How to Shift your Mindset to Breakthrough the Weight Struggle Cycle with Rita Black

Mindset is everything, right? But how do we shift our mindset when things taste so good? Wait, what does this even mean?? What if the reason we are struggling with weight has little to do with the conscious decisions we make about food? What if there is a better way?

In this episode, you'll learn:

1. The concept of shifting mindset for weight management: Rita Black discusses the importance of shifting one's mindset and vision for weight management, focusing on releasing weight rather than losing it. Listeners will learn about the free weight release hypnosis master class and how it can help them break through the cycle of weight struggle.

2. The role of subconscious beliefs and hypnosis in weight management: Rita explains the impact of inherited subconscious beliefs and the efficacy of hypnosis in addressing and transforming these beliefs. Listeners will understand the concepts of internal locus of control and the 12% and 88% division in weight management knowledge.

3. Importance of self-reflection and redefining oneself: The hosts and Rita discuss the significance of rewiring negative self-talk, the cycle of unrealistic expectations and perfectionism in weight management, and the necessity of creating a new context and turning up the volume on the inner coach without dwelling on the root of old beliefs. Listeners will learn about the role of self-reflection and self-definition in achieving long-term weight management success.
 

Today we are talking to Rita Black, a leading hypnosis-based weight management specialist who helps people remove subconscious roadblocks that keep them in a weight struggle cycle.  

Connect with Rita Black:
Click to sign up:
Free Masterclass: Mastering Your Mindset
for Lasting Weight Release

Thin Thinking Podcast:
https://podcast.shiftweightmastery.com/

Website:
www.shiftweightmastery.com

Stay Connected!
Amelia

• Website: https://www.thehelpfulplate.com/
• IG: https://www.instagram.com/thehelpfulplate/

Cam

• Website: https://www.camoyler.com/
• IG: https://www.instagram.com/heymomma_cam/
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@heymomma_cam

