I had a fantastic conversation with a friend Pam who has been overweight all of her adult life, tried everything to lose it as well, without success. She has tried everything on her weight loss journey. She loves to exercise, drinks lots of water, is into alternative health and the Law of Attraction, is active, fun loving, gets out lots. But still this is the one thing that has niggled her and her whole family actually, all their lives.
Then she read my book.
Something in it she said, just resonated with her and she has started to lose weight. Six kgs (13lbs) in fact in about four weeks so far, so this is thrilling beyond belief for me and you would imagine for her as well.
However interspersed in the joyous conversation of how great this all was, I clearly heard these statements…
“But I have way more to lose.”
And I said “yes however isn’t it just amazing that after all this time, without doing much at all and just changing tiny things, finally it is starting to work.”
She said, “yes but I seem to have stopped losing just at the moment.”
And I replied again “maybe, but it’s only been four weeks and losing that much in such as short amount of time is not the goal, we want to get you to be goal weight forever and if it takes a year to do it, so what, the best part is you would never have to worry about it again.”
“True,” she said.
Now Pam is a student of Law of Attraction too, the basic premise being that what you focus on you attract. She has all the CD’s and listens to them constantly. I think she even introduced me to Esther Hicks who is the guru of all things L of A. However isn’t it interesting the difference between knowing the theory and actually applying it in your own life?
Esther Hicks talks about Upstream and Downstream; the theory goes that everything you want in your life is downstream and you can float along letting the current take you – meaning you take inspired action that you love to do – or you can try and paddle upstream against the current, fighting it every step of the way, thinking you have to ‘try hard’ to make things happen. Just making it harder on yourself.
So I said to Pam, who is well aware of this theory, “you realise the comments you just made are upstream right?” She said, “oh no, yes they are, I’m going to have to stop that!!”
So here are some statements she could be saying instead:-
“This is so great, I am on my way.”
“It is just so fantastic that I have lost 6kgs already.”
“I can’t believe how easy this is, when you know the steps to take.”
“I will have to buy new clothes because soon the others won’t fit. Yahoo!”
“It will be so much easier to move around and do things.”
“Can’t wait to make the Chocolate Tweets and try those.”
“My clothes are getting looser already!”
See how much better they sound and encourage you on your weight loss journey?
So I wonder why we do this to ourselves and put the breaks on more fabulous things happening? I know I do the same about all sorts of different things, and now that I am more aware of it, I catch myself and stop it by changing the thought and focusing on something I love.
Is it trying to be modest? Is it protecting ourselves in case it doesn’t work out? Or are we just not used to celebrating our little wins and basking in that glory for as long as we can, so that it attracts more to us?
Not sure, but it is really, really fascinating. Do yourself a favour though and become your own best friend, would you say those limiting things to a friend? I hope not! Not likely, more likely you would be really encouraging, that is if you like that friend!
So next time you are thinking about something say to yourself, “is that statement upstream? Am I making it harder for myself?” If it is, then switch it, so you sail downstream on your weight loss journey.
And they say weight loss is all about food and exercise – pffft! It is way, way more than that!
Positive self-talk ahoy!
Kristy x
