Real Clients - more!

We are continuing our weight control client session begun in the previous article.

You will continue to do that which you want but that which you want is changing.

I now hand over to you and ask what it is that you would like to be different now when you leave here today and as I ask that I am asking the question of your unconscious mind which is listening to me now, it is the part of you that is blinking your eyes, to stop your eyes drying out, it pumps the blood around the body and we are not always aware of what it does for us

I have given the command that ‘after this session, any addictions will just go’. I have offered the support of the cd to help between sessions too. Notice, also, I begin with the idea of asking the client what they would like to change, though, because this is so important and I want an unconscious response, I ‘leave it hanging’ awaiting completion, without the need for an answer to be offered right now. I follow with an explanation of the unconscious mind to acknowledge and honour it within the client, to request its contribution.

The unconscious mind is completely in charge when you are fast asleep in bed at night. When you wake up in the morning, it is as if in that waking you get a download of information, of consciousness, as you become aware of where you are, who you are, who you are with (laughter). At that moment as you are waking, and many people wake up just before the alarm (nod of confirmation) … you may be wondering what the time is and there is a remnant of a dream somewhere, you know who you are, your name etc and that is your consciousness coming back in That does not mean that the unconsciousness goes somewhere when you are awake, it has far too many tasks to do for you like that blinking that you are doing as we said before.

Your conscious mind certainly goes somewhere when you sleep, as we can tell now by all kinds of equipment measuring brain wave activity, though your unconscious remains. It stays with you the whole time. It still tries to tell you about that dream during the day when you are far too busy to listen! (confirmation and laughter).

Oh yes, I know. I’ve just had a new car and I keep having dreams about it.

Really?

When you get an offering from the unconscious mind of the client, it is a gift, use it. Many therapists I know will throw away comments like this, wanting to get back on track to the weight issue, rather than explore the seemingly unrelated unconscious contributions. This is confirmation that the unconscious is communicating into conscious awareness, and the client feels safe enough to tell you their dreams. You often find some useful connections here.

It’s driving me mad. You know when you can’t quite grab a hold of the dream? I think I have been thinking of the same one for days. I can’t get it out of my head.

What remnant of the dream remains?

It was about the car and I have a feeling that something bad was happening to it. (laughter) I can feel that sort of atmosphere of the dream but that’s it. I love dreams.

You will know that the car represents something important to you.

It was very unexpected. It was a gift. I was driving around in a tatty car beforehand..

So the car was unexpected and precious? You may worry about something untoward happening to it? Now this is about what the dream means to you, not what you would read about in a dream dictionary. Maybe that car represents a fear of loss, it’s so nice you don’t want it to lose it. Quite often, by the way, clients contact us wanting to lose weight and I find that word ‘lose’ to be a very interesting word.

I could lecture for hours about this, though basically we are programmed in this country particularly to think in terms of ‘losing’ weight. This programming is often intentional by the providers of food substitutes or the diet industry at large because big business corporations certainly have access to the latest research on the workings of the human mind. When we lose something, if you think of anything that you have lost in the past, it always has negative associations. If you lose your keys, or lose a loved one, or even lose consciousness! If you lose anything at all you put yourself in a bad mood, which you may chose to change by eating to make yourself feel better.

That reminds me of a book I read once about stopping smoking which said ‘don’t ever say you are giving up because you make yourself think you are depriving yourself’.

Yes, because physically, by depriving yourself, you lose energy, you feel vulnerable, helpless and hey, says the adverts, we’ve got this product that will really help! Not only does it put your unconscious mind in a bad mood, your unconscious mind will do everything that it can in order to go and find it again.

That is because losing your keys, losing your memory, losing your way: its duty, when you lose something, is to go and find it.

All those well meaning individuals who run the diet clubs and give all the advice on losing weight are most usually innocent of the fact that the industry is employing psychologists and others to promote feelings of dissatisfaction in dieting endeavours so that the high priced product is bought. And if they worked, by the way, long term, these organisations would be out of business.

So part of what I want to tell you is that although we live consciously and we are mostly in charge and in control of our faculties etc, unconsciously we are being programmed all the time. Programming takes place in the big supermarket, whilst watching television (as the sound now goes up dramatically when the adverts come on), when engaging in everyday conversation with other women (usually) and within the conversations taking place in our own head to try and make sense of it all.

So, when you are watching the film which is full of quiet suspense and subtlety, when you are looking for the tiny eye movement or increased tension in the jaw of the actor to determine whether he has committed the crime or not as he is defending his life, then comes the commercial break and ‘Scrub it and BANG!’ fills your senses followed by the oh so sensual ‘this isn’t just chocolate…..’

I get so cross at adverts that shout at me!

And if they don’t shout they will employ some powerful visual to get your attention. You will catch yourself now, because as soon as you are introduced to these concepts you go, ‘oooh’ it may be days, hours or weeks and you will see right through them. Commercials are designed, when you think about it, to put you into a somewhat negative state, to create the need within you and then the answer is here ‘ding’!

This is to tell the unconscious mind, mainly, that ‘it is not your fault, you have been programmed’. Also, it is to gear up the defences of that part of the mind to make it more resilient to such effects in the future.

There is a lot of information to take in here though it is going to more useful if it is tailored to you specifically. Though there are commonalities within all of our experiences, and in allowing your awareness to expand you can laugh at these things and you are no longer affected by them in the same way. The more inner work you do the more resistant you are against it.. you will not become a born again advert protester, though to begin with they will irritate you, when you begin to laugh at them you realise you are not going to be taken in any more.

Now I am taking personal details, name address, date of birth etc, filling in client form.

And you heard about us just by walking past?

Yes, you know I have walked past the front of this building for years and suddenly, as I say, something just made me look.

Isn’t it strange? You know we like to think that the unconscious mind only seriously addresses these kinds of issues when it is ready. Now’s the time. Well done.

More personal information volunteered now, and has small child that she is concerned does not adopt unhelpful eating patterns from her.

At school, what was the subject you were most interested in?

Literature and Art

Did that mean by any chance that you were not particularly interested in Maths?

(sharp intake of breath) I HATED Maths! No didn’t like Maths at all. I was terrible at Maths.

It usually follows!

Yes, my ex, brilliant at Maths, but no imagination at all!

You know, it’s almost as though we somehow want to learn what it would be like to experience that which is totally different from ourselves on occasion and we engage with that through our partner isn’t it?

Can I just grab a tissue here Jennie because I forgot to have my hayfever tablet this morning.

Oh, so even though it is damp outside today you are affected?

Oh yes.

Were you born with that or did it develop?

Just can’t help myself here, allergies are dealt with so quickly, it is an opportunity to point out to the unconscious mind it may be time to take its power back and be free of this too.

It developed in my early twenties.

Do you know what happened at the time, what was significant in your life back when it began?

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 (to be continued in the next part).