Tools For Your Mind, Soul and Spirit

by Linda-Ann Stewart

I remember watching a television program where a modern working mother tried to keep her house as clean as her mother had. She spent her weekends nagging her husband and kids to wash and fold the laundry, dust, etc., while she scrubbed the refrigerator, kitchen, and house from top to bottom. The weekends were stressful times, and her family life suffered. Everyone was miserable as she put a clean house ahead of her relationship with them. She was unsuccessfully trying to live up to an unrealistic ideal of a perfect house.

Perfectionism is a waste of time and energy. When it becomes the focus of your life, it affects every part of it. Relationships suffer, as does your health. The stress and pressure you put on yourself can contribute to all sorts of health problems, such as high blood pressure, irritable bowel syndrome, arteriosclerosis and much more. Think of all the health problems associated with a Type-A personality and that is what you risk when you attempt to live up to idealistic expectations.

That stress isn’t coming from others, it’s coming from within you. It’s been said that stress isn’t so much from the events in your life, as it is from your reactions to them. Perfectionism means you’re trying to reach for an unattainable goal, and by doing so, you’re destined to be disappointed, unhappy, and dissatisfied.

Striving for perfection can distract you from what you truly want in life: abundance, harmony, health, relationships, and so on. By focusing so much on details you forget to look at the whole picture of what you want.

Here are some steps to help you break this self-sabotaging habit:

1. Take one item of your life and don’t do it. Leave dishes in the sink for a few hours. Wait for a day to fold the sheets and towels. This is to help you to get more comfortable with letting some things go and attending to more important things, like relationships.
2. Focus on what’s right in your life, rather than what’s wrong or needs to be fixed. Many people are trying to gain approval or control their environment by being perfect. This creates the internal tension that you feel as stress. Life is a process and imperfect, and by changing your focus, you’ll relieve some of your pressure.
3. Finish a project, rather than trying to get it perfect. Many people avoid completion to avoid criticism. Get it done as quickly as you can. Do it with what you already have. Do it even if you don’t feel prepared to finish it. Successful people tend to jump into a project without having all the information or knowing where it’s going.
4. Leave some clutter on your desk. Contrary to popular belief, some mess actually improves creativity. And people who make more money are less likely to consider themselves to be “neat freaks.”

Your coworkers and friends aren’t turning themselves into sleepless wonders to get things done. They let some things slide to have a higher quality of life. Which do you want more of in your life, stress and a constant search to make things perfect, or success, abundance, ease, health and harmony? The choice is up to you.

Affirmation

Being perfect is an unattainable ideal, and one that blocks my enjoyment of life. I now give myself permission to let some things slide. The only person who will notice is me, and I am being kind to myself. I ease up on life, and now choose success, happiness, harmony, and health.

Copyright 2010 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

A nationally known hypnotherapist, writer, speaker and coach, Linda-Ann Stewart helps people rediscover their power and sense of self-worth. Visit Secrets To The Law Of Attraction to download your copy of this free ebook.

self improvement, self help, personal growth, personal development

by Linda-Ann Stewart

Sometimes, a client may be afraid that hypnosis means that my will, my mind, dominates and overpowers theirs. That no matter what I say, they’ll have to dance to my tune. Hypnosis doesn’t unplug their will.

With hypnosis, the conscious mind, which is the willpower, and the subconscious mind, which is the processor, co-operate to bring about a desired result.  If the will, which filters all information, doesn’t agree with a particular suggestion, change won’t occur.

For instance, I may tell a client that if she smokes, her cigarette is going to taste absolutely awful, and the subconscious complies by making the smoke taste vile. But if she really wants to continue puffing on a cigarette, then her conscious decision can counteract my suggestions, no matter how disgusting the tobacco might taste.

However, if that same client really wants to quit smoking, then she must make a conscious committment to follow my instructions. Such as taking three deep breaths, and getting involved with something else, to take her mind off smoking.  Her decision reinforces the suggestions to carry out the result she’s chosen.

Hypnosis balances the conscious and subconscious. The conscious, analytical part of us quiets down and quits picking things apart, while allowing the subconscious to come out and play. Have you ever looked for the answer to a problem, and started throwing out solutions, no matter how silly they were?

