Withholding Expectations

I spent the weekend out of town in a small town in VA called Amherst for their 1st Annual Summer Solstice Festival. This is not what I would call a planned relaxation trip by any stretch of the imagination. I had a cold; it was a miserable drive down, for me because I couldn’t breathe. Drugs weren’t working. Tissues weren’t helping. I just wanted to be where we needed to be and quickly.

But, I was withholding all expectations. I’d promised our son this festival trip to see Daddy play music (and they played 8 hours over 2 days), and we were going.

The results? We had fun. It was hot, dusty and the food selection left a lot to be desired, but we had fun. And, because I allowed myself to get back to taking my vitamins, and sleeping/resting when and where I could, I came home feeling better!

There was wonderful music, some very artistic vendors, and great places for the kids to play. We met some nice people. Pup, little L and I managed to make the back of the Highlander our camp ground. It kept us out of the sun, allowed us to listen to the bands and read, color, play, basically do whatever we wanted. The two 5 year olds even managed to let me read a great book, The Compassionate Samurai: Being Extraordinary in an Ordinary World and allowed me a much needed nap on Sunday while they watched DVDs.

I could have grumbled about being sick and dragging myself out of town. I could have just stayed home. I could have fussed about not being in the comfort of my own bed while I was so tired, or having to chase the kids here and there with low energy. But, I hadn’t gone into the trip with ideas of how I wanted the weekend to go (and there really wasn’t that much chasing, kids can entertain themselves with minimal supervision). I just allowed myself moment to moment, dealt with whatever came up and moved with the flow. And even joined the others in getting breakfast at the evil “M” place!

I came home with a lesson in stress and being in the moment even though I am pretty anti-stress to begin with. It’s really those expectations that stress us out. We set ourselves up for the stress and then allow it to happen.We tell ourselves ‘x’ must happen and when it does or doesn’t, our happiness is directly related to the results. If you withhold that and instead, go into the situation with an attitude of non-expectation, you really get to see the wonder and joy of life moving around you.

You enjoy the laughter of the kids, the energy of the music, the artistry of life going on around you.

To maintain this sort of, being in the moment action/reaction, I’m cleaning up this site and my work space. We are now clutter free, more zen.  I have my to do list. I will get things done as they come, sometimes fewer, sometimes more, but I am going to enjoy the moment and the process of creating.

Today, rather than I have to, I can’t, I should….it’s ‘how can I?’ – you might be surprised what a world of difference that outlook has.

It can change the course of your whole day.

So, how can you today?

Namaste

Low Energy

Tired? Barely able to keep up with all you need to get done in a day? That’s how I’ve been feeling lately. It’s a sure sign I’m letting the stress of life get to me. So while I was lamenting the fact that I’d like to do nothing more than curl up to sleep early tonight, I thought, hmmm, I should post up the steps I take to get my energy levels back in check. I’d love to hear any additional ones you have too!

1. Sleep – Even though I keep saying I’ll sleep when I’m dead, a body can only go so long without a good nights sleep, and no, you never really ‘catch up’ on sleep. Women need between 6-8 hours a night, and men need 7-9 with those numbers decreasing some as we age.
2. Food – You are what you eat. If you’re eating crap, you’re going to feel like crap. I go back to eating healthy, my energy level goes right back up. Organic, whole foods, weed out the processed foods. If it comes in a box, it’s going to give you the energy level of cardboard.
3. Vitamins – If you’re following #2 above, you’re doing great, but all the stuff we’ve done to the earth and to our foods, we can’t get all the nutrients we need from them anymore. Get a quality vitamin. I’m a big proponent of Usana Health Sciences – just stay away from the stuff you get at Walmart. I’ll show you the studies if you want.
4. Exercise – I had to talk myself into going to the gym tonight, and I only managed to get half a workout in, but I do feel good about having gone. I’m fighting off a sore throat, so I’m happy with the half workout.

Those are my top 4. What are the ways you get your energy levels back?

Self Hypnosis

All hypnosis is really self hypnosis. When visiting a Hypnotherapist, you’re really just finding a guide who you can be comfortable with to guide you through the process. While I help my clients with any issues they’d like to tackle, I find I have the most success using my voice for my own sessions. And honestly, I think others have more success using THEIR voices for themselves as well. But, not many are comfortable or even know where to start. Since it can be a unique challenge, I thought it would be good to give a quick process to help you on your journey of making your OWN self hypnosis recording. This week, we’ll focus on Step 1.

