The Power of the Mind

I recently underwent a hypnosis session to assist me with my weight loss goals. For all my longing and desperation to lose weight, I do not want to start one of the popular diets that have me eating 500 calories a day, injecting myself with hormones, or eliminating all carbs. I've tried that before and, while it worked for a bit, ultimately I couldn't continue and I reverted to my old habits.

While hypnosis isn't a magic wand, I am certainly open to the possibility. The mind is very powerful, as are our thoughts. Thinking negative thoughts invites negativity and discord into our lives, just as positive thinking will invite positive experiences and happiness. That's not to say that if we always think positive that nothing bad or challenging will ever happen. This is life. It's not perfect. Challenges and pain and sorrow are part of the journey. But it is how we think about and deal with everyday life that determines whether our journey is pleasant and fruitful, or wrought with peril and sadness.

I am choosing the positive. For a little over a month I've been working on banishing negative thoughts, especially about my body, and replacing them with positive, nourishing thoughts. And it's working. I can feel it in the way I approach my day, in the way I always have a little smile on my face, in the way I feel about food. The hypnotherapy is another tool that seems to be working so far. Little changes are manifesting themselves in my life: my craving for healthier foods, my lack of desire to snack or eat out or consume junk food. I also want to exercise and am able to overcome the little excuses I come up with for not.

This all adds up to losing 3.5 pounds in the last 5 days. And that makes me happy. Happy that I am taking control of the issue. Happy that I am seeing positive changes. Happy that I am heading down a path to becoming my ideal self. And amidst this, I am working on my other issues that perhaps had me gaining weight in the first place. My struggle with weight has truly been all mental and emotional, as I think most people's must be. By learning to rethink my relationship with food, to become aware of my body, I am taking back control.

There is a list of things in my mind that I would do if I was slender enough, fit enough. Those things have now become awards for me along my journey. I'm not there yet. I still, to a degree, think I will feel better, love myself more, when I reach my goal weight. Little steps. Learning to love me, in the here and now, is what I am working on. As I do that, the weight, and the reasons for it, will melt away.

It is not perfection. It is hope.