Three positive things every day for wellness

Therapists often get too involved in theory. We make things more complicated than they need to be. We tend to overthink things. It is easy to come to the conclusion that the world is full of difficult problems.

Sometimes the simplest things are the best. Your mind pays twice as much attention to negative things as it does to positive things. This is the mechanism behind gloomy thinking, pessimism and depression. Because of that, we all need to focus twice as much on the positive events in our life. Every day, make sure you see the good as well as the bad.

Three positive things to make you feel better

One of the great things we can do for clients is to give them simple rules that they can use to improve their lives. There is one simple habit that really works. Encourage the client to write down at the end of every day three things that happened to them that were good.

These do not have to be super wonderful things, anything will do. For example, seeing a lovely flower display, getting to the bus stop just as the bus arrives, a kind act by someone at work - anything. When you look out for the three things it makes you more aware of all the good things that actually happen in your life.

The simple act of writing down three positive things seems to impress them on the brain. People who do write down the three positive things become more resilient. You get a more cheerful attitude after only a few days. And doing it for longer makes it automatic. You will learn to focus on the positive.

What do you think?

Have you tried this? What ways do you use to cheer up your clients?

Dream Experiences of smell and taste

Dream Experiences and sensory perception

Dream Experiences are often strange. You are often trapped and unable to move, or being pursued, or one thing suddenly merges into something else. But the strangest dream experiences may be what you don't dream of. Do you smell or taste things in your dreams?

I was revisiting one of my favorite books: Awake This Dreamer! by Walter de la Mare. It is a collection of poetry and short essays on the subject of sleep and dream experiences. I have always been interested in dreams. They have a lot to tell us. I think they reflect what is being processed by the unconscious mind. In particular they let us know when the unconscious mind is moving on from some blockage that previously was preventing you from living your life fully. A dream is a metaphor, and very often you can recognize elements of your current life in the metaphorical parts of the dream. Parts about changing or leaving something show that you are discarding old beliefs and attitudes, and replacing them with different, more flexible beliefs.

Dream Experiences haven't changed much, it seems.

One poem particularly caught my attention. It was written four hundred years ago. The author reflects on his personal dream experiences. He observed that no matter how sweet a flower might be in your sleeping mind, you never smell its fragrance. And it struck me that he was right: you don't dream of smells. I have not heard of anyone reporting an actual smell in a dream, or a taste for that matter.

I wonder if that is because the sense of smell is located in a primitive part of the brain? Perhaps only the more recent developments of the brain that deal with shape and color appear in dreams because they are located in the outer cortex. The outer cortex is accessible to consciousness. Your sense of smell and taste is located in the primitive reptile brain stem. Maybe that is why smell does not appear in dreams?

From my own personal dream experiences I notice that in dreams I always have perfect vision. I am quite short sighted, and I need glasses. But I never need glasses in my dreams. Everything is always in perfect focus.

I wonder if that applies to everyone?

Weird Dreams

Last night as we put the light out I was about to say to my wife 'sweet dreams' when I realized that 'sweet dreams' is actually the last thing you would want to wish on someone.

What weird dreams are for

The purpose of dreams is to allow the mind to resolve things that have not been resolved during the day. Dreams also are an outcome of processes by the unconscious mind. All dreams are expressed as metaphors. This is why then seem so bizarre. Each element is a symbolic representation of something that is held in your mind and the action of the dream represents the interaction between different parts of your mind. The essential aspect of a specific dream is that everything represents you, every part of the dream is a part of you.

My Weird Dreams

I recently had a weird dream of having to go into a large multistory building. Outside was an Indian looking couple in a four poster bed with rich drapes hanging down. Around the couple was a large group of angry people. The couple in the bed were looking very apprehensive. But I felt compelled to leave them there and go into the building. Inside the building I got lost in a confusing mess of different rooms, stairs, lifts etc. While trying to find my way out I realized that the couple in the bed were going to be stoned to death. I thought that I had to get out and stop it but I couldn't find the way out.

Eventually I did get out and back to the place but the crowd had gone and there was just a huge pile of rock there. I thought to myself' 'well, there was nothing I could do about it really, it is not up to me to interfere in other people's cultures' and I went on my way.

Analyzing weird dreams

This sort of dream is full of violence and feeling trapped and is the exact opposite of a 'sweet dream'. However what the dream represents is two parts of my mind. One part is not longer useful to me in living my life: old ideas, self beliefs and outdated rules. That part is represented metaphorically by the couple in the bed. I suspect they were 'Indian looking' because that represented 'foreign' in my subconscious.

The other part of my mind wants to get rid of those old beliefs, feelings or whatever: represented by the angry crowd. I got lost in the building as a metaphoric way of not interfering consciously in the cleansing process.