Midlife Mommas IG: https://www.instagram.com/midlife.mommas/

Please share, rate, and review the podcast. We appreciate you! ❤️

Transcript

0:00

Cam, you're getting very, very sleepy. Are you gonna make me quack like a duck or bark like a dog? Hi. I'm Cam, Holistic health coach, mom to 2 humans and 4 pets. Hi. I'm Amelia, laboratory scientist by day and food scientist by night. Welcome to our show. Join us as we share our holistic approach to life after 50. You can expect real life stories with a dash of humor and a ton of truth. If it happens in midlife, we're going to talk about it. So hit that subscribe button and follow along. We're the Midlife Mommas. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast today. We're super excited to have Rita Black on the show today. Rita is a leading hypnotherapist, hypnosis based weight management specialist who helps people remove the subconscious roadblocks that keep them stuck in the weight struggle cycle with her specialized shift weight management process. We are so excited to have you, Rita. Welcome. Wow. What a great opening, especially the quack like a duck. I love it. I'm happy to be here. So you're not gonna make us quack like a duck, are you, Rita? No. No. I am not. I, you know, I have a joke. I I say if if I had that kind of supernatural power, my husband would pick up his socks, you know, after being married to him. If I could hypnotize him to pick up after himself, that would have been awesome. But, as we are gonna uncover and reveal, hypnosis is really about you empowering yourself, and I am or the hypnotherapist is your guide. So I'm excited about digging into that with you guys today. I absolutely love this topic because as a health coach, I see women all the time and the way they talk to themselves or compare themselves, their now self to their past self really keeps them stuck. And I feel like this could be a secret tool to get them unstuck and rewire what they're thinking. Am I on the right track? Yes. Absolutely. I think one of the biggest things I see as, somebody who not only struggled with my own weight and and and smoked a pack and a half of cigarettes a day. That's how I got into hypnosis was I was a client first. I smoked a pack and a half a day for many, many years, and then a friend of mine introduced me to, because she did hypnosis for smoking cessation, and it's one of those things, like, this was a, you know, this was over 25 years or almost 25 years ago. And back then, hypnosis I mean, even today, hypnosis is seen as kind of strange, but back then, it was like you thought of the guy with the mustache and the polyester suit and, you know, waving the watch in front of your face and, you know, kinda creepy. And I was like really cam I really gonna go and do this? But you know she was like I stopped smoking in one session. And I was, you know what? Sign me up. I was so struggling with I had tried for a very long time and unsuccessfully to stop smoking. So I went, and it was insane because in one session, it was like in the hypnosis session, you think somebody's got power over you, but it's really in this deep, relaxed state. You get access to this deeper part of your mind, and I was able to really see myself as a nonsmoker. And I was able to leave that session without cravings, without any sort of I just felt free, and it was such an amazing feeling. I was like, how can I do this for my weight, which I had struggled with up and down the scale of £40 for, over 20 years? So, when I started, when I released that £40, and I've kept it off for, like, 28 years now. This is my 28th year of maintaining my ideal weight, and using hypnosis. It was really, really about not hypnosis being a wave of the wand, but really creating a deeper and more powerful communication process with myself because so many of our thoughts, as you were just saying, Cam, so many of our thoughts are just wired in there, and we think them. They think us rather than us thinking them, and so much of our self speak as women, especially around our weight, is incredibly self abusive, self loathing, and, disrespectful to ourselves. We would never dare speak to ourselves in the way that we, I mean, to other people the way we speak to ourselves, especially in the area of weight. So, yeah, hypnosis and, using hypnosis as a way to create a more powerful communication system with yourself because really, from my perspective, and I think, you know, we were talking about this before we turned on the microphones, you know, weight management, you're right. You can do the exercise, you can eat right, but for long term sustained weight management, you really need to communicate powerfully with yourself. You know, I point out to people that all the the parts of your life that are working right now, you communicate powerfully with yourself, you know, and you don't quit on yourself, right, like with your kids. We would all love to raise our hands and say, can I ever take a day off from being a mom? But you cam, like, right, you just don't walk away from that or take a day off from being married or anything. Those big commitments we make to ourselves, we have to pick ourselves up, we have to motivate ourselves, we have to lead ourselves through to, get to the other side of a bad day or get to the other side of a bad week or month or, you know, time period. But with weight management, we give up on ourselves so quickly and easily, and most of this is subconscious. So, that is where I I really feel like I help people is getting them with hypnosis, using a 100% of their mind versus only 12% of their minds because, only you know, like, when we go on a diet or if you're we're trying to lose weight, if we're trying to intermittent fast, if we're trying to do keto, if we're trying to just lose weight, you know, there's the mind is really divided into the conscious and subconscious. Most people know that. But what they don't know is really only 