It makes no difference whether you create a negative or positive environment, your DNA it will actuate according to the directions it’s given. The principle works either way.
Rather than blaming your DNA, work with it. Your genetic potential is greater than you think. Because your DNA is influenced by the chemistry of your body, and your body chemistry by your mind, scientists now believe the power of your mind can alter the way your body responds right down to the cell level.
So, if the mind has such a powerful effect on brain chemistry and cell development, then why is it that practicing affirmations and keeping a positive attitude has such a minuscule effect on physiological or behavioral change?
This is because most affirmations and positive thinking disciplines are practiced in the conscious mind. To make a integral change, you need to engage the overriding, creative, controlling, operative part of your mind. The part of your mind that automatically keeps your body working in sync. That keeps your heart beating. That keeps your digestive and fluid systems working. That lets you breathe without thinking. The part of the mind that compels the healing process. And that regulates your body’s chemistry. The subconscious.
It’s your subconscious that dominates 95% of your mind. It operates under the radar of your awareness and cannot be “convinced” through logical argument. Your subconscious holds your deepest beliefs, core values, memories, experiences, habits and emotions. And its the beliefs held in this part of your mind that need to be revised if you want to obtain permanent or profound change. If 95% of you believes that you will always be fat, then the 5% of your conscious mind that declares you can be thin is just outgunned. The subconscious mind also generates your automatic responses. That is why you can tell yourself not to blush, but you still blush (much to your embarrassment.) So to make a substantial change in your behavior and automatic responses, you will need to negotiate with your subconscious mind on its own terms.
This is how hypnosis helps countless numbers of people to lose weight every year. Hypnosis accesses the habits, beliefs, emotions and the automatic responses retained in the subconscious mind. Hypnosis allows you to gain entry to this part of your mind so you can then communicate with it in a way that the subconscious can understand. There is a specific language that the subconscious mind comprehends. Emotion, experience and imagination – the language of the subconscious mind – is directed toward the desired outcome during the hypnosis session. As the subconscious accepts hypnotic suggestion, it scans its vast gallery of resources to focus them toward your desired goal. In the case of weight loss, as hypnotic suggestion takes effect, the subconscious will begin to support your decision for healthy eating by increasing your attraction to light and nutritionally dense foods; by prompting hunger and appetite satiation signals appropriately; by reducing cravings; and by making junk food less alluring.
Hypnosis instills good habits, too, like getting proper amounts of exercise and rest; increasing consumption of water; eating slowly and consciously; and becoming free of stress and self-sabotaging behaviors. And, of course, a change in your mental and physical habits stimulates change in your brain chemistry – that fascinating environmental precursor to epigenetic attachment and DNA activation. It’s important to note that your thoughts, actions, perceptions and habits all have an impact on brain and body chemistry. Weight issues are complex, and there is no single component that regulates how your body gains or loses weight – including your DNA – but many of the factors that regulate weight loss can be induced while in hypnosis.
Notice that I mentioned “habits” – an essential component of successful weight loss! I cannot overstate this: a healthy lifestyle is crucial for permanent weight loss! Successful weight loss is not about going on diets. Although many people lose weight on diets, they are not really successful in that most people (about 95% in fact) gain it all back plus some after the diet is over! The only successful weight loss is the one that you get to keep forever.
To effectively change your body’s ability to lose weight, you must change your relationship with eating and exercise. Then and only then can you establish thin habits that become automatic for you. As your body and weight conform to a new set point, the same attitudes and habits that helped you to take it off will help you to keep it off for a lifetime. Your subconscious mind continues working for you, because now your core beliefs, habits and perceptions are different. Your automatic reactions are different. Your associations with food are different. Your mind no longer connects a compelling expectation to those old sources of unwanted behavior and, consequently, your brain’s responses to them wane away. Your subconscious mind no longer incites those unhealthy desires and compulsions.
Food, exercise, medications and many other factors affecting the chemical environment of your DNA do, of course, have an impact on cell development. But do not underestimate the power of your emotions and attitudes. Perceptions, emotions and automatic responses are all registered as brain chemicals and those chemicals have an effect on the way your DNA is expressed and on how your body performs. Stress, for example, has long been recognized as a prime suspect when addressing weight fluctuation issues.
Hypnosis works with you by persuading your subconscious mind to accept new habits, beliefs, attitudes and automatic responses. New perceptions are established as your self image, attitude and disposition shift in concurrence. These new positive perceptions are reflected in the brain through chemical emissions and, consequently, in the DNA – where molecular attachment and genetic expression adjust for a new and better version of you.
Changing your eating and exercise habits are, and always will be, an important mainstay of any healthy weight loss program. However, it appears that science is now validating an awareness long known in spiritual circles: that a change in your mental body prompts correspondence in your physical body. It’s worth considering that perhaps by allowing perceptual change to take place in your subconscious mind, you create a new chemical environment for your DNA. And that new environment may very well be a catalyst for the promotion of long-term weight loss.
So are you stuck with your parents’ and grandparents’ genetic predisposition? Like a hand-me-down dress, if you like it “as is” then keep wearing it that way. But if you want a better fit, or would prefer a slightly different design, then just a few minor alterations can get you a whole new look!