Let us begin with another of my favorite definitions of hypnosis:

“A mysterious intelligence often comes into play during hypnotic suggestion…this perhaps, is the most fundamental insight we gain from hypnosis, this glimpse of a superior intelligence within us that can drastically alter our perceptions and thinking, restore healthy functioning, and enhance our most basic concepts.”

The Future of the Body by Michael Murphy

The mind-boggling events associated with hypnosis can evoke extreme responses from healthcare professionals.  Many become inspired supporters while other observers are skeptical and repulsed by them and become hostile critics.  Historically, these extreme positions have hardened into battle lines from which hypnosis is either sanctioned as evidence of a powerful healing potential in everyone, or condemned as a demonic, occult threat to free will and conscious choice.  No other therapy in the past two centuries has been so thoroughly misunderstood and disparaged.

Psychiatrist Dan Benor is the author of the multivolume work, Healing Research, the largest database of nonlocal and distant healing ever published.  Benor summarizes the research and contends that our belief about what is possible actually influences what we see in healing.  As he puts it, just as Freudians manage to dream Freudian dreams, while Jungians dream Jungian dreams, both skeptics and believers manifest into the world that which they expect to find.  Hypnosis has gone through periods of belief and disbelief.  During the early 19^th century, hypnosis was utilized to remove pain, accelerate healing response and was able to access a “super-intelligence” that in many instances was able to cure congenital disease – where the skin turned into hard, leather-like fish scales.

However, hypnosis began to lose its power in 1847 when a Scottish surgeon, James Simpson introduced chloroform in obstetrics and labor.  With chloroform available, who needed hypnosis?  Overnight, physicians began to think about hypnosis differently and because of the change of beliefs, hypnosis was not as effective as it once was.  This changed over time however and hypnosis once more gained respect and various research projects throughout the United States and Europe demonstrated its effectiveness in a wide range of clinical applications. Hypnosis is still a mystery to many of us who utilize it daily with our clients, but at least, it is now a comfortable mystery.

Let us look at the different kinds of hypnosis has each as a different expectation and outcome associated with it.

Experimental hypnosis is usually conducted in research settings following experimental protocol and methodology.  The hypnotic induction is standardized which does not take into account individual differences.  This is my bias but, by not adapting the induction to one’s learning style or favorite sensory modality I suspect that research subjects don’t necessarily reach the depth of a “one size fits all” type of induction.

Demonstration hypnosis is what we utilize in teaching other professionals how to utilize trance for a range of health and other issues.  The volunteers are health care professionals and the demonstrations are done in front of a large audience.  The motivation is to both teach and learn by practicing with each other.

Forensic Trances are utilized to refresh the memories of either witnesses or victims of serious crime or accidents.  Trying to enhance the recall of traumatic events can be inconsistent.  Over the years, I conducted over 80 hypnotic interviews for the R.C.M.P. and Vancouver Police.  Many of the sessions were helpful but some were not.  The reason for the latter is that sometimes witnesses will tend to confabulate or embellish what they think they saw which can lead to false memories.  For that reason, I have stopped doing forensic hypnosis.

Peak Performance Hypnosis is employed usually with athletes who wish to overcome subconscious blocks to optimal performance.  A question I frequently ask of athletes is, “How much of your success is mental?  How much time do you spend in the mental?”  I believe those two questions could apply to everyone – not just athletes.  Regardless, many techniques are utilized including indentifying limiting beliefs, reducing performance anxiety and mental rehearsal.

Entertainment Trance is utilized by stage hypnotists.  Since hypnosis is a skill, stage hypnotists will utilize suggestibility tests to select the best skill hypnotic subjects while the rest are sent back to their seats.  The hypnotic virtuosos are then “trance trained” and go on to perform outlandish stunts for the audience.

Spontaneous Trances respond to emergencies such as a 100-pound mother suddenly mobilizing unimaginable strength to life, for example, a small automobile that rolled over her child.

Clinical Hypnosis, of course, is utilized for helping and healing such issues as pain, sleep dysfunction, habit control for stopping smoking and losing weight, strengthening self-esteem, preparation for surgery, improving memory, achieving goals, hypno-birthing and a host of other clinical issues including identifying the root cause of problems and subconscious self-sabotage.

