Thin You, ‘Meet’ Not-Thin You

by Celes |
Filed in Health

For those of you who would like to lose weight but haven’t been able to do so (or have successfully lost the weight before but could not keep it off), have you ever considered that perhaps there’s a spiritual reason behind it? That there’s a message your subconsciousness is trying to send to you, via the physical manifestation of the “not-thin” you?

A Message from Your Subconscious Self

I’m not talking about messages like to be more disciplined, to stop being lazy, or to watch your diet. All these are important messages, but they are the surface level messages when it comes to a deeply compounded topic like weight loss.

There is a deeper, spiritual reason behind why you are not able to lose your weight, and until you discover the reason why, your excess weight will remain. Even if you do lose your excess pounds by some crazy diet and/or a mad burst of exercise, you will eventually regain it, simply because you have not lost the excess “weight” in your subconsciousness. This excess weight, be it emotional baggage or unprocessed thoughts, will find its way into the physical world, onto your body. Bear this in mind, always: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

This is what I was referring to when I wrote Reason #10 of 10 Reasons You Are Not Losing Weight (And How to Fix Them): “You keep self-sabotaging yourself”. In that point, I stated that there is a possibility a part of you might secretly want to stay fat. By that, I wasn’t referring to your conscious self, because most people’s conscious selves have intentions to lose weight, or at the very least, look slimmer. That’s why the diet industry is such a booming business. Slimming centers, gyms, fad diets, diet pills, dieting services and even plastic surgery have become billion-dollar industries in recent history.

What I was referring to, was your subconscious self. Your spiritual self. While many people have the conscious intention to lose weight, not everyone seems to be able to actually lose the weight AND keep it off. Reason? Because your subconsciousness, at least a part of it, secretly wants to be fat. And because your subconsciousness is more powerful than the conscious you, any attempts by your conscious self to lose weight without first addressing the spiritual cause will simply be a waste of time.

That’s why many people frequently face self-sabotaging efforts in their weight loss journeys, be it eating outside of their meticulously designed diet plans and/or falling off their exercise plans. It seems like no matter how many hundred to thousand times they set the goal to lose weight, they are never able to achieve it – and even if they do, they are not able to keep it off.

What these people need is not more diet plans or fitness classes, but a dialogue with their subconscious selves to uncover what they are trying to tell them.

20-Minute Exercise: Dialogue with Not-Thin You

If you are someone who has lost your excess weight before but regained it back (perhaps multiple times for some of you), or if you are someone who knows the physical steps to lose weight (i.e. proper exercise and nutrition) but isn’t doing them for some reason, consider doing the exercise below. Whilst I’ve covered some of the physical aspects and emotional aspects of weight loss, this is the spiritual aspect of it.

This exercise is inspired by the exercise in Lesson 2 of the book A Course In Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever by Marianne Williamson (of which I have named this article after). It’s not the same exercise though – I’ve borrowed the concept and fleshed it out into 5 simple yet highly impactful steps below.

I kid you not – this is one extremely powerful exercise that may blow the lid on your weight loss struggles wide open. Try it for yourself and see what you get out of it.

Make sure you are in a private room by yourself first, then begin the exercise.

Grab a mirror.
Look into the mirror. Naturally, you see your reflection.
- Not-Thin You. For the purpose of this exercise, this person you see before you shall be referred to as the Not-Thin You.
- Thin You. The ideal you with the ideal weight you want to achieve, shall be known as the Thin You. Thin You has always been inside you all along, yearning to be brought into this world. That’s why you keep having the intention to lose weight.
- Dichotomy between Thin You and Not-Thin You. However, Not-Thin You keeps sabotaging your efforts, making it impossible for Thin You to manifest in reality. While you want to become Thin You both on the outside and inside, Not-Thin You is stubbornly etched in the physical world. No doubt, you feel exasperated with Not-Thin You at times.
Now, as Thin You, speak to Not-Thin You.
- Verbal purging. Tell him/her all the grievances, anger, unhappiness, hurt, disappointment, hatred, etc you have towards him/her. Maybe you are angry at him/her for being too lazy to exercise. Maybe you are angry at him/her for making you the butt of ridicule back in high school. Maybe you are angry at him/her for the fact that you are still single. Maybe you hate his/her fat wobbly thunder thighs and the flabby arms. Maybe you wince every time you see his/her reflection. Tell all of these in his/her face. Don’t hold anything back.
- Emotional purging. During this catharsis, you may experience deep emotions surging through. You may even start crying and burst into tears. This is a good thing. Let them out – all of it.
- Say all there is to say. Don’t stop until you feel like you are completely done and there’s nothing else you want to say. It will probably take about 10 minutes, perhaps more if you have a lot to say to him/her.
Now, as Not-Thin You, speak to Thin You.
- Verbal purging. Express all the sentiments you (Not-Thin You) have towards Thin You, just like how he/she just dished out everything that was on his/her mind. Maybe you’re pissed off at the way Thin You keeps abusing you. Maybe you’re pissed off at the ridiculous diets and exercise regimes he/she tries to put you through. Let them all out.
- Reason for being. There’s a reason why you (Not-Thin You) keeps sticking around even though Thin You keeps trying to get rid of you. What is the reason? What is he/she trying to tell you?
- Say all there is to say. Once again, don’t stop until you (as your Not-Thin self) has aired everything off your chest.
The exercise comes to an end when you finally understand Not-Thin You’s reason for being.
- It will take about 20 minutes or less, though the length of time depends on how much emotion there is to process. Take your time though – there is no need to rush.

