The power of association is one simple principle that is absolutely essential to remember because within that principle lies the key to success.
The secret is this: We move towards pleasure and away from pain.
If in your mind, you perceive that you are on a diet, (whether it be a healthy eating diet or fasting), your subconscious mind (in an effort to protect you from this perceived pain of being 'on a diet') will drive you to sabotage your efforts.
You can plan on it. It’s not because your subconscious mind wants to hurt you in any way.
In fact, it’s the opposite. It seeks to protect you and bring you pleasure.
So if you associate pleasure with certain foods, let’s say Dunkin' Donuts’s bagels, you will end up at Dunkin’ Donuts, no doubt.
The Power of Association to a Healthier, Happier You...
With this understanding, realize that what you are doing when you are listening to the hypnosis audio recordings is re-programming your thinking and changing your deeply held associations with pleasure and pain.
Therefore, it’s necessary to watch your thinking all day long, not just when you are listening to the hypnosis session.
Catch yourself making mental movies that make the Dunkin’ Donuts food appealing.
Now at a certain level of thought, you may protest and say, but it is appealing. I will challenge that by saying, “Not really”.
A smoker will say that a cigarette is appealing but it is only his perception because of the way he has trained his brain to think.
If you go back in time in that smoker’s life, back to the year before he ever started to smoke, he would most likely agree with most non-smoker's perception that cigarette smoke is disgusting.
How do we get our perceptions of pleasure and pain?
If you keep telling yourself how much you enjoy Dunkin’ Donuts and then get the food and have the experience of pleasure, the link between pleasure and Dunkin’ Donuts becomes more and more embedded in the brain.
It’s a FEELING connection that speaks to the subconscious mind.
Now, if you try to paste over that FEELING perception of pleasurable Dunkin’ Donuts words that have no feeling attached to them that say things like,
“I’m only going to eat 1200 calories a day,”
“If I hadn’t had any discipline and eaten all those bad foods for so long, I wouldn’t have to suffer now,”
your mind is going to rebel. It’s only natural. So do you see why dieting has to fail (due to the psychology of how the brain works), whether it’s a healthy food diet or fasting?
Either way, there is great pain associated with it.
The subconscious mind: shifting your perceptions...
The only way to have success over the long run, and to have a pleasurable experience even while you are pursuing your goal, is to shift your own perceptions consciously.
You have to CREATE INTERNAL IMAGES that are congruent with what you actually want. You need to CREATE MENTAL MOVIES that will lead you to the result you want.
So if your goal is to be healthy and happy, at your ideal weight, then you must in every waking moment plant seeds of thought that are aligned with this result.
Do healthy, happy adults dine regularly at Dunkin’ Donuts?
The answer is no.
What do healthy, happy adults do?
In most cases, they exercise physically in one way or another.
Decide consciously what kind of exercise fits into your lifestyle and make a mental movie of yourself doing this.
In the movie, brighten the color, and add close-ups. See your own face with an expression of joy on it.
See your body strong and firm and energized and moving easily and effortlessly.
If you like to sweat, imagine yourself sweating and LOVING IT!
The key is, to create images of pleasure.
Use all your senses. Add music to make your movie even more compelling.
The key is to program yourself so that no matter how you are feeling, no matter what stress you are under, pulling into Dunkin’ Donuts would be the last thing on earth you would do.
As soon as your mind thinks you can’t have something, it’s going to want it more...
Isn’t that human nature?
Try thinking of something you are not going to do. I am not going to climb that tree in the backyard.
What’s your first thought?
I wonder what it would be like to climb that tree. Right?
Your thoughts lead to your behaviors.
You can’t change your thoughts, though. You can’t not think about climbing that tree.
But if you imagine the tree is filled with nasty pine needles that will prick you, the desire to climb the tree vanishes.
Same thing with food. If you imagine how good a food will taste, you will want that food.
Train your mind to link harmful foods with images of either disgusting or unpleasant results.
For me, any food that I decided contributed to future food cravings or fatigue, I would just associate with my worst feelings...
I would imagine the worst feeling I could have—fatigue or being out of control—and then link that unwanted feeling to the food I used to desire.
That’s why I could serve ice cream to my children all these years without even being tempted, despite the fact that as a child, ice cream was my favorite food. When I’m serving it, I am not imagining the taste, I just automatically tune into the belief I installed in my own mind that is convinced that ice cream would make me sick, diabetic, and overweight.
After you repeat certain programming enough times, the new thoughts become automatic.
The key is to remember that you are programmed to move towards pleasure and away from pain.
So,
Take control of your life by associating the activities that lead to the result that you don’t want, with pain, and associating the thoughts and activities that lead to what you do want, with pleasure.
In this way, you no longer live a life filled with moments of pleasure resting in a backdrop of pain and lack of fulfillment.
Rather you create a life of deep personal fulfillment in which your pleasures support you in maintaining the wonderful life you truly desire and deserve.
