What a few weeks I have had! I don’t know about anyone else, but to me it always seems like you need copious amounts of time to be healthy. That is probably just me making excuses for myself but being busy always seems to impede my progress to being a healthy human being. The fact that I have terrible organisational skills when it comes to my personal life probably doesn’t help.

In my last post “Hildy’s Health Adventure: Psychotherapy with The Good Nature Company, what I’ve learnt so far.” I wrote about rewarding myself with food and how I had been advised by Julie my psychotherapist from The Good Nature Company to create another way to reward myself. She mentioned how prominent my inner child seems, as if that was a surprise to anyone, so suggested that a good way of keeping on top of rewarding myself without food would be to make a sticker chart! So that is exactly what I did. Now everyone who has seen this chart doesn’t really get it, basically because the chart doesn’t reward anything good in particular,  I use it to stick a sticker on when I feel like I have done something that deserves one. So for example if I get a good chunk of my to do list done for the day I would usually treat myself later that day to some crisps or something I would consider to be a treat, now I have my chart I have tried to exchange that for a sticker on my chart. I also have a section for being upset or sad, so if I’m having a bit of a bad day instead of drowning my sorrows in cake I will put a sticker in that section ( this section needs enlarged!).

If I feel like the reward needs to be bigger than a sticker I have written some other bigger rewards on the back of my chart which I can dish out to myself where/when I feel I need to! I have definitely treated myself with quite a few small treats already and one or two medium treats too! I hadn’t realised it until writing this piece but this also shows you all how un-rock ‘n’ roll  my life is. Yes Gardening is a treat! One of the fall backs of this chart is that in no way does putting a sticker on a chart feel as good as eating cake, I think getting used to that change will be very hard, which is why I have been dishing out the small treats from the back of my chart like there is no tomorrow.

One of the issues I have really struggled with in this reward swap is time. I don’t know about anyone else, but eating a packet of crisps for me takes no time whereas most of the non-food treats I have thought of and put into practice tend to take up a lot more time. I already struggle with not having enough time in the day as it is, so with these little things on top of that has taken it’s toll on my work load and I really can’t say they are as convenient as cake. This is something I suppose I just need to make time for and accept but over the past couple of weeks been so busy that I have still used food as a reward.

I know that this is not going to be an overnight change, the temptation is high and the rewards at the moment don’t quite fill the gaps of the old ones (food). I have rewarded myself with food since creating the chart, I know that this habit is so ingrained inm e it will take a long time and lot’s of effort to make the shift.

But I’m working on it and have tried to at least do half and half over the past couple of very busy weeks. Let’s see if I can keep it up!

Anyone reading this in the same position as me I would really suggest giving this a go it certainly gives you a better idea of when/where and why you reward yourself with food.

If you would prefer to get some more in-depth bespoke advice get in touch with Julie by visiting THE GOOD NATURE COMPANY website HERE.