Hello.
So you are suffering with bulimia and you want to get well? But do you really?
It’s important that I ask you this up front. It’s important that I be honest with you.
We’ll never get anywhere together if we tip toe around the issues that need to be faced.
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"Thanks for your honesty Michael but I just want to put an end to bulimia now. Please direct me to your location details, session fees, contact details, money back guarantee or your brief biography."
"Michael Dayes is the ONLY counsellor in Sydney that I am prepared to endorse without question to anyone who is serious about evolving and manifesting greater success... his deep insight and sensitivity were so helpful to me that that I started referring him to others..."
Maria Elita, awarded 2007 Queensland Psychic of the Year, author of The Miracle, regular presenter at the Mind Body Spirit Festival.
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How much you really want recovery is important. Even more important: The level of commitment you have to see your recovery through difficulties. There will never be a more critical factor determining your success. To read more about commitment, click here.
Most people start the recovery process being half hearted. If this doesn’t change, their recovery will fail. Not because they were wrong but because they were in a weak position.
“Getting Michael’s direction in one session per week enabled us to achieve our goals
and deliver our best ever performance at the world championships.”
Neale And Nicole Byrnes National Champions, Dancesport
To attempt recovery with bulimia in a weak position is naive. It’s underestimating the force behind the illness.
Some of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life have made this mistake. I’ve made it myself.
It kills me to see bulimics fail at recovery.
It kills me to see bulimics fail at recovery. Deep down I know they could have succeeded. Anybody can succeed providing that they are committed and get some decent – preferably excellent — help. When I say anybody, I mean anybody.
How long you have had the illness, the details of your family history, what other medical issues you are facing (such as depression), how many times you are binging, purging on a daily basis and/or exercising compulsively: None of this has any serious power to block your recovery.
Positive thinking alone will not solve this problem.
By the way, whilst we are talking positively — for a moment — you need to know that positive thinking alone will not solve this problem.
Too much emphasis on optimism — especially at the wrong times — creates an unbalanced recovery. An unbalanced recovery is often one where there has not been enough processing of emotional pain — not enough deeper healing. If you’d like to read more about processing emotional pain and deeper healing, click here.
“Michael taught me how to speak to my inner wisdom. It is unique approach to life. It is worthwhile and priceless."
Yossi Ghinsberg, best selling author of "Heart Of The Amazon" and “Laws of the Jungle.” See Yossi now on Larry King Live.
True recovery does have a beneficial effect on every aspect of your life — even if there are areas in your life that you don’t want to change right now. Bulimics are quite often very successful in some area of their life. They are always telling me they don’t want recovery to interfere with this or that successful area of their life.
Bulimics usually have tremendous insight.
Bulimics also tend to have much greater insight than an average person would consider humanly possible. It’s a big claim but I genuinely mean it.
The insight comes with the bulimics heightened sensitivity. It’s often the sensitivity that created the conditions for the need for bulimia to emerge in the first place.
Note I did say “need for bulimia.” This implies that the eating disorder is fulfilling a need. Really getting this point helps recovery. It something worth covering in greater depth.
"I found Michael's sessions very helpful as he makes me think out of the box. Things that I thought were not possible before the sessions have become a reality."
Rabbi Taakov Lieder, Founder and Director of Jewish Family Centre.
Your perceptions will change when you actually respond to the call within you to get well.
Thinking about recovery as a calling is often useful. Callings and how to respond to them is something I’ve written about in a blog entry titled “When the Path calls.”
The happiness you deserve.
When you are committed on the path of making these changes, things will unfold in your favor. Assistance will come your way. You will be tested. You’ll be pulled through your recovery to the happiness you deserve.
At this point you might be thinking, “Well hang on a minute, what makes you think you know about bulimia? Who is to say you truly understand recovery?”
Perhaps I can tell you a little personal story:
My first bulimic case study:
Some years ago my world came crashing down when my partner announced she wanted out of our twelve year relationship.
A month later my cousin invited me out on the town. Come early morning and I found myself in a highly unfamiliar environment: A strip club — right in the centre of Kings Cross.
One of the glamorous pole dancers approached me. She had big brown eyes and began talking to me in a soft French accent. I thought “Wow, this girl's pretty interesting — to say the least!”
A week later I felt compelled to go back to the club for two minutes. I walked in and hand delivered a note to her. The note read, “Hello Emmanuelle, I have a strong sense it could be worthwhile for either or both of us to get together and talk. I don’t know why. If you’d like to join me for coffee or dinner call me on…” She called me the following day. We went out and had dinner on a couple of occasions. We seemed to enjoy each other's company.
A few weeks later, out of the blue one evening, Emmanuelle phoned me. She said, “Michael I need to see you. Are you available? I have a serious problem.” “Sure.” I replied, “I’ll come right away.”
As I drove to her place I was excited at the prospect of getting closer to this beautiful lady. I found her extremely attractive in many ways. And now she was about to see me at my best: Assisting people with personal change processes was my specialty. I was in for a rude shock.
I entered into her dimly lit apartment at Bondi Beach. She was sitting on the floor.
She explained her problem of bulimia and asked me if I thought it was possible for her to end it. I was the first person she had asked help from in over fifteen years of being active with the illness.
In a way, she was asking the right person, because all she needed in that moment was some confidence — something I was oozing with to the point of arrogance. “Of course you can solve this problem. There is no question whatsoever in my mind.” I replied.
