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The
Four Stages of Learning One night in the Tuesday ANAD support group, a member excitedly talked about something she learned in her business class: The 4 Stages of Learning: 1) Unconscious Incompetence, 2) Conscious Incompetence, 3) Conscious Competence, and 4) Unconscious Competence. The first, “Unconscious Incompetence”, was described as being “blissful”. In this stage you can’t do something, but you are unaware that you can’t do it. Imagine a very small child happily playing a “song” on a piano. Then you move into the second stage “Conscious Incompetence” which is the most painful. It is the stage where you know you can’t do something, but don’t know how to fix it. Remember your first piano lesson and how awful you knew you sounded? The third stage “Conscious Competence” lasts the longest. You have to consciously work on the problem, deliberately choosing tools, making mindful effort everyday. Everything you do feels awkward and unnatural. This is like practicing the piano hour after hour on a difficult passage of music. The fourth and final stage is “Unconscious Competence”. This is where you can do something effortlessly and without thinking about it. It has become natural and second nature to you. A pianist playing a familiar piece of music from memory would be an example of this stage. A person would occasionally move back into the third stage, work on a problem consciously, then move back into the fourth stage. The group realized that the minute they realized they had a problem they were in the Conscious Incompetence stage, and they found this stage very painful and frustrating. Some who were farther along in their recovery felt that they were in the Conscious Competence stage, that everything was awkward and unnatural and had to be deliberately worked on. It was hopeful to also point out that the women who were in the group the longest said that they felt they had one foot in the last stage, Unconscious Competence, some of the parts of recovery were beginning to feel second nature and they didn’t have to think about it so much. The group discussed some of the skills necessary to recover and how hard it was to keep working mindfully and consciously in the “Conscious Competence” stage. Many acknowledged how hard it was to not give up when things didn’t feel natural after a short while. We realized that since we tended to be perfectionistic it was hard to stick to doing something that didn’t come naturally. We may have the best of intentions, but after the initial excitement of trying something new wore off many gave up after 3 to 5 days. Everyone started thinking of new possibilities when I told them that it took 21 days to make or break a habit. Maybe if they kept that timeframe in mind it would help them to stick to something, even though it didn’t feel comfortable or natural. I reminded them not to overwhelm themselves and try to take on too much at once. Sometimes we need to work on just one thing at a time. So we decided to make it a challenge, to pick one thing and to do it consistently for 21 days. It could be something very simple such as “I am going to repeat an affirmation every morning”. Or it could be risky and scary, such as “I will eat breakfast every morning, no matter what I’ve done the night before.” A little harder one might be “I will ask my critical part to talk to me like I would talk to a friend.” In the next newsletter I will let you know the results of our experiment. (If you want to try along with us, please remember to make your challenge something that you need to stretch to get to, but within a realistic reach. You may want to use a calendar to keep track of your progress and plan 21 little rewards to help yourself stick to it. When you reach your 21st day, please write or email me (awakeningcenter@sbcglobal.net) and let me know what happened. I’d love to hear from you. Amy Grabowski, MA, LCPC is the leader of the Tuesday evening ANAD Support Group. For more information about this group, see page 3. Amy can be reached at: (773) 929-6262 ext 1. Nutrition
Q&A: Snacking Nutrition Q&A is a new column, by the Nutrition Counselors at The Awakening Center, that will answer your nutrition questions. You may send your nutrition questions by mail to The Awakening Center, Nutrition Q&A , 3166 N Lincoln, Ste 224, Chicago, IL 60657 or via email at awakeningcenter@sbcglobal.net. Q: I’ve gotten myself into a pattern of starving all day and then eating a lot at night. My goal is to eventually eat meals and snacks, but to me snacking is cheating and I’m scared to do it. What do you suggest? A: Moving from disordered eating to normalized eating can mean learning to fuel yourself regularly throughout the day. That may mean taking a risk and bringing food into the daytime versus saving it all for the privacy of the night hours when you are so often winding down. Taking this step usually involves snacking, in other words adding foods, and expanding your repertoire. A common nutrition “prescription” in this case is a trip to the grocery store. If my client hasn’t ever gone to an alternative grocer like “Whole Foods” I recommend that as a starting place. Here are some ideas of new and nutrient dense foods for you to fuel your body: Large assortments of sport snack bars Soy milks in different flavors Tofu pudding mixes Great breads Yogurts & soygurts Fruit smoothies A variety of hommus spreads and baked chips Interesting rice, couscous, and noodle salads at the deli Different snacks fit different situations. Approach this as an experiment with your body. Sometimes you need a snack with significant protein to last you a while and sometimes lighter snacks will do for a shorter interval before the next meal. Sometimes snacks help round-out the nutritional profile of what you eat. Are all the colors of snacks tan or brown after you open that colorful wrapper? Or are there several colors represented in your snacks? The greater variety in color enhances your chance of variety in nutrients. Keep in mind that the impact of nutrition on our health is determined over two to four weeks, not daily. Although National Nutrition Month is now past, this year’s theme is a good one to remember all year: Explore New Tastes.... Try New Foods! Marianne Evans-Ramsay, RD, LD has a gentle, wholistic, step-by-step approach to normalizing disordered eating styles. To make an appointment, call (773) 929-6262 ext 16. “Why
Don’t You Eat Your Vegetables and Go Out and Play!” This quote from Inez Lyons, the mother of author and educator Pat Lyons became the battle cry and bottom line of a three day conference sponsored by the American Dietetic Association. After all the research, discussion, and debate presented by experts in every aspect of health and nutrition was over, this simple statement summed it all up. The research is becoming more and more convincing that it is “eating and activity patterns” that help keep us healthy and not weight. There was a strong call to all dietitians, nutritionists, and health care providers to stop concentrating on weight and start talking about pleasant, enjoyable and moderate movement and eating. Hence the conclusion, “Why don’t we all eat our vegetables and go out and play!” Elisa D’Urso-Fischer, RD, LD leads “Nourishing Concepts” a nutrition counseling group on Wednesday evenings at The Awakening Center. For more information see page 3 or call Elisa at (773) 929-6262 ext 16. “I can’t tell you enough how much I enjoyed the article on the Marilyn Club (Newsletter Vol 5, #1). It’s wonderful to know I’m not alone. Having dealt with these emotions for a long time it is comforting to know other people do see the world differently than others, or the main stream, and they are OK and not WEIRD. Thank you for taking the time to write such a wonderful piece.” G.M. (via email) We would like to hear from you. Your letters are important to us. Write to us via snail mail or email us at: info@awakeningcenter.net
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