Step 1: Learn to Relax

For hypnosis to work, really work, you need to learn to relax yourself down without falling asleep. While I believe you still receive benefits from listening to suggestions in sleep, I find they sink in much faster if you’re able to get yourself to a heightened state of awareness – aware, but completely happy with everything and everyone.

I have found, for most people, a simple technique of walking your body down to relaxation works the best. This simply means starting with your head, moving down your body and naming each body part and asking it to relax. An example of this:

Continuing lower now, it begins to touch your forehead, and as it does, I want you to feel all the little frown lines, all the little worry lines in your forehead, just seem to disappear. The forehead smoothes out, feels so relaxed, and you feel this relaxing light coming around your eyes. Now, your eyelids seem to become very, very, heavy, so heavy they don’t even seem to want to open. They may flutter a little bit, but that’s ok, just feel how heavy they are – and as the relaxation comes down around the facial muscles now, all the little muscles in the face just begin to relax.

Relaxation comes further down around the mouth now, and all the hundreds of little muscles around the mouth just start to relax…so much so, that the lower jaw becomes heavy and the teeth part.

You proceed this way all the way down your body.

Learning this technique without falling asleep can take you several weeks to learn. If you find yourself falling asleep, try it sitting up in a chair.

Check back next week for Step 2: Stepping Down to Deep Hypnosis.

Namaste

Couéism or the Coué method

Well, first, you guys are supposed to get after me if I haven’t posted up in a week, much less THREE!!! What were you thinking??

Oh well, I’m back and focused! Shew. I have been listening to a lot of audio book lately, and on a variety of topics. Let’s face it, my listening can range from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, which everyone should listen to since the author is the one reading and does a GREAT job, to Robert Allen’s “From Idea to Best Seller”. Honestly, the spectrum is a wide one.

But, the topic that struck home for me this week, while commuting was just a side bar in Robert Allen’s presentation. He highlighted Emile Coué. Now, seeing as how I’m a hypnotherpist (among my various titles) I should know this name, and honestly, I probably do and just filed it somewhere in my brain to be triggered later.

Anyway, what struck me the most from the start of my research was this:

Coué maintained that curing some of our troubles requires a change in our unconscious thought, which can only be achieved by using our imagination. Although stressing that he was not primarily a healer but one who taught others to heal themselves, Coué claimed to have effected organic changes through autosuggestion.

This is the perfect explanation of how I have helped myself heal in the past and exactly how I continue to do it each time I start feeling ill or making myself ill. And yes, my mother will freely agree, I used to MAKE myself sick and when I was done with it…I made myself better. I’ve even read documented cases of people using autosuggestion and imagination to heal cancer! He had a 93% success rate!

Just imagine what you can do with the power of your mind! Take a moment, read up on the techniques and give a shout if you have questions.

Namaste

Improve your self confidence in 15 minutes

Improve your self confidence in 15 minutes
Article by Mark Tyrrell of Hypnosis Downloads.com.

I used to be frighteningly under confident in social situations. And although people who know me now would never believe I used to doubt myself so much I literally had to learn confidence until it became a natural part of me. I can tell you relaxed optimistic confidence is just, well so much more fun.

Here I’ll tell you about the things that made the most difference to my confidence levels…

Some people have naturally high levels of confidence but everybody can learn to be more confident

Firstly, it’s important to get a clear idea of what self confidence really means, otherwise you won’t know when you’ve got it! So, self confidence means:

1) Being calm. For every situation in life you need to run on the appropriate level of emotion. Too much emotional ‘leakage’ into a experience can spoil the experience. You make great strides towards confidence when you begin to relax in a greater range of situations.

2) Being cool. The second part of self confidence is about being able to relax with uncertainty. To be ‘cool’ in a situation really means relaxing with not knowing how things will pan out. If you truly tolerate uncertainty, you can do pretty much anything.

3) Not being too concerned with what others think of you. You know when you imagine what some place is going to be like before you go there but when you get there it is totally different to your imagination? That’s how reliable your imagination is! Stop trusting your imagination so much. I’ve long since stopped bothering to imagine what others think of me because so often I’ve turned out to be wrong.

