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Weight Gain: How Trauma, Stress & Unconscious Conflicts are Keeping You Stuck

by | Weight Loss, Womens Relationship Expert

Weight Gain: How Trauma, Stress & Unconscious Conflicts are Keeping You Stuck


We are all familiar with the mainstream approach to tackling weight loss through nutritional plans or diets: vegetarian, vegan, paleo, prepackaged/pre portioned meals, no sugar/no alcohol/no packaged foods, weighing/measuring restricting. I call it “nutritional micromanagement.” And to be quite honest, most of us aren’t prepared for this level of discipline on a long-term basis. Now let’s consider “exercise micromanagement” – getting in the cardio, the steps, and the weights – all good ideas, but again, most folks drop the ball on long-term follow through.

So if we claim to know the formula – why is this often not enough to get the pounds off and keep them off? Why do these programs often fail? Why are they non-sustainable? Because the problem and the solution to weight management comes from a much deeper place. These mainstream approaches are prescriptive versus intuitive; unpalatable and punitive; restrictive; on-size-fits-all. But what about the role of the unconscious mind; the mind/body connection, and the emotional component to eating (i.e.: trauma and stress triggers)?

Let’s think for a moment on how past trauma can affect your current day relationship with food. What about the six-year-old version of you that used food as a source of comfort; or the abused child that learned carrying extra weight pushed others away and kept her safe or the teenager who now associates food with feelings of shame and worthlessness and hides her eating habits from others? These mainstream approaches to weight management can never address this kind of hardwiring.

Fast forward to an unhappy marriage, unsatisfying career, family drama, unanticipated life stressors. Fast forward again to poor sleep, limited tools for managing daily stress and being in constant fight or flight. Where then would weight management fall on the list of priorities? And how might a person find the strength, resilience, and discipline to make needed life changes? All of this trauma – all of this stress – past and present are now creating even more barriers to sustainable weight loss.

Can you now begin to see why the mainstream approach to weight management can be problematic?

Let’s think about this. You know your own body best. You know what foods agree with you and which wreak havoc. You know when to eat and how much. You know which foods are palatable and enjoyable and which are not. You clearly know the difference between eating when you are hungry and when you are just mood eating. You know the types of physical activities that appeal to you, and which ones you are likely to integrate into your lifestyle long-term.

So why wouldn’t you just lean on your intellectual wisdom? And why seek the advice of an expert who has a lot of the same intellectual knowledge as you? Because in reality the kind of challenge you’re trying to solve hovers beneath the surface of awareness and the long-term solution cannot be found in the outer world.

And herein lies the issue – the intellectual versus the intuitive mind. Can the intellect and conscious mind ALONE solve addictions? If so, why is it that when we use mainstream interventions, as one addiction is quieted, another begins to erupt? Why then are the results typically short-term? And why then aren’t we all skinny?

Maybe it’s not that these mainstream approaches don’t make any sense, maybe it’s that they just don’t make the kind of sense that equates to long term sustainable weight loss. Maybe sustainability and long-term recovery from food addictions is about accessing the deeper levels of the mind where intuitive wisdom lies to gain clarity, resolution, answers, and inner peace.

Maybe it’s just as much about resolving past trauma and managing current life stressors, as it is about creating healthier habits. And maybe there is an order of operations where one proceeds the other. Maybe it makes sense to first look at the root cause of this behavior; to begin to challenge old scripts and beliefs; to create a new inner dialogue; to slowly begin to regulate sleep patterns; to reintroduce the concept of calmness and to completely dismantle the fight or flight response pattern. Maybe it makes sense to first find better tools for managing daily stress, healthier replacement behaviors, and short term and long- term solutions to stress and trauma triggers.

So now you can see that by resolving these inner world conflicts first, one can begin to successfully integrate outer world weight loss strategies. Because once you find the healing formula for life that resonates with your soul, the byproduct of this (you guessed it) is sustainable weight loss.

I hope sustainable weight loss and management is now beginning to make more sense. There is an order of operations: first to resolve unconscious conflicts, learn to manage current life stressors and triggers; to look at the short-term solutions and long-term goals before integrating mainstream weight loss approaches.

If you are ready to get help reeling in your weight gain and food addiction; if you are ready to journey inward and solve these unconscious conflicts, to challenge and replace old life scripts and inner dialogue, to discover the tools to manage daily stress and to channel the wisdom and energy of the Higher Self, click here for a free consultation: Sensorium Hypnosis & Mediumship, LLC (timetap.com).

Click here to learn more about how hypnosis helps create sustainable weight loss: Weight Loss – Sensorium Hypnosis & Mediumship, LLC

Need help navigating a major life transition? Is this affecting your mental and/or physical health? Click here to learn more about how hypnosis can help: Life Transitions – Sensorium Hypnosis & Mediumship, LLC

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