Even when others don’t want you to

Being the Greatest Expression of You even when others don’t want you to be your best self is challenging and downright confusing. Here you are trying to be your best self and you are getting pushback from the people closest to you. How can that be? Wouldn’t your family, friends and colleagues appreciate and want you to be your best self? Not necessarily.

In recent months several clients have mentioned that family and friends feel threatened by the changes they are witnessing. Clients share with me that they are being more loving, more attentive, doing their job better at work, becoming healthier and happier and those closest to them don’t like it. Family members and friends will pay lip service to support the changes, but then sabotage or make other comments showing their lack of support.

This week a Slender For Life™ weight loss hypnosis client told me that his wife tells him and others that she is thrilled that he has lost 30 pounds and that he no longer needs insulin for diabetes. She says she is happy that he is exercising and eating healthy. But then she schedules an activity for him during his workout time or begs him to eat Haagen-Dazs with her.

Threatened

One of the problems when people change is that those closest to them can feel threatened. If you and I are close friends and you make positive changes that are best for you, you’ve just threatened my perception of you – my perception of reality. How dare you mess with me like that?! I will want to work hard at molding you back to fitting within my world view – into my understanding of who you are. As humans we like to protect our reality – so don’t mess with it!

My weight loss client shared with me that he and his wife were able to talk about the changes he is making and her reaction to it. His wife loved the one-on-one time they used to enjoy together over a dish of ice cream and she now missed those encounters. She also acknowledged that if he got back to his college weight, other women would want him, or that he would no longer want her. He reassured her that she was the only one for him and they created a new ritual of enjoying a cup of tea together after the kids were in bed and the house was quiet.

A female client told me that she was getting a lot of positive feedback from her boss for her job performance and that her best friend at work was feeling jealous and even went so far as to ask her to not perform so well. These two women talked about it, the jealous woman acknowledged that she was feeling threatened. She also acknowledged that since she was the one feeling threatened it was her opportunity for healing and that it was up to her to work on it.

Be abnormal

For the past twenty years I have told hypnosis for weight loss clients that being at their healthy ideal goal weight was abnormal. Sixty-five percent of their family and friends are overweight. If one person starts eating healthy, exercising and losing weight, then overweight family and friends have to look at themselves and their own behavior. That is also threatening. I hear stories of family and friends pushing cookies or second servings of food. It’s like the crabs in the crab pot pulling the crabs who are climbing out back into the boiling water.

Sometimes being your best self means that you have to be abnormal – and that’s OK. Embrace it with love.