I am… Lies I Told Myself and Others

I am fat.

I am an emotional eater.

I am a sugar addict.

I wrote a 7 page long list of beliefs and identities (everything you say starting with ‘I Am’ is an identity you hold or embody), and I burned it. That was a week ago. And I am still finding more beliefs and identities I hold. I find that quite unbelievable how a person can hold so many beliefs about herself, that are holding her back.

I have tried for decades to lose weight, quit sugar, follow a strict eating regime,….. add on whatever you feel like (fasting, exercise regime, wonderpill, affirmations, hypnosis) and I have probably tried it and failed at it.

I even got to understand why I was overweight/fat. That added other identities to my long list: I am a trauma survivor, I am a survivor of abuse, I am a person with CPTSD……

I did not understand at the time maybe 20 years ago when I tried my first hypnotherapy session for weight loss, why I tensed up more and more in that chair until I started screaming and the therapist said that I was not ready and sent me home (and I still had to pay an enormous amount for that session).

What I now know after bingewatching Chase Hughes videos, is that scripts from earliest childhood or even inherited from your ancestors run your behavior. Secondly that lasting change is impossible without changing the scripts, the labels you attach to yourself and that make your identity. And thirdly that changing these scripts can put you in survival mode as your identity is threatened. The survival mode leads to instinctual responses and automatic reactions rather than thoughtful choices.

This is why sometimes you do not even realise that you are doing what you are doing (for example eating a whole tub of ice cream) until you have done it and ‘wake up’ or ‘come out of that trance’.

So, just changing the labels of your identity by reciting new affirmations does not work most of the time, as we have not dealt with the survival mode yet.

I am just figuring out which steps are really needed for myself.

Step 1. I have acknowledged them as beliefs and not the truth.

Step 2. I have writen them down, first as ‘I am …’, then changed into “I used to be…’ which I now realise might even be better as ‘I used to feel …’

Step 3. I burned each piece of paper with a belief while saying ‘I now release this belief I used to have about myself’

Step 4. I thanked god/my spirit team/guardian angel/source/ for their support in releasing those beliefs and identities and for support in crafting a healthier one.

Step 5. I started crafting a new identity around how I would like to be and behave.

Step 6. Every morning with my first coffee I recite the labels of my new identity and ask my spirit team to integrate them deeper and deeper into my energy field. When one feels off I modify it. When I feel I need one more I add it. I am flexible here.

This is as far as I have come. I am sure there are more steps coming, or not, who knows. So far I already feel much lighter, a big chunk of a heavy burden has lifted already. My behaviour has also started to change, although on purpose I do not want to follow an eating or exercise or whatever regime, that would just cause stress and cortisol spikes. I want to let myself change or develop naturally. One part of my new identity is “I am a person who nourishes here body, mind and spirit with healthy, loving, soulful food’ and currently I notice that I crave orange and green food and I trust myself that this is what I need just now.

If there is anyone out there who struggled their whole lifetime, or at least several decades, with being severely overweight and ashamed because of it, please get in contact. We could support each other. I would love to hear from you.