– ☺
– The glass is half full, not half empty. A positive attitude is all we need!
Tomorrow I’ll ask whether you have praised yourself five times or not. A typical excuse I usually hear: “I don’t have time for it”. It’s irresponsible. Agree? How much time do you need to praise yourself? Five seconds. So, “no time” won’t work. I’ll ask you about praising tomorrow.
Recipe for success
Andrey Vasilyevich Trenogov, psychologist, psychiatrist:
I noticed that when I ask people to praise themselves at least three times, the next day, many people say that they did it only once or twice. When I began to ask them to praise themselves at least fifteen times, everything changed. Now it seems to be so simple to say something kind to yourself five times.
There is a good saying. Unfortunately, I have no idea who said it, but I’d like to share it with you: “It is better to aim for the stars and hit the top of the mountain than to aim for the mountain and hit the dirt.”
Another thing: it’s very important to write down all the praises. Just thinking about them is not enough.
A well-known personal growth expert Barrett Brown researched how the most successful people develop their personality. He identified three patterns that are common to all of them.
First, they meditated. Some people did yoga, the others – qigong, some used awareness practice or daily practice of prayer, and so on.
Secondly, they all kept a diary. They made daily records of their achievements, insights, asked themselves questions, and answered them.
Thirdly, everyone had a coach, mentor, or friend with whom they discussed how they were moving towards the goal.
Despite being very busy, they found time to do it.
It just so happens that most people use to scold themselves. If I gave you the task to scold yourself five times, then (as I often heard) there would be no difficulty. And the scolding would sound sincere, with appropriate intonations. When a person praises himself, the tone is not always entirely sincere. It is usually playful, sometimes even cynical. It is known that intonation affects us much stronger than words. Therefore, while doing this exercise, try to praise yourself sincerely, even for very modest achievements.
I have seen many times that even such simple exercise helped people to improve self-esteem. And it is self-esteem that determines our well-being, how we treat others, and how we operate in life. This exercise can be made more complicated. To do this, you need a person who won’t let you “escape”.
It can be a person who desires to lose weight, except for your relatives. They are not suitable for this role. You agree with this person that every evening for ten days you will talk by phone or e-mail each other listing ten points of your “achievements” – good things that you have done today. The key challenge is that you can’t say the same thing twice. So, you’ll get one hundred achievements for ten days! It usually becomes difficult after the twentieth point, but after the fortieth one, on the contrary, all the difficulties disappear.
In doing so, you immediately engage three vital areas: you will practice awareness and self-observation, keep a diary, and discuss it with a friend.
Group session of psychologist
Artyom Andreyevich Ovechkin:
– Do you think it’s possible to take all the negative emotions away from your life?
– No.
– Can we eliminate negative emotions relative to our eating behavior?
– Yes.
– Of course, there is no room for them. I feed myself regularly, praise and love myself, nurture myself. What do we get then instead of self-pity?
– Pride!
– Even better than that. Mila, what do you think?
– Self-respect.
– What else? Any ideas?
– Love to yourself.
– Recently, this word has become a bit overworked. It is written almost on every fence, in every book, newspaper and magazine. They all persuade you that you need to love yourself, and then everything will be fine. But nobody says how to do it.
How do you love your kids? You take care of them. Loving yourself in practical terms is about taking care of yourself. Self-nurturing suggests that you should spend some resources for yourself. What recourses? Time, money and energy.
Building a new body
– I don’t mean that you should love yourself like it was proposed in a well-known cartoon about school for devilkin: “Hey, devilkin! The Thirteenth! You have to love yourself, only yourself! Love yourself, don’t think about others, and you’ll succeed!” It’s not what I mean! ☺ I want to say that you have to spend recourses not only for others but for yourself too. You have to take care of yourself in full measure.
Look what we get in that case. Do we need any punishment?
– No.
– Of course not. There is no reason. On the contrary, it’s time to start enjoying your life. We’ll discuss it during the seminar.
“I need to lose weight.” How do you feel about the word “need”? Tayisia, what if I tell you: “You need to lose weight. You are obliged to do it!” Do you feel negative emotions? Rejection?
– Yes.
– You want to do the exact opposite! We had enough of these “need” and “must” since we were kids. People feel negative about it on a subconscious level. What other words would never cause negative feelings?
– Want! ☺
– Of course, it’s “want”! Remember the situation in your life when you really wanted something. Did you need to be persuaded?
– No.
– No. You were ready to do it against all the odds. Perhaps someone even tried to slow you down a bit: “Hey, where are you going?” You replied: “No, I have to hurry up. I want it!”