Many times, there’s a seed of an answer in one of the “silly” ideas. That answer would never have been found if the critical part that says, “That’s nonsense” had been involved. There’s a time for the logic, and a time for unrestricted thought. Writer’s and creative people are very aware of the analytical part versus the creative part.

Our critical aspect sabotages our work by tearing down every idea we come up with. When we get immersed in our project, and set the critical voice aside, we are able to be innovative. This is hypnosis. Later, we use the critical part to assess what we’ve done, and decide how to make it better.

Hypnosis helps a person get in touch with abilities they have that they haven’t been able to contact consciously. A person can quit smoking cold turkey, but hypnosis makes it much easier.

We all know of people who have put down their cigarettes and never gave them another thought. They’ve convinced themselves that when they quit, that was it. The subconscious mind knew that, and it followed their decision.

Another example is that everyone has the ability to block pain. Consider the person who was in an accident, and saved others without realizing he was injured, too. Only later, when the crisis was over, did he begin to hurt, and discover that he had a broken leg.

With hypnosis, a person can access that natural ability that we all have. Usually, our conscious, critical “I can’t” gets in the way. Hypnosis moves that self-defeating thought aside.

We’ve been hypnotized all of our lives. “You’re stupid,” “I’ll never succeed at anything,” “Life is hard,” “Quitting smoking is almost impossible,” “Every time I even pass a bakery, I gain weight,” “I’m a klutz,” and on and on. We’ve been using hypnosis to program ourselves every day of our lives.

Review the beliefs and attitudes you have. You probably accepted them without question, without your logic evaluating whether those concepts were true for someone else with your abilities.

All hypnosis does is de-hypnotize a person of self-limiting beliefs, and impress the ideas they choose. Hypnosis is simply a process that we’re already using anyway. Why not use the process to achieve the results we want?

Copyright 1999, 2010 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

A nationally known coach, hypnotherapist, author, and speaker, Linda-Ann Stewart empowers people to discover new possibilities and realize their full potential. Download a copy of her free ebook, Secrets To The Law Of Attraction.

self improvement, self help, personal growth, personal development

by Linda-Ann Stewart

So many people think that hypnosis is magic.  If an ice cube is placed on a hypnotized person’s skin, and she’s told it is a hot coal, a blister appears.  A person is hypnotized to believe that he’s stiff as a board.  Then, his head is placed on one chair, and his feet on another.  Several people climb onto his stomach, and he doesn’t collapse.

These phenomena look like magic.  They aren’t.  All that happens in hypnosis is that we access abilities we naturally have, but that we don’t seem to be able to connect with while in our normal analytical state.

For instance, a stage hypnotist may ask a shy woman to sing in front of an audience.  Generally, she’d shrink into a corner.  However, because her self-imposed inhibitions have been circumvented, she belts out the song.

The critical part of us that says, “I can’t do that” moves onto a shelf in the corner, and lets the power within us come out to play.  Hypnosis simply frees us from limitations we’ve accepted.

Hypnosis is a process of allowing the subconscious to be more in control than our conscious mind.  Our subconscious is the storehouse of all our thoughts, actions, beliefs, attitudes, memories, decisions.  In other words, everything that is us. It’s been programmed like a computer. It’s like putting data into a computer.

We use the keyboard (conscious mind) every day to enter new information into the hard drive (subconscious mind) of the computer.  The hard drive contains all the old information, and the new information coming into it.  Hypnosis is simply an auxilary keyboard that bypasses the conscious mind to place new data into the computer.

We’ve been conditioned with our beliefs that “I can’t.”  Our conscious mind is the logical part of us.  It sifts and analyzes information, draws a conclusion on that information, and then passes the conclusion to the subconscious mind.  The subconscious then processes the information, comparing it with all the other information it has. Then the subconscious takes the strongest, most powerful idea, and acts on that.

