Nanny 911 To The Rescue

Do you watch Nanny 911 or any of the Nanny reality TV shows? If so, you would see frazzled parents with several children who seem “out of control.” The children fight, misbehave, don’t go to bed easily or on time and often end up controlling their parents. Nanny 911 comes in and spends time retraining the children. Basically, what she is doing is identifying a goal with the parents – to have well-behaved children who follow the household guidelines. This allows the parents to feel more relaxed and peaceful. With the goal identified, Nanny 911 starts to work with the parents to retrain the kids. Let’s explore what typically happens:

  • The goal is identified.
  • Nanny 911 works with the parents to establish new household guidelines that will meet the goal.
  • Nanny 911 then starts working with the children to retrain them around the guidelines, while at the same time, training the parents to enforce the new guidelines.
  • A lot of mistakes are made and Nanny 911 comes in to offer help & support.
  • Chaos ensues, the children scream and cry, sometimes the parents capitulate – and eventually, there is success.
  • The parents realize they have the power to create peace and harmony in their home — to create well-behaved children.

Retraining

What did we learn? Children, once allowed to do things their own way, get used to misbehaving. When someone comes in to retrain them, there is a great deal of pain, tantrums and difficulty. There are mistakes, successes, stumbles and then more successes. With each success comes more peace. With each stumble comes new lessons learned. Does the process sound familiar? It sure did for me. It was the addictive mind playing out right in front of me.

Our Minds – As Parents & Children

Our conscious mind is where we make decisions and create commands
The thing is, our minds are like parents and children. Our conscious mind is like the parents. It is the ONLY thing over which we have complete control. We can’t control our bodies, our family, our friends, events, etc. Our conscious mind is where we make decisions and create commands (like the parents do with the children). Our subconscious minds carry out the commands. In a sense, you could say the subconscious mind, when in a state of addiction, is like the misbehaving children. The subconscious, when behaving, is supposed to act on the commands and carry out the details. When our minds are working in harmony, the conscious and subconscious mind work like a peaceful family with well-behaved children. Yes, there are good days and bad days, but overall, there is a sense of loving, peaceful harmony. So let’s take our conscious mind as parents & subconscious mind as children – the conscious mind identifies the goal of peaceful harmony and creates guidelines. The subconscious mind carries out the tasks to get to the goal. Everything is supportive of the end goal.

Retraining The Addictive Mind

With addictions, like eating disorders, our conscious minds are like the stressed-out parents at their wits end — with our subconscious mind, acting like misbehaving children. What would Nanny 911 say to us? In a practical sense, she’d have us identify our goal: What is our ideal state? Perhaps it’s to end our addictive behavior and be at peace – to live our lives “normally” or “free.” How would she help us get there? Nanny 911 would have to do some retraining with us. Our “parents,” the conscious mind, would need to give the proper guidelines to the “children,” the subconscious mind in order to get to our goal. Could it be that simple? No. It’s not simple – remember, we only see 30 – 60 minutes of what actually happened on reality TV. And it’s only TV. And it’s parents and children. Addictions can be serious and deeply ingrained. It can take weeks, months or years – of pain, struggle, tantrums – to retrain these “mind-parents & children”. The question is, how worth it is the end result? If it’s true that we want peace, we want to be free, we want to live “normally,” are we willing to stick it out through the tough times – without giving in?

Nanny 911

This is the question I had to ask myself. It is the question you may be asking yourself. The journey to recovery is a tremendous challenge – and sometimes, focusing on that end goal and creating guidelines to get there is a great way to give us the strength to carry on. I love the idea of Nanny 911 too – she is so competent and makes things seem so easy. She sees right through the parents and the children, doesn’t she? She’s seen it all before – and sometimes, while she is not popular, everyone always knows she cares. Nanny 911 reminds me of the person we choose to help us along the recovery path (when we choose to reach out for help). Someone who can see right through our mind-parents & child dynamics – yet someone who cares about our end goal of recovery. You deserve to have peaceful harmony in your life. You have the power to create it. If you are feeling at your wits end, I encourage you to find your own “Nanny 911” to support you in the process of recovery. To remind you that you have the power, the ability and the strength to create the life you want.

Your Actions

If you are ready to take steps to retrain your conscious and subconscious mind, there are many approaches to do this. One option is to use my free Actions for Recovery Workbook. In this workbook, you’ll see many of the steps I took over the past 4 years to retrain my mind on my path to recovery.

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As a coach, writer and recovered former executive, I understand the challenges of creating a balanced, healthy lifestyle when over-scheduled. In my journey to radiant health, I created a whole health system of eating, exercise, renewal and recharging -- a roadmap toward health & vitality. I empower clients to create their own whole health systems, in their own unique ways. I have seen amazing results in working with my clients!