I have covered ‘walking trances’ and belief trances in previous blogs.

As promised, following is an easy-to-learn self-hypnosis that I utilize daily for myself and also teach to many of my clients.  Make certain that you will not be disturbed, turn off your cell phone and find a comfortable chair to sit in.

One, take a deep satisfying breath as you raise your eyes up as high as possible, without straining.  Two, then, as you exhale…really let go and allow your eyelids to gently flutter down, closing your eyes. Three, imagine yourself floating pleasantly in a cloud, hot air balloon, in a bathtub, or just floating in space.

Imagine each breath is deepening your awareness, each breath is deepening your absorption, each breath is allowing you to move into the deepest, most empowering octave of consciousness that will strengthen your sense of inner focus.  Keep using each breath to deepen your awareness into the most trusted, most powerful part of your psyche until you feel totally comfortable and relaxed.

Then, picture and ‘breathe life’ into a goal you wish to achieve.  Perhaps, seeing a collage of three or four end images that you will see upon achieving your goal that you are not seeing now.

Prior to alerting myself, I always repeat the following belief statements several times to myself:

• I always succeed.
• I respond and react only to constructive suggestions from myself and others.
• I am worthy of love.  I give and receive love as often as I can.
• I am healthy, I am healed.

To alert, simply begin stirring and stretching and orient back by gently opening your eyes.

Incidentally, since hypnosis is a skill, the more you practice, the easier it becomes.

Enjoy!

Since the dawn of recorded time, over 20,000 years ago, indigenous tribes and emerging cultures utilized drumming and trance dancing to create ecstatic interludes and transpersonal experiences in order to explore higher and deeper octaves of consciousness.  The Druids, Vikings, Hindu priests, holy men of all religions wrote about and described various techniques such as monotonous incantations, magnetic passes over the body and even the inhalation of ethylene which seeped up through cracks in the rocks so the Delphic oracles could foresee or intuit future events.  Accounts of what we call hypnosis appear in the Bible, the Talmud, the Hindu Vedas and in the writings of Wing Tai, the father of Chinese medicine.

Franz Anton Mesmer, a Viennese physician would induce profound healing trances by passing a long magnetized iron wand over people’s bodies.  He proposed that there was a “subtle energy” or a “magnetic fluid” that he called “animal magnetism” that created a magnetic cure.  Mesmer achieved considerable success and people came from all over Europe to experience this new and powerful healing technique.

Later, in the 19^th century, London surgeons were performing major operations by making long mesmeric passes over the body to induce full body analgesia.  The modern analogue to full body mesmeric passes would be Therapeutic Touch and certain applications of Reiki.

An English surgeon, James Esdaile in his book Mesmerism In India described over 3000 painless surgeries he conducted including the amputation of arms and breasts, Caesarian sections, cardiac surgery, vaginal hysterectomy, the ligation and stripping of veins, etc…In all surgeries, he reported there was no pain, no infections and the reduction of deaths from 50% (pre-mesmeric passes) to 5%.  There was no touching of the patient, no talking; simply making long body passes with his hands to induce a full body ‘trance’.

Of course, other surgeons were shouting “sham” and “fraud” and they were the forerunners of today’s self-anointed “quack busters” who deny that anything exists outside of reason, logic and our tidy four-dimensional reality. However, I replicated Esdaile’s full body trances with a group of volunteers and published my research in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis.  The point being that anyone can induce a full Mesmeric trance and I have taught this simple technique to mothers with colicky babies and to selected patients with pain issues.

In the late 1800’s, neurologist Jean Martin Charcot, psychiatrist Pierre Janet and Dr. Hippolyte Bernheim between them treated over 30,000 patients with hypnosis and were responsible for moving hypnosis from a “borderline” phenomenon to acceptance by psychologist’s and physicians as a valid treatment modality.

While the early pioneers of hypnosis were utilizing hypnosis for clinical, surgical and healing outcomes, another group of researchers began extending the use of hypnosis into more paranormal and metaphysical domains.

Charles Richet, who won the Nobel Prize for his work in the field of allergy developed a method of hypnotizing subjects so they could identify playing cards in sealed opaque envelopes – which they were able to do successfully and consistently.

