With a wink to all the Seinfeld’s fans, this isn’t about the episode where the foursome makes a bet on who can last the longest and not take certain matters in hand to satisfy certain physical urges.  However, it is about who or what is really in charge - you (your mind) or your body.

We all like to “think” we are pretty together, “in control” and in charge of at least our personal space, our emotions, physical urges, how we conduct our lives, etc, but are we really the one in charge? 

The body is wired to survive - for example you can’t die from lack of sleep because your physical brain with automatically provide itself with rest (see: post on microsleep).  The body won’t let you starve or dehydrate to death (if there is food and water present to consume).  Your body also won’t let you stop breathing by holding your breath long enough to die.

Add this basic survival wiring, with an abusive (or even just a stressful) childhood and\or threatening experiences later in life, and what kind of survival methods do you think the physical body is going to devise in order to adapt and survive in a hostile environment? Mostly likely we are totally unaware of these survival adaptations because they are buried deep in the subconscious and\or the cells of our body’s hard wiring.

About 25 years ago I had an experience that proved to me that there are times, no matter how hard I tried I could not mentally force my body to do what I wanted it to do.  I was in my mid-20’s, married, had my own home, had a job.  I had dealt with many of my childhood demons.  I still on rare occasions saw my father back then (but only when I had too).  On this occasion my grandparents were visiting from Michigan so I allowed my father to bring them to my house for a visit.  My grandparents smoke, I smoked.  So I decided I was going to have a cigarette in front of my father, in my own home, because he was no longer in control of my life or me.  (Note:  I wised up, I haven’t smoke in decades!)

Brief flashback for background on this issue: I answered the door once when my father came over to my mother’s apartment, purposely holding a lit cigarette when I was about age 14 or so, knowing he would disapprove, (according to his religion you go to hell if you smoke). He wordlessly put the cigarette out in the palm of my hand.  I refused to cry, because that would have been a sign of weakness, I stared him down the entire time he slowly ground the burning cigarette into my flesh, and I never even blinked - I was very proud of that for a very long time.  Prior to this he had been sexually abusing me since age 2 up until about age 8. For me at the young age, this was a moment of great deviance and empowerment, I had not let him see me in pain. 

Note: I always found it odd how his religion proclamied all who smoke or wear makeup or drank beverages containing caffeine or watched tv from Fri. sundown to Sat. sundown would pay for these horrible acts with an eternity of hell, and yet he was going to heaven. His place among the angels guaranteed because he paid money to the church every week; it didn’t matter that his children starved, had no shoes for school, and lived with rats because he didn’t pay child support (his money went to the church) and that he sexually molested little children, he would never see even one tiny flicker of Hell’s fire because he didn’t drink, smoke, watch tv on the weekends and never touched caffeine beverages.  Lucky for him dressing in women’s underware wasn’t a sin (yeah, he did that too).  

Ok that was a little off track and probably more information then you wanted to know, so back to the incident where I proudly proclamed that in my own home I was going to smoke in front of my father. So there I am standing in the kitchen, smile on my face, totally in control, feeling totally safe in my own home with my husband (the second one, not the current one) standing by my side, courage coursing through my veins and I go to step over the threshold of the doorway between the kitchen and dining room which led directly to the living room where my father and grandparents were seated.

BAM!  My foot literaly froze in midair and would not touch the ground.  I was like wtf?  I stepped back, giggled a bit and proudly headed through the door - Bam! Nope, this time my feet would not even lift to try to make the attempt to cross the doorway.  It was like some invisible force field was blocking my way.  I could strut around the kitchen, I could go out the back door, I could whistle a toon, I could smoke my cigarette, I could put my cigarette down and go in the dining room without a problem - but I could NOT get my body over that threshold as long as I held the lit cigarette.  I didn’t feel any fear, I wasn’t nervous in any way, my hands were not sweating or shakey.  I felt fine.  I simply just could not use my mental and emotinal will power to get my physical body to cooperate - it was not going in there with a lit cigarette in my hand.  I ended up finding the whole thing very funny and gave up eventually.

That incident stayed with me though as a lesson in just how “powerful” our body can be, even when we think we are in control.  It makes me wonder what else my body is doing in order to “protect itself” from some perceived threat, in ways that I am not aware of, and how these underlying issues are contributing to my difficulties in losing weight.

As one of my favorite bloggers Debbie (Wisdom Hypnosis) says, “Control is not the issue as much as release and surrender to our highest and best!”  

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