Objectives of this Exercise

While the exercise may seem bizarre (talking to yourself — what…?), it’s really not that strange.

There are many facets of you, all floating inside of you. Some parts of you, you wear on your sleeve. These are the sides of you that other people see. Other parts of you, you hide inside you and repress them. These are the sides of you that never get “integrated” into your consciousness – hence becoming your “shadow”.

When you try to deny these “shadow” sides of you, they don’t disappear – in fact, they persist. The more you deny them, the more they will make themselves seen/heard via the creeks of your conscious self. In this case, a part of your shadow has taken the form of excess weight on your body.

This exercise is essential to help you to receive the message your subconsciousness is trying to tell you, which in turn will help you to integrate that rejected/lost/shadow aspect of yourself back into your consciousness. I’ve included the mirror in this exercise because I think it’s an excellent conduit to connect your light self with your shadow self, given that we are talking about something physical like weight.

(For those of you who are interested to explore the shadow aspect of yourself, Days 2-4 of Be a Better Me in 30 Days takes you on a journey to uncover your past “shadows” by way of your undesired traits.)

My Experience with the Exercise

When I first did this exercise a few months ago, I found it extremely revealing. I had already worked through the bulk of my emotional eating issues late last year and early this year, so this exercise provided me brand new insights that were no longer related to food, but to do with my relationship with myself.

Below were some of the insights I uncovered:

I was using excess body weight as a way to keep people away from me. Being heavier meant I would be less attractive, and being less attractive meant I would invite less attention from others, be it males or females. The lesser, the better.
I wasn’t ready for love; I didn’t want to be loved. I was fearful of being with someone – anyone, really. So I ate as a way to keep others at bay. My excess weight was like my shield, my armor. (Related to #1.)
I was abusing myself with expectations of what I should do every day. I had no issues with who I was (self-identity) but I had problems with what I should be (accomplishments). The expectations weighed down on me and drained me of any self-love I had left. It then created a vacant void which would subsequently be filled with food. The more expectations I weighed myself with, the more I would eat.
I didn’t realize it, but I was living in fear this whole time. Fear that I would not be good enough. Many of my daily thoughts, actions, and some of my goals were driven by the desire to become “good enough”. The fear then manifested outward as my not-thin self. The more fear I held on to, the “bigger” I would become. Any attempts to shake off the weight would be thwarted shortly after, because the fear was still present.

Hearing all these things straight from my mouth was a huge awakening moment. I kinda knew some of the issues that were bubbling above at the surface, but this exercise really blew the whole thing wide open. It helped me to finally receive the messages my inner self had been trying to send to me all this while.

At the end of the exercise, I was in tears. I also realized what I had to do next – (a) open myself up to love (all kinds of love and unconditional love, not specifically romantic love) (b) recognize that love is everywhere (c) let go of the fear which had been driving me all this while.

Merging with Not-Thin You

Everyone’s not-thin self has a different reason for being. Do the exercise and get the answers straight from the horse’s mouth. Then, address those problems.

When you uncover the reasons, and address the reasons, one by one, your not-thin self and your real, true, thin self (who is hiding inside you) will slowly to merge and become one person. You will no longer be someone who is split into 2 spiritual bodies, but one full spiritual body that is whole and complete.

When that happens, you will find that you will take the natural actions required to lose your excess weight (with little to no resistance) and you *will* start losing those excess pounds off your body. (This is what’s happening to me now.) Your physical body will begin to reflect the thinner spiritual you. This is when you will finally lose the weight and keep it off.

Don’t hate on Not-Thin You but understand that it is here to send a message. It wants to work with you. Remove the barricade between you and her via this exercise. That is when he/she will combine forces with you and work with you – and finally let your physical body reflect your true inner self.

(Images: Reflection, Mirror)