Her face lit up. She asked me if I’d help her. I told her “Sure, I’ll look forward to the challenge.” Emmanuelle laughed. “We’ll smash this problem.” I thought to myself. As I drove away from her place, I made a promise to myself: I would follow through and assist Emmanuelle — irrespective of whether anything eventuated between us.
This was the entry point for my first ongoing bulimic case study.
Hopefully I’ve combined my confidence with more humility these days.
Humility helps us to see the full picture and not underestimate the illness. Humility comes about when you work with bulimics over time — over the long haul. Sooner or later you learn that as effective as you may be as a counsellor, you are not in control of the illness.
I can’t wave a wand and make bulimia go away. Nobody can do that. If someone claims they can, I have some advice for you: Run — far away! Even if it's tempting to see some magic, it’s not worth the inevitable disappointment. Recovery is serious — not a game.
Afterwards I arranged some sessions with Emmanuelle. I began to introduce her to personal change processes.
I figured that we should get results quickly. We’d adjust course as we progressed. I’d long believed what George Patton had once written, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” Fatigue — the worst kind of hopeless fatigue — would be inevitable if we were not making some progress.
So what did we attempt together to get her recovery? Anything and everything. I knew next to nothing about bulimia but I had a very broad and solid experience base of assisting people to make personal changes.
Jungian Archetypes, Neuro Linguistic Programming, Hypnotherapy, Process Oriented Coaching, Systems Thinking, Reconnective Healing, Qui Gong, Dream Analysis, Applied Kinesiology: Surely one of these would be the silver healing bullet. Surely something would make bulimia go away. But it never happened.
Emmanuelle would have a session and have some good days. She would say, “Something has changed in me. Something about my thinking (or feeling) is different. I’m not into the food anymore.”
We’d get our hopes up and then days later discover that she was still in the the grip of the illness. I was so frustrated!
Today Emmanuelle enjoys a new found freedom from bulimia...
After a number of months she did get her recovery process on a good track. We fumbled our way to a successful combination. Today Emmanuelle enjoys a new found freedom from bulimia. And we married on the 11th of July in 2005.
Shortly after Emmanuelle approached me, another bulimic (who we will refer to as Cloe) requested assistance.
Cloe was born in a different culture to Emmanuelle and seven years younger. They were very different personalities and yet at times the similarities came as a big shock to me . In response to at least two of my questions I was shocked to receive an identical reply — word for word — from both Emmanuelle and Cloe.
I couldn’t help but think that two people with bulimia showing up in my life and requesting help at the same time was a little odd. I had no experience with the illness.
I later discovered that this was pointing to one new aspect of my professional calling.
Cloe also enjoys successful recovery from bulimia.
The good news is that Emmanuelle and Cloe are enjoying a new freedom today. They both worked hard - they paid the price. They continue to grow their recovery in their own unique way.
As a result, there lives today are very different. Not everyone I have professionally worked with since Emmanuelle and Cloe has been prepared to work at their recovery.
Every single one of them has the potential to find recovery. But working at it — step by step — is
necessary to get results.
If your recovery is on track, everything else in life will fall into place.
“Build your life around your recovery” I often tell people new to all this. I usually add “If your recovery is on track, everything else will fall into place.”
There is a tremendous upside for you being on the recovery path. You will discover that you are a far more powerful person than you know yourself to be now. You’ll be happier. You’ll get close to special people in your life. These special people will be able to depend on you.
The emptiness inside will fade away. You’ll use your insight, sensitivity and strength for purposes that you deeply believe in. Living 'In the zone' or ‘synchronicity’ as it has been described will become your way of life.
If your recovery is not on track, the rest of your life will progressively deteriorate. The illness will run your entire life—into the ground. You might look like you’ve got it all together today but that won’t last. Bulimia takes lives.
Perhaps this all sounds very dramatic and you might think “Fair enough, but I’m not even close to this level of despair you are talking about.”
You can never be truly successful whilst active with bulimia.
So let’s talk about the present for a moment. As successful as you may be in one or two specific areas of your life you can never be truly successful whilst active with bulimia.
Have you purged or binged in the past week? You are active with your addiction. It’s ruling your life right now. It’s also trampling on the people around you that you love. Your addiction is first place in your life.
You might love people close to you but the addiction has no respect for their needs whatsoever. This is a very dangerous place to exist. Once again, it does not need to be this way.
That’s why I’m suggesting you get focussed on recovery.
Unfortunately many people need to be totally desperate before they are ready to do something about the illness. Do you want another ten years of not being in control of your life?
When you enter recovery, things may feel worse before they feel better. When you stop binging or exercising compulsively, your ‘fix” or your way of feeling OK has been taken away.
The fulfillment of knowing you are on the road of recovery will more than make up for any uneasy feelings. And you’ll have work to do with these uneasy feelings, you’ll discover how you can shift your feelings or process the pain without damaging yourself.
I could say a lot more about recovery but I think it's more important that you start talking with a good professional.
If you decide to enquire about working with me, here's my rates, location and contact details.
With your commitment, some new awareness and new tools, you will get well.
Warmly,
Michael Dayes
PS. To get the ball rolling with this, perhaps consider making yourself a promise: The promise to follow through beyond any recovery mistakes you make. The promise to persist all the way to a strong recovery. Expect big ups and downs—everyone in recovery has them. You can do this, I know it!
