Breathing with Intent

Here is a simple technique to begin experiencing your own internal power. As you breathe allow yourself to begin to experience a deep state of relaxation and healing.

1. Inhale slowly and deeply to a count of 4.

Inhale, filling your lower belly on the count of one (1),
then your diaphragm for the count of two (2),
next, fill your lungs on the count of three (3),
and finally your collar bone lifts with the last part of your inhale on the count of four (4).

2. Hold the breath for 4 counts.

3. Exhale slowly and gently, through your mouth, reversing the order of the inhale.

Release your collar bone and shoulders first with the beginning of the exhale (1),
then lungs (2),
diaphragm (3),
and belly (4).

Make a gentle “ha-a-a-a” sound, releasing all your muscles in a big sigh.

4. Hold the exhaled breath for 4 counts, as you experience how the energy in your body seemingly slows down while you exhale.

5. Repeat 1-4 at least three times.

6. Now, bring your attention to the area of your heart, pretend your breathing is flowing in and out through your heart in a relaxed way….now, breathing just a little deeper than usual…

Begin breathing in love and appreciation, …step into the feelings as they arise …. really feel how you would feel…. breathing them in and filling your whole body with every breath you take …allowing you to feel better in every way….

7. Inhale slowly, and send your awareness high above your head… as if you have sprouted wings and now can fly far out into the universe … until you discover a great bright light … symbolizing your own Renewable Source of Creation…

Now … imagine you follow a ray of light back and allow yourself to be filled with this beautiful light through the top of your head … and let the light fill your whole body completely … filling every cell of your body with warm, healing light …right to the center of your own DNA.

8. Exhale slowly, through the mouth with a “ha-a-a-a” sound releasing all your muscles in a big sigh and hold again for the count of four.

9. Now, as you inhale slowly, send your awareness deep down into the Earth below you, as if you have grown roots, down to the center of the Earth. Allow the power and resources you find there to travel up your roots. Allow this energy to enter through the bottom of your feet, easily moving up through your legs; up through your tailbone, filling your belly, moving through your heart, up through your throat, filling your whole head.

Take a moment to imagine every cell of your body completely filled with this energy, opening and receiving.

10. Again, exhaling through the mouth with a “ha-a-a-a” and hold again for the count of four.

11. Repeat steps 7 – 10 as many times as you like.

Center in your heart, breath in love and appreciation, send your awareness up to Source, back down through the top of your head, through your body, then down into the center of the Earth, back up through the bottom of your feet, filling your whole body completely, back to centering in your heart and then send your appreciation out into your entire life.

You will learn that very quickly, this simple exercise can help you relax, help you focus, and slow you down.

The Cycle Tool

More Emotional Brain Training

The Cycle Tool for Brain State 4

"State the facts about your upset.
No feelings. Just the facts.
Keep it short, however, long enough to arouse strong emotions in your body.

Then launch into the Natural Flow of Feelings
I feel angry that . . .
I feel sad that . . .
I feel afraid that . . .
I feel guilty that . . .
Express short choppy sentences to express your feelings.
Your stress will begin to quiet down, and you will be in the portal of your emotional brain.

At that point, you can use deductive reasoning to identify your Unreasonable Expectation.

Then find a Reasonable Expectation — the opposite of the unreasonable one — which squashes the wiring of that old unreasonable expectation.

In a flash you will go into a stress response, which is why we use Encouraging Words, a short statement of support to keep you thinking about the reasonable expectation.

The most powerful part of The Cycle is to identify the Essential Pain, the change, loss, upset, reality to face, and grow from, in order to switch your brain to joy, and feel the joy response.

The Essential Pain is the truth about the human condition or my life that I must face in order to follow through with this new reasonable expectation, in a state of balance and joy.

The Earned Reward is your reason for following through with that reasonable expectation, and if that reward is not more pleasurable than the Essential Pain then the expectation needs some tweaking. It’s not reasonable.

Last, as you return to Brain State 1, ask What do I need? (including need for support from others).

If you like, check to see if there is a circuit you want to break that was revealed by the Cycle. That’s your positive affirmation or Grind In. Repeat it 10 times, 1 to 3 times per day to help break that old neural circuit and build a new one that leads to joy.

Here’s a demonstration of The Cycle Tool by the founder of Emotional Brain Training, Laurel Mellin, MA, RD, Associate Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine and Pediatrics at UCSF.

Our unconscious emotional expectations hold us in a stress response.

Use the Cycle Tool to nab that unconscious unreasonable expectation, bring it to a conscious level and rewire it.

Just the Facts:
My shoulder hurts from playing golf, my brother is in the hospital after open heart surgery, I am going to visit a friend tomorrow morning in LA, and see her daughter’s wedding reception, and I am missing my mother, who passed away a little more than two years ago.

Natural Flow of Feelings
I feel angry that my shoulder hurts. I hate it that my mother is gone . . .
I feel sad that my brother is sick. I feel sad that my shoulder hurts.
I feel afraid that I will keep having losses, my mother . . . more . . .
I feel guilty that I feel bad.

My Unreasonable Expectation is that I shouldn’t feel bad when I am in the midst of loss.

My Reasonable Expectation? I expect myself to feel as bad as I need to feel for as long as I need to feel it.

Encouraging Words? I can do that!

The Essential Pain is that: Life can be difficult. I will have pain.

The Earned Reward (of accepting that): I can see myself. I can honor myself.

Now, I can feel a sense of sanctuary within. I am at Brain State 1.

Now that I have switched my brain from stress to joy, what do I need (including what do I need from others)?

What do I need? To enjoy my life. To appreciate how much love I feel for my mother, my brother, my family. I need to call the hospital and find out how my brother is doing (it’s still a “no visitor” day as he is in intensive care and in discomfort).

Grind In: I feel full of love and gratitude right now, just as I am.
Repeat your affirmation 10 times, 1 to 3 times per day, to help break that old neural circuit and build a new one that leads to joy.

The Cycle Tool gives us the power to rewire our unconscious memory systems, and using it simply as in the example or in ways that target healing of our early trauma and most challenging situation, such as with addictions, rejections, and survival needs. It guides us through the natural processing of stress through the brain, sending that electrical and chemical energy through stress and back to joy."

Emotional Housecleaning

More from the Emotional Brain Training website and blog.

Emotional Housecleaning for Brain State 3
Express four negative feelings (anger, sadness, fear and guilt) and four positive ones (their opposites — grateful, happy, secure and proud), in that order.

I feel angry about.......
I feel sad about.......
I feel afraid of.......
I feel guilty about.......


I feel grateful for .......
I feel happy that .......
I feel secure about .......
I feel proud about .......

Expressing feelings decreases stress. You start with the negative feelings, because the brain has to clear away the negative ones to reduce stress to the point that we can feel the positive ones.

STIMULATE YOUR LIFE ENERGY & VITALITY

1) Thump K-27 Points
These are the end points of the kidney meridians, the pathways of energy that begin under the ball of each foot, travel up the inside of the leg, up the front of the body, and end at the collarbone. The K-27 points are just under the clavicle, or collarbone. To find them, place your fingertips on the U-shaped notch at the top of the breastbone, right about where a man knots his tie. Then move your fingers out to each side and down about an inch. Most people have small depressions there. Stimulating these points clears reversals, which is important before beginning any energy intervention. It gets the energy flowing in a forward direction and jump-starts the energy system so we feel more alert and energetic.

Crossing your hands while thumping on the K-27 points has the added benefit of emulating the body's energies crossing at the neck. Keep thumping the K-27 points while taking three deep breaths (in through the nose and out through the mouth).

2) Thump the Thymus Gland
According to Dr. John Diamond, author of Life Energy, the thymus gland controls the life energy of the body. The Greek word thymos actually means "life energy!" This gland lies just beneath the upper part of the breastbone in the middle of the chest, and it plays a vital role in the body's immune system. Think of all the energy Tarzan had after he thumped his chest!

Repeat the affirmation "My life energy is high. I am full of love," while thumping the thymus gland and taking three deep breaths.

3) Thump the Spleen Neurolymphatic Points
These points are part of the lymph system, which aids the immune system by removing toxins from the body.

The spleen neurolymphatic points are the depression between the 7th and 8th rib, just below the level of the breastbone (sternum). Find the points by moving your hand beneath your breasts, straight under the nipples, then move them down over the next rib. (These points are not under the ribcage, that's going down too far).

Thumping the Spleen Neurolymphatic Reflex Points removes toxins, fights infection, modulates blood chemistry and hormones, counters dizziness and stress, and helps metabolize food.

If these points are really sore, stimulate them by rubbing and the soreness should disappear in a few days. These points can be stimulates while taking three deep breaths, and even longer --- for two or three minutes at a time.

This is from Gwenn Bonnell's website Tap Into Heaven.

What is Emotional Brain Training?

The following information of edited from the Emotional Brain Training website.