12% of our mind is a conscious analytical part of our mind, and that's the part of the mind that puts us on a diet. Right? That's the part of the mind that's like, I am going to, you know, eat chicken and broccoli, not eat sugar, give up bread. And the other 88% is our identity, like how we see ourselves, our memories, our habits, and our beliefs. And so when we go on a diet, we're really only gauge engaging 12%. And I and I joke and I say, you know, most of the people who are my students or clients, they could write their own New York Times best selling book on weight loss because they know so much. You know, you read enough books, you struggle long enough, you you know about weight loss, you know, eat less, exercise more, but I and I know you guys are very specialized in how you help people exercise. But, the point I'm making is that what people will do is get stuck in this, like, I'm gonna be good. Right? And they and they can be good for so long, but then something subconscious will come up. A habit, you know, food tastes good when I feel bad, or an identity issue. Like a huge thing people struggle with is they see their themselves as a weight failure or a weight struggler. And so before we even begin, a diet, we're kind of, sabotaging ourselves because if you don't believe in yourself when you're starting something, how are you you know, you're gonna give up on yourself pretty easily, pretty quickly into the diet. Does that make sense? 100%. And I feel like our thoughts I've heard this like make grooves like we have these grooves in our thought processes. Am I on the right track, Rita? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we have neural loops. We have neural pathways that get formulated, And then our thought processes, like most most of my students and when I struggled with my weight, every day I would wake up and go, why did I do that? I shouldn't do that. Today, I'm gonna do better. I'm gonna be really good. And and like I said, those thoughts were having me and not really me having those thoughts. So I would do the same behaviors the same times. I'd give up at this, you know, with the afternoon snack or the night eating after dinner and then go why did I do that again? And then why did I do that again? And why did I do that again? And over time, it makes you feel like a failure. It makes you feel like you have no willpower, it makes you feel like you're lazy if you're like wanting to wake up and exercise in the morning, I'm so lazy or I'm a couch potato or what. The way we label ourselves and our subconscious mind is sitting there soaking that all in so we have this, we kind of live in this world of weight struggle that is amplified by our subconscious mind in those neural pathways that you're talking about. So it's like my identity. I see myself as a struggler. I believe that I have no willpower. I believe food tastes good when I feel bad. I believe, you know, I I'm genetically predisposed to over always be overweight. I have habits. You know, we get into habit patterns that are a cue routine reward like night eating. We will often get into a pattern of eating one snack, then another snack, then another snack, and that is not conscious at all. It's all the subconscious mind propelling you forward. Like people who smoke, they often, like, will smoke after dinner, let's say. Their subconscious mind is telling them, like, they they get an agitated feeling that they have to do that. And with people, like, maybe after dinner, they sit down in front of the TV, and they get that agitated feeling. I need some popcorn. Right? Now and and it's it may feel like they're hungry. It may make them feel even, like, kind of fake hunger, but it's that agitated feeling. What that is is the the brain going, we expect popcorn, they go and make some popcorn. They eat 3 bites of the popcorn. Now they're not even tasting anymore. They're just sitting in front of the TV eating it, but, they because that part of their brain that was driving their behavior was saying, I want that thing. As soon as they get it, it relaxes. So they think, oh, see, popcorn relaxes me. No. It just relieves the agitation of expecting popcorn was gonna happen. Does that make sense? So so we might get into patterns and that or that afternoon snacking that could be a subconscious pattern. And then that becomes you know? So that's driving our behavior even though we might say, I'm not gonna eat after dinner. We have this overwhelming urge to eat after dinner that is being driven by subconscious habit patterns. Rita, I love what you all of what you're saying. A lot of in some form, we've talked about, the habits and the self talk and things like that, but I wanna go back to something you said in the very beginning, when you were talking about your hypnosis experience around the smoking. And what really struck me is you said I was able to see myself as. And so it was like a fast, The way I interpreted that was it was a it was a fast track to redefine how you saw yourself, and you saw yourself as a nonsmoker. And so, I just love that idea of being having a tool, and a lot of what Cam and I talk about are tools in your toolbox to be able to actually redefine yourself, reprogram, you know, get out of these habits and grooves. And I'm, like, totally awesome. Like, I'm enamored with this process, actually. I think it's amazing. Well, it is like I love that you brought that up because one of the first things that we do in, the shift process and, even, I when I work with people is and I don't know. Has have either of you read Atomic Habits? Yes. We're very big fans. Okay. Cool. Cool. Cool. So, one thing that you absolutely hit on the head, Amelia, is that when, like, with smoking, and I work with smokers a lot too. Those are the 2 things I do. I don't do anything else. I don't do past life regression. I don't work with phobias. Those are, like, 2 paths I've walked on, and those are the only paths