It’s not often we would think to check in with our subconscious regarding how we select
our food, or why we might be retaining unwanted weight, right?
I mean, you’re pushing the cart along in the food store, and do you stop to ask
yourself “What is the emotional reason I am choosing this even though I know it is not
the best thing to eat”? Most likely not. You just want it.
The reality is your subconscious mind is a major factor in why you choose the foods you
do, and why you might be carrying extra weight even if you are doing everything you
can be released through exercise and diet.
Today we’re going to take a look at:
How the subconscious mind holds emotional underpinnings that drive a lot of our eating habits,
How the subconscious mind holds traumatic memories that instruct the body to carry extra weight as a protective measure.
Your Subconscious Mind Is A Powerful Supercomputer
Your subconscious mind is one of the most powerful supercomputers on the planet. We
are only 5% conscious -the rest of our consciousness lies beyond a thin wall, where
millions of computations and chemicals are being processed and ignited every second.
The subconscious mind is a 24/7 record of everything we have experienced in life, and
chemical signatures carrying emotions and memories are banked away, allowing the
brain to efficiently learn, keep us alive, and protect us from repeating terrible things we
may have experienced in our past.
And, for better or worse, the subconscious often drives the way we interpret life events
and the world around us, for while the whole brain computes 11 million bits of
information every second, the conscious “logical” mind only computes 40-50 bits per
second. That is a significant difference. (Learn more about your amazing brain power
in my 15 minute “Brain Basics” video).
FOOD…IT’S COMPLICATED!
When you look at your food choices and you think to where you learned -- or didn’t learn -- how to eat and cook meals, most people will refer to a family model. Many of us weren't brought up to see food as fuel strictly, because it's not, it’s so much more.
Food is all about connection. It's about love. It's about sharing. It's bonding. Or, it can be distressing, a tough subject for those who want or are currently in need of food. It can be used to keep those we love close to us, to celebrate life, or food can be our only friend when we are in deep emotional distress, and we eat for comfort alone, out of sight.
Our relationship to food is much more complex than we typically give any time to, until it is out of balance – and then we will provide it with a lot of thought trying to reel it back in with diets and exercise. Should that be the case for you, and a lot of effort has been given to reining your diet back in or releasing excess weight without much progress – it’s time to consider what might be going on in your ever-powerful subconscious mind that is keeping you stuck.
For example, when someone overdoes their chocolate intake – most often the subconscious
root cause will lie in early memories where chocolate was a happy break with a grandmother
perhaps, a sign of love, in the face of outer difficulty and challenge. As an adult, chocolate
becomes an absolute necessity as an “emergency medicine” when stress is high, or emotions are low.
Another example is when in a challenging economic time during childhood, fast food was seen as a treat for the wealthy, and a sign of life going well for the family. And a sign of love for the kids. In adult years, it becomes a quick emotional “taking care of myself” maneuver off the highway real quick -- or may even be sought out as the car is a quiet place to calm oneself down – the rush of chemicals assuaging the stressed brain.
In both instances – the emotional care of the self that chocolate or fast food provided when one was a young child (typically between the ages of 0-10) will create a memory of a pathway to calmness that might surface in later years as a subconscious “bad habit” – one repeating frequently and difficult to consciously control.
WHO IS REALLY EATING, ANYWAY?
Why do we continue to indulge in unhealthy food consumption when we know better?
Often, it is our younger self which is still hurting and carries forward that same awful feeling,
automatically using the food in the same way to soothe or slay strong emotions.
And this is the key to the subconscious influence on our adult lives: the subconscious can
continue to resurrect old emotional wounds from our earlier years which continue to play like a backbeat of a drum because they are strong, deeply embedded, and unresolved, so much so they have created a habit of thought – out of reach of the conscious mind.
A habit of thought means there is a neural network firing that “re-minds” us, “I am scared, feel bad about myself, I feel out of control, I feel helpless ….and this food makes me feel better” or something similar.
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This kind of thinking loop is formed in the mind of a child, or teen, and plays on into adulthood UNTIL some other belief about one’s power, agency or ability to manage better the world replaces it.
For many people, new life experiences come along that DO teach us about our power, and ability to self-discipline, and food is not an issue.
For others, however, who are challenged by unwanted food habits, or unwanted weight, the
subconscious mind will most often be involved via a memory, a situation, a family pattern or verbal programming which created a very strong emotional/chemical signature in the mind from years past.
Additionally, when we are emotionally stressed or going through a tough time, we will use food to “take care of” our emotional needs to feel loved, to feel like we can cope because no one is there for us…but how “old” is that person that is running the bad habit, typically?
Usually, not very old.
Our younger self has the power to form limiting beliefs, make decisions about the world around us, and determine our level of power to affect the world around us which will continue to control our lives as adults.
It’s as if, like nesting dolls, the 5-year-old mind is inside the 6-year-old mind, is inside the 7-year-old mind, etc. Those old limiting thoughts and beliefs from when we are very young are the source for so much of the self-sabotage we experience in life, including around food habits and diets.