For instance, two smokers want to quit.  The first one decides “That’s enough.  I don’t want to do this anymore.  I have a lot of reasons to quit.  No matter how difficult it becomes, I’m done smoking.”  He’s made a final decision to quit, and knows that nothing is going to talk him out of it.  He throws out his cigarettes and that’s that.  He has very little trouble.  We’ve all heard of people doing this.

The second smoker wants to quit, but thinks “I want to quit, but I really like to smoke.  And it’s going to be so difficult.  I don’t know if I can do it.”  He puts his cigarettes in a drawer.  As soon as the craving hits, he’s digging them out.

The first smoker made a determined decision.  It was stronger than the desire to continue smoking, and he committed himself to it, no matter what.  His subconscious mind picked the most dominant thought.  His choice to quit was stronger than his outdated choice to smoke, therefore his subconscious made the process relatively painless.

The second smoker’s belief that it was going to be hard set up a self-fulfilling prophecy.  And he wasn’t dedicated to quitting smoking.  His subconscious recognized that he hadn’t decided to quit no matter what, so it figured that the old programming was what was really desired.  His cravings were overwhelming, and he gave into them, to the familiar path and to his old conditioning.

Our subconscious goes wherever our attention is.  Just like driving a car.  When our intention is to drive straight ahead, then our reflexes aim the car along that course.  If our attention wanders to look at the beautiful mountains to our right, and continues to gaze at them, the instinctive impulse is to turn the car in the direction of where we’re looking.

With the smokers, their subconscious minds delivered to them whatever their attention was fixed on.  The one smoker had decided to quit no matter what, so he got to quit. The other smoker was afraid it would be difficult, that he wouldn’t succeed, and he was giving up something he liked.  His subconscious gave him what it thought he wanted, to continue smoking.

With hypnosis, we focus on one idea, such as giving up something we don’t want anymore, and keep our attention on what we do want.  This is a process that we use in our daily life all the time.  Whenever we break old habits, learn new skills, change the way we think about life, are creative, we are focusing on what we want.  Hypnosis just makes use of the process that we’re already using.

Copyright 1999, 2010 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

A nationally known coach, hypnotherapist, author, and speaker, Linda-Ann Stewart empowers people to discover new possibilities and realize their full potential. Download a copy of her free ebook, Secrets To The Law Of Attraction.

self improvement, self help, personal growth, personal development

by Linda-Ann Stewart

I’ve had a private practice in hypnotherapy for twenty years. One of my clients asked me to write an article on hypnotherapy, since she benefited so much from it when she was working with me.  This is dedicated to her. She knows who she is.

Much of my initial work as a hypnotherapist is to dispel some of the myths about hypnosis.  Many people, even when they come in to see me, have a lot of misconceptions about the process.  They think I’m going to wave my hand in front of their face, and they’ll go into never-never land.  Then they think I’m going to take control of their mind, and erase all their problems in one session.

Some people want me to do this, and some are afraid of having me in control.  So the first thing I do is explain what hypnosis is, what it isn’t, what it can and can’t do.  Periodically, I even hold a free hour long mini-class, open to the public, to educate about hypnosis.

Some years ago, I was at a party.  A man came up and we started talking.  “What do you do?” he asked.  “I’m a hypnotherapist,” I replied.  “Oh.  Well, you can’t hypnotize me,” he said, as he began scanning the party for someone else to talk to.  “You’re absolutely right.  I can’t hypnotize you.  I don’t hypnotize anyone.  By following my instructions, they actually hypnotize themselves.”  That got his attention.

That’s the first thing I tell my clients.  All hypnosis is self-hypnosis.  If they don’t follow my instructions, they won’t be hypnotized.  And if they try too hard, they won’t be hypnotized. It’s sort of like falling asleep at night.  If you try to will yourself to fall asleep, you’ll just wake up even more.

Hypnosis is a letting go.  Letting go of the details of the day.  Letting go of the concerns.  Letting your analytical mind let go of its hold on you.  Just being in the here and now.

Some people are afraid of letting go.  They think it means that someone else will be in control.  I reassure them that they are always in control of the process, and that they only go as deeply as they feel safe doing.

Generally, a client will drift into a light state the first time.  The second time I see them, they go deeper because they realize that I’m not going to do anything weird, like make them cluck like a chicken.

