Hypnosis to Stop The Overweight From Stuffing Feelings by Stuffing Food
July 17th, 2008 by Go Weblog
We’ve learned
about “emotional eating habits”, those eating behaviors that
are related to emotional longings rather than the body’s real
need for nutrition. The first thing we explored was the
infantile programming to overeat created by the common
practice of bottle feeding when accompanied by parental
neglect. We learned how to heal these traumas from infancy
and thus permanently change these habits. In this article, I
will address the use of food to suppress emotions, in other
words, stuffing one’s feelings with food.
Many of us were raised in families where the expression of feelings was discouraged or even punished. Such phrases as
“Shut up or I’ll give you something to cry about!” or
“Children should be seen and not heard” represent extreme but
regrettably common examples. More frequently however we find
the parent who is simply too busy and stressed to listen to
their children’s feelings and needs. Sometimes children
discover on their own that eating some food can help them
suppress their anger and tears. Sometimes they are
programmed by their parents to eat in this dysfunctional way.
A child cries with pain, or needing some attention, and even
a well-meaning mother will shove a bottle into the child’s
mouth or give her a cookie to silence her. It doesn’t take
long for the child to learn this life-long eating habit.
The solution is to return the client in trance to the time he
or she first learned to stuff their feelings with food. Then
we can bring in the resource of the client’s adult self to
encourage the child to express their feelings. As a therapist
I will often need to encourage my client to express their
feelings, anger, tears, etc. in a loud voice. “That’s good!
You tell them! You deserve to be heard” are all expressions I
frequently use. Then we use the empowered adult self along
with, if necessary, the presence of a new inner parent to
respond lovingly and approvingly to the child’s expression of
feeling. Then we help the child experience the incomparable
joy of their needs being met. The client is encouraged to
feel in their bodies the fulfillment of these experiences.
Finally, we bring this newly developed skill of expressing
feelings into the client’s present life and present
communications, sometimes through assertiveness training,
sometimes through mental rehearsals. In effect, we are
training the client’s subconscious mind to express feelings
safely and confidently.
Here’s an example. Sarah (not her real name) is 50 lbs.
overweight and reports that stuffing her feelings is a
problem. Her subconscious mind takes us to a memory of her
mother and her in the kitchen. She’s crying about a broken
toy, and feeling neglected by Mom who’s on the phone. Mom
hands her a cookie along with a look that clearly implies she
is not to be disturbed. While this kind of daily neglect
rarely gets the media attention of sexual or violent abuse
incidents, it is these supposedly mundane events which
repeated often enough produce the syndrome we’re describing
in many of my clients. Our therapeutic intervention begins
with bringing in the client’s adult self. The adult self
tells mother that she is making a big mistake. I encourage
her to loudly express her anger. Mom is immediately
remorseful. Then we ask her child to express her tears
again, which she does out loud. Then, we gently instruct Mom
in how to listen to her child’s needs and respond to them (If
Mother were less warmly responsive it might have been
necessary to release her and replace her with a new mother in
the client’s inner world. This would not significantly
affect the adult Sarah’s relationship with her present time
mother, but simply provide a symbolic new resource for the
child of the past.) We then embed this new resource in the
client’s body and memory, with words like “Now breathe in
that wonderful feeling as Mommy holds you. And now she’s
looking at your broken toy, and promises she’ll get you a new
one soon. Now she’s going into your room and helping you
find another toy to play with. Breathe in this wonderful
feeling. Notice how wonderful it is to let Mom know how you
are feeling. This is how she knows to take care of you.”
These words are called “counter-programming suggestions” and
are essential to re-enforce new core beliefs and behaviors.
Now we link this new resource to every time she feels an
uncomfortable feeling in her present life. “Now every time
you have an unpleasant feeling, the kind that made you want
to eat, we remember how safe it is now to tell your husband
or children how you feel.” I then walk Sarah through a quick
rehearsal of expressing this feeling to her husband. I may
even advise her on the best ways to express her feelings to
him in a style that he finds it easy to respond to. We’ll
also follow through in our rehearsal to see that her needs
are being met afterwards in some way. I can give her more
help in her skills of emotional expression. “Perhaps instead
of blaming him we could just tell him how this behavior makes
you feel?” I persist in this rehearsal until her
communication is comfortable, and it works to get her needs
met. While shouting and crying may be a useful part of the
client’s therapy, opening up the channels of emotional
expression, it isn’t so useful in our daily family lives.
