

Quite simply as I needed it first, and  as there was not anything like it in the world in early 2004, I decided to take time off to create something, as I checked myself into my own ‘Chocolate Rehab,’ and started out my exploratory adventure seeing how I could overcome my addiction to chocolate. At first, I hold my hand up, it was very, very hard as I really did not know what to do, who to turn to or even how to do it. Added to this, very few people were taking in seriously, other than the handful of Hypnotists, or nutritionalists, who whilst I am sure they were effective in helping chocoholics, I felt I wanted something deeper and more wholistic, and dare I say… multi-level! I feel women are wired for the ‘multiple,’ approach, be it our brains, our feelings, our roles in life, or even our orgasms, and my instinct told me that I would be wanting a ‘multiple’ approach here, so I just kept going!

Today, I am in the process of adding a few extra layers of depth, to my Chocolate Rehab programme, and taking away a few layers too, so that it reflects who I am today which is a very different person to when I started out with this work in Australia in 2008.  Essentially, my work is now more spiritual, it’s much lighter in both tone and in it’s intent and energy! 

I have added the word ‘rehab,’ really as it sounded good, and also it was a way of triggering the world to take notice and take chocolate addiction seriously! LOL.! It does attract attention, and I have a good feeling that my work will help many women feel good about themselves, learn to love and accept themselves much more and help them to trust in who they are and follow their dreams, as they balance out their addiction to chocolate. I do feel that adding the word ‘rehab,’ is symbolic too, as it is about deeply going into one’s heart, body  & spirit to really address the underlying issues which is of course what happens in rehab for say drugs or alcohol.

As ever, I look forward to hearing from you, and value your feedback and am open to your suggestions for future posts!

Love, giggles & light,

Carriexxxxx

Chocolate Addiction and Depression

Dearest Chocoholic,

Much has been  written about how most chocoholics are depressed, so I felt I would offer my feelings on this.

I have noticed that there are chocoholics who are depressed, so they eat quite a bit of chocolate, and then afterwards they can feel more depressed so this cycle repeats itself. What I have also noticed is that chocolate can just act as a mask for our emotions also, and keep our energies in the same spot. I feel that to just consider that this is simply depression is oversimplfying it; especially as more often than not this usually results in chocoholics simply looking at just the mental aspects of their addiction.

For me, it feels like chocoholics can be energetically stuck in the same energy, and find it hard to transform it, they can be stuck in a world where they find they find it challenging to express their spirit, which is our essence, so are disheartened which I feel is quite different to depression.

I know that my chocolate addiction simply was not just a case of depression; although it was part of it, it was much more that I had become out of touch with my spirit, and my energy and my full emotional expression;  which contributed to my seemingly at times insatiable appetite for chocolate, it was my secret ‘superpower’ friend’ who was always there when I needed them at whatever time of day or night to support, comfort and soothe my sorrows and pain.

For me, it could be more accurate to suggest that chocolate acts for chocoholics as a ‘comfort blanket,’ and soothes us, as we feel fed up, upset, and at times depressed, heartbroken, overwhelmed too. I do not feel it is therefore inevitable that chocolate addiction and depression go hand-in-hand as I more favour chocolate addiction and being out of touch with our spirit, energy and emotional expression much more!

As always, I look forward to hearing your feelings and thoughts about my post, even if privately to: carrie@chocolaterehab.com

Of course, there are many views of chocolate addition and depressions, which is how it needs to be as we are all different!

Namaste, giggles & light,

Love Carriexxx

Serious Chocolate Addiction

Dearest Chocoholic,

I am often asked: " Carrie just what makes for a serious addiction to chocolate?" For me all of this is completely personal quite honestly. For example, unlike alcohol addiction, for which there is quite a definite idea of what amount of alcohol it is necessary to drink to be an alcoholic, there is not one for chocolate addiction. There are many who would suggest that someone who is very overweight and eats a lot of chocolate has a serious addiction to chocolate; whist I can understand this idea, I have met quite a few ladies who look healthy and are slim with  a serious addiction to chocolate too! For me, I feel you know intuitively if you have a serious addiction to chocolate, that you might be in either denial about it, or that you are not wanting to do anything about it, as you’re no quitter (LOL) is another issue entirely!! LOL!!

Here are my feelings on the subject, which of course there are many! LOL!

I feel that whatever the amount you are eating, its so much more about how and why you eat chocolate. For example: if you binge on it just once a month, as it is a coping strategy for you due to a stressful situation at work, could that be that you have a serious addiction to chocolate? It depends on how you feel really doesn’t it?

For me a serious addiction means when you are both consciously and unconsciously eating chocolate and feeling worse, not better, as you perhaps many moons ago, used to feel better when you ate a little bit of chocolate. Your ‘little bit of chocolate’ turned into bars and bars!.A serious chocolate addiction  means that you are ‘using’ chocolate as some kind of protection blanket, from the world, which of course we all need to a certain degree, and  this protection blanket is brought up on all kinds of occassions and represents more often than not lots of fear and a big lack of trust in yourself to face up to whatever issues you have which you are ‘using’ chocolate to cover up. These issues could be low self-esteem, poor body image, unhealthy relationships, a stressful work situation, amongst many other issues.

I know that when I was seriously and incessantly addicted to chocolate it mostly represented my fear and denial  of situations that I was in be they feelings of overwhelm with my role in the world, to fear of finding love both for myself and in an intimate relationship, or just fear of things working out! As I started to acknowledge and work through these fears, one at a time, those fears lessened; ie ‘to tame the monster, you must name the monster,’ is the idea. So, when you are able to, sit down with a note pad and start noting down your issues which you feel you are covering up, if you are, with your serious addiction to chocolate as it will be the first step of many on your way to overcoming your addiction to chocolate! Yah!

I trust you have found value in this post, and I sincerely look forward to hearing from you, here or in private: carrie@chocolaterehab.com

Love, giggles & light,

Carriexxxxxx