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.

The good news is that hypnosis is very good at uncovering these causes and resolving them so that the natural physical functioning can be restored. With hypnotherapy and EFT (emotional freedom technique) we can return control of erectile performance to the subconscious mind, where it belongs, so that you don’t have to worry about it anymore.

Remember that just as your body knows how to breathe and how to keep the heart beating at just the right rate, so too does it know how to respond to sexual stimuli. It’s not that your body has lost this ability, it’s simply that the ability is being covered over by some other mental program that is counteracting the natural function. Use this insight as the start of your healing – it means that you are not failing in any way, you do still have the ability, it’s just that the ability is covered over. And whatever is covering it can be resolved using hypnosis.

Why not give it a try?

PS – before trying hypnosis for impotence, do get yourself checked by a doctor. There are a number of medical causes of erectile dysfunction, so you want to make sure any of these aren’t  the culprit.

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The medical establishment is recognising more and more that stress and other psychological factors play a large role in the creation of chronic or persistent illnesses and conditions. High blood pressure, psoriasis, recurrent colds and flu, migraines, irritable bowel, impotence and slow wound healing are just some of the types of ailments that are often partially or wholly created by psychological processes.

A major contribution to the task of identifying and resolving these psychological processes was made by psychologist-hypnotherapist Leslie LeCron, who identified seven common causes, or keys, of psychosomatic (mind-body) disorders. In collaboration with obstetrician-gynaecologist David Cheek he developed a system of rapid hypnoanalysis that applied the seven keys in resolving the pathogenic fixed ideas (negative beliefs) supporting these conditions.

The 7 common causes

Very briefly, the seven common causes of psychosomatic disorders are:

1. Conflict – Conflict arises when the patient feels they should do one thing but want to do another, and they are pulled in two directions.

2. Organ language – Organ language refers to phrases in our everyday conversation that use a body part or organ in a negative way. For example, we say things like, My mother-in-law is a pain in the neck.

3. Motivation – People can be motivated to have a symptom in order to solve a problem. For example, children getting sick to avoid school.

4. Past experience – Past experience refers to a very emotional episode that occurred in the past that is still affecting a person. It leaves an imprint in the mind and body.

5. Identification – Identification occurs when we have a strong emotional attachment to another person who had or has the same symptom.

6. Self-punishment – Self-punishment happens when a person feels the need to compensate for a feeling of guilt.

7. Suggestion – A suggestion is an idea that has been accepted at a subconscious level. It is often introduced at a highly emotional time, and can be given by an authority figure or the patient themselves.

A hypnotherapist can perform an analysis of the patient’s condition using ideomotor finger signals in a trance state. Ideomotor signalling is way of allowing subconscious yes and no responses to be expressed by movements of the patient’s fingers, facilitating the accessing of information at a sub-verbal level.

Once the ideomotor signals have been set up, the therapist will proceed through the seven keys, explaining each one and asking whether the patient’s inner mind senses this factor might be at work. Any yes response is investigated further to locate the time and circumstances in which the negative thought or emotion was fixed in the subconscious mind. When the issue is brought to conscious awareness it can be reframed or processed to allow emotional catharsis and the release of the symptom.

The Seven Keys technique and other similar procedures provide qualified hypnotherapists with powerful tools for helping people end physical and emotional distress. The potential for profound and rapid healing can surprise therapist and patient alike.

For hypnotherapists

Find out more about the Seven Keys technique by reading this article: The 7 common causes of psychosomatic disorders.

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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.

The solution is to model exactly what naturally slim people do – they eat whatever they want, whenever they want it. But when they do this, they also do the following:

• They know when they are physically hungry and not just emotionally hungry.
• They eat when they are hungry, and only when they are hungry.
• They stop when they are full.

When you are listening to what your body really wants, not what your emotions want, you will begin restoring your body’s natural responses to hunger and satisfaction. It will mean doing some inner work on those emotions that drive you to eat when you’re not really hungry. If you ever find yourself eating in order to change your mood, that’s emotional eating. Pay attention to that uncomfortable feeling you’re trying to medicate with food. Then reach into your creative inner mind and find a better solution.

Resources

Need some help resolving those difficult emotions and getting back in touch with your inner slim and healthy self? Contact me for an appointment or to find out about my Weight Loss group hypnosis courses.

In the mean time, download my free Weight-Loss Report e-book. Just enter your email in the subscription form near the top of this page and you’ll get immediate access to the download page.

More articles:

Weight-loss hypnosis – how to ditch those diets!

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• racing heart
• cold sweat
• a feeling of dread
• a feeling of impending doom
• panic

When they try to figure out what’s behind their phobia, they just can’t get to it. In my experience, fear of driving is often related to a particular event in the  past that is causing the person more anxiety than they realise.

In a recent case, the client couldn’t think of any specific episode that might have caused her fear of driving. I then used a really effective hypnotherapy tool called The 7 Classic Causes of Symptoms to find out the cause of the phobia and also the age at which it began. When we discovered the age, the client was able to identify a scary incident that happened while she was preparing for her driver’s licence. She had repressed her feelings about the incident, but now the emotions could be acknowledged and released. By the end of the session she was smiling and ready to go for a drive!

If you or anyone you know is suffering from the fear of driving or a driving phobia, be assured that a competent hypnotherapist will be able to help you regain your freedom. If you are in the Cape Town area and you want to give hypnotherapy a try, be sure to contact me.

Resources

First prize in my opinion is always to see a therapist in person, but if you can’t you may want to try a self-hypnosis audio MP3. Remember to listen to it at least once a day for a few days. Here are two self-hypnosis MP3s that I recommend:

Overcome fear of driving

Hypnosis for driving test nerves

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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

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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.

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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.
What these three examples have in common is this:

• the body and mind are relaxed
• the mind is focused on one task
• phenomena not related to this task are tuned out

Those are some of the characteristics of hypnotic trance, and as you drift in and out of this state all the time you’re actually quite an expert at hypnotising yourself. You’ve been practicing self-hypnosis without knowing it!

How to do self-hypnosis

So what can you do to begin using self-hypnosis in a more constructive manner? Essentially, all you need to do is to relax deeply and offer positive suggestions at the appropriate time. Here’s the procedure:

1. Relaxing
Sit in a comfortable position. Take a nice deep breath of air and hold it a moment. Then let it out, closing your eyes and letting all that tension flow out through your arms and legs. Do this once or twice more.
2. Deepening
There are many ways of deepening relaxation. For example you can imagine you’re walking down a stairway with 5 steps. Tell yourself that at each step your relaxation will double and that by the time you get to 1 you will be in a very deep state. Begin walking down that stairway, sinking deeper into relaxation with each step.
3. Giving suggestions
In this very relaxed state, your mind is open and will more readily accept any message that is given to it. So now you can begin repeating the positive suggestions you’ve prepared. If these suggestions are acceptable to the subconscious mind they will be taken as the truth and will be acted on.
4. Waking
When you’re ready, count yourself back up those stairs and return to waking consciousness.

That’s it – self-hypnosis in a nutshell! Most people experiencing hypnosis for the first time expect something really trippy or they think they should lose consciousness or fall asleep. In fact, all you’re likely to experience is a sense of calm awareness or a daydreamy lightness and lack of concern. Don’t be fooled – this state is very powerful. Whatever message enters your awareness at this point has a good chance of being accepted and acted upon at a subconscious level – so choose your affirmations well!

Self-hypnosis MP3s

Self-hypnosis MP3s

To really take your self-hypnosis sessions to a new level, or to work on a particular issue, consider using the professionally recorded self-hypnosis MP3s offered on this site.

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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.

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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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.

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