S2 EP299 – Are You Ready for Permanent Weight Loss?

Hi everyone. I’m Dr. Margaret Paul. Welcome to the Inner Bonding Podcast. Today I’m speaking about experiencing permanent weight loss, which I achieved 40 years ago when we created Inner Bonding and I started to practice it, after years of struggling with food addiction and weight issues.  

If you ask almost any overweight person, “Do you really want to lose weight?” the answer is likely, “Yes, I would love to lose weight.”

Most overweight and obese people want so much to lose weight that they spend billions a year trying, so why is our country growing fatter? Why aren’t people losing weight when they say that this is what they want to do?

The answer is that as much as they want to lose weight, there is something they want even more: they want to fill their emptiness and aloneness and avoid other painful feelings.

The problem is, food works well to temporarily fill up inner emptiness and cover over painful feelings of loneliness, heartbreak, aloneness, sadness, grief, hurt, frustration, anxiety, depression, guilt, shame and so on. If you don’t know how to stop creating your own emptiness and aloneness, and how to manage and learn from the painful feelings of life, you have to find some way of filling the emptiness and avoiding the pain. Food is an available and easy way of doing this, but it is really no different than any other addiction. All addictions are ways of trying to fill the inner emptiness and avoid painful feelings.

While some people manage to force themselves to lose weight through rigid dieting, most gain it back. Unless you learn to deal with the issues underlying your food addiction, you will likely not be able to keep off the weight.

What creates the inner emptiness and some of the painful feelings that lead to food addiction? Self-Abandonment.

Most people have learned to abandon themselves in a number of ways. 

You judge yourself, telling yourself that you are not good enough, and that you “should have…” or “shouldn’t have…” and so on. Instead of valuing yourself and taking loving care of yourself, you treat yourself badly on the inner level, and may allow others to treat you badly on the outer level. Instead of learning about how to take loving care of yourself, you try to control yourself with self-judgment. Your inner child inevitably feels rejected by you – alone and empty of inner love.
 
You then ignore the painful feelings caused by your self-judgment and lack of self-care, rather than choosing to be aware that your thoughts and actions are causing you to feel inwardly rejected and abandoned, you avoid taking responsibility for your feelings, by staying in your mind instead of being present inside your body with your feelings. 

You are now feeling alone and empty inside, and if you have not done the inner work to develop a loving adult self who cares about and takes responsibility for your feelings, your wounded inner self desperately turns to various addictions. You might make others responsible for your feelings through different forms of manipulative behavior, such as anger, blame, neediness, resistance or giving yourself up. You might numb your feelings with substance addictions, such as food, alcohol, drugs or nicotine. You might further numb out with process addictions such as TV, sex, porn, computer games, work and so on.

This becomes a vicious negative circle, with self-abandonment causing pain, causing more self-abandonment. No matter how hard you try to lose weight, as long as this negative inner system is operating, you will not be able to sustain weight loss.

Permanent weight loss is not about dieting. It’s not about willpower. It’s not about discipline, self-control, or forcing yourself into restriction. We have all tried that. And it doesn’t work. Not for the long term.

Because permanent weight loss doesn’t come from controlling food. It comes from learning to love yourself rather than using food as a substitute for love. It comes from learning how to attend to your feelings rather than avoid them.

Permanent weight loss comes from healing the underlying self-rejection that leads to overeating or using food for comfort, distraction, or protection.

If food is being used to numb pain, avoid feelings, or disconnect from yourself, then diets will never work – because they don’t heal what’s driving the eating. Most weight struggles are not about food. They’re about the self-abandonment that lead to the painful feelings we’ve learned to numb, soothe, or push away with food.

So today, we’re going to talk about what permanent weight loss truly means, what it requires, and how Inner Bonding can help you heal the emotional roots of overeating or food obsession.

Most people approach weight loss by trying to control their behavior.
They say things like:
“I just need to try harder.”
“I need more discipline.”
“I need to stick to the plan.”

But if we look closely, overeating or turning to food is rarely about hunger.

We use food when we don’t want to feel:

• Loneliness
• Anxiety
• Emptiness
• Fear
• Boredom
• Sadness
• Stress
• Powerlessness
• Or the pain of feeling unlovable, unseen, or unimportant

The moment we tell ourselves, “I’m going to diet,” the wounded self hears, “I’m about to take away your coping mechanism.” And the wounded self panics. So the moment stress hits, the diet breaks.

If dieting worked, most people would only need to do it once. But what happens instead?

You might lose weight for a while. Maybe even enough to feel hopeful.
But then something happens:

• Stress returns
• Loneliness returns
• Old patterns return

And the weight not only comes back, but you might gain even more weight.
Because the dieting was never addressing the real issue. It was focused on the symptom, not the cause.

The real underlying cause, as I’ve said, is emotional self-abandonment. The real cause is using food to avoid pain – pain that has not been learned from and tended to with love.