Emotional Brain Training is a method of rewiring the brain to promote optimal processing of stress. The method is based on six tools, one to identify the level of stress or “brain state” on a 5-point scale. For each level there is a different pathway in the brain that most effectively eases stress and promotes positive emotions.

One way of thinking about the brain is in different layers of function. The most primitive is the lower part of the brain and its core. The limbic system is the next layer of the human brain and is the seat of emotions, relationships, spirituality and reward. The newest layer is the neocortical brain, the seat of consciousness, planning and decision-making.

Each of these brain areas has different strengths and it is how the whole brain works together — neural integration — that supports our survival. The neocortex enables us to think magnificent thoughts, the limbic system to love and feel loved, and the primitive brain responds to stressors with amazing speed, adjusting bodily processes to offer the best chances of survival.

When the brain perceives a survival level threat, it shifts the flow of energy toward the more primitive areas, creating the quickest response and fulfilling our first purpose which is to survive. When our minds think that our survival is in danger and decides to shut off our ability to be creative or sense others emotions and instead just focus on making very quick instinctive decisions.

When this happens, both the limbic system and the neocortex stop working and our ability to process emotions and our ability to rationally think stops because we are not using that part of our brains.

The initial stress activates memories formed during other periods of stress. Memories or wires are “state specific”, that is, we are more likely to arouse other memories that were stored in that state, even though they don’t “match” the current situation.

The secondary stress, the arousal of wires or connections that amplify the stress experienced, is not experienced as a memory. There is no “source attribution” or feeling of remembering something.

For example when you experience rejection, the wiring from being rejected by other loves, or being bullied as school, or being criticized by a teacher, or negative experiences with mom, dad and siblings is aroused. Again, we don’t sense that we are remembering, but nonetheless, the wires cause us to overreact. Even if we didn’t like that old lover that much anyway, but you’d never know it. We plummet to Brain State 5, and it feels as if our life is on the line.

In Brain State 5, it is perfectly normal and universal either to be hyper-aroused or blank out. Thinking is irrational. We are confused. Emotions are extreme or strangely absent. Intimacy is impossible to find. We tend to merge or distance. Our behaviors are extreme, and tend to be addictive.

When the brain is working as it should, the limbic brain flows input from all the senses, from the body, emotional memories, unconscious expectations and thoughts. In an ongoing flow of functionality it sizes up all the potential threats and rewards, prioritizes them, then settles on an emotion. That emotion is the message to the neocortical brain and directs us to meet our most important need. The strongest emotion points to the most important need.

The brain is in one of five states at all times, ranging from stress to joy. For each brain state there is a specific pathway that most effectively processes stress back to well-being. Learn how to switch your brain from stress to joy. Rewire the brain for lasting results and change the brain’s set point toward well-being.

Laurel Mellin, MA, RD is an Associate Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine and Pediatrics at UCSF. She is the founder of Emotional Brain Training (EBT), a method of treating obesity and stress symptoms that equips individuals with tools based on an integration of neuroscience and attachment theory to decrease the frequency and duration of the stress response and to favor high-level well-being.

Depression, stress, and Emotional Brain Training

Research is beginning to show that the a major cause of depression is not genetics, but stress. It was thought that a particular serotonin transporter gene was responsible for most cases of depression, as some previous studies have implied.

Emotional Brain Training (EBT) uses the Natural Flow of Feelings technique when at Brain State 4 to unravel depression, and identify what is triggering the cortisol cascade.

These feelings are: angry, sad, afraid and guilty.

Often in people who slip into depression, the “I feel angry . . ” skill needs strengthening.

A simple, “I feel angry that . . . ” and really feel it. come up with at least 20 "I feel angry..." and not allowing words to pass your lips until you feel FIRE in the belly.

Notice how depression cools, as you begin to feel better.

What is Intuitive Eating?

Here is a summary of the 10 principles of Intuitive Eating, from the book, Intuitive Eating, 2nd ed, 2003.

"Intuitive eating is an approach that teaches you how to create a healthy relationship with your food, mind, and body--where you ultimately become the expert of your own body. You learn how to distinguish between physical and emotional feelings, and gain a sense of body wisdom. It's also a process of making peace with food, so that you no longer have constant "food worry" thoughts. It's knowing that your health and your worth as a person does not change because you ate a so-called "bad" or "fattening" food.

On the surface this may sound simplistic, but it is rather complex. For example one of the basic principles of Intuitive Eating is the ability to respond to inner body cues, “Eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full”, which may sound like a no-brainer. But when you have history of chronic dieting or rigid “healthy” rules about eating it's quite difficult because a number of things need to be in place, including the ability to trust yourself! Intuitive Eating Principles

1. Reject the Diet Mentality

Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating.

2. Honor Your Hunger

Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for re-building trust with yourself and food.

3. Make Peace with Food

Call a truce, stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can't or shouldn't have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing When you finally “give-in” to your forbidden food, eating will be experienced with such intensity, it usually results in Last Supper overeating, and overwhelming guilt.

4. Challenge the Food Police

Scream a loud "NO" to thoughts in your head that declare you're "good" for eating under 1000 calories or "bad" because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The Food Police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created . The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loud speaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the Food Police away is a critical step in returning to Intuitive Eating.

5. Respect Your Fullness

Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show that you're comfortably full. Pause in the middle of a meal or food and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what is your current fullness level?

6. Discover the Satisfaction

Factor The Japanese have the wisdom to promote pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living In our fury to be thin and healthy, we often overlook one of the most basic gifts of existence--the pleasure and satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience. When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting and conducive, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content. By providing this experience for yourself, you will find that it takes much less food to decide you've had "enough".

7. Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food

Find ways to comfort , nurture, distract, and resolve your issues without using food. Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger are emotions we all experience throughout life. Each has its own trigger, and each has its own appeasement. Food won't fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you into a food hangover. But food won't solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger will only make you feel worse in the long run. You'll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion, as well as the discomfort of overeating.

8. Respect Your Body

Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect to realistically squeeze into a size six, it is equally as futile (and uncomfortable) to have the same expectation with body size. But mostly, respect your body, so you can feel better about who you are. It's hard to reject the diet mentality if you are unrealistic and overly critical about your body shape.

9. Exercise--Feel the Difference

Forget militant exercise. Just get active and feel the difference. Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie burning effect of exercise. If you focus on how you feel from working out, such as energized, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning walk or hitting the snooze alarm. If when you wake up, your only goal is to lose weight, it's usually not a motivating factor in that moment of time.

10 Honor Your Health--Gentle Nutrition

Make food choices that honor your health and tastebuds while making you feel well. Remember that you don't have to eat a perfect diet to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or gain weight from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating. It's what you eat consistently over time that matters, progress not perfection is what counts.

Intuitive Eating, by Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD and Elyse Resch, MS, RD, FADA.

Seven Keys to Success

BE AWARE

BE FREE

BE FOCUSED

BE HERE

BE HAPPY

BE CONFIDENT

BE POSITIVE

Weight loss is more than just physical.

Exerpts from Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via LEF:

"Losing weight and keeping it off might be as much about the psychological as the physical changes.

"Some people say losing weight is in the mind," said Judith Horvath, director of the psychotherapy training program at Texas Tech's Health Sciences Center.

"The HSC psychiatrist said giving yourself a mental workout can complement healthful eating and exercise regimens.

"I think they need to go hand-in-hand," she said.

"Food can be used as emotional nourishment and to calm anxieties," she said.

"If you look at the laundry list of failed diets that can't have a positive impact on someone's psyche."

"We are empowering people to take back their lives."

"It's about exchanging the reward of food for the reward of achieving their goals."

Please CLICK HERE to find more articles about weight loss and supplements at the Life Extension Foundation web site.

I love FRACTALS

Polar Dragons by Wynn Schaible

FRACTALS are beautiful, complex mathematical functions with hidden order

created from quantum physics chaos theory.

These intricate geometric patterns

are the result of positive feedback loops within the equation.

The basic shape repeats itself on every level to infinity.

Fractal equations are extremely sensitive

and any tiny change will produce greatly different results.

The closer you look the more detail you see.

Many Hypnotherapists use EFT

Karen Nauman C.Ht., P.Nlp - EFT Practitioner - Certified Hypnotherapist - Emotional Freedom and Law of Attraction Coach

Karen explains each EFT tapping point, what it releases, what it allows and which Meridian each point is connected to.


Hand Point
♦ ♦ KC (1) Karate Chop Point - The Karate Chop point is mainly used for; the EFT setup statement, psychological reversals and simple tapping techniques (STT). It is an alternative for the sore spot EFT point.

The karate chop point is located on the soft fleshy part of the non-dominant hand, between the base of the pinky finger and the wrist. We would use this is the part of the hand break a board... 'karate chop' style.

Releases: psychological reversal (feeling stuck or frozen), inability to let go, resistance to change, sorrow, feeling vulnerable, worry, obsession, compulsive behavior.

