Is your Inner Dialogue holding you back?

If you passed a stranger in the street chatting away to themselves you’d think they were ‘not quite right’.  Well, I would!

But what about the internal chit chat that’s going on in all our minds?  Other people are not privy to our inner conversations and thank goodness for that!  Well, unless by some obscure mind reading ability.

Georgia Foster, in her book The Weight Less Mind, defines this internal chit chat as our ”Inner Dialogue”.  What’s really interesting is that this Inner Dialogue consists of numerous voices, each representing a sub-personality or part.  This is known as the Psychology of Selves.  The different sub-personalities develop unconsciously during childhood with their main aim being to protect us.  As babies we’re completely vulnerable.  Our core selves build within the first few months and years, controlling our behaviour in order to deal with all that comes our way.   

Georgia identifies 4 key selves that tend to control the inner dialogue of people struggling with weight and food related issues.  These are:

1. The Inner Critic
2. The Pleaser
3. The Perfectionist
4. The Inner Child

Georgia explains that although these voices developed to help us avoid pain they “have the power of holding us back” and are often emotionally self destructive.  Our inner conversations become our reality and therefore the controlling (loudest) voices drive our feelings and actions.  I know for me my Inner Critic is horribly vocal, constantly reminding me how big I am and that nothing looks good on me so why do I bother trying.  After years of my Inner Critic leading my thoughts I truly believe that I am over weight and always will be… no matter what the scales tell me.

The Weight Less Mind uses Voice Dialogue tools and techniques to enable us to recognise, understand and work with the different selves that influence our thoughts, feelings and behaviour.  It then goes a step further, aiding communication with our core parts and also, strengthening the opposing personalities that have been pushed back.  Georgia specifically talks about the Slim Confident part that exists in all of us that has been suppressed by bullies such as the Inner Critic.

What makes Georgia’s methods so successful is that she uses hypnosis to reach the unconscious mind and fill it with more positive, helpful messages.  Georgia equates this to filling your “memory bank … library” with “information that reflects what you want to feel” rather than how your Inner Critic and other core parts have led you to feel.  The mind doesn’t understand positive and negative, only what it hears more of.  It therefore follows that the more we fill our minds with thoughts we want to believe, such as ‘I do not need food to deal with stress’, these thoughts will become habit and will help change unwanted behaviour such as overeating.

I highly recommend reading The Weight Less Mind.  It’s opened my mind and I feel more aware of my core parts and where the self destructive thoughts are coming from.  The book comes with a self hypnosis CD packed with positive statements.  The only struggle I’ve found so far is staying awake when it’s played – so relaxing!

Visit Georgia’s website … www.georgiafoster.com The book and selfhypnosis CD is available as an e-book.