In hypnosis, I’m merely a guide.  I can lead a client where they want to go, but only if they want to go there.  If they’re not dedicated to the change they want, then I can’t help them. I’ve had smokers come to me and say, “I’d really like to want to quit.  But I still love smoking cigarettes, even though I know I should quit.  Take away the craving.”

I send them on their way and tell them to come see me when they’ve decided to quit.  Hypnosis is a tool that can help them through the process of quitting, but it can’t make them quit. It’s not a magic wand.

I can help a client move from point A to point B, but they’re the one that gets to walk the path.  Hypnosis can make it infinitely easier.  It can make a mountain into a molehill, and make changes happen very quickly.  But the person has to really want the change, and be willing to deal with all of the other aspects of that change.

For instance, a woman wanting to lose weight decides to reduce her consumption of sweets.  After hypnosis, she loses her desire for them, but finds that it was an enjoyable part of the meal with her husband.  She gets mad at me because I “took away the enjoyment.”

Many people erroneously think that hypnosis is some other dimension of consciousness.  It’s not.  It’s a very normal, natural awareness that we’re moving in and out of all the time.  When you’re driving down the road on autopilot, and your mind drifts off, and all of a sudden you’re aware that you’ve driven past your turnoff.

Or when you’re at the movie theater, and get so involved with the action on the screen that you’re barely aware of the rest of the people in the audience.  Or if you’re an artist or writer, and when you get so focused on a project that time just speeds by, and outside distractions fade away.

These are all examples of the state of mind that we call hypnosis.  It’s just that I know how to help a person reach that level of consciousness deliberately, and know what to do once we get there.

Hypnosis is really just being able to focus on one idea.  Back in the mid 1800’s, Dr. James Braid coined the term “hypnosis” after Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep.  But after more experience with it, he realized that the word “hypnosis” was inaccurate.  Dr. Braid then tried to rename it to “mono-ideaism,” for “one idea.”  But it was too late.  “Hypnosis” had already caught on, and the other really is a mouthful to say.

Copyright 1999, 2010 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

A nationally known coach, hypnotherapist, author, and speaker, Linda-Ann Stewart empowers people to discover new possibilities and realize their full potential. Download a copy of her free ebook, Secrets To The Law Of Attraction.

self improvement, self help, personal growth, personal development

Remembering Wholeness: A Personal Handbook for Thriving in the 21st Century
by Carol Tuttle

The author is a Rapid Eye Therapist (RET), and writes from the same perspective I would. Her views on how we’re shaped from our childhood experiences, how our beliefs are formed, and how we can change them echoed much of what I tell my clients.

She has a lot of wonderfully clear explanations of how we create our life through our attitudes. I especially liked some of her spiritual approaches, such as the concept that since you’re a co-creator with God, surrendering to God does not mean abdicating responsibility for your life.

The chapters are short, meaning that you can read a chapter at a time. You can either think on what you’ve read or move onto the next idea. At the end, there’s a convenient collection of the prayers and self-help processes covered in the book. This book has many treasures in it, waiting to be uncovered.

by Linda-Ann Stewart

Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of attitudes about money that block prosperity. For instance, “Money doesn’t grow on trees,” “(The love of) money is the root of all evil,” “Wealthy people are greedy,” and so forth. For the person who holds an idea like this, they will restrict their abundance because they have to be congruent with their beliefs. They may want to be more prosperous, but they can’t violate their deeply held negative belief about it, or become like a person whose values they revile.

I heard another restrictive idea recently. An artist was being interviewed, and he said that “Money is power,” and since he didn’t want power, he would only make as much as he needed to live on.

Money isn’t power. It’s an agreed upon system that exchanges products or services for other products or services, like groceries, housing, clothing, etc. Money is simply a tool, it does what we tell it to do. If we tell it to pay our bills, it does. It can’t do it without our direction. Like a hammer, it can tear down a house or build one.

The power that people attribute to money actually comes from the intention and the character of the person holding it. If their intention is to have control over others, they’ll find a way to do that even if they’re poverty stricken. Mother Teresa had power, and she was poor. So money itself has no power of its own. Money is simply a means to an end, and the purpose for it is up to you.