I want you to have a burning desire to get slim! “Here I am! Slim superstar walking along the beach! I walk with kids wearing a very tight dress in summer, and they say: “Mom, you are so beautiful!”
– I want to get slim!
– I want to get slim! I want a new body. And I will create it! I regularly feed, praise, and love myself. I spend time and money on myself. I enjoy my life and get slim! Your train turns to a new railway! Is it achievable?
– Yes.
– Yes, this can be easily achieved! Especially when we consider the process step by step. It’s easy to understand how to do it. All we need is to retrain ourselves.
On average, it takes twenty-one days to form new habits.
During the next four days, you’ll start to adopt new habits that will help you to get slim. Then you’ll maintain them. In a month, we’ll meet again, check how it is going, refine some issues. Everything will be great!
N.B.! At first, you work for a certain time to form and fix the good habits. Then these habits work to make your life healthy, happy, and successful.
I would like to emphasize that Zina, the woman we talked about, lives inside each of you. Zina, let’s continue to call her Zina, it’s a sub-personality that lives in the head of every person. She is a part of your personality. Some psychologists call it “Sly Fat”.
The main aim of Zina or Mr. Eating-Frenzy is to keep everything in your life as it is. They oppose any changes to make your body fatter and fatter, and to increase the amount of fat in your mind, as they say.
What does it mean – “fat in mind”? It means that you doubt yourself, you do not believe in yourself, do not feed yourself regularly, scold yourself too often, dramatize any unpleasant situation, overthink every event, starve, eat all sorts of junk food when your hunger is seeking for healthy food, and so on.
Zina adores it! She will appear in your head from time to time and say: “Come on, Snezhana, it’s impossible to eat four or six times a day and get slim! It’s nonsense! Let’s get out of it!”
“He says you can eat meat, fish, poultry, seafood, pasta, and potatoes. No, please, do not eat pasta! Let’s get some cake after work instead! What?! He banned a cake – our only joy?”
“Remember how we used to do before? Someone hurt you, you go home and see a bakery. You enter inside, eat one pie, another pie. Oops! No tears, no offense. You are fine again! But he wants to take away our precious! Let’s get out of it! You cannot live like this”.
She will talk about it! Auntie Zina in your head will repeat it again and again. As for Victor, he has Uncle Joe or another subpersonality instead of Zina.
– ☺
– Your task is to “turn off the microphone” immediately as soon as Auntie Zina starts speaking. That’s enough! You are done with her talks! You have been listening to her for years.
– Yes!
– I will tell you about the lifestyle of a slim person tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. When you tell me your opinion, I’ll be able to understand who’s talking to me: “OK, that’s Anna… And Auntie Zina grabs the microphone and starts to complain, berate and justify herself!”
“I am slim” – it sounds like music for my soul!
– How to become slim?
To achieve your goal, you have to understand one crucial thing.
What makes a person slim? His body or his mind?
– His mind.
– Of course. Have you met some people without any excess weight who keep saying that they are fat?
– Certainly.
– Some people are overweight, but they say: “I am fine, I am slim enough.” So, in many respects, it’s a matter of perception.
For example, an overweight person draws a house, a tree, and a person.
They call it projective techniques. What do psychologists try to understand, analyzing such pictures?
– Problems.
– Problems of the person, his character, and his mental state. An overweight person usually draws a person like this: big head, small body, sticks instead of arms, and legs. Why?
– The body is not important to him.
– Moreover, a body is almost absent in the picture. If we cherish and appreciate something in our life, do we pay attention to it?
– Sure.
– This picture demonstrates that the person doesn’t pay attention to his body. Over the years of counseling, I met many people who hate their fat bodies. They even become aggressive against their bodies.
A person sits in front of a psychologist, crying, shaking his tummy with his hands. He says: “Look at my leg! It’s disgusting!”
His mind lives a life of its own. It has nothing to do with the fat body as if it was not his decision to make it fat and maintain this condition. The lousy body has only itself to blame.
– And some circumstances.
– Yes. It just happened, the body gained four pounds again.
As they say: “My weight has become heavier.” Of course, the body is growing bigger and bigger on its own.
– ☺
– “What? You’ve gained another ten pounds, my lousy body? I’m done. I’ll stick the needles into you and stuff you with medicines. Gained twenty pounds? OK, I’ll take you to a surgeon, and he will cut off pieces from you!”
– It’s no good.
– But the head considers it to be a great solution. There is no harmony. Head and body live separately from each other. They have a relationship similar to relationship of whom?
– Enemies.
