Thinking back to a key experience in my own weight loss journey brings me to an amazing story about my father.  He was a revered neurosurgeon in the community, but people always remarked that he didn’t have a “surgeon’s personality.”  I didn’t really know what that meant in those days, but it was always stated in the forma of a compliment.

One of the things we did as father and son activities was to attend classes at the local junior college.  I remember an astronomy class, and a really wonderful class on hypnosis.

Now I was at that age in late junior high where you notice things like being overweight, and I was.  So I bought an weight based hypnotic cassette tape from the teacher.  Yes, a cassette tape. . . . look it up if you don’t know what it is.

I listened every night for two weeks.  I didn’t really notice anything from the tape or in terms of changes in my eating.  But to my huge surprise, when I stepped on the scales, I had lost 8 pounds!

I don’t know if this was alarming at some level, but I listened with less frequency and over time the weight came back, and the experience faded into memory.  Looking back, I suspect the weight served a purpose that I wasn’t ready to acknowledge or let go of. I also don’t remember what the actual content of the audiotape was in terms of the actual suggestions.

But nearly 30 years later, remembering this shared time with dad, and learning the basics of hypnosis, helped me recall that working with unconscious programs can lead to nearly effortless results.  

Thanks dad, so very deeply, for broadening my horizons early in life.  You are deeply missed, but your memory lives on.