Now is the time to explore any remaining resistance to losing weight and being slim and healthy. Ideally, allow yourself ample time to sit and contemplate this part of the work. Tap with a soft fist on your collarbone. Breathe and, as usual, have a glass of water close by so you can stay well hydrated.
What self-sabotaging behaviours are you holding on to?
What fears do you retain when you think of achieving your natural weight?
What do you think you could lose in your life by being successful?
Have you come as far as you are going to go?
Are you doing everything you can to be successful or are you holding back?
What benefits are there for you to fail at achieving your natural weight?
To download the A4 printer-friendly PDF version of the ‘Remaining resistance’ worksheet, go to www.your7simplesteps.com and click on the Worksheets tab.
Try and work below the surface of your everyday thoughts. Write down whatever comes into your mind without necessarily getting too caught up with reading it back to yourself in the first instance. Be kind to yourself. Try not to judge yourself. This is the work that is left to do and acknowledging these last parts of resistance is the start to releasing them.
PSTEC (see page 39) is wonderfully successful in reducing and collapsing all resistance to change. It removes the emotional pull that the thought of change can exert over you, leaving you feeling peaceful whenever you think about it. Moving out of your comfort zone can be very scary in many ways so we are looking to help you work through these fears easily, gently and quickly.
Think about losing all that excess weight. What pops into your mind? Is it your partner who will make things very difficult for you because he/she will feel so threatened that you are going to be looking great again? Was it the time you lost all that weight only to find you were getting huge amounts of attention at parties or get-togethers? Are you afraid that if you start looking amazing again you might be tempted to look outside your marriage for some fun? Are you remembering the time when you were small and weak and those children were bullying you – so you made a decision never to be small again? There could be any number of reasons as to why reaching your goal weight feels unsafe.
List any remaining fears on the next worksheet, http://your7simplesteps.com/book15. Every last one of them. Now give each of those fears a SUD rating, with zero being no emotion at all, and 10 being the highest it can be.
Take the experience that feels the most intense and start working with that one. If it’s a fear of what you think might happen in the future, it’s perfectly okay to use that – imaginary experiences can be just as debilitating as real ones.