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Emotional Freedom Starts Here |
Dr. John J. Murphy Psychologist and Hypnotherapist | Beverly Hills, CA |
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Most patients who come in for weight management (be it weight loss or weight gain) already know what they are supposed to do. They know what foods they should be eating, what foods they should be avoiding, and how much they should be exercising. But emotional and identity issues eventually prevent any sort of meaningful, long-term change from taking place. Our focus is thus on two issues: emotional management and identity change.
Imagine a party where everyone orders pizza. You have the option of ordering salad. You know you’re supposed to be eating salad. But at the last minute, a tiny voice represented by some strong emotions get in the way. Maybe it’s a sense of deprivation? A sense of entitlement? A sense of it being all unfair (after all, everyone else is ordering pizza). These are the emotions that we’ll deal with, through a combination of hypnotherapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy.
The American way of eating works well for some people. For many of us, it leads to future health problems and current weight issues. Still walking away from a life-long way of eating that nearly everyone seems to enjoy involves many emotions.
Our goal is to resolve those negative emotions. Our goal is a feeling of ambivalence. That when offered either pizza or salads, your emotions don’t sway you either way. That way, your thoughts and goals can then easily lead you to the salad (or whichever food you pick).
The identity change program consists of visualization and simple behavioral changes. For eating the right foods, the visualization will be not just eating such foods but opting for those foods naturally, as if you’ve always done so. The simple behavioral changes consists of week-by-week activities to naturally guide you into your ideal eating habits. A similar process occurs with exercising, where you’ll both visualize yourself in the exercise regime you choose and take small (baby) steps to that end.
Let’s imagine you’ve been eating healthy and exercising regularly, but you’ve just learned the world is about to end. A meteor will smash into the earth in a week and then it’s all over. For your last week, would you continue to eat healthy and exercise, or would you say "to hell with it" and eat all the junk food you could get your hands on?
The problem is that a person who would say "to hell with it" to a meteor would probably also have the same attitude towards a sudden job loss, relationship change, or even a vacation. Or it may simply be a rough week or a surprise birthday party.
The ideal, the final goal, is for you to naturally opt for the healthy eating and consistent exercise even if you thought the world was going to end. To make eating healthy and exercising to be such a part of your identity and to feel so ambivalent about junk food that you would generally still eat healthy for your last week on earth, or your last week at a particular job, or your first week in a new relationship.
This might seem impossible now but by targeting specific negative emotions, applying specific visualization exercises, and making some simple behavioral changes, you can internalize the healthy habits that naturally lead to a better weight and better health.