Inspirational Quote
“All Jesus’ healings were on the basis of removing the mental cause.”
Baird T. Spalding Life and Teaching Of The Masters Of The Far East,
In my day, I have studied lots and lots of different kinds of diet and exercise plans.
In fact, I have studied (and mastered) so many different systems of nutrition and exercise I have long ago lost count of how many there have been.
You can have the best plan in the world for your body, but at the end of the day, who is actually in charge of executing it?
“Well,” you may say, “obviously, I am.”
That is true. 100 points if you got that right.
But I want to go further and ask you a deeper question, “I know it’s you, but which YOU are we actually talking about?”
Putting it another way, who exactly is in charge of your body?
Who have you left guarding the fort?
Here are a few characters you can watch out for:
Your Victim. I know as a practitioner whenever I am dealing with a victim in charge when the person in front of me needs to relate the story of what happened to them and all the other people who are supposedly at fault. I even had a client who had a one-car wreck (she was driving) who had managed to convince herself that someone else was to blame.
What is wrong if your victim is in charge?
Your victim likes being hurt, sick or wounded. If your victim actually starts to get well, guess what, that means you don’t get to play victim anymore and you no longer have the excuse of dumping all the blame on other people.
If I find victim in charge of any of my clients, I like to do a healing to release the dominance of this subpersonality.
As long as you truly believe you are a victim, guess what, bad things will keep happening to you and you will resist actually getting better.
Your Saboteur . Your saboteur is a bit more sneaky than your victim. While your victim is totally, 100 percent convinced that all your problems are the fault and responsibility of somebody else, the saboteur can play the game of trying to get better but pull the plug before any program has the time to take effect.
This is the person for whom I will run a lab test, explaining in great detail what is going on, what is missing, what needs to be done, and you will only complete half of what the left-brain, black and white lab test says. That way, you get to go back to your friends and/or doctor and pronounce, “That (diet/exercise plan) doesn’t work.”
You look great because you showed up and did something, only you didn’t actually follow the exact plan or the precise recommendations thoroughly enough to make a difference. “I tried (fill in the blank) and that didn’t work,” is the typical refrain of the saboteur.
Like the victim, who is fully invested in continuing to be hurt, wounded, fat or unhealthy, your saboteur is secretly fighting everybody who is doing anything helpful for you to get better.
Saboteurs can sometimes be good at arguing. They want all the reasons and justifications as long as they don’t have to follow anybody else’s rules.
One of the ways I deal with a saboteur in charge is by doing a healing for left-brain, right-brain integration, making certain that both sides of your brain actually want to get better.
This is called clearing psychological reversal, which I have written about in previous newsletters.
Your Inner Child. This is a biggie – although they are all biggies. How old do you really think you act in front of a piece of chocolate cake? If you don’t believe me, go to a restaurant, order chocolate cake, sit with yourself and see who shows up.
I routinely use kinesiology to muscle test how old my clients act when they are eating. It’s frequently not greater than 10 years old, and you can recall for yourself just how disciplined you were when you were 8. Not!
You may know everything about healthy eating. You may have a Ph.D. in nutrition, or yourself be a Registered Dietician (I had an R.D. confess to me once that he still had an eating disorder, even though he had been counselling others for years) and you can still act like a little kid when food is put in front of you.
Your adult knows it’s time to eat your spinach. Your adult saves room for dessert if you really want to have some. Your inner child squeals with delight over fast food, junk food, sweets and other total diet disasters.
Your inner child may also find other inner children to eat with so as not to feel so guilty about going crazy all by himself or herself.
There’s nothing wrong with having fun with food, but you can deal with this subpersonality yourself simply by asking yourself when you eat, “How old am I acting right now?”
I know a lot more about food now that I am 53 than I used to do. I am also a lot calmer around chocolate cake and don’t need to reward myself with kid food.
Your Saint. The saint tries to appear perfect. Oh-so perfect. Everything is measured out, carb counted, portion modified, calorie controlled, gluten-free, fat free, kosher and prayed over.
You are up at 5 a.m. on the treadmill. You work out six or seven days a week and your gym card is worn out.
The problem with your saint is that he or she is usually closely shadowed by your sinner.
You were good all day, then “bad” at night.
You follow your plan to the letter all week, then blow it on the weekend.
You over exercise then overeat.
You hire the nutritionist and then buy a bag of chocolate cookies on the way home from your appointment.
The saint is all about appearing wonderful and perfect to others when deep down you know you really have a problem with your relationship with food.
If the saint gets out of control, you can develop orthorexia, which is an actual eating disorder. You have to have the exact right perfect thing to eat or you get stressed out about it.
One of the ways I deal with saints is by helping you realize the 80/20 rule. If you are healthy and at your ideal weight, then 80 percent of the time, follow your plan and 20 percent of the time have your wine, eat your chocolate and live your life without needing to pretend you are so perfect.
Your Delegator. This is a fun one. I once had a client who made it the job of her personal assistant to make sure she got on her treadmill, had the right snacks and made her appointments with her fitness trainer.
Everything was the other person’s responsibility.
No one else can do your exercise for you (if that were the case, I would be a multimillionaire already since I actually like to exercise and I know a lot of people who would rather me do it for them).
No one else can push you away from the table when you are full. No one else can put the fork down for you.
I had one client years ago who had a private chef.
Even though the expert made her these perfect, calorie-controlled meals, she would blow it on chocolate bunny rabbits.
It’s your body, it’s the only body God gave you and God put you in charge of it.
I believe that mastering the head game of eating well and exercising intelligently is equally important to having a good plan in the first place.
You can have the best plan in the world, but if your inner idiot is in charge of executing it, good luck with that.
Fortunately, I work with what I refer to as “actual humans.”
We actual humans aren’t perfect. We have emotions. Most of us have a history by now of trying one thing after another, getting nowhere until we meet someone who can empower us to master our inner game.
That person would be me.
This week, I had lunch with a fellow nutritionist. She told me she was not interested in helping people lose weight.
“I think it’s 90 percent emotional,” I told her honestly. We were having a very frank discussion.
She had a machine in her office that measures acupuncture meridians and she makes supplement recommendations based on what she finds. She had programmed different diet plans into her machine to find out which ones would work best. She told me she had discovered that at the end of the day, there is no perfect diet that is right for every body.
I agree.
It’s not so much the plan, although there are better plans.
I can figure out your metabolic type, your body type, your food sensitivities, how many protein grams, or carb grams you do best on, menu plans, best number of ounces per meal, the whole lot. You and I can go into excruciating detail if that is what you would find most helpful.
As precise as this information can be, what counts the most is the story you are telling yourself about what you are doing.
If you would like to discover for yourself who is in charge of your eating and exercise plan, take out a sheet of paper. Begin to write down your story, what you are silently and secretly telling yourself about how you eat and how you exercise.
If you are telling yourself it will never work, that it’s someone else’s responsibility or if you are finding lots and lots of emotion coming out, chances are it’s time for you to make an appointment with me to clear your inner game.
Don’t let these characters rule your body.