All is Well! How often do you get this sense, even while you are running around trying to find a solution to a problem or deal with a challenging person or situation? Your mind takes over to spout off empirical evidence to the contrary. Showing you all the fact that prove to you “the sky is falling”. So you continue to run around like chicken little, accomplishing nothing more than stirring up dust.
When everything settles and it does all work out ok and all is well, how often do you ask yourself, why didn’t I listen to my gut? Why do we deny our own intuition? We can’t remember the directions to that new restaurant our friend brought us to for lunch, yet something within us tells us to go left. We go right instead, only to hit a dead end. Our internal GPS was right again! You know when you shouldn’t walk down a street, that too is part of our intuition.
Our culture doesn’t reward intuition. It rewards logical facts. As a matter of fact, you might be called a little crazy if during a meeting at work you made a suggestion and when asked how you came to this conclusion, said…”don’t worry, it’s just my inner knowing. She is right all the time.” Yet how many expressions do we have that point to how powerful our intuition really is. Do you ever get a “gut feeling” that someone isn’t telling the whole truth? It is a “gut reaction” when a mother grabs her child out of the street, just a car rounds the corner. When you meet someone and know whether you like them right away, that is your intuition. That’s why we are told we have 30 seconds to make a good impression. It has nothing to do with what we say or do, it is a gut reaction, an inner knowing that we all have.
Beginning to trust your intuition, to trust those gut feelings you get, can seem silly at first. More and more, as you trust your truth and begin being guided by your intuition, you will experience a new flow in your life like you could have never imagined. You will trust that inner knowing and just like a muscle, the more you use it, the more it will grow.
When connecting in to our hearts, we can get a greater sense of what our true desires are. So often we are bombarded with messages telling us what our desires “should” be. You may feel off balanced, off kilter as you continue to try and fulfill these unauthentic desires. You think they are what you want and because you are so accustom to hearing them, you may not even recognize that they are someone else’s voice.
When we take just a few minutes and connect in to our heart, we hear the message of our truth. Our hearts don’t lie! They may whisper something we feel is impossible but they don’t lie. They tell you exactly what they really want. You can’t hear what they have to say, if you don’t connect to them. You can’t feel their longings if you are always to busy with life to even acknowledge they have a truth to share with you.
What would you do if you listened to your heart? Would you need to take steps to make a change in your life? Would you need to open up and speak from your heart in a way that might make people around you uncomfortable? How often do you close your heart, so you don’t have to experience its yearning for something different?
When we close our hearts and ignore the truth it is burning to share with us, life lacks a certain spark and joy. As soon as we begin giving attention to our hearts, taking a moment to connect and listen, shifts occur in our lives. We don’t have to share what our hearts tell us. Just listening, like listening to a close friend, can begin the shift that you’ve been looking for.
Feeling supported to take action to trust my heart and make a change towards those desires is what hypnotherapy has done for me. I kept a wall around my heart and I didn’t even know because I thought connecting in to my heart would be too painful. Hypnotherapy gave me the tools to feel safe and supported so that I could listen to my heart. Now I enjoy connecting in. It is like my barometer for how I’m really doing because I am very good at denying how I really feel. When I take a moment, breath into my heart and see how I am feeling, I can honor the message I receive.
Some days we may be more open hearted then we thought. Other days we might receive a message of heavy heartedness. Listening in, we can give ourselves what we need. Perhaps a little more self care on those heavy days. Perhaps sharing your love on those days when your heart is more open. By trusting our heart, we move through our day in a more authentic way. Plus, if you have the experience of other people around you telling you how they think you are feeling, connecting to your heart is a quick and easy way to connect in to your truth. Trust your truth, trust your heart in each moment.
First and foremost, I am not a doctor but I feel like I have studied extensively all there is about anxiety. I tried everything to feel calm and reclaim my life and nothing did the trick so quickly or so easily, as hypnotherapy did!
I got clean and sober about 4 years ago. I took away the thing that I believed alleviated a lot of my anxiety. It really just made it so I didn’t care how I felt… because I wasn’t Feeling anything. If I had a feeling, I knew how to take care of that! Just drink some more or smoke a lil more weed. Then I forgot I even had a feeling, including the deep feelings of anxiousness I couldn’t even acknowledge I had. As soon as I put the alcohol and drugs down all of my feelings came flooding back. The one that became the most debilitating for me to deal with on a daily basis was feelings of anxiety.
If I had to leave the house….when I would leave the house…I did so much just to get myself out the door. I regulated what day and time I would leave, when I expected the least amount of people and traffic out. Where I lived allowed me to ride my bike. I didn’t have to deal with the feelings of anxiety around driving. What if I got in an accident? How much gas was I wasting? Would I get a parking spot?
If I began riding my bicycle into the center of town and there were too many people, I would turn back around and go home. Even when going to the grocery store, I would turn back around and go home. It didn’t matter that I had waited until I had absolutely NO edible food in my house because I didn’t want to leave until I HAD to! I would return home, without food, to a home with no food in it.
I wanted to avoid the feelings of anxiousness I would feel trying to walk into a grocery store with so many other people in it. Not to mention the feelings of overwhelm from the bright lights, the amount of choices or the possibility of running in to someone I knew and having to try and make small talk. I Hate small talk!
Fast forward a year, dealing with this all to the best of my ability. I used different defense techniques. I would go out into the world when I felt the safest. I avoided people and situations that triggered these feelings of anxiety, as much as possible. Many times I would agree to go to dinner with friends and have to leave the restaurant before we could even order because I felt so anxious and overwhelmed.
I don’t want to recount all of this to trigger anxious feelings in you, but only to let you know, I know what it feels like…I’ve been there too!
Occasionally I have that feeling still. The biggest difference today is that I have tools that help me. Those old feelings no longer limit me in my life, in any way! And for that I am eternally grateful!!!
Ok…back to a year or more into sobriety, when I am coping as best I can, I began working with a traditional psychiatrist. We aren’t working specifically on my feelings of anxiety but more about improving my life. Eventually, I change my diet. I add even more exercise to my life, because I am naturally an overly active person. My mind is overly active so my body needed to be overly active as well. It helped to release some of the constant thoughts that were swirling around in my mind. Being active also eased some of the constant worry about what would happen in the future.
You know they say depression is reliving the past and anxiety is living in the future and I was an expert at living in both. Living in the present was not even on my radar, let alone something I was able to practice. I don’t know about you but my mind was too full of 1,000 thoughts bouncing around to even notice that there was a present.
I could be talking to you, all the while I was wondering if I had left all the lights on and how high the electric bill was going to be. I could do this with a smile on my face, appearing completely engaged in our conversation. You would never know I was a bundle of nerves and anxiety had you looked at me. Does this sound familiar?
Sooooo….I tried all these natural solutions. Changing what I ate, getting more exercise, meditating…which really meant sitting for 5 to 10 minutes trying to not get up because of one more thing I had to take care of. Still the anxiousness kept me from enjoying life. Under the suggestion of my psychiatrist, I began taking medication. It was a little combo for depression and social anxiety. Depression was my underlying symptom because I really loved living in the past…but low and behold…this thing that I had been denying I even had a problem with, began to clear up.
I no longer felt like running away if there were more than 2 other people in a restaurant. If there was a short line at the check out stand in the grocery store, I could actually wait in it to buy my food. This is how strong my denial had been and how much I had convinced myself that this low level feeling of anxiousness that permeated my entire being must be normal. Isn’t this what everyone experiences living in our fast paced society now a days?
Well apparently it isn’t…or at least it doesn’t have to be! You too can feel at peace in the world. You too can feel calm, even when uncomfortable stuff is swirling all around you. AND you can do it without being on medication for depression, or anxiety or anything else. But I’ll get to that in a bit.
So, I stayed on the medication for about 4 months. I felt better. I felt that all my brain chemistry had gotten the boost of serotonin it needed. I discussed it with my psychiatrist and we decided I could go back on them again later if I needed to.
The depression was gone, the anxiety was relieved for many situations. I continued with life thinking it had gotten as good as it was going to get. I still had to leave the restaurant sometimes. I still could only visit with friends every once in awhile and preferred to be by myself most of the time…but life felt manageable. Until a new solution presented itself.
My friend did an online summit for depression and I joined up, even though I was feeling pretty good at the time. Again, I like to study something until I am blue in the face. It’s probably that active mind of mine. The internet makes it so easy to participate from the safety and comfort of my own home, so why not?
As part of this summit I was introduced to hypnotherapy. I had little to no idea what hypnotherapy was. About 10 years earlier a friend had done some hypnotherapy with me and it had been a cool experience. But it was nothing life changing, like what I’m about to share with you now! Even if you have had some experience before, don’t give up without viewing it through a new lens! I mean, you could have the life you have always wanted…one where you can go and do whatever you want, with whomever you want…without being blocked by the fear that anxiety will take over and things will be ruined.
So this amazing hypnotherapist, Grace Smith, offered a discounted membership to her hypnotherapy “Netflix”. I had liked what she said, so what did I have to lose? I was already stuck in such a rut! Why not try something new? What could it hurt? Well it didn’t hurt at all!
It actually began to give me freedom.
All I had to do was listen to some hypnotherapy recordings each day and I just naturally began to think differently, to feel differently and then eventually to act differently. It happened so naturally and so easily and effortlessly I barely even noticed the changes.
I might not have noticed the changes but those around me did!
In situations where previously everyone had to walk on egg-shells just to avoid triggering me in some way, I was happily participating. I no longer had to sit off in a corner, protecting myself as though some disaster was about to befall me. I was in the mix, laughing, having fun with everyone else!
You have no idea how freeing it felt!
Well maybe you do…I hope you do!
And if you don’t…I really hope you will soon!
I could leave my house whenever I felt like it. I could go to dinner in a crowded, noisy restaurant and either not even notice or breath through any uncomfortable feelings that might have begun to simmer. Even more exciting is it gave me the confidence and the desire to share hypnotherapy with other people. So many people I know feel anxious on a regular basis and I wanted to give them hope that there is a solution that really works.
Hypnotherapy worked so effectively for me, I decided to study and become a hypnotherapist just so I could share the amazing transformation I experienced…with you! We deserve to live our best lives! We deserve to live a calm, peaceful life doing what we want, when we want, with whomever we want. Don’t allow anxiety to run your life any longer. CloseYourEyesGetFree with hypnotherapy today!
If you are also interested in studying to become a IACT Certified Hypnotherapist, the Grace Method Hypnotherapy School is opening it’s doors to new students soon. Check it out!
It doesn’t matter if it is a little trickle running down the side of a hill or Niagra Falls.
I love them! Don’t you?
There is something about the sound they emanate that feels so soothing. Even with the power of Niagra Falls, as I sat next to it for a bit, the exhilaration faded into a relaxing hum. There is a specific frequency that falling water vibrates at that is unique and has a natural tendency to instantly relax us. If you have ever had the opportunity to stand under a waterfall and allow it to wash over your body, you know how much better you feel. If not, even just imagining this relaxing, calming, cleansing energy to wash over you is enough to do the trick.
It is amazing how powerful our minds are! We can imagine something and receive similar, if not the exact same benefit, as if it was really happening. The problem is that we rarely remember to take the time to do that. When you are rushing around in your day and you begin to get anxious about how much more you have to do, it is counter intuitive to stop and take a moment. You believe you don’t have time to imagine something soothing washing away those feelings of anxiousness. You may not realize you are equipped to make better decisions afterwards.
Like the Buddist saying,”Meditate 20 minutes a day, unless you don’t have time…then meditate an hour a day.”
This really speaks to the truth that we make better decisions, more creative decisions, when we are calm. When we are anxious our entire body is on high alert and we are making decisions from a fight or flight mode.
How many of us spend most of our lives in this state?
Do you think you could make more thoughtful choices if you were in a different state?
What if you could get to that calm, centered and relaxed state in less than 5 minutes before you decided to act. Just imagine how it would feel if right before you go in to a big meeting you washed away any anxiousness and walked in calm and relaxed. What if you began to feel anxious again while in the meeting and all you had to do was a quick technique to allow that calm to flow through you again?
Wouldn’t that be worth a little practice to change how you are moving through those important events in your life?
Now maybe a work meeting isn’t the most stressful thing in your day, maybe you need to get calm before driving somewhere or going to visit someone; whatever it is that has had the tendency to exacerbate those feelings of anxiousness, you can watch this video and feel calm & relaxed quickly.
Watch it a few times, over a few days and notice when you enter a stressful situation, the image of your perfect waterfall comes to mind instantly and effortlessly. That cleansing force flowing through you until you feel completely clear, free from any of those old feelings naturally. You handle that situation with ease.
May the healing power of waterfalls wash away any of those old feelings and give you a new way to enjoy a calm, relaxed life. A life where you choose how you want to feel. A life where you make better decisions and choices because you are in a state that elicits creative action.
When I was a little girl I loved to go to the San Francisco Exploratorium. My favorite was the light that would flash from across the room and would put a negative “picture” of your shadow on the wall. My sister and I would jump into the air and try and make silly shapes that would be photographed. I always loved experimenting, even if I got bored quickly…too quickly to actually learn how things worked completely, I would get a gist of something and move on.
Now, as an adult, I take a little extra time to figure out how things work. Well at least I do when it is something that has affected me so personally. That’s right, I’m talking about the physiological effects of anxiety on my body and l the ways I used to calm down.
Breathing Deeply Actually Changes your Physiology!
Did you know that?
It has something to do with the amount of oxygen, triggering a complex reaction that tells actual chemicals in your body to secrete…or to suppress other chemicals…I got bored trying to figure out the exact science of it and got excited that breathing deeply works.
Try it! Yes, right now…try it!
Take a nice deep breath in. Maybe even hold it for a second or two, once you are at full capacity.
Now let all that air go…actually push the last bit of air out of your body…making that funny blowing noise and let it all go.
And then do it again…and again, one more time!
Don’t you feel better already? I’m sure if you are reading this you have already tried different breathing techniques, or if you haven’t “pranayama” or “prana-your-momma’d” out on some other method, you at least know that taking a breath when you feel overwhelmed can help release some of the tension from the situation you believe is causing you to feel anxious.
You know how you were told to count to 10 before responding to someone if you were worked up. It is more than likely that as you were counting, you began breathing more deeply too. It physically changes how you feel and diffuses powerful calming chemicals in your body.
So here I am, telling you to breath deeply to deal with feelings of anxiety. To diffuse the speeding up of your heart beat, the racing of your thoughts and the fight or flight mechanism that is ready to kick in.
So Much More Than Just Breathing
But this isn’t some new breathing technique that only helps you calm down for a moment. This is something that transformed my life and so I know it can transform yours.
When we practice breathing deeply, combined with a short conversation with your subconscious mind, we can begin to reprogram all of those triggers that cause you to feel anxious to begin with.
When you focus on your breath while allowing your subconscious to focus on a new way to deal with life, you actually begin to form new synapsys in the brain. These are the neurological connections that are formed between the person, place or situation that began aggravating those feelings of anxiety and your bodies automatic response.
Breathing is just the first domino that creates a complete domino effect through out your body and mind. Teaching you to practice associating the bodies response with new thoughts. So as soon as the body begins to respond, your subconscious says, “Oh ya! I have a new way to respond to that. Now I take a deep breath and as I do that I remember these powerful hypno-suggestions I heard during this video. I am in control. I choose to feel calm. I choose to feel at peace. I choose to allow my breath to relax my parasympathetic nervous system now.”
All it takes is listening to this video. Just a few minutes.
And if you practice it every day, it lasts longer and goes deeper, so when those old feelings of anxiousness begin to pop up, you have already begun this new behavior and you can instantly relax and enjoy the moment.
All that from a breath and a quick conversation with your subconscious.
What Do You Have to Lose?
When I began practicing hypnotherapy, I didn’t have much to lose. I was so paralyzed by my social anxiety, I was willing to try anything. Maybe you aren’t at that point yet. I HOPE you are at that point yet, because it is just as effective whether you just occasionally feel some anxiousness or whether you, like me, arrange your entire day around avoiding situations which used to cause me to feel anxious.
I decided to become a hypnotherapist because of the amazing personal results I had. I now enjoy my life. I go where I want to go, whenever I want to…and you can too.
How often does something seem to good to be true and so you just pass it up?
Later a friend talks about that exact same new restaurant or offer or technique and raves!
Most people that deal with feelings of anxiety aren’t going to jump at the latest and greatest…unless maybe, it will help them feel less anxious. I mean what have you got to lose, right?
So here you are trying some thing called hypnotherapy. And its nothing like that weird stage show that your cousin told you he went to last summer in Vegas. As a matter of fact, it almost seems to good to be true.
Really??? Just by listening to a soothing recording on a regular basis… this “Thing” that has been running your life forever, might lessen or perhaps even disappear.
Ok….so you may still be skeptical and I don’t blame you.
How Does it Work?
And why after 1,000 affirmations in the mirror, is this going to finally make the change.
When we do affirmations, we are typically trying to trick ourselves into believing them.
We are having a conversation with our conscious mind. The conscious is that analytical part of our mind that sees everything as linear and logical. It is looking to judge and compartmentalize what it experiences.
That’s why saying affirmations in the mirror as we are putting on our makeup to run out the door to work, already feeling anxious about the thought of speaking at our Monday morning meeting…isn’t going to stick!
But, as soon as we take even just one deep breath and allow our parasympathetic nervous system to calm down a bit, we have the opportunity to connect in to our subconscious. Connecting to our subconscious bypasses the critical factor of the conscious mind. Allowing those same affirmations to go deep to change our pre-programmed beliefs, thoughts and habits.
Isn’t that awesome?
Just by bypassing our fight or flight response, we can easily and effortlessly make the changes we have been trying to make for years.
Now where does all of this play into feeling anxious?
Oh, Those Learned Behaviors!
We learned this behavior, typically as young children. It’s also hard wired into us with our instinctual fight or flight response, like I just mentioned. Sometimes we needed this behavior
You just want to enjoy a night out to dinner with friends, without having to psyche yourself up, just to make it through the meal. Unfortunately for your adult self, this technique that used to keep you safe, now keeps you from living your best life.
Are you tired of the struggle? Are you tired of trying to manage those anxious feelings? Are you tired of feeling exhausted doing every day things, like having a conversation with a family member, because you are so triggered?
Now that’s another piece of the puzzle!
Those every day triggers that get the heart rate racing when you just think of having to do them.
Those little things you avoid so you don’t add any additional anxiousness to your typical level of anxiety. We all have triggers, that once again, were typically ingrained in our subconscious in childhood. Most of our programming was completed by the time we were 7 years old, after all.
It’s no wonder it is so difficult to change those thoughts, beliefs and habits…no matter how many self-help books, psychologists sessions or retreats we’ve gone on. We were trying to change them by interacting with our conscious mind, when they are actually stored in the subconscious. That is why hypnotherapy is so effective.
In hypnotherapy you connect directly to the subconscious. And that’s what this series of videos is doing.
Relaxing for even just a few breaths and then connecting those affirmations to your subconscious beliefs, makes the change.
Upgrade Your Operating System
It’s like you have been trying to upgrade your computer operating system by running a Facebook app update. You have to get to the root of the matter by upgrading the correct level of software.
Now this doesn’t mean that updating your Facebook app isn’t useful. It gives you all kinds of new features that feel like they are giving you what you need. But once again, it begins loading soooo slowly, you can barely upload your photo album.
That’s because your operating system needs an upgrade too! This is the behind the scenes stuff. Once you complete the OS upgrade, your entire system is running so much more smoothly. You might even wonder what took you so long to look into it?
So, here are some subconscious OS patches. These are short videos that will begin to transform some of your old held thoughts, beliefs and habits. I even have a Free Download that gives you a really nice enhancement to your subconscious OS…and it’s ok to start there.
If you recognize how much you benefit from these new tools, then you can reach out to me and see about a full upgrade with my private sessions. It’s important to really wait until you are ready….because just like a complete upgrade of your computers operating system…you are going to have to change the way you typically do some things.
I Transformed My Social Anxiety with Hypnotherapy
I know for me, when my social anxiety was transformed…I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t have to spend so much mental anguish trying to come up with excuses about why I couldn’t make it to girls night out! Not to mention, feeling bad and increasing my feelings of anxiousness because I was sure everyone thought I was a flake or just didn’t want to be around them.
I spent a lot of time and energy living with feelings of anxiety. There was some adjustment, when I could just say “YES, I would love to go to dinner”, Go and easily enjoy myself! You’ve got to really be ready to process all of that.
It may sound funny…but as you know…even good things in our life can cause us to feel anxious.
I have practiced affirmations till the cows came home. I have done them in the mirror, I have done them upon waking, I have done them before going to sleep. I believe in them. They helped me feel better in the moment and then the second I stopped repeating them, the incessant critical mind began!
You know, the left-brain, the analytical mind…the one that judges things so that it can easily compartmentalize them! It just so happens that this critical mind, that is in charge of critical thinking and “logic” is also what rules the conscious and judged every single thing I did, as not good enough.
So while I was ardently practicing my positive affirmations in the mirror, talking to my conscious mind for a few minutes a couple of times a day…my judgmental, critical mind was running laps. Thoughts of what I needed to do better. Thoughts of how this person had done something to wrong me. Plus all of the other negative self talk most of us are used to.
In fact we are so accustom to our critical mind coming up with logical explanations of why we can never truly love ourselves. No matter how many times we say, “I love myself”… the critical, negative self talk is white noise in the background all day long.
So what if you could circumvent this persistent, tiresome critic?
Theta to the Rescue
You can tap into the operating system of your brain, the subconscious mind. It automatically serves up all of your beliefs, habits and values in the background. You can access it most readily when you are in a deeply relaxed and deeply focused state known as theta brain waves.
Theta sounds more like Wonder Woman’s equally ass-kicking sister than a brain wave state! It is actually the slower frequency your brain is in when you are deeply relaxed. You know how you feel when you are just waking up in the morning, rolling around trying to make yourself open your eyes.
In this relaxed theta state, those same affirmations are like a surgeons blade cutting directly into the heart of the matter. The focused, concentrated nature of theta brain waves allows you to transform as easily as Wonder Woman dodging bullets.
Hypno-Affirmations Knock Out Negative Self Talk
When I first began practicing hypnosis, I didn’t believe it could really work for me!But I am of the mindset that I have to give something a fair trial, before I dismiss it. 21 days is a number that many psychologists throw around as the amount of time necessary to create a new habit.
So I dedicated myself to those 21 days, using some of my favorite affirmations. I was surprised that after a few days of consistent self-hypnosis, practicing the same affirmations daily, without even trying one of those hypno-affirmations would pop into my thoughts at exactly the right time. It was a powerful KO to my negative self talk.
Let’s say I was standing in line at the grocery store. No matter how many times grandma told me that “patience is a virtue”…I am one impatient woman! Soooo, I would be standing in the grocery line, ready to blow up because of some slow cashier or the person with 20 items in the 10 item or less line.
All of a sudden a hypno-affirmation such as, ”calm is my natural state of mind, I easily and effortlessly enjoy being calm” would randomly pop into my head.
That was magic as far as I was concerned! It actually worked! I would calm down and feel more patient. Stress began to be a thing of the past.
Digging Deeper
Since I could see the proof in my daily life, I began to look a little deeper into why taping into my subconscious worked so effectively. This is when I learned that our subconscious is the vault where we keep all the old “training” we have experienced during our lives, especially our childhood programming.
Now, I knew ALL about my childhood programming. I have been doing traditional therapies off and on for years. I knew exactly where I had picked up my impatience,I just didn’t know how to put it down, no matter how hard I tried.
Talk therapy let me know that my issue was impatience. That knowledge itself didn’t bring me any patience. Know Thyself is the first step. Then I needed to go a level deeper to actually create a shift in a meaningful and lasting way. This is where accessing the inner knowledge of the subconscious comes in.
Your subconscious knows exactly what it needs. I asked my subconscious what I needed to cultivate more patience. For me, I needed to focus on being present in the moment and enjoying life exactly the way it is. For someone else, perhaps their subconscious’ inner knowing will come to the conclusion that they need to be tolerant of other people because they only become impatient with specific people in their lives.
No two subconscious minds are alike and yet all of us share so many similarities when it comes to our critical minds. How many of us have these same replays repeating throughout our day.
You can’t do that!…Who do you think you are?…Why did I say that?…She will never like me!…
If you can turn those annoying thoughts into empowering, habit changing hypno-affirmations that effortlessly replaces negative self talk, would you be willing to give it a try? All you have to do is Close Your Eyes and Get Free with your own subconscious inner knowing.
I am happy to help you tap into this powerful tool to empower you too. Get in touch today!
It is good for me to clarify and communicate my desires and needs. Everyone else can feel however they want about those needs. No one has to support my needs, but me. No one else needs to agree or validate my needs , but me. I am responsible for communicating and meeting my own needs.
Selfishness is an Outdated Belief
I can Choose to meet the needs of others AND when I do so out of a feeling of giving and being of service everyone wins. I meet the needs of others because in some way, it also meets one of my own needs~ such as love, consideration of others, tolerance, being of service, or giving unconditionally.
When I try and care for the needs of others, or society and its norms in a way that doesn’t overlap with my own needs, this is when I move into resentment, victimhood, martyrdom, giving conditionally through manipulation, people pleasing, guilt and disempowerment. We have been taught the belief that to care for our own needs, let alone communicate them, is selfish. Selfishness is an outdated belief meant to keep us searching outside ourselves for our well being.
How I Feel and Act When I Come From a Space of Meeting My Needs vs Other’s Needs
The overlapping portion is where we really feel most fulfilled. This is when we are honestly and deeply connecting to another. The energy flow is equanimous. We are both getting our needs met! The more we give, in this space, the more positivity flows back to us. We feel full. We feel whole. We are giving from a space of surplus because we are already naturally caring for our own needs.
Personal Responsibility Empowers Us All
We are taking responsibility for our Own life. We no longer, either expect others to fill us up nor do we look to them to validate our needs. Our needs, wants and desires are our own. No one has the same exact combination. Not even twins raised in the same household want exactly the same thing.
We really are more like unique snowflakes when examined by a microscope. From the macro view, humans are operating from a similar base of needs. The combination of circumstances & how those base needs are met are different permutations for each and every one of us.
And isn’t that a beautiful thing! We aren’t and don’t have to be exactly the same. As soon as we can accept this reality and stop expecting everyone to be just like us, we can accept personal responsibility for our life. We may then communicate and meet our own needs with the ability to give from a space of overflow.
Hypnotherapy is a tool to connect you to your inner knowing and allow it to suggest the transformation that you are ready for now. What are you ready to transform today?
