The Mindset of Obesity
Oh! I wish I could lose some weight; just a few pounds would be nice.
How many times have you heard people say that? It seems they are struggling to come to a decision about losing weight. Day after day they keep asking themselves, “what should I do? do I go on a diet or try some exercises”, ” I’ll look up some diets and see what they can do for me”, “Ah! That looks good I’ll go for that and I will start after the weekend.”
What, Which, Whether, When, Why, indecision sets in.
1, What should I go for, diet or exercises?
2, Which is the best, A, program, B, plan, XYZ, diet.
3, Whether to go to a dietician or my doctor.
4, When should I start? Today, next week or make a new year’s resolution.
5, Why should I bother. I am never going to lose weight, it’s too late.
That is the big problem, Obesity seems to have a mindset all of its own. It seems that once you become obese you think “It’s not my fault, it is in the genes and nothing I do is going to make any difference. I may as well live with it” Read the rest of this entry »
Banish That Phobia Now!
Emotional Resilience is a big issue for business at the moment because having the feeling of emotional strength and the ability to bounce back from setbacks is obviously an important ability at work as well as at home.
One such setback is developing a phobia. It is estimated that as many as 20% of the population have a phobia which can be defined as an irrational fear. Part of my role is as a hypnotherapist and I regularly see clients with phobias and, believe me, they know their fears are irrational. They always say ‘I know this is stupid but…’ and my reply is always ‘actually it’s not stupid’. It’s thought that phobias happen when the brain perceives a threat and attempts to protect us from that threat. It sets up a pathway that says ‘Recognise this (plane/bridge/ spider/whatever) as a threat and avoid it at all costs’. Unfortunately the protective mechanism is too strong so that instead of a practical cautiousness, a phobia is born.
It sometimes happens that phobic people can’t identify the reason for their phobia, perhaps because they’ve had it so long the memory is lost. Others have clear explanations – ‘I’m phobic about flying because I was on a plane where there was really terrible turbulence and I thought I was going to die.’
People can be phobic about anything, even apparently irrational things such as buttons. This type of phobia could happen, perhaps, because a loud noise made the person jump just as they were looking at a button and there brain added two and two and made five. But we have to represent that phobic fear to ourselves in some way. Some people see a picture in their mind of a plane crashing, or a bird flying very close to them, or themselves in a car crash or whatever their phobic topic is. Others sense their phobia by a crippling sense of fear. Yet others ‘hear’ something – the flapping of a bird’s wings, a sudden loud noise, a car horn. Read the rest of this entry »