I’m so glad that the weight loss industry is finally acknowledging the role mindset and emotions play in losing weight and adopting healthy habits. What is little understood is how the mental-emotional sphere influences our energy levels, and what we create with our actions. Emotions that get stuck within us become part of our vibe — no longer emotions but spiritual add-ons. The interwoven relationships between emotions and Soulset (or Heartset and Soulset) can dramatically affect our intuition and whether or not we can create our goals (body or otherwise).
Without further ado, here are the four most common emotional blocks to weight loss I’ve encountered with my students. Each one carries an energy with it, a hurdle, that challenges the student to rise above. On the other side of that hurdle: their absolute best body — without strain.
1. An Emotional Connection to Weight
Sounds absurd, right? You’ve been oh-so-ready to lose weight since, like, puberty — right? You’d love nothing more than to be loving your body and feeling fantastic in everything you wear… right?
The real, deep down, full answer may surprise you.
There are many, many reasons our identities can get tied up in “being” overweight. Change, even when oh-so positive, is always a little scary.
Hurdle: Self-Sabotage.
The biggest hurdle my students face in overcoming this emotional block to the body they’d adore is self-sabotage. Gaining clarity about the subconscious (and even unconscious) fears that are looming just below the surface is the first step to releasing them. Weight loss almost automatically follows.
Read: How to Lose Stress Weight
2. Feeling Unworthy of the Awesome Body you’d LOVE
Did you know that the root cause of almost all mental and emotional dis-ease is feeling “not enough”? So many of the women I know, teach and love feel that they somehow “don’t deserve” to be healthy, wealthy, vital. Without this inherent understanding — that being in high health is your life hood right — it’s very, very difficult to live in their best bodies sustainably … and almost impossible to lose weight easily.
Hurdle: Lacking the Confidence needed to try new things (ie. make real changes).
The foundation to overcoming this emotional block to weight loss is comfort. By tuning into the natural born vitality that every one of your cells deserves, and you belong with, is the first step towards allowing easy weight loss to begin.
Read: 6 Self-Care Habits of Women who always Stay Slim
3. Wounds from the Past (Emotional Armour)
I have known women who gained weight purposefully trying to avert the attention of men. I have known women who starved themselves just to make their bodies look as frail as they felt inside. I have known far more women who gain, and hold onto, their weight to appear less fragile, more sturdy, less vulnerable. Vulnerability is a very tricky virtue to embody in this day in age. It takes real courage. Almost any unhealed emotional wounds from the past can totally block it, and your ability to lose weight — to look as slight as you really are.
Hurdle: Feeling jaded and/or defensive about weight loss.
Even having tried and failed to lose weight before may have “got your back up” so-to-speak. This downtrodden little Heartset needs a reboot to heal, grow and strengthen the Personal Powers of Comfort & Confidence to embrace the discofort of change.
Read: The One Surprising thing Needed for Confidence
4. Not Having Support
This is not just an external lack of support I’m speaking to. Having our own inner world — our Self-Talk Tool and inner guidance — lacking the skills or energy to really give us help when we need it can not only be detrimental to the challenges of making healthy lifestyle changes, but make it truly improbable that we will find that assistance on the outside too.
Hurdle: When emotional needs aren’t met, there can be no thriving, vital, body.
Contrary to popular belief, being in your Ideal Body Composition is really about being happy. It’s not to say that getting your body to a certain goal will bring happiness and joy on its own, but the only easy — and sustainable — way to get into your finest physique is via holistic wellness (and the right support).
Read: What is a Holistic Weight Loss Program?
I hope this really helped you envision a future where none of these emotional blocks holds you back from the body of your dreams. You can download the Emotional Needs checklist here and I will take you on a 5 day journey to easier weight loss with UpRoots Wellness.