I've specialized in. But you can shift your identity in a second. Right? Like, when you got when you got married, right, you were a single person, and then you said I do, and you stepped into a new identity as a wife or a partner. Right? And your mind adapts to that identity. So when you became a mom, you stepped into that mom identity and you strengthen that identity. So when I work with people, the very first I'd like at the height of the the very top of your 1,000 of identities and they kind of swirl together and they create our idea of ourselves. So when we see ourselves as a weight struggler or a couch potato or something, it's part of our identity. So as we're heading into our weight loss next weight loss, you know, attempt, we're carrying the world we live in is I'm a weightstruggler. Mhmm. So what we're doing is fighting against our own identity, and you can't do that. And that's why a lot of people will, you know, get so far along. They'll see, I can't do it, or, see, everybody gets to eat and I can't because I'm, like, this freak and I can't, you know, like, so many people feel like they're alone in the struggle. So one of the first things I do is I have people start to see themselves as a I, you know, I call it a weight mastery process, but I see them have them see themselves as an apprentice of weight because, weight mastery. Because weight, as you guys know, is really mastering your weight is a skill set. And, you know, there's a series of skills that you develop. But when we try to lose weight, we're we're seeing ourselves as going on a diet rather than developing ourselves and developing the skills that it takes, like the mindset school skills, the environmental skills, the the weight management skills. And it really is, you know, they've done research, and they've seen, like, there's been over 250 studies into people who have lost weight and kept it off long term menopause that's my cam. It's like long term permanent weight management. So in order for somebody to go on that journey, which it is, it's a journey. It's not a quick fix. It's like I'm gonna develop myself and I'm gonna become an apprentice because that's, you know, anything that we've gotten, you know, like even podcasting. Right? Probably your first podcast episode was nothing like it is now because you didn't know what you're doing. My husband today told me I'm gonna start a podcast just like Tria and I was like oh my god. But but you know what I mean? Like, you get better and better as you go. But we don't have that mindset when it comes to weight loss. We expect, you know, to lose 20 pounds in a month. We expect to do it right right away. We have this whole perfectionistic thing, and then we fall off the diet and we're like, well, I blew it. I have to go back to the beginning. And that is becomes a habit. Stopping and starting over again becomes a habit that actually has a pleasure response in it, which is kind of you know what I mean? Like, because when you're re being really restrictive with yourself And then we get to Friday and we eat some pizza, and we're like, oh, well, I blew it. Guess what happens? We don't just eat 1 piece of pizza. You know? We're like, well, I blew it, so I might as well really blow it, and I'll start again on Monday. And that actually has a subconscious Wow. Like, a whole mechanism that goes on because, one, once you promise that you're gonna be good on Monday, it gives you permission to be bad. Now. To the degree you mommas to be good, gives you the permission to be bad. And then, and then the pleasure of if you've been restricting, letting loose, and going hog wild, so to speak, it's it's a dopamine rush. Sure. Like, a complete, like, pleasure response that the brain you know, our brain's kinda I don't wanna call it dumb, but it's it's it's like it's really focused on, like, I want that pleasure, so we let loose and it all happens, but then we forget how painful it is Monday morning or Sunday night when we're stuffed to the gills and we're like, why did I do that? I was doing so good, and now I'm just a you know, like, that whole you know, I'm gonna be good. I go off. I eat a bunch and then be good again. It's it and then that becomes a habit too. So, Rita, I have a question. So you I love the the comparison of getting married and now you're a wife or having a kid and now you're a mom. Those are physical, like, almost well, certainly in the in the, case of marriage, usually there's a ceremony involved. And when you bear a child, no matter how what form that comes in, it is an actual physical act. So I'm wondering is part of the hypnosis success, you're actually going through an actual act that's actually changing. You know, you've you're accepting this new person. Because when we do this whole wait thing, it's all internal, and even when we say by this date or whatever, it's just not the same. There's no, like I don't know. It just struck me that when we talk about other ways in which there's a pivotal moment, there's an act. I don't know. Yes. We call it I call it the turning point. You're absolutely right. And for most people, anytime, anyone, if you've you know, and I know you guys know people who have been successful at management managing weight. But if you talk to enough people who have been successful, they will all say there was a moment where they made that decision for themselves. So in my process, we kinda create that moment. We we have a ceremony. We do have a process around shifting identities from struggler to apprentice and starting to really embody that idea. In fact, the whole first part of my process is all mindset. It's all about, shifting that and then creating a vision of where you wanna go because most of us who struggle with weight, and I certainly know for myself when I was struggling, I you know, there's a saying and maybe you guys know it's like the pain pushes until the vision pulls. And, and most of us are in so much