Allows: Ability to move forward, letting go of the old, healing from grief, finding happiness in and connecting to the present moment. (Small Intestine Meridian)

Head, Face and Body Tapping Points
♦ ♦ TH (2) Top of Head Point - This point (set of points) is located at the top of the head and was added several years ago at an EFT conference. Since then, it has been widely accepted by Gary Craig and many of the others in the EFT community.

This is an important energy center since many meridians meet at the top of the head. It is also in the area of the 7th. or Crown Chakra, which is a spiritual energy center. Some say that stimulating this area wakes up the entire energy system and encourages the body-mind to pay attention to what we are about to address. This point is highly sensitive and its important to be very gentle when tapping!

Releases: Inner critic, 'gerbil wheel' thinking, lack of focus.

Allows: Spiritual connection, insight, intuition, focus, wisdom, spiritual discernment, clarity. ('Hundred Meeting Points' Meridian)

♦ ♦ EB (3) Eyebrow Point - This point is located on the dominant side at the beginning of the eyebrow, just up and over from the bridge of the nose.

Releases: Trauma, hurt, sadness, restlessness, frustration, impatience, restlessness and dread.

Allows: Peace and emotional healing. (Bladder Meridian)

♦ ♦ SE (4) Side of Eye Point - Located on the dominant side at the end of the eyebrow, this point falls on the boney protrusion at the leading edge of the temple.

Releases: Rage, anger, resentment, fear of change and muddled thinking.

Allows: Clarity and compassion. (Gall Bladder Meridian)

♦ ♦ UE (5) Under Eye Point - Located on the bone underneath the eye, directly under the pupil.

Releases: Fear, anxiety, emptiness, worry, nervousness and disappointment.

Allows: Contentment, calmness, and feeling safe. "All is well'. (Stomach Meridian)

♦ ♦ UN (6) Under Nose Point - Located under the nose, in the little crevice above the upper lip.

Releases: Embarrassment, powerlessness, shame, guilt, grief, fear of ridicule, fear of failure and psychological reversals.

Allows: Self-acceptance, self-empowerment, and compassion for self and others. (Governing Meridian)

♦ ♦ CH (7) Chin Point - Located just under the bottom lip, in the depression between the lip and the chin.

Releases: Confusion, uncertainty, shame, embarrassment and second guessing decisions.

Allows: Clarity, certainty, confidence, and self-acceptance. (Central Meridian)

♦ ♦ CB (8) Collar Bone Point - Just below the knob of the collarbone and next to the depression below the Adam 's apple

Releases: Psychological reversal, feeling stuck, indecision, worry, and general stress.

Allows: Ease in moving forward, confidence, and clarity. (Kidney Meridian - Adrenal Gland Function)

♦ ♦ UA (9) Under Arm Point - About six inches directly below the arm pit (on the bra strap for the women).

Releases: Guilt, worry, obsessing, hopelessness, insecurity, and poor self esteem.

Allows: Clarity, confidence, relaxation, and compassion for self and others. (Spleen Meridian)


NOTE: For full instructions on how to do EFT,
go to: LEARN EFT.

Energy Overcharge

HYPER? OVER-EXCITED? BATTERIES OVER-CHARGED?
"It's wonderful to feel high on life, but if you're so super-charged that you feel disorganized, scattered or out of control, you'll probably function better if you "get it together!"

Try "Cook's Hook-up" from Donna Eden's Energy Medicine and taught in Barbara Mallory's book, Feeling Free! (to see it illustrated CLICK HERE) It feels great! For frequent hyper-arousal, do it many times a day!

OVER-ENERGY CORRECTION
Cook's Hook-up with Energy Imagery

1. Sit supported comfortably in a chair, or you may do this exercise effectively lying on your back with knees comfortably up to relax your back.

2. Cross your left ankle over right. You might think of this as an Earth Lock.

3. Cross your right hand over left at the wrist. Reach down toward the earth (or toward your feet if lying down). Imagine reaching way, way down to the center of the earth. Clasp the sacred energy radiating from the earth's glowing core. Now lock in your connection to the radiant Heart of Mother Earth.

4. Slowly draw your clasped hands up, drawing radiant earth energy up to your body. As your elbows start to bend, tuck your clasped hands under and up.

5. Draw Mother Earth's radiant energy slowly up through the center core of your body to your mid-upper chest. This thymus area is known as the High Heart or Soul Seat. (If you are familiar with the chakra system of energy centers, sense yourself drawing this glowing cord of sacred earth energy up through root and sacral chakras, through solar and heart chakras, all the way to the High Heart.)

6. Rest your clasped hands quietly over the High Heart, creating a Heart Lock.

7. Then mentally draw the glowing energy line straight upward from High Heart through your throat, brow and crown-of-head energy centers, and even farther, far beyond your crown, all the way to your Divine Source, wherever that is for you. There you might visualize a Sky or Heaven Lock.

8. Notice now, the energy connection you have created - a secure and radiant cord from the glowing Heart of Mother Earth up through your own radiant High Heart and all the way to the Universal Source or Heart of Heaven.

9. For your breathing pattern, inhale slowly through your nose, tongue to the roof of your mouth, collecting energy (qi or ch'i or prana), and draw that energy down through your glowing center core, all the way down to Mother Earth.

10. Exhale through your mouth, tongue down, surrendering all the ch'i or prana your energy system no longer needs, releasing it to the Earth for recycling.

11. Now, gently, quietly hold this position, and continue breathing slowly and deeply, for 30 seconds to 2 minutes, or until you feel centered, calm and clear.

The Over-Energy Correction (Cook's Hook-up) can serve as an effective and peaceful preparation for meditation. Just relax your hands and slip easily into your usual meditation procedure, benefiting from your present calm and clarity.

Hypnotherapy can help support the treatment of eating disorders.

Hypnotherapy can work as an effective way to support the treatment of eating disorders because it helps people feel better about who they are, helping them stop using food as way to cope with emotional problems, as they start to treat their body in better ways.

The results of hypnotherapy depend on the person’s emotional state, ability to be hypnotized, personality, and willingness to overcome the eating disorder. Many personal, family, and emotional factors affect the potential hypnotherapy has as a successful treatment for eating disorders. Ultimately, establishing a healthy relationship with food is the goal.

Hypnosis is not meant as a substitute for standard medical, psychological or psychiatric treatment and consulting hypnotists are required to advise you to seek your doctor's approval for any medically or psychologically diagnosed conditions or disorders. Hypnosis techniques are a complementary alternative for self-healing, self-help, and behavior modification.

direct and indirect suggestions

Direct suggestions are supposed to appeal directly to the conscious mind. The direct approach lets the client feel directly and consciously involved in the process.

The direct approach can help the client understand what's happening so in future they can help themselves. The difference seems to be between solving a problem and learning how to solve problems.

With the direct approach, the client shares with the hypnotherapist the responsibility for any results. The direct approach gives the the receiver of the communication a greater degree of control over the outcome.

Indirect suggestion has the power to appeal to the unconscious mind. It leads to greater use of the unconscious mind's experiences and learning in one's own behalf; it largely avoids the issue of resistance, defensiveness, and intellectualizing.

The client can participate more creatively and actively in the process. It allows for the client to project meaning into the communication and allows him to find his own way to apply it. Allowing us to use the complex and extraordinary powers and richness of the unconscious mind.

The unconscious contains the key to your world view and self-image. It has greater power to facilitate change or the direction of the outcome you want. The direct approach may increase the likelihood of arousing resistance, which by implication the indirect approach is less likely to do.

There is less opportunity for the hypnotherapist to impose personal values and beliefs, demonstrating greater respect for the individual's integrity.

Clients are allowed to give their own unique interpretation to the suggestions that are given during a session, more easily bypassing any resistance. Creating more and more flexibility for the client, so symptoms may be viewed as a metaphor for the person's experience.

With indirect communication greater responsibility rests with the hypnotherapist to obtain successful outcomes.

A good hypnotherapist will always be aware when they are engaging in direct or indirect communication. They will be flexible, varying their style as they adapt to the needs of the client and won't be direct or indirect all the time. If a client is going to follow the hypnotherapist's suggestions, then the indirect mode is unnecessary. The more a client is unwilling to listen, the greater the need for indirect suggestion.

From Advances in Consciousness.

Don't worry if you don’t feel hypnotized.

Don't worry if you don’t feel hypnotized. Remember that hypnosis is a natural state of being. It doesn’t necessarily feel any different than other relaxed states you have experienced. If you want to bring about change, then keep practicing and the benefits of hypnosis will come.

What we say to ourselves determines when we succeed and when we fail, because it also determines how we think, what we feel, and what we picture in our mind. Those pictures affect our behavior and can either lead us to what we want, or what we don’t want.

In hypnosis we use positive language to the same effect. It’s like we are programming our mind and behavior with our thoughts. I’d much rather program myself to be successful, so I think of what I want to achieve. And I really feel what it will feel like when I acheive the results I want.

