Posts Tagged ‘hypnotherapy’

Hey guys

Today I am going to talk about emotional pain and our strategies for dealing with it.

Yesterday I went to see a brilliant hypnotherapist called Andrew T Austin, to work on some of my own issues. Andrew’s background involves working in trauma departments in hospitals and also with psychiatric patients. He has specialised in helping people with depression and dealing with emotional pain. What surprised me was that he told me that life is suffering, and it is how we deal with this that really matters.

Life is not meant to be a utopian existence where everything is fantastic and pain free. This is where I believe many people get caught out as this is what we are sold on a daily basis by drug companies, the media, the self help industry and anyone else who can profit out of such a proposed existence. Having a pain free life is impossible, the result of not achieving this is often depression and not fulfilling our goals and potential.   

Like Andrew, I work as a therapist, and we both see clients who are suffering with emotional pain. I have noticed that as humans we are very poor and ill-equipped at dealing with emotional pain and we have a very low tolerance level to it. Our fears have a strong hold over us and our behaviour. When faced with emotional discomfort we have our favourite coping strategies that we rely on. Such distraction techniques help us to dim the pictures in our mind and quieten the voices in our head. Distraction may work in the short term but it is often our strategies that exacerbate our problems. The most common coping strategies we tend to adopt are drinking, smoking, texting, drug use (both prescription and illegal), excessive TV, hiding ourselves away from the world, internet, porn, shopping, gambling, video games and comfort eating. I am sure there is a whole load more that people use too but these seem to be the most common when I deal with clients.

Today, fate dealt me a bitter piece of news. I have just found out that I have irreversible hearing loss in my left ear, making me partially deaf. This has been a problem I have been working on for several years and up until now my doctors have always been very optimistic that it is something they could treat. Despite previous efforts and treatments, my new doctor told me that the nerve in my ear was damaged and it is more serious than previously diagnosed. I asked if anything could be done, he said that the only thing they can offer is a hearing aid, if the condition worsens. Apart from that, nothing can be done.

After hearing the news from my doctor I felt extremely down and sorry for myself. I went through the cliché “why me” questions and suddenly felt very depressed and alone. At times like this I like to put on the TV or go online and try to busy myself rather than face the painful emotional issue. This time however, I decided to embrace the emotional pain, rather than running from it. For a while it felt horrible and I got very strong urges to do other things to distract myself. After a little while I got used to the pain and instead of thinking about how to make myself feel better in the short term, I focused on what I can do to solve the problem. My issue can not be treated, this I have now accepted. In the future it may worsen and if that is the case I can turn up the tv, I can ask people to speak louder and if I have to I can get a hearing aid. Apart from that, I can not do anything so I realised there is no point feeling bad about it and instead to focus on my other goals. It was a rather strange yet liberating experience.

What Andrew taught me was to embrace the emotional pain, that way you can build up a tolerance to it. Building up a tolerance makes it easier to deal with when it comes up again in the future, instead of running your same old distraction methods (drink, tv, drugs etc) and allows you to be creative and adaptive and make much better choices that carry long term benefits.

A good example of embracing emotional pain is approaching girls. I specialise in working with guys with approach anxiety and helping them to overcome it. Recently I worked with a client who had severe approach anxiety and he was not even able to go and ask a girl the time, let alone get her phone number. After doing a brief hypnotherapy session we uncovered the source of the anxiety and he started to embrace the emotional pain instead of running away from it. As usual it was linked to issues at school and these experiences had infiltrated their way in to most areas of his life. Once he was able to embrace the pain it allowed him to work with it rather than run from it. Shortly after I got him to approach a girl to get the time. He was able to do it although he was extremely nervous and could barely get a word out. He was however, able to do it. The next girl he went to speak to he was much better, this time he asked her the time and talked a little bit about why she was in London.  The more he exposed himself to the emotional pain in a controlled way, the more he could deal with it. The more he can recognise and deal with the pain, the more options it gives him in a situation. After the 4th or 5th girl he was able to approach, ask for the time, have a short conversation and even do a bit of kino. By the 10th girl he was starting to even enjoy the process and managed to get the girls number. By the end of the session he had a considerable shift in his confidence levels. He had faced his fears and by embracing them instead of running away, he had started to overcome them.

I think that as humans we are bad at dealing with emotional pain because we simply do not understand it. Physical pain is easy to understand, you bang your toe and it hurts. Although you might be in physical pain you understand why it was caused and therefore what you need to do to make it stop. Emotional pain is different, we are not sure why it is caused, how long it will last or how to deal with it. This makes emotional pain much more complex and difficult to work with and treat than a physical injury.

