The Third Step to Belief Change
Inside Out Weight Loss
Renee Stephens
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Episode 24 - The Third Step to Belief Change

We’ve discussed how to identify limiting beliefs, and how to begin the change process. We even played around with a short cut for changing them. Today on the show, learn the third and final step to belief change. Also, find out the secret ingredient that tells us that we’ve graduated past the struggle. And listen carefully, because Renee slips in a few empowering guided journeys along the way.

Transcript

Transcript

This program is brought to you by PersonalLifeMedia.com.

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Welcome to Inside Out Weight Loss. I’m your host Renée Stephens and together we’re accessing the control panel of your mind body system bringing ease and joy to your weight loss journey. And fullness to the rest of your life.

Today on the show, learn the third step to completing your belief change, plus the secret ingredient to knowing that you are naturally slender.

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Do you know that each attempt that you’ve made in the past is actually contributing to your success now? You’ve learned a lot about what doesn’t work, which brings you closer to what does.

Think about what you are really depriving yourself of when you put hand to mouth with the latest junk food. Similarly I noticed on the group a belief of I deserve a treat. I deserve a treat. And, you know what, I agree with you. Of course, you deserve a treat. You deserve lots of treats. You are doing the best you can in your life. I know that.

And yet, what is a treat for you? Yes, indeed. As she thought about not running away, her mind went to running away. So I asked her, what she would like instead? And she thought for a few moments and she said, well, at least I am sticking with it. At least I’m moving forward. At least I am staying here and figuring it out.

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 So let’s go ahead and set our intentions for this episode. Drop inside for a moment and become present with you. Whether you are at the gym, or on a walk or run or in the car, or simply relaxing, and soaking this all in.

What’s your intent for today’s show? To experience a break through? To get a nugget that will take you to the next level? To make your journey easier and more enjoyable or move past that old block that’s been holding you back until now? Whatever it is go ahead and set your intention now.

My intent is to help as many people as I possibly can end the weight struggle and replace it with peace, joy and fun, starting with you.

So it’s time to open up energetically and connect with all the other listeners of this show across time and space. Feel their presence. Send them your support. And feel theirs as it comes back to you 40,000 or more times magnified.

Talk about return on investment. Even better than those real estates seminars promise. There’s a power of collective intent. Open up to it now.

We’ve been talking the last few episodes about limited beliefs. We have discussed what they are. Taking something that’s true in spite of inconclusive evidence and realizing that beliefs are based on inconclusive evidence. And because of that we can go about changing the ones that aren’t working for us.

I polled the Inside Weight Loss Yahoo! Group about their limiting beliefs and had a tremendous response. Many of these beliefs fell into the category of helplessness or hopelessness. The categories that we have discussed in the last two episodes.

Things like I can’t lose weight because I never have in the past. Or I’ll never keep it off because I never have. These are beliefs about helplessness. Do you know that each attempt that you have made in the past is actually contributing to our success now? You have learned a lot about what doesn’t work, which brings you closer to what does.

I love the financial advisors disclaimer: past performance does not predict future behavior. Amen to that! New tools, new beliefs create new results.

Other beliefs are about hopelessness. In other words, it’s impossible to change. Last episode we discussed beliefs about hopelessness that tell us we’ll always have a problem, that we will never fully recover. Yet we know better. We know it’s possible, with the right approach.

Thomas Edison was told many times by many respected people that lighting up New York with incandescent light bulbs was an absurd idea. Yet he did it. We’re expanding the boundaries of what’s possible. We’re dreaming the dreams that are becoming our reality through our journey together. Remember the Disney strategy: dream, plan and then you can criticize. It’s dream, plan and create.

That’s what we’re doing. So far, we’ve gone through two of the three steps to belief change. The first as you may know, is to identify your limiting beliefs. We do this by figuring out what we want and asking ourselves what’s stopping us from having it. We also shared five questions to ask to help ourselves root out the limiting beliefs operating in the background.

Do you remember those questions? Is this goal desirable and worthwhile? Is it desirable and worthwhile to become naturally slender? To exercise regularly? To eat healthy food?

Question number two: Is it possible for others? Can other people do this? Therefore, if they can, perhaps it’s possible for me.

Question three: Is it possible for you? If it’s possible for other people, can I do it too? Is what it takes to achieve this goal appropriate and reasonable? That’s question number four.