pain, not just with being overweight, but this pain, this self abuse is almost like a PTSD self abusive relationship, like, that we get into is very traumatic actually. So when we're in that world, we just want to be out of that world. So diets offer this quick exit from that pain. And we go on a diet, and for a few days, we do feel good. We escape the pain. But it's kind of a fake escape because we we still don't see ourselves powerfully. We don't connect with communicate with ourselves powerfully. We're just trying not to be overweight. Right? So we're so it's kind of that's why we become very vulnerable to short term quick fixes. Right? We it's just like, get me out of the pain. And where I focus people is not about getting out of the pain, but kind of I have this term loving yourself down the scale, which is really about owning where you are today, not trying to run away from it, but owning yourself as you are, loving yourself as you are so that you can respect yourself, advocate for yourself today, and have a vision of where you wanna go. And it's not just a vision of you, you know, like in a bikini on the beach, but you being a powerful self leader in your How does that change you? How does that change your ideal weight? How does that change you? How does that change your family? How does that change your community? Like, because when people go on a real transformational journey as, you know, because you guys create transformation as well, you see that it has a ripple effect around the person. Right? Because they've made this inner decision to change their life. It's not just like, oh, I'm going on a diet, but it's like, no, I'm gonna change how I communicate with myself, how I show up for myself, how I set myself up for success, how I have my family support me, how I have, you know, my life support me. And when other people see that so so we really work on that long term vision because that engages the reticular activation system in the brain too and engages because all change happens and a lot of hypnosis engages the emotions because change happens in the emotional not the intellectual. Right? You know, like we can say all we want like I want to lose£20, I want to lose £20, but that feeling of how you're going to feel £20 down the scale and how that's gonna feel waking up in the morning and going up a flight of stairs and getting that viscerally, that feeling in your body and the brain's like, oh, I want that. How do we get that? And then it creates an incredible focus that we don't get when we're just like, well, I'm trying to lose weight. Does that make sense? 100%. So if you're just doing the diet without doing the mindset part, you're gonna end up back where you were, and then you're in this cycle. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, what how hypnosis helps and meditation helps if if some of your listeners are probably meditating and they can use, meditation, visualization, is that hypnosis isn't magic or voodoo, but it's a relaxed mind state that allows us access. Because so, I'll just go into it really quickly to explain menopause people are like, well, what how does hypnosis work? So hypnosis, our brain, you know, from birth and tour in our twenties, we're imprinted. Right? Like everything, our parents, our teachers, our life experiences get imprinted on our subconscious. The stuff that we don't need to know anymore. Right? Like, and that's how, you know, they say you can't take it teach an old dog new tricks. It's just like, you know, that's you you pretty much have dialed in, you know, the kind of people you wanna be around, the kind of religion you wanna be, the kind of, political party. All those things get kinda dialed in on a deep level. And, and then any input coming in to your brain, it's like, oh, don't need that. Don't need that. Don't need that. Do that. And and it will only focus on the things that it does need. So so a lot of, like, we know how to lose weight. Right? We know how to lose weight. I don't need to learn any more about that. Right? So but, so when we go on a diet, you guys, you know, like willpower is that 12%. We can get pretty far sometimes with willpower, but then have, you know, maybe some of your listeners can, relate to this as you, you know, you get either to, the weight you wanted to get to or you release £20, and then something happens. And you're like, I don't have that focus anymore, and now that food looks good to me. And if that's all that subconscious stuff or you have a really bad day and you eat a bunch of carbs. And and so the the the old mindset comes back. So we usually end up exactly where we were before, and we keep thinking it's our fault. Like, this is my problem. Why do I keep but it's not. It's how the brain is designed. So the brain is, like, really, we're only dealing with content, like, oh, this is the diet, this is what I'm doing, and this is only impacting 12% of our mind. So hypnosis relaxes the critical filter. So in that relaxed state you can engage your beliefs. You can engage your identity. You can gauge, your habits and start presenting information in a particular way that, like a vision or working on a particular type of habit like exercise, wanting the desire to exercise. Those kinds of things can be engaged on a subconscious level in a state of hypnosis or even meditation, which is a relaxed mind state. But in our conscious waking state, you know, people are, there there's like, well, I don't want anybody to control my mind. It's like, well, every time you watch a television commercial, you know, you're in a relaxed state and you are being controlled. Like, think of how many commercials have have gotten you got up and went to the kitchen and ate something because you're like, oh that looks good, you know. Or, you know I get smokers all the time are saying I don't want anybody to mess with my mind. I was like, well, the tobacco industry is pretty doing a pretty good