Why We Have Unexplained Weight Gain & How to Lose It
Part 1
As a Metaphysical colon hydrotherapist, one of the statements I often hear is “I’ve gained weight and I don’t know why. My diet is the same and I’m exercising so I don’t understand where this weight is coming from.”
The Wisdom of the Body
When people struggle with body issues like weight gain or disease/dysfunction, we often think in terms of the physical body alone. We are blessed to have bodies that love us by creating physical manifestations to help us fully heal[1].
Let me ask: Would you make any changes in your belief systems or begin investigating the deeper levels of your being (your mind, emotions, spirituality) if your external world (i.e. your body, your relationships, your financial situation, your career goals) didn’t change? Would you allow yourself to feel your feelings fully or honor what your body needs if it didn’t create a physical issue that forced you to stop and question your life and yourself? I believe most people would say “probably not”. What happens when we experience unexplained weight gain, physical disease, and chronic illness? It’s human to feel frustrated and even angry with your body when it doesn’t behave the way you want, especially if we are eating well, exercising and doing all the right things. When we are attending to our physical needs and we still experience dysfunction, could there be something more we need to address?
Why do our bodies carry extra weight or begin to gain weight for unexplained reasons?
Much of the work in which I engage clients involves addressing the energetic body. This is the unseen subtle body that affects the physical body. I have observed that if people only deal with the physical body but not the energetic (emotional, mental, spiritual) then either not much changes, or if it does, the changes are not sustained, and this can feel very confusing and discouraging to people — if they continue to only look at it from the physical perspective.
The wisdom of your body is beautiful, helpful, and exists to aid us in understanding who we truly are. If you are experiencing any type of unexplained weight gain, disease, illness, or physical dysfunction, it is most likely your body sharing with you some profound information. What happens when your body puts on weight?
It can mean several different things:
*you may not feel emotionally or physically safe in your body, world, and/or relationships (often from past abusive experiences);
*you may be unconsciously creating armor to protect yourself from perceptions of threat (real or imagined);
*you’ve created a wall so others will leave you alone;
*serves as validation if excess weight was treated unfavorably in your family of origin and you feel unworthy or less than;
*shows you where you are taking on from others what does not belong to you;
*allows you to experience what life feels like in a heavier body;
*can point to a need to balance your endocrine system;
*helps you to make the connection between your weight and buried emotions (especially anger and rage which is “hot” and expands in the body;
*reveals unconscious emotional eating;
*can mirror who you believe you really are (i.e. A friend was told growing up that she was ‘fat city’ and the ‘family garbage disposal’. These comments were used as derogatory statements to belittle her. She grew up believing this to be true and her self-beliefs – given to her by someone else – became a self-fulfilled prophecy as she grew up overweight).
I will share a personal story to help you understand: I remember being in a relationship for 7 years and I weighed 135 lbs., which was too much for my frame. Within two weeks of leaving that relationship, I dropped 15 lbs. without changing my diet and I wasn’t even exercising then — what a clear indication that my body was holding on emotionally. I hadn’t realized how emotionally unsafe I felt in that relationship until my body showed me by shedding the weight, as if it were armor. Many clients have shared similar stories of their own with me.
Weight gain is an issue that many people face and end up feeling bad about themselves as a result. We use it as a way to beat ourselves up and feel unworthy. What if we didn’t treat ourselves like that anymore? What if we worked with the wisdom of our body to understand ourselves deeper and to learn to love who we are, exactly as we are? ALL of us are worthy. ALL of us deserve to live with joy, peace, and love. This applies to people you might consider bad, jerks, or even evil. Others’ behavior is what it is because THEY believe (unconsciously) themselves to be unworthy and their behavior reflects that they have forgotten who they are.
How do unexpressed and unresolved emotions show up as weight?
The good news is that we can learn from the wisdom of our body. We can understand how the energetic body contributes to the excess weight in the physical body. I have the honor of observing my clients as I work with their bodies’ wisdom and have concluded the following as a result[2]:
Do you know the top of a sports water bottle and how you have to pull up on it to get the water to flow? Our heads and cervical spine are similar. When we have tension, are in our heads a lot, or internalize emotions, the head can mimic the top of the sports bottle and energetically collapse and physically shrink down into our spine. When this happens, our body has to adjust for this shrinkage of energy in the body and it pushes everything downward. As a result, there is a disruption in the flow of energy and the flow of cerebral spinal fluid, which correlates to the brain and nervous system. If the flow of energy to the nervous system is disrupted, the stress within the body can become concentrated and it expands out as a way to compensate for this disruption. It creates more stress response in the body as fight, flight, and freeze. This in turn disrupts the way the digestive system functions because it perceives the amount of stress that is being held in the body as being in survival mode. When we add negative self-talk to the mix we see how this adds even more internal emotional pressure. Being in survival mode and unloving self-talk can create digestive issues such as constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, bloat, gas, colitis, and diverticulitis to name a few. When we live with stress and are unaware of how our stress affects our bodies, we often use food as a way to cope with the uncomfortable emotional feelings that lay dormant within us. What is the most common food we use to cope with? Sugar!
People tend to deal with emotional issues by consuming sugar (including but not limited to candy, carbs, alcohol, fruit, sugary drinks — you get the idea). I believe sugar consumption is a way to feel emotional relief. Some people consume sugar in an attempt to sweeten their lives, while others use sugar to avoid dealing with unresolved and unacknowledged feelings. This is only a temporary ‘fix’ since the relief sugar provides is short-lived. It creates a cycle where the stress doesn’t actually leave the body because it is an illusion that the sugar is relieving anything (although it feels that way in the moment). Sugar convinces our brain it is helping but in reality it only compounds the situation, thus the body continues to hold onto more stress, creates a need for additional sugar, and expands outward even more. Further, consuming too much sugar in any form can create an overgrowth of yeast, also known as candidiasis – (candida for short). Candida is one of the most common causes of unexplained weight gain.
Your body loves you and understands creating weight and/or physical dysfunction is a way to get your attention to look inward and remember the truth of who you are. You are worthy not because of your body, not because of what you do, and not even because of your feelings. You are worthy simply because you exist — that’s it. And that is enough.
*** You are enough exactly as you are. ***
I will continue this discussion in next month’s blog and will detail how to lose unexplained (and explained) weight gain from a metaphysical perspective!
Would you like to learn how to lose unwanted and unexplained weight, listen to the wisdom of your body and self-heal your physical dysfunctions (and dysfunctional relationships in your life as well)? Join Stephanie as she teaches you in her online self-healing course – “Embracing Love by Letting Go: Iyasu’s Metaphysical Cleanse”:
Stephanie created this online course to help women self-heal. If you a practitioner who works with women and are interested in offering your community healing sessions that are unique and life changing, Stephanie is happy to create women’s sacred circles for groups of conscious women choosing to heal themselves and the world. Please contact her at [email protected].
[1] Although this is the case for some, I don’t claim this the case for every single person experiencing physical dysfunction or weight issues.
[2] The information is based solely on my clinical observations. I have not conducted any scientific test to support my hypothesis.
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