– Enemies or who else? Head constantly berates body, browbeats it…
– Boss and subordinate.
– Precisely, boss and subordinate. Besides, the head is a very sophisticated boss. Smart. Well-educated. As for the body, it’s the worst subordinate you’ve ever met. A stupid, defective person. A walking disaster.
Then this type of relationship transforms into the relationship of… Whom? What other types of relationship between head and body can you imagine? If it’s not “Boss vs subordinate”, then… Give me more constructive versions.
– Parents.
– A parent and a child. Yes. Mom loves her daughter even if she is not perfect, right?
– Yes.
– Agree? Even when her daughter is nasty, when she is coughing, when her hair is filthy. Mom still loves her child even when she returned home too late with a broken knee and cut finger, dirty from head to toe. Mom still loves her. Right?
– Of course.
– Mom loves her anyway.
Head loves its body too: “You have to lose some weight, and then I’ll take you to the beach.” Body: “I want to the beach now!”
– ☺
– “Have you seen yourself in the mirror? At first, you have to lose at least thirty pounds. Then you can go there.” Body: “I want to the swimming pool!” Head: “All people there look like Belvedere Apollo and Aphrodite. And when you jump into the water, it will overflow over the edge! Besides, you’ll have to experience five meters of shame from the pool to the changing room and back. No. No swimming pool for you!” Body: “I want it. And I want to be loved and cherished!” Head: “What are you talking about?! Drop forty pounds, massage, fitness, cosmetology, and then you’ll get some love! Maybe.” That’s how the conversation goes.
– ☺
– The person gets less pleasure and joy. The only source of comfort is excessive food. So, the body eats more and more!
Meanwhile, the head keeps saying: “Genes?! Forget it.
We’ll cut them off too.”
That’s how it goes.
As soon as we’ve got a “devoted mother and daughter” relationship or “a loving mother and son” relationship, and then the care that we were talking about before occurs.
Let’s do an exercise to move towards this desired model. Actually, we won’t do it. You will write it down and then do it at home. Please, use a blank sheet allocated for homework. You have to hole up tonight or tomorrow morning. I guess the bathroom is the best choice, as no one will bother you there, and there is a latch on the door.
– Take a tub…
– No!
– ☺
– Take your clothes off and look at your naked body. Those parts of the body that cause intense negative emotions or even some kind of rejection, resentment, these particular parts of your body need kind words and tender touches.
If it’s a leg, then touch your leg. If it’s your tummy, then touch your tummy. Touch them tenderly and say a few kind words: “My dear leg, we are recovering. There is a beautiful slim leg inside of you…”
You know that it is still there, right?
– ☺
– OK. Some people tell me: “I can’t tell my leg anything good.” There is a slim beautiful leg inside. You are slim people. But your beautiful bodies are hiding inside of you. Look, there are bones, muscles, internals, skin. You have everything you need for a harmonious life.
A certain amount of excess fat tissue conceals some parts of your slim body.
We will part with this extra fatty tissue step by step during our session. Soon your slim body that is hiding inside of you now will appear again!
Olga Vladimirovna Tsyganova, 28, economist, lost 110 lbs A funny story has just come into my mind. My mother always believed that I was pretty, but she said that I had no neck. In her opinion, my head ran straight into my shoulders. I disagreed:
“Look, Mom, here it is. I do have a neck!” Then, after the session, I got slimmer and slimmer. One day Mom told me: “Olga, I’ve just noticed that you have such a beautiful neck. You have to open it!”
I had been chunky since I was a child. I could only guess what was hiding under the accursed fat step by step, I got to know myself, I began to learn about myself and my body. I can’t say that I am absolutely pleased with the result, but when I look in the mirror, look at my “before” and “after” photos – I am still amazed at the changes that have occurred in me.
It’s a wonderful life.
Group session of psychologist
Artyom Andreyevich Ovechkin:
– Then say yourself: “My body is slim, it’s getting healthier every day. Nice tummy, perhaps you’ll be half an inch smaller in four days. I’ll follow all the recommendations!” And the body responds with gratitude. A woman told me recently: “I holed up, started to say something good to myself. I was touching myself kindly, saying good words to my body, and suddenly tears ran down my face… I guess I wept for half an hour.” I asked her: “What did you feel?” She replied: “I felt so sorry for myself! I had been treating myself like trash. And then I finally understood that I am good!”
You have to do these exercises. It will be interesting and useful. Tomorrow I will ask you about the results. I will not ask about the details. I will just ask whether you did it or not, whether you were able to say kind words to your body and touch it with love or not.