By Gayle North
Positive Change Coach
Do you
find yourself craving sweets, pastries, bread, chocolate, or do you eat
more food than you believe is healthy for you? Before you start accusing
yourself of being weak or telling yourself that you don’t have enough will
power, look to your emotional state. There, in your emotions, you will
find the keys to your appetite.
Most of the people who come to Positive Change Institute to take
off excess weight have been beating themselves up for years because of their
seeming lack of control with food. Some eat too much, some don’t eat enough,
some have uncontrollable cravings. Over the years I have watched the
cravings and behaviors with food change naturally and easily on their own when
people are able to release their anxiety through the methods we have available
today.
The premise that I work with is that all compulsive behaviors
are caused by one thing and that thing is anxiety. The problem being that the
anxiety that propels our compulsive cravings and behaviors is often at a
subconscious level and that causes the problem to be hidden from our conscious
mind.
This unconscious anxiety can be experienced as sadness,
frustration, anger, guilt, shame and a myriad of other negative emotions which,
to repeat, may not be noticed by the conscious mind. The experiences which
cause the anxiety many have happened in the distant past, or may be prompted by
current life events or issues.
Please be comforted by the fact that it is not usually necessary
to go back to the past and dredge up all of the offensive experiences to clear
up the emotional disturbances related to them. We can work with what is
happening in the present moment and by doing this we can often clear up the
emotional states causing cravings, for instance, by addressing the cravings
themselves.
If you are one of those people who has been beating themselves
up for being overweight, realize that you will come closer to your goal by
easing up on yourself. Forgive yourself for whatever habits cause your excess
weight. Forgive yourself for not having the motivation to
exercise. Forgive yourself for not being able to control your behaviors
with your conscious mind. You are always doing the best you can – and that is
all you can do.
The reason for your struggle is that your cravings and habits
have been downloaded into your powerful sub conscious mind which is like the
part of an enormous iceberg below the water. What you are trying to use is your
conscious mind which is like the tip of the iceberg above the water. The
conscious mind is no match for the subconscious or unconscious. Begin to use
your subconscious power to change your habits.
You can engage your subconscious for success by imagining and
rehearsing your success with your goal in your mind as athletes do learning
self-hypnosis. The most effective method
I know of for dealing with cravings and the emotional states that cause them is
EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique.
Look for my next article to learn more about EFT.
Gayle North offers Personal Coaching for Positive Change
using empowerment technologies to clear mental and emotional blocks that keep
people stuck in unhealthy habits and prevent them from performing at their
highest potential in school, sports, relationships, work and finance. Visit
www.PositiveChangeInstitute.com for
more articles. Call 406-837-1214 for a
free screening.
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