When we don’t know how to love ourselves – how to comfort and care for our inner child – the wounded self turns to food for comfort, distraction, numbing, or escape.

Food becomes a protector. So when we simply take away the food without addressing the underlying self-abandonment and resulting painful feelings, or we haven’t learned to manage the painful feelings of life with love, the wounded self rebels, and we go right back to eating to soothe.

Take a breath. Ask yourself gently:
“When I eat beyond hunger, or I eat junk, what am I really trying not to feel?” Just notice – without judgment. 

This is why diets have a 95% failure rate. They try to control the behavior, instead of healing the underlying emotional need food is filling.

The part of us that overeats, binges, restricts, obsesses, or yo-yo diets is the wounded self.

The wounded self is the part that learned – often very early – that feelings were too much, too overwhelming, unsafe, or unwelcome. So it found ways to cope. For some of us, food became comfort, numbing, a distraction, a way to avoid emptiness, or a substitute for love

And I want to say something very important here: Your wounded self is not your enemy. It formed to protect you – to help you survive painful experiences. But now, as an adult, you have the ability to learn a different way – a loving way.

Permanent weight loss is not about defeating the wounded self. It’s about learning to care for the feelings that the wounded self has been trying to manage alone.

Food is never the deepest hunger.

At the core, the hunger is for:

• Love
• Safety
• Connection
• Comfort
• Presence
• Inner peace

When we were children, if our feelings were not met with love, we learned to suppress them. We learned to manage life by controlling, numbing, or escaping, and food is one of the easiest numbing agents. It’s socially acceptable. It’s readily available. And it does temporarily soothe the nervous system.

But it never heals the wound that caused the pain.

So we have to come back, inward, to the part of us that is hurting – the inner child who is saying:

“I’m lonely.”
“I’m scared.”
“I feel empty.”
“I need love.”

And the wounded self says: “Don’t worry. We’ll eat instead.”

That’s the loop.

The path to permanent weight loss is learning to be an open, spiritually connected loving adult, who is able to authentically say, “I’m here now. I will love you instead of stuffing your feelings down with food.”

Food hunger is satisfied by food. Emotional hunger is not. 

So I want to ask you a very important question: What are you really hungry for? Are you hungry for:

• Love?
• Comfort?
• Rest?
• Peace?
• Freedom?
• To matter?
• To be seen?
• To feel safe in your own body?

When we are disconnected from our feelings – our inner child – food becomes a stand-in for emotional nourishment.

But food can never give you what only love can provide. And the love you’re needing is your own love – the love of your loving adult caring for your inner child.

Close your eyes if you can. Imagine your inner child sitting beside you.
Ask them softly, “What are you really hungry for?” Let something arise – a word, an image, a feeling.

You don’t have to fix it…Just hear him or her. That listening – that presence – is already healing.

Are you ready for permanent weight loss? Not to diet, not to struggle, not to fight yourself. But to love yourself?

Because permanent weight loss requires willingness – the willingness:

• To feel your feelings instead of avoiding them
• To attend to your inner child with compassion
• To take emotional responsibility for your well-being
• To stop using food to fill emotional emptiness
• To choose love over control

This is not easy work. But it is liberating work. The way out of the lose-gain cycle is to do the necessary inner work to develop a powerful loving inner adult self who learns to treat you with love rather than trying to control you with self-judgment. Here is where the Inner Bonding process comes in. If you devote yourself to learning and practicing the Six Steps of Inner Bonding, you will be able to finally take loving care of yourself and not need food or other things to fill emptiness and avoid pain.

Now let’s walk through how Inner Bonding helps create the internal healing that leads to lasting change.

Step 1 is noticing the feeling behind the food. Next time you want to overeat or eat junk, or you’re reaching for food when you’re not hungry, pause and ask, “What am I feeling right now?” Decide you want to learn about what your feelings are trying to tell you.

Step 2 is consciously choosing the intention to learn. Say to yourself:
“I want to learn how to love myself through this, not avoid myself.” Instead of avoiding the feeling with food, choose to learn from it.

Then visualize your older wiser self, or whatever you turn to for spiritual help and guidance, and invite love, compassion, strength, courage, and wisdom into your heart. This is the moment the loving adult steps in.

Step 3 is dialoguing with your inner child and your wounded self. Ask your inner child “What am I telling you and how am I treating you from our wounded self that’s causing your painful feelings? Then listen to the soft voice within.

Then go deeper into your ego wounded self to discover the false beliefs that are leading your wounded self to use food. As your wounded self, “There must be a very good reason you want to stuff us with food, or pig out on sugar or junk food. What are you trying to control, avoid, or protect against?”

Your wounded self might say things like: “I’m loving myself by rewarding myself with donuts,” or “We can’t handle this anxiety or emptiness or shame. We need to fill up with food to feel safe.”

