“Junk food has been an issue for me forever. After the first hypnotherapy session with Grace, I began to see my craving thought process interrupted. I don’t just jump into a box of cookies. Instead, I think about what is triggering that craving and meditate through it.” —Stevonna J., St. Louis, Missouri
You’ve completed a third of your twelve-week journey, congratulations!
This week is all about learning to “feel your feelings.” Emotions are not to be avoided. Nobody likes negative feelings. It’s no wonder we drown them out with food, drugs, alcohol, or sex. But these go-to tension relievers don’t banish uncomfortable emotions—they bury them.
As we discussed in chapter five, the most common subconscious limiting belief was, “I’m not good enough.” If you notice this thought arising, remember that your emotions are a guidance system. When you feel unhappy, sad, not good enough, the emotion wants to tell you something. It’s getting your attention. Something is out of alignment.
Oftentimes, though, before the negative thought or emotion has even registered, there’s already food in that person’s mouth. In this week’s hypnosis recording, you’re going to learn to become hyperaware of your feelings before there’s time for emotional eating to begin. If you notice a negative feeling, sit back and observe it. You’re not sad. Your body is experiencing a sad feeling for a fleeting moment, and that sad feeling wants you to become aware of something. You are the one witnessing the fact that the body is experiencing sadness. You are the observer. Take a nice, deep letting-go breath and ask it, “Sad feeling, what do you want to tell me?” You might be surprised at the answer you receive.
Here’s an example that might resonate with you: Katie once found herself at a coffee shop eyeing a cheese Danish, something she knew, if she ate it, would taste delicious for a fleeting moment and then she’d feel foggy, bloated, and guilty. Before ordering, she took a deep breath and asked herself the questions she’d learned from her hypnotherapist:
Round 1
Question: Why am I even considering that cheese Danish? Answer: Because I’m experiencing sadness.
Round 2
Question: Why am I experiencing sadness?
Answer: Because I’m worried that by working on my presentation slides today alone in my hotel room, instead of participating at the conference downstairs, that I’m being left out.
Round 3
Question: Why am I worried about being left out?
Answer: I’m worried people might be talking about me and that they might not like me, or that maybe during the last breakout session I said something stupid and offended someone or made them think less of me. I feel like maybe I should stop working on the presentation slides and go out there so I can try to make a better impression so they won’t go home thinking so little of me.
Round 4
Question: Why am I worried that people think so little of me?
Answer: Because in elementary and middle school I was left out and bullied.
Round 5
Question: How did that make me feel?
Answer: Awful.
Round 6
Question: Why did it make me feel awful?
Answer: Because it meant I wasn’t good enough to hang out with them.
Round 7
Question: How did that make me feel?
Answer: Lonely.
Round 8
Question: Why did it make me feel lonely?
Answer: Because if I wasn’t good enough to hang out with them, I’d never have girlfriends and I’d always be lonely or an outcast.
Conclusion 1
Question: What unhelpful belief did I come to believe about this situation?
Answer: That I can’t trust women to not make fun of me, that they don’t like me, that I’m not good enough to be their friend.
Conclusion 2
Question: How would I like to feel instead?
Answer: Calm, confident, and focused.
Conclusion 3
Question: What would I like to do instead?
Answer: Continue working on this presentation for now (free from guilt or worry) and get back out there to meet interesting new people at the gala tonight where I will ask questions and provide support rather than talking about myself.
Conclusion 4
Question: What would I like to eat instead?
Answer: Nothing. I just want some water and to continue working.
We could keep going, but you can see how Katie realized that the cheese Danish had more to do with the fact that in fifth grade she walked into a room full of girls pointing and laughing at a photo of her “eight-head” (as opposed to “forehead”) in the school yearbook, and as a result her subconscious made her believe she wasn’t pretty enough, or good enough to be friends with the cool girls. Even more literally, that her forehead wasn’t small enough for her to be liked or accepted. In fact, up until that moment, it made Katie believe she couldn’t trust women not to make fun of her. Interestingly enough, in adulthood most of her subconscious limitations revolved around wanting to make sure people liked her.
