In the last few chapters, we talked about changing our emotional states and beliefs to help us drop weight. And sometimes it’s essential to address certain stresses, traumas, and other negative beliefs about weight loss—or yourself—to create the weight loss success you desire. But so many of us can’t identify one particular stressor, one particular trauma or event, that has been shaping our lives. What I’ve found is that there is one underlying emotion behind all the things that activate your FAT programs: fear. And I’m not talking about any one particular fear, but rather a general belief that can make your weight loss efforts fruitless: the belief that you are not safe. Changing this one belief can entirely wipe out all the stress, fear, and negative emotions that we’ve been discussing up to this point. If you could program the belief that you are safe into your being, so that you never questioned it and it became an automatic part of your everyday life and your everyday thinking, the job of conquering stress would be done.
Our day-to-day lives are filled with challenges. Perhaps you have a difficult job or your spouse is distant and you’re not sure where you stand with him. Your finances could be low, and making ends meet is overwhelming. Perhaps your children are struggling in school, and you can’t see a way to help them catch up. With any and all of these situations, what you find is that you fear for the future.
Fixing each issue is one way to solve this problem. And certainly with visualization you can begin to become extremely effective at making the necessary changes to your habits and actions that will enable you to solve these issues. It’s a worthwhile goal to tackle your problems, but it could take a long time to find a new job and a lot of counseling to fix a rocky marriage. By all means, look for solutions, but you need to manage these threats and find ways to feel safe right now—or you’ll just keep gaining weight.
Consider this scenario: Two people who work at the same job and have the same position are waiting in a bank line to perform a transaction. Both are going to be ten minutes late for work. Both might get a little flak from their boss. One is able to put the situation in perspective and realize that sometimes it’s unavoidable to be a little late and doesn’t give the issue a second thought.
The other person can’t gain perspective on being late. He can’t stand the thought of facing his boss and the chance that he might get yelled at for being late. The stress escalates until he starts to panic.
Both employees are in the same situation, yet one is calm and relaxed and the other is feeling tremendously threatened. The stressed-out person is triggering hormonal alarms in his body; when he gets back to the office, he’s going to need a cigarette or perhaps a donut and a bag of chips just to calm down. The only difference between these two people is that the one feels a little safer in life than the other, and the little threats and challenges he faces don’t cause the same emotional trauma. It all comes down to safety.
So, what if you could instill the belief that you are safe? No rhyme or reason, no logic behind it, you just know and feel that you are safe. What if there was a way to change your perception of these problems so that they don’t feel like threats?
CHANGE YOUR BELIEFS AND YOU INSTANTLY CHANGE YOUR EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE
Imagine this scenario: You’re sitting at a lovely outdoor café in a downtown plaza on a Sunday. You’re waiting for your spouse to meet you for lunch. You’ve both been running errands and planned to meet up at one o’clock. She’s running a few minutes late, but it’s such a beautiful day that you don’t mind.
However, 10 minutes turns into 20 and then into 30 minutes. Now you’re beginning to get bothered. After all, your time is important and you have more errands to run; it’s a little odd that she would keep you waiting. More than odd, it’s a little rude.
Now she’s 45 minutes late. The waiter comes by for the fifth time and asks again if you want to order. You say no and feel your face flush. You’re growing furious. You think of all the times she’s been late, all the times she’s disregarded your feelings. This is so inconsiderate. She must think she’s more important than me, you say to yourself. Your negative emotions churn, your stress climbs, your stress hormones surge, and your FAT programs are activated. You’re not even eating anything, yet your stress hormones are causing you to gain weight.
Finally, finally, you catch sight of her across the street. She waves as she spots you, comes over, and plops down with a laugh. She talks about what she was able to get done, grabs the menu, and orders a drink when the waiter comes by. You’re practically in shock, you’re so angry. You’re tight and short with her. She can’t even bother to apologize? She looks up from the menu and sees your expression. “What’s wrong, dear?” she asks.
“What’s wrong?” you blurt. “I’ve been here for an hour! You think you can just show up without apologizing or giving me an explanation?”
She stops, looks at her watch, and replies, “I’m not late; I’m right on time. It’s one o’clock right now. Daylight saving time ended last night, and we moved the clocks forward. Oh, my darling, did you forget to reset your watch?”
In a moment, your emotional world has flipped. You feel a wave of relief wash over you as all your negative beliefs do a 180-degree turn. Your entire emotional chemistry is altered in this moment, as well. Your negative thoughts are vaporized, and levels of stress hormones plummet as you realize, She does care about my time. She is considerate of my feelings.
What changed? Your underlying beliefs surrounding the situation. You were operating under the false notion that she was late, and that was causing a cascade of negative thoughts and opinions. The second that belief changed, all the negativity vanished because you realized that she was not at fault; you were at fault. Change your beliefs, and you instantly change the thoughts, emotions, and chemistry surrounding the issue.
Now imagine the same scenario, except there’s no time change. Your spouse is really more than an hour late, and you’re sitting at the table fuming. Your blood is boiling, your stress hormones are flowing, and you’re inflamed emotionally and physically. She sits down, and you ask her in a voice that’s quaking with anger, “How could you keep me waiting so long?”
