Eat a Snack

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

 

I recently saw a television advertisement for Weight Watchers® that really summed up our often-complicated relationship with food. In it, different people are shown eating various yummy morsels while a take on the song “If You’re Happy” plays in the background. The lyrics cover a variety of emotions—happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, etc.—to correspond with eating a specific food item.

I think this is a very clever marketing tool because it subtly (and not-so-subtly) addresses our tendency to justify or cushion our emotions with food, which can lead to overeating. And isn’t that what so many of us do? The implication of this advertisement is that we learn to associate eating with satisfying or fulfilling an emotion. In this case, according to Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind, over time and with repeated exposure food becomes a “known” in our subconscious mental script. If your primary caretaker “rewarded” a good grade with your favorite meal, or offered you a bowl of ice cream when a beloved pet died, you likely developed a subconscious association between food and important life events.

In a similar way, food eventually becomes a subconscious emotional “anchor” that reminds us of comfort, nurturing and even encouragement or protection when times get tough. As adults, we continue this pattern by going out to eat to celebrate a promotion at work or devour a container of Ben and Jerry’s chocolate fudge-brownie ice cream to console ourselves after breaking up with a partner. And just like the song lyrics go, when we feel frustrated we ­reach for some potato chips and crunch through the entire bag as if devouring snack will also macerate the problem. Even if eating this way is no longer pleasurable for you, since the behavior is known, comfortable and safe you keep doing it.

For more information about how hypnotherapy can help you change unhealthy eating patterns and inappropriate associations with food and to take off extra weight, contact me at (661) 433-9430 or send an e-mail to calminsensehypnosis@yahoo.com.

                       

 

 

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2014

Because...That's What You Like

(This blog was originally posted on February 3, 2014)

 

 

                In the February 2, 2014 episode of Sherlock, that ever-perceptive and insightful sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, pointed out the obvious to his good friend and colleague, Dr. John Watson. Watson had experienced certain stressful, potentially traumatic and even life-threatening events during his life because he had invited those situations to occur. Even his choices of friends (Sherlock) and life partner were being dictated by these subconscious messages, preferences, choices that Watson kept making, over and over again because, basically, that is what the good doctor liked.

                Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., explained this behavior in his Theory of Mind: Each person’s subconscious learns and adopts behaviors and ways of thinking from a very young age. By the time you are about 5 years old the blueprint of your future beliefs and behaviors is established, based on what you have learned during these early years of your life. For example, if you like (or even hate) to eat a particular kind of food, it is likely that you were given this or a similar item as a youngster. You associate the experience of eating this item with memories about how it tasted, if you like the taste, who served it to you/who was with you, etc. Other behaviors and interests (preferences) are learned in a similar way: Some people prefer to stay at home on a Friday night and curl up with a good book or watch something on television, instead of going to a party with their friends. Others enjoy skydiving and participate in various high-adrenaline sports; they think nothing of skiing down a “widow-maker” slope. Some people enjoy the hustle and thrum of having a busy social life while living in the center of a bustling city. Others prefer a quiet family life in the suburbs.

These are extreme examples of personalities at either end of a spectrum, but the drive or motivation behind these preferences comes from the same place: the subconscious mind. This is the place where you store and reinforce your beliefs and behaviors by doing what you do—without thinking about it—every time you say, think or do that behavior. Even if you do not consciously like or enjoy the belief or behavior that you reinforce, by now it has become comfortable, familiar (pleasure) to you—even if it is not “pleasurable.” According to Dr. Kappas, everyone carries the association and enjoyment (or not) of our “known” behaviors and beliefs throughout your life or, until you are motivated to change this belief or behavior.

I help my hypnotherapy clients to change their various unwanted behaviors; hypnotherapy works because and when the person wants to make this change. Your subconscious mind may know what you really want, but in your conscious mind you have the will-power, decision-making, reasoning and logic to literally change your mind.

 

 

 

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2014