Copyright 2010 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

self improvement, self help, personal growth, personal development

Question: Is it safe to do meditation and self-hypnosis at the same time?

Answer: You can do self-hypnosis at the same time that you do meditation, mindfulness of the breath, or guided imagery. You’re accessing the same mental state with them all. I find that doing relaxation and a countdown gets me into a deeper state at the beginning of my meditation. After the self-hypnotic “induction” I then go on with whatever meditation I’m practicing that day.

You could start with the induction (progressive relaxation), spend some time on meditation (mindfulness of breath), and some time at the end with any imagery/affirmation/positive suggestion/prayer that you want. I do that all the time, and it’s very effective. Or you could flip the meditation and directed consciousness (positive suggestion, etc.) parts. There is no right or wrong way to go about this. It all depends on what works for you. Some people call the directed consciousness part “dynamic meditation” because you’re more goal oriented during your inner time.

Copyright 2010 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

inspiration

We’re having a severe winter storm in Northern Arizona today. Roads from the south into Flagstaff are closed due to the snow. The snow plows can’t keep up with it. And our internet has been on and off all day. They expect dry washes, creeks and rivers to exceed their flood stages. So it’s been interesting. We’ve been in a drought, so we needthe moisture, but this is so much at one time!

That tends to happen in our lives, too. We pray and affirm for a particular outcome, and nothing happens for a while. Then, just when we let it go (which is what looses the power), the dam breaks and all of a sudden there’s a flood of opportunities. So much that we can feel overwhelmed. As a result, we stop our mental work, and once the flood has passed, we’re in a drought situation again. The weather pattern the Southwest U.S. is experiencing is a lesson to persist in our mental work, even when we’re in the midst of a flood.

self improvement, self help, personal growth, personal development, inspiration

I was introduced to this website that offers free online books on metaphysics, mind power, law of attraction, abundance, prosperity, success, manifestation, dream interpretation, self-mastery, joy, visualization and many more. The authors are legendary: Emile Coue, Thomas Troward, Henry Thomas Hamblin, Charles F. Haanel, Napoleon Hill, Wallace Wattles and others. There are even courses and videos available. I have many of these books in physical form and some in electronic form. These are the books that have inspired current best-selling authors. If you want to go to the source of where today’s writers have gotten their foundation, use this wonderful resource at PsiTek.com.

self improvement, self help, personal growth, personal development, motivation, productivity, inspiration

Question: What’s the difference between Creative Visualization and Guided Imagery?

Answer: There’s not a lot of difference. First, I want to address the terms Visualization and Imagery. They’re the same thing, though some people have gotten the impression that Visualization means simply picturing an image, as if it’s on  a  mental screen. This isn’t the case. In every book I’ve read that mentions Visualization, (and I’ve read a lot of them, some forty and fifty years old) the author states that you should include all the senses when you visualize. To imagine what you’d sense, feel, hear, smell in that situation. Some people are more visual, some sense or feel the imagery, some hear words. We all have a combination of these, but one or two seems to be stronger. With practice, you can strengthen the senses that aren’t as obvious. Recently, many books have used the term Imagery, because it seems to escape some of the misconceptions associated with the word Visualization.

The difference between Creative Visualization and Guided Imagery lies in the words Creative and Guided. Creative Visualization is a deliberate mental imagining, meant to change your mind, thereby affecting your life. Such as, visualizing yourself as more slender, noticing how you feel, what actions you’d take, etc. You’re building the picture as you go. Since the mind can’t tell the difference between and image and reality, you’d eventually begin to act on that mental image. You’re picturing the desired end result.

Guided Imagery is when you or someone else guides you through a series of visualizations. Again, the goal is to effect some sort of change in your life. But this time, there’s a beginning, middle and an end. An example would be to imagine a white light flowing into your body, melting away any excess fat, and your body getting slimmer.

But these terms are so closely related that it’s difficult to separate them. I wouldn’t get too concerned about which means what, as long as you recognize that your life is created by the mental images you focus on. You have the power to change them.

Copyright 2001, 2010 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved