#34: Let It Go!

Reasons or

Results! 

Fitness Nutrition Training

Sovereign Michael Valentine

SPN, CFT, Eft, Yft, Cft, SSc, SSF, GFI, CMCht, CERT, Reiki Master

206.225.9647

email: sovereignmv@gmail.com

web: bnbbs.myshaklee.com

Special Report #34

Part of the

“I see you to succeeding"

series.

...for your own sake, LET IT GO!

When you tell your story about why things are the way they are, and why you are where you are in life and so on, you want to determine whether you are trying to elicit help and solve a solvable problem or just trying to vent, gain attention, gain sympathy and extract energy from those around you as a distraction to getting present and doing the work you need to do to get yourself on track in life. This requires listening to what you are saying and [sleuthing your intention] for talking. 

As more and more of the population realizes their "weight problem" is actually a "lifestyle problem" and as personal trainers evolve as professionals and refine their ability to help people get the results they want more efficiently, they begin to "notice things that were there [outside their awareness] all along".

Many trainers get into the fitness industry hoping to get rich quick. The majority don't last long when they realize they have to use their mind and work really hard to help people and build a satisfied clientele. 

The old saying, "Too close to the forest to see the trees", certainly holds true in personal training. This is especially true in regard to weight loss. RARELY is the initial (first) reason(s) the client gives for their being over weight or obese and unhealthy the real reason(s) for the client's un-fitness.  It can take two, three or more months to simply find the underlying 'bus driver' or strategy or motivation of getting so dangerously uncomfortable & unhealthy in their skin  ...not to mention how to acknowledge and surpass the underlying driver of excess fat and disrepair. 

Personally, I've been mapping the process for more than three decades. Even when I'm not actually getting paid by the hour per se, I'm actively working on defining the variations in the structure of people getting so unfit and unhealthy they can't stand themselves, let alone the discomfort they are in. Much of the population is experiencing the debilitating affects of excess fat on the body and its physiological systems...yet, at least in the beginning, they can't seem to stop themselves from doing more of what is causing the discomfort to begin with! 

In fact, often one motivator for the behavior is the discomfort in one's own skin itself! Wait, whaaat? Read that one again! 

 

People tend to do more of what is causing the discomfort in order to temporarily escape the the discomfort...only to realize they are now more uncomfortable!

So, ultimately, even though we know dietary structure and moderate exercise effectively and efficiently burn fat and reverse the physiological affects of being fat, something else (emotional structure) gets in the way of simply doing the things that burn fat!

I go into the emotional aspects of having excess body fat in adequate detail in Sov's Special  "Weighting to Wait".

In this blurb, I'm focusing specifically on the idea of people unconsciously justifying & irrationally rationalizing doing the behaviors that get them the opposite of what they insist they want, while simultaneously undermining their emotional motivation to drive themselves to the accomplishment of their goal(s)...whew, what a mouthful!

One of the most common, likely, predictable, yet ("too close to the forest") expressions of this  malady (an unwholesome or disordered condition) is when someone has chosen at some point in time to do a behavior that gives them some satisfaction (escape from a stress), in the moment, but because it does give some satisfaction they repeat the behavior over and over which becomes an unconscious habit (something they do but forget and don't acknowledge they are doing), to the point where the behavior takes on a life of its own.

And since the behavior is no longer acknowledged or in conscious awareness (forgotten or suppressed), the person then [calls it something other than what it] is to create a mental armour around the behavior to protect the unconscious, unproductive, fattening behavior from outside influence...an orchestrated & "perfected neurosis". 

How to spot a perfected neurosis? 

You can apply this with yourself by:

 

1) Listening to what you repeatedly say, say to yourself & and tell people (introspection),

 

2) What you set up as a seemingly unchallengeable story about yourself, 

 

3) What you repeat over and over as though it's rational and reasonable, but when looked and listened to objectively is completely irrational and unreasonable,

 

4) What you refuse to question about yourself and

5) Where you direct (either /or consciously or unconsciously) your emotional energy. For example, past / present,  sympathy / support,  victim / victor.

The most common way to spot the thing that is maintaining the structure of fatness that doesn't seem to respond to dietary structure and scientifically moderate exercise is the concept of "Thouest protest too much".

Classic example of non-compliance (refusing to do the cure that has been demanded by client):

In order to protect the client's unhealthy coping mechanism people will set up a conversational scenario where it would otherwise be considered taboo to challenge the fat person's story, followed by a double psychosocial bind of "Help me!".

In other words the client makes a statement about why they are the way they are, even though anyone in ear shot would know otherwise, but social etiquette would normally prohibit anyone from questioning / challenging the non-sensical statements (Its the trainers responsibility to do just that).