It’s important to remember that we do have a choice. We have a choice about what happens in our life. We have a choice about the words we use inside and outside as well. We can choose how we want to feel. We have a choice to be positive.

Changes begin to take place in our life.

Emotions, health and stress.

Don’t ever feel guilty about scheduling time in for relaxation — it’s fundamental to balance, whether that’s in your stress hormones or your life as a whole!

Taking steps today to reduce stress in your life has implications even greater than finding happiness and peace — it means you are preventing disease and preserving your health and longevity.

With the incidence of stress-related illness and lost years of lives increasing every decade, we absolutely have to take stress seriously. Stress may be a reality in our lives, but we don’t have to let it overpower us or prevent us from being our true selves.

Untying the knots at the root of chronic stress offers us long-lasting physical and psychological benefits.

In 1998, groundbreaking research known as the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study, verified that our childhood experiences remain inside the body and can affect our lifelong health.

The acronym NUTS stands for Novelty, Unpredictability, Threat to the ego, and Sense of loss of control.

Each of these situations lead to physical stress in the body, and the more of them you encounter, the more hyperactivated your body’s stress response becomes. But you can learn (or be taught) to recognize when you’re responding to one or any combination of these “ingredients,” redirect yourself, and stop yourself from “going NUTS.” This acronym works for both short-term stress and long-term stress, real threats or perceived ones.

This info is from the Women to Women webite article,
Stress and your health — it’s not just about being happier.

Past-Life Decision Therapy by Susan Barber

This is excerpted from:
Past-Life Decision Therapy by Susan Barber

"Have we lived before?

When people in hypnosis seem to remember past lives, are they deluding themselves?

And here's another question nobody is asking:
Does it really matter?

Here are some stories to help understand how reincarnational memory can help us in this life — whether it's real or not! ...

Reincarnational Memory: Is It ''Real''?

... people who come to a hypnotherapist for past-life regression do not necessarily believe in reincarnation.

If you are on the borderline with this concept, or if you have friends who perhaps scoff at your interest in past lives, there is another way of looking at the subject that makes perfect sense, even to the most devout believer in a mechanical universe.

As a hypnotist for nearly 30 years, and a member of many professional organizations during this time, I have never personally run across or even heard of a client — mine or anyone else's — who could not come up with an appropriate ''costume drama'' when asked to go to the past-life source of some current situation.

The dramas that arise ... are totally, awesomely, amazingly apt. They are like icons on our desktop that, when clicked, burst into a full audio-video presentation of a huge and complex program.And when people access these programs and ''debug'' what went wrong — change the coding, in other words — they invariably experience almost miraculous transformations in their lives.

What If I'm Just Imagining This?

This question comes up for many people in doing past-life regressions:
Is this real?
Did I really live ''before''?
Did this experience I just had in hypnosis really happen?

My answer is always the same:
Who cares?
What if it's not real (whatever ''real'' means)?

What if, purposely or not, everybody simply makes up these incredibly detailed past-life stories, these thrilling costume dramas.

What matters is that these stories always explain, with absolute perfection, the psychological underpinnings of current emotional problems and life patterns — and enable us to release them.

Consider this:
How do we know that our past memories of this life are real?
What if something totally awful happened to us when we were four years old, and all the people involved in it are dead except ourselves. Did it ''really'' happen? We can't prove that it did. Perhaps we just imagined it.

And consider this: What is ''imagination,'' anyway? It's a word we use a lot, but what does it really mean? No one has ever answered this question to anyone else's satisfaction.

I think it's enough to know that everybody has these costume dramas in their heads, and that by examining and changing the programming contained within them, we can ''debug'' what's not working in our lives. That much is most definitely ''real.''[1]

In a computer program, when the coding arrives at a ''choice point'' in processing, various criteria are used to make a ''decision'' as to which subroutine the program will now use to continue processing.

The two stories that follow illustrate how decisions in past-life circumstances have created choice points in present programming — and how we can change them. They illustrate that reincarnation is a living, working idea, not just a theory that makes no difference in our lives.

Reprogramming Past-Life Decisions: Two Cases

Case No. 1: The Man Who Hated Women

When I was studying hypnotherapy in school, our teacher, John Kappas, did not believe that past-life regression had any therapeutic value. It was something we did for fun, because it was fascinating. But we were not to take it seriously.

Meanwhile, Dr. Kappas was working with a client who had come into therapy in order to release an illogical hatred of women. Weeks and weeks of positive post-hypnotic suggestions were having no effect. The man still felt an unreasoned hatred for women. Then Dr. Kappas began regressing him, first year by year, then month by month, trying to find some trauma, some incident that could explain the man's attitude. Nothing.

Not knowing what else to do, Dr. Kappas began regressing his client ''beyond birth.'' They went back one life at a time. And in each one, the man hated women! Finally, Dr. Kappas simply told the man, ''Go to a period of time immediately preceeding the beginning of your hatred of women.'' And without further ado, the man went directly to a lifetime as a slave during the Roman Empire. ... So this slave gave himself a ''survival suggestion''[2] to fill himself with overwhelming antipathy toward all women. And because it was related to his own survival, and accompanied by such strong emotions, this suggestion had followed him through all his lifetimes ever since.

Dr. Kappas then asked the man, in hypnosis,
''Do you still need this suggestion?'' No.
''Would you like to have a new suggestion now?'' Yes.

So together they searched for a new way of looking at love and hatred and men and women, a way of looking that the man in his current lifetime could accept, opening him up to harmony, love, and compassion for the opposite sex.

When they were both satisfied, Dr. Kappas gave the suggestion that from now on this new way of looking would replace the man's previous decision to hate women.

Further, Dr. Kappas suggested to him in hypnosis that all memory of that past life and its horrors would disappear. Nothing that happened in that lifetime would ever affect this man again, he suggested, except for whatever positive learnings had been gained.

And that was that. After going through the hypnotic ''awakening'' ritual, the man had no memory of the session. And he no longer had negative feelings toward women.
(His wife was ecstatic.)

Case No. 2: The Witch Who Wasn't
My own introduction to reincarnational therapy began early one Monday morning in 1978, when my student Claudia (not her real name) made an emergency appointment to visit my office. ...

... we used hypnosis, and I asked Claudia to ''Go to the point immediately preceeding this feeling of being closed in and not belonging here.'' I was expecting to find a childhood trauma. I'd never before done reincarnational regression in a therapeutic setting, and hadn't intended to do so this time.

But Claudia went straight to a scenario in Salem during the time of the witchcraft trials. ...
Unmaking that decision was pretty easy, and having done so, Claudia's fear and dissociation came to an immediate end. ... The most remarkable thing about this story is that, after the past-life decision was rescinded and Claudia stopped dissociating, she never had another episode.

How Decisions Create Problems

In order to live in the spirit of Oneness, we need to rise above polarity, ''me versus thee,'' ''us versus them,'' ''man versus the elements.'' But in order to have a world, polarity is required!

Polarity is simply a limitation that is applied, at first by choice, to that which is in its essential nature limitless. So how, then, can we resolve this seeming paradox.We do this by being ''in'' but not ''of'' the polarized situation. And we actually do this every day, in some way or another.

For example, when reading a book, we can immerse ourselves in the characters and feel what they feel, live what they live, experience the beauty or terror or whatever the characters are going through. But we can also set the book down and go on with our lives. We can get ''into'' the book without being ''of'' it. We can thoroughly enjoy Wuthering Heights without seeing Heathcliff in every man we meet.

Another instance in which we experience harmless polarity in daily life is in the games we play. A golf course, for example, without the ''rules of golf,'' is just acres and acres of beautiful real estate. There is no universal rule that we must bring our golf clubs along when all we want to do is walk the course's verdant hills and fairways. But when we want the rules to be there, we can accept them. So in one reality — one set of polarities — we can pick up that little white ball and drop it into the hole if that's where we want it to be. And in another reality — totally by choice — we have to hit it with a golf club. If we touch it, we will be accused of cheating and no one will play with us.

In both cases — the book and the game — there are two realities side by side. The limitations, or polarities, of one do not necessarily apply to the other. And we can be ''in but not of'' either one of them, if we see that this choice exists.Sometimes actors get caught up in their roles. They accept the polarities defined by the drama, and no longer relate to the wider context of their own lives. But no matter how caught up an actor may be in playing Hamlet, if the theater starts to burn down in the middle of a performance he has no trouble stepping ''out of character.''

Yet here in physical reality, most of us have forgotten the larger context. We are so caught up in our roles that we step out of them only by dying. If the theater starts burning, we burn right along with it, playing Hamlet to the bitter end.

And every decision that we make from this vantage point becomes a new rule in the game of our life, creating unnecessary and usually inappropriate limitations. For example, going back to the golf analogy: Many golfers play golf as though sand traps exert a magnetic attraction over golfballs. Somewhere along the way, when they didn't know how to hit the ball very well yet, they ''decided'' that when there's a sandtrap, their ball will usually go into it. And so it usually does! (Arnold Palmer apparently never made that decision.)

