In today’s era, where women are dieting to the extent of suffering from anorexia, having a bulging and plump body is no doubt, a literal curse. It’s totally infuriating, disgusting and discouraging. But not anymore! The motivation provided by hypnosis to lose weight can do wonders. So, congratulations, you don’t have to head for those hectic gym classes or adopt a strict dieting plan. Hypnosis techniques will do the required, that too, in an unbelievable manner.

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When it comes to diet & exercise, most of us are absolute geniuses at finding reasons why it’s too hard or “not right for us.” If you’re overweight but the picture of health, you may be able to get away with this.

If you’re not, there are no excuses for ruining your health. You need to stop making excuses and start making progress. Here are 7 steps to do so.

1. Start Small. The best way to do this is to start small. Don’t try to scale a mountain on your first day. By taking the time to gradually change your diet and add in short exercises, you’re setting yourself up for victory instead of failure.

While it may not seem like you’re doing a lot, you’re taking the first steps on the road to health. Those first steps are the hardest, but it will get a lot easier.

2. Remove Soda. Instead of going on a crazy starvation diet, start small by cutting out 1 useless food a week. For example, start with soda. You can easily lose 10lbs in 2 weeks by removing soda from your diet.

Look at all of the foods you eat or drink that have a lot of calories. Target these first and start removing them one by one. As you successfully get one out of your life, move on to the next one.

3. Exercise No Matter How Little. For exercise, starting small can really pay off, especially if you’re not in the best of shape. Start by taking one small lap around the block, walking at a slow pace. The next day, make it two laps, etc:

You may not be doing much at first, but again, you’re building that foundation. The key is to keep moving forward and keep adding more until you’re doing more than you ever thought possible.

4. Add More Exercise To Strengthen Exercise Foundation. Let’s look at your health like a building. It’s already been leveled and now you’re going to need to start from the ground up.

If you rush the foundation and sloppily put it together, the whole structure is going to come tumbling down effectively. By taking the time to lay those bricks one by one, you’re building a foundation that is going to last the test of time.

5. Remove Problem Foods To Strengthen Diet Foundation. The same applies to your diet. By slowly removing your problem foods, you’re putting down bricks that will help you change your entire lifestyle.

Instead of trying to quit everything at once and put your foundation together in a rush, take the time to do things one at a time. You’ll be much more likely to succeed.

6. Strive for 90% Success With Diet and Exercise. Why 90%? It is difficult enough to achieve to avoid avoid cheating AND it is lenient enough so that you can forgive yourself for mistakes.

7. Fix Your Foundation Before Building Your Skyscraper. One of the best reasons to start small is that if you do have a setback, it’s a lot easier to get back on track.

Returning to our building analogy, if you have a brick that crumbles, but you haven’t added on a new row on top of it, it’s a lot easier to fix that brick and then continue.

Lay your foundation the right way and look at every brick as your own personal victory on the way to building an impressive structure.

These easy tips will make it much easier to lose weight. They are all very simple lifestyle changes that are easy to implement. These should be used to supplement a healthy eating plan, not replace it. Be sure to exercise regularly to maximize your weight loss results.

1. Open your curtains or blinds first thing when you wake up. Bright light jumpstarts your metabolism.
2. Get some exercise within the first hour of being awake.
3. Have a healthy breakfast with high quality protein.
4. Go for a 10-minute walk within 30 minutes of eating a meal. It will make your body burn the calories twice as fast.
5. Chew sugar-free gum. Even small movements such as chewing will keep your body constantly burning more calories.
6. Park as far as possible from the store when you go shopping.
7. Sit in a rocking chair if you watch television.
8. Breath long and deep instead of short and shallow.
9. Drink lots of ice water throughout the day. The water decreases your appetite. The ice causes your body to work harder to keep your body temperature normal.
10. Drink green tea.
11. Sit up straight. It will strengthen your back and abdominal muscles.
12. Keep the temperature cooler and don’t use sweaters or an extra blanket. Your metabolism uses more energy to heat up your body temperature.
13. Eat starchy carbohydrates as early in the day as possible and don’t eat any with dinner.
14. Have fresh fruit for dessert after dinner to stabilize your blood sugar.
15. Don’t skip meals. When you skip meals, it triggers production of a hormone called ghrelin, which causes overeating.
16. Stretch and take regular breaks at work. Even a 30-second stretch will help.
17. Eat healthy snacks such as fruit, low-fat cheese, vegetable sticks or protein shakes. Click Here for a List of Healthy Snacks. 
18. Eat dinner as early in the evening as possible.
19. Get up and wash the dishes right after dinner. You will burn calories and not be tempted with leftovers.
20. Get deep rest between midnight and 3:00 a.m. Click Here for Tips on Getting a good Night’s Sleep.