Is it appropriate and reasonable? Or are you thinking about going on a 60-day fasting, detox program? Somehow that crosses the line of reasonability. In fact, there are quite a few programs for weight loss that cross the line of reasonability that are quite popular. So we want to ask, is what it takes to achieve this goal appropriate and reasonable? By reasonable I mean, is it sustainable? Is this something that you could do for the rest of your life?

Not for 30 days or 60 days or the mega doctor supervised fasting program. I’ve done that sort of thing and I tell you it is definitely not sustainable. So, is what it takes to achieve this goal appropriate and reasonable and if not, how can you design a plan that is?

And question five: Do you deserve it? A lot of people have limiting beliefs around deserving their outcome. Do you deserve to be slim and fit and sexy? Do you deserve to feel great in your body? Would it be all right for you to be the best you that you can be?

Check inside. That’s where change happens. Again, if you think you’re doing all the right things and are still not getting the results that you want, there is a good chance a limiting belief is operating in the background.

Here’s a common limited belief: weight loss means deprivation. And being fat and miserable doesn’t? Come on. What are you depriving yourself of by being less than you want to be? Are you depriving yourself of good health? Of cute clothes? Of feeling good in your body?

Of being a good example for your children? Of having healthy knees and healthy hips? And low risk for a heart attack or stroke? Think about what you are really depriving yourself of when you put hand to mouth with the latest junk food. Similarly I noticed on the group a belief of “I deserve a treat.” I deserve a treat. And you know what, I agree with you. Of course, you deserve a treat. You deserve lots of treats.

You are doing the best you can in your life. I know that. And yet what is a treat for you? Because if a treat for you is something that your body’s going to have to figure out what the heck to do with, if your treat is something that’s got all sorts of artificial substances in it that your body goes, wait a minute, what the heck! Like artificial sweeteners and colorings and flavorings and high-fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils and mono and diglycerides. I would still like to know what a mono- and diglyceride is.

If your body gets all these things, it doesn’t know what to do with them. And then say it gets too many calories and it says, OK well I’ve got a lot of extra energy stored on my body already in the form of fat cells, and here I’ve got even more extra calories. So you eat the food and down your esophagus it goes and the esophagus begins to excrete the digestive enzymes that are necessary to break down the food.

In fact, that process begins in your mouth with saliva which is actually designed to begin to break down the food for digestion. And the food finally gets into your stomach. And if it’s junk food, if it’s some kind of fast food burger or creation or highly processed food, you know the foods I’m talking about, don’t you? Yes.

They get into your stomach and your stomach goes, what the heck! Oh, my God, I’m used to processes this junk it’s such drudgery. What am I going to do with all this stuff? It’s already got a stock pile of extra energy all over your body, it’s filled up every nook and cranny it can and now it has to create more skin so it can keep expanding and say, oh, my goodness, I’ll put it in the hips. And I’ll put it in the thighs and I guess there’s a little more room in the belly.

When we run out of room there, we’re going to have to start stuffing the extra energy, the fat cells, between the internal organs. That’s where it goes when it goes into your belly. The body goes, gosh, I don’t know where else to put it. We’re just chuck or block full here so it starts stuffing the extra energy, filling the fat cells creating new fat cells between your internal organs.

You internal organs go, gosh it’s getting kind of snug in here. It’s really getting hard work to do my job. We’ve got all this extra energy and yet it is so hard for us to function because there is just too much of it. And so that is what you are creating when you give yourself what you call or have called up till now a treat of the junk food burger or the processed French fries or the whatever it is that you have been eating that your body doesn’t like.

That’s what’s been going on. And so, what a joy it is to your body. What a treat you give your body when you say, you know what? Whenever you need a little bit of extra energy, why don’t your just take the easiest and most readily available source for you? Why not just take the energy that takes no effort to get?

The energy that is stored and begin with the extra energy that is sitting in there in-between your internal organs. Use that energy first because, ah, a sign of relief will go out through your body and you will notice your pants, the waist becoming looser in your pants and your belt buckle getting smaller and it’s going to feel so great to release that.

You could even think that any time you have a glass of water, that you drink a glass of cool, clear, refreshing water it’s a signal to your body to go ahead and use the stored energy that it already has to provide you with vibrant energy. And what a bonus you get when you do that. How wonderful would that be?

