We often think of weight gain as the culmination of poor eating choices and overindulgence. If only that was the real culprit then it would be logical that eating better would lead to weight loss. This is not to say we generally could not do better in our food choices but I blame this limited theory on the diet and medical industries who have separated us from understanding how the human being works in its wholeness.
When we see a health problem as an isolated situation, such as physical body weight that is in excess, we diminish ourselves into individual parts. We lack the clarity to see the situation and ourselves as a whole. For example, if we break our arm, in the medical and pharmacy setting the arm is isolated from the rest of the health of the body, mind and heart. No mention of what is happening elsewhere in the body is addressed or what it is doing to us mentally. Certainly no mention of our feelings about it are discussed either as all attention is directly placed on that fracture only.
We are more than bones, muscles, tendons and organs.
Our elemental design is not something that can be treated successfully if we isolate parts of ourselves. It is not how healing occurs in our body. By discounting our emotions and spiritual needs in health we disconnect ourselves from ourselves. Even when it is seemingly “just a broken arm.”
Using that approach we immediately see the gaps and fail points in the diet, medical and pharmacy space when it comes to weight loss and weight management. We have been marketed to and told by doctors and pharmacies, the diet industry of companies and nutritional advisors that all it takes to lose weight is restriction of foods, using diet foods, and increasing exercise. The old adage calories in equates to calories out and if you can’t get them all out, eat less.
Less is not more when it comes to weight loss. This is why dieting fails every single time.
The truth is weight is never just about weight on our body because we are more than our physical weight. We are human beings in a human body that has complex and individual needs that are not always easily aligned to restrictive dieting and harsh workouts.
It also is not a matter of lacking willpower and motivation. Anyone who has tried to lose weight knows very well, how emotionally frustrating it is to see no pounds lost after restricting yourself all week and busting your butt in a stinky gym. Worst yet, a gain of weight after all that effort is the most demoralizing experience of weight loss.
The secret is not further food restriction and punishing workouts. Often it is bigger and yet simpler than what we have been led to believe.
It starts with understanding our emotions.
Emotionally we are each complex and unique. We can have similar experiences with completely different emotions and perspectives about it. These experiences not only shape how we see the world but how they are experienced in our body and spirit. All experiences are energy just like we ourselves are energetically designed. This vibrational energy that makes all that we do and how we do it from the smallest movement of our toe to the growth of our hair is an energetic sensation. Feelings, emotions, thoughts and opinions are also energetically derived. They can also be very different for each of us.
When we have an emotional experience we also have a bodily and spiritual experience too because we cannot separate our body and spirit from that of our mind. All three parts of our being leverage our senses, experience things together and carry that forward to shape who we become next. It not only shapes how we think, but what we feel and how our body responds to it.
For example, if we have the experience of being chased by something that is a physical experience and a mind and heart experience. We perceive a danger, take action to keep ourselves safe and maybe say a prayer we are kept safe. It is not just our body that moves in the face of danger. Our mind is going over what to do, where to do that is safe. Our heart is pounding with excitement and feelings of fear, worry and concern for our safety. This is all while our arms and legs are pumping as fast as they can carry us away from that danger.
We are one being with all these parts of our self being together in all things of who we are all the time. When it comes to our health it is illogical to carve out just the physical pain in the area it is coming from. – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary
Understanding how we work as beings and the energy we vibrate to make it all possible we can now explore how our feelings and emotions contribute to our physical health. It also resonates logically with why we can struggle to lose weight. If we are ignoring how we feel or are full of disgust about our weight than it creates a negative effect in our being that further buries weight. We hide ourselves. We cover ourselves up in black clothing. We avoid shopping for clothing. We stop feeling good about ourselves inside and out.
All the feelings and emotions we feel about ourselves are strong indicators of just how easy or hard it can be to lose weight. It is also a predicator of how long we can keep it off.
Lacking a healthy relationship with yourself doesn’t just change if you are a small size.
Those feelings manifest into physical sensations in our body. They change how our cells respond and rebuild. It is common knowledge if we suffer things like depression we are more likely to have a weakened immunity that makes us susceptible to illness. The same occurs when we’re talking about weight gain and weight loss.
Sometimes weight gain, and struggles to lose weight, are our body’s way of protecting us from physical and emotional pain.
Fear, trauma, negativity, negative energy, outlook, experiences, perspective, worldview – all have
1 thing in common:
All of these things can get caught in our body and stored in our fat cells.
When this happens,
Our cravings increase
Our energy decreases
Our organ systems convert more to saving energy in the even it may need it for an emergency
Our stress responses trigger and stay triggered in an “on guard” state
This describes the class stress response of our body. It happens because of the experience and our body is forming protection to help us. Even if there is no active threat! If we have not dealt with the emotions of it and processed them our body does not know that threat went away.