Bottled water isn’t any better for you than tap water in American cities-and even the bottled water industry won’t argue the point. But what about the new “enhanced” waters containing vitamins and herbs? Their snappy names and lists of additives do imply health benefits beyond the goal of staying well-hydrated. Unfortunately, the science behind them is weak, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group for information on nutrition. So before you load the cooler with pricey vitamin-enhanced waters, consider filling up empties at the tap instead. There are better ways to relax, get refreshed and boost your immunity than by downing the enhanced waters below:

1. Calming Waters?Coca Cola’s VitaminWater B-Relaxed Jackfruit-Guava contains several vitamins B and theanine, a natural ingredient in tea, along with 125 calories’ worth of sugar per bottle. According to a Coca-Cola spokesperson, theanine levels of 50 mg to 200 mg have been shown to stimulate the “production of alpha brain waves, which are associated with a relaxed state of mental alertness.” A 20-fluid-ounce bottle contains 50 mg of theanine, compared to 20 mg in a cup of tea. Coca-Cola also notes that the vitamins B in its product help the body fight stress. However, there is no evidence those vitamins are experienced as calming, says CSPI. And according to the most recent study of theanine, reported in the journal Psychopharmacology, it also does not affect mood. (Theanine does counter temporary rises in blood pressure caused by caffeine.) Buyers note: Despite the name, the product does not contain actual jackfruit or guava, only flavors.

2. Can Water Stave Off Colds? Coca Cola’s Dasani Plus Defend + Protect contains zinc and vitamin E, two substances that play a role in immunity. However, according to the CSPI, research suggests that taking vitamin E boosts immunity only if it is consumed in very large amounts by older people who are deficient in the vitamin. Some evidence suggests that zinc lozenges may shorten colds. But that doesn’t mean drinking zinc in water will, says CSPI, and, as Coca-Cola points out, there aren’t any studies “using water fortified with zinc to determine the effect on colds.”

3. Getting Tough on H20? Pepsi-Co’s Sobe Life Water Challenge Your Life provides taurine, sometimes touted as a muscle strengthener, and ginseng, believed to boost alertness. The science: Participants in one study took 20 grams a day of taurine for seven days, and did a pushup test before and after. Taurine didn’t make them any better at pushups. As for ginseng, the evidence that it boosts alertness is inconsistent, says CSPI-in fact, it appears to reduce alertness under some circumstances. Dosages count. But the Sobe label doesn’t say how much taurine or ginseng is in its product, and Sobe did not provide the information to Newsweek when asked. A spokeswoman says, “We allow customers to decide what ‘challenge’ means to them.”

4. Fiber Water? Pepsi-Co’s Aquafina Alive Satisfy does contain maltodextrin, which qualifies under the government definition of fiber. However, it’s a soluble fiber, so it won’t keep you regular like the fiber in grains and beans.

#1: A slug’s life

When the only body part you move in your job is your mouse finger, you just have to take fitness into your own hands. Do you have to train for a marathon to lose some weight? Not at all, according to Dr. James Levine of the Mayo Clinic. He found that the time spent sitting was more likely to correlate with weight gain than the lack of vigorous exercise. You can keep slim, according to Levine, by walking slowly (about 0.7 mph) two to three hours a day.

Although few of us can stroll around the neighborhood that long, several companies have developed workstations with treadmills attached so you can pseudo-walk while you check your e-mail or debug code. It all makes CNET’s Mike Yamamoto wonder if there’s a conspiracy to tether workers to their desks. (You can download several tools from TechRepublic to help you evaluate and manage your weight, including a body mass index [BMI] calculator.)