A key thing to understand is that these limiting beliefs are NOT YOUR FAULT. They were made with the mind of a child, and those beliefs are no longer true….we just can’t access them as they live beyond the thin wall, in the subconscious, and they have the power to drive our adult behaviors.
CARRYING WEIGHT AS PROTECTION
Likewise, as our brilliant subconscious mind can sabotage healthy eating habits, it can also
direct the body to hold excess weight because it’s a strategic decision which helps protect and deflect any unwanted attention, scary feelings of attack, bullying, abuse, or “lesser than”
treatment by others.
It is amazing and very true. Because your body listens to your mind. The brain’s first job is to keep you alive, and the second is to keep you connected. As relates to keeping you alive, your subconscious mind is like the huge “bouncer at the door” to keep
anything that feels dangerous away from you.
While one of the most phenomenally brilliant organs on earth, the subconscious mind is also a “dumb instrument” in that it takes orders literally, and will set up and orchestrate beliefs, viewpoints, and physical manifestations which are an outward expression of an inner experience predominantly attached to some level of protection against fear states.
So, for example, if a young woman aged 13 is fully developed physically, she might attract
unwanted or inappropriate attention from a family member or stranger. Where that attention is repeated, or ongoing, she will intuitively feel unsafe, unprotected, and worry about what might happen if the attention will continue. She will believe it is not safe and directs her mind to start to carry extra weight, which stays with her into her adulthood.
Another example is a teenage boy who moves several times in middle and high school, and is shy, finding himself bullied and out of sorts during that period. When threatened by others and in fear of being beaten up, he can form the idea that “if I were only bigger, my weight and size won’t let me get hurt”. His feelings of powerlessness and worry of not being strong enough/good enough might underlie all circumstances he confronts later in his life as an adult.
Both examples above are real cases from my work in clinical hypnotherapy, (with adaptations to make them anonymous), and indicate how the subconscious mind will architect protective structures to keep us protected – especially in this modern day and age with all sorts of layers of challenge to our emotional safety.
LEVERAGE YOUR WHOLE MIND FOR HEALTH
So, how do we leverage our minds for excellent health?
First, dive into the emotions of your past associated with your food choices when you are
UPSET. What is your go-to, and why?
Second, if you are stuck at a certain weight, bring into awareness why you could be stuck in
relation to very challenging circumstances when you are younger where you didn’t feel safe.
Other areas to consider are what I call the 4 P’s – Patterns, Programming, People from the
Past, and Path forward.
Give thought to how the 4 P’s are affecting your diet and weight. Awareness helps drive wanted changes, and helps you consciously manage choice. They are:
Patterns from your past. How were you patterned as a child to eat, exercise and feel safe about your body within your family system?
Programming from childhood. For example, were you programmed through life experiences with the belief you are not enough, and/or everyone else’s needs come before yours? Did you grow up feeling like food habits manage your behaviors? Are you stuck or blocked with an unwanted food habit but cannot figure out how to stop it?
People. Often, we associate how we eat, cook, or even live in relation to something we want to attract, or repel, based on emotions related to caregivers and close family members. For example, if you are very connected to one parent over the other, you will resurrect old habits, diet, and food attitudes of that parent or close family member.
Path forward. Through awareness, you can choose to forge a new path. Often,
we just don’t get to the point of being able to see the root cause as an emotional
issue that needs healing. It is either science, chemistry with a diet, or physical exercise and metabolism that are IMPORTANT – yet not ALL of the story with what you eat and weigh.
Then, recognizing new habits take time to form through repetition, start a new pattern for
yourself as a path to freedom. Heal your emotions from the past – because when you do, the
others around you will heal as well.
By building a new habit you are actually forming a new neural network, and directing your brain, through discomfort to a new desired outcome.
And, as an efficiency machine – your subconscious mind COUNTS on operating on habitual
information, so it doesn’t have to spend time relearning things so it can keep moving forward. (Think of walking or driving a car – can you imagine having to relearn that every day???).
YOUR BODY IS ALWAYS LISTENING.
Leverage the power of your mind to create the body you want through visualization and
conscious instruction. Your subconscious mind is ALWAYS listening, and your brain will move forward toward the greatest point of focus. Your body always listens to your mind. No matter what you tell it.
Just like a body that will retain weight for safety reasons, your body will shift because you see it, feel it, and want it MORE than the old emotions that might be holding you back. Most importantly, remember you are worth it. So many of us carry deep-seated feelings of not being worth putting ourselves first and doing what is necessary to care for ourselves.
Those are old beliefs that are no longer true – made with the mind of a child. And if you are reading this – most likely, you are no longer a child. You can meet your needs, heal and release old subconscious emotions from your past, and transform yourself into who you want to be.
Go For It!!
If you want to learn more about how hypnotherapy can help you release what is keeping you
stuck or holding you back, please get in touch at Info@LydiaHatton.com
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