4) Being specific – where do you want confidence? ‘Confidence’ is meaningless until you tie it to something specific. You are already confident that you can read these words or can switch a light on and off. So you don’t need more confidence everywhere. To get what you want in life you have to establish exactly what you do want. Where do you want confidence in your life? Think about the specific situations now and write them down. You beginning to steer your brain towards confidence.

5) Understanding that what you expect is what you get. Your brain is an organ that needs clear goals to work towards. When a task has been set in your brain it will do everything it can do to bring about the completion of that task. If you’ve tried to recall someone’s name but can’t, hours later you’ll often find their name pops into your head.

The ‘trying to recall’ experience set the task or blueprint for your brain’s future subconscious behaviour which eventually produced the name for you – when you weren’t thinking about it consciously. You can use this natural mechanism to start feeling more confident. But, to ensure you set the right task for your subconscious mind, the next point is vital.

6) Don’t task your mind with negatives. Instead of: ‘I don’t want to screw up’ (which sets the task of ’screwing up’ for your brain), set the blueprint for what you do want! Your brain doesn’t work towards what to do by being told what not to do. And nature has given you a wonderful natural tool to set the right task blueprints with.

7) Use nature’s goal-setter: Now you understand how vital it is to set the right task for you brain, you need to know how to do this reliably. Good hypnosis will strongly ‘program’ the right blueprint in your mind through the use of your imagination. If you powerfully imagine feeling confident and relaxed while in a relaxed hypnotic state it will be hard for your unconscious mind to do anything else. The blueprint for relaxation has been set firmly into your subconscious mind.

3 simple strategies to get you feeling confident quickly:

1) Think specifically of the time/place/situation you want to feel confident in. Remember ‘confidence’ doesn’t mean anything until you attach it to something specific.

2) Focus on words in your mind right now that describe how you do want to be in that time and place. Maybe words such as ‘calm’, ‘relaxed’ or ‘focused’. Remember your brain works on clear positive instructions.

3) Close your eyes for as long as you like and think about how those words feel. Then, imagine the situation itself and rehearse it in your mind feeling confident and relaxed. This way you set the right blueprint or ‘task’ for your unconscious mind.

You can repeat this often to make it more effective and use it with as many areas of your life as you need to. If you listen to a hypnotic cd or download that can make the benefits even more powerful (see my profile below). So if you feel like you’d be blessed with less confidence than some other people you can start redressing the balance by using your mind in the right way right now.

It took me years to learn how to be more confident – now you can do it in a fraction of the time. Good luck!

Boost your confidence now at HypnosisDownloads.com

Getting my Veggies in – the first time in…forever

Post written by Stacia D. Kelly. Follow me on Twitter.

Let me preface this by saying, I don’t like many vegetables, nor too many fruits. At all. Stir fry zucchini and mushrooms? Sure. Stuffed mushrooms at Thanksgiving…I can eat those for a week and not be tired of them. Granny Smith apples? Bananas? Yup. Sometimes strawberries too.

• Cucumbers? No.
• Celery? No.
• Carrots? No.

The list can go on. And yet somehow, I’ve managed to not only add in Cucmbers, Celery, and KALE to my nutrition this week, I’m actually ENJOYING THEM. How? I’m juicing them.

I got fed up with myself over the weekend. I’ve been running myself to the ground, not training as much as I should, not eating near my goals (and yes, I eat a lot better than most, but I was goofing off a lot too), and certainly NOT sleeping. So, I swithed on Sunday. Yoga, back into the routing. Working out at home, back. Running/interval training, yup, on it.

It was the foods. I know how to train…and I can eat if I have a specific diet mapped out. But I just couldn’t ever bring myself to get 10 servings of fruits and veggies in. Face it…that’s a LOT. But, Saturday I was talking to a client. We were discussing her trip to the Hippocrates Institute and how the raw foods and vegan dishes were making her feel better, but she was having a hard time keeping up with it all at home. Life just tends to overwhelm us all. So, I thought I’d try it a few days and see just how much MORE time it seemed to take me.

You know what? It doesn’t. I can juice and drink it all down while I’m cleaning the juicer. I can even manage to juice and cook up stir fry or an omelet. A few of the rules I’m following.