job. They've got you paying $12 a day for those cigarettes poisoning yourself. I mean, that's pretty good mind control if you ask me. So I kinda look at myself as the unhypnotist. You know, we're we're undoing all the bad trances that we've gotten into. If our mother told us, like, you know, you're a like, a lot of us have a mother thing or a parent thing, you know, lording over us, like, oh, you know, putting us on a diet or whatever. We have a lot of baggage from historic you know, our family history and all of that stuff is deep deeply rooted in the subconscious mind. So that, you know, being able to go and engage your mind on a deep level. And I think I was telling you guys before we turned on the microphone, all hypnosis is self hypnosis. I can't make you do anything. I can give you the suggestions, but, you know, you want it. You can take them on, you know. And and when I work with anybody, it's smoker or weight management, you know, I say to them. And that's why a lot of my process is working on both a coaching level and a hypnosis level. It's not just hypnosis, but it's it's educating them and then taking that information to the deeper level so that they trust the information before it's being introduced their subconscious mind. So during the process, does it become part of the 12%? Does it become part of the consciousness? Yeah. I mean so you know everything you need to know about weight management in your 12%, but it's it's informing that other 88 percent that is like, you you know, like, 12% wants to lose weight. The other 88% wants to stay just the same. It just wants to return to the old behavior because it that's what it knows. It's comfortable with that. Even though it's incredibly painful for us consciously, it's comfortable and it's familiar. So, I have this, like, you know, the house of weight struggle. It's it's a very it's a metaphor. It's like, you know, here we live in this house of weight struggle, and we leave the house of weight struggle. We go on a diet, but now it feels like we're on the street. And and we go back to the house not because we love struggling with weight, but it feels more comfortable sitting in front of the TV and with our favorite snacks feels a lot more comfortable than feeling like we're trying to restrict ourselves from eating them. So so the journey really is about setting a new creating a new house and and starting to furnish it and and creating a new context, like a whole new mindset around creating. It's not just like go on this diet and eat this food, but create a way of eating and moving that you love that allows you to live at your ideal weight. Like, that's a completely different mindset, and that's a creation, not a deletion. Like, a lot of people feel like you're taking away this food from me and I'm feeling restricted rather than no. No. We're creating, you you know, like the me £40, like, like, I struggled so hard. And, I realized, like, when I finally made my own shift, I had my own, Amelia, my own turning point, like, as you said, that that moment where that I was sitting on a scale. I had even lost weight, when I had my sort of mental breakdown, and I was like, I can't do this anymore. I can't go on another diet. I can't keep going like this. And and I had this turning point, and I kind of, I get into this in my process, but we have, like, what I would call the inner critic, the inner rebel, and the inner coach. And most of us are listening just to our inner critic and our inner rebel when it comes to food and weight. Right? But we but in the areas of your life that work, you really listen to your inner coach. And so we really develop that inner coach, that wise, nurturing, strategic, and cognitively correct, meaning not emotional thinking, but like let's think this through. Like, you just ate a piece of pizza. Is it that big of a deal? You know, you you're good. You're fine. You know, you don't have to eat 5 more. You you know, I hope you enjoyed it. You know? Maybe we need to learn do we need to learn something about it? You know, like, long term weight management doesn't look perfect. It looks consistent. I love that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And And it's it's Sorry, Rita. I have one more question. When you were talking about, you know, the subconscious and what's built our identity, I'm wondering if sometimes we when you mentioned, like, the parent or the the teacher or someone in our childhood, you know, I'm guessing that some of us don't even remember those talk tracks that we actually have embodied as beliefs. We may not be able to, with the 12%, put our finger on that moment, that phrase, that person that somehow convinced us that we were whatever the negative version of ourself is, but we believe it. And in our 12%, we think that this is real because we think it was we just thought it up. Like, we it was our conscious mind. We had this thought, and so we believe it. So, I'm guessing that that that's part of the process as well is kind of unpacking. I don't know. Is it important to know where those talk tracks came from internally or just turning them off? Like, how does that work? I don't I don't think so. I think it it's it the root doesn't matter. It's really more of creating a new context and starting to recognize the pattern, stop it, and give yourself that alternative way of speaking to yourself. So much of I I kinda think of it more like you have your inner critic kind of, record player going on. You've got your inner rebel. Like, the inner critic's like, you know, you're lazy. You're you're you're, you know, you've you're a failure at dieting. Your critic your rebel's like, well, screw it. Let's just eat, you know, food. You know? Everybody else is eating. Why can't we? And and we have both of those sort of on loud, and our inner coach is, like, on 0. And it's kind of more about, like, turning down the volume on those old beliefs and turning up the volume