There is nothing wrong with you! You just have ARFID

I have worked with over 2,500 ARFID clients. At the end of every initial ARFID therapy session I ask my clients, ‘What did you learn from this session that was helpful or beneficial for you?’.

The vast majority of my clients say, ‘I now understand that there is nothing wrong with me! I am not the problem, it’s just a feeling inside if me that was the problem’.

Clients usually feel a great sense of relief when they come to this understanding.

When a client can put some distance between themselves and the problem, they can stop beating themselves up. They can stop blaming themselves. And change becomes possible.

Good ARFID therapy creates this ‘distance’ between the client and the ‘problem’. For the first time in the client’s life they come to realise that ‘they’ are not to blame.

Knowledge is power. We can start to put some distance between ARFID and the person by understanding the ‘parts’ of our mind.

Conscious vs. subconscious mind

Whenever someone comes into my office for ARFID therapy, I always ask them, ‘How many minds do you think you have?’.

Most people say one. But in fact, we’ve got TWO distinct parts of our mind. ARFID lives in one part of the mind. When we finally understand which part that is, we can begin our journey to ARFID freedom.

Your two minds are the CONSCIOUS MIND and the SUBCONSCIOUS MIND.

When you look at the picture of the iceberg, the conscious mind is that small part of the iceberg above the water line, and the subconscious mind is the larger part below.

Let’s start with your conscious mind.

The conscious mind is the part that you’re using right now. You’re using your eyes to look at this page. Maybe there’s some music in the background you can hear. You can feel the chair on your legs. The five senses bring information into the conscious mind.

And in the conscious mind is our rational, logical, reasoning mind. It’s the mind that we take to work and school each day. And in this conscious part of the mind is your short-term memory and willpower.

As you can see in the picture, the conscious mind is the small part of the iceberg.

Underneath the waterline is the subconscious mind.

The word ‘sub’ means under (a submarine is underwater), so the subconscious is the part of the mind that is under our conscious awareness.

The subconscious is the biggest part of the mind.

Down in the subconscious mind is our long-term memory. NOTHING IS FORGOTTEN down there.

Our automatic reactions and our protective instincts are in the subconscious mind. So are our firmly held beliefs, our habits, our addictions, our emotions and creativity.

And down in the subconscious mind is also the automatic functioning of the body. Right now, as you’re reading these words, your toenails are growing, your eyes are blinking, and your lungs are breathing. You’re not deciding to do these things with your conscious mind, they are happening subconsciously.

The mind is like an iceberg.

So imagine the buoy in the iceberg picture represents something you want to consciously change or move. To your conscious mind it just looks like a buoy floating on the surface of the water.

You can see it with the conscious mind, but when you consciously try and move it or push it, you can’t. It’s because you can’t see the part underneath the water that is chained and anchored in the iceberg of the subconscious mind.

No matter how hard you try to move it consciously, it doesn’t budge. It’s because the thing that is holding it in place and keeping it from moving is the chain and anchor that attaches it to the subconscious mind.

And THAT is the reason you’re reading this article.

For years you’ve been using your conscious mind to try and change the way you feel and react around food, but no matter how hard you try, you just can’t change.

It’s because the feeling that is holding you back is anchored in your subconscious mind. You can’t see it on the surface, and you don’t know why it’s blocking you.

By undertaking ARFID therapy, you will finally understand why your subconscious mind is behaving that way around food. You will understand why it is giving you those unhelpful feelings around food.

And you will understand that it is not ‘you’ that is the problem. The problem is an old outdated pattern (way of thinking and reacting) that lives in the subconscious mind.

ARFID therapy can help you understand why you have this outdated way of reacting to food. And then you can learn how to let it go.

You are not the problem.
The problem is an outdated pattern of behaviour in your subconscious mind.

Change is possible at any age.