Mind Over Menopause by Pahla Bowers

Author:Pahla Bowers
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781615199761
Publisher: The Experiment
Published: 2023-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Borrow This (Possibly) Helpful Thought

Remember that you absolutely don’t need to force a helpful thought into your head, nor is this automatically going to be a helpful thought for you. Rather, give this some consideration and ask yourself how you feel when you say it: I am a person who weighs XXX [your goal weight].

I’m going to guess that on your first pass, what you feel is disbelief, right? Because of course you’re not currently a person who weighs your goal weight, that’s why it’s a goal weight! But hear me out here: The phrase “I am” is the most powerful in human language, bringing an immediacy to whatever follows it—and it doesn’t have to be taken literally. We use that phrase to describe our jobs, our hobbies, as well as our mood or other transitory feelings like hunger or tiredness, and yet we know that it is not a description of our complete selves. “I am happy” doesn’t imply that you are only happy, or that you are always happy every minute of every day, or that happy is the only thing you can be. It means you feel happy, right now. What if you feel like a person who weighs your goal weight? What would that feel like? Good? If this moment of imagining yourself at your goal weight feels good, then this is a helpful thought. (And if not, then it’s unhelpful and you can disregard it.) In fact, if imagining yourself at your goal weight feels good, this is an incredibly helpful thought, because it’s priming your brain for success. Daydreaming (or prospection, if you’d like a fancier word for it) isn’t just an idle use of your time.

The part of your brain that will get you out of bed for your early morning workout, or plan and prep meals on the weekends, or reach your hand for the water bottle again and again is motivated by imagination, because it’s not making the distinction between reality and fantasy. When you picture yourself in the future, weighing your goal weight and doing the things you want to do, you are creating feelings of confidence and certainty right now that will, in turn, drive your actions today.

To your brain, while you are imagining yourself at your goal weight, you are your goal weight, so of course you will do all the things—such as managing your mind, eating right, exercising regularly, drinking water, and sleeping adequately—that a person at that weight would do.

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