#2: SIT happens

Weight gain can creep up on you, but it’s not an emergency in itself. A much more serious hazard of office work is seated immobility thromboembolism (SIT). This problem occurs when blood clots form in the legs (deep vein thrombosis) or lungs (pulmonary embolism) in people who spend a long time sitting. People may develop these clots while on a long trip, if they don’t get out of the car or stroll around in the plane’s cabin a bit. CNET noted the risk of deep vein thrombosis increasing back in this 2003 article. More recently, results of a New Zealand study suggested that a sedentary job may double the risk of developing clots in the legs (DVTs) or, even more dangerous, clots in the lungs.

#3: So many headaches

From the flicker of fluorescent lights to the hunched-up debugging posture, the conditions of your cube farm conspire to cause headaches. Pagers, end users, and the threat of outsourcing provide additional stress to kindle a dandy migraine or tension headache. Downing Tylenol or ibuprofen several times a week can backfire by making your pain more tenacious. If you get in a pattern of frequent headaches, see a doctor to get out of the rut.

You may have tension headaches, which can be treated with massage or stretches to help relax your muscles. Migraine is another possibility. Even if you don’t have the visual disturbances (auras) that are the hallmarks of a “classic” migraine, you may have a common migraine. The good news is that there are many medications you can try to treat and prevent migraines. Although some are quite expensive ($25 or more per dose), treat the headaches aggressively. Migraines can affect your mood, your threshold of pain, and perhaps even your risk of stroke.

#4: The bobblehead syndrome

Do you nod off frequently at your desk and perhaps even have brief dreams? These episodes, called microsleeps, may indicate you’re sleep deprived. It’s natural for the human body to crave a siesta after lunch, but excessive daytime sleepiness needs to be treated. Most adults need seven to eight hours of sleep a night, so simply going to bed earlier may be all you need.

If you’re in the sack long enough but are still tired, consider your environment (a snoring spouse, a hot or cold room). Crying babies and pagers can jar you out of sleep and seriously disrupt normal sleep cycles. Sleep apnea is a fairly common but scary-sounding problem: People with the disorder briefly stop breathing, often hundreds of times a night, which disrupts normal sleep phases. Physical abnormalities that cause excessive snoring can also lead to poor sleep. So check with your doctor, who may refer you to an ear, nose, and throat specialist or sleep clinic to sort out your sleep problems.

#5: Hurting hands

Although your hands and wrists may be sore from intensive typing, there’s not a whole lot of evidence to link keyboard use to carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). A 2007 study of men who worked at video display terminals found an association of CTS with high body mass index (BMI) and job seniority — but not with specific tasks related to computer usage. Still, many conditions other than CTS can make your hands and wrists hurt, so it’s wise to check with your doctor to try to get some relief.

Severe carpal tunnel syndrome is usually treated with surgery, but many other conditions that cause hand pain don’t require such drastic treatment. Tendonitis, for example, is a fairly common cause of hand pain that may be treated with anti-inflammatory drugs (such as ibuprofen or naproxen) and splinting.

#6: Relax harder!

How is it that sitting on your chair and looking at a monitor can make your back, neck, and shoulder muscles feel like you’ve spent eight hours painting a ceiling? Your tense posture may be part of the problem. Improving the ergonomics of your work area may help take the stress off your upper body. Try not to transfer the tension in your mind to your muscles and take a break now and then to unclench.

#7. Noxious invaders

The dry air of a typical office certainly doesn’t help your immune systems ward off your coworkers’ coughs, but hey, at least you’re not sitting in a daycare center. There are hundreds of cold viruses, plus several influenza viruses each year. What can you do to stay healthy and help keep your coworkers healthy, too?

• Stay home for a change.
• Clean your keyboard, mouse and desk.
• Wash your hands.
• Keep hydrated.

No replicable scientific studies have proven that vitamin C, Echinacea, or zinc will prevent or shorten colds, but many people swear by them.

As far as gastrointestinal illness goes, remember that the most common transmission route is fecal-oral. So, for God’s sake, wash your hands after going to the restroom. Also, consider the effective, but possibly neurotic, act of opening the door with a paper towel when you leave.