L.L. Vasiliev, Chairman of the physiology department at the University of Leningrad during the 1920’s and 1930’s, in a series of 53 experiments using 4 subjects was able to hypnotically induce sleep from a distance of several miles.  This not only reinforced the theory of the non-locality of mind but began to open the door for conducting telepathy experiments in hypnotized subjects who were separated by great distances.

In another fascinating experiment, Dr. Pierre Janet from a laboratory in Le Havre, France, hypnotized a young woman, Leunie B. and asked her to “travel” to Paris to “visit” his friend Dr. Richet.  She announced, “It is burning…Monsieur Janet, I assure you it is burning”.  That morning, Richet’s laboratory has been gutted by fire and Dr. Janet heard the news the next morning.

Anthropologist Winkelman in a study of 47 traditional societies or cultures identified shamans, mediums, priests and priestesses who utilized hypnotic techniques to do distant diagnoses and healing while in an altered trance state.  A number of different procedures however were utilized to induce ‘trance’.  These included fasting, thirsting, incessant dancing, chanting, drumming, sweat lodges, plunging into ice-cold pools, sleeplessness and different kinds of rhythmic activity.  Once the shaman or practitioner had ‘escaped’ from the clutches of the logical, rational, worm’s eye view of the left brain, they could soar into the open skies of consciousness and expand the repertoire of human capacities.  In other words, we have to de-hypnotize ourselves to reclaim and explore the many corridors of consciousness that are ignored by most of our modern day shamans – scientists and psychopharmacologists.

My point being here is that of the thousands of controlled research studies conducted by parapsychologists in laboratories all over the world, one finding is consistent:  subjects in remote viewing, telepathic, distant healing or psychokinetic experiments who were in an altered or hypnotic state of consciousness achieved statistically significant better results compared to control subjects in ordinary, awake or alert states.

I will close with my favorite metaphor for describing hypnosis:

Imagine driving along a highway just before sunset.  The closest city is 20 miles or so away and as you attempt to tune your radio dial to find a good music station, all you can pick up is a few bars of a song that is constantly interrupted by irritating static.

However, as the interfering cosmic rays of the sun disappear below the horizon, suddenly you can pick up WGN in Chicago, KGO in San Francisco and possibly a great jazz station in New Orleans.

In other words, as we slip from the static and non-stop “monkey chatter” of our left brain or solar consciousness into the lunar consciousness of our right brain, we expand our bandwidth of information and can access the whole spectrum of our non-ordinary abilities and the range of our capabilities.

In the next post, I will describe the several different kinds of hypnosis, the variety of issues that hypnosis can be utilized for and a brief, easy-to-learn, self hypnosis technique.

Enjoy!

One of the oldest and most spiritual cultures that goes back over 3000 years is the Huna or Kahuna philosophy of Hawaii and Polynesia.  Huna means Secret and the fundamental idea in Huna philosophy is that we each create our own personal experience of reality by our beliefs, interpretations, thoughts and feelings – and that we are creating and are co-creators with the universe itself.  Huna is all about learning to do that consciously.

Dr. Serge King is a psychologist, author and was initiated into the esoteric order of the Kahunas by his father at the age of fourteen.  In his book, Mastering Your Hidden Self – a Guide to the Huna Way – he summarized the essence of the Kahuna philosophy:

The first principle is the world is what you think it is and this is the cornerstone of the Huna.  It means essentially that you create your personal experience of reality through your beliefs, expectations, attitudes, judgments, desires, fears and persisting thoughts and actions.

The second principle is – there are no limits – there are no real boundaries between you and your body – you and other people – you and the world – you and God.  Separation is a useful illusion – We are all one and connected with all that is.

Thirdly, energy flows where attention goes.  Your thoughts and feelings form the blueprint for manifesting into your life – the closest possible experience equivalent to those feelings.

The fourth principle – now is the moment of power.  You are not bound by the past – nor by any perception of the future.  You have the power in the now to change limiting beliefs and consciously plants seeds for a future of your choosing.

Fifthly – to love is to be happy. The universe exists because of love.  Humans exist because of love – even when they don’t acknowledge it.  In Huna, love involves the creation of happiness.  Love is the only ethic needed in Huna.

The sixth principle – all love comes from within.  There is no power outside of you because the power of God – or the universe works through you – in your life.  You are an active channel for that power.