1. Have some recipes you want to try. This makes it MUCH easier, and much more likely the juice is going to be drinkable.
2. Have all the ingredients. Don’t try winging it and don’t substitute at first. Make sure they’re fresh and organic.
3. Cut only to the size needed to fit into the juicer. There is no need to make the veggies little. Cut them to fit and then run with it.
4. Invest in an apple slicer and a peeler…oh, and some really sharp knives for stubborn items.

That’s it! I know, I know, but what recipes have I been using??? Well, I’ll give you the resources, and then the recipes. First, the books:

• Raw Food Made Easy For 1 or 2 People by Jennifer Cornbleet
• Eating in the Raw: A Beginner’s Guide to Getting Slimmer, Feeling Healthier, and Looking Younger the Raw-Food Way by Carol Alt
• The Raw 50: 10 Amazing Breakfasts, Lunches, Dinners, Snacks, and Drinks for Your Raw Food Lifestyle by Carol Alt

I am not using ALL the recipes. Lord, I’m no where near that patient yet, and yes, I’m pretty patient when required. But, I am learning to make smoothies, and those I can handle. Maybe I’ll graduate to better ones down the road! Now, I don’t have permission to reprint the recipes I was working from, so instead, I’ll just give you my variation, which seemed to work well for me. (And remember, I do NOT like the taste of cucumbers OR celery. Blah. LOL)

Recipe 1

• 1 stalk celery
• 1 peeled cucumber
• 1 Granny Smith apple (small)
• 1 red pepper

Juice them all, shake until mix, drink up. Goes great with dinner. I wasn’t hungry at all and this was after TKD and a run.

Recipe 2

• 1 celery stalk
• 1 peeled cucumber
• 1 Granny Smith apple
• 1 inch ginger root (peeled)
• 3 leaves of Kale

Juice the above, place in blender. Add in 1tsp Green Powder and 1tsp ground flax seeds. Blend. Drink (It’s really green and has a bite to it because of the ginger…and the Kale seems to make you think you’re smelling soy sauce.) Note: Eat with dinner, much more likely to stay full!

I also snuck in some freshly juiced OJ this am with breakfast, definitely a better start to the day than the sugar laden ones from the store. So, that’s been my start. I hope you’re interested enough that you can find a few ways to sneak in more fruits and veggies during the day! I’m learning this is the BEST way for me to even try it.

If you’ve tried juicing, what are some of your favorite recipes?

7 Ways to Soothe your Shyness

7 Ways to Soothe your Shyness
Article by Mark Tyrrell of Hypnosis Downloads.com.

Shy people instinctively know that they are missing out. Shyness equals lost opportunities, less pleasure and fewer social connections. Shyness can be crippling but there are tried and tested ways to make it a thing of the past.

When I was fifteen I was shy. I recall an attractive girl attempting to engage me in conversation. My shyness made me focus on me instead of her. I heard my own voice but not hers and I thought about what I was trying to say instead of what she was trying to say.

The formula for shyness is “too much focus on the self” plus anxiety. To make it even more unpleasant, sometimes when you are feeling shy you experience physical sensations which ‘hijack’ your calm logical self.

My pulse raced, my mouth dried up and I felt like the village idiot! I couldn’t think what to say so I said nothing apart from making barely audible grunting noises! Cary Grant eat your heart out! When I detected pity in her eyes (or was it contempt, or boredom) I mumbled my excuse and got out of there. I hated being shy and was determined to change it.

How shyness is developed and maintained

Shyness really is a combination of social anxiety and social conditioning. To overcome shyness you need to learn to relax socially. This enables you to direct your attention away from yourself and gives you the space to practice certain conversational skills. In most cases, the heightened emotions of socializing when young simply condition the sufferer to respond to social events with fear, instead of excitement and pleasure.

Relaxed socializing is so pleasurable, not to say productive, but it is an advantage denied to many until they learn to relax. To start reducing your own shyness, I want you to absorb the following tips and ideas and start to put them into practice:

1) Think about the way you feel and behave around familiar people you are comfortable and spontaneous around. It’s that feeling transferred to new people and situations that equates to your emerging social confidence.

2) Focus your attention away from yourself. Sure, you can think a little bit about how you are coming across, but if all your focus is on your own words and feelings then you might as well be by yourself. Notice what other people are wearing and make a mental note, listen to their conversation, imagine where they might live, make a point of remembering names. Not only does this give you more to talk about, it also ‘dilutes’ social anxiety leaving you feeling calmer.

3) Ask people open questions. Many people like to talk about themselves and will find you interesting if you find them interesting. Ask questions that require more than a ‘yes’/'no’ response such as ‘What do you like about this place?’ rather than: ‘Do you like this place?’ Once they’ve answered use ‘add-on’ questions connected to the first such as: ‘What other places do you like in this city.?’ Next you can express your views. This is a great way to get the conversation going. If the conversation doesn’t ‘take’ then no matter, you’ve done your bit.

4) Stop trusting your imagination so much! Have you ever had an imaginary picture in your mind of a holiday destination only to arrive and find the reality is different from the way you had imagined? That’s how reliable imagination is. Stop imagining what others think. I do lots of public speaking and I’ve long since stopped trying to second guess what others think of me – it’s just too painful. Besides, what a person thinks about you has a lot more to do with who they are than who you are.

5) Stop using ‘all or nothing’ thinking. The ‘completely this/completely that’ style of thought occurs when you are emotional. People who are depressed, angry or anxious see reality in terms of differing extremes, simplistic all or nothing terms. An angry person is ‘right’ and you are ‘wrong’; the depressed person feels like a ‘failure’ while others are a ’success’. In reality, life is composed of infinite gray areas. So stop fearing that you might say the ‘wrong’ thing! Or that people will ‘hate’ you. Once you start to relax more socially you’ll notice much less black or white thinking because anxiety actually causes you to think in all or nothing terms.

6) Take your time. You don’t have to blurt things out. Ask questions and if questions are asked of you can take time to consider your response (within reason). Don’t just blurt out what you think might be the ‘right’ answer. A slow answer is a relaxed answer.

7) Finally, use hypnotic rehearsal. Hypnosis is the quickest way to change your instinctive/emotional response to any situation. Only think about meeting others when your mind and body is relaxed. This conditions you to associate relaxation with being around new people. In fact you’ll find that when you relax deeply enough often enough whilst hypnotically rehearsing being comfortable around others you’ll reach the point where you just can’t be shy any more! This is what I call a ‘happy inability!’

I now love meeting new people and suspect that my current social confidence would be unrecognizable to my fifteen year old self.

Overcome shyness now at HypnosisDownloads.com

7 Public Speaking Survival Tips

7 Public Speaking Survival Tips
Article by Mark Tyrrell of Hypnosis Downloads.com.

I used to be terrified of public speaking – now it’s natural and fun.

Dry mouth, fast heart, sweaty palms, blank mind – yeah I’ve been there! It’s easy to fear public speaking. But I was never just content with overcoming fear. I wanted to be a great speaker. What I needed was a way of calming down and applying simple techniques and strategies to talk like a pro.

When I’d learned to relax (more of that later) I learned and applied the following four steps.

1. Reassure your audience – they need to know you know your stuff and you are human!
2. Hook them by being interesting and relevant. Tell them why what you are saying is relevant to them.
3. Inspire them by giving them information and ways of seeing that are new and applicable.
4. Leave them on a high by telling a story them encapsulates your central message.

How do you become confident enough to apply the four steps?

Here’s some tips some of which are practical some of which are to do with the way you think about your public presentations and also how you can start to change the way you feel about them.

Tip One

Breath your way to calm. When you breath out you relax that’s why people sigh when they’re stressed.

Breathing in without breathing out causes hyperventilation and worsens anxiety. Just before your speech take five minutes breathing in to the count of seven and out to the count of eleven (quick count-not seconds!). On the out breath hold it a second before breathing in again. This will produce quick and lasting calm. Remember extending the out breath calms you down.

Tip Two

You have a responsibility as the presenter but relax you don’t carry all the responsibility. Presenting is a team effort. Audiences are responsible for politeness, extending their attention and attempting to learn. It’s not all you-it’s a meeting of two halves. Never mind how they judge you. How do you judge them?

Tip Three

Use metaphor and stories. We all experience life metaphorically. The most technical logical person spends at least two hours a night dreaming! Talk detail if necessary but present patterns with metaphors. Folk from 4 to 104 love stories. Use em.

