Dear Ricky,
dear Simone,
dear Shashi,
dear Shirley,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

thank you very much for your kind posts. Reading them felt very good.

This is my weekly update:

Everything is ok, I am stable and balanced. The period only lasted four days and only one and a half days were painful. I did not need Ibuprofen.

I exercised all five working day mornings this week - after more than six lazy weeks this is the first week that I am content with myself as far as exercise is concerned.

More and more I am managing to stay on the diet again, there was less cheating during the week. I did cheat on the last weekend and am really angry I did. This happened more than once: I do well during the week and cheat on the weekend. It then takes the next week to work off the result of the weekend before. It is my own fault. So for this weekend I have only one aim: STAY ON THAT DIET!!! Unfortunately it only takes very little carbohydrate cheating to increase my weight by a Kilo and then it takes four to five days to loose the Kilo (= 2 pounds) again.

Currently I am spending a lot of time on the phone talking to my younger authistic brother trying to remote-control (better 'help') him. I call him twice each evening. He lives as far away as my parents (same city) and my parents are deeply worried, sad and angry about him and are at the end of their energy with him I fear. He moved to his own apartment about two years ago and it seems he does not take care of his flat properly. They visited him and found him living in an untidy and dirty mess. So I decided to help cope with the situation and have been calling him to persuade him to do his housework. I seems to work but it is sooooooooooooooo slow. It took three evenings for him to have only his bathroom cleaned. I am telling you this, because I am really amazed (and a little bit proud) that I feel stable and well balanced although I am having to deal with this problem that is really close to my soul. (For me it is very hard to hear that my parents feel helpless and do not know what to do. I am very happy that this week I had the power and patience to cope with my difficult brother.)

I can not put into words how very grateful I am for your kind and generous and always patient help and advice and reassurance. Do you remember the black tunnel and the little light at its end that I mentioned when I started here? For me the light has never shone brighter than at this moment. I do not at all feel helpless anymore.

Thank you very, very much.

Bettina

Dear Bettina,
Your words warm my heart. It's good to hear you are feeling so well.
Shirley

[ 25 January 2002: Message edited by: sreischman ]</p>

__________________
Shirley Reischman

Dear Shirley,
dear Shashi,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

this is my weekly update:

The week was very stressful but ok over all. The stress peaked yesterday when my office computer kept malfunctioning which forced me to restart it about 15 times throughout the day (no exaggeration). I was super-annoyed and I think Thuja did a very good job inside me yesterday. Half a year ago, I am convinced, I would have reacted even more annoyed and angry at this situation.

Today (Friday evening) I am very, very tired and will go to bed very early. At the moment there is no energy left in me and it is only nine o'clock in the evening.

I exercised four mornings and yesterday evening. I had already decided not to exercise yesterday but I felt so bad about the decision that I dug out the weights and did the weight-lifting exercises even though it was pretty late in the evening and I was very tired. This is the second week this year that I completed my planned workout.

On Wednesday I fought a tremendous fight: Again I sat in front of a plate full of fancy cookies all morning during a business meeting and this time, the very first time in my life, I did not take a cookie (then - I compensated in the evening with low-carb/high cocoa chocolate ...). Anyway, I think it is an achievement that I did not have the cookies in the morning.

My weight is at 91.999999999 Kilos this morning (about 203 pounds) and throughout the week I was sad about my weight. It seems to be glued onto me. Every day I tell myself: no cheating today, and honestly, the cheating becomes less and less. The weight leaves sooooooooooo slow, that makes me angry. My facial hair also still bothers me a lot and I know that it will keep getting worse if I do not normalize my insulin-level, which can only be normalized by loosing the (curse word) weight. I am becoming impatient because I have been at the same weight for such a long time now and I do hope that there will be weight movement (away from me) again very, very soon.

There is one other major problem (= challenge) that I still have to solve: I do not carry through with my plans and actions that are urgently needed to be carried out. For example, I need to clean up my private desk and paper work (I am behind with two quarterly tax-statements) and keep postponing these tasks. I keep finding other pastimes, like taking care of my brother by telephone like I described earlier. By the way, my daily telephone conversations with him seem to encourage him to clean up his apartment. Is this not paradox? I am successfully telling him to get busy and I myself fail to get busy.

