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Last time, we covered the first reason traditional dieting to shed pounds does not work, Adaptation and Homeostasis.
This episode, we'll dig into reason number two: that you are using your conscious will-power to keep yourself on the new diet.
You may have heard me say that the conscious mind is like the small part of an iceberg above sea level and that the subconscious mind is like the much larger submarine part. When you make a conscious decision to, say, get into an elevator, and your subconscious simply won't let you do it, that's because when the flea takes on the elephant, guess who wins.
You can't make the elephant do anything. You have to convince him to want, what you want. This is what happens in hypnosis sessions. We help convince your elephant to help you put up that big top tent rather than stomp you into the pavement.
So, half the reason your conscious decision to, say, lose weight ends in failure is simply what your conscious mind is up against...a battle of wills between a flea and an elephant.
Aside from just opposing wills, here's a second metaphor to illustrate how your mind works.
YOU make a conscious decision to start a diet. You, the conscious mind, the one that made that decision to set a new course, are like the Captain, and your subconscious mind is like the Crew.
The Captain might know a fair amount about how the engine works, how to plot a course,...how to swab a deck. But the Captain's job is to give orders. The Crew are the experts that carry it out.
Will-power is like the Captain going down to the engine room and just getting in the way. Or shoving the Navigator aside and plotting the course himself. Once the Captain leaves his post and tries to do the jobs of the Crew, the ship will not likely reach it's destination, except by accident. That's why you have a SCOTTY, and a SPOCK, and a SULU. The S Team.
When the Captain gives an order, the crew must carry that order out. If the Captain fails to give an order, the Crew will follow anyone else's order: any person, anything it sees on TV, any bit of gossip, any lie, any propaganda, you know how Crews are.
After issuing the order, the Captain then only has to watch to see that the order is carried out by checking the progress of the ship to the destination. If something goes wrong with the engines, he lets the engineer take care of it. If the course of the ship strays, he checks with the navigator. The Captain does not fix the engines, and he does not plot the course once the order is given.
Your subconscious mind is the expert on how to repair your body/mind. We hypnotists are simply the experts that re-establish communication between the Captain in the Wheelhouse, and the Crew in the other parts of the ship.
Will-power is like the Captain who leaves the wheelhouse and goes down to the engine room and tries to do the job of SCOTTY. The Captain just ends up getting in the way, and the helm is left to SULU while the battle of the bulge needs the Captain to be where he should be, at the helm to give orders.
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