Episode 83 - Foundation Part IV – EFT to Shift Beliefs and Identity
How to be slim, even if your whole family is not using specific EFT sequences to break free from what limits you. Plus, learn how to let go of a food revulsion as well as a food compulsion.
Transcript
Transcript
Renee Stephens: Welcome to Inside Out Weight Loss. I’m your host Renee Stephens, and together we’re accessing and adjusting the control panel of your mind/body/spirit system, bringing ease and joy to your weight loss journey and fullness to the rest of your life. Inside Out Weight Loss is not what you might be expecting. It’s not about nutrition and it’s not about exercise. There are plenty of great resources out there, and frankly most of us who’ve struggled with our weight know plenty about nutrition and exercise, but it doesn’t help. We keep on doing the things that we know that we shouldn’t. Inside Out Weight Loss is about getting ourselves to do what we already know we should, more easily and enjoyably than we ever even thought possible. Here we go to your deep level motivation, to that place from which desires come. We go to where the impulses are created and change the impulses. Because overeating and under exercising are just symptoms of our desires and our impulses, in short, of our inner motivation. So here we learn not just to understand how that inner motivation works, but we actually change it, both through the experience of the show itself and through the powerful quick and effective tools that you learn here. Now by the way, I should let you know that there is a serious risk of other areas of your life improving along the way. Because you see when we go very deep to change the root causes of your weight struggle, I can’t guarantee that other areas of your life, seemingly unrelated areas, won’t benefit hugely too. Like the ripples from a pond, the benefits from a deep work spread into relationships, into career, into self-confidence, into finances. Ooh, who doesn’t like that right about now. So enjoy the program today, and I encourage you, if you haven’t already to go back to the beginning starting at the prologue, to soak in the deeply transformative tools and concepts presented in the early episodes.
Renee Stephens: So lets go ahead now and drop down inside, as we always do, knowing that all begins within. All is possible within. I listened to an inspiring talk given by Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame the other day. In fact, I’ll post a link to it on my blog at personallifemedia.com/renee. And she talked about how genius, how creative breakthroughs could be considered, not something that an individual possesses, something that certain special people were bequeathed at birth, or some special brain structure that allows us to be brilliant. No, she talked about it instead as perhaps something that visits those of us that are open, almost something that we allow to come through. The ancient Greeks of course used to talk about the muse, as do artists and writers through much of history. I remember the first line of the Oddicy that I read in 9th grade, it said, “Sing in me muse, and through me tell the story.” And I’m thinking they had it right. I’m thinking I really agree with Elizabeth Gilbert, that we can be in the right state to receive, to allow genius to flow through us, to allow creative breakthroughs to happen, to allow our bodies to work in a beautiful naturally slender way. All we have to do is clear any blocks that we have to allowing that to happen. All we have to do is open up and receive.
Renee Stephens: I was listening to a Wayne Dyer audio book earlier today on the power of intention, and he had a great quote in there, he said, “Ours is not to ask how, but rather to say yes.” Yes to the muse, yes to the genius and wisdom of our bodies that would do more in a moment than would fill volumes of medical textbooks. So what if you now allowed yourself to drop deep inside, to simply go into, be aware of that space within you. Maybe you’re a stranger to it because you’ve been away for a while. I read a comment on the Inside Out Weight Loss Yahoo group, which is linked to on the blog, personallifemedia.com/renee, where the listener says, “I’m home. I haven’t been here in a really long time and it feels great.” And she’s not talking about a house or an apartment, a tepee or an igloo. She’s talking about home in her body; our real home and the place from which we can feel pleasure, the place in which we can get feedback so that we can adjust and adapt to have even more pleasure. Another teacher of mine suggested that if you go deep enough inside, deep down, just allowing yourself to sink in to the experience of simply being, that you can find all of the solutions to the questions that you ask. Now this isn’t a new idea. Heck, the bible says, “Seek and you shall find.” Knock and the door will open. Ask and it is given. Now Esther and Jerry Hicks of The Laws of Attraction fame say the same thing. In fact you’ll find something similar in just about every spiritual tradition that’s out there. And what if you access that energy, whether you think of it as spiritual energy or your own higher self, simply by going down deep inside and being comfortable and accepting and at home within you. There’s so much available there, including of course our signals of hunger and satiety and desires and cravings for healthy food. It’s all there, and so much more. Ooh la la. I’m having fun already and we’re just getting going. And from this place deep inside go ahead and set your intent for this episode. Take a moment to reflect on the experience that you would like to have today, tomorrow and everyday.