 

"If you're a good trainer you'll help me! -But don't tell me what I need to hear and learn to succeed because that would defy my story that I'm a victim, am justified in holding a grudge in order to justify eating a whole cake at a time to check out from the stress which I tried to escape the first time it happened... If you challenge my story then you aren't compassionate, don't really care about me, don't REALLY understand ME, are being mean (by telling me to withhold the cake which maintains my blissful disassociation)" ...and so on.

Generally speaking, a big part of what maintains the structure of fatness and unhealth is repeating an untrue self-story that justifies / rationalizes unhealthy behavior. In other words, the story might even be true, but beyond the first time the coping behavior is chosen and occurs 

(the behavior has outlived its usefulness since the behavior of eating excessive cookies is more damaging than the stress that initiated the comfort of the said cookie.)

So, repeating that you, "...eat the cookies cause you got yelled at or were abused", permits your energy to keep going to the past situation which is now a memory, rather than permitting your life force to connect with your goal of getting rid the fat and maintaining leaness once and for all... After all, who will you be and what will you do with all your extra time and energy once you're no longer unconsciously attending to past hurts, resentments, wrong doings ?... Who will you be when you are no longer giving yourself permission to justify your fat lifestyle by rationalizing you are a victim? What if the things you thought were real as to why you've continued to live a lifestyle of getting more and more fat was simply a misunderstanding from a younger time?

It very common by the time someone seeks help from a good professional personal trainer that many people have pointed out, or attempted to point out that your reasoning for your unhealthy behavior is neither reasonable nor rational, but the person has pulled the "I'm a victim...don't call me out" card on everyone around them who could have helped them, e.g. "If you love me you won't challenge my excuses !"

How can you argue with a person who says they do unhealthy behaviors and get massively overweight because of the loss of their parent?! True, you have to grieve the loss of the loved ones, but when you are using their death as an excuse to endulge, then you've gone too far and aren't being honest with yourself.

The focus being misdirected to what a person did to you, withheld from you or how they neglected you and that being the justification of why you "weight to wait", hold onto fat, justify not getting nutritional supplements in your body... As though the other person holding out on you is why you hold out on yourself... As though you hurting or neglecting yourself will somehow get back at the people who probably don't even remember hurting you and whom probably feel the same way about you! Often the people who the client insists are the reason they can't take care of themselves is no longer alive!

More often than not, the chosen coping mechanism was [at one time] the same coping mechanism the person that hurt them was using! 

Arguing that others don't care about you by calling out your unhealthy habitual thoughts and behaviors, calling out where you're telling yourself stuff that is either untrue or simply disables you makes you dead wrong... In other words, you can win the argument that you're right but that kind of being right ultimately either kills your spirit, your body and mind... or all three. 

 

People won't "argue" with your insistence your behavior is justified by holding resentment, but ultimately what you're talking about is holding the person who hurt you accountable... Yet, if you're fat you aren't holding yourself accountable! Hypocrisy! 

In this case you'll notice your cycle of influence gets smaller and smaller and the people willing to help gets smaller and smaller (They tried to teach you to fish but you wanted free fish).

The stories fat people insist are so real give them a "feeling" of control, but true control comes from:

 

1) Forgiving them (the people who you perceive did you wrong),

 

2) Forgiving yourself for not knowing better and / or  forgiving yourself for unknowingly participating in the scenario which now is hurting you,

 

3) Asking for forgiveness,

 

4) Being grateful for something and

 

5) Looking forward to your goals coming to pass (experience what your goal is as already being realized) {connects emotions to positive future and redirects it away from the past}.

 

Once you make a habit of these five steps everything else becomes easy.

The "feeling of control & satisfaction" from holding resentment and telling the same story over and over  about who done you wrong and didn't give you enough support is a type of control that disables motivation and drive, depletes and malnourishes the body and leads to impulsive, compulsive, short-term coping mechanisms.  

 

This process of unhealthy coping makes the body fat, the mind apathetic, anxious and depressed. It also says more about you for continue to be around people who are supposedly doing you so wrong more so than them "doing or withholding" from you. If they are doing you so wrong, why are you still around them or entertaining ideas of the past?... You need that energy to reach your own goals! 

There's no way to simultaneously give energy to resentment and past hurts and fuel your own goals... It's one or the other! Non negotiable! Move on! 

The process of "holding others accountable" is an addiction... Again, it gives a artificial, non-sustainable, energetic, emotional and hormonal high while it simultaneously depletes the spirit and sabotages what you so insist you want so badly.

