Emotional eating habits thatkeep us overweight with the subconscious programmingthat causes us to stuff our feelings with food. In thisarticle, we will explore another common pattern amongoverweight people: the use of food to substitute forcreative expression. Abraham Maslow, one of the founders ofhumanistic psychology, is often credited with describingcreativity as a basic human need comparable to the needs forfood and shelter, in his theory of the hierarchy of needs. Although his theory remains controversial, I have experiencedwith many clients that this need appears to be very real. Children, we notice, are constantly involved, if given theopportunity, in creative play. We adults, however, havefrequently learned to suppress our creative instincts, andall too often, to substitute eating for creativity. Here’s aquestionnaire to determine if this is a pattern you or afriend has experienced.
• Do you find yourself eating out of sheer boredom?
• Do you watch two or more hours of television per day?
• Do you lack an exciting hobby or creative interest?
• Do you put down your occasional experiments in creativeexpression as amateurish or a waste of time?
• Do you often eat snacks while reading or watchingtelevision when you are not truly hungry?
If you answered any of these questions in the affirmativethen you may suffer this type of programming. Chances arethat this programming began in childhood, when ourcaregivers, instead of encouraging our creativity, suppressedthis essential self-expression with harsh criticism, neglect,or even ridicule. While these experiences may have long agopassed out of our conscious recollection, the subconsciousmind does not forget. So these programs can continue tostrangle our creativity throughout our lives.
The solution? Through hypnosis therapy we can use simpleinstructions to access these memories in the subconsciousmind and rescue the child from these events. Then we providethat inner child with new experiences of being loved andsupported for their creative expression by an inner family orby the client’s adult self.
For example, Bob finds eating in front of the television inthe early evening a bad eating habit he wishes to change. Hecan’t remember ever having a hobby. We descend in a lighttrance to the first time his creativity was made wrong. Hediscovers a memory in which as a small boy he is ridiculed bysome neighborhood boys for his drawings, which they label as“silly and girlish.” Feeling intensely ashamed, hedetermines to stifle these expressions. Our first task is torescue this boy from these boys and let his adult self andthe therapist assure him that his drawing ability is awonderful gift. We then insert the counter-programmingsuggestion that his drawings are an expression of his“manliness and courage.” This will help erase the core beliefimplanted by these boys.
Next we take his drawings to his parents in hopes of winningtheir approval for his art. I ask if his parents would liketo hang his pictures on the fridge. Their response is cool,since mother is obsessed with her own pain and dad is a“busy” alcoholic. In this case, my client took greatpleasure in firing his father. Then he addressed his motherwith a tearful appeal for her support, before realizing thatshe would have to be retired and replaced with his adultself. These intensely emotional confrontations with parentalfigures is often unpleasant for my clients but is essentialin helping the inner child to disengage from the need forparental approval, and to help the child bond to the adultself, and, where necessary, to new inner
parents.
Then I encouraged Bob’s adult self to access this childthrough gentle self hypnosis techniques for a few minutes inthe early evening and create some drawings. I greatlyincreased our chances of success by encouraging him to buybrightly colored magic markers and quality pens, pencils, anddrawing paper. We also determined what room in the house isbest for some quiet and undisturbed creativity. I theninstructed his adult self to enjoy this creative activity,which he will find so much more exciting than the television,while praising his inner child for the effort. This is notthe time for a critical evaluation, but for warmencouragement. I instructed him to bring one of his drawingsto me, and to hang all of them on his frig at home. Soon histelevision watching was down by more than half, and so werethe eating patterns.
Of course, we need to remind clients over and over thatproducing a Van Gogh is not the goal of the process. Nor dowe use the oft-repeated mantra “practice makes perfect” whichhas destroyed thousands of creative inspirations in myopinion. The real goal is feeling good while expressingone’s creative instincts. To the extent that the client’sfriends and family can be enrolled in support of thiscreative expression, we encourage this involvement. But theclient’s adult self is the primary resource for this process.
For some clients whose belief system includes reincarnation,we can journey back to a past life in which the client wasengaged in a specific creative activity which is of interestto the client. After accessing a creative ability which theclient is ready to bring forward, we can enter theseabilities into the body of the client for instant access. Some of the abilities brought forward include piano playing,dance, art, even leadership skills and public speaking. Ofcourse there is no substitute for practicing these abilities,and classes in creativity are also to be encouraged. Butthis process makes it much easier and more fun to developthese abilities with a minimum of drills and lessons. Obviously, the development of these creative abilities doesfar more for my clients than simply altering their eatinghabits. These gifts enrich lives at every level.
This outlines some of the ways we can solve the problem of emotional eating habits. While there aremany sources of destructive emotional eating habits besidesthose mentioned here, the vast majority of my clients in 25years of experience in hypnotherapy have some problem withinfantile eating, stuffing feelings with food, andsuppressing creativity.
We hypnotists do not offer a magic bullet, a simple pill tocause weight to fall off. All of our methods should be usedin conjunction with a well informed plan for diet andexercise, hopefully with the guidance of a medical doctor orother health professional. These hypnotic techniques canhowever, make the difference between a lifetime of dietingand weight obsession and having lifelong healthy eating andliving habits which can allow your life to be about manythings…but not about controlling your appetite and youreating. Good luck on your journey.
About Alchemy Institute of Hypnosis: We offer a list ofhypnotherapists in your area. Our website also offers anextensive library of information about hypnotherapy. Thisincludes articles on weight loss. If you are interested infurther explorations of this topic, or would like a copy ofthe other articles in the series, or perhaps are interestedin making changes in your life through the techniques ofweight loss described here, call our office at 1-800-950-4984or visit our website at http://www.alchemyinstitute.com/Weight-Loss/.
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