I experienced a wonderful breakthrough during my last spiritual practitioner session with Joan Coletto. Earlier that morning, I was feeling confident about my readiness to shift from weekly to bi-weekly sessions — cocky even. Then when I arrived for my session, I started to feel intense anxiety which presented itself as nausea. When I told Joan what was happening, she instructed me to focus on the feeling so that we could explore the related emotions and identify the source. Essentially, we were exploring my physical symptoms to figure out what my subconscious was trying to tell me.
We have been working on releasing my mental blocks around losing weight. I have used weight as a protective barrier for several years.
During the session, I also realized that during years of intense stress as a teenager, I would wake at night and eat enormous amounts of food to soothe myself. No one in my home knew what was happening because I was extremely thin at the time. So, I surmised that being thin reminds me on a subconscious level of this time of intense stress, anxiety and fear in my life. This is the source of my block and resistance around losing weight.
In previous years, when I started to lose weight, the anxious feelings would rise and without much thought I would start behaviors which resulted in regaining the weight — eating more, exercising less, eating late at night, sleeping less, etc. There are so many ways to sabotage your weight loss goals. Some are subtle changes that keep your true intent from your conscious mind.
Based on this development, Joan instructed me to repeat the following mantras as part of my daily meditation practice:
- I am a loving person.
- I am a whole human being.
In order to address some avoidance behaviors, I am to:
- Spend time with people and hug more
- Get stronger and lose weight
- Read the book which has been on my mind: Becoming Wise An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living by Krista Tippett
Now that we have identified the issue, I am hoping to make significant progress with my weight loss goals. Therapy is a wonderful thing!!
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