Instead the client needs to develop adult communication
skills, which in many cases have never been properly
developed.
We re-program half a dozen similar memories provided by
Sarah’s subconscious mind in this way. This includes both
repeated rescue missions for her child of the past and lots
of mental rehearsals of her new communication skills in her
adult life. After only four hours of therapy, and two weeks
later, Sarah reports. Not only is she eating far less, she
is finding her relationships are changing in dramatic and
wonderful ways. Her experiences of victimization and
powerlessness are disappearing, and love and intimacy are
growing in her family. And she is losing weight. She tells
me however, that the other changes in her life are much more
important to her than the lost weight. She is already
beginning a life that is no longer ruled by her weight
issues. I find it typical of my work with weight issues that
many other aspects of the client’s life change dramatically
for the better as we work, because we are addressing core
problems, of which weight per se is only one symptom.
In our hypnosis, we will explore how compulsive eating is
programmed to replace creativity in our lives. How we
recognize when this is happening, and how we fix it.
About Alchemy Institute of Hypnosis: We offer a list of
hypnotherapists in your area. Our website also offers an
extensive library of information about hypnotherapy. This
includes articles on weight loss. If you are interested in
further explorations of this topic, or would like a copy of
the other articles in the series, or perhaps are interested
in making changes in your life through the techniques of
weight loss described here, call our office at 1-800-950-4984
or visit our website at http://www.alchemyinstitute.com/Weight-Loss/.
Weight Loss On Your New Year’s Agenda Prepare For The Top Weight Loss Scams Of 2006! PART 1
June 25th, 2008 by Go Weblog
I’ll admit, scam may be too harsh of a word for what I’m about to relay to the weight loss wanting public this New Year but many people’s efforts will end in frustration due to misleading information; not lack of commitment or follow through. In fact, people fail to get a fitness or weight loss result for one reason and one reason only: THEY’RE MISLED which eventually leads to lack of commitment, motivation, etc because they WERE’NT GETTING RESULTS!.
Scam would insinuate an attempt to defraud or lie but when companies are chomping at the bit to rake in beaucoup profits this year on “so-called weight loss solutions” millions will waste a good amount of time, energy, hope and yes, money on things that cannot possibly work to deliver long term success. So in essence you may as well be scammed.
This is going to be a four part series because there’s quite a bit of info and needed clarity to cover on each topic. The FTC has been on the hunt for bogus weight loss products since the 1920’s and the amazing thing is that many of these products are regurgitations of what’s been done in the past and you know what? I WANT YOU TO USE THEM! You’ll find out why I said that later.
So here’s Part 1 of the Top Weight Loss Scams of 2006.
1. Any Thing That Has The Word “DIET” In It.
Now how is this a scam you might ask? Diets are always going to be the number one choice for would be pound droppers and whether or not you choose to go weight watching, be like Kirstie Allie and talk to “Jenny,” go with Nutri-System, Atkins, South Beach, Dr. Phil, your own system of just “eating healthy,” etc, etc, etc I’ll bet you the vault at the Belagio in Las Vegas that future frustration will inevitably mount leaving yourself making yet another New Years weight loss resolution. I discussed the “Top 5 Reasons You Should Not Go On A Diet This New Year” in another article “Top-Five-Reasons-You-Should-NOT-Go-On-A-Diet-This-New-Year” so check that out for some much needed clarity on the matter.
So where’s the “scam part” with this whole diet thing? “Lose 9 pounds every eleven days, lose 30 pounds in 30 days, eat like a pig and lose weight, etc.” Those are just a couple blatant false promises that believe it or not many people allow their common sense to be bypassed and fall victim to these bogus claims. In all honestly, anything that has the word DIET in it has about a 98.99% chance of failing. Believing the diet “worked” in the past is the biggest trap diet victims fall into which always has them blame themselves for something that failed them.
That’s just the blatant false promises. Others are much more sneaky and although they are not scams in the literal sense they do in fact mislead people which adds to the frustration so many Americans face with weight loss.
A few people may be ticked off by this but America’s favorite weight loss center (name withheld) that has you counting points maintains the same failure rate as the rest of the diet industry. Sorry, but it’s true. Of course there are a “handful” of long term success stories out of the millions who embark upon the program but for those that have been to the meetings you know that pretty much every body there is a repeat customer. Well if the diet “worked” in the first place then why would you come back to it? If an eating program has you continually cut back on calories to keep that friendly relationship with the almighty progress tool (the scale) then you can be sure it’s a form of calorie deprivation that will inevitably slow metabolism. However, some credit should be given to them for the fact that they do seem to have a genuine concern for helping people lose weight even though the approach is flawed.