 

The person who chooses to hold others accountable through self righteous story & statement but neglects their own health accountability will feel more tired and anxious as well as find it impossible to get lean and healthy and sustain it. You can't have both. 

Objectively, telling the subjective story of what happened to you is different than telling the story to "be right", gain sympathy, get attention and emotional & financial handouts. Ultimately, the addictive story can create a self-defeating, self-depreciating, dis-empowering, habit which leads to learned helplessness and under-functioning in your own health but over-functioning in attending to telling those others they aren't good enough for you or meeting your expectations or doing enough for you and that's why you're fat and unhappy. 

For example, Mary's father was a very critical person and criticized Mary as a child. But Mary had learned to be critical too, having learned the behavior before she knew she was learning it (modeling or imprinting). 

 

Mary didn't like being criticized but learned to be critical through her father. In order to cope with the subjective pain of being so criticized Mary would lock herself in her room and eat cookies. Mary told herself if her dad was going to be mean to her, she would eat cookies "to show him".

 

The high sugar content combined with lack of nutrition created a physiological distraction / disassociation so even though Mary was still in the critical environment she didn't notice her feelings as much. 

 

The first time it was a conscious choice spontaneous coping mechanism. After that, each episode of stress followed by eating cookies enforced the disassociation from the pain of being criticized was a conscious choice which developed into an unconscious habit...a mystery. In attempt to gain approval from her critical father Mary would behave critical of others in his presence. This too became unconscious. 

Eventually, in order to rationalize her own unhappiness, emptiness and attempt to distract others from her fat building habits, Mary hides behind being critical of those around her.

 

Third, Mary's father couldn't handle being criticized by others, so he insisted he was right regardless the outward evidence and eliminated anyone from his social circle if they disagreed with him. So Mary learned this behavior too... as an adult, she insists she's right, even when she's wrong ... 

 

Even when it's affecting her own health and happiness. Mary witnessed her dad being unable to accept criticism and [Mary interprets any challenge to her story as unacceptable criticism].  (a double bind...Mary needs to know where she has a misunderstanding going on, but interprets honest feedback as criticism, so she blocks the truth out]. 

 

Mary experienced hurt feelings combined with attempting to gain approval from the man who didn't approve of himself. Ultimately, Mary is attending more to her father's emotional state than her own now. Problem being that his state is not base in reality, he creates it as he goes and constantly changes the rules of approval to PREVENT anyone from getting too close to him... but he is the only one who is confused about the truth.

 

Mary is chasing his feelings in attempt to GAIN closeness. SO,  two different people very much engaged in different values and outcomes, but one of the people's health is partially dependent on approval of their parent...an outcome that is malformed [You can only control yourself, so if you try to make others approve of you, you're wasting energy you need to achieve your stated goals] (Not going to happen in this lifetime).

 

Ultimately, the coping mechanisms that emerge from this kind of dynamic is the one where Mary's perception is that she has to be "right" in order to survive but in reality being right is the opposite of being loved, cherished, nourished and supported. 

 

The person who insists on being right all the time will constantly complain they don't have the support they need to be happy and successful when in reality they need to let go the idea of being 'right', the idea they aren't supported [by others] (you have to support yourself before others will support you) and that others are disappointing them. Anything else is self pity and indulging in victim mentality.

 

Because as a young child Mary had very little choice but to crumble under her father's peer pressure to conform and behave, Mary mistakenly and erroneously has concluded that you get what you want from others by "forcing the issue, nagging and repetitively pressuring them" to support her (codependency) rather than being "within" relationship by demonstrating independence (after all, that's what Mary's father did to get her to conform, so she thinks it works on everyone else too!). Even when it doesn't work, Mary keeps doing the thing that obviously isn't working.

 

Mary thinks her job in life is to coerce and force people to do what they would have done anyway had they been treated independently. Mary has an unconscious "that's not enough" attitude as though no matter how much is offered up, she quickly dispenses with it (feels undeserving), and simultaneously demands more, more, more! (habitual disapproval of others because of lack of approval of self). Daddy didn't seem to love me so I shouldn't love me (co-dependence). Mary spends significant time getting together with people to retell her victim story and believes that the 'job' of friends is to listen to the same story and reasons over and over and if they don't, then they aren't true friends (co-dependency: demanding people support the victim mentality & provide sympathy versus creating the space for friends to tell them the truth and support self sufficiency).

The person who has to be right and disapproving of those who are letting them down will push away the people who would have helped them, and unconsciously discourage the supportive behavior they insist they want from the person.