Before I said that it is often our coping strategies that exacerbate our problems. I worked with a guy recently who spends 6-7 hours a day playing video games. He wants to get a girlfriend and build a social life, but he said he is too depressed to do so. The client told me that he is depressed so he plays video games, I see it the other way round. He plays videos games and this makes him depressed. Whenever he feels lonely or down, instead of embracing the emotional pain and working with it, he distracts himself with video games. If he instead embraced the pain, worked with it and changed his strategy to going out and meeting people, he would move closer to his goals. We do not realise the damage our strategies are doing until it is often too late. The only thing we have is time, so the sooner we start to embrace emotional pain and change our strategies, the better our results and quality of life will be.

Try out this exercise, for the next few days just observe your own emotional reactions and coping mechanisms. White down how you are feeling and what you are doing as a result. Also write down your most important goals that you want to focus on. After a few days read your notes and see what strategies you use the most and if they are conducive to your goals.

Once you have started to identify your coping strategies, ask yourself “what part of this is actually helping me?” and “by doing this, what feeling is it allowing me to avoid”. If your strategy is not helping you need to consider changing it. As humans we have an overwhelming design to be right, by choosing methods and sticking to them rather than admitting we are wrong, even if our chosen methods are destructive to our goals.

By understanding what feelings it is you are trying to avoid you can start to expose yourself to them in a controlled way. By doing so you will start to build up a tolerance level, you will start to gain control over emotions, rather than them controlling you.

Our current coping methods are typically referred to as our “comfort zone”. It is called a comfort zone because everything is nice, comfy and safe. While that may be a pleasant environment to existence in, it is extremely limiting and keeps us from progressing in life. When we do not progress and achieve our goals it can cause stress, depression and even more reliance on our strategies i.e. drinking. It is simply a cycle and it can be broken, but only through embracing painful emotions and taking action.

I have found that people want to confident about something before they do the action. People also seem to forget that there are skill sets you need to learn to be able to carry out certain actions. A recent client asked me to make him a good public speak but he has terrible stage fright. I informed him that I can help him face the emotional issues and reduced the anxiety, but public speaking is a skill set that he will need to go and learn.

One golden rule I have learned in life is “competence equals confidence”. You can not feel confident about something until you have done it. Once you do an action over and over and deal with the painful emotional issues, you develop confidence.

So to use this information I suggest doing the following steps;

1. Write down and identify your current strategies
2. Write down the emotions and experiences you are avoiding
3. Write down your most important goals
4. Ask yourself what part of your current strategies are helping you to achieve your goals
5. Change your strategy and slowly embrace the painful emotions
6. Increase the exposure level to gain control over the emotional issue and expand your comfort zone

I hope you found this post useful. Remember, embracing painful emotions is like lifting weights to training your muscles. The more you train, the stronger you become.

HypnoMatt

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It is that time of year again when I get bombarded with people giving me their advice on New Year’s resolutions and how to really “go for it”, “smash those barriers” etc. I work with people everyday helping them to achieve their goals in a practical and methodical manor. From working with hundreds of people I have noticed what really works and what does not. By keeping in contact with clients it has allowed me to track their progress and see the differences between those who make progress and those who stay stuck.

I have put together my top tips for making sure your goals are never reached and that you stay as you are, or even end up in a worse place. Follow these rules and be frustrated forever!

Make totally unrealistic and unattainable goals
Firstly you have to make completely unrealistic and unattainable goals. If you are 15 stone overweight then aim to be skinny, if you are broke then aim to be a millionaire, if you are single and never had a partner then make sure you want to be able to approach and seduce anyone you choose.

Remember at the first sign that everything is not going to plan, jack it all in and blame everyone and everything apart from yourself.

Ensure that you believe when you reach your goal, life will be pain free and super happy
OK everyone, time to think positively. Once you are skinny life will be amazing, once you are rich you won’t have any problems and once you have a girlfriend/boyfriend life will be just peachy. As soon as you reach this massive goal, everything is going to be fine. No more pain, no more suffering, no more living like you do now. All your problems just magically disappear.

Make it one giant leap, never make milestones
Never take small steps! As this time you are going to really do it, you just know it. On Monday morning everything will just happen and you will start to live your new life. If you are currently overweight and eat far too much, don’t worry as on Monday you will eat small portions of healthy food and be skinny by Friday. Hey, in fact as you are going to start your diet on Monday, you should eat as much bad food as you can before then!

Breaking super massive goals down into milestones is boring and silly, always make sure you make massive goals so you can really get the adrenalin going just thinking about it. So what if you currently eat 5 take-a-ways a week and never exercise, that Monday morning run and porridge breakfast is defiantly going to happen. You are going to really stick at your new lifestyle this time and not fall at the first hurdle. Make massive changes that completely contradict your way of life, it is the only way to make changes that stick!