It only through this type of dream that you make changes in your mind and learn and mature. The person who first came up with the wish for 'sweet dreams' didn't know what they were talking about.

Should a therapist be crying?

Is it unprofessional to be crying during a session? It is quite normal for clients to cry. In fact I regard it as a help to diagnosis. It is a sign that the client's emotions must be near the surface. It makes it easier to find the right feeling to use when doing regression therapy. However therapists cry as well. A recent academic article has looked into the issue of therapists getting emotional during therapy. The article reported more than half the therapists in the study admitted becoming emotional with a client at some time in the previous four weeks.

Is detachment good?

When I started out in this business I was as damaged as any of my clients. I frequently heard stuff that echoed my own upbringing. I could listen to it with detachment, but I think the similarity to my own experience helped me understand and empathize more.

Listening was no problem. Using a script of mostly direct suggestion was no problem either. But when it came to delivering a metaphor for an individual client, the closer it was to my own issues the more it resonated with me. The result was that I found myself getting emotional along with the client.

Empathizing with your client

I was quite startled by this at first, but I later realized that it was doing me good. And it if was doing me good then it was probably doing good for the client as well. Then I deliberately started writing metaphors that would cause me to cry, because that way I knew they were good powerful metaphors. By listening to my own emotions I got better at dealing with other people's emotions.

As I got more experienced I realized that in order to get into the client's mind, I first had to imagine what they were feeling. To get real empathy, I had to generate that same feeling in myself. Once I had the feeling I would allow my mind to open up to whatever visualizations I felt might work for me. As the session progressed, I turned those visualizations into a continuous metaphor. I described the images I was experiencing internally and just allowed whatever actions and events that wanted to happen, to happen. The metaphor wrote itself. Since I had to imagine the images and actions in my mind first, of course my mind was being affected by them at the same time as the client's mind was being affected. This set up a feedback loop. The more I got into the client's feeling, the more focused the metaphor became. The better the metaphor, the more emotion it generated and that changed the metaphor to fit better.

Crying develops empathy

As I progressed, by fixing other people's problems in this way, I fixed more and more of own problems. Nowadays I no longer feel that same raw emotion to the same extent. But I think that I do in fact come close to tears with more clients, rather than fewer. Healing myself has allowed me open up to other people, to get more empathy with them. I now feel the sadness of an abusive childhood probably more keenly than I ever did years ago.

In the study, only one percent of therapists thought that they had disadvantaged their clients by showing emotion. In my case I only get emotional after the client is in trance, and so the client does not see me, since they have their eyes closed by that point.

But I often remark to them afterwards that they were not the only ones crying during that session. I think that the client appreciates sincere emotional contact.

Proprioception exercise the forgotten sense

If you want to expand your sensitivity try this Proprioception exercise. We are accustomed to think that we have only five senses, but we actually have many more. For example, you have a sense of balance, a sense of heat and sense of proximity. One of the pervasive senses that we use all the time but people sometimes overlook is the sense of proprioception. This is the sense of knowing the spatial relationship between parts of your own body.

Proprioception exercise increases sensitivity

To test your own sense of proprioception try the following exercise. Close your eyes. Then extend one arm and then wave your hand around at random in circles and jab it out all over the place, move your hand above your head and behind your back. Keep moving your hand around and at the same time move your head, shake and nod and turn it in circles. Then move your hand to your face and place your index finger right on the tip of your nose. Most people can do that with absolute accuracy, even though it does not involve any of the other senses. With practice you can improve the sensitivity of this sense. For example, become aware of the position of inside of your left knee. Then focus your attention on that area and imagine that it is become hot, or that you can feel a tingle in that area.

Proprioception exercise feedback from body muscles

This ability can improve with practice. You can then try to become aware of your own abdominal muscles, or your back muscles. Getting in touch with your own body can help with sports performance and with easing muscle pains. Once you can identify will all the major parts of your body, relaxation become much easier. And relaxation of the body leads to relaxation of anxieties so it is worth exploring this ability we all have.

Earliest memory Recall – How old were you?

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Earliest memory Recall

Can you recall your earliest memory? Research suggests that the average age of a single first memory is three and a half years old. The few memories you have from an early age are scattered and unrelated until much older. This has been known for over a century, but still is not appreciated by the general public.

Many people still believe that memory is like a streaming recording. That everything that happens to you, everything you see and hear, is permanently held somewhere in your mind. They think that with the right technique you can recall your earliest memory. This is just not true.

Clients often think their memory is deteriorating, or they worry because they don't remember anything before age six. In particular, people worry that if they don't remember anything from their early childhood, then they must be suppressing something. Something bad must have happened. I have had clients worried that they had been sexually molested. They could not think of any other reason why they had no memories of being that age.