Yes, you do deserve a treat and that’s exactly the treat that you deserve, a glass of cool, clear, refreshing water to just release the energy in your body to energize you as it utilizes that stored energy that’s been between your internal organs or in your belly or on your thighs or hips or arms or your neck or wherever it is, send your body there to release that energy.

That’s the kind of treat that you deserve. But I digress. Ah, yes, where were we back on limiting beliefs and how to change them.

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But, it’s actually time for us to take a break to support our wonderful visionary sponsors, who recognize that you are the kind of people that listen to Inside Out Weight Loss. This is Renee Stephens and you are listening to Personal Life Media.

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We’re back now. Before the break we were talking about some common limiting beliefs like the belief that you deserve a treat and that in and of itself isn’t really a limiting belief. The limiting belief comes when you think that treats involve junk food. That, in fact, is a limiting belief.

By the way, I want to thank my friend, Phil Mandel, who inspired the reframe of deprivation that I shared with you earlier.

Last week we talked about a short cut to belief change. What did you think? Did you play around with it? The short cut is simply imagining a wonderful you who is already made the change that you want. In this case, a wonderful you who is already changed the belief, who no longer believes that it’s hard work to lose weight, who now believes that it’s easy to lose weight and natural.

That you have already done it when you were a baby. So, did you play around with this? Did you have some fun? I’m interested to know. So let me know. It’s all about using the power of the mind and the imagination to create the change that you want. So let’s talk about step three to belief change.

Step one: identify the limiting belief. Step two: question or bring doubt to the limiting belief. Remember that one? Bring doubt, question the limiting belief. That’s the stuff that we’ve been doing earlier today and in recent episodes.

Now, I know this seems a little bit silly to you because basically what I’m doing is telling you the longer way around by giving you step three when I have just taught you the short cut, but it will all make sense momentarily.

As it happens, this step is really fun and you’re going to want to do it. It’s actually just an expanded version of the short cut. So here we go.

You know the belief that you want to change? The one that you’ve just questioned, the one that you just imagined a wonderful you who’s already resolved it? Now, what we are going to do in step three is simply design the new belief that you want and write it down.

Yes, this is very similar to the wonderful you exercise and in fact, the wonderful you exercise may have made this step all the easier. So, if your limiting belief is that it’s hard work to lose weight, you identify the new belief. The new belief is that it is easy and natural to lose weight. That you enjoy losing weight more easily than you enjoy being overweight, for example.

Whatever it is, you write it down. In fact, you could even brain storm and write down a whole bunch of new beliefs that would fun to have, that you would like to have. And then you just pick the best one, maybe that the whole pack of them go together and you get them all as a bonus. But you choose the best one, the one that sounds the best to you.

Now, how is that new belief going to be stated? Is it going to be stated in the negative? Let me hear you. No, no, no, no! It will not be stated in the negative. It will be stated in the positive. Exactly.

The power of stating something in the positive is extraordinary. I was speaking to a client last week and she was saying that she had a down moment or down period and she was thinking, oh, my gosh, well, I’m just not going to run way, at least I’m not running away. I’m not running away. I’m not running away.

OK, here’s a little quiz for you. What do you think she was thinking about as she said that? Yes, indeed. As she thought about not running away, her mind went to running away.

So I asked her what she would like instead? And she thought for a few moments and she said, well, at least I am sticking with it. At least I am moving forward. At least I’m staying here and figuring it out. And that’s the one that she came up with. At least I’m staying and figuring it out.

And so I said to her, well, drop inside for a moment and try on the two phrases. At least I’m not running away vs. at least I’m staying and figuring it out. Which one makes you feel better?

She dropped inside. She thought about it and she came back very quickly and said, well, I feel so much better when I realize that at least I am staying around and figuring it out. All of a sudden her depression melted away. She felt capable. She felt powerful. She felt like she was moving forward.

Of course there were more steps to take, but from this place of stating what she wanted in the positive of speaking to herself and her inner dialog, in the positive, she was able to completely circumvent the deepest depression and make herself move forward.

It’s so important to be aware of our inner dialog, to watch how we talk to ourselves. Because when we really listen in sometimes we find we talk to ourselves like we wouldn’t talk to our worst enemy. So we want to talk to ourselves in a way that is empowering. We want to navigate the phrases and the words and the things that we say to ourselves to create the life that we want to life. No one else is going to do it for us, so why not.

