3 min read

My mother was never really heavy, but she was often dissatisfied with her weight and the way she looked.  When I had my own daughter I decided that I didn’t want to pass on that legacy.  Every time I looked in a mirror, even though I usually didn’t feel it, I would say out loud “I look great!”  If my daughter was standing beside me, I would say “We look great!”  I wanted her to grow up believing that what she saw in the mirror was okay.

Year after year, I said it out loud for my daughter’s benefit, but I never truly believed it.  I still felt fat and frumpy.  My words may have been benefiting my daughter but they weren’t doing anything for me.  It wasn’t until I chose to believe the words that I gradually lost the extra weight.

Dr. Bruce Lipton, a cell biologist, says, “When we shift the mind’s interpretation … to positive belief, the brain responds biochemically, the blood changes the body’s cell culture, and the cells change on a biological level.” (Rankin)  I think this happened to me.  I consistently shifted my interpretation of what I saw in the mirror from fat to slim and started a process that changed the neural pathways in my brain that led to physical changes in my body.

It took awhile for my new interpretation to become a habit.  I would look in the mirror and as soon as I caught myself going back to my old, yuck response, I would smile and switch to my new, slim and trim response.  The smiling part is important.  Studies have shown that the physical act of smiling, even a fake smile, can induce positive emotions (Scientific American).  I wasn’t just telling myself I was slim and looking great, I had to feel that way as well and smiling helped create those positive feelings.

My physical changes didn’t happen quickly.  It took a few years.  I didn’t change my diet or lifestyle.  I changed how I thought and felt and that eventually changed how I looked.   I know it may sound like delusional thinking, but as Dr. Joe Dispenza says, “The latest research supports the notion that we have a natural ability to change the brain and body by thought alone, so that it looks biologically like some future event has already happened.”   It’s not delusion, it’s creating the future you want and that’s a legacy I want to pass on to my daughter.

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Selected References: 

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One and Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind by Joe Dispenza, D.C. 

Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself by Lissa Rankin, M.D.

Words Can Change Your Brain: 12 Conversation Strategies to Build Trust, Resolve Conflict, and Increase Intimacy by Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Robert Waldman