Last weekend I printed out the EFT manual off the web-page that you, Ricky, suggested and since then have read a lot of it. It fascinates me. Maybe in there lies a way to address my laziness and my inability to get busy with the really important tasks?

Given that it was a very exhausting and demanding week I still feel that I am balanced and calm, just very, very tired and drained of any energy.

Tomorrow morning, I expect, everything will look a lot better and my resolution for this weekend is to finally get busy and clean up my messy desk. I will return here either tomorrow or on Sunday to let you know how I did.

At the moment I am fighting but I still see myself on my way towards energy and health.

Thank you for being there and for 'listening' and helping.

Bettina

EFT may well help you if you use the belief statements. "Although I will never get to ??KG I truly love and accept myself". Tap on "will never get to ???Kg" and you never know!! Look on the website for the cases on weight loss.

I use EFT very successfully with homeopathy for instant alleviation of stress and pain.

__________________
RSHom - Registered Homeopath

Dear Ricky,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

everything did look better on Saturday (yesterday) morning. My private desk is cleaned up and the paperwork is sorted so I will hopefully be able to complete the tax-statements during the week.

I read everything I could find on www.emofree.com on weight loss. So I gave it a first try all on my own. I am unsure about the exact points. I just now discovered that there are a few people in Germany who seem to be working with EFT. Tomorrow I will try to contact the person located closest to where I live. The topic really fascinates me. The phrases I tapped so far (I had not read your post then) were: "Even though I hate to give up carbohydrates ..." and "Even though I am overweight ...". I would want to continue with "Even though I have too much insulin in my blood ..." I translated all these sentences to German, it feels more true and comfortable in my own language. Is it ok to tap on different sentences on one day?

I am eagerly looking forward to learning from you.

Bettina

[ 03 February 2002, 18:49: Message edited by: Bettina ]

Now that is interesting as on Tuesday I am running a workshop in Israel (yes I am here again looking after my Mum!!)and was wondering if the effect of EFT will be as good in people whose first language is not English. I may get the affirmation phrase translated into Hebrew. I used to speak the language but since everyone here speaks English I gave up years ago (Us English people are so lazy)

There is a diagram of the points on the site somewhere called the full set up I think. If you go to your Private Message site I will give you more help to find it. I am conscious that this is a homeopathy BB but I do use EFT with my patients.

__________________
RSHom - Registered Homeopath

Dear Ricky,
dear Shirley,
dear Shashi,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

this is my weekly update:

The week was quiet, nothing spectacular happened with me. I still did not complete the tax-statements.

Till Wednesday I stepped on the scale every morning and evening and not only once but about ten times for each measurement to be really sure. On Wednesday morning I was back at 93 Kilo (= 1 Kilo plus) and was devastated, angry, depressed, frustrated ... This mood lasted all Wednesday and still lingers a little, even today.

On this Wednesday I put the scale far away and have not used it since. It used to be in the bathroom, right next to the sink. It may sound odd but when I now enter the scale-free bathroom I feel a new kind of freedom, as if some pressure was taken off me. After all, it is stupid to use a scale 25 times each day weighing 205 pounds - at this weight the mirror, the rings on my fingers and my old pair of jeans that hopefully fits again in the future should be enough assisting devices to make any weight loss visible. No motivation comes from that scale, only depression and frustration.

I changed my exercise routine. I did 30 Minutes of 'Health-Rider' every work-day morning and did not work out with the weights. I had planned to do the weight exercises on three evenings during the week, but - the same old problem - I did not manage to fulfill this plan. Maybe next week. I am content that I managed to work out on the five mornings.

I worry about my laziness, even at work I postponed important tasks and did not manage to get things done. This is dangerous, I know that, but somehow there is just not enough energy or determination. I even spent time surfing the internet. (I have my own office, in this regard this is a disadvantage.) I feel ashamed to tell you this but I feel you need to know to have the complete picture. I know that if I do not pull myself together soon I may get into severe trouble, not only with my private tax statements, but also at work. Sometimes I feel I am so close to being better that it would only take one little push from somewhere to put me back on track. I know I can be active and successful, I just am not at this moment.

I promise, I am trying hard at working on myself. I am struggling, but I have not given up.

At the moment I put a lot of curiosity and hope into EFT.

