Larkin Hypnotherapy

This one is inspired by a friend's Facebook update: "Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes," she wrote, "find the cause of your problem and eliminate it."

A wonderful sentiment, absolutely, but you want to be careful when using negative words like "problem" in your affirmations. The subconscious is very literal, and if you tell it to "eliminate a problem," it might hold on to that second word (I've already written it too many times here).

I suggested a revision: "find the cause of what you are currently perceiving to be a 'problem' and discover the open door to which that this challenge is pointing."

She liked it, so let's give it a whirl, shall we?

Visit the mini meditation page to learn the steps to inducing a light state of relaxation.

When you are fully comfortable, repeat the following:

I locate the anxious energy within me
A challenge
Smile

A challenge
Transform that energy's shape
A doorway

A doorway
A message above the open door
A message that reads...

Repeat it as often as you like.

Locate the energy somewhere in your body. Mine, when it flares, tends to pulsate dully like a dim spherical light in the lower right corner of my abdomen.

With the word "smile", you will be amazed at the change in the relationship between you and the situation currently causing you anxiety. Anxiety occurs for a reason and, despite making us feel yucky, always presents a positive opportunity, which is why I seldom have it disappear completely in my mediations.

Use whatever method works for you, but I envision myself molding the dull, dim spherical light like a ball of clay into the shape of a doorway.

Obviously, only you can determine what the message above the door is, which is why we leave it ambiguous.

Be open to a message OF ANY KIND. Maybe a fully formed, clearly articulated sentence, but it might be an image, or part of an image — the beginning of a journey of self-discovery, perhaps? Be encouraged by whatever your subconscious sends your way!

Peace.

Visit the mini meditation page to learn the steps to inducing a light state of relaxation.

When you are fully comfortable, repeat the following:

Aware of the boundary formed by my skin and the air,
I now perceive a sphere surrounding me
Three feet above me
Three feet below me
Three feet in front, beside, and behind me.
With a breath, I expand
expand
expand
and fill that space.

Repeat it as often as you like. If you are relaxed enough, the suggestion to grow -- to be aware of yourself growing -- will stick. There needn't be anything mystical about this experience. It actually just feels kinda cool.

I recently had to drive from San Francisco to Santa Monica. Along the 380 mile drive, I was reminded of something I noticed way back when first got my license — actually, right after I got my first speeding ticket.

For the first five years after my first (and ONLY) speeding ticket, I drove the speed limit, which, at the time was 55 mph nationwide. I drove not only the speed limit, but every one of my passengers crazy. Oh well.

Very few people drive the speed limit down major freeways. When you slide on over to the slow lane, and chug along at the speed limit for hundreds of miles, you notice that we travel in packs. At 55 mph, you have the highway all to yourself — about two thirds of the time. The other third, you are surrounded by a clump of cars — all traveling at about 8-10 miles over the speed limit.

There are a number of good books that explain this phenomenon, among them Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos by Steven Strogatz.

During those times when I travel with the pack, that is all I know. The entire journey is spent jammed in with twenty to thirty other cars. Sometimes, when I'm driving the speed limit in a half-aware state, the pack will descend upon me, and I find myself speeding to keep up.

I'm not saying there is anything inherently wicked about the pack, I merely point out its frequently unconscious nature. It is interesting to note how we are sometimes controlled by our environments without us being aware of it.

...and not the other way around. This was one of the mantras I tried to instill in my students when I taught English in China.

China is a very modest culture, meaning the cult of individual we take for granted in the west doesn't exist there, and my students were all too ready to deflect any compliment. I would frequently hear some of the more fluent students say "My English is very poor".

I would react viscerally whenever I heard anybody say that. If one student said it in my class, I would make each student take out a piece of paper, and on the paper write the words "My English is very poor", look at it, fold the paper, then tear it up, crinkle the shreds into a little ball, throw it away, and, most importantly, NEVER utter those words again.

Hint. You can do this too. Write it down. Look at it. Tear it up. NEVER say it again. Burn it if you are in a place where it is safe (and legal) to do so. It's a hypnosis technique to assign a physical manifestation of the negative emotion or behavior and to discard or somehow separate it from yourself or your routine.

We always think of the mind as the observer of the outside world and processor of the information that enters into it. But I haven't found that to be entirely true, and I'm certainly not the first to dissent from the popular notion that the mind is the final arbiter of "reality."

I purchased an affirmations CD a few years ago in an attempt to boost my own self confidence. Whenever I listen to a piece of music over and over again, the melody stays with me and starts to play on its own. That's the idea behind an affirmations CD. You have to listen to it over and over again until your mind puts it on repeat.

Unfortunately, the very fist line of this poorly thought-out CD was "So, you think you're a failure." Despite some interesting visualizations later in the program, guess what line stayed with me.

It took some doing to undo the damage that CD instilled. I mention it only to illustrate my point. Our reality is created... ok, let's save reality creation for future blog entries... Our beliefs are determined.... okay, skeptics, let's meet in the middle... Our beliefs are influenced by what we say. There is a more positive way to phrase any negative emotion.

I would have my students say, instead of that thing I told them never to say, "My English is improving every day".
一天比一天我的中文提高了 (each day my Chinese improves a little) is what I would tell myself, resisting the urge to describe my language acquisition in a similar manner as my students.

Visit the mini meditation page to learn the steps to inducing a light state of relaxation.

When you are fully comfortable, repeat the following:

Encased in a cast of plaster that says
"This is the person you must be"...
With a focused thought, I crack it,
Split it open. I emerge, renewed and free.

Repeat it as often as you like. If you are relaxed enough, the suggestion will stick to transcend limitations you've placed on yourself.

Have a great weekend!