Caroline Myss calls it “Woundology” (Anatomy of the Spirit, 5th Chakra section). Modern Hypnosis and other counseling modalities refer to it as “secondary gains”… It’s when we want some outcome but are choosing something incompatible with our desire out of a subconscious need that takes precedence. In Energy Medicine, for instance, most people would of course say that they want to be healthy, but may take on and subconsciously participate in states that are not at all healthy because they have learned that when they are sick or weak they get either attention, or care, or love, or gentleness, or that they matter because people respond to their sickness differently than the treatment they get when they ARE well! So without even realizing it consciously, they may adopt a chronic pattern or sickness because the need for care, etc. is so strong in them.

This is a fascinating–and powerful–dynamic in looking at the human will and how we effectively make changes. The point isn’t to accuse anybody of subconsciously sabotaging their own goal-reaching. The point is to look for, acknowledge with respect, and otherwise meet the subconscious needs that have been sabotaging the outward goal being reached so that the block is removed. In the example I gave, it isn’t a crime to need care or attention or whatever–if the person looks to give themselves experiences of meeting those needs directly and consciously, honoring them, usually the block dissolves quickly and effectively and they can get momentum in achieving the outer goal.

I see this regularly in working with people using Hypnotherapy for weight management. So much of many people’s eating habits, often termed “emotional eating”, is about taking care of deeper unmet needs. If you are running into invisible blocks in reaching a goal of yours, look for what NOT meeting the goal provides you–what good do you get from it? Maybe relaxation or a sense of sovereignty? Maybe freedom from pressure? Maybe safety from the unknown of what’s next? It could be any number of things, and when you isolate and honor them, you release the drag brake from your actions so that you can move cleanly forward as a whole, cared for person.

When we are awake and mentally engaged at both deep AND surface levels of consciousness, we are aware of the focus and intent of our will and can honor that by responding appropriately. However if you have conflicting desires, which is to say part of you really wants that new car (shown in the advertisements cruising the curvy highways with the driver having an amazing adventure while the thumpin’ music beat drives the desireability message deep into your mind), but you ALSO really want to use the Earth’s resources well, save your money, finish using your old car without buying a new one, or any other of myriad possible other values, there can be an inner struggle. We all have them and we all move through them as we move toward decision-making. It is important to get outwardly clear on the costs and benefits of each choice and stay present in your conscious mind, rather than remaining hypnotised by a given choice and acting out of the natural state of mind alone.

One great way to focus on the benefit of each possible choice strategy comes from the Nonviolent Communication model of Dr. Marshall Rosenberg (see cnvc.org): identify the need that it would meet for you. Then if you have several differing needs, you can ask yourself how you can meet them all together. For instance, I would like to have the safety and comfort (needs) that a brand new car would meet, but I also need to use my resources wisely to meet my (financial and emotional) needs for relaxation and peace, then I can ask myself if there is a strategy which would provide me all of those simultaneously, i.e. safety, comfort, relaxation, and peace? And maybe I realize then that I would feel great about getting a used car that is in really good condition. We all move toward refining good decisions in this way by ourselves, of course, but to do it with deliberation at will is a great skill to teach yourself. The math is simple for resolving seemingly conflicting desires.

Another issue of conflicting desires–or hopefully multiple desires that don’t need to conflict with each other but current do–is that of unconscious desires whose relationship to a more concrete, outer strategy toward some apparently simple goal is less direct and obvious! I see this all the time as a Hypnotherapist working with people who want to lose weight or quit smoking or give up their pattern of expressing rage or whatever. They have an outer goal that they genuinely want to achieve, but there are subliminal goals that they hold to be in conflict with the outer one. Frequently the inner ones are emotional or spiritual: “I want to quit smoking but I have an unconscious association between that and accepting myself as independent.” “I want to lost weight but I have a physical/emotional comfort zone that only feels safe that is based on my body’s chemical makeup when I eat lots of carbs and sweets.” et cetera

You have to discover and address the subconscious desire and honor that in order to get to the outer one with success. The programming of the deep mind’s beliefs and values and choices take precedence over the outer, surface, often less longterm ones. Again, once you become aware of the apparently conflicting connection between two “opposing” needs, you can help them to make friends with one another, so to speak, and then get them working together: How can you lose weight and still feel safe and comfortable? How can you quit those cigarettes that you started smoking at least partially to establish your independence and maintain your sense of dignity, sovereignty, and independence today?

There are two related topics in working with the realm of human will that I will address in upcoming blog posts, so I’ll sign off with wishing you a great weekend and finding peace, clarity, wholeness, and strength in a unified application of your will toward your goals.

Heron

Heron Saline, CHT CMT

http:///www.fullattention.com

San Francisco

In terms of hypnosis, people often wonder if they can be hypnotised to “do something against their will”, (mostly people without hypnosis experience that they are clear on.) We cannot be “made” to make a bad choice, but perhaps surprisingly, we can trick ourselves into doing just that! The easiest way to understand that they cannot be “made” (i.e. forced or manipulated) to do anything against their own will is to think of the everyday example of advertising. All of the common elements of formal hypnotic induction are present in modern day advertising: repetition, multiple forms of suggestion (including subliminal), positive phrasing, embedded and embodied concepts, authority, etc. If you are not awake in your thinking, these repetitive messages will almost certainly have some effect on you. Even if you don’t want to buy a specific product or service that is being advertised, it has been written, you will very likely “buy into” an accepted concept of identity–that you ARE a consumer–rather than a person, who may or may not consume products and services. That hypnotic understanding, once bought into, effects how people make decisions about spending or not spending money, and on what. If you have a conscious intention to protect yourself from bad suggestions about “who you are”, such as being a consumer, then you can recognize that as a lie and turn mentally away from it. If you are not aware of it, you will likely engage in that series of relational interactions (staring at and listening to advertisements and taking them in at a deep level, even if you’re getting some potato chips in the kitchen and they are only on in the background.

But the advertisements themselves? Think of one that particularly got on your nerves. Maybe you can’t stand it’s catchy little jingle, or you find the product or service somehow repulsive. Maybe you are consciously aware that they are using big boobs or hunky guys to try to stimulate in you an associated desire to notice or purchase what they are pushing. Pick one that you despise.

Now: does running into that ad a zillion times in a month make you want to run out and buy that product? Probably quite the opposite: you likely feel a strong resistance to it. (Which may for advertising professionals work just the same, because you have an intense feeling response to the message. Even if it is negative, it makes an impression!

So there are various levels at which the will is engaged toward or against something, including conscious, outward thought and deep, intuitive, subconscious thought. Be sure you know where the MUTE button is on your remote control, dear ones!

More on the will later this week!

Heron Saline, CHT CMT

http://www.fullattention.com

415/706-9740

And even that-personal, daily experience of hypnotic levels of thought–needs a clear distinction from Stage Hypnosis, which is for entertainment purposes. (High quality hypnotherapy is based in respect and care for the client, derives from their own desires for their life, and is generally confidential just as any other therapy is.) Please please please believe me: I have no interest in making you “bark like a dog” or think you’re the Lone Ranger or whatever. While that sort of mental game might be fun for some to participate in, it has an entirely different flavor than when you trust me to listen to what you want for your life and help you select and run thoughts that support you becoming that.

Hypnosis, then, is something you experience many times every single day of your life. Your most familiar exposures to it are when you drift into a daydream; you have a memory (what did you do last weekend that felt great?); you get a creative impulse (hey! maybe I’ll go see that show this weekend…); fantasies; imagination; reflection… any time your thoughts take you into your inner world in a way that you lose awareness even momentarily of where your physical body is, you are in hypnosis. And it’s even simpler than that in this scientific view: on an EEG readout, you’d be noticing during those mental experiences a preponderance of slowed down brainwaves. Literally, the electrical impulses in your brain, body, and nervous system slow down and when that happens, your consciousness takes you into an inner wonderland. It’s an increase in alpha and theta brainwaves, most likely, for what that’s worth to ya.

So hypnosis really is quite ordinary. I wonder if you’ve already dropped into and come back out of it while reading these paragraphs. It is natural and safe and part of healthy thinking.

And that leads us to facilitated hypnosis, which is when someone leads someone else into a hypnotic level of consciousness. And that is useful because one thing that all of those forms of trance-y, hypnotic thought have in common is that they are associative, just like dreams are. We start daydreaming about what we want for lunch, and then we think about the gooey grilled cheese sandwiches that Grandma made for us when we were kids, and then we’re thinking about summer camp in 5th grade and that pillow fight when we stayed up late …. on and on.

And free association is great, healthy, and normal, but it’s also beneficial to bring this deep, wide, dreamy, and creative level of thought to making changes you want in your life, and that’s hard to do if you keep free-associating away from your intention! So my job as your Hypnotherapist then is to keep you on track and complete the deepmind thinking you need to accomplish to line up all your ideas, beliefs, questions, emotions, sensations, attitudes, and behaviors so that you can complete and accomplish the change you want. In that way, I am your guide through your own mind.

The dream mind of hypnosis is something we experience every single day of our lives. In that way, it’s almost mundane. We are so used to it and at home with it that, because it is our subconscious, we barely notice it consciously at times. It’s always running, like a cable channel or website that is always broadcasting, even when we don’t have our tv’s or computers (i.e. our attention) on it!

But it is also the home of new, fresh ideas, of creativity, and where we hold the whole of our lives and experiences. It connects us to worlds that aren’t yet in existence and so also has a delicious, adventurous quality to it. I hope you make friends with your own inner world and can learn to use it productively and at will. More on that in upcoming posts.

Have a great weekend. I wonder what you will do with it… feel free to drift off and wonder about that yourself, dipping into the creative mental well of your natural hypnotic thought and making something really fun, meaningful, and satisfying for yourself!

Today I’m going to tell my own story of successful weight gain hypno and the learning it held for me, and soon I’ll write about other aspects of the work. Most people I work with on weight and fitness issues want and/or need to lose weight, not gain it. There are some with medical wasting who need to gain weight they have lost through cancer or AIDS or some other condition and I would be interested in working with them to replicate my own good results for getting them up to a healthy level of body mass, ratio of muscle to fat, or whatever is their goal.

