Healing and Hypnotherapy Volume 2, Special Mega Annual Issue, 15 June 2018 | Page 36

Food is a Reward: When a child does what is expected of him/her,
very often the child gets rewarded with chocolates, chips, burgers, soft
drinks, ice-cream, cakes, pizza or being taken to the child’s favourite
restaurant. This association continues to run unconsciously throughout
your adult life.
These associations create ‘patterns’ which play out automatically without
our conscious awareness. For someone wanting to lose weight, these
‘patterns’ of unhealthy eating behaviors most often lead to regret and
guilt which makes us feel frustrated and we give up! Hence, reinforcing
the subconscious limiting belief that losing weight is difficult.
With hypnosis, these “old” associations can be re-evaluated and the
subconscious mind can relearn new beneficial associations; such as
food is not love and food does not love you, food is for nourishment and
energy, our body thrives on real food and not on manufactured “edible”
products which are not real food.
BELIEFS
The subconscious holds all our beliefs. Beliefs are what we believe to be
true for us. Once a belief is held firmly in the subconscious mind, our
outer reality will always be a match to our beliefs. Many of our limiting
beliefs are unconscious and were formed in childhood. These limiting
beliefs were created based upon the child’s level of understanding and
not based upon logic and reasoning.
If we were rejected, abandoned, physically or emotionally abused in our
childhood, we form limiting beliefs about ourselves and the world around
us. We may feel unlovable, unworthy and undeserving. Our limiting
beliefs work unconsciously to create uncomfortable feelings within us,
such as anger, guilt, shame, sadness, fear, insecurity and self-doubt
which triggers emotional eating. Emotional eating is eating not in
response to physical hunger but eating to cope with the uncomfortable
feelings or to suppress the feelings.