Don't trust your earliest memory recall

The age at which memory becomes more or less continuous varies greatly. Women in general have earlier memories than men. Your chance of having an early memory depends on how startling or emotional the event was. The more dramatic, the more you are likely to recall something, although it may only be a fragment. About one in thirty of people claim to have a memory going back to age one. And about one in thirty have no memories at all before age six or seven, or even eight.

All memory is very plastic, changeable. Research suggests that many memories are in fact false. This applies in particular early memories. For most people, what you think is a genuine memory is actually the result of visualizing what relatives have told you happened, or you manufactured after seeing photographs of the time. Even the real memories that we have are being constantly revised. Almost every time you think of something, you're actually mixing it in with other incidents. You basically remanufacture your memories continuously.

All of these are normal and of no consequence.

Mind body connection reveals feelings in your body

Recent research into mind-body connection has identified that people from countries all round the world feel various emotions in the same parts of their body. This is to say, if a person in Algeria feels anger, then they feel it in their stomach. People in Argentina would feel anger in their stomach too. The theory is that the link between your body and your emotions is the same for everyone, everywhere.

Mind body connection

People were asked to shade in part of a body outline to show where in their body they felt anger, or sadness or happiness, etc. There were two interesting results. One, that so many people actually noticed a part of their body responding to a feeling. And two, that the same feeling was mostly associated with the same area of the body. So cold feet or an itchy nose may be reflecting your emotions.

In the West, mind and body were regarded as being separate. This research is just another piece of evidence that supports the Eastern view that the mind and body are intimately connected. The European view that your body and mind are separate is actually quite recent. Before the discovery of bacteria and viruses doctors recommended increasing your general well-being in order to increase your health. This led to the popularity of spas and seaside holidays.

Today, thinking about body and mind has come full circle. It is now widely recognized that there is a link between stress, anxiety and physical illness. A belief in the mind-body connection is no longer considered strange or New Age. People with clear physical illnesses are now regularly prescribed meditation, relaxation, and hypnosis as ways of getting better.

One reason why the link between mind and body is not more commonly recognised, is because it differs in individuals. Some people show a clear link, some people show no link.

I wonder if you have noticed the mapping between emotions and physical responses in yourself? Or like me, you don’t seem to see any response from your body to different moods?

You are not who you think you are

We can all remember ourselves as children. Most of us think that we are still essentially the same as we were then. This is part of a basic belief that we all stay pretty much the same person all through life.

Not who you think you are: different beliefs

There are other beliefs which disagree with this view. Buddhists in particular, believe that the "personality is an illusion." The Buddhist philosophy believes that we all change constantly, and that our belief that things stay the same is wrong.
It is well known that our body replaces all of its cells many many times in our life time. Some cells are replaced in a matter of days, some cells survive for years before finally being replaced. Even if you stay the same weight and height, there is a constant turnover of the physical matter that makes you up.

Science is now beginning to discover that is not just your body that changes. Your mind, your thoughts, your ideas, your beliefs, – they all change too. How you think can be changed by meditation. The basic functioning of your own unconscious mind can also be changed.

The evidence

A recent study compared the personality of a set of schoolchildren measured in 1950 with those same schoolchildren 63 years later. The study found no correlation between how teachers assessed the children's personality at the time, and how close friends assess their personality now. It appears that every one of these children had changed their personality over their lifetime. Other studies have suggested that for shorter periods, tens of years, your personality stays pretty constant. But this study shows exactly the opposite.

I'm sure that we are all familiar with meeting an old school friend after many years, and being amazed at how much they had changed. Well, it seems that the same applies to you.

Source:
Harris, et al. Personality Stability From Age 14 to Age 77 Years. Psychology and Aging. 2016 Dec; 31(8): 862–874. doi: 10.1037/pag0000133

Can’t be hypnotized

Hello,I am looking for advice.
I have used a number of self hypnosis CD’s and paid for hypnosis 1-1.
I keep trying but they seem to have little or no effect on me.
Is there something I am doing wrong? Is there something wrong with me?
Can you advise if there is some thing I could do which would remedy this?
Many Thanks

What if I can't be hypnotized? The short answer is that everyone can be hypnotised. It is simply a matter of finding the right method.

Client centered issues.

What you get is not what you expect

Part of the problem may be that you are expecting something different from what you are getting. Everyone reacts differently to hypnosis. Some people expect to get fireworks and cosmic enlightenment. Others expect to wake up totally blank and remember nothing. Some people feel weightless while others feel their limbs so heavy that they can't move. Still others jerk and twist in trance and are convinced that they can't have been in trance because they can move.