She smiles and drops a brand-new set of car keys on the table. “Your birthday is tomorrow, and I just finished signing the papers on that BMW you wanted. It just took a little longer than I thought it would. Sorry about that … Happy birthday!”
How do you feel now?
The reality is that this time, instead of relief, you actually feel a wave of positive emotions wash over you. You feel your spouse’s love and thoughtfulness. You feel warm—not inflamed—and you marvel at how lucky you are to be married to your spouse. You feel happy, secure, and content. This time, not only has all the negativity disappeared; it’s been magically transformed to positive emotions of love, happiness, security, and joy.
Again, in an instant, you’ve dramatically altered the flow of chemicals in your body, and it’s all based on your beliefs. Change your beliefs, and you instantly transform your emotional state. Take a look at the illustration on the next page—this is what happens when fear dominates in your life and you get trapped in a vicious downward spiral of negativity.
This is how a negative spiral can work in real life. You feel fear about something—your job or your finances, for example. Those thoughts trigger negative emotions (I’m a failure, I might get fired, I won’t be able to pay my bills, etc.). Those negative emotions communicate to your survival brain that you’re in danger, spurring the release of stress and inflammatory substances throughout the body. Now your resistance to leptin and insulin increase and other aspects of your FAT programs kick into gear. You begin to gain weight, you feel lethargic, you crave quick energy in the form of junk food, and you make yourself vulnerable to illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Then you eat poorly, gain weight, and see your risk of disease rise, so more negative thoughts creep in (I’m fat, I have no self-control, I’m going to die, etc.), and the downward spiral continues into further negativity.
However, if you can change your beliefs—the basic premise in your life or in any challenging situation—to believe that you are safe, an equal and opposite positive spiral ensues.
If you’re able to feel safe, your train of thoughts will naturally be more positive. You’ll experience emotions of contentment, happiness, and security; this will trigger the release of beneficial, healing hormones and suppress stress-related hormones. Your sensitivity to leptin and insulin will increase as your FAT programs will get turned off. This leads to weight loss, increased energy, vitality, health, happiness, and passion for life. As the weight comes off and your energy increases, you’ll experience pride and more contentment, creating more positive emotions, and your upward positive spiral will continue.
The more you can create that automatic feeling of safety in your life, the more you can experience this positive cycle throughout the day. The ironic thing is that the more you feel safe, the safer you are. That’s because you’ll have fewer stress hormones cascading through your body, so you’ll be healthier and less susceptible to stress-related illnesses, such as cancer, heart attack, diabetes, and chronic fatigue. And, of course, you’ll be healthier because you’ll lose weight. You’ll have more energy for your job, which will translate into more income and greater job security, so you’ll be safer in a financial sense.
You’ll have more passion for your relationships and you’ll be more conscientious, and this will help smooth out the rough spots in your marriage. People will be naturally attracted to your vitality and joy, so they’ll be more likely to listen to you when you’re presenting your ideas in a meeting or a sales presentation and they’ll be more likely to buy your product or invest in your vision—all translating to more real, tangible physical safety. Simply by developing the feeling or belief that you are safe, you become healthier, happier, fitter, more successful, and more fulfilled.
So feeling safe will make you safer. You don’t need a logical reason to feel safe; you just need to feel it. That’s all that has to happen to reap the benefits. Sometimes this involves examining your core beliefs about how safe we are in the universe in general. This is tricky territory for many of us, because we’re dealing with deep-seated beliefs. But I would encourage you to examine your beliefs about life to see if there’s any way you can create a safer construct of the universe.
For me, I believe that the universe is safe and I am fully protected, both in this life and afterward. I don’t care if my belief is true or not. If it is, great! If not, that’s okay because simply by having that belief, I’ll be healthier, happier, and more successful while I’m here. Either way, having the belief serves me.
Here are some key phrases you can say while in SMART Mode (see THE OCEAN OF LIGHT VISUALIZATION FOR GETTING INTO SMART MODE) that will help instill into your being the belief that you are safe. Use only the ones that you agree with and are comfortable saying, or you can make up ones that are more suitable to your ideals. Practice them in the middle or the end of your visualizations. Imagine every cell of your body saying the word, phrase, or affirmation simultaneously like a chorus of 70 trillion voices.
Use words here that you’d like to feel or believe are consistent with your desired belief system.
I am safe.
Life is safe.
I am on a journey.
I am protected.
I am supported.
I am loved.
I am taken care of.
I have a place in this universe.
I am learning about myself.
This life is a beautiful adventure.
I forgive.
I let go.
I appreciate this amazing life and the beautiful people in it.
I accept all that I have experienced.
I am always supported.
Also appropriate here are religious affirmations, according to your beliefs, such as God protects me, God saves me, God is always with me, God radiates His/Her love through me. I am immortal, I am eternal, and so on.
Doing this visualization was tremendously healing for me. I practiced it for months. I can tell you that now, ten-plus years down the road, I just feel safer. I can’t explain it, and I don’t need to. It’s just a feeling at the core of my being. As a result, I’m usually the guy in the bank line that’s not too stressed about running late; I just have this feeling now that everything will be okay. You can very easily have that feeling, too, and when you do, you’re nourishing your body with positive emotions all day, rather than creating a negative, vicious spiral, making it so much easier for the excess weight to fall off.