Tip four

Captivate attention by using words that evoke all the senses. Describe how things look, sound, feel, smell and taste. Paint pictures and sensations in their minds with your words.

Tip Five

Vary your voice tonality and speed of delivery. Keep them alert and engaged. Convey energy when need be and slow down when you need to ‘draw them in close.’ You are the conductor to their orchestra. And pepper your talk with humour. Your willingness to be funny shows personal confidence and confidence is contagious.

Tip Six

Tell them what they are going to get. What they are currently getting and then what they have got from you. Sell your sizzle!

Tip Seven

Watch and learn from other great speakers until compelling, relaxed speaking is a part of you.

Rehearse positively. You need to rehearse how your going to feel as well as what you are going to present. Don’t think about your forthcoming presentation whilst feeling nervous as this creates an instinctive association between fear and presenting. This natural negative self-hypnosis is very common with nervous speakers.

Hypnotically rehearse your speech whilst feeling relaxed. This produces the right ‘blueprint’ in your mind. In fact when you do this enough times it actually becomes hard to be nervous!

All great speakers know how to use great self-hypnotic rehearsal. Hypnosis changes attitudes and can bring emotion under control. I used hypnosis, to change my instincts around public speaking. Now I just can’t get nervous whether it’s 50 or 500 people. The world needs great communicators. Go for it!

Cure your fear of public speaking at HypnosisDownloads.com

Being Still

Post written by Stacia D. Kelly. Follow me on Twitter.

It is within the quiet of the mind that you can come to terms with past, present and future. Yet, too many people live in fear of silence. They run from their pasts, letting it define them and their lives. They run from the present, thinking they’re stuck and there’s no way out of whatever the current situation is they’re in. They run from the future, because they can’t envision a positive one.

They run from it all using TV, music, over eating, binge drinking and more as their shelter, their shield. We are taught to fill our days, fill our minds, fill our stomachs…we are not taught to slow down, take a deep breath and just, BE.

This moment of being is called mindfulness, being in the moment. And, there are many roads to get to it, to get to the point of simply being able to enjoy the actual moment you are in.

Have you really watched the sunrise and seen the beauty of it? Noticed the wonderful colors Mother Nature creates against the backdrop of the sky? Have you taken the time to just exist in the moment with your child, finding amusement and amazement in a few moments of sheer tickle fun or harassment? Or even the warm fuzzy feeling of random “I love you’s”? Have you taken the time to enjoy the unconditional love from a beloved pet rather than fussing at them to just get out of the way?

Being in the moment truly allows you to take in the beauty of life around you. It allows those petty stresses to melt away. It allows you the ability to define your goals AND achieve them.

But so many are unwilling to listen, or to even try. And, there are a variety of methods out there for you to choose from!

1.    Meditation
2.    Prayer
3.    Yoga
4.    Mindful Walking
5.    Breathing Exercises
6.    Working Out

And, a multitude of others I could add to the list. The key is to turn off the TV, shut off the music, STOP talking just to talk. Silence really is golden. It can help you heal and help you find the answers to the questions that keep chasing around your brain. It can help you find new answers to old problems or even old answers to new problems.

Is it easy? No. If it were, everyone would be leaping to do it because, after all, we are in a quick fix society.

Take a moment, stop, close your eyes, focus on just your breathing – breathe in and up, out and down. You can even use that as your mantra. I do. “Breathe In and Up. Out and Down.” Repeat it for as long as you can. Don’t get fed up and frustrated when your mind throws a to do list at you, just stop, and focus again on breathing in and up, out and down.

And, in a few moments, open your eyes.

You might be surprised at what you see.

Take a moment. Breathe. And. Just. Be.
Namaste

Reassuring Reasons why Hypnosis is your Friend

Believe the hype or think for yourself.

For too long hypnosis has had a bad or ‘difficult’ press. If a person doesn’t understand something they have 3 options open to them.

1) They might be skeptical and therefore save the trouble of looking further and possibly benefiting.
2) They may conclude it is dangerous and to be avoided at all costs.
3) They may spend time discovering the truth behind the hype.

If you don’t know much about a topic it’s easy to be suspicious. Some people assume hypnosis is akin to a carnival side show, others consider it mystic mumbo jumbo or ‘mind control.’ For those who look beyond the hype the truth is far more illuminating.