Never get professional help
Professionals, bah what do they know. Just because they have spent years studying and working with people getting proven results, you should never go near them. Professionals cost a lot of money, just because they know their subject inside out and know how to get the results you desire, it doesn’t mean you should ever go near them. Instead why not do a bit of research on the internet, or better still buy a self help book. Now you are your own expert. Simple eh!

Never plan what you are going to do and when
It is dangerous to plan ahead, especially with all the fun you will be having with your super new life. Sitting down and working out a methodical and practical step by plan and gathering the resources you will need is a complete waste of time. Instead just think of the goal e.g. I want a million pounds, and just get started. You will just learn as you go along and soon you will have a million pounds and a great pain free life you have already dreamt about.

Just think it and you will achieve it. The universe loves you!
Fans of the film “The Secret” already know this proven and completely true universal law, “just think it and it will happen”. Are you broke? Then simply think about cheques and money being delivered to you and it will happen. Single and lonely, well just cut out pictures of people you are attracted to, put them on your dream board and soon they will be walking through your door and throwing themselves at you. Massively overweight? Simply stand in front of the mirror and picture yourself as being slim, there is no need to make any changes or exercise. Not when you know “The Secret”.

The universe loves you and it is there to serve you. Everything happens for a reason and all your wishes will come true. Remember to just think about what it is you want and it will be delivered every time. Know this amazing information how could you ever fail to achieve all your dreams?

Sadly I put this on a message board a couple of weeks ago and people emailed me to thank me for the great information and they are now following my advice. They actually thought they were serious steps to goal setting. Reading the above article you may think I am just a mean person, this is not true. I have worked in the field of change work for several years and I get frustrated when I see people profiting from other people’s pain.

Every year we fall for the same old tricks. Just turn on the TV or read the newspaper and look at all the adverts offering you an amazing new life. People who are desperate will buy and do anything to achieve their goals yet they have little direction, plans or even an understanding to why they want to achieve them.

If you are serious about making changes in your life then I can offer just a few simple tips;

Make a direction instead of a destination.
Instead of wanting to be skinny, aim to live a more healthy lifestyle. Instead of wanting to seduce everyone, aim to improve your social skills and talk to one or two people a day. By making a destination people are often lost when they arrive there and do not know which direction to then take, often they go back to the start as this is what they already know. A common form of this is yo yo dieting, once the weight is lost you do not know what to do so you simply go back to how you were before and the weight starts to gain again.

Work with professionals.

If you want the best results then work with people who can really help you. Put the self help books down, stop going on the internet trying to find that little tip, secret or product that will transform everything. Personal trainers, hypnotherapists, dieticians, doctors, financial advisors etc are all available. Yes it may cost you money, but how much is achieve your goals actually worth to you? Working with professionals also makes you accountable to someone and they can save you so much time, pain and wasted effort.

Make plans.
When making a goal, remember to put plans into place and prepare. I specialise in helping people with social anxiety and weight loss and I am always amazed at how people never prepare. If you want to become more sociable then you need to actually plan things to do, start to fill up your calendar and stick to it. If you want to eat more healthily then you need to go and buy and prepare the food to take to work etc. Without proper planning we tend to fall back into old habits.

Calm down!
Everyone wants to change overnight. Unfortunately that is not going to happen, and if it does then it is build on very weak foundations. I have worked with people who have been for weight loss surgery and they are surprised that they are gaining the weight back almost straight away. The fact is that their mind and habits are that of an overweight person, they simply do not know how to act as a thin person.

Aim to make small changes that you can stick to and make part of your daily and weekly life. Sometimes you need to take larger steps, especially to get going, but then introduce small and manageable changes that are not going to revert. When you make massive changes they are hard to stick to, once you fail on one it tends to bring everything crashing down.

Change your strategy, not the amount of effort
Human behaviour is often a strange thing. One major part of our behaviour that keeps is stuck is our desire to be right. We hate to be wrong and we tend to stick to what we know, even though it does not deliver results. Instead of changing our strategy, we put more effort into what we are already doing in an attempt to be right.

People get stuck in their own patterns and this leads to frustration and depression. A classic example is people trying to lose weight. They read every new diet book and try them all, yes they might lose a few pounds but it always come back. Others will tell them that diets do not work, but they don’t listen. Instead they keep buying the books and the products hoping that one day they will find the right one and the weight will fall off.

This is another reason why working with professionals is priceless, they can look at what you are doing and make simple yet highly effective changes. It often takes someone with an objective viewpoint to see the mistakes you are making.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein

If you want help with your goals this year, drop me an email at hypnomatt@puatraining.com

HypnoMatt

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