So decisions become rules, they become how reality operates. And when survival is in question, and there is strong negative emotion present, these rules create a new reality. They operate as ''the nature of things.'' To change the reality, we must change the ''decision.''

Falling Out of Love
From my experience, strong, self-destructive attraction to a romantic relationship is the most difficult feeling to overcome. We try to extricate ourselves from these negative situations, but when we try to put new behavior into effect, even if we succeed, it is with gritted teeth and inward grieving. And inevitably, this behavior modification fails us, as we find ourselves in yet another, probably more destructive, relationship of the same kind. Or else, in no relationship at all. Because we still have not dealt with the lessons of the first one.

Trying to change behavior without changing the ''decision'' that motivates that behavior simply doesn't work.

David (not his real name) came to me seeking help with a relationship that was destroying not only his personal life but his business. ... Now, he quite reasonably thought that he was going crazy.I recognized the symptoms of a past-life decision and decided to ''go for the cause'' right away.

But since this was going to involve doing reincarnational regression, I first had David do some practice runs with remembering past lives. He came up with various images, but no cohesive ''drama'' emerged. I told him that was fine, we were just practicing, and that between appointments his mind would prepare him for the next step and it would be easy.

David didn't believe in reincarnation, so I also told him what I have said earlier in this article: ''It doesn't matter. Belief is not required.''

In the next session, David gradually began to see himself as a rich man named Petrus who lived on a huge estate on the seacoast of France during the early Middle Ages. .... In this lifetime, David had the strength to accept this woman who was wrecking his business and his life. Subconsciously, he was still seeing DJ as Serafina, a wronged woman, totally dependent upon him, a woman who deserved his love and protection. ''If I could, I would take care of her.'' Well, now he could. And he did.

In hypnosis, David allowed that his decision to take care of Serafina ''if I could'' had nothing to do with DJ and his current situation. He felt that he was free to act in a way that would support his other employees and his own life. ... David chose that now. Afterward, he calmly, kindly, but firmly gave DJ two weeks' notice, helped her find a place of her own, and went on with his life.

He loved, but he was no longer ''in love.'' He was free.

It's Not About Emotional Release

People often feel that past-life memory is all about ''accessing'' the traumatic feelings that underlie some current behavior pattern. They think they have to find the trauma and ''go through it'' in order to get results.

I and many of my colleagues have hundreds of case histories to prove that this just isn't true.

In fact, it doesn't work. If going through something once is traumatic, going through it twice or ten times simply locks us even further into the drama.

Emotional release work is therapeutic whenever we have been forced to repress emotion for some reason (e.g. an adult who was told as a child, ''If you don't stop crying, you little brat, I'm going to make you wish you were never born''). If such a repressed person can be coaxed into raging, crying, and screaming in front of a group of people who encourage this release, that person then finds out that the world does not end because we express how we feel. This is healing. It enables people to become free to allow their own emotions.

But emotional release only works at first. After one or two releases, the group are now training each other to bring up negative feelings and act them out. People who keep on doing emotional release work are actually being rewarded for feeling bad and for expressing it. They now have a new program: Don't get ulcers, give them! Perhaps that's an improvement, but only a slight one, ...

It's not really about all the emotionalism, all the drama, all the big and impressive stories we uncover as we ''go for cause.''

It's about the decisions we made at that time, decisions which became cemented in place by pain and fear, decisions which we need to ''unmake'' in order to move into the Light and move on.

The only ''decision'' I have ever found that really works in the long, long haul is: ''I am a Conscious Co-Creator with God.''And we don't need pain and fear to remake our decisions. All we need are a loving space, an understanding heart, and a willingness to change.

Then Why Remember Past Lives?

Rather than providing emotional release, these ''reincarnational dramas'' enable us to see our issues in full relief.

They help us understand why we are feeling what we are feeling.

They show us, in exaggerated form, the patterns we are replaying over and over like a song.

But when we access a past-life scenario, it's a no-brainer for us to realize that we are no longer that person — to realize that the dire consequences our subconscious mind is trying to warn us about are not actually part of the here and now.

I particularly remember one lady of medium height who weighed over 220 pounds. When we regressed her, she went to an experience of drowning in a past life. She had been a very skinny five-year-old who could not swim, she remembered, but had nevertheless gone out in a rowboat without adult supervision. The boat tipped over, and you know the rest.

How could drowning relate to a weight problem? Well, as the little boy was sinking for the last time, he remembered that his grandmother had always told him, ''Eat, eat, that's why you can't swim, you need some fat on your bones so you can float.''

This story points up an interesting aspect of the kinds of self-serving decisions we make, in past lives and in this one. We make many of our ''decisions'' in an attempt to exonerate ourselves for what is happening, rather than taking responsibility.

A sensible ''decision'' in this little boy's circumstance would have been something like: ''If I had it to do over again, I would not go out in a boat alone unless I knew how to swim.'' Instead, my client's past-life child decided, ''If I had it to do over again, I would eat, eat, like my grandmother always told me, so I'd have some fat on my bones and I could float.''

He/she now ''had it to do over again,'' and boy, could she float!

Can I Do This At Home?

Some of the people, some of the time, can access past decisions and remake them in the light of present knowledge and understanding. But even those few people who may have a few successes are probably going to fail when it comes to their larger issues.

There are two reasons for this.The first reason that ''decision therapy'' is tough to do alone is that we need to get deeply into right-hemisphere functioning. And when we do that, most of us just drift into sleep or associative thinking. With no guide there to keep us on track, our minds tend to wander away.

A good therapist is like someone who is driving the car for us and knows the way. As passengers, we are free to focus on the scenery.The second reason for obtaining help is that our biggest decisions are what we are looking with. That makes it literally impossible to look at them. A good therapist can see the assumptions that we have hidden from ourselves, and bring them into the Light.

But whether we have a therapist or are attempting to remake past-life decisions on our own, none of it works if we get all caught up in the dramas. ''I am like this because I was buried alive in Ancient Egypt'' is probably more interesting than, ''I am like this because I didn't have a normal home.''

But we all have to experience everything in this reality. And normalcy in the home is no guarantee of a ''normal'' life. Whether we blame other people, the government, past lives, or Karma itself, we are not taking responsibility.

We begin the process of creating our own reality when we realize: ''It's not what happened to me that matters. It's what I thought it meant.'' By changing the meaning, we can change our lives.

Footnotes:
We can ignore the folks who claim that past lives can't be valid because everybody remembers being Jesus Christ or Napoleon. That's just not true. People almost never remember being anyone we've ever heard of. Paranoid schizophrenics often think that they are famous and powerful historical characters, but reincarnational memory usually involves lifetimes as slaves and peasants and householders and soldiers — just folks, living in another time and faced with the same poverty and cruelty and repression and rejection that has characterized life on Earth since the beginning of recorded history.

I use the word ''suggestion'' here instead of ''decision,'' because that was how Dr. Kappas looked at these things. I later became deeply influenced by the work of Thomas Szasz, M.D., and his book The Myth of Mental Illness (Rev. ed. September 1984, HarperCollins, paper; ISBN: 0060911514). Szasz found in his research that all psychotic behavior was preceded by a moment of decision. However brief and subconscious, the decision was there. But truly, a life-changing decision is very much like a hypnotic suggestion — except that many types of hypnotic suggestion will eventually wear off. The types that reflect decisions never wear off. We have to consciously ''unmake'' them."

This is excerpted from:
Past-Life Decision Therapy by Susan Barber

The Magic of Suggestibility

This is excerpted from an article by Susan Barber, CHT:

"In all scientific laboratory tests done during the past 30 years, the conclusion has been that it is suggestibility, not trance, that creates the ''hypnotic'' effect. And suggestibility has to do with how the inner mind responds to words.

... we have such amazing powers, that we simply cannot believe we can do the things we can do. We need to think that some outside power is doing it. But there's no outside power. It's just ourselves, using our minds in a more powerful way than we have known before.

How to Make Suggestibility Work for You

By languaging something, and accepting what we have said or heard, we create that thing in physical reality. Words plus acceptance make it real. This, not trance, is the basis of the hypnotic effect. And the key word here is ''acceptance.''

Through an understanding of how your own, individual mind accepts and responds to words, you can customize healing processes to get the best results ... by understanding the suggestibility of the individual who sits before us, hypnotherapists use them in a different way than other therapists. We change the processes in subtle ways to suit our clients and ourselves...

Understanding Differential Suggestibility

The effectiveness of any suggestion is wholly personal. Some suggestion formats work very well with some people and not at all with others. Intuitively, we are already aware of this.

For example, if you say to some people, ''Close the door,'' they will just get up and close it and think nothing about it. They may not even remember doing it.

