Weighty Issues PLUS Hayfever!

As we pick up the session from part one, we are continuing our perfect weight control session where the client realises that by reading about hayfever in a magazine, she unconsciously created the condition within herself. She continues.

Gosh no, I had it for a few years and it was just an itchy pallet and I didn’t know that that was a symptom of hayfever and it wasn’t until I read it in a magazine that the symptoms fully developed.  AND they DID! 

Yes, Gosh, don’t!  

Well, if you ever want that addressed we’ll do that for you! (laughter) Though I suspect you’ll be doing that for yourself now. 

The first time I treated someone for that was when I was doing a seminar in a hotel and I thought the girl on reception was upset. She explained it was hayfever and I found myself saying, ‘have you always had that then?’ Anyway, I brought her into the course when she was able to get cover and, in front of a large audience, I did this hayfever treatment with her and from her eyes being really puffy and her nose running etc within a couple of hours there were no symptoms and it was fantastic. 

I just tell you that for your unconscious to play with, because you reading that women’s magazine is a little like reading a book on illnesses isn’t it? You begin to feel, with some relief it must be said, that you must indeed have some lurgy that explains all of your symptoms until you read that it is confined only to the pygmy population in outer Mongolia or something like that!   

Some people who have discovered they have high blood pressure may have had certain stresses at that time that elevated it beyond the norm, though chances are that as soon as someone says, ‘oh your blood pressure’s a little high’ that it will be high again the next time it is taken in those same circumstances because of the ‘anchoring’ effect.     

Introducing ‘anchoring’ here is useful for later therapy.    

I had preclampsia when I was pregnant and it changed minute by minute!  

I said the following:  Your body is in a constant state of flux. Watch anything at all about the physicality of the human body on one of these brilliant tv documentaries and you can become completely enamoured by its intelligence.  Get a scratch on the back of your hand one day and you may notice it and say, ‘oh look there’s a scratch on the back of my hand I wonder how that got there’ and with total confidence you will know that within days it will have healed completely and almost disappeared.  

In fact, we can take this innate healing so much for granted that someone else usually comments on it when they notice the improvement. If you have any minor damage to any part of the body that is not debilitating you have expected it to go quickly and before you are aware of it, it has gone. When you bring your attention to something it sensitises it. So when you bring your attention to your hayfever (sneeze!) the symptoms would get worse before they get better.    

Your body constantly recreates itself! You know it is marvellous, as soon as that scratch on the hand is acknowledged, the cells start dividing, the blood supply is increased in that area, you know even now you are making bone? How do you make bone? Do you really need to know?  It’s a miracle isn’t it?  You kind of accept that miracle more readily when you are pregnant don’t you? You are aware of the fact that you are actually growing a human being and when your baby is born you think, wow, did I do that, how did that happen then! (laughter). 

Though every day is a miracle, your hair is growing, your nails are growing, your body is constantly in a state of flux. And knowing that to be true, there is no reason why a particular method of eating or even exercise would work in the same way for you your whole life through. 

You know sometimes some method will work beautifully for you for a certain amount of time and years later you put the same method into operation saying to yourself, ‘I know exactly what to do to lose weight’ and it doesn’t work. Your body and your mind is always evolving, changing and it may be a simple fact that you deprived yourself so readily and expertly last time and was so entirely miserable in the process, that your unconscious mind will now do all that it can to prevent it happening again!  Maybe you were more resilient then and could distract yourself more from the discomfort, maybe deep down you would like to be happier than you were then and if happiness was once equated with being free to eat what you like and particularly those choccies and sweets then you can work out the rest. So we need to find out now what will be the most helpful for you at this stage in your life.  

Right.     

More details taken now, about job, GP and medication. Conversation follows about wanting to come off some medication originally prescribed for depression years ago, and her now imagining she would become anxious, should she decrease the dosage as recommended by her doctor. I state that being depressed and being anxious are two different states and it is impossible to experience two opposing states at the same time.

She continued. You know, I have had some terrible things happen to me over the last eight years and the times I have been to the doctors about depression it has always been to do with my weight. Like ‘I can’t go on like this’. Always to do with my weight.  

I said. You know if we were being filmed, some therapists would be saying, ‘why is she going into a discussion about something else rather than focussing on what the client came for, her weight issues?’ and yet you have just proved the validity of doing just that as you have now connected the depression and anxiety to your weight issues without me having to say anything.   It is far more important than people think you know, weight issues, particularly with a lady. Although we might want to be perceived by the outside world as an intellectual being, as a personality etc, the first thing any stranger notices about us is our physical self…  And it is the first thing we notice about other people.   

