Thursday, July 28, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Seth on Why Diets Don't Usually Work
Seth, The Nature of Personal Reality, Session 660
Seth: Diets do serve momentarily as outer signs that you are in control, and can seize the initiative; and as such they can be important. Usually, however; a pattern of unsuccessful diets occurs, operating then as a series of negative suggestions. The resistance is the result of conflicts in beliefs. You think you are overweight and accept this as reality. Steps to lose weight do not make sense in the face of that belief. They are 'unrealistic' or even impossible.
The same applies to underweight conditions. In each case frequent attention to the scales serves as another negative stimulus, reinforcing the condition. The effort to eat more will be as resisted by the chronically underweight, as the effort to refrain from eating will be by the obese.
Not only will these reactions occur, but opposing tendencies will be brought to bear. The concentration upon not eating, and the resulting tension, may instead cause increased consumption. And the underweight person may actually eat less the harder he or she tries to eat more —the latter being interpreted as an impossibility by the overriding belief in the underweight condition.
The best thing to do is to stop all such efforts, but instantly begin altering your beliefs as instructed in this chapter.
The reason why some lose-weight groups succeed in their therapy, at least momentarily, is that belief in the worth of the self is stressed. Unfortunately, weight is attacked as 'bad' or 'evil', symbolic moral judgments enter the act. The therapy seldom has long-reaching effects because from then on any gained weight is even more negatively charged.
© Laurel Butts
Seth: Diets do serve momentarily as outer signs that you are in control, and can seize the initiative; and as such they can be important. Usually, however; a pattern of unsuccessful diets occurs, operating then as a series of negative suggestions. The resistance is the result of conflicts in beliefs. You think you are overweight and accept this as reality. Steps to lose weight do not make sense in the face of that belief. They are 'unrealistic' or even impossible.
The same applies to underweight conditions. In each case frequent attention to the scales serves as another negative stimulus, reinforcing the condition. The effort to eat more will be as resisted by the chronically underweight, as the effort to refrain from eating will be by the obese.
Not only will these reactions occur, but opposing tendencies will be brought to bear. The concentration upon not eating, and the resulting tension, may instead cause increased consumption. And the underweight person may actually eat less the harder he or she tries to eat more —the latter being interpreted as an impossibility by the overriding belief in the underweight condition.
The best thing to do is to stop all such efforts, but instantly begin altering your beliefs as instructed in this chapter.
The reason why some lose-weight groups succeed in their therapy, at least momentarily, is that belief in the worth of the self is stressed. Unfortunately, weight is attacked as 'bad' or 'evil', symbolic moral judgments enter the act. The therapy seldom has long-reaching effects because from then on any gained weight is even more negatively charged.
© Laurel Butts