But I digress. You know, I really love to do that. Anyway, let’s go back. We’re on step three. Step three is identifying the new belief that you would like to have instead. And we can have fun with this. We can play around. We can write our list. We can brain storm on our own or with friends. We can toss them up in the air and see which ones land closest to us.

So think about it. What are your limiting beliefs? Weight loss is hard work. I’ll never lose weight and keep it off because I never have in the past. What would be better than that? Hmmm.

I am learning new tools that will make it easier and easier. When I start losing weight, I gain a momentum that makes it easier and easier. Think about it. Go through it. See what new empowering beliefs come to you. And as you do this, once you identify the new belief that you would like to have instead, I want you to try it on for size.

Just like we did earlier in the show with your outcome. Try it on for size. Thinking about how you would like to be. If you have this new empowering belief, if you believe that you were the naturally slender person inside, who’s just wanting to come out and needs only a few tools to make that possible for example, how would you be in certain situations?

How would you be with friends? How would you be with colleagues? How would you be at work? At a restaurant? At a party? On vacation? How would you be in all of these different types of situations? If you truly had this belief how would you feel in your body? How would you feel in your body?

How would you move? That you believe this new empowering belief? How would you relate to other people? How would you relate to the opposite sex? Think about it.

Try it on for size. And improve it as you go. You can use the same process of identifying objections and finding their positive intent that we went over earlier in the program, if any objections come up.

So that’s step three of belief change: to identify the new belief and try it on for size until you get it just right.

Step one, identify the old limiting belief. Step two, question it or bring it into doubt. Step three simply identify the new belief and try it on for size until you get it just right.

We’re almost out of time for today, but before we go, there’s something I did tell you I would tell you and we barely have time to talk about it but I guess I did promise it. So let’s talk about it.

The question was how to know when we graduated when we are no longer compulsive over eaters or un-naturally slender people. I’m not quite sure what to call that. People who are bingers or grazers or over eaters, compulsive over eaters. How do we know that we’re done with all that? That we really reached a very high level of mastery of becoming naturally slender?

How will we know that we’re there? Where is there anyway? Because the journey you may be discovering is the destination. The practice is the goal. So how do we know that we’re naturally slender?

Is it when we reach a number on the scale? I have a client who lost weight and then she hit a bump or two or three in her life and she missed some self-correcting opportunities, so she gained back some weight.

She lamented to me, oh, I’ve been struggling so long and then I pointed out to her that she had actually been naturally slender for all of those months. Even though she gained a few pounds back, she was naturally slender and so she will even more easily return to that state now.

Because naturally slender is not about a number. It’s about a way of thinking and behaving. It’s about thinking about food, how food will make you feel over time and choosing the maximize your pleasure over time.

So, how do we know that we graduated? It’s not reaching a number of the scale. Even though it’s about the journey, however, there’s a clue. One feature that’s the give away of leaving the over eater behind. Any guesses?

Should I tell you now? We really are almost out of time. But I did promise. The one feature is gratitude.

Gratitude for the struggle. You know, the struggle, the one that I’m on a mission to end. When we can look at our struggle with weight and be truly open heartedly grateful for it in our lives, then we have graduated to the next level.

Think about it. And we’ll explore this more on the next episode of Inside Out Weight Loss. That brings us to the end of our show today. Thank you for being present.

There’s now a MySpace group that’s just been created. For Inside Out Weight Loss and if anyone is interested in beginning a Facebook group, I would welcome that as well. In addition to the Yahoo! Group. We’re building community on whatever platform best works for you.

Did you know that I have guided journeys for sale on my site? There’s the same focus journeys I use with my private clients that are a power house of change. If you purchase them, I do recommend that you use the Sabotage, Self Sabotage first, then the Compulsion Blow out and the Appetite Adjuster.

The Sabotage process for resolving internal conflict is a foundation piece and will make everything else you do so much easier. Have a question for me? Call 206-350-5333 and leave a message. I may play your question or comment on the air. For other shows on Personal Life Media Network, please visit our website at PersonalLifeMedia.com.

This is your host, Renée Stephens, and I am on a mission to eradicate the weight struggles from the planet, replacing it with light, love and fun. Join me as we evolve the world by evolving ourselves.

Take good care.

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One final note: If you would like to help me and the weight struggle and free as many people as possible to live their best lives, and you have a corporate gathering, event or conference that you would be interested in having me speak at, please send an email to [email protected]. That’s [email protected]. I look forward to connecting.

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