Renee Stephens: I’d like to share this comment, which was written on the blog, personallifemedia.com/renee. It says, “I have two wonderful children and the great opportunity of living in a wonderfully separate life from their fathers. So there is the kids week and then there’s the introspective mom week. As I progressed I noticed I was too tired at the end of kid week. Not just tired, too tired. And this got me to notice the way I manage my energy. When the kids are home it was all outside in. This would put me down. Listening to your podcast I started acting inside out with me first and now with them. What a difference”, she writes in big capital letters, “What a healthy difference. I now can teach the pleasure of food and respect to their bodies. No more ‘Eat your veggies or else’”, and she continues, “I guess this is your own oxygen mask story. A story of putting your own oxygen mask on first so that then you can help others.” And I think it’s so common, especially for women who love to give - anybody resonate with that out there? – that we give first and forget to renew. It’s enlightened selfishness. Next this listener, her name is Brigite, writes that she has a question. She says she has a food repugnance, “I just won’t get near any type of fish.” She says, “I’ve tried getting friendly with it small portioned or served with lots of cheese, but it’s not a question of taste”, she says, she finds it tastes okay, it’s just the idea of eating fish that revolts her. “Can’t find anything in my past that would explain it”, she writes. And of course this would be fine except that now her nine year old daughter won’t touch fish either. So what could this food repugnance be about? And Brigite actually tells me the answer in her question, because she writes that it’s the idea of eating fish that revolts her. Let me explain; when she says it’s the idea – nothing actual, not the actual taste – it’s quite clear that it is the way that she is representing fish in her mind that is causing her the feelings of revulsion. Because when we think of anything we have to make a mental representation of it in order to think about it. So if you think about eating fish, you will probably get an image of a particular type of fish –maybe it’ll be on a plate, maybe it’ll be salmon or trout or who know what it’ll be – but you’ll get a particular image in your minds eye, you have an inner representation of fish. In Brigite’s case that inner representation is repugnant. So the answer is change the inner representation and change your experience. So if I were working with Brigite I would ask her to give me the very detailed specifics of how she sees it in her minds eye. Is her image of the fish, is it really close up? I almost get the impression it’s kind of right there in her face, and if that were the case I would ask her to move it further away. Move her mental image of fish further away. If her mental image was dark I would ask her to brighten it. If it were really big I would tell her to make it smaller, and so on. We’d play around with it until she got it in a way that she liked it. When she changes her mental representation she will change her experience of fish.
Renee Stephens: Now you may be wondering, clever people that you are, if you could actually make yourself have a revulsion to one of your trigger foods. That thought does not escape me. And yes, it is absolutely possible. Did I tell you that I used to have a bit of a problem with little bowls, kiddie sized bowls of cereal eaten right before I go to bed? I had a bit of a compulsion about these bowls of cereal. And a friend of mine helped me install a repulsion to the cereal. He helped me imagine I was actually eating a blow of vomit, I have to say. Well that worked very well for a while, but it ended up being so incredibly unpleasant that I subconsciously undid it later on because I subconsciously knew how to do that. So I don’t really recommend installing revulsions because they’re really pretty basically unpleasant. It’s okay, but, you know, if there’s a better way to do it then I would do it that way. Well goodness, of course there’s a better way to do it. You can play around, as we just did. Or you could actually use the Compulsion Blow Out guided journey that I have available on my site, mindforbody.com linked to from the blog, which interestingly enough can be used also for a food revulsion as much as it can be used for a food compulsion. And it does it in a very positive way of course, so that you actually feel more whole and complete at the end than you did at the beginning.
Renee Stephens: And we have arrived at our break time now. This is Renee Stephens and you’re listening to Inside Out Weight Loss on Personal Life Media.
Renee Stephens: We’re back now. We’ve been talking about creating a solid foundation for weight loss, and last episode we talked about the importance of creating an identity that supports your naturally slender self. Because if you see yourself as a fat person, as an obese person, as a big person, that’s what you will create and that’s what you will bounce back to, no matter what you do. Like a giant rubber band pulling you back to your old identity no matter the diet, no matter the plan, no matter the program. And so the question becomes, “No I don’t want to be like that rubber band bouncing back to my old identity as a chubby person. I want to have a new identity. How do I create a new identity? Isn’t identity something that’s very deeply seeded?” Alright, you’re listening to this show, you know what I’m going to say; of course you can change your identity, and I’m not talking Witness Protection Program here. The homework from last we, as you may recall, was to write down your “I am” statements: “I am chubby”, “I am tall”, “I am this way or that way”, all of the things that come out when you think about what you are, who you see yourself as. I’m kind of wondering what you came up with. And in fact this is a great thing for you to post to the blog. And of course the next step is to figure out what you’d like to be instead. I always like to use a two column sheet of paper. On the one side you have the old, the “I am”, what you say now, whatever’s limiting you. And on the other side you have what you’d like it to be instead. Now of course there will be parts, probably many parts of your identity that you want to keep. We’re only talking here about the ones that you want to change because you find that they are limiting you. And you could carry on from a journal writing perspective by writing all of the ways in which you are the identity that you want to be already, or you could be that identity. And that would help quite a bit. And yet there’s another tool that I find to be even quicker and even more effective to really change that emotional component of your identity to release the limiting emotional component and install a new positive empowering component. And that is a tool we’ve already talked about, which is EFT, the Emotional Freedom Technique, which I really like ‘cause you can use it for so many things; belief changes, identity changes. I think I need to come up with a new name for identity change because each time I say it I’m thinking false mustache and a silly wig. Changes to who you see yourself as. So if you haven’t listened to the episodes, the series on EFT, I encourage you to go back and listen to it. I think it’s around episode 41. You can find more also at Gary Craig’s website, www.emofree.com. But I’ll let you know that my version of EFT is actually a simplified version because I’ve distilled it down to the pieces that I find to be the most effective. A critical element of successful EFT is bringing up the negative emotion, really feeling it as you’re doing the tapping because that’s how we release it. So I will briefly mention the tapping points as we go through this, but I want to give you these sample sequences that you can do along with me now or after the show when you have time using the ones that most resonate with you or patterning your own based on what you hear here today, any inspiration that you might get. And if you don’t want to tap, or if you can’t tap because you’re operating the infamous heavy machinery, which could be a car or an exercise machine of some sort, just pretend that you’re doing it, imagine in your head that you’re doing the tapping.
