This morning I did a model on the thought ‘Losing weight is harder for me than it is for everyone else’. I noticed the result was ‘I feel justified with this result’ which is another thought, so I did another model on that. I kept finding new thoughts in my result line:
C: My weight
T: Losing weight is harder for me than it is for everyone else
F: defeated
A: Make half-hearted attempts or don’t try at all. ask myself ‘why bother’?
R: I stay overweight and I feel justified about being this weight ‘This is the way I am and there’s nothing I can do about it’
C: My weight
T: This is the way I am and there’s nothing I can do about it
F: Justified
A: act defiant about what I eat and drink and non-verbally communicate ‘Fuck you’ to anyone who has an opinion about this. I consume more calories than I expend
R: Overweight and defensive
C: My weight
T: ‘Don’t you dare criticize me’ (a thought in my head that I don’t say out loud)
F: criticized, attacked, misunderstood
A: withdraw, don’t show my vulnerability, buffer with food and drink
R: overweight and isolated
C: My weight
T: It’s not safe for me to be vulnerable
F: FEAR
A: overcompensate, act brave, create a barrier between myself and others, buffer
R: Overweight and fearful. A lot of energy goes into fueling this status quo – fear, defensiveness, buffering
C: Scale says 107.kg when I stand on it (I changed the C from ‘my weight’)
T: The extra weight hasn’t stopped me from feeling afraid
f: Despair
A: drink to oblivion, seek relief from the feeling of despair
R: I believe that there is a monster inside of me who takes over and there’s nothing I can do about this
C: Scale says 107.4kg when I stand on it
T: There is a monster inside of me, there’s nothing I can do
F: Hopeless
A: I make attempts to change, but I am not consistent
R: Weight YO-YOs. I stay overweight
C: Scale says 107.4kg when I stand on it
T: No matter what I do I can’t lose weight
F: Justified (for weighing this much)
A: Judge others for judging me, attack before I am attacked. Use my weight as a passive-aggressive weapon
R: separation, loneliness, overweight, isolated
Where is the best place to start to unpack these unintentional models? I was a bit shocked to uncover how much aggression there was underneath my original thoughts. Do I start with the first one and start to create an intentional model there?
Now as I look at the thought ‘Losing weight is harder for me than everyone else,’ I can see there is no way I could even know if this is true, and even if it is, it’s not a thought which is serving me. Do I process the feelings of despair and anger that surfaced? What’s a reasonable time frame to spend on this? (I took about 30 minutes on the models so far)