These are false beliefs that are governing your addiction to food. Stay with this until you understand the false beliefs behind your emotional eating.

Then move on to Step 4. In step 4, you ask your higher guidance about the beliefs you have uncovered, asking, “What is the truth?” For example, “Is it true that I’m loving myself by overeating, eating sugar or other junk food?” Listen for the answer. “Is it true that, as an adult, I can’t learn from and lovingly manage my painful feelings?” Again, listen for the answer. 

Then ask, “What is loving to my inner child right now? What is in my highest good right now?” and listen for the answer.  

Then, if you receive guidance about the loving action, move to Step 5, taking the loving action. A loving action in this moment might be journaling, walking in nature, listening to music, dancing or doing yoga, meditating, taking a warm bath, reading something uplifting, holding a doll or stuffed animal bringing comfort, letting yourself cry, calling a caring friend, speaking up with a partner, friend, family member, or colleague. Take the action with the intent to love your inner child, rather than to try to control something.

Once you take a loving action, then move to Step 6, again tuning into your feelings to see the result of your loving action. Do you feel lighter, relieved, more open, more peaceful, more present, more connected? If you do, you know you’ve taken a loving action. If you don’t, then go back to Step 4 for another loving action. 

Hopefully, you have given your inner child what you really need, rather than letting your wounded self abandon you with food.

So, are you ready for permanent weight loss? You are ready when you are willing to:

• Feel your feelings instead of avoiding them
• Care for your inner child rather than abandon him or her
• Turn toward yourself with compassion instead of criticism
• Seek comfort in love rather than in food

Permanent weight loss is a natural by-product of loving yourself. When you stop abandoning yourself emotionally, you stop needing food to cope.

As you learn to love your inner child, your relationship with food changes naturally.

You stop eating to avoid feelings because you stop being afraid of feelings. You stop overeating or eating junk because you stop abandoning yourself. Your body begins to release weight not because you forced it, but because the reason you were holding the weight is healing. And it’s not about will-power. It’s about love. Love, your love for yourself, changes everything.

Once I started to practice Inner Bonding, my weight issue naturally resolved. And in the process of practicing Inner Bonding, I discovered six loving actions that are very supportive of loving myself and maintaining my ideal weight.

Here they are. I hope they work as well for you as they have for me. 

The first one is to change your focus from losing weight to achieving health and fitness. Focusing on health is loving to you, while focusing on weight is generally controlling, coming from the wounded self. 

The second one is to read about health and fitness. It’s especially important to understand the recent research on creating a healthy gut – a healthy ‘microbiome.’ What goes on in your gut affects all your organs, including your brain. A toxic gut – from processed foods, factory farmed meats, chemicals, antibiotics and other meds, and environmental toxins – not only creates weight and health problems, but the toxins affect your brain and can create anxiety, depression, and many other health problems that involve the brain. 

The third is to learn to read your body signals regarding what feels good to your body and what feels bad. Learn to become the expert on your own body. We are all different and no one way of eating works for everyone. Your job is to learn to tune into what gives you energy and what robs you of energy, and what foods create calmness, and which ones create agitation. 

The fourth is to find a form of exercise that you enjoy and that you can do at least five times a week. Movement is important for health.

Exercise can be a problem if you have physical limitations or chronic illness. Losing weight with chronic illness or physical limitations is not impossible, but it can be a much bigger challenge. However, any kind of movement is better than no movement. Doctors used to think that rest would lead to less fatigue, but now they know that movement leads to less fatigue. 

The fifth is to be aware of when your wounded self is in charge of what you put into your body. This is about being aware of your intent to control or your intent to be loving to yourself. Your choice of your intent is the essence of free will, and what you choose governs everything. 

The sixth is to practice daily connecting with a spiritual source of wisdom, strength, love, and guidance. We develop our loving adult when we take loving actions guided by our higher source of wisdom and truth.

If you embrace these loving actions, it’s very likely that you will not only lose weight, but you will also move into greater physical and emotional health and wellbeing. Once you have developed a powerful loving inner adult through your Inner Bonding practice, you will be able to lose weight and gain health and fitness.

So I leave you with the question we began with:
Are you ready for permanent weight loss?

Not:
“Are you ready to force yourself?”
“Are you ready to fight your body?”
“Are you ready to restrict your joy?”

But:
Are you ready to learn to love yourself?

Because that is the path that heals, the path that lasts, the path that brings peace and fullness within.

Take one more breath. Place your hand on your heart. And say quietly and sincerely: “I am willing to learn to love myself.”

Willingness is the doorway. Everything begins with the willingness to open to learning about loving yourself.

I invite you to join me for my 30-Day home study Course that teaches Inner Bonding: “Love Yourself.”

Thank you for being here with me today.

As always, I’m sending you my love and my blessings on your healing journey.