Bettina

Dear Bettina,

Hang in there. I know it's really hard to get going on things we don't like to do. My own taxes are sitting here on the table and going nowhere! It sounds like all the things you've had to do for the week have been 'work' and no 'play'. Maybe you need to do something fun for yourself and relax some. For myself, when taxes hang over my head, everything seems harder since I dislike red tape and paper work so much. Thank you for being so honest about your lethargy. It is an important symptom, especially if it continues.

I think putting the scale away is a healthy thing to do. So I think you're making progress with your emotional state. As for the physical, weight thing, it's normal for weight to vary and sometimes plateau on a diet. Don't think so much about losing weight as about being as healthy as possible. That will help you to keep eating right even if the weight doesn't change for a week or so.

Thanks for your update.
Shirley Reischman

[ 08 February 2002, 13:05: Message edited by: sreischman ]

__________________
Shirley Reischman

Dear Shirley,
dear Shashi,
dear Ricky,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

My private computer will be disconnected from the internet, I hope to be back online on Monday at the latest.

Shashi, we saw your post on Paul's thread and are both very happy and will certainly give an update as soon as the computer is working properly again.

(Reconstructing the computer is a very good excuse for not having to do the taxes ...).

Bettina

Dear Ricky,
dear Shirley,
dear Shashi,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am back online and I have exciting news to tell: Yesterday evening Ricky allowed me to meet her at an airport close to where I live and where she had to pass through on her way home and we spent more than one hour together. It was super exciting and meeting her made me very happy. She taught me EFT and afterwards discovered some points about me which I did not tell you, yet, and asked me to state them for you on this forum:

- I do not look at people whom I talk to.
- I blush easily.
- I prefer to be cool (meaning 'in a cool surrounding').
- I procrastinate (Ricky, I looked this word up in the dictionary and you were 100% right with it - Unfortunately I do not know how to use this word properly. Do I say 'I procrastinate' or would I have to say 'I procrastinate important tasks'?).
- I am easily annoyed (this has improved a lot since I started posting here).
- I easily loose my temper (this also has improved a lot during the past six months).
- I smile and laugh a lot.
- My periods are more regular but stil not normal (about 40 to 60 days pass between two periods).
- I am an untidy person (not dirty, just untidy). I do not throw things out because they cost money, I have a hard time throwing things away that still work, even though I might not need them any more.
- I am very indecisive (on spending money on things that I personally do not want to buy but my friend decides they are important for our household or the boat or the car. Or I am indescisive on what I would like to have for dinner or on what I should wear. This is not a problem at work, though, there I know how to make professional decisions and I do not hesitate.)
- Ricky asked what I would do If I were president of Germany? The first thing that shot out of me was 'lower taxes' and decrease the mandatory payments for state health and retirement insurance.
- I cry very easily in any situation that involves separation. I cry out of sympathy. (Now I can tell you, Ricky: Even telling you this yesterday was a little hard for me and I had to fight a little not to start crying right at the table. Airports (like train stations) are stressful for me and I had been there an hour before you came and saw some people who were crying. Even though I was thoroughly happy about meeting you I picked up these sad emotions.) I also cry when I am moved about positive happenings like e.g. witnessing when people are saved or when people meet again and are happy to tears about this.
- I hate to be alone.
- When my friend is late in the evenings I worry about him, not about myself and what would happen with me if I was left alone.
- Money is an issue for me. Money to me means security and a good life and I would not want to be without it.
- I am afraid of dying a painful death (we came to this because I told of my fear of flying and being on a boat when the motor fails).
- I said, I do not like the dark.

On my way back home I thought of many things I should have told you, Ricky, but I had been so excited and also happy that we were sitting there together that somehow I did not have all my senses together, I guess.

About the 'not looking at people' I would like to add that I know that this is worse when I have to think hard about what to say. And I thought very hard yesterday evening, believe me. I was especially excited because Ricky is from England. This English English is harder to understand for me than American English and I was told that English people do not like the American accent. So I was a little apprehensive about myself because, of course, I wanted to leave a good impression and wanted at least to use correct words and sentences as far as I could.

About the dark I would now like to add that it would have been more correct if I had said I do not like to be alone in the dark. The dark is ok with my friend by my side and when we are or I am somewhere where I know I am safe. I love to be out in the dark when it is snowing.

At the moment this is all I remember and I am very, very curious about what Ricky will say.

Bettina