  

These comments are offered to judge responses to how important client perceives the presentation of one’s physical self to be, as judgements of others are reflected in the harsh judgments of self. Access and treat one and usually, the other is positively affected too.    

We know this, because this is how we ourselves judge the world. We get to know somebody and then perhaps think they are not as bad as we at first thought and put our judgments to one side, eventually. 

We cannot escape the absolute truth that for our own survival and for our own sanity, we have to make these snap judgments and pigeon hole people before we know how to respond to them. Our own perceptions of how we relate to a ‘fat person’ and what we perceive about their lifestyle are important; is fat this, is fat that, is fat happy, is fat a Dawn French happy? 

We then overlay that as soon as we meet another, as if we put ourselves in their position, judging ourselves in the way that we would judge others and that leads to our lack of confidence. And then some others may completely overcompensate and the confidence that they are trying to construct makes them appear arrogant. It is a male/female divide, and also a cultural one, I have seen men in Greece stroking their bellies to attract favourable attention, as if to say, I am so rich and powerful I can afford all of this food and rich living and if you are lucky today, I might share it with you! (laughter)  

Different cultures perceive the idea of ‘fat’ in different ways. Though I would imagine, and it is for you to tell me, that you don’t perceive the idea of fat in a good light.  

I will think negatively about someone who is overweight and then chastise myself for thinking that way because how can I make that judgement when I am overweight? Maybe it is because I didn’t have a weight problem until my thirties and so I still perceive myself as slim. Though in saying that, my very best friend my whole life has always been very overweight and I love her to bits and I have never thought badly of her.   

So you realise now you are fighting against the perceptions of yourself rather than of other people. Perhaps if fat means lazy then you could be trying to prove to the world that you are not lazy, though proving that mostly to yourself. (nods of confirmation).   

She continued. Yes, as the weight came on I know now that I was desperate to appear to be more active and I joined a gym and all sorts. I can see what you mean about that.  

I said that ultimately it is how we perceive ourselves which can be our most supportive ally or it could be our saboteur too.  

She said that so, you asked me about parents and my mom has always had a thing about weight. 

She is always making comments to me and I think that plays a part doesn’t it?    

In filling out the client form, there was a section about parents, whether they were alive or dead.

Some clients cloak trauma to themselves by measuring time in different ways. For example, saying their father died when they were ten years old. Then, later, when asked when a particular problem first occurred, the client will say it began in such and such a year, or so and so years ago, which exactly coincides with them being ten years old.

I had only asked fleetingly whether the parents were still alive and yet some time later, the unconscious brings the mother into the therapy as relevant. This is why all questions on your client form are useful.    

Yes. 

What comments does she make I asked.

Oh God, it can range from, if I have a biscuit at her house she will say ‘I thought you were on a diet’. Though if I am ‘being good’ she will be the first to keep offering me ‘bad’ foods. And if I refer to seeing a cousin of mine the other day she will say something like, ‘oh and she has put on a lot of weight as well hasn’t she?’ I would think ‘why would you say that?’ Her conversation is littered with comments such as that.     

Notice again the references my client makes to being good and bad which indicate that eating ‘bad’ foods is perceived as naughty, exciting even, or rebelling against mom, exerting her own power.      

I then continued. What is the most hurtful?  

She said once that I looked a mess.  

Is a mess to do with weight or hair?  I asked.

She didn’t say so but I knew it was to do with my weight. She said ‘just look at you, you’re just a mess’ and it really upset me.  Yes  Especially as, I suppose, I consider myself to be quite stylish, I have always liked to wear make up and, you know, from time to time I have let myself go. I would never dream of saying something like that to my mom.  

I continued. Let’s give you an example here to illustrate what I would like to say next.  Let’s say there is a lady outside of the front of this building now and from our point of view there is no way she needs to worry about her weight, we would look at her and would think, wouldn’t it be great to look like that, she looks fantastic. And there is an eight year old boy on a skateboard not paying any attention to where he is going. Suddenly he crashes into this lady.  She is stunned and he picks up his skateboard and shouts ‘fat cow!’ as he disappears down the street. Now, she would probably, (stereo-types here) get upset. Maybe not there and then, though maybe when she gets home, or she might ring up a friend and tell them all about it. Perhaps just before she goes to sleep tonight she sheds a few tears. It would perhaps affect her adversely.  

You see, insults only upset us if ....   Read Part 4 to learn how insults upset us and what we can do to stop it!