The most powerful tool you possess

There are potentially huge benefits for those who use hypnosis as part of everyday life. When you understand hypnosis you start to see its potential to improve human performance in the physical, emotional and intellectual realms. For me, rumour, gossip and suspicion weren’t good enough.

I determined to learn all I could about hypnosis – I learned every fact and practised every technique under the sun. I took several training courses – some good, some terrible. I invested thousands of hours of devoted study to hypnosis and discovered just what is possible. I hypnotized friends, neighbors and work colleagues. Hypnosis greatly changed things for me on a personal level

How hypnosis helped me

I used to be shy. Thanks to hypnosis I can now talk to thousands at a time and can approach anybody calmly and confidently.

I used to have poor concentration and procrastinate; thanks to hypnosis I can instantly motivate myself.

I used to find physical work outs and exercise exhausting but because of hypnosis I am now in the best shape of my life.

Incidentally I also stopped myself blushing with hypnosis. Now if ever I have a difficult call or conversation coming up, something I may naturally feel reluctant to do (you know the kind of thing) I spontaneously self hypnotise and rehearse the upcoming situation feeling good, with myself remaining calm. In this way I habitually set my own emotional ‘blue prints’ for up coming situations. Having said that it’s naturally that some people have concerns or half digested ‘hand me down’ ideas regarding hypnosis. A common one is the one about ‘mind control.’ However what does this really mean?

Why you are more in control of yourself in hypnosis

If someone expresses concerns about being ‘controlled’ in hypnosis what they mean is they don’t want to be like a robot, an automaton that is forced to obey the every whim of the hypnotist. We can’t help but influence others but we don’t control them. To understand why you need to understand hypnosis better.

So what is hypnosis like?

Hypnosis isn’t like a coma. It’s not unconsciousness – more a subtle shifting of consciousness. In hypnosis, you can still think logically but you also have access to the ’software’ of your mind so that you can update instinctive emotional and physical responses. In fact the hypnotised subject (not the hypnotist) calls the shots. When I hypnotise someone I need to go at their speed and respond to their needs and expectations. Hypnosis will give you more control in your own life because of what it enables you to do.

How can I be so sure?

Because over the decades I’ve seen all kinds of people, all ages and from all backgrounds turn their lives around thanks to hypnosis. When you use hypnosis for yourself it improves confidence in all kinds of ways. When you use it to change other’s lives it just blows you away. This is what I mean.

When I first hypnotised someone to feel no sensation in a painful arthritic arm it was an incredible feeling. When I first cured life long phobias quickly and comfortably I was astounded. When I stopped hardened alcoholics from drinking and even got a heroin addict off the stuff and back into mainstream life again I started to feel angry that people could just associate hypnosis with entertainment.

With the aid of hypnosis I (and many people I have trained and worked with) have helped severely depressed people feel strong and positive again. The rewards and satisfactions are hard to describe. I’m going to take a stand against ignorance and short sightedness around hypnosis and here’s why.

Why you need to reclaim hypnosis for yourself

Hypnosis is your birthright. It’s nature’s optimum learning tool. In fact to learn and perform anything well you need to experience a natural focussing of attention, a natural kind of hypnosis. To be successful hypnosis needs to be your companion and friend.

Successful people use it naturally all the time because hypnosis is natural. It’s the way we learn new responses. Unlike medications its side effects are purely positive – one expectant mother I worked with to feel relaxed during child birth later reported that she was also more relaxed when flying!

Hypnosis is easy to learn and every body can benefit. Hypnosis is a safe environment to ‘try out’ new behaviours and emotional patterns before you experience them for real. So the young man can ask a woman out for a date many times in calm relaxed hypnosis so that by the time he does it for real it feels real and natural and relaxed. Sports people who use hypnosis learn new quicker and more accurately. So hypnosis gives you more control of yourself and your life, it’s natural and gives you instant benefits and it’s a way of ‘trying on’ and establishing new patterns of emotional response and behaviour, Hypnosis enables you to develop yourself as a human being.

HypnosisDownloads.com offer a free course called ‘Learn Hypnosis in 5 Days‘.

Article by Mark Tyrrell of Hypnosis Downloads.com.

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