Is the activity of making a collendar childish? Yes! In some ways it is. Very childish. Cutting out images and coloured paper shapes, placing them on a page in a pleasing manner, enjoying a pleasant activity, it does sound childish, it is what what you would see children doing, early in their school career.
What happens if an adult mind is in charge of which images are chosen and placing them on a page in a meaningful (as well as pleasing) manner, enjoying a pleasant activity? The collendar could then be viewed as a task which has a specific goal, the goal of being an assistant to losing weight and keeping the weight lost.
It works in a few ways. On a practical level it keeps the hands fully occupied. Hands that desperately want to hold a cigarette, or a chocolate ripe are instead forced to hold scissors and sticky tape. Spare time is precious so cutting out images which may, or may not be useful in the future to make a collendar, instead of having a cigarette, or a trip to the refrigerator might seem to be a pretty silly activity. Let it seem so, yet still give it a try.
Another way it works is to pair images with words we want to associate with those images. If I spend all my afternoon thinking about “Great” and “Mandarin” and I place images of them on my collendar page, what is the chance I will feel happier about eating mandarins, instead of chocolate ripes? I’d say a very good chance. Not only that, if I did it for a few years of Mayndarin, I’d probably come out loving to eat more mandarins, those little gems.
Wrong! More accurately, I’d say I feel more accepting about eating more mandarins. After the novelty of the first week of eating mandarins wears off, Mayndarin becomes a really difficult month. Sometimes its cold. Mandarins are not warming to eat and they lack any excitement. Worse still, they are full of pips!
My collendar task is really helping me to stay disciplined this month. Today I have paired the word “Powerful” with mandarins. It reminds me that they are a powerful thing to eat in my weight loss journey, and the Collendar is a powerful task, a weight management tool.