Read Online The Tapping Solution for Weight Loss & Body Confidence by Jessica Ortner - Free Book Online Page A

just work . The possibility that life could just work at our current weight doesn’t compute.
    To anyone who hasn’t gone through this pattern of panic around weight loss, the experience may sound insane. In many ways it is. When we’re in it, however, nothing feels more legitimate. We’re under a dangerous spell but we can’t yet see that, so off we go to buy another diet book or try the newest way to exercise; or off we go on another downward spiral, diving into another box of treats because there is no more hope that we can lose the weight.
    On some level, of course, we know that panic isn’t delivering the long-term weight loss we want, but time and time again we return to it. Why is that? What’s our panic really about?
    The panic comes because we want to avoid and deny what we don’t want to talk about—that our struggle with weight isn’t actually about the weight. When we panic about losing weight, what we’re dying for is to be ourselves. We want to feel like we are okay just as we are. We panic because it’s all consuming, because it allows us to ignore something that feels too painful to admit: that we don’t actually believe that we are enough; that we’ve gotten very comfortable with denying our own worth. But our weight, of course, isn’t the sum total of our worth. It is, however, a crutch. We tell ourselves that once we “fix” ourselves by losing the weight, we will finally be worthy of happiness, love, success—anything and everything that seems to be missing in our lives.
    Over and over again, we’re seduced by this idea that our panic may someday bring us sustainable weight loss and, therefore, happiness. The truth is, however, that we can be happy at any weight if we value ourselves.

Breaking the Pattern of Panic
    Like many of my clients, you may be terrified to stop panicking because you equate not panicking with accepting that you’ll never lose weight. But you also know that panic isn’t the answer. If panic worked, you’d have lost the weight for good. If panic helped, you wouldn’t be reading this book.
    It’s time to stop the pattern of panic once and for all. It’s time to admit that your weight loss isn’t about your weight. The fact is that until you lower your stress and clear your emotional residue and negative beliefs, sustainable weight loss will seem out of your reach. You will hear me say this often, but here’s the truth: long-term weight loss and body confidence is an inside job.
    For Analisa, that journey began with tapping around her panic about her friend’s visit. After calming her panic, she realized that her fears were unfounded. She was vastly underestimating both her friend and the friendship she and this person had. She had always been good at picking friends, and this person would never judge her so harshly for her weight. In fact, she realized that she was projecting onto her friend how cruel she often was to herself.
    When they did finally meet, she was able to be present with her friend and really bond with her. Throughout their time together, she laughed and had a truly great time. That was a big shift compared to the previous time she had seen old friends and felt emotionally guarded and uncomfortable in her body. During this visit, Analisa could clearly see that her weight didn’t have to interfere with her reunion. Her friend wanted to catch up with Analisa, not Analisa-at-a-certain-weight. It makes you think: How often have I robbed myself of an incredible experience because of my own internal fears and judgments around my body?
    Analisa’s story is just one example of the ways in which the pattern of panic prevents us from looking at how we may be projecting our poor self-image onto others and denying the underlying issues that prevent us from experiencing sustainable weight loss. It’s time to end the pattern of panic. But before we do tapping to begin quieting the panic, we need to address the two most common triggers of weight loss