The fact is that everyone's experience is different. I know I am going into trance when my right hand twitches. I know I am going into somnambulism when I get a tingle on my upper lip. But I can also have a conversation when I am in trance.

Issues of control

As a hypnotherapist I get clients from all parts of the hypnotizability spectrum. The ones who do not go into hypnosis easily are usually people who fear losing control. They want to go into trance but when they feel themselves slipping away they instantly snap out of it.

This is often mixed in with or a part of mental anxiety. In some people their mind is always busy. They are so filled with constant thoughts, worries and panics that they cannot focus on the process. Some just drown out the words of the therapist. Others over analyse what the therapist is saying. They are both ways of protecting their mind from what will happen if they lose control.

Hypnotist centered issues

Competence

Some hypnotists just aren't very good. It takes a lot of experience to know when someone is going into trance, and when they are not. Anyone can read a script, and most people will go under. But some people need a different approach or multiple approaches to let go.

Matching the induction to the client

A hypnosis recording is a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. There is nothing wrong with recordings, but they have limitations. NLP says that people are either visual, auditory or kinesthetic. There is some truth in that. So I have to match my induction to the client. I sometimes do two or even three inductions if I don't see the signs of trance I expect to see. And in every case, I test to make sure the client is in trance before I continue with the therapy. Of you course, you can't be tested if you are listening to a recording.

How to deal with it.

The client can't do anything wrong in hypnosis. There is nothing wrong with you or your mind. You are a human being, therefore you can be hypnotized. If you don't go into trance then it is the hypnotist's fault. Everyone can be hypnotised. It might take a while, it might take several goes, but it can be done. Whether the hypnotist has the skills or the patience is another matter.

I suspect that if you have dealt with a competent hypnotist, and you have listened to multiple CDs, and you still can't go into trance, then the issue is one of control. Your mind just won't accept losing control. The test is if you have difficulty with sleep.

A good hypnotist can work with you and find a way of bypassing your loss-of-control fears. However, this might take a lot of time and a lot of money. What I suggest you do is practice a simple form of self hypnosis. This will let you experience the feeling of trance in a safe environment and under your own control. Once you mind learns that you can give up control and not die, you will be able to go into trance easily.

Self hypnosis exercise

All you have to do is to find some quiet place and do the exercise. Start by counting your breaths. On each breath out count from ten down to one until your breathing is soft and regular. Repeat it if you have to. Then count from ten down to one and think to yourself "body relaxing" on each out breath. Repeat if you have to.

Then on each out breath gently whisper or think a word. Any word. The word 'one' is fine. Or 'success' or 'trance' or anything else. The word is not important, the repetition is. Keep repeating the word until you dissociate. This means that the word will lose all meaning, will seem strange, disconnected. When you dissociate you are in the first stage of hypnosis.

Notice what the state feels like. Then practice finding that state again some other time. Practice with your word again and again if you have to. Eventually you will able to think yourself into that state without the exercise. When you have achieved that, you are successfully going in and out of trance. You can then develop from there. The CDs will begin to work and you will begin your path to change.

Smoking for distraction

Smoking for distraction is a way for people to avoid worries and bad feelings. Smoking is often a substitute for something else. My client today was unusual. He smoked fifteen cigarettes a day every day, except weekends. He doesn't smoke at all on the weekends, but he cannot give up the weekday smokes.

It is quite common to find people who only smoke at night, or only at weekends, or never when there are other people around. Many smokers can go without for long periods of time depending on the situation they are in.

This client smokes in the van on the way to work. He is a business owner in charge of several jobs where tradesmen are working independently at different work sites. All day he worries about the job, progress and what has to be done next. And that is the key to his smoking.

He is in fact catastrophizing about what could go wrong with each job. On the way there he winds himself up by imagining what he will find when he gets there, and uses smoking as a way to relieve the pressure. He is smoking for distraction. That is why he doesn't need to smoke on weekends: he doesn't have to go talk to workmen about progress on weekends.

Previous Therapy Fails

He had been to a hypnotist before many years ago. And he lit up on the way home from that session. I believe that people find it easier to modify their behavior when they understand what is driving it. In this case I found that he also had aspects of depression. His mind is always busy and he is a bit of perfectionist.

This combination means that he worries that things are going wrong when he is not there, this causes anxiety and the smoking given hem something to do to break the cycle. Now that he knows why he smokes and what he gets from it, it will be easier for him to come up with different strategies to get the same result.

In this case he decided that he would chew a pencil instead, and take a ten minute brisk walk after each site visit. That, combined with the stop-smoking trance I did with him should allow him to stop immediately.

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