Isn’t it amazing that all this deep wounding was uncovered through such a simple process, simply asking a few questions when triggered to eat something unhelpful? Deep childhood pain had been triggered by the day’s events, and in the body’s frantic attempt to feel better, it decided a cheese Danish would provide the dopamine hit followed by a sugar-gluten-dairy-induced foggy haze that could momentarily quell all the uncomfortable (read: unsafe) feelings. It might sound silly, but this is a real example of what happens when you dig into the many layers beneath the trigger of emotional eating.
Once Katie took a moment to unpack all of that, do you think she wanted the cheese Danish? Of course not. In fact, by the time she got to “because in elementary school I was left out,” she didn’t want it anymore, and the sadness was already dissipating. By facing things that were once buried, they lose their power. By bringing our shadows into the light, they begin to disappear. Katie’s adult self can look back at that experience in fifth grade and say, “Huh, I didn’t realize that was still in there or that it’s still affecting me so deeply. I’ll put this on my list to work on during my next hypnotherapy session,” then make a helpful choice by drinking water, forgetting the cheese Danish, and getting back to work.
Now you’re going to learn how to do this practice for yourself. Notice how Katie switched the question from “why” to “how did that make me feel” during round five. Imagine she had asked, “Why did the girls make fun of me?” The answer would have been, “Because I have a big forehead.” Short of surgery or a perpetual haircut with bangs, she would have been stuck . . . There’s not a solution there. Or she could have said, “Because the girls were mean.” But where does she go from there?
Why were they mean? Because people were mean to them or because the other girls were being mean and they didn’t want to be ostracized for not participating. Sure, Katie could cultivate compassion for the root cause of their issue, but it wouldn’t get to the root of her issue. We formulate the questions in such a way that you get to the root of your issue, not anyone else’s (even if you wanted to, you couldn’t fix their stuff anyway . . . for that to happen, they’ll need to embark upon their own hypnotherapy journey!).
Here are the questions to ask yourself when you find yourself beginning to reach out for that unhelpful food:
Round 1
Why am I even considering eating [insert unhelpful food]?
Rounds 2 and beyond
Why do I feel [insert answer from round 1]?
Or, How does that make me feel?
Conclusion 1
What unhelpful belief did you come to believe about this situation?
Conclusion 2
How do you want to feel instead?
Do one round of self-hypnosis on this now.
Conclusion 3
What do you want to do instead?
Take action on this now.
Conclusion 4
What do you want to eat instead?
Take action on this now and make sure you chew every bite until only liquid remains!
Think back to the most recent time you went to eat something unhelpful and, with that in mind, take some time to fill out at least one round now.
Homework
A.Practice self-hypnosis three times a day, every day this week (right before breakfast, lunch, and dinner). Turn to page 20 for a reminder of how to do self-hypnosis or head to www.CloseYourEyesLoseWeight.com to follow along with a tutorial video.
Week 5 Hypno-affirmations—Emotional Eating
•When I notice myself reaching for unhelpful food, I stop and ask, “What’s at the root?”
•I choose to feel _________________________________________ [insert positive emotion] instead.
•When I want to feel better, I use hypnosis to improve my state (instead of food).
•Every day in every way, I ask myself, “Why am I really feeling this way?”
•I observe emotions as they come and go. I am watching them. They are separate from me.
•When I feel emotional I stop and say, “I’ll only eat what’s helpful today.”
B.Listen to the “Week 5—Emotional Eating” hypnosis recording every day for the next week here: www.CloseYourEyesLoseWeight.com.
C.Use your journal pages daily to stay motivated, log your progress, and determine which pick-me-up hypno-affirmations you’ll benefit from most.
Now that you know how to tackle emotional eating, it’s time to address the opposite side of the same coin . . . eating when bored. In the next chapter, you’ll learn why boredom eating is the second most common reason weight loss attempts failed in the past. You’re going to learn how to wake up from unconscious eating, and how to address the lull of boredom with techniques that don’t include food. Cultivate some energy (return to chapter three for tips on how to do this), and let’s continue!