#8: Eye strain

Watching a backlit screen two feet away for four hours at a time isn’t really natural, is it? So it’s no surprise that people in IT complain about irritated eyes and declining visual acuity. Here are some suggestions that may help:

• Remember to blink. Yes, blinking is pretty much automatic, but some people really keep their eyes peeled when they’re engaged in work. Their eyes dry out, which is extra hard on people who wear contact lenses. A few drops of artificial tears can make your tired eyes much more comfortable.
• Change your focus. Look out the window or down the hallway — anything to get away from your two-foot focus. There are even programs designed to remind you to give your eyes a break.
• Get an eye exam. Your doctor may have more tips to help you feel more comfortable as you work. And everyone needs to be screened for glaucoma and other eye diseases anyway.

#9: Heavy lifting

If your job requires you to lift, lower, and/or carry equipment around, you might find yourself battling back pain. Maybe you spend your days installing workstations or inserting/removing computers from racks — and if you’re used to the work and know the right way to protect yourself in the process, you might not have any problems at all. But if it’s an occasional task, or if you don’t follow some basic precautions, you could wind up with a painful injury or chronic back trouble.

Despite the fact that best practices for lifting are largely common sense, people often ignore them — and often wish they hadn’t. Here are some basic recommendations for protecting your back:

• Examine an object before you try to pick it up to determine how awkward and heavy it is. Tip it a little to test its weight and make sure you have a comfortable, secure way to grip it.
• If you think an object might be too heavy for you move, find an alternative: Get someone to help you, unpack or dismantle the object and move it in pieces, use a dolly, etc.
• Don’t extend your arms when you pick up or lower a heavy object. That puts a big strain on your back.
• Watch your footing — the last thing you want to do is stumble or trip while carrying something heavy.
• Lift correctly. Keep your straight back, kneel to pick up the object, and then lift using your leg strength, not your back.

#10: Something in the air

If you work on a lot of systems, you’re no stranger to dust. Even a well-maintained machine in a clean, ventilated area is going to pull in plenty of it. And if you work on customers’ computers or make a lot of workstation calls, you’re going to feel like Tom Joad before long.

This may not faze you at all, but if you’re like many techs out there, it could spell big-time allergy, respiratory, and sinus woes. Among the suggestions from veteran dust-sensitive IT pros: Put on a dust mask before opening a case (or crawling around under a grubby workstation). And if you plan to use compressed air to blow some of the dust out of the case, definitely mask up first. You might also want to consider vacuuming that dust out rather than blowing it around — but you should use an ESD (electrostatic discharge) safe vacuum designed for electronics.

source: blogs.techrepublic.com.com

Children taking stimulants as a treatment for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are 20 percent more likely to visit a doctor with heart-related symptoms, according to a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Florida and published in the journal Pediatrics.

Researchers examined the records on 55,000 children between the ages of 3 and 20 who had undergone treatment for ADHD using central nervous system stimulants between 1994 and 2004. Their health profiles were compared with those of nearly two million other children in the Florida Medicaid database, making the current study the largest ever on the safety of ADHD drugs.

Children taking stimulants were 20 percent more likely than other children to visit the emergency room or doctor’s office with heart-related symptoms like a racing heartbeat.

The researchers did not find any difference in the rates of hospitalization or death from heart-related causes among children taking stimulants. But other drugs in the methamphetamine class, to which ADHD drugs Ritalin and Adderall belong, have indeed been known to cause serious cardiac side effects.

In 2006, the Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee of the FDA recommended adding a black-box warning to ADHD drugs about cardiovascular risks. This is the strongest warning that the FDA can place on a drug before pulling it from the market. But the FDA’s Pediatric Advisory Committee urged against such a warning, saying that the cardiac side effects were not serious and could be easily managed by changing the size or timing of drug doses.

The University of Florida researchers noted that more than 25 percent of people who used stimulants in the study were also found to be taking antidepressants or antipsychotics, which have also been shown to affect the cardiovascular system. They said that more research is needed into circumstances that might predispose children to heart trouble, and to determine if ADHD medications can exacerbate those problems.

