Youβll hear therapists talking about your conscious mind and your subconscious mind.
Your conscious mind is your objective or thinking mind. Its job is to identify, compare and analyse everything going on in the present moment.
The basic function of your subconscious mind is storage and retrieval of data. Its job is to ensure that you respond exactly the way you are programmed. Your subconscious mind tries to make everything you say and do fit into a consistent pattern.
Your subconscious βinnerβ mindβs job is to keep you alive, keep you safe, to move you away from pain and towards pleasure. This part of your mindβs job is to protect you at all costs. This backfires in some cases because the subconscious cannot determine which behaviours are βactuallyβ good for your and which ones just βfeelβ good to you.
If youβre stuck in a cycle of destructive behaviour, letβs say comfort-eating, and you believe this behaviour is actually helping you to cope or make you feel better, your subconscious will endlessly repeat this behaviour.
So what can I do?
Hereβs the good newsβ¦ You have a choice. You can choose what to link pain and pleasure to and this means that you CAN change the pattern itself.
The first thing youβre going to have to do is to change your belief to βNothing tastes as good as being slim feelsβ. Or more accurately that being slimmer gives you βpleasureβ and is worth the effort and hard work to achieve and that any form of destructive eating is a βpainβ and should be avoided at all costs.
Give it a goβ¦
Can you link βpleasureβ to being slimmer and feeling healthier?
By repetitively giving the chocolates, crisps and other vices a miss and instructing yourself that eating healthier is a reward for your body you will start to create change within the subconscious βstorageβ of that belief.
Making the right choices, even in small steps at first, is going to make permanent weight loss instantly more achievable.
