Dieting Stifles Creativity – Hypnosis to End Self Expression Through Eating

Emotional eating habits that
keep us overweight with the subconscious programming
that causes us to stuff our feelings with food. In this
article, we will explore another common pattern among
overweight people: the use of food to substitute for
creative expression. Abraham Maslow, one of the founders of
humanistic psychology, is often credited with describing
creativity as a basic human need comparable to the needs for
food and shelter, in his theory of the hierarchy of needs.
Although his theory remains controversial, I have experienced
with many clients that this need appears to be very real.
Children, we notice, are constantly involved, if given the
opportunity, in creative play. We adults, however, have
frequently learned to suppress our creative instincts, and
all too often, to substitute eating for creativity. Here’s a
questionnaire to determine if this is a pattern you or a
friend has experienced.

• Do you find yourself eating out of sheer boredom?

• Do you watch two or more hours of television per day?

• Do you lack an exciting hobby or creative interest?

• Do you put down your occasional experiments in creative
expression as amateurish or a waste of time?

• Do you often eat snacks while reading or watching
television when you are not truly hungry?

If you answered any of these questions in the affirmative
then you may suffer this type of programming. Chances are
that this programming began in childhood, when our
caregivers, instead of encouraging our creativity, suppressed
this essential self-expression with harsh criticism, neglect,
or even ridicule. While these experiences may have long ago
passed out of our conscious recollection, the subconscious
mind does not forget. So these programs can continue to
strangle our creativity throughout our lives.

The solution? Through hypnosis therapy we can use simple
instructions to access these memories in the subconscious
mind and rescue the child from these events. Then we provide
that inner child with new experiences of being loved and
supported for their creative expression by an inner family or
by the client’s adult self.

For example, Bob finds eating in front of the television in
the early evening a bad eating habit he wishes to change. He
can’t remember ever having a hobby. We descend in a light
trance to the first time his creativity was made wrong. He
discovers a memory in which as a small boy he is ridiculed by
some neighborhood boys for his drawings, which they label as
“silly and girlish.” Feeling intensely ashamed, he
determines to stifle these expressions. Our first task is to
rescue this boy from these boys and let his adult self and
the therapist assure him that his drawing ability is a
wonderful gift. We then insert the counter-programming
suggestion that his drawings are an expression of his
“manliness and courage.” This will help erase the core belief
implanted by these boys.

Next we take his drawings to his parents in hopes of winning
their approval for his art. I ask if his parents would like
to hang his pictures on the fridge. Their response is cool,
since mother is obsessed with her own pain and dad is a
“busy” alcoholic. In this case, my client took great
pleasure in firing his father. Then he addressed his mother
with a tearful appeal for her support, before realizing that
she would have to be retired and replaced with his adult
self. These intensely emotional confrontations with parental
figures is often unpleasant for my clients but is essential
in helping the inner child to disengage from the need for
parental approval, and to help the child bond to the adult
self, and, where necessary, to new inner parents.

Then I encouraged Bob’s adult self to access this child
through gentle self hypnosis techniques for a few minutes in
the early evening and create some drawings. I greatly
increased our chances of success by encouraging him to buy
brightly colored magic markers and quality pens, pencils, and
drawing paper. We also determined what room in the house is
best for some quiet and undisturbed creativity. I then
instructed his adult self to enjoy this creative activity,
which he will find so much more exciting than the television,
while praising his inner child for the effort. This is not
the time for a critical evaluation, but for warm
encouragement. I instructed him to bring one of his drawings
to me, and to hang all of them on his frig at home. Soon his
television watching was down by more than half, and so were
the eating patterns.

Of course, we need to remind clients over and over that
producing a Van Gogh is not the goal of the process. Nor do
we use the oft-repeated mantra “practice makes perfect” which
has destroyed thousands of creative inspirations in my
opinion. The real goal is feeling good while expressing
one’s creative instincts. To the extent that the client’s
friends and family can be enrolled in support of this
creative expression, we encourage this involvement. But the
client’s adult self is the primary resource for this process.

For some clients whose belief system includes reincarnation,
we can journey back to a past life in which the client was
engaged in a specific creative activity which is of interest
to the client. After accessing a creative ability which the
client is ready to bring forward, we can enter these
abilities into the body of the client for instant access.
Some of the abilities brought forward include piano playing,
dance, art, even leadership skills and public speaking. Of
course there is no substitute for practicing these abilities,
and classes in creativity are also to be encouraged. But
this process makes it much easier and more fun to develop
these abilities with a minimum of drills and lessons.
Obviously, the development of these creative abilities does
far more for my clients than simply altering their eating
habits. These gifts enrich lives at every level.

This outlines some of the ways we can solve the problem of emotional eating habits. While there are
many sources of destructive emotional eating habits besides
those mentioned here, the vast majority of my clients in 25
years of experience in hypnotherapy have some problem with
infantile eating, stuffing feelings with food, and
suppressing creativity.

We hypnotists do not offer a magic bullet, a simple pill to
cause weight to fall off. All of our methods should be used
in conjunction with a well informed plan for diet and
exercise, hopefully with the guidance of a medical doctor or
other health professional. These hypnotic techniques can
however, make the difference between a lifetime of dieting
and weight obsession and having lifelong healthy eating and
living habits which can allow your life to be about many
things…but not about controlling your appetite and your
eating. Good luck on your journey.

About Alchemy Institute of Hypnosis: We offer a list of
hypnotherapists in your area. Our website also offers an
extensive library of information about hypnotherapy. This
includes articles on weight loss. If you are interested in
further explorations of this topic, or would like a copy of
the other articles in the series, or perhaps are interested
in making changes in your life through the techniques of
weight loss described here, call our office at 1-800-950-4984
or visit our website at http://www.alchemyinstitute.com/Weight-Loss/.

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