Seed Magazine discusses how researchers are exploring the neuropsychology of hypnosis to understand this curious state of mind.

Hypnosis fell out of favour in psychological circles as it got taken up by ’stage hypnotists’, and researchers found out that, contrary to the movie stereotypes, hypnosis actually increases the number of false memories recalled, rather than making remembering more accurate.

Furthermore, ‘hypnotherapy’ seems not to be hugely effective on the current evidence. For example, trials of hypnosis for pain relief when giving birth and smoking cessation have shown mixed results, although it is known to be difficult to design effective trials because hypnotisable individuals are known to be psychologically different from others.

What is a reliable finding, however, is that in particularly susceptible individuals, hypnosis can be used to cause unusual experiences.

Particularly, it is being used as a model of what is alternatively called ‘conversion hysteria’ or ‘conversion disorder’, where a person might show physical symptoms, such as paralysis, but where they arise from a psychological cause.

Recent experiments have used hypnosis as a way of causing a temporary and reversible paralysis. Participants are then put in a brain scanner to determine which parts of the brain are active, and compared to people with diagnosed conversion disorder.

It turns out that hysterical paralysis may involve similar brain areas to hypnotic paralysis, but shows different patterns of activation to people asked to ‘fake’ a paralysis.

These are interesting findings and may provide an insight into the operation of how the unconscious influences our conscious life.

Nevertheless, thorough investigations into the neuroscience of hypnotic states will still need to be conducted, and Seed Magazine tackles some of the latest research in this area.

source: seedmagazine.com

Changing Personal History

“Take a moment and breathe deeply……. as you begin to consider how all the factors of your life mesh together to create your past…present,…and future…..
As you imagine the possible panorama of your future, you can see….feel….and perhaps also hear….all of the multiple possible directions in which you can go…..

You can see…feel…and have an intuitive understanding for…how some of the factors in your present reality lead toward one or another future realities….. You can begin to realize now.. how you have been actively pursuing one of your probable futures without realizing it…… You can understand now… that by making certain choices and adjustments in the present, you can change your probable future…… The seeds of a different future can be planted now, in the present….

As you recall and feel your past, and become aware of all of its details. …. you recognize that up until now, you’ve only been remembering one small part of your past…, only using a few of your memories as a foundation for your present experiences…… You realize now that you can make new choices now….. You can choose to remember and focus on parts of the past that you’ve avoided or ignored. …. You can effectively create a new emphasis in your past and restructure what the past means to you….. By restructuring or re-remembering the past, you create a different perception of the present….. By recognizing all the potential of the future, you recognize your full power and claim the freedom to create the future that you want. You understand what you need to do in the present in order to create your adjusted past and future. ”
Adapted from: “Choice Centered Tarot” by Gail Fairfield

The Self is a Relationship

Self hypnosis is a fascinating and complex subject. I believe that most people develop an interest in self hypnosis because they want to be able to live a life of greater fulfillment. People have a desire to accomplish certain goals that they currently seem incapable of achieving, and thus they have an inkling that there must be “a better way.”

It is important to remember:
THE SELF IS A RELATIONSHIP- BOTH INTRAPERSONAL AND INTERPERSONAL

“Who am I? I am a relationship. I choose to, and I have the right to, Feel good and be respected. I am.”

When we are feeling stuck we might think of self hypnosis like this: “There is a part of me that wants to get another part of me to change. And the annoying thing is that the part of me that ‘I’ want to change does not appear to be open to my suggestions!” In such instances, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

For instance, people often say to me: “Why is it that when ‘I’ want to ‘lose weight’, ’stop smoking’, ‘get up earlier in the morning’, that there is somehow, somewhere a hidden part of me that very much does not want to accomplish these same goals? Why does this conflict exist and how can I get ‘myself’ to do what ‘I’ want to do?” Self relations therapy would call this hidden part that is not cooperating “the neglected self.” Other forms of therapy would talk about “the subconscious mind” or “the unconscious mind.” Seishindo presents the concept of “the somatic self.” What we are striving for in self hypnosis is developing a context of cooperative communication. We need to learn how to respectfully communicate with the hidden parts of one’s self, and in the process, enlist the resources of the entire self in order to bring about a more balanced life. This is the main task of self hypnosis.

Cooperation

One of the reasons that the martial art Aikido works so effectively (When and if it is done with the proper ideals in mind.) is that the practitioner has no intent to harm or force the attacker, and somehow this message gets communicated nonverbally and changes the attacker’s mindset.

In Aikido we attempt to cooperate with the attacker and touch their true desire. When we are able to accomplish this the musculature of the attacker softens and their fighting mind is neutralized. The goal is to protect the one being attacked, as well as protecting the attacker. We strive to blend with the energy and attempted goals of the attacker rather than confronting them.

In Aikido we say:
“Change yourself first, before looking to change your opponent, and in the process, you might find that your opponent has changed himself.”
“First learn to control your self and then look to lead others gently. Help the attacker to get what he wants without his needing to use violence to achieve his goals.”

In self hypnosis we can say:
“Change the mindset of your cognitive self first, before looking to change your somatic self, and in the process, you might just find that your somatic self will change itself.” “Control your cognitive self and gently lead your somatic self. Help the cognitive self to get the appropriate results it desires, without it needing to resort to manipulation and conflict. If your cognitive self is not getting the results it desires, then what will your cognitive self need to do to change itself, in order to more fully align with your somatic self?”

Or yet another way to say this is: “The solution your cognitive self is attempting to implement is instrumental to the continuance of the problem. If you implement the ‘right’ solution, you will likely find that there is no problem. With a high quality solution in hand, the problem ceases to exist.”

Ten important principles of self hypnosis

These principles are meant for you to muse over for now. These principles are not meant to be a “to do” list of things to accomplish. Read for now in order to begin to develop a broad background for self hypnosis, and then we will delve into some of these principles in detail in future newsletters.

1) Change out of your everyday frame of mind into a different “trance”.
This usually takes a change of posture, a good deal of calm breathing, slowing down in general, and the spreading of your awareness.
Self hypnosis is a NATURAL way of changing your awareness of the present moment, and the awareness of yourself as part of the present moment. In almost every instance entering into a generative self induced trance will be facilitated by slowing down your breathing and your internal dialogue, and by becoming more aware of what is happening now.
Self hypnosis dissolves the perceived problem so that it no longer exists in your mind. Self hypnosis does not do away with the problem. If you do away with thinking, you will do away with the problem.

2) Love, accept, and cooperate with, all that you are.
“There is nothing amiss with you that a deep sense of self love and support will not heal.”

Develop a sense of trust and cooperation with your entire self. If you don’t respect all of your self, it will be difficult to induce the cooperation that is necessary for change to occur.

3) Enter into a flow state that is more spontaneous than any process that can be maintained by your cognitive mind.
You need to let the thoughts of your cognitive self wander as if it is “fully awake and dreaming.” It is from this state of “active dreaming” that solutions will evolve. The solutions do not come from “you” the solutions come from the state that you are in. The solutions arise as it becomes apparent that there is no problem.

4) Create a pleasant and respectful conversation between the parts of yourself that are involved in the struggle for and against change.
Accept and honor the behavior, beliefs, mood, and or interests of your entire self in order to achieve rapport with your entire self. You are always doing the best that you are currently capable of.

5) A generative state of self hypnosis signifies responsiveness to your intrapersonal needs. When your whole self is not able or willing to accomplish what your cognitive self desires, this is a clear signal that are you not sufficiently aware of or honoring some important intrapersonal needs.

Begin to reduce the differences in beliefs and desires between the self that wants change and your other self that seems to be inhibiting change. There is a deeper wisdom to this inhibition process, and it is quite important to honor this wisdom.

6) Become intimately aware of your body and its ongoing feedback loop with your cognitive self.
Feel all of the tiny reactions your body has to the verbal suggestions that are being made. If in any way, your body tenses up when hearing any one of your suggestions, chances are that you will not be successful in implementing your suggestions. This is so crucial to understand.

Find a way of presenting information and possible changes to your somatic self, that your somatic self finds safe, supportive, and doable. Your somatic self is quite powerful. Attempting to implement changes that it is not fully in agreement with, is not a productive long term way of living.

7) Consider every thought, feeling and desire that you are having, to be of equal importance, rather than giving more importance to any one part of your process.
It is often the “little things” that wind up having the greatest importance in the long run.

Be with, stay with, and welcome, every thought, feeling, and sensation.
This is crucial. Often we try to run away from what we think is “incorrect” or what we feel to be painful. At other times we try to hold onto a thought or feeling that we believe to be positive. Rather than attempting such non productive behaviors, simply stay with and welcome your every thought, feeling, and sensation.

9) Explore your experience without the need to change who your are, or what you are doing.
It is the perceived need to change that often hinders the process of change. Explore your experience and your thought processes and feelings without trying to change yourself. When all of the necessary preparations have been made, change will occur “on its own” when and IF it is truly necessary.

10) It is the thinking mind that discerns “right and wrong” “good or bad” “perfect and imperfect” that creates your problems.
The idea in self hypnosis is to experience the mind that comes prior to thinking. To experience the mind that does not know. The goal is not to understand what to do. The goal is to already be doing it.
There is no problem to be solved. Only be in the moment.

_________________

Now you have been offered one person’s thoughts and experiences in regard to self hypnosis. Please let these ideas rest inside of you for now. We will explore these principles further in later articles.

The idea of answering the “wrong” Zen koan

In a Zen koan you are presented with a question that you are asked to find the answer to. When you are stuck in this process of finding an answer to the original koan, you often wind up providing yourself with the answer to the “wrong” koan.

Here is how this works in everyday life:
If you are feeling bad about yourself you might say- “I am incompetent.” and at such times you will believe that you have made a factual statement, rather than realizing that you have instead answered a question that you are not aware of having asked. The question you are answering when you say “I am incompetent.” might be “What is my first thought after tensing up and no longer trusting in myself?” The answer would be “I am incompetent.” In this context your answer makes total sense.

In each instance that you feel stuck, go back and find the question that you have been answering without realizing that you are doing so. Then go ahead and change your question to one that is likely to have a more generative answer. For instance in the instance just described you could change your question to be, “What will my first thought be if I remain relaxed and trusting in myself?”
What will your answer to this question be?

Ask a different question and you will get a different answer!

Prelude to “Tuning in”

I want to “set the stage” for you prior to your beginning the following practice:
a) The “practice” that follows is NOT meant to get specific results in regard to behavioral changes. This is very important to note. You are being asked to pay attention to what is going on in the moment, rather than trying to change yourself or something that you are not satisfied with. This practice is designed to help you learn how to better communicate with your somatic self. If generative change does happen to occur it will take place only as a by-product of high quality communication with your somatic self.

b) The breathing that you are asked to do at the end of each step is very important. If you find yourself rushing through the breathing or not taking three FULL breaths as asked, then you will likely feel that you did not learn much of interest in doing this practice. If you find yourself wanting to ignore or rush through the breathing, then indeed you are learning something very important about yourself-That you will do well to SLOW DOWN your system in order to achieve the results you desire. This can be a very important learning. Shallow breathing tends to lead to a feeling of anxiety and a sense of incompetence, much more so than your perceived abilities or lack thereof.

c) This practice is meant to be learned from OVER TIME, and each person will learn something unique and different, depending on the thoughts, feelings, and life experiences, that one begins their practice with This practice is an invitation to explore yourself more fully, and learn how to enter into a generative trance state. You might initially feel that you did not get all that much insight or change from this practice, only to find that your behavior or way of thinking changes some at a later date, “on its own.” No matter what, this practice is meant to be done numerous times.
In the process of “practicing” you will be learning how to:
1) Change out of your everyday frame of mind into a different “trance”.
2) Love, accept, and cooperate with, all that you are.
3) Enter into a flow state that is more spontaneous than any process that can be maintained by your cognitive mind.
4) Create a pleasant and respectful conversation between the parts of yourself that are involved in the struggle for and against change.
5) Enter into a generative state of self hypnosis that signifies RESPONSIVENESS to your intrapersonal needs.
6) Become intimately aware of your body and its ongoing feedback loop to your cognitive self.
7) Consider every thought, feeling and desire that you are having, to be of equal importance, rather than giving more importance to any one part of your process.
Be with, stay with, and welcome, every thought, feeling, and sensation.
9) Explore your experience without the need to change who you are or what you are doing.
10) Experience the mind that comes prior to thinking.