Here’s what I want you to do. If you’ve chosen to go on a diet in an effort to lose weight this yearI want you to go on a DIET if that’s what you’ve set out to do! I know this is harsh, but I want you to lose those deceptive 5-7 pounds the first week, I want you to cut way, way back on calories that will eventually slow metabolism, I want you to give up all those foods you love that you think are bad for you, I want you to experience those awful cravings you believe are a lack of willpower that will inevitably have you “blow” the diet and I want you to gain all of the weight back. Harsh, I know but here’s the one thing I DO NOT want you to do: DO NOT BLAME YOURSELF FOR FAILING! So yes, I am sincere when I say I want you to go on one of these commercial diets but I do however realize that there are health implications with certain forms of dieting so as a warning, exercise caution and consult your physician.
Stay tuned for Part 2: The Ephedra Free “Natural” Fat Burners Or Anything In Pill Form That Claims To Be a Solution In And Of Itself.
David Otto is a Personal Trainer in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. To receive David Otto’s e-newsletter “The Otto Report: Getting Real With Fitness,” simply send an email to celebpt@yahoo.com and request your copy.
Tags: carb, carbohydrate, diet, fat, health, lose, nutrition, obese, obesity, overweight, protein, weight loss, womenWeight Loss Cause and Solution - The Key to Successful Weight Loss Isn’t a Miracle Pill or Plan
June 3rd, 2008 by Go Weblog
Losing weight isn’t rocket science, but keeping it off can be more difficult that traveling to the moon. The key to successful weight loss isn’t a miracle pill or plan; rather, it’s a matter of determining why you’re overweight and designing strategies that will counteract the cause of those extra pounds. Follow these guidelines to get on the right track to weight loss:
Why are You Overweight?
For successful weight loss, it’s important to understand why you are overweight. You may have become sedentary, you may have a genetic predisposition to being heavy, you may eat for emotional reasons, or perhaps you’re a triple-dipper and are overweight for all three reasons. Once you pinpoint the reason or reasons you’re overweight, you can develop a weight loss approach that works for you.
Solving the Problem
If the pounds have crept on because you lead a sedentary lifestyle, it’s time to get up off the couch and get moving! You don’t have to become a gym rat, but you do have to start incorporating movement into your life. After getting a green light from your doctor, start with a brisk ten-minute walk three times each. When you’re able to walk and hold a conversation without getting out of breath, you can increase the duration of your walks by ten-minute increments. Gradually add variety to your exercise routine, perhaps enrolling in a water aerobics class or even buying that gym membership. The key is to start slowly and find ways to move that are enjoyable for you. If you remain engaged and avoid boredom, you’re more apt to stick with your program.
If your parents, grandparents, and/or siblings are overweight, you probably have a genetic tendency to carry excess weight. However, that doesn’t mean weight loss is elusive. You may never be model-slim, but through dietary modifications and exercise, you can achieve the weight that’s right for you. The key is to set realistic goals for yourself and to work a little bit harder to overcome your genes.
If you’re overweight because you turn to food for solace, it’s time to dig deeper. Start by keeping a journal and carrying it with you wherever you go. Each time you find yourself reaching for something to eat, identify the circumstances and what you’re feeling. Note the date, time, your activity, and the feeling you’re experiencing in your journal. Perhaps you’re bored on a Saturday afternoon and grab a bag of chips to nosh on to fill the time. Maybe you’re anxious about a deadline at work, and so reach for the candy dish on your desk. You could be mad at your sister for dumping the responsibility for your parents’ anniversary party in your lap, so you swing through the fast food drive-through. After a week or two, review your journal entries and note any emotional patterns that emerge. Then come up with activities that you can use as substitutes for eating. If you eat out of boredom, for example, find a hobby that occupies both your mind and your hands. You won’t be as likely to reach for the chips, and you’ll cut out the extra calories in the process.
Regardless of the cause of your extra pounds, you can take concrete steps that will put you on the road to weight loss. And, because you’re addressing the issues that led to you being overweight in the first place, you’re more likely to keep the weight off.
Chris Robertson is an author of Majon International, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies on the web.
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