on, on our inner coach. There's, and I don't know if you've heard about it. I'm sure you guys you've heard of mastery based learning, like, you know, the new educational model. Yeah. And and, you know, like, a kid could be bad it'd be cam into a classroom and, like, go, I'm really bad at math. And the teacher will say, or I I'm not good at math. And and and or forget, but it's like, I'm I haven't mastered math yet. You know? Like, you're putting that yet. Right? So that opens up the mind to a possibility. And then with mastery based learning, you get to take the test again. You get to look at what you didn't do right and take the test again. And so what this does is it opens up the mind. So, like, when I go and eat a couple of pizza like, if if you were, like, eating chicken and broccoli all week and then you went out Friday night to eat some pizza and and you ended up eating a piece more than you thought. And in our old dieter mindset, we were like, I blew it, so I might as well, you know, have dessert and keep going. You know, we go, oh, okay. That you know, like, I didn't do exactly what I wanted to. That didn't, you know, work great for me. But, like, next Friday when I go out for pizza, what would I do differently? Like, how would I talk to myself differently? How would I prepare myself differently, next Friday so that I can, achieve whatever goal that I set out for that? Right? So it's it's like we get to take the test again and again and again, and that's how you improve. We self correct anything that, you know, like with our podcasting. Right? If you could hear my first podcast that I did, I was sitting in my closet. Oh my god. I had to redo it in fact because I was so nervous and I flubbed and I said about a 1000000 times. You know, it's it's it's human nature. But we when we self correct and we have a learner's attitude, we get that consistency. I mean, in the world of weight, like you were saying, Amelia, it's not just that one person who probably said that thing. We've got a whole culture that is amplifying, like, you're not good enough. You gotta measure up. You know? And and the diet industry really sets you up for, like, do it exactly like this diet says, and you will lose£20 this week. Right? So there's no sort of, like, learning process in there. It's just like you have to follow along and stick to the rules rather than create your own rules that work for you and have ownership rather than being on somebody else's thing and then falling off and being on somebody else's thing and falling off. I love that. I call it the You diet. That's what I teach. I teach the You diet. What is your diet? So it's along the same lines, but you're adding the mindset part so they fully embody that. It's just perfect. Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, I think anybody there's an a psychological terminology is called internal locus of control versus external locus of control. You know, external locus of controls, we're putting all the power in the diet. We're giving the diet the power. An internal locus of controls like you, Cam, saying this is the me diet. This is the thing I'm creating that works for me, and I have ownership over it, and then you're gonna stick with it because you have that ownership. Perfect. It can everyone be hypnotized? Is there you know, does it work for everybody? Yeah. That's such a great question. I get asked that question all the time. Most people can be hypnotized if they want the change. Like, again, I make that joke about my husband. Like, my husband doesn't wanna pick up his socks. So if I try to hypnotize him to do that, he probably wouldn't be successful. And I get many people, especially with smoking, calling me and saying my husband smokes. Can you help him stop? And I was like, well, I can if he wants to, but I cannot if he doesn't. So if the person wants the change, I believe they can be hypnotized. There are some people, like, if they're schizophrenic or they have certain, it's mainly like schizophrenia or, or an IQ of less than 70, which is, you know, most people have a IQ of more than 70, can't be hypnotized. But for the most part, people and and here's a different thing because I'm sure maybe you have listeners who are like, well, I was hypnotized for weight and that didn't work. Well, a lot of times, like, weight is a multilayered thing. Like, I help people stop smoking in one session. Right? Like, they can come, quit smoking, leave a nonsmoker. It's not the same with weight. It's like weight is a journey. Weight is multilayered. We need to continue to eat food and move our bodies for the rest of our lives. Once you quit smoking, you never have to smoke another cigarette again. Right? So it's a different multilayered approach that I have created because, you know, if if you went to a hypnotist and they did one session with you, my guess is it probably worked for a little while and then and then the the behaviors kinda went back to the old place because there wasn't the foundational change of how you communicate with yourself. And that is at the root, I believe, of the fundamental change that needs to happen with regards to weight because most anybody who struggles with weight is communicating with themselves in a way that isn't working for them right now, and they need they need to make that shift. And and we become a lot more, you know, I know you deal with a lot of people in midlife, like, our minds are going through a lot of changes too and hormonal changes. All those changes also impact things, but, and then we start to see, our children. I mean, like, when we it's interesting how many clients, you know, have children, and they they don't know how to communicate with them in a powerful way around their you know, how they're taking care of themselves as well. And so it's just like when you start making those changes for you, then that that kinda has a ripple effect throughout the entire family. 