The final principle – effectiveness is the measure of truth.  In an absolute universe – which Huna assumes – there cannot be an absolute truth.  Instead, each truth must be effective for you.  Any organization or system of knowledge is seen as convenient – not factual.  Another way of saying that – is all systems – schools or philosophies are arbitrary – so feel free to use what works.

Kirsten Zambucka – a gifted artist and interpreter of Huna has also written on the Huna philosophy and her book, Ano Ano – The Seed provides a more lyrical and poetic expression of Huna that speaks more to the heart – than to the mind.

She provides a bit of history on when the first Christian missionaries began preaching in Hawaii in 1820 – they described the Hawaiians as “heathens” and “immoral” for their liberal attitudes towards sex and for their belief in Mana – the life force – which emanated from a great universal source.  They were even forbidden to perform what was called “lewd and lascivious” – the Hula dance which the Hawaiians considered “an extension of the soul”.

Following is one of the lyrics or sonnets from Ano Ano.  It is called –

Ho’ Ano

(Making the Seed)

Form a clear unwavering picture in your mind…of the condition or object you desire.

Be very careful of the details of your picture for the subconscious mind that will receive it is sharply accurate…

and you will get that exact replica of what you envisage.

Forget the old condition entirely…let it fall away from your mind.

Clearly see the new desired state.

Paint the picture carefully inside your head…and resist any changing of your mind.

Act then as if you have already received the condition for which you asked.

Feel it already upon you with the love or joy or whatever emotion you would experience as if it were so.

Act it out.

For this subconscious mind of which we speak…this unihipili…is like a child.

It loves pictures and will respond also to any emotional surge you project to it.

Daily thereafter gather mana by taking four breaths and offer it as a gift to God within you.

Then after this offering each day, recall the “seed picture” of your desire and offer it anew also…to the same higher consciousness

within yourself.

This practice will strengthen the picture and make it clearer as it nears the stage where it will take form.

Until your seed bears the fruit…hold it close to you as a secret…for any mention of its contents to another will spill its power to reach fruition.

Wash out all your doubts…they can so discourage the subconscious that the daily rite will be interrupted and your fruit will wither on the vine.

That ancient ritual is the essence of our “modern” mental re-programming and re-education that subconscious for creating an optimal future.  However, it is expressed in a manner that is much more powerful, elegant and to the point that many of us authors have spent chapters and thousands of words trying to explain.

In my next blog, I would like to introduce you to some of the magic mystique and mistaken beliefs about hypnosis.

Stay tuned !

The Secret is based upon the Hermetic philosophy which traces back almost five thousand years to ancient Egypt.  Some of the Hermetic principles were later integrated into the belief systems of the major religions including Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Paganism and Christianity.

In 1912, an anonymous group of initiates with ties to the Masonic Temple in Chicago published The Kybalian, which incorporated many of the principles of Hermetic philosophy.  Author David Rippe has written two books expanding on the ancient philosophical assumptions that The Secret is based upon.

Relative to this blog is that all is mind; the totality of the universe is consciousness.  Physicist Sir James Jean often stated, “The universe is simply a giant thought.”  That is, in the quantum domain, there is a subtle, fundamental field of energy and information – or energized awareness that interconnects al things.  I will expand upon this very important concept of the non-locality of mind in a later blog.  In addition, everything in the universe and our world is in constant vibration and that with intention and mental alchemy, one can create and transmute the subtle energy to attract a desired outcome or goal.  Implicit in The Secret as in the Hermetic teachings is the law of attraction.

However, simply thinking about abundance or attracting a loving relationship and believing you will attract it is not sufficient in most cases.  One must look back and utilize the ancient teachings of the Hermeticists of meditation, prayer, invocation, alchemy along with the practices of other spiritual traditions to chart the navigation to your goals.

But, what are the secrets of embracing the power of creation?  The core and secret of all manifestation is just three words:  desire, expectation and imagination.  All people in the world, whether you are a London bus driver, a San Francisco ballerina or Donald Trump all utilize the same three energies for achieving one’s goals or dreams.

The first key to opening the door of manifestation is that you must have a burning desire of an almost overpowering intensity of what you want.  The emotion must be so strong that you feel it in your gut and in your whole body.  Experience the power and energy of your desire but stop short or before the line of desperation and panic.

Many of us have experienced the constricting emotions of anger, fear, hopelessness, shame and frustration.  There are no limits however, to the expanding emotions of wonder, ecstasy, excitement, joy and love.  The strong positive emotions of desire can be evoked by using memory as a kind of hook.  Look back into your past to some time when you felt the expansive emotions of an experience.  Use memory to identify that situation, then in your mind leave the context behind but bring the emotion into the present and attach it to your goal.  Amplify the emotion so that it becomes the driving motivating force, the fuel to ignite the “fire in the belly of the beast”.  Even Plato recognized the importance of desire – which in his words, “must drive the soul with a reigned in craziness”.

The second key is expectation and it must be totally honest.  Many people will say they expect one thing or a certain outcome but do not really mean it.  Perhaps, based on past experience of “almost” attaining a goal, but not quite, there must be an old limiting belief in their subconscious that will create a cross-current, a stumbling block and “almost” is the outcome.

Expectation awakens the slumbering giant – the subconscious – which then leads to our behavior becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Yet, oddly enough, some people are encouraged to lower their expectations so they will not be disappointed.  However, your expectation, of course, almost ensures you won’t succeed.  What athlete says, “I don’t really expect to win” – those who don’t win – a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The third key or tool for achieving goals or changing beliefs is imagination – which along with desire and expectation creates the imagery, the mental movies of success.  Mentally rehearsing in as much detail as possible is breathing life into your goal – your new program for change – your optimal future.  Metaphorically, it is laying down neurological tracks in your brain reinforced by desire, expectation and the visual richness of mental movies.

The art of manifestation is therefore, like a perpetual motion machine.  The more you desire, imagine and expect – the more desire, imagination and expectancy you will have.  Just as the best way to get love is to give love.  The more love you give, the more love you receive.

There will be more on creative manifestation in my next blog from a different perspective and culture.

The future creating the present is based upon the work of theoretical physicist, Fred Alan Wolf.  In his book, Starwave:  Mind, Consciousness and Quantum Physics, Dr. Wolf states that in order to experience anything consciously in our reality  it requires a double-wave of energy that is information contained in pure resonance or vibration.  These quantum waves are the products of our thoughts, desires and expectations that exist outside of time and space; they exist in what can be called the there and then.

For example, if you have a thought – “the economy is bad, I don’t think we will have a profitable year in my company”, that thought or quantum wave of energy travels from the here and now to the there and then of your future.  It then returns as a double-wave or echo wave from the future you cast out to your here and now.  Everything in our reality works on the theory of a double-wave action – the outgoing energy and the returning echo wave.  Every person in the world is casting out hundreds of waves of possibility with every thought, goal, dream or plan of action.

What I found most intriguing about this theory is the manner in which Dr. Wolf’s mathematics described the double action quantum waves to be very much like a spiraling hollow slinky – a hollow tube of light that is spiraling and twisting into the future.  However, it looks very much like the DNA double helix, which is the program of our biological future – an interesting parallel.

Thus, everything in your reality at the present moment, positive, neutral or negative – our relationships, incomes, our homes, vacation plans, education, a change of careers are all double action quantum waves of the future.  They have been cast forward by the consciousness of the present – to the there and then of the future – and back again as an echo wave into the here and now of your life.

Thus, we have all been casting out possible and probable futures since we were verbal.  For example, a dark future cast out in a moment of despair such as, “I am never going to be happy” or a brilliant future, “I plan to complete university just like my mother” are still resonating.  What about the adolescent with their dramatic absolutes – “If so and so doesn’t invite me to the prom, I’ll just die!” or – “who wants to live to thirty, I would rather die than get old!”

Yes, those futures are still out there but probably not influencing you anymore.

The best analogy of this very important concept is to imagine you are throwing hundreds and thousands of small pebbles into a pond or lake.  Some create big ripples – high amplitude, other are barely noticeable.  All your possible and probable futures are like the ripple waves of the pond.  Every ripple, like a hologram is interfering with and affecting each other to varying degrees.  All have impact, be it ever so slight, not noticeable, or it might be a giant ripple that could have the impact of a minor tidal wave.