Say that to a person who rejects literal suggestions, however, and she will very likely ask you ''Why?'', tell you to do it yourself, or pretend not to hear you.

If, however, you say something like, ''Boy, there's a real draft coming in that door,'' she is the one who will most likely get up and close the door, while the first, literal person agrees with you and does nothing!

We have all had these kinds of experiences with people.

This difference in how we need to communicate with and respond to each other translates directly to the field of energetic healing. Whatever kinds of processes we use, it is often what we say to our clients that affects them, and not what we do.

People who reject literal suggestions will reject many self-help processes. People who cannot visualize will reject many more. So in order to make sure a process will work for ourselves or our clients, we need to change the ''patter'' until it fits the unique mind that is listening. We especially need to remove any suggestions that this individual mind cannot accept, because the mind tends to throw out the baby along with the bath -- in rejecting one suggestion, it will reject the whole process.

Example: What if you cannot visualize, and a process tells you to, ''See yourself walking through a beautiful forest''? Right away, your mind throws up a block, because you can't do this. Everything that comes after this command to ''see'' something is rejected.

What About Group Processes?

The average therapist speaks to people using his own ''reference system'' -- that is, he puts out what he, himself, understands.

So a visual therapist may say, ''See yourself walking through a beautiful forest and picture the tall trees with sunlight filtering through. Notice a stream bubbling over rocks.''

And a kinesthetic speaker might say, ''Imagine that you are walking through a forest. Feel the leaves crunching under your feet. Feel the warmth of filtered sunlight. Hear the babbling sounds of a nearby stream.''

In both cases, the idea is to locate ourselves in a forest of the mind. We can tell whether we are more visual or more kinesthetic by whether the first or the second set of words works best in making the forest ''real.''

But as group speakers, how can we tailor our delivery to meet all of these criteria at once? By being aware of the audience, and finding a way of languaging our process so that it reaches each one of them.

What works best is to say, for example, ''See or feel or imagine yourself walking through a forest. There's a stream off to your left. Picture it, or become aware of the sound as it bubbles over the rocks.'' If we always give listeners the option to ''visualize, feel, or imagine,'' then they will automatically select the mode that works.

If you are in this audience, or working with a therapist, and you are being told to visualize something you can't see, or feel something you can't feel, simply ignore the ''reference system'' and do what you do best.

If the speaker says, ''Okay, now, see a rose right in front of you,'' and you don't visualize, you can just say to yourself, ''What would it be like if there were a rose right in front of me?'' And you'll feel it. You'll remember how roses smell. And you'll be able to answer questions about the rose, even though you can't ''see'' it. You'll know what color it is, for example. And doing this, you'll be cooperating with your therapist to achieve optimum results.

Another variable that group processes must take into account in order to be effective is whether audience members respond best to literal or indirect suggestions. If we are working one-on-one we can figure this out for ourselves or our client. In a group, this can be tricky, but there's an equally tricky solution: Give all of your literal suggestions before you do the process, and don't give any literal suggestions during it.

So, for example, before the eyes-closed portion, you might say,
''This detraumatizing process will totally change your life. After doing this process, you will no longer be afraid of whatever the item is that you've chosen to focus on. The fear will be gone forever. And it doesn't matter how well you do the process. You won't be able to stop it from working. Even if you try not to have it work, it will still work.''

People with indirect suggestibility will not know how to reject these suggestions because they don't know that you are giving them suggestions. They function on inferences, and so they will ''infer'' that the process does not start until they close their eyes. As long as you don't say anything literal after that point, they will be empowered to achieve the desired results.

The Importance of Studying Hypnotic Techniques

In actuality, the only difference between a hypnotherapist and any other healing professional is that the hypnotherapist knows, beyond any doubt, that every word counts.

As individuals, we can start to become aware of how we learn, and adapt all self-help processes to suit our own unique suggestibility.

As healers, from the time we speak to clients on the phone until they walk out the door, we can be aware that we are putting out subtle energy in our words. Whether that energy helps our client or not depends, not only upon our healing abilities, but perhaps even more upon the skill with which we talk to them.

In a sense, we and our clients are already ''in hypnosis.'' We have made decisions about the nature of reality. Decisions about what we can and cannot do.... Decisions about what to expect from loved ones and society in general. And these decisions have become our ''hypnotic'' reality.

But these decisions exist in words, and are powered by the emotions that were present when we made them. By accessing these emotions and changing the words, we can change our entire experience of life.

By understanding suggestibility, we can help ourselves to awaken into the light of our own powerful consciousness, make better choices and decisions, and release the creative abilities..."

Hypnosis, Wellness and the Law Of Attraction Mind

You have a healthy mindset when you engage in thoughts, attitudes, habits, choices, and behaviors that enhance your overall well-being. Attitude is everything! Being optimistic, hopeful and having a positive attitude is scientifically proven to influence our body, life and general well-being.

Because the Universal Law of Attraction responds to the vibration of your thoughts, it is more beneficial to focus on health and wellness than it is to think only of healing the problem.

Turn your thoughts towards what you want and away from the lack of it. Give as much thought as possible to the wonderful way that you want to feel. Imagine yourself well and notice the changes in your thoughts. Never underestimate this power.

If you will simply take the time to give your attention to everything that is working perfectly inside of you, Law of Attraction will respond with more positive thoughts and circumstances.

A new perspective helps you to see ways to appreciate your life. Through your appreciation you allow the Law of Attraction to manifest the perfect health that you desire.

A major issue in terms of application of the Law Of Attraction is the subject of "letting go" which means not being attached to the outcome of our desires.

Clients that "get it" make quantum leaps in their growth, successes and achievements. It is where the key to freedom lies, mentally. physically, financially, and spiritually.

If you do not get the results you want, it could be because of self limiting subconscious thoughts and beliefs in your subconscious mind. These negative beliefs are programed into our subconscious mind and most of the time we do not even know that they are there sabotaging us. These thoughts then become our beliefs, habits and automatic behavior.

To change your end results, you need to overwrite the negative programing and instill new positive programing into your subconscious mind. If you are getting more of the same or negative results in your life such as not being able to attract more wealth, good health or the body shape you desire, then you have probably been unconsciously running old negative programs and reinforcing them with daily negative thought patterns.

Hypnosis can help you get rid of negative programing and your self limiting negative thoughts in your subconscious mind and re-program new positive thoughts into it.

What is Energy Psychology?

I have been a fan of Donna Eden's work for many years and had the great pleasure of seeing her in person recently at East West Bookstore.

Here is some information from her website:
www.innersource.net/energy_medicine/principles_em.htm

Donna Eden is among the world's most sought, most joyous, and most authoritative spokespersons for energy medicine.

Energy medicine utilizes techniques from healing traditions such as acupuncture, yoga, kinesiology, and qi gong. Flow, balance, and harmony can be non-invasively restored and maintained within an energy system by tapping, massaging, pinching, twisting, or connecting specific energy points (acupoints) on the skin; by tracing or swirling the hand over the skin along specific energy pathways; through exercises or postures designed for specific energetic effects; by focused use of the mind to move specific energies; and/or by surrounding an area with healing energies (one person’s energies impacts another’s).


"Energy psychology addresses the relationship of energy systems to emotion, cognition, behavior and health. These systems include electrical activity of the nervous system and heart, meridians, biophotons, biofields, etc.

Although psychological functioning involves thought, emotions, chemistry, neurology, genetics and environmental aspects, at an essential level bioenergy is also involved. Just as an audiotape or computer hard drive contain information in electromagnetic fields, similarly our brain and body operate electromagnetically. Energy psychology is applicable to a wide range of areas including psychotherapy, counseling, education, vocational guidance, physical health, pain management, sports and peak performance."
Fred P. Gallo, PhD


THE NINE PRIMARY ENERGY SYSTEMS

People who "see energy" can describe with some precision the anatomy of the energy body, and their descriptions tend to corroborate one another. These descriptions are now backed by electromagnetic measurements, and they also correlate with descriptions of subtle energies found throughout the world, understood in each culture’s own terms and concepts.

The meridians, chakras, and aura are three terms that have entered our language, but other energy systems have been identified as well. One of the individuals known for being able to "see" or clairvoyantly read the body’s energies, Donna Eden, describes nine energy systems that impact body and mind.

The nine systems include:
1) Meridians 2) Chakras 3) Aura 4) Electrics 5) Celtic weave6) The Five Rhythms 7) Triple Warmer 8) Radiant Circuits 9) Basic Grid

1) The Meridians:
In the way an artery transports blood, a meridian transports energy. As the body's energy bloodstream, the meridian system carries the life force, adjusts metabolism, removes blockages, and even determines the speed and form of cellular change. The flow of the meridian energy pathways is as critical as the flow of blood. No energy, no life. Meridians affect every organ and every physiological system, including the immune, nervous, endocrine, circulatory, respiratory, digestive, skeletal, muscular, and lymphatic systems.