Renee Stephens: Okay, so here’s the first sequence. You’d be tapping on your left karate chop point, that side of your left hand, tapping with your right fingertips, and you say, “Even though I am a chubby person and always have been, even though I’m a chubby person and always have been, I still choose to be naturally slender.” And we’ll do that three times: “Even though I’m a chubby person and I’ve always been chubby, I still choose to be easily slender.” “Even though I’m a chubby person and always have been, I’m letting that go and choosing a new identity that suits me so much better.” Now choose the positive phrases that work best for you. These are just ideas. Now tap on the top of your head, just take one hand and tap on the top of your head and say, “I am a chubby person.” Tap just above your inner eyebrows, “I am a chubby person.” Outer tip of the eyes, “I’m a chubby person.” Under the eyes, “I’m a chubby person.” Under the nose, under the, or the crease in your chin, the clavicle bone area just below your clavicle bone, under your left armpit, under your right armpit, “I’m a chubby person.” And now on your right karate chop point, “I always have been.” Inner wrist, tapping those together, “Even though I’m a chubby person and I always have been…”, back of the left hand, “Even though I’m a chubby person and always have been…”, back of the right hand, “I’m letting that go now and choosing a new identity that suits me much better and is more authentically me, allowing me to be healthy, slim and fit, because I deeply and completely love and accept myself.” When you’re done with that round you’ll take a deep breath, and simply check in. Notice any movements of energy, any releasing that you feel flow. And when you’re done with that ask yourself of what’s left, if anything… It might be completely gone, that often happens when I work with clients, that after one round only an issue is already dissolved. But more typically, especially when I’m on my own, for myself it takes a couple of rounds. The key is that the more your bring up the negative emotion while you’re tapping, the quicker you will release it and welcome in the new positive energy.
Renee Stephens: So let me give you some other phrases that you might consider: “Even though I’ve always been fat”, “Even though my whole family is fat”, “Even though it’s in my genes”, “Even though I just love food”, “Even though I have no control, I still deeply and completely love and accept myself. I’m choosing to let that go as I easily release this excess weight and become naturally slender. I’m choosing a new identity that allows me to be healthy, slim and fit. I’m choosing a new identity that honors all of who I am and can be.” So that’s one series of possible phrases and terminology to use in your tapping. Now here’s another layer of objection that can be tied in at the identity level; you see the identity level is often really closely connected with our family of origin, how our parents saw us, the place that we had in our family system. So you might say, “Even though I’m afraid that I might become slim I won’t fit in with my family…” I have a client who used to binge with her father. I remember watching the documentary Thin about anorexia and watching an anorexic be visited by her mother in a treatment center and the two of them pick at their food in anorexic fashion. So identity often comes from within the family system. And so changing identity often brings with it a fear that if we become slim, that if we become our best we will no longer fit in and lose the love and connection that we have and cherish with our family. Or even the connection that we have with our family even if we don’t like it, we can still be afraid of losing it. Similarly you might have a fear about losing our friends, so we could say, “Even though that I’m afraid that I won’t connect with my friends, that I will insult them by not enjoying food with them”, whatever your fear might be of changing, and that would be a great thing to journal on so that you can tap on it, so that you can include it in your tapping sequence to release it and shift your identity. And again, EFT is a very quick do-it-yourself way to make these deep and lasting changes. Now I should say also that it can also be even faster with a qualified practitioner, someone who’s really good at what they do that can make it go even faster, but nonetheless we can do it on our own and get great results.
Renee Stephens: That brings us to the end of our show today. Thank you for being present. Did you know that if you have three unlistened to episodes of any podcast, iTunes will automatically unsubscribe you? Well they do and you have to resubscribe. Now there’s a reliable way to ensure that you get the latest episodes of Inside Out Weight Loss. Go to personallifemedia.com/signup and register for your email notification. This is your host Renee Stephens, and I am on a mission to eradicate the weight struggle from the planet, enabling you to develop and share your abundant souls gifts. Join me as we evolve the world by evolving ourselves. Take good care.