Tuning In

It is suggested that you read through the instructions several times prior to beginning. This will give you the possibility of doing the whole practice without needing to refer to the notes. Of course do refer to the notes if you need to, but you will likely get the most pleasing results when you can leave the notes aside.

This practice assumes that you have an issue, relationship, or circumstance in your life that you would like to better understand or change.

1) Sit in a comfortable manner, and take a few deep breaths.

2) Create an “I am” statement.
What I mean by this is the following:
Consider what it is you would like to change or better understand.
Make believe that you have already achieved the results you desire and make a statement that describes how your feel, and experience “life” and yourself having already achieved the results you desire. For instance, if you are wanting to lose weight you might say, “I am healthy, maintaining an optimal body weight, and feeling good about myself.” This will be your “I am” statement for your practice.

It is very important that you make an “I am” statement that gives you the mental image and emotional feeling of how you look and feel having accomplished your goal, rather than using negative terms that describe how you do NOT want to be. An incorrectly formulated “I am” statement would be “I am no longer overweight and I feel good about myself.” In the same way, a successful athlete would NOT say to herself “I am no longer missing field goals during the important moments of a game.” Instead, state what you ARE doing, and feeling, and the positive results you are achieving.

(It is quite likely that your “I am” statement will change during the course of the exercise, or you might find that your “I am” statement changes the next time you entertain the same issue. This is fine. As long as you continue to state your “I am” statement in positive terms, welcome a change in your statement, if and when a change does come.)

Once you have made your “I am” statement-Breathe deeply three times. It is important that you breathe deeply and expansively. Take your time while doing this.

3) While looking in a mirror (when available):
Sit comfortably, breathe deeply, relax, and have a friendly look at yourself.

4) Make your ‘I am” statement once again, speaking slowly and purposefully, in a calm voice.
Breathe deeply three times.

5) State three things that you see (other than yourself) when looking in the mirror. Breathe deeply three times.

6) Name three sounds that you hear as you sit calmly and look in the mirror.
Breathe deeply three times.

7) State three things that you feel/notice about yourself as you sit calmly and look into the mirror.

Please do not comment about yourself by using terms like “happy” “sad” “fat” or “thin” but rather note some aspect of your posture, body movements, or facial expression, or note a feeling that you have inside your body or on the surface of your body. For instance, “I can feel my heart beating, my posture is rounded forward, and my left eye is a bit more open than my right eye.” Don’t do anything to change yourself, just note how you are now.
Breathe deeply three times.

Make your “I am” statement again.
Breathe deeply three times.

9) State two things that you see (other than yourself) when looking in the mirror. Breathe deeply three times.

10) Name two sounds that you hear as you sit calmly and look in the mirror.
Breathe deeply three times.

11) State two things that you feel/notice about yourself as you sit calmly and look into the mirror.
Breathe deeply three times.

12) Make your “I am” statement again.
Breathe deeply three times.

13) State one thing that you see (other than yourself) when looking in the mirror. Breathe deeply three times.

14) Name one sound that you hear as you sit calmly and look in the mirror.
Breathe deeply three times.

15) State one thing that you feel/notice about yourself as you sit calmly and look into the mirror.
Breathe deeply three times.

16) Repeat your “I am” statement again.
Breathe deeply three times.

17) Allow your mind to wander for a minute or so.
Breathe deeply three times.

18) Make any statement(s) that comes to your mind at this time. You can state how you are feeling, and you can also state any thoughts that come to your mind.

Your practice is now complete for today. Please perform this practice numerous other times so that you can notice how it is your RELATIONSHIP to your initial concern is changing over time.

Author’s Bio

Charlie Badenhop is the originator of Seishindo, an Aikido instructor, NLP trainer, and Ericksonian Hypnotherapist. Benefit from his thought-provoking ideas and a new self-help Practice every two weeks, by subscribing to his complimentary newsletter “Pure Heart, Simple Mind” at http://www.seishindo.org.

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