Hypnosis can be used as a wonderful tool in sports performance. The first thing that comes to mind is golf and tennis because many books have been written for these sports, many times referring to “being in the zone”. So what about other sports situations. Using hypnosis for cheerleading and gymnastics in children and teens can be extremely powerful and helpful for the child. Many times the child is doing great in the sport for months or years and then has a fall or trips up and that may actually take the stuffing out of them or in some cases cause a minor injury. Depending on the stress at the time they either get back up and start over or in many cases their confidence begins to erode and fear sets in. They find themselves more and more unable to complete the activity, even though they have successfully completed the activity hundreds of times. Thoughts of fear of injury, low self confidence and self doubt begin to get stronger and more powerful even as the child continues to try and try again to complete the activity and usually ends up failing over and over again. I have worked with many children and teenagers on just this problem. Hypnosis (especially with young people) can be a very quick and powerful tool to help them get past the fear and move towards their goals once again, renewing self confidence and self esteem.
WEIGHT LOSS AND HYPNOSIS
You have all heard the old saying, “You are what you eat.” This statement is true in the sense that it relates to what each of us chooses to put in our mouth. But before you choose what you eat, YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK ! The choices we make in our eating habits everyday are what keep us overweight, unhappy and unhealthy. You may wonder why you continue behavior that leads you down the same path of losing and gaining, and many times gaining more weight back than before. Your weight loss is seldom permanent because you haven’t found the cause of your eating habits. The choices you make are related to earlier behavior and programming.
Some of the most common reasons you don’t lose weight and maintain weight loss are directly related to childhood experiences, behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. These include, but are not limited to: eating as a reward, eating to make yourself feel better, eating to keep people from noticing us,( this usually occurs from a traumatic event as a child), eating as self love,( which of course does just the opposite), and eating when we are stressed or afraid. Many times we eat too much because we were literally starved as a child, and we are still trying to fill ourselves. Other reasons that interfere with normal eating are being on the run, grabbing fast food, coming home from work exhausted and grabbing whatever is available. So we also develop unhealthy eating patterns based on our lifestyle.
To have permanent weight loss it is important to find the cause of the overeating. All the information is stored in the brain. Your subconscious mind is constantly reading what is stored in your brain and telling the brain what to do based on what it is reading. It is reading a continual loop of previous thoughts,
FEAR OF FLYING AND HYPNOSIS, CLIENT CASE
An exaggerated fear that often turns into a phobia is the fear of flying. We have all been told that we are much safer flying than driving our car to work and we can understand this consciously. We may go along for years feeling just fine until a situation occurs, where we felt out of control and logic goes out the window. This is especially difficult if it is a pilot that has flown for over 20 years, and within six months developed a flying phobia. My client had flown in every type of weather for years, loved to fly, and always had felt in control whenever flying. Then six months before seeing me he experienced a problem while flying, started to feel out of control which led to his first ever anxiety attack. Over a period of six months he started to dread flying. Even thinking about flying caused him anxiety and the fear grew in intensity until he almost gave up flying. In the last year he was also extremely stressed with other personal issues which he had very little control over and this feeling of being out of control compounded his flying fear. His personal emotional state just fed into his fears when flying, the feelings of being out of control! In my first session with him I added logic and reasoning to his previous flying problems, added re-framing, positive visualization and suggestions also about his personal life. He went flying the next day, feeling more relaxed, confident and self-assured than he had in months. The next week he was flying out of a national airport, excited and confident once more to be doing something he loved to do. As I’ve mentioned before hypnotherapy can be extremely quick and powerful in alleviating fears, anxieties and phobias. Don’t let fear control your life!
HYPNOSIS AND PHOBIAS AND FEARS
All of us experience fear at some time in our life, and usually this fear is something that can actually threaten our well being. We are taught at an early age to be afraid of the hot burner, jumping off a roof, and things as simple as watching for cars crossing the street. Most fears do not interfere with our daily lives. But when a fear restricts and controls our actions during the day it has become a phobia. Many phobias come from childhood, when we were unable to add logic or reasoning to what was happening around us. Often times phobias are formed in adulthood after a very stressful situation in which the person felt out of control and not able to handle what was happening around them. Many times the phobia results from months or years of stress and then an incident happens that pulls the rug out and phobias are formed. Many of my clients that develop phobias in adulthood relate years or months of having to deal with high levels of stress, and feeling out of control in their life. The stress has to go somewhere, and many times it will present itself in illness, anxieties or phobias. It is not always important for the reason for the phobia to be identified for healing to occur. Although if the reason is known, logic, reasoning and re-framing is used in the hypnotherapy to change the way the experience is viewed. Anxiety and panic are almost always part of the phobia and the symptoms may manifest in many ways. We can have anxiety and panic attacks without phobias and I’ll talk about this later. If you have a phobia that is taking control over your life or interfering in things you want to accomplish, remember in many cases hypnotherapy can really help!
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SURGERY AND HYPNOSIS
A client of mine was facing open heart surgery and was extremely apprehensive due to her medical problems. She had previously experienced a heart attack and angiogram and was scheduled for major surgery. She had type 1 diabetes for years, compromised kidneys, and lung disease due to a previous history of smoking for many years. She didn’t even think she would make it through the surgery, and the doctors also had many doubts. I saw her prior to her surgery and made a tape for her. I also saw her in the hospital the day before surgery with even more hypnotherapy. This client experienced a successful and involved open heart surgery. She came out of anesthesia in a much shorter period of time than most. She had minimal discomfort after the surgery. I saw her in the I.C.U. the day after and gave her even more hypnotherapy including suggestions for normal sinus rhythm of the heart, increased kidney function, normal blood and urine chemistrys, and generalized post-operative healing. Her doctors were amazed at her recovery, especially due to all her preexisting conditions. She left the hospital sooner than most patients and experienced a positive recovery. This is just one example of the power of hypnosis in surgery situations.