Each system is fed by at least one meridian. If a meridian's energy is obstructed or unregulated, the system it feeds is jeopardized. The meridians include fourteen tangible channels that carry energy into, through, and out of your body. Your meridian pathways also connect hundreds of tiny, electromagnetically distinct points along the surface of the skin. These are known as acupuncture points. They have less electrical resistance than other areas of the skin, and they can be stimulated with needles or physical pressure to release or redistribute energy along the meridian pathway.

2) The Chakras:
The word chakra translates from the Sanskrit as disk, vortex, or wheel. The chakras are concentrated centers of energy. Each major chakra in the human body is a center of swirling energy positioned at one of seven points, from the base of your spine to the top of your head. Whereas the meridians deliver their energy to the organs, the chakras bathe the organs in their energies. Each chakra supplies energy to specific organs, corresponds to a distinct aspect of your personality, and resonates (respectively, from the bottom to the top chakra) with one of seven universal principles having to do with survival, creativity, identity, love, expression, comprehension, or transcendence.

Your chakra energies encrypt your experiences in much the way your neurons code your memories. An imprint of every emotionally significant event you have experienced is recorded in your chakra energies. A sensitive practitioner's hand held over a chakra may resonate with pain in a related organ, congestion in a lymph node, subtle abnormalities in heat or pulsing, areas of emotional turmoil, or even tune into a stored memory that might be addressed as part of the healing process.

3) The Aura:
Your aura (or biofield, the term used by scientists who have been studying it) is a multi-layered shell of energy that emanates from your body and interacts with the energies of your environment. It is itself a protective atmosphere that surrounds you, filtering out many of the energies you encounter and drawing in others that you need. Like a space suit, your aura protects you from harmful energies. Like a radio antenna, on the other hand, it brings in energies with which it resonates. The aura is a conduit, a two-way antenna that brings in energy from the environment to your chakras and that sends energy from your chakras outward.

When you feel happy, attractive, and spirited, your aura may fill an entire room. When you are sad, despondent, and somber, your aura crashes in on you, forming an energetic shell that isolates you from the world. Some people’s auras seem to reach out and embrace you. You know such people, and if you could see their auras, you would find that their aura energies do indeed reach toward your own. You also know people whose auras are so tightly bound and protective that they keep you out like an electric fence. A study conducted by Valerie Hunt, a neurophysiologist at UCLA's Energy Fields Laboratory, correlated "aura readings" with physiological measures. The auras seen by eight practitioners not only corresponded with one another, they correlated with wave patterns picked up by electrodes on the skin at the spot that was being observed.

4) The Electrics:
The electrics are an energy that seems to emerge from the electrical dimension of the other energy systems. They are not an independent energy system like the meridians, chakras, or aura, but they are rather intimately related to all the major energy systems: separate from each but also an aspect of each, something like the way liquid is separate from yet part of each of your organs. The electrics serve as a bridge that connects all the energy systems at the basic level of the body’s electricity. I usually have no idea what will occur when I first hold a person’s electric points. The energy goes where it is needed. There are reports of scar tissue being healed during an electrics session, heart ataxia eliminated, a knee replacement operation avoided, and all manner of emotional trauma overcome. But most important in terms of whole body healing is the way the electrics connect all the systems. If energy fields such as the aura and chakras align the organs and other energies by surrounding them, the electrics move right through them, connecting and coordinating them at the tangible dimension of their electrical nature.

5) The Celtic Weave:
The body’s energies spin, spiral, curve, twist, crisscross, and weave themselves into patterns of magnificent beauty. The equilibrium of this kaleidoscope of colors and shapes is maintained by an energy system known by different names to energy healers throughout the world. In the East, it has been called the "Tibetan energy ring."

In yoga tradition, it is represented by two curved lines that cross seven times, symbolically encasing the seven chakras.

In the West, it is seen in the caduceus, the intertwined serpents on a staff—also crossing seven times—associated initially with the Greek god Hermes, messenger for the gods, and later used as a symbol in alchemy and then medicine.

I use the term Celtic weave not only because I have a personal affinity with Celtic healing, but also because the pattern looks to me like the old Celtic drawings of a dynamic, spiraling infinity sign, never beginning and never ending and sometimes forming a triple spiral.

Like invisible threads that keep all the energy systems functioning as a single unit, the Celtic Weave networks throughout and around the body in spiraling figure-eight patterns. It is a living system, continually weaving new cross-overs, ever expanding and contracting.

The double helix of DNA is this pattern in microcosm. The left hemisphere’s control of the right side of the body and the right hemisphere’s control of the left side is this pattern writ large. These crisscrossing energies permeating your body are the "connective tissue" of your energy system.

6) The Five Rhythms:
Your meridians, chakras, aura, and other essential energies are influenced by a more pervasive energy system. I do not see it as a separate energy but rather as a rhythm that runs through all the others, leaving its vibratory imprint on physical attributes, health patterns, and personality traits.

Mapped long ago in traditional Chinese medicine, all of life was categorized into five "elements," "movements," or "seasons" (there is no perfect translation–all three terms have been used, suggesting qualities of being substantial, dynamic, and cyclical). These energies were considered the building blocks of the universe, providing a basis for understanding how the world works, how societies organize themselves, and what the human body needs to maintain health.

Metaphors for describing these five distinct rhythms have drawn from concrete, observable elements of nature (water, wood, fire, earth, and metal) and from the seasons (winter, spring, summer, Indian summer, and autumn). Like the background music during a movie, the person's primary rhythm, in combination with the changing rhythms of life's seasons, directs the tone and mood of the entire energy system and sets the atmosphere of the life being lived.

7) The Triple Warmer:
Triple warmer is the meridian that networks the energies of the immune system to attack an invader, and it mobilizes the body’s energies in an emergency for the fight, flight, or freeze response. It operates in ways that are so beyond the range of any other meridian that it must be considered a system unto itself. Its energies work in conjunction with the hypothalamus gland, which is the body’s thermostat and also the instigator of the body’s emergency response. Like an army, triple warmer mobilizes during threat or perceived threat, coordinating all the other energy systems to activate the immune response, govern the fight/flight/freeze mechanism, and establish and maintain habitual responses to threat.

8) The Radiant Circuits:
Whereas the meridians are tied to fixed pathways and specific organs, the radiant energies operate as fluid fields, embodying a distinct spontaneous intelligence. Like hyperlinks on a website, they jump instantly to wherever they are needed, bringing revitalization, joy, and spiritual connection.

If triple warmer mobilizes your inner militia, the radiant circuits mobilize your inner mom, showering you with healing energy, providing life-sustaining resources, and lifting your morale. The radiant circuits function to ensure that all the other energy systems are working for the common good. They redistribute energies to where they are most needed, responding to any health challenge the body might encounter.

In terms of evolution, the radiant circuits have been around longer than the meridians. Primitive organisms such as insects move their energies via the radiant circuits rather than through a meridian system, and the radiant circuits can be seen in the embryo before the meridians develop. As in the way that riverbeds are formed, it is as if radiant energies that habitually followed the same course became meridians.

9) The Basic Grid:
The basic grid is your body’s foundational energy. Like the chassis of a car, all the other energy systems ride on the energy of the basic grid. For instance, when you are lying down, it would appear to a person who sees subtle energies that each of your chakras sits upon this foundational energy.

Grid energy is sturdy and fundamental. But severe trauma can damage your foundation, and when this occurs, it does not usually repair itself spontaneously. Rather, the other energy systems adjust themselves to the damaged grid, much as a personality may be formed around early traumatic experiences.

Repairing a person’s basic grid is one of the most advanced and intense forms of energy medicine. If a grid’s structure or a car’s chassis is sound, you never notice it is there; if it is damaged, nothing else is quite right.


"Energy medicine is the future of all medicine."
~ C. Norman Shealy, M.D., Founding President, American Holistic Medical Association

Everyone uses their senses to learn.

Everyone uses their senses to learn. Most people have an unconscious successful strategy for learning that is triggered when the information is presented in a preferred way.
The more senses you use the stronger the memory you will create. Try using words from only one sense at a time and then all three.