100%. Yeah. We talked about that. Yeah. Yeah. So free will is part of it. And then would you consider it safe? Just need to know. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No. That's a perfectly, wonderful question. And, yeah, it absolutely is safe because, honestly, like I said, if you don't want the change, it ain't gonna happen. You know, like, if you go into it, it's like, well, let's see if this works. You know? I I can't assure that you're going to have much of a great outcome with that. So, yeah, you cannot be made to do something that you do not want to do. So, yes, hopefully. I hope. I mean, you know, the police department is using hypnosis. A lot of dentists use hypnosis now. Doctors use hypnosis to calm people down or even to do procedures without anesthesia. You know, hypnosis is being used so much more. I mean, like I said, I started working with people over 20 years ago, and people would call me and say, you know, are you gonna make me quack like a duck or bark like a duck? And, they don't do that anymore because it's becoming I think meditation has paved the way because I call hypnosis meditation with a mission. It's, you know, you get into a relaxed mind state, but you don't blank out. I think people think I'm gonna blank out. I'm not gonna know what happened. But it's a it's a relaxed deep relaxed mind state, but it's not mind control at all. It's your you get more access to your mind, and so you're in a heightened control state of your mind, not, somebody else getting in there and, you know, messing things up or screwing around with the wiring. I love that you compared it to meditation, and meditation's been my thing this year. And when I was thinking about our interview today, I was like, I wonder if it's the same. So I'm glad that you've connected those dots. So they are there's some similarities for sure. Mhmm. Yeah. And, in my program, in my process, every day, I have people do meditation in the morning, which is the it's a list guided meditation, but coaching and then hypnosis at night. So it's it's it utilizes the brain on all these different levels. Oh, I love that. Yeah. And, Rita, I have to say, listening to you just feels so empowering to me. I mean, I love when we have guests who just really bring truth and and and really help, you know, things that can help our listeners, and you are, like, up there with the top because I feel empowered even as myself, even, you know, to try some some self hypnosis. And speaking of, it seems like you mentioned a master class. Can you tell us about that? I do have, a this is something I love doing. I do this a couple of times a year. I have a free master class coming up, and I'm really teaching, it's called mastering your mindset for lasting weight release. Because we don't lose weight, we release it. Because lose it, you're just gonna try to find it again. Right? So last week release. And, it's, I really get into, like, 3 huge mind mistakes that we make and how to shift out of them. Using your mind, you know, today. How do you start to shift your mind? And then we do a weight loss hypnosis session in the or weight release hypnosis session in the master class, and we actually work on your inner coach. We work on a vision of you at your ideal weight. So we do a lot of fun stuff in the actual hypnosis session itself. So people love this master class. So if any of your listeners are interested, I would love for them to come. Yeah. We'll we'll link that in the show notes, and it's a 100% free. So she's Wow. Because now that's percent free. Four classes. Correct? Four times to Yeah. Four times April 16th. There's a couple of 9 AM and, 5 PM. And then on 18th, it's noon. And on April 20th, it's 9 AM in the morning. That's Saturday. And those are all Pacific time, I know. And, but if you go to sign up, you'll see the East Coast time too, and you can do your translation, Google translate. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited. I'm gonna be there for sure. Oh, yeah. Oh, yay. It's gonna be great. And so where can we find you on the socials? Where where do you hang out? Well, the best place really, honestly, is my podcast, called the thin thinking podcast. And and if you wanna go, you cam get so much mindset around weight management help there. I do, Facebook, Shift Weight Mastery, Instagram. Oh, I'm not. I've just started posting. I haven't been a huge social media person. I've just been more, focused on my podcast, creating value there, and my master class. So that's how I'm a kind of an old, you know, dinosaur getting going with the social media. I'm just starting. But, but, yeah, you can find, Thin Thinking podcast on any of the platforms. Yeah. We'll have everything linked in the show notes so you can sign up for the masterclass and find Rita. Oh, you are amazing. It's been so great to be on your show. Well, thank you, Rita. Again, I can't tell you how empowered I feel, and this has just been so enlightening, another one of those tools in our tool chest. And I know so many of our listeners will be appreciative. I've had at least 2 conversations with social acquaintances this week around the subject of weight management and specifically because I'm in midlife, so most of my friends are or all of my friends are at this stage. And I just think this could be such a groundbreaking and life changing thing for them to try because a lot of them are exactly like you like you said. They're weight strugglers. They may have held on to weight for a very long time. So thank you, thank you, thank you for the master class and for being a guest. It's been an absolute dream. Oh, well, it's been such, you've been so warm and welcoming and asked such great questions. So it's been lots of fun for me as well. Thank you. I hope it's been helpful for your listeners as well. Thank you. Thanks Midlife all of our other contact info, check out the show description below, and we will talk to you next week.