Let us imagine that you have cast out a nightmare future – “my company won’t make it – I will be bankrupt in three months”.  The echo wave you will be experiencing in three months is on its way back.  However, something shifted in the economy and in a more inspirational and optimistic moment you launched a brilliant future – “this new marketing plan will turn things around – we will be profitable in three months.”  Of course, that double-wave is also echoing backwards in time.  Both waves are affecting you and the two waves are interfering with each other, like the pebbles in the pond.  Thus, all the positive and negative waves of the future are changing and strengthening or diminishing each other.  They are converging and co-mingling with the thousands of other energy waves you have lobbed into the future.  And, they are returning like a boomerang as a mish-mash or energy stew!  Every single future you have thrown out is having an impact on you, even those negative futures that you will never experience.

Some of you at this point may be thinking – “oh! oh!  I have sent out some terrible futures – what can be done about that?”  In my private practice, with certain clients, I will share and describe the concept of future creation as outlined above.  For example, a professional woman was referred to me who had experienced two failed marriages, recently had to declare bankruptcy and was diagnosed with a serious health problem.  As she continued with her despair and litany of failures in her life, upon reflection she said, “You must think that I am a negaholic.”  I agreed!

As we developed the idea of optimal versus nightmare futures, she caught on very quickly to provide the insight – “I think I have been making the present conform to my awful past.” From that moment on, she turned a mental corner and began breathing life into more optimal, encouraging and optimistic futures.  Our sessions are still a work in progress but, she now has a better paying job, she reconciled with her daughter who she had not spoken to in two years, and despite the former bitterness towards men, she is reaching out socially and is taking salsa lessons in the hope of meeting someone with whom she can redefine her perception of relationships.  The future creates the present against the background of some of our past.

Thus, as we begin mentally rehearsing and visualizing desired outcomes in different areas of our lives, we are breathing life into and creating an optimal, brilliant future – which will result in a returning echo wave that we will ‘step into’ – and collapse all the other possible futures.  The background of our past and our beliefs can influence the type of future we create.  I will have more to say about this in my next blog when I discuss one of the most successful books in recent times, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

But, how are our beliefs formed or created?

Our brain, based on electroencephalographic or EEG research produces four electrical signatures or electrical “languages”.  Between birth to approximately 20 to 24 months, our brain produces a very slow sleep wave – Delta, which vibrates between 0.5 to 4 cycles per second.  From approximately two to six years of age, our brain signatures speed up to a frequency spectrum of 4 to 8 Hertz (or cycles per second).  This is designated as Theta which offers greater access to creativity, sudden insights and to the twilight reverie state which is accompanied by an increase in dream-like imagery.  Between the ages of six and twelve, children’s brain wave frequencies accelerate once more to primarily an Alpha state, a faster resonance of  twelve Hertz, or cycles per second.  Alpha is characterized by a relaxed, calm rather unfocussed state and alpha becomes dominant when we meditate, daydream or enter into the lighter states of clinical hypnosis and highway hypnosis.

As children and our brain continues to mature – around the ages of eleven to twelve, the dominant brain wave pattern accelerates once more to the adult waking state of Beta – or from 13 to 50 plus cycles per second.  This is the familiar alert, eyes open focused on the world around us state so we can deal with the everyday problem-solving challenge of life.

But what does this have to do with beliefs?

Theta and Alpha are also states of consciousness in which people are less critical and discerning in their thinking and are highly suggestible to influences and suggestions from other people – very much like being in a hypnotic state.  When people are hypnotized, their brain waves slow to Theta-Alpha frequencies.  Thus, children between the ages of two and twelve are in Theta-Alpha, the most hypnotizable and programmable states of conscious possible.

But, why is that so?  Isn’t this when our beliefs are programmed into a highly suggestible-imaginative mind set?

Beliefs such as…”this is what marriage is about…this is what learning and school is about…this is what God is about…this is what work and life are about”…and, so forth along with the millions of bits of information children absorb during their formative years from parents and teacher.

However, this is also the stage where so-called “truths” about themselves are programmed and reinforced such as, “you are a stupid clutz”…”you can’t do anything right”…”you will never amount to anything”…”I am ashamed of you, you are a disgrace”..or “I am so proud of you”…

”I love you just the way you are”…and, so forth.

