Week 8—The People and Places That Trigger You
When someone is getting sober, they identify the people and places that trigger the desire to use their drug of choice. It is powerful to model this as you rewire your brain to lose weight and love the body you have. The Starbucks drive-through on the way home? Your great-aunt’s house? Your favorite ice cream place down the shore? When these people and places are consciously avoided, you will increase your likelihood of success. This is only until your conditioned neural pathways are strong enough to go there with your new mindset and habits firmly in place.
How do you find out what people and places trigger you to “use”? You could journal, tracking what you eat when you go to certain places or spend time with certain people. Those are great ideas, but they can take a long time. What’s much faster? This week’s hypnosis recording! You will be guided into a deeply relaxed state and then will be asked what and who your biggest triggers are. Once this is clear to you, the hypnosis session will guide you to make a plan of action as to how you can avoid these triggering people and places until your new subconscious beliefs and habits have become your new normal.
And the good news is, it won’t take long! Yes, at first it can feel lonely, as if there is no one in the world who isn’t a trigger. A common subconscious fear is, “If I just eat intuitively and chew, chew, chew, all family and friends will abandon me. No one will ever invite me to anything. They’ll think I’m a snob or a weirdo.” When your life is filled with heaping plates of carbs, cheese, sweets, salts, and everyone you spend time with also eats that way, it can be scary to imagine a life that’s different. But only before hypnosis. That’s because your brain does not yet have a frame of reference to imagine a different kind of life.
Once you commit to a new lifestyle, you will find out about the millions of people who already live that way. Healthy people who love what you love and think how you think can show you the way.
And one day, you can be that person for your family and friends. You can’t turn others into what you want them to be, but you can show up and be a beacon of hope, an example of what’s possible, a healthier way. When and if they’re ready, they’ll come to you for support. And when they do, I hope you’ll hand them a copy of this book and say, “Come on, I’ll take you to lunch where we can sit and chew together.”
When You Can’t Avoid the Trigger
What happens when you can’t get out of visiting your great-aunt Mary’s house, which you know will be filled to the brim with family favorites, all of which are not on your intuitive-eating list? Or the next coworker’s birthday party with cake and brownies? Do you sit and sulk, feeling deprived? Do you have a bite? Do you say “ah screw it” and dig in? Do you happily abstain and eat the helpful snacks you brought with you? To be honest, your answer will depend on how much subconscious conditioning you’ve done before you arrive at the triggering locale.
So what if you do eat some unhelpful foods? Are you supposed to beat yourself up and feel negative and guilty so you “won’t do it again”? Has beating yourself up ever stopped you from making that same unhelpful decision again, in the long term? I’ve never seen it work in even one of my over five thousand clients. Beating yourself up makes you feel bad. When you feel bad, what do you crave? Dopamine! When you crave dopamine, what do you do? Eat unhelpful things! How does that make you feel? Terrible! So, no, if you end up with a triggering person in a triggering place and you eat something unhelpful, here are the ways you get back on track ASAP; beating yourself up isn’t one of them.
Watch out for the voice that says, “Well, I had a bite of brownie, so today’s ruined. I’ll start over tomorrow. In that case, I might as well have a huge scoop of the vodka penne, and these Swedish meatballs, and some of each kind of cheese, and at least a few bites of the three different pies she baked.” That voice is digging the trench deeper. Just because you had a bite of brownie does not mean today is “ruined” and that you’ll “start again tomorrow.” You did not ruin everything, you still have all your faculties and total control over what you’re going to do next.
My role is not to tell you “just have a bite of brownie. Enjoy it! It’s all good. Life is for enjoyment.” That’s what advertisers tell you all day long. Life is a compilation of the choices you make over and over again. I’m here to help you make new choices, not give you a hall pass for old choices. At the same time, my role is not to tell you a bite of a brownie is morally reprehensible and now you must do penance! There is no value judgment here; it’s about what is more helpful, less helpful, or what is unhelpful. My role is to help you reprogram your subconscious mind so you can lose weight and feel great. Given those parameters, here’s what you do if you’re faced with this situation:
1.“Cancel, cancel!” that voice of Resistance in your head that’s saying you “ruined” today. It’s telling you that so you’ll eat with abandon for the rest of the day, and that will strengthen old neural pathways that you don’t want to strengthen. “Cancel, cancel!” it and replace it with “I am safe, I am calm. Food is fuel. I only put the highest quality fuel into my miraculous body,” then make sure your next choice of food is more helpful toward your goals.
2.Use the foundations you learned in chapter four, no matter what you’re eating! Drink a glass of water before the bite of brownie. Chew that bite until only liquid remains. Whatever you’re eating, make sure you stop when you’re 90 percent satisfied. This applies to all foods, and it stops you from overeating anything, regardless of which category it comes from (unhelpful or helpful).
3.Use some aversion therapy while chewing and think about how unhealthy what you’re eating is. If you affirm “Mmm, this is so good,” you’ll be triggering all those old habits you’ve worked so diligently to transform. It’s not so good! No matter what it tastes like and no matter what dopamine it’s releasing, if it’s not good for you in the long term, don’t you dare affirm “Mmm, this is so good” in the now. “Cancel, cancel!” that and state the truth instead: “Yuck, there must be so many addictive synthetic ingredients in this. I’m so excited to make a more helpful choice next. I’m going to have a [insert helpful option] next.”
Do you see how, even though you’re eating the food, you’re still programming your mind to think the way you want it to think? If aversion therapy doesn’t feel good to you because of a history of orthorexia or other disordered eating, feel free to skip this step, but for those who haven’t, this is a powerful way to weaken old, unhelpful neural pathways that we do not want strengthened.
I am so excited for you to listen to this week’s hypnosis recording! Pretty soon your subconscious will have a powerful plan of action to avoid any triggering people and places. The more you avoid people and places where slip-ups are most likely to occur, especially in the beginning, the more you set yourself up for success. Realistically, sometimes these people, places, and things are unavoidable, so in those situations, put the fundamentals from chapter one to work and make sure you’re always focused on what’s more helpful with each and every choice.
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 8 Hypno-affirmations—Triggers: People and Places
•There are people I avoid so new, healthy habits have a chance to grow.
•There are places I avoid so new, healthy habits have a chance to grow.
•I seek out and spend time with people who eat helpful foods.
•I seek out people and places that help me succeed.
•Like someone who is getting sober, I avoid all triggers.
•I am kind to myself, come what may. Kindness is the fastest way to get back on track.
B.Listen to the “Week 8—Triggers: People & Places” 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.
Congratulations! You now know who and what to avoid for the short term so those new neural pathways you’re building have a chance to strengthen. You are now set up for success. If and when you happen to find yourself in an unavoidable triggering situation, you have a plan. You have the power. You have a choice. You’re reprogramming your subconscious mind today so you are, in effect, making the right helpful choices in advance. Pat yourself on the back. In the next chapter, you’re going to utilize the power of the law of attraction to manifest the body you desire, all while cherishing the body you have, today.