🕮Weight management: deciphering the language of the subconscious

Do you find losing weight an uphill battle and chide yourself for your seeming lack of self-control? Psychologist Dr Hannetjie van Zyl-Edeling explains how your subconscious mind could hamper your progress, highlights hidden benefits of carrying excess weight, and considers emotionally driven eating.

There are those who believe that you won’t be seen as attractive as long as you carry excess weight. Fortunately, this unrealistic perception is giving way to a more balanced approach. Individual body types vary significantly, and attractiveness encompasses so many facets that to single one out is absurd. Even so, the ability to lose weight - often for health reasons - remains important to many of us. If losing weight is a struggle, what can be done?

“Physical issues such as being overweight have both a physiological and an emotional or psychological aspect that must be taken into account,” says Dr Hannetjie van Zyl-Edeling, a counselling psychologist with a background in dietetics. “For example, simply acquiring a new eating plan does not necessarily help people lose weight.

“We tend to view the body as a physical entity and ignore the mind-body connection. Health conditions and symptoms make more sense when we consider the role of the unconscious and subconscious.

“Psychology teaches us that we may not have the ability to integrate some unpleasant experiences. These unprocessed experiences are ‘buried’ in the subconscious, but they are not forgotten and can have a powerful influence on our lives.”

The language and intent of the subconscious

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“The subconscious contains the beliefs and guidelines that guide our lives and are reflected in our actions, attitudes and projections. The ‘language’ of the subconscious is indirect, vague and symbolic – often expressed as illnesses, symptoms and dreams. When our subconscious and conscious beliefs are not aligned, subconscious beliefs usually prevail. For example, you desire to lose weight, but because your subconscious believes it could lead to a love affair in which you could be hurt, it sabotages your attempts at weight loss. “The subconscious is focused on your survival and wants to protect you at all costs. It does not distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ or correct and incorrect information. It does not respond to reason or logic and takes everything literally – including irony and other forms of humour. The subconscious tries to bring about that to which we devote a lot of attention and energy, including fears and problems - even if we do not want them in our lives. Although the subconscious ‘means well,’  the consequences are not necessarily positive, especially in the long term.

“When I see a client who wants to lose weight, we engage the language of the subconscious because it sheds light on the psychological aspect of the problem.”

Decoding symbolic messages

How do we decipher symbolic messages from the subconscious?

“When it comes to illness,” says Hannetjie, “self-help author Louise Hay pioneered the field, followed by experts such as Debbie Shapiro and Thorwald Dethlefsen. They see the function of the organ or body system under consideration as informative and suggest that symptoms be linked to their. verbal expression. For example, digestive problems indicate a struggle to ‘digest’ what is happening in your environment, and migraines indicate a desire to avoid a certain situation – such as a woman who has a ‘migraine’ when her husband becomes sexually demanding.

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“When we fail to understand the language of the subconscious, the symptoms embodying the message can increase. When your inner intelligence communicates information, it is wise to pay attention, try to decode it, and act accordingly.

“The interpretation of symbolic messages always relates to what is familiar to you as a person. When a weight issue comes up, we look at the themes and language specific to your family context or other significant relationships.

“For example, it is widely accepted that an aspect of anorexia is related to control. In a family where control is an issue, a family member’s hyper-control over what she eats or doesn’t can become a way of controlling her environment.

"A power struggle can assume unexpected forms. Years ago, a client's reaction stunned me. As a dietician, I put together an eating plan for diabetes. In passing I mentioned that she might lose weight. Immediately she flung the eating plan onto my desk and said she absolutely refused to follow it. In the long conversation that followed, it emerged that excess weight was her way to get back at her husband, whom she disliked and who wanted a slim wife.

“I often ask questions such as: how do you and individuals close to you talk about weight? Does your opinion carry more weight when you are not skinny? Is it important to you not to be weighed and found wanting or ‘too light’? In some cases, children decide they will only be able to tackle a certain challenge once they’re fully grown, and then they grow ‘big’ in a different sense of the word. Remember, the subconscious interprets words in a literal sense.”

You can also listen to Dr Hannetjie explore this matter in a podcast.

Protection and emotionally-driven eating

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“Protection is a significant theme. I remember several cases where rejection was the cause of weight gain. For example, a small child does not understand why people treat him coldly or ignore his needs. He acquires a tangible layer of protection that makes him feel safe and helps him interact with others more comfortably. Often, he later cites the excess weight he carries as the reason why people do not like him.

“There are also those with a deep need to be loved, regardless of their excess weight. Unfortunately, we live in a society where superficial values tend to ​​prevail. People want companions who look like commercial models, and fail to note the beautiful soul beneath the layers of protection.

“In my practice, I often see eating functioning as a kind of shortcut to deal with a variety of emotions. Imagine a hand with five fingers, each representing a separate solution to a problem. Choosing the most suitable solution would involve having to identify each emotion and deal with it accordingly.

“Often, we take a shortcut – choosing the ‘wrist’ – and use eating to relieve anger, sadness, boredom, irritation or anxiety.

“Then there is the association between physical nourishment and emotional nurturing that arises right after birth. You have just come into the world, you are hungry and your blood sugar levels are low. Here’s your mother: food and companionship combined into one. If the conditioning is strong, we later learn that one of the two can replace the other. When we are lonely, bored or upset, we reach for food because the nurturing we actually crave is not available.

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“I recall a young woman who was severely neglected as a baby; she was left to cry in her crib for days on end. At one point, someone would come and shove a bottle through the bars of the crib and leave her alone again. There was a complete lack of nurturing. She never had a role model teaching her how to take good care of herself.
“In therapy we realised that whenever she got stressed, she would eat – always junk food. She seemed to unconsciously repeat her caregiver’s resentful behaviour by feeding herself with an attitude of ‘I don’t care’. Over time, she learned to take proper care of herself and identify her true needs whenever her stress level rose. She had to ask herself: do I really need food right now, or do I need rest, or companionship? Since then, she has been managing her weight more easily.”

There’s no quick fix

“Helping clients to address excess weight is no simple task. Even though we work on both the physical and emotional fronts, there are many elements to consider. When approaching the physical aspect, I take things slowly. We have to remember that many people lose weight up to a certain point and then reach a plateau, or that they regain the weight they lost at a later stage. Upgrading years of habits and neglect takes time.

 "Contrary to what many people believe, hypnotherapy is not a magical wand for solving weight issues. There is an unpleasant phenomenon called symptom substitution; when a problematic issue finds expression in emotional eating and is addressed, the expression may shift and find another outlet. Ashley Brilliant put it well: 'I'll gladly give up my disgusting habits as soon as equally satisfying good ones become available.'

"Ideally, excess weight is approached in two ways: physiologically as well as emotionally. Hopefully, we’ll reach the stage where healthy emotions find expression in a healthy body."

About, with contact details

Dr Hannetjie van Zyl-Edeling is a counselling psychologist with a private practice, public speaker, artist and author who lives and works in Johannesburg. She has also studied dietetics. Her Ph.D. deals with the mind-body connection, specifically regarding bulimia.
Tel. 0824604575

Website www.drhannetjie.co.za

Email address han@emlct.com

Pinterest: Dr Hannetjie (@hannetjie777)

You can also listen to naturopathic doctor Faryal Luhar explaining why excess weight - especially abdominal fat - could point to elevated cortisol levels.

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Image of Dr Hannetjie: provided