I am attempting to lose weight through consciousness and common sense; I have started facing the little girl in me who wants to eat any way she wants.
Unearthing her thoughts and impulses at first made me feel hopeless because she had such a stranglehold on me. But as I have stayed with becoming aware of her repetitive messages, my adult consciousness is getting stronger and she is losing her power over me.
Becoming aware of unconscious thoughts and impulses takes the energy out of the unconscious and gives it to consciousness. Because energy has a relationship to matter, the one that has more energy gets stronger because it gets bigger. When consciousness is bigger than unconsciousness we choose “good” with more ease.
At first I was confused and hopeless at this new piece of work. But two miraculous things happened for me at the same time: 1) I gained deeper understanding on how consciousness works; and 2) I remembered how good I felt when I could have a conversation with myself or someone else changing the misguided messages from my little girl.
Here's how it works. Thoughts, impulses, sensations, feelings etc. are how the unconscious comes to us. These messages come from our right brain experience. When we don’t know what we are experiencing, this is our unconscious. Becoming conscious means recognizing these thoughts, impulses or sensations with your left brain as old messages that are not about the present.
Most of us would rather deny these unconscious parts of ourselves because we deem them “bad.” But when we begin to know what we are experiencing even if it is “bad,” our consciousness grows.
As our consciousness grows, we get stronger to match our actions with our adult desires.
Specifically, I am talking about moving from my little girl’s desires to numb out with food to adult choices so I can lose weight. What surprised me is that after a few days of my staying with naming these thoughts and impulses as unconscious, even though I still wanted to eat everything in sight, I started getting stronger in my ability to eat the way my adult knows is better for me. Until I stayed with this process long enough I really was starting to believe in the hopelessness of the stranglehold my little girl had on how I ate.
Another crucial piece of this is that when I had the willfulness to choose my chosen strategy to eat cleanly, even though I didn’t want to, I gained a huge amount of strength.
Doing what is right was difficult the first time. But it has gotten easier, step-by-step, and choice-by-choice. I only had to make a handful of willful choices I didn’t want to make but which were good for me. Surprisingly, from that handful of choices, it has gotten easier to continue making “good choices.”
If you have been overrun by old impulses, you can learn to understand and use consciousness as I did. You too can build your strength to make adult choices. And when you do make a few difficult choices, know it gets easier. Your goals can become your reality. I am not perfect but I have more hope today than ever before that I will reach my adult goals. You can, too!
If this article has impacted you, leave a comment below or drop me a line and let me know. If you would like more information on how I work with clients, contact me at Stephanie@rauchmindbody.com, and we can discuss setting up an appointment or finding someone in your area who might be able to support you.
Stephanie Rauch has a Ph.D. in Counselor education, is a licensed professional counselor and a licensed massage therapist in North Carolina.
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