You may think that you simply do or do not take action on things you feel are important to you. What you may not be aware of is there are definite reasons why you do or do not take action on weight loss. There are background psychological and emotional processes occurring that weigh in on your decisions. Your decisions may seem instantaneous, but your mind acts quickly based on many factors. There are processes going on whether conscious or subconscious. INSIGHT puts the focus on bringing awareness to our subconscious, so that we can make more conscious choices moving forward.
What INSIGHT does is help you discover your background operations that result in your decisions, so that you can then challenge them or develop strategies to manage them.
People who have succeeded after years of struggle, have simply completed this step on their own through honestly quite serendipitous events. What we’re doing, is consciously speeding up that process so that you can get to health sooner.
Willpower
Willpower is a problematic concept. Some would have you believe that you have it or you don’t. And it is a concept associated with superiority. If you ‘finally got your act together’, you may think that suddenly you had this thing called willpower, without the understanding that your background operations have been changing.
INSIGHT also fills in any gaps in nutritional and exercise knowledge so that you have a strong base from which to leap.
It may be helpful for you to read about my discoveries. You may relate to some of these discoveries, or you may not. You’ll discover yours over time and through the INSIGHT program.
The excellent news is that these insights are bound to help you in more areas than just your weight loss because you are addressing subconscious issue that affect all areas of your world.
My discoveries
It is possible
On a subconscious level I had thought that weightloss was impossible, afterall, it hadn’t happened yet. But when other impossible things in my life became possible, subconsciously I realise that maybe this too was possible.
Then when I started to succeed I discovered it indeed was possible, and doubt faded away.
Small successes disproved past held beliefs.
I needed my own ‘why’
…and it was ok that my why was unacceptable for others. To be clear, my why did not hurt others, it was more that I needed to be comfortable with others perhaps judging me. I knew it was ok to lose weight for health, but I was not totally convinced that I really needed to. My reason (the first – you may have many and they evolve) came from vanity. I was the heaviest I had ever been (outside of pregnancy) and one day I saw how my back looked in the mirror. Oh boy did I not like it, and that was my ignition point. I became driven to not be worse. I did not know what was possible, but I needed to reverse on where I was headed.
My ‘oh-so-stubborn’ nature
Other people wanted me to change and I had a range of core beliefs to overcome.
The big one: I thought they wanted me to change so I would look different.
So because of this I dug my heels in and refused to. I wasn’t fully conscious of this at the time, but I was certainly my own worst enemy. When I wanted to change my body for myself, then my false beliefs about what others thought didn’t matter anymore.
My stubbornness could be used for good, but I also learned that this trait came from my upbringing and understanding this led me to manage the emotions connected to stubbornness so that I could make choices aligned with my goals.
Shame and guilt stalled me
Realising that these emotions were unhelpful, helped me to address my emotions as they arose with a logical base. I found that guilt over choices were best left in the past, so that I could focus on better choices moving forward.
Success is powerful
That feeling is something that can really drive me forward, feeling like my own warrior, pushing forward and succeeding worked in with my discovery of the archetypes. I learnt that I could embody, emulate and become my own hero. The archetypes work for many of us in different ways. Many find this via other means. Maybe the mother archetype will work for you as it is giving and caring and wants to support her family – we must first look after ourselves before we look after others. Be the best ‘mother’ you can be. Or maybe the information seeker in you will aim to be the most informed Sage – gaining the wisdom to succeed.
Weight gain was inevitable
My doctor told me this – that women my age just continue to gain weight till the end and there is nothing you can do about it. Oddly, my stubbornness worked in my favour and I refused for this to be the case for me.
I believe that this belief really could have derailed me. It also wasn’t a new concept. This same line had been repeated through my life. Family members told me this often, “our family is big, you’ll get big too, just you wait and see”. This did slowly become something I believed. Thankfully when the doctor said it, I was ready to rebel.
The opinions of well-meaning people can be ignored if you know you are doing the right thing
“You don’t need to lose weight”.
I heard this one a lot and I know that meant well, but my body needed me to lose weight for my health, and weight loss for how I looked was also just fine. I was doing it healthily, so I needed to ignore the noise of opinion.
There was peace to be found in making choices aligned with my goals
In taking actions for my health I was able to free my mind of habitual emotions that caused stress. Shame and guild could not occur when I made health focused choices.
I learnt that walking was therapeutic and I discovered it centred me. I paired my walk with podcasts I enjoyed and this entertained and educated me. There was peace in being free from pain, in being lighter on my feet. This peace also resulted in other areas of life gaining peace and focus.
As you can see many factors impacted my ability to succeed. Becoming aware of my subconscious thoughts/beliefs, and bringing them to the surface meant I was less likely to repeat the errors of the past. We don’t just act. We think, we feel, we are… well… a lot. Being human means we are complex. These complexities are the key to unlocking our success.