Visual
See
Look
View
Appear
Show
Dawn
Reveal
Envision
illuminate
twinkle
clear
foggy
focused
hazy
sparkling
crystal clear
flash
imagine
picture
visualise

An eyeful
Appears to me
Beyond a shadow of a doubt
Birds-eye view
Catch a glimpse of
Clear cut
Dim view
Eye to eye
Flashed on
Get a perspective on
Get a scope on
Hazy idea
In light of
In person
In view of
Looks like
Make a scene
Mental images
Mental picture
Mind's eye
Paint a picture
Photographic -memory
Plainly see
Pretty as a picture
See to it
Short-sighted
Showing off
Sight for sore eyes
Take a peak
Tunnel vision
Up front
Under your nose



Auditory
Hear
Listen
Sound(s)
Make music
Harmonise
Tune in/out
Be all ears
Rings a bell
Silence
Be heard
Resonate
Deaf
Mellifluous
Dissonance
Attune
Overtones
Unhearing
Question
Tone
Click
Tell
Timbre
Resonance

Afterthought
Blabbermouth
Clear as a bell
Clearly expressed
Call on
Describe in detail
Earful
Express yourself
Give an account of
Give me your ear
Grant an audience
Heard voicesHidden message
Hold your tongue
Idle talk inquire into
Keynote speaker
Loud and clear
Manner of speaking
Pay attention to
Power of speech
Purrs like a kitten
Outspoken
Rap session
Rings a bell
State your purpose
Tattle tale
To tell the truth
Tongue tied
Tuned in/out
Unheard of
Utterly
Word for word
Within hearing range



Kinaesthetic
Feel
Touch
Grasp
Get hold of
Slip through
catch on
tap into
make contact
throw out
turn around
hard
unfeeling
concrete
scrape
unbudging
get a handle on
solid
suffer

All washed up
Boils down to it
Chip of the old block
Come to grips with
Control yourself
Cool/calm/collected
Firm foundations
Floating on thin air
Get a handle on this
Get in touch with
Get the drift of
Get your goat
Hand in hand
Hang in there
Heated argument
Hold it!
Hold on!
Hot-headed
Keep your shirt on!
Know -how
Lay cards on table
Light-headed
Moment of panic
Not following you
Pain in the neck
Pull some strings
Sharp as a tack
Slipped my mind
Smooth operator
So-so
Start from scratch
Stiff upper lip
Stuffed shirt
Topsy-turvy



Unspecified
Sense
Experience
Understand
Think
Learn
Imagine
Process
Decide
Motivate
Consider
Change
Perceive
Insensitive
Distinct
Conceive
Be conscious
Know
Explore

Think creatively!

Think creatively, always looking for the benefits, opportunities and gifts, in every problem.
May you get the most beneficial outcome possible for each experience in your life.

Future Pacing with NLP

NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Future Pacing

Future Pacing allows you to look into the future and see yourself already having achieved the desired change.

Future pacing is a technique of "embedding" change into the future - to give you an experience of dealing positively with a situation before you get into the same situation again.

This is based on visualization: the mind cannot tell the difference between a scenario which is real and one which has been clearly visualized.

The idea is that, having visualized success, when they are again in the real-life situation, the previous hypnotic experience will give them the confidence they need to smoothly sail through the actual situation.

More from Steve G. Jones, M.Ed. who is a board certified Clinical Hypnotherapist. http://www.betterlivingwithhypnosis.com/

NaturalNews.com: Role of Hypnosis in Surgical Recovery for Patients with Head and Neck Cancer

Researchers found that those who received hypnotherapy had a much shorter hospital stay than the control group who received standard care.

Researchers also found some differences among the group that received hypnosis. Those who were more highly hypnotizable experienced fewer complications after the surgery. Also, the researchers found that those who were more hypnotizable also had less blood loss during the surgery.

The study concluded that hypnosis can help prevent postoperative complications. A reduction in complications after surgery also reduces the length of hospital stay after the operation. Fewer complications also suggest a quicker recovery time. A shorter hospital stay means lower medical bills.Patients going through cancer treatment already experience a high level of stress and anxiety with rehabilitation. Hypnotherapy ensures that the healing time and treatment period is shorter and more easily dealt with.

The procedure may not only show physical improvements, but emotional ones as well. By taking such a small step, doctors can now further help improve the lives of their patients. Financial, physical, and emotional strains may be lifted with the help of hypnotherapy.

Source: Rapkin, D.A., Straubing, M. and Holroyd, J.C. (1991). Guided Imagery, Hypnosis and Recovery from Head and Neck Cancer Surgery: An Exploratory Study. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 39(4). 215-226.

About the author:
Steve G. Jones, M.Ed. has been practicing hypnotherapy since the 1980s. He is the author of 22 books on Hypnotherapy. Steve is a member of the National Guild of Hypnotists, American Board of Hypnotherapy, president of the American Alliance of Hypnotists, on the board of directors of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Lung Association, and director of the Steve G. Jones School of Clinical Hypnotherapy.Steve G. Jones, M.Ed. is a board certified Clinical Hypnotherapist. He has a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Florida (1994), a master's degree in education from Armstrong Atlantic State University (2007), and is currently working on a doctorate in education, Ed.D., at Georgia Southern University.

Learn more at: http://www.betterlivingwithhypnosis.com/

Weight Loss Research

The American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH) is the largest U.S. organization for health and mental health care professionals using clinical hypnosis. Founded in 1957, ASCH's members are psychologists, psychiatrists, clinical social workers, marriage and family therapists, mental health counselors, medical doctors, master's level nurses and dentists. Their efforts to support research and set standards for ethical practices of hypnotherapy are respected world-wide.

The following information is from the ASCH.

In a 9-week study of two weight management groups (one using hypnosis for weight loss and one not using hypnosis), the hypnosis for weight loss group continued to get results in the two-year follow-up, while the non-hypnosis group showed no further results (Journal of Clinical Psychology, 1985).

In a study of 60 women separated into hypnosis versus non-hypnosis groups, the groups using hypnosis lost an average of 17 pounds, while the non-hypnosis group lost an average of only .5 pounds (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1986).

In a comparison of the results of adding hypnosis to weight loss treatment across multiple studies showed that adding hypnosis increased weight loss by an average of 97% during treatment, and even more importantly increased the effectiveness POST TREATMENT by over 146%. This shows that hypnosis works even better over time (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1996).

Controversial HCG injections.

HCG therapy is an area that is largely controversial and not fully understood by many people. You need to be under medical supervision to do this diet, as its the only way to get HCG. It has a very specific protcol for the HCG to burn the fat you carry with no loss of muscle.

Dr. Maples explains in a post about HCG on Joe Vitale's web-site:

I think it’s controversial because of it’s use of “pregnancy hormone”, in conjunction with an extremely low calorie diet, both of these by themselves being controversial …. so many don’t agree with it.

Maybe I can shed some light on the subject for your readers?

In a nutshell – the HCG therapy is used to stabilize/re-establish the HPA axis (hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) and to prevent muscle wasting.

“HPA axis, a major part of the neuro-endocrine system that controls reactions to stress and regulates many body processes, including digestion, the immune system, mood and emotions, sexuality, and energy storage and expenditure. A wide variety of species, from the most ancient organisms to humans, share components of the HPA axis. It is the common mechanism for interactions among glands, hormones, and parts of the midbrain that mediate the general adaptation syndrome (GAS)”.

When this system (HPA) is interrupted, it can affect almost any function in the body – like a domino effect. One of the key issues in regards to weight loss is it’s regulation of hunger is altered, and hormone imbalance creates weight issues (obviously).

This hormonal / endocrine communication system can be shut down by many things that are prevalent in our typical American lives: stress and chemicals. For example, MSG and all of it’s derivatives shunt the hypothalamus and disrupts the neuroendocrine system.

I always ask people about their weight history, and almost always there is an emotionally or physically stressful situation that preceeded the weight issues.

Many chemicals in our daily lives are endocrine disruptors / xenohormones messing with this system and other hormonal communications. They are rampant in our foods, drinks, body care, laundry and cleaning products, perfumes, and the list goes on…(there is more on my Emotion Potions website about this for anyone who wants to learn more).

Here’s the best part: the big controversy, as I said before, is administering “pregnancy hormone (even to men…) and the extremely low 500 calorie diet.

What many don’t know is that there are completely safe, natural ways to restore the HPA axis to its normal healthy communication level without injecting the HCG.

Combined with proper diet and exercise techniques to re-establish a healthy metabolism, and simple emotional clearing products, many people get the same results. "

Read more at Joe Vitale's post about HCG.

Energetically, you are dealing with and processing millions of bits of information or energy every moment of every day.

Most people don't realize that, energetically, you are dealing with and processing millions of bits of information or energy every moment of every day.

Every person, place and thing you come into contact with has an energy field that your energy body & subconscious mind has to process and deal with.

Everyone has, not only a physical body, but an “energy body”.

Your physical body is a physical manifestation / mirror of your energy body, thus, when you influence the energy body (positively or negatively) your physical body is soon to follow / mirror.

The energy body shifts and changes much more quickly than the physical body.

You will be interested to know that, not only do you deal with your own energetic & emotional “problems”, but also those of everyone and everything you come in contact with.

Everything from your own thoughts and beliefs, to the food you eat, the products you use on your skin (lotion, deodorant, soap, etc), the people you surround yourself with & the music you listen to, affects your energy body & contributes to your over-all vibrational state of being & will ultimately influence your physical health.

Generally speaking, your over-all vibrational state of being will determine your health, prosperity, emotional state and outlook on life.

This information is from Dr. Maureen Maples.

Click here for more information from Dr. Maureen Maples, DC, FASA and her “Emotional Detox Technique”.