Personally, my subconscious, inner-knowing reminds me that I am capable of being a clear and conscious channel of love for myself and Everyone I interact with.
I heal no one-no one needs to heal. We are all perfect exactly as we are in each moment AND we can be ready for the next lesson that brings a deeper awareness and consciousness to our daily life. We are the beautifully malleable clay that can be molded into a new form.
Moving through each moment in this awareness and consciousness we can bring a sense of peace, love, acceptance and enjoyment to that moment.
We remove the striving and can effortlessly BE in each moment, trusting that the next moment will also present itself perfectly. This gives us an opportunity to practice being aware and conscious…and if we aren’t…thats ok too! We will still receive the lesson we need to help lead us back to that awareness in this moment.
The same as a runner training for a marathon, we can train our minds to find joy being present in the moment. Feeling the aliveness of the here and now.
Hypnotherapy is like having a personal trainer that will motivate you to keep up with your daily routine. In that way my subconscious mind motivates me to stay present, conscious and aware.
To waken this morning with some inspiration and a feeling of creativity running through me was a relief! I have been so stuck, so depressed for what felt like so long, I didn’t know if I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Were my eyes just closed or had the light gone forever. Today the eyes opened and the deep need to write came to me again. Not just writing to put words on paper, like I do for my job, but real writing. Like a force that needs to flow out of me or the waves will pull me back into the storming ocean.
This has been a period of surrender. I have surrendered before and each time it does not become any more comfortable. This time I had to look in the mirror and surrender to the realization that I have pushed and defense mechanism-ed myself through a life of depression. Even to write this now a depth of shame washes over me. A questioning of my inner strength. Why can’t I just “affirmation” my way through this? Why do the things I love so dearly, not bring me joy? There isn’t enough dance, surf or community to bring me out of my emptiness. There isn’t anything I or anyone else can do to “cheer me up”.
I am optimistic by nature. I believe in the best in people. I am always ready to try new things and am grateful for the life I live. Yet there have been times in my life when none of that have mattered. Just like everything in life, society wants to categorize it, put it in a nice little box wrapped up in a bow; this is what depression looks like! Either you fit this mold or you don’t. Life doesn’t work that way. Depression, just like everything else in life, is a spectrum! I am a stubborn little bitch, so when I get into these periods I continue to bull my way through life. From the outside, no one will know the inner turmoil I might be feeling. On the inside, I want to give up. Nothing is worth the pain and struggle I feel.
So, I put on my mask and plugged along until I got tired of looking for the mask. Over three years ago I put down the mask. Wow, is the world ever bright! Wow, is the world ever dark! The stark extremes I have finally begun to feel, felt as though they would literally kill me, at times. Some days were so wrapped in a surreal beauty, I lived heaven on earth. Some days I laid in bed with an emptiness that felt more meaningless than I could have imagined possible.
I do the work, I eat well, I exercise, I live a healthy life, I meditate, I see a therapist, I live the life I love living…most of the time…and yet none of that was enough to keep me from having bouts of depression. I could always attach them to some trigger. Moving 7 times in less than a year; that was enough to make anyone feel blue, right??? Ending a relationship that never got a real chance to grow due to circumstances, who wouldn’t get sad? One of my closest friends for the last few years dying of breast cancer, that one deserves a level of grief worthy of major depression! Yet all the times in between were also peppered with this disproportionate feeling of unresolved anguish.
Then I surrendered, only a few weeks ago, after decades of needlessly hiding who I really am out of shame for admitting I have depression, a mental illness!?! I finally acquiesced to trying medication. The first few weeks were worse than before but I knew this could be the case and my ever hopeful self hung on. Until today, when I woke up and things felt brighter. The sun in shining in the land of Pura Vida, even though the morning started off overcast. Even in the overcast I felt hopeful, I felt positive. Right now I feel good,I feel creative and ready to begin sharing again.
I hope if this resonated with you, you will reach out for help. Only through my community have I been able to accept myself.
So blessed! Jen
