Men are supposed to be strong, brave, and always at the ready – not so? Well that’s the message that society gives us, but the reality is often quite different. Sometimes we simply don’t want to perform, or we feel we just can’t. What should be viewed as just a temporary or minor physical weakness gets blown up into something that threatens our very sense of being. Even the word ‘impotence’ implies a loss of power, that we have somehow become useless.
It’s understandable that men who suffer from impotence – let’s rather call it erectile dysfunction (ED) – don’t want to talk about it, yet actually having ED should be no more embarrassing than having a sore back or some other common complaint. Essentially, most symptoms – whether ED or any other – will have some kind of emotional event that caused them. This event can be as simple as someone making a badly timed and unkind comment, or it can be more complex and involve an ongoing inner conflict. Read More
There are 7 common psychological issues that give rise to medical symptoms or negative habits. Hypnotherapy provides a way of identifying and resolving these issues.
Read MoreWhat if diets were part of the problem, not the solution?
Celebrity hypnotist Paul McKenna, in his book I Can Make You Thin, points out that dieting causes several unintended reactions in the body and mind:
- By going on a diet you indicate to your body that a period of famine is ahead, and your body reacts by slowing your metabolism and storing every bit of fat it can find.
- A slow metabolism leads to feelings of inertia, lethargy, sleepiness and general glumness – no wonder you find it difficult to exercise!
- By skipping meals you tell your body that food is scarce and that it should prepare for the worst by creating cravings that force you to eat fat-rich foods.
- By skipping meals you tell your body that you are no longer listening to its signals of hunger, so you lose the ability to tell the difference between real hunger and emotional hunger.
Fear of driving is often related to a particular event in the past that is causing the person more anxiety than they realise. An effective way of treating driving phobia is to use hypnosis to identify the incident and to resolve any emotional charge around it.
Read MoreI’ve started work on a new web site for hypnosis enthusiasts – www.hypnotechniques.com. This is where I’ll be posting articles on the theory, practice, and techniques involved in hypnosis and hypnotherapy. It’s still early days, but I’m hoping this site will become quite a resource. Contributions are welcome ( I don’t want to have to do all the work ! )
How I really feel about weight-loss products
If I had one piece of advice for anyone struggling with weight and food issues it’s this – stop with the $%## diets already! You know they don’t work. It breaks my heart to see good people going out there and spending small fortunes on herbal potions and weird slimming shakes and all they’re doing is just setting themselves up for more disappointment.
Sorry if this sounds a bit harsh but I feel quite strongly about this. I see quite a few clients with food issues and in 99.99% percent of the cases the only way to stop the inappropriate eating is to find out the emotional need that the food is trying to fill. Get this, guys – IT’S NOT ABOUT THE FOOD! You can write that in big letters and pin it to your computer so you can know to give yourself a break when another diet fails. It’s not about the food, and it’s not about your weak willpower. You have amazing willpower, after all these years of struggle you’ve built that willpower muscle until it has superhuman strength … but here’s the thing – it’s all for nothing, because emotions are much stronger than the conscious mind and its puny willpower.
So give yourself a break here as well. When you find that the magic herbal potion and weird slimming shake don’t work, don’t beat yourself up. It’s not about you, it’s about what’s deeper than you. Come and see me or another therapist and let’s do some real work on this. Or just save your money and dump the expensive diets and be happy the way you are . Ultimately that’s where we’re going anyway – to be happy with yourself. So just go there. If you need some help, get it from a trained therapist, not from some snake-oil salesman peddling disappointment. There, I’ve said it. Let those herbal potion people come sue me if they want to!
“It’s not about the food”
- Russel Brownlee
I’ve just got hold of a really cool piece of software (Neuroprogrammer 2) that enables me to make my own hypnosis recordings. I can add binaural beats and other clever things to subtly tweak the listener’s brainwaves and help them drift deeper and deeeeeper…
So my plan is to begin offering these as freebies to clients and website visitors. And the first one has just gone live on this site! Here’s the link – free 10-minute relaxation mp3.
I’ve just added a range of self-hypnosis recordings to this site for clients who want to work on their own. The power of self-hypnosis is sometimes underestimated, so here’s a bit of background about hypnosis and self-hypnosis:
We’re all hypnotists!
Hypnosis is not a special state that can only be induced by a professional hypnotist. Without knowing it, we naturally go in and out of trance many times in a normal day. When you sit at your desk and daydream for a few moments – that’s trance! When you’re driving somewhere and you realize you’ve been on autopilot and can’t recall anything about the route you’ve just travelled – that’s also trance. And most people slip very nicely into trance when they come home in the evening and sit down in front of the television.
Read More
As a hypnotherapist I see loads of clients who have battled for years to stop smoking. Often they’ve managed to give up cigarettes for a month or two, but then they’re back into it at full force. They tell me they’ve often tried everything – they’ve read Allen Carr’s Easy Way, they’ve taken Zyban, they’ve submitted to acupuncture, but within a short while they’re back at their old habit again. Most of these same clients tell me, with some resignation, that they clearly don’t have enough willpower or discipline. If this describes your own situation it might come as a relief when I tell you that it’s not your fault – the situation has been rigged so that you’re almost bound to fail. Here’s why.
It’s a set-up
Hypnotherapists have something they call the Law of Reverse Effect. Quite simply, the law states that the more you think about not doing something, the more you end up doing it. It’s like if someone tells you not to think of purple-spotted giraffes, then guess what image pops into your mind. It’s the same with smoking – the more you tell yourself not to smoke, the more you press that Smoke! button in your mind.
There’s another principle of hypnosis and NLP that applies here, namely that every bad habit has a positive intention. That’s right – there’s something positive that your smoking is trying to give you. If we simply apply discipline and willpower to take away the smoking, there’s a part of you that’s going to fight back to make sure you don’t lose the apparent benefits you’re gaining.
So now that you know this, what can you do about it?
1 Quit telling yourself you have to stop smoking
Every time you tell yourself that you must quit you’re just triggering the desire to smoke. Rather take that determination you have and channel it into positive affirmations connected with the good things non-smokers take for granted. For example, say to yourself, “I am enjoying clean fresh air with every breath. My body has all the stimulants it needs to cope with daily life.” Make up your own affirmations, but remember the key point – don’t focus on what you want to give up, focus on what you want to gain.
2. Apply some self-hypnosis
Now you need to try and find the positive intention behind the smoking. So sit comfortably, close your eyes, and take a nice, deep breath. When you feel settled and relaxed, just direct your attention inward and ask the part of you responsible for the smoking to tell you what benefits it’s trying to give you. Most people will find it’s things like relaxing, taking a break, or socializing.
Once you’re aware of the benefits, search deep within your own wisdom and find some better ways of getting the same benefits. Commit to applying these actions instead of the smoking. In this way, you’ll be giving yourself something, not taking something away. Remember, your smoking is going to fight you if you just try to take it away without giving it something in return.
You might find it helpful to work with a hypnotherapist to really take this process deep. If you’re in the Cape Town area, give me a call and we’ll schedule an appointment. My stop-smoking course is usually done over two sessions, though some people prefer to extend it to a few more if their habit is really entrenched.
Have you just about had it with those endless diets and joyless, kilojoule-stripped mini-meals that cause you to lose weight for a while, only to put it all back on again? If you’re like millions of other people who struggle with weight loss, you’ve probably tried every diet under the sun. But as the scale painfully reflects your lack of progress once again, you’re forced to the conclusion that it’s all your fault – If only you had more willpower, more discipline, if only you weren’t so weak! Sound familiar?
Well if it does, take heart – because the truth of the matter is that losing weight is really not all about discipline and willpower at all.
The truth about dieting and willpower
The more you try not to do something, the more you actually end up doing it. Hypnotherapists even have a name for this – we call it the Law of Reverse Effect. If someone tells you not to think of a purple elephant, what image pops into your mind? That’s right – a purple elephant. If you focus all your willpower and discipline on not eating, all you’re doing is pressing the Eat! button in your subconscious mind. What we’ve got to do instead is find out what motivates you at a very deep level to eat inappropriately or to store more fat than the body actually requires. That’s where hypnosis comes in.
How hypnosis helps you lose weight
The problem with diets is that they don’t change the underlying pattern, the true motivations for your eating or storing fat. So as a hypnotherapist I’m going to spend some time with you uncovering the inner reasons for your weight gain and helping you find solutions that are acceptable to you. I’ll generally follow these treatment steps:
- Find out if there is a hidden reason for the weight gain
Your weight gain could stem from a forgotten incident from early childhood. Kids are incredibly suggestible – so a comment from an adult about your weight or some early conflict over eating could easily program your subconscious mind to make you put on weight. - Work on improving your self-esteem
Most people with weight issues have some degree of negative self-perception. You probably imagine that when you are thin you will finally be happy. But the truth of the matter is that ‘being’ precedes action – so in order for you to be thinner, you must first regain some happiness. - Find out what types of food your body really wants
Your subconscious mind will always cause you to reject a diet that is forced on you, so we’ll work together to help you find an eating plan that your body and mind will accept. When you’re enjoying the empowering effects of hypnotic relaxation you will be aware of the foods and portion sizes that your body really needs. - Reprogram the subconscious to enjoy small meals
In the last step, I’ll help you visualize and imagine yourself eating the foods that are just right for you and in just the right amounts. This visualization will help to change your actual neural pathways so your body is rewired to accept different eating habits.
So how do you feel after reading this? More hopeful? Great! So give yourself a break and let’s use the power of hypnosis to help you lose weight and gain a healthy self-image. If you’re in the Cape Town area, give me a call and we’ll schedule an appointment.
