Childhood Traumas

We have Ashey from Seattle, has a question. How can I help you?

Yes, Jon. I’ve had this weird issue since I was a little kid, like since I can remember, I have been overweight. And then I lost the weight during my college years, and then gained it again. So, I have been trying all the things that you recommended and it helps me relieve my stress, but I’m not sure about the emotional thing, because I remember that my childhood was pretty good. My parents were really good to me and I just have pleasant memories. It's just that I was called a big kid a lot of times.

My question is, is it possible that I’m not — like right now, the weight that I have, and that I’m not able to lose, is it just because of the stress that happened after college, or do I have to go back to my childhood and see if it started over there?

Everybody’s different, Ashey. But let me ask you some questions. How much weight are you looking to lose?

About 80 pounds.

80 pounds. And how long have you had the 80 pounds? How long ago was it since college that you had that weight?

I have been yo-yo dieting for a long time, so I gained most of my weight during pregnancy, than I haven’t been able to lose that weight. When I got pregnant, I was about 30 pounds overweight, but — yeah, 30-40 pounds overweight, but now it’s like, I’m not able to lose it.

How long ago was that, that you got pregnant?

My son is two years now, he is going to be two years next month.

And you have one son?

Yes, one child.

Okay. And are you still breastfeeding?

Yes, yes I am.

Okay, well, it’s going to be a little bit of a challenge while you’re breastfeeding to continue to lost weight. Initially when you start breastfeeding, you lose weight very quickly, but then it kind of levels off. Your body wants to keep a little bit of extra weight on you while you’re breastfeeding, because you’re feeding for two. So it wants to make sure you have some extra stores on you. So, it’s going to take a little bit of time. It’s going to be a little bit of a slower process while you’re breastfeeding, so that’s the first thing I want to say to you.

And, when I’m talking to you, I don’t think that your issues are necessarily emotional. I think there are some kind of beliefs that may be an issue for you, when you say, or you said, “I can’t lose the weight.” Or, “The weight that-” I forget exactly how you said it, but, “The weight that I can’t lose.” I would sort of reframe that, and I would just say, “The weight that I have on me right now.” Not, “The weight that I can’t lose.” Because you can lose the weight.

It will be much easier for you once you’re no longer breastfeeding. But, I just want to refer you, in the book, I think it’s Chapter 17, it’s called Success Profiles, where I talk about different people that have lost weight. And one of them was a parent, a mother, who lives down here in Denmark, who couldn’t lose weight, no matter what she did. We chatted for a while, and I saw that — when we got into her life, I really felt like she really just didn’t have any space to herself. And that’s typically the way it is when you’re a mother, especially of a two year old, because the demands are so high. And, I’m sure you’re taking care of the household and all that. Is that true? Do you see your life as –

Yes.

That will cause your body to want to hold onto weight, too, because it’s almost like, when there’s so many demands pulling at you, literally you’ve got a child pulling energy from you, you’ve got a husband, who I’m sure could very easily be very loving and devoted husband, but also has demands of you. And there’s so many demands, it’s almost like everyone’s pulling from you. Do you get that feeling sometimes?

Yes, I do.

Yes, you do. Right? And so, when you have that feeling like everybody’s pulling from you, your body is sort of trying to use weight as sort of a buffer between you and the rest of the world, you and everyone and everything that’s pulling from you, that’s trying to pull something from you. Does that make sense to you?

Yes.

Yes? So, what I recommended to this one lady, Susan, was that she take one day a week, just for her. And we actually wrote down a prescription of all the things. I said, “What would you do if you had all the time — if you had one day just to yourself? A guilt-free day, what would you do?” And we wrote down all these things. Take a walk on the beach, get a massage, play cards with friends, go out to lunch. Do any of these things sound interesting to you at all?

Yes, actually I would love to do that.

Yes, you would. And I can tell you, that if you did that, what would happen is you would recharge your energy, and when you’re able to recharge your energy, then you can give out, to your child, and to your husband and to everybody else. But, if you can’t recharge your energy, then your body is going to want to protect you because you’re giving from your own supply. And you’re running low on energy. So, your body is going to try to protect you, and it’s going to use weight as a buffer, it says, “Hold on world, I’m pushing you away.” Does that make sense?

Yes

So, if you’re able to re-tap into your own energy by rejuvenating, by taking one day or a half day a week, then that will solve the problem for you, because then you’ll have your own energy, your body won’t be defending you, it won’t feel like it needs the weight anymore. You won’t have that stress anymore and your body will allow you to lose weight.

If you can’t do that — I get a lot of callers saying, “I can’t take a day off.” I can hear everybody saying that right now, and I appreciate that. If you can’t do that, I created a CD called The Living Goddess meditation CD, and the purpose of The Living Goddess meditation CD is specifically for mothers whose demands are so great, and spending 20 minutes tapping in to that infinite source of energy so that they can give that energy out to the world. But, if you’re not able to tap into that energy, then you’re just giving of your own energy. And your energy is limited. It’s like your own energy is a pond that people are draining the water out of, and then there’s this infinite resource of energy that’s like an ocean that you can tap into. And the Living Goddess meditation CD helps you tap in to this infinite ocean of energy.

So, if you’d like a copy of that, you can just email Ask Jon, which is AskJon@GabrielMethod.com. And ask for a copy of that, and we’ll send that out to you.

So, that’s what I suggest, but those are your real issues. Okay, you have to recharge, either by taking a day off a week, or listening to The Living Goddess meditation on a regular basis. You’ll start to recharge, and then call back in about a month and let me know how you feel. Okay?

Okay, yes. I think in a month, I might be in the UK, so I’ll email you.

All right. Well, we’ve got a lot of other callers that we’re going to take, so Ashey, thanks very much for calling.

Yes, thank you so much.

And we’ll talk soon.