In simple terms, it's like a person who stands at the podium preaching about "proper-ness" to an empty congregation. Preaching at people turns them off to giving you what you insist to want. The more Mary insists others aren't supporting her enough (the same thing Mary's father did,) the less motivated those around Mary are to support her! She is unconsciously un-motivating those around her so she can feel really, really "right"... Justified! See? I'm right! (sweetness works better than bitterness). 

Mary interprets any attempt to point out her misunderstanding (with herself, as being told she is wrong, which means being disapproved by her father). On the surface it looks like Mary is fickle because she frequently changes social groups to prevent people from getting to know her pattern, thereby preventing being called out, thereby perfecting the neurosis, thereby mimicking the short-term comfort of the cookies to escape the stress of her father's temperament, thereby deepening the sedation affect of needing to be "right". 

 

(a.k.a. "I would never join a club that would have me as a member".)

If it weren't this simple, Mary could just collect people who openly give what she says she wants and her overall life and happiness would outwardly improve,  but she gets too much satisfaction from telling people they aren't good enough (gaining the illusion of control she wished for as a child). Mary is so in control that her life is out of control. Especially her body fat level, self control and impulsiveness. Since Mary makes up rules as she goes to keep the truth from herself (everyone around her knows the truth), she makes up new rules why she can't change...why she is "right". 

Being "right" is Mary's drug of choice. 

Unbeknownst to Mary, her actual social circle is getting smaller and smaller as people tire of her complaining, discounting and disapproval, especially of her supposed loved ones, which she used to garner sympathy, energy and even donations to her causes,  which she can't earn herself because so much of her energy is going to attending to where others are wrong. 

 

But, like her father, she insists the reason people aren't around as much is  because she is right and they are wrong.  The common denominator in Mary's shrinking social circle is herself. Mary's circle of logic insists that [the more wrong she is the more right she feels]. Mary gets her father's approval by insisting others disappoint and let her down, delivering less support than she insists she needs. (problem being her father died long ago...she is chasing a ghost). As the newness of her new secular social group wanes, she switches groups in search once again of people who will sympathize with her victim mentality, again and again and again...she's not there to improve herself but to garner sympathy for a worn out story.


The thing Mary is looking for by switching groups again and again is the personal improvement (inside herself) which she has refused to do...spending to much time criticizing and manipulating those around her...a type of approval that will only come from improving her own self image...not from changing groups again and again and again...anyone who tries to point the way to true happiness "...just doesn't understand me or my situation".

 

Mary insists she'll die trying to make those around her give her enough 'support'. In other words, she gets so much seeming satisfaction from forcing others to do what she wants, she'll sacrifice her own life force and emotional-mental health in the process of trying to force her loved ones to do what they would do on their own if she emotionally empowered them rather than trying to override them (sweetness vs bitterness). Mary talks and tells more than she listens...to herself.

You see, children really do need their parents approval as part of their development, but sometimes, if the parents are not all healthy themselves, the children have to use something like the 5 step forgiveness process to move on without the approval that she thought she needed (can't have a fun time now by trying to fix what was unfixable in the past..a.k.a. beating a dead horse).

 

Historically, Mary considers the good trainers and therapists the ones who told her what [she wanted to hear] to match her value of feeling right, (she perceives herself as a victim, so she insists the truth is too painful to handle), yet admits although they made her feel good, although she continued to get fatter and more out of shape,(underlying emotional strategy is not being addressed). 

Mary is exhausted, unmotivated, anxious, depressed, on numerous different medications, 30% or higher body composition and insists no diet can help her and exercise doesn't work! She has "tried it all" and nothing works!

I had an employer who talked about "The pedestrian who is dead-right" (a pedestrian who insists they have the right of way on the crosswalk, but walks out into a crosswalk in front of a driver who refuses to yield the right of way...the pedestrian is right, but now dead). 

 

Unconsciously mistaken that by not moving forward, by not letting go, by holding them accountable they'll some how "make the other person change" and conform to their expectations...control being the highest held unconscious value, even as it proves detrimental to personal well being.

 

In reality the opposite is true: by letting go, doing the 5 steps the other person has the best chance of changing and healing and moving on themselves thereby enabling healing vs control and accountability. 

 

So the thing Mary is insisting on is the way to get satisfaction is the very thing preventing her healing. 

 

Ultimately Mary is getting her way...a lot... but the more she gets her way the more fat and unhappy and unsatisfied she becomes...the more she gets her way the more she is in her own way.

 

These circumstances assure whether exercise and nutrition work or not. The person who insists they are right, 'different', exceptions to the rules of the universe or in control will continue to get fatter and fatter.

Do it now, do it consistently!

"I see you succeeding."