Scared on the Inside

One of my clients came to see me because; she felt she had a scar on her mind……..

She is a petite size 10, well-dressed thirty something career woman who on the outside looks confident and in control of her life.

Apparently, all her life she had been fat, a size 24 at her heaviest. All through her life she had been bigger than anyone else, at home food equalled love. Her mother showed her children how much she loved them by feeding them. The more her mother fed her the better mother she was and the more she ate the more she was able to show her mother just how much she loved her.

She wore her weight as a defence, if you’re fat and unloved you’ll never get hurt was something she used to say.

At university she was the guys best friend and assumed that no one thought of her in a sexual way. She told herself she was fat and happy. Any boyfriends she had inevitably left her for thinner women – her words.

Then something happened in her early thirties, she lost her appetite and began to loose weight. Not because of any diet or any conscious will on her part; she became depressed because of unrequited love.

Initially she felt fabulous buying all those clothes she’d always wanted, one of the few moments in her life she had viewed her body with delight; then she began to hate herself because it took a bought of clinical depression for her to change her eating habits.

Men noticed her for her body instead of her personality, whilst initially this was fantastic she soon realised that although she had more sex; she wasn’t spending time with men she really wanted to be with.

She should have felt wonderful but her past hang over her, she still felt fat! She had assumed that once she had the body she wanted her life would be perfect – yet she was fat on the inside.

Maxwell Maltz an American cosmetic surgeon who developed Psycho-Cybernetics, said people were scared on the inside. That some of his clients no matter how much surgery they had, still felt ugly.

He started to work on their confidence and self esteem prior to surgery and found this worked in two ways, either they decided not to go ahead with the surgery or they were happier with the results.

Many years ago one of my clients, a young girl who wanted to loose weight, said after our session that she felt so fabulous about herself that she decided not to diet after all. A few months later I bumped into her in a local store, I didn’t recognise her at first as she looked so different; much more confident, happier and yes thinner!

www.tina-taylor.com