Thus, first we create our beliefs – then they create us.  One of the many “jobs” of the subconscious is to maintain consistency or homeostasis between what has been programmed into our “belief bank” and our reality.

For example, a good friend of mine is a salesman who frequently utters…”Damn! Nothing ever works out for me”. Recently, he began negotiating for a highly, profitable contract.  He was excited but one week before signing the contract, it fell through (“nothing ever works for me”).

Another friend, a very bright classy woman has had a series of failed relationships with untrustworthy men.  On many occasions, I have heard her say “All men will cheat – you can’t trust them”.  Of course, you can imagine what kind of men she subconsciously attracts into her life to support her belief – and that of her mother who married a man that constantly cheated on her.

Thus, your life is a printout of your beliefs.  Look at your life – health, work, relationships with partners and money.  If an area of your life is not working – too many speed bumps – what is the negative belief that is creating and maintaining that undesirable outcome?

You always get what you want (the underlying programmed belief – “nothing every works out for me”) which may not be what you are asking for (sealing and signing that profitable contract).

To summarize:

• Your reality is created by your beliefs
• Subconscious beliefs create the filters through which we respond to life’s challenges
• Our beliefs form our attitudes about the world and ourselves
• The ability to perform effectively is profoundly affected by such beliefs as:  “I am competent – I am powerful – I am worthy and deserving of…success…love” etc…

Whatever you believe of yourself will be true, so let go of the bad beliefs and who knows how far you might get. You might surprise everyone, including yourself.  I will have to more to say in a later blog on how to change beliefs.

As Henry Ford once said, “whether you believe you can, or you can’t, you are right“.

I am a clinical psychologist in private practice specializing in the applications of hypnosis, EMDR, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to a variety of clinical issues. I have also served as a Sport Psychologist with a number of world-class athletes and professional sports teams. Thus, a major underlying theme to most of my work focuses on how to overcome road blocks to achieving optimal or peak performance in different areas of our lives.

Regardless of one’s background, educational level, income or occupation – the hub of the wheel of life and success has to do with one’s self-estimate or self-esteem. Our self-esteem will vary and co-vary in different areas of our life and our effectiveness level, performance or success will correspond to one’s self-estimate on that particular level. For example, one may have a high self-esteem as a manager or communicator of ideas and their performance will correspond accordingly. Whereas, the same individual may have a low self-estimate when it comes to working with numbers or keeping track of business expenditures. Their effectiveness level correspondingly will be low or on “shaky stilts” in this area. Thus, self-esteem can be considered to be the immune system of the mind and genuine self-esteem is how we feel about ourselves when things are not going right.

But, what can we do on a conscious level without years of psychotherapy or psychological excavation to strengthen our self-estimate?

High self-esteem people have good boundaries. They can draw that line in the sand and say ‘no’ to what doesn’t fit or seem right to them. In other words, they choose to define themselves, their needs and beliefs rather than giving their power away and allowing others to define them.

Secondly and perhaps most importantly, they avoid all judgments of themselves or others. Discernment, yes – but whenever you judge someone else, you are judging a part of yourself in them that you don’t approve of in yourself. Thus, all judgments implicitly are self-judgments. Learning to love yourself and learning to love others go hand in hand.

Thirdly, our inner dialogue or self-talk carries on throughout our waking hours at 150 to 300 words per minute or 45,000 to 51,000 thoughts a day! Since all thoughts are treated like “prayers” by the subconscious (it does not judge), high self-esteem persons carefully monitor their inner dialogue as to whether they are “drugging” their minds all day long with good hypnosis or bad hypnosis thoughts. Are we planting weeds or flowers in the garden of our subconscious?

And fourthly, high self-esteem people feel worthy of both receiving from and giving to others. Generally, people with a low self-estimate will be over accommodating and pleasing so as to not risk being rejected by expressing their needs. In some instances, the only way pleasers can justify receiving is to subconsciously get “sick” or have an accident which makes it acceptable to be nurtured or taken care of.

Fortunately, all of the above can be controlled consciously – with mindfulness, giving from the heart and embracing one’s self without judgment. I will be expanding on this important concept in future blogs.

I wish you all a happy and healthy holiday season.