Since we are not taught to process our feelings and often are instead taught to be stoic, hold them in and not let pain show, it ends up impacting our mental and physical health. We lack the structure and safe places to express feelings so we wait until there are pain, symptoms, breakdowns, depression and emotional eating that’s out of control before we hopefully get help. Unfortunately for most of us that means a trip to the doctor for a prescription of anti-depressants which do not support healing, processing feelings or dealing with the root causes of what’s happening.
What also happens is big and little things get built up over time. We think we’re over it … or rather we tell ourselves it doesn’t bother us anymore and we push on with daily life.
Yet do we really?
No.
In honesty, we’re trudging through our day looking forward to going home, putting on our stretchy pants and going mind-numb in front of the electronics. We beat ourselves up for not wanting to do more, knowing we need to do better but we don’t. It’s just easier. We have a lot going on right now so we’ll get to it once things get calmer.
Sigh.
We insist we’re over whatever hurt happened too but this couch stationary, mind-numbness shows:
Our body didn’t get the memo
Our heart still hurts about it
Our mind still overthinks it
Releasing emotional weight takes work but when its done on love to yourself, grace of forgiveness you find it’s freeing, like a literal weight has been taken off your body. We begin to work with our whole self and not just the physical aspects of cellulite and eating a proper diet. Without our mind and heart also aligned any diet attempts also usually fail miserably as we commonly see with the amount of people who attempt to start and restart dieting every week.
The work of releasing emotional weight is not a five minute fix!
The element of instant that is so prevalent in our society prevents most of us from putting in the work and sticking to something that can help us. Once we see progress or not, after a while we give up on it for not being fast enough. If there is anything I learned in natural health medicine, it is that we have to burn this type of thinking. Our beings are so unique that the time it takes to heal and change is what our beings need it to be.
Once we’re ready to take on the work and commit to being on our own time schedule and journey for it, we can feel a little lost. We are so used to having a prescribed formula for success to follow that seeing our own path in front of us can be intimidating. Part of this process includes building our own self identify and confidence but I understand the intimidation factor that can present if you have always followed instead. This though is a great way to use that opportunity to explore who you are and what you want in your life.
Here I thought we were just talking about eating less chips but it is really about knowing yourself in the most loving way. – Amy Kramer, Dragonspit Apothecary
Developing a way to process emotions in the process is key. Along the way though we need to release what we have not processed. This is one of the ways Flower Essence therapy and Emotion Energy work can help. These two natural health modalities support our whole being in what is blocking us from feeling like ourselves. They help stimulate our body to do what it needs for healing in physical, mental and spiritual areas together. When emotions get stuck in our body as a result of an experience we can use these modalities to free the pathway and allow natural energy to flow again. Think of it like a short in a power cord where the lamp works some of the time but the other times its flickering and you have to wiggle the cord just right to get it to work. Or we can fix the short and our lamp works well when we pull the cord on it.
Flower essences and emotion energy work re-establish our body’s balance to stimulate the ability to process emotions as we were designed to do.
Weight loss is less about the loss of weight and is more a healing journey of a lot of different experiences. It is food, movement and rest but it is also emotional and hormonal balancing, re-establishing a relationship with ourselves and improving how we see ourselves. The aspects of a physical diet and changes also impact us emotionally and spiritually. Finding the balance between mind-body-spirit is where we realize healing on all levels, true health and weight loss but most important a way to accomplish those things that is right for us individually.
We were designed to enjoy food, eat nutritiously and savor life. We were made to be happy, fulfilled, content, satisfied and inspiring in body, mind and heart. This is exactly why we cannot isolate the weight loss experience to simply what the scale and our pant size metrics.
Our body knows how to lose weight and be healthy. We may need to support it through decisions we make, like taking a supplement for example, but we do these things to stimulate our body’s ability to naturally heal. Weight loss is about healing physically, emotionally and spiritually. In the process we are releasing what we have held close to our mind-body-spirit and emerging as our true self.
It is also about releasing the standards by which beauty and health are defined. When we strike out to discover ourself we realize the standards by which others define both beauty and health are not only irrelevant but ill-intended. They block our ability to be ourself so therefore they create barriers to our own health.
Releasing emotional weight comes down to our own desire to be ourself now and in the future. It is letting go of the expectations and influence of the outside and focusing inward for healing, renewal, strength and love. By changing our energy inside we radiate healthy positive energy on the outside. That influences how we think, what we feel and what our body looks like. It literally changes our cellular makeup!
For help with your nutritional needs to support health and weight, check out my Natural Weight Management Program at dragonspitapothecary.com
You can also book an individual consultation with me at dragonspitapothecary.com/book-online