About ten years ago I had lost some weight after a relationship ended and I was also exercising a lot… my weight was usually in the range of 175-180 with me eating as much as I wanted to of whatever I wanted: usually lots of sweet carbs and proteins with a good base of whole grains and fresh vegetables. I started drinking protein shakes after my workouts to try to fuel the muscle growth but it didn’t seem to happen. Since I traded hypno sessions with a good friend whom I met in hypno certification training regularly, we did several sessions for me to gain weight over the course of several months.

With little apparent result! Finally around six months into the facilitated sessions, which I supplemented regularly with self-hypnosis, I gave up. It seemed a mystery to me why it wasn’t “working” in terms of concrete (get the subliminal image in my languaging there!!?! [wink wink] ) weight gain.

And then about two to three months later–8 to 9 total after doing the bulk of the weight gain hypnosis, the weight just seemed to add itself on, almost miraculously. I made no special efforts, still enjoyed eating the things I wanted to, still exercised, did my whole/wholistic approach and it just came right up, over the course of about six weeks to two months I gained a well-distributed 15 pound and was soon within a few pounds of my 195 goal weight. And I stayed there for the next 7 or 8 years!

Last winter my fitness and body development goals changed and I began working out with a trainer (check out http://www.careyrockland.com , Carey is an amazing resource!) One thing on my goal list was that, given the musculo-skeletel development of the last several years of working out, I was again ready to up my weight. This time, about five pounds.

With the history and mental practice of having already deliberately gained 15 pounds several years ago, this new piece was easy and it kicked right in! Within a month I was around 200 and yesterday at the gym the scale said 202! That always makes me laugh out loud–it still seems almost surreal to me that we can use our thoughts** to shape our bodies. (**thoughts engaged with our attitudes, feelings, & behaviors)

I have worked with many people over the years on weight loss and fitness goals. Some of the big issues, which I will write about in upcoming blog entries, tend to be clear intention; unblocking of unconscious resistance; managing and awakening awareness of appetite satisfaction; and emotional eating.

But the thing I want to leave you with today is the information, in case no one in our decrepit and dysfunctional U.S. educational system ever got around to mentioning to you, that you can decide on and work to build the body you want. Even if you haven’t in the past. Even if you are “old”. Even if it’s a long road. Even if you don’t feel confident you’ll get there, wherever “there” is. I believe it for you and I look forward to sharing with you how. And the best part: you’re going to like it!

When I was steeping myself in Nonviolent Communication training several years ago, (a model for compassionate communication with oneself and others developed by Marshall Rosenberg, PhD and others; see cnvc.org) the quality of this unrushed and thorough back-and-forth became more apparent. Because this model is based in empathy and connection through an understanding of personally-experience of universal needs, each “volley” of a communicative interaction has a moment in which it hovers in its own center before responding back. Especially in moments of conflict, the richness of *real* listening comes in being with and speaking back what the other party has just said to you BEFORE adding your own next piece! Yes, the opportunity for connection with the other person comes in hearing them and being with what they have just said–even if you don’t like it; even if you disagree; even if you feel hurt by it–and meet them there rather than skipping over that connection to deliver your next chunk of prepared speech! Some interesting things happen in that timeless, unrushed space of being with what each other is saying as opposed to rushing on to deliver your next bit of evidence or assertion.

Example:

A: I didn’t like when you took a week to return my call last week.

B: You really felt unhappy because you wanted contact with me, is that right?

rather than:

B: I never promised I’d call you back (or) I was busy (or) that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to be in touch with you (etc.)

There’s a concept from the model by Jett Psaris and Marlena Lyons (Undefended Love) of undefendedness. Healthy communication, and the healthy self-esteem that it stems from, is centered in an undefended acceptance of self and other just exactly as we are in the moment, without pushing away, denying, or trying to change anything (at least yet!)

This practice actually can give communication the slightly surreal, but not unpleasant sensation of slow-motion ping pong, where each volley is received as a gift of self-disclosure, met and connected with, before at last leaving the hovering quality of true listening and starting a fresh direction to the next piece as both are satisfied and ready to move on, complete with the piece that was just shared, understood, and valued.
It’s weird to me that people tend to listen less when they are rushing, which is exactly the time when they most likely want not only the richness but the efficiency of genuine connection.

It takes getting used to, this new rhythm of slowed, centered listening and response. I notice frequently, movie-holic that I am, that most of the stories we are exposed to in modern film’s screenplays are based in rather vapid interactions where people don’t really hear one another. Last week I watched some forgettable movie with a love scene in it in which the two lovers conversed:

A: I just wanted to tell you that…

B: (interrupting) I know …

and then they changed directions with the conversation!!!!! She knew WHAT!!??!! And even if she did know what he was about to say, wasn’t it important and okay for him to express it to her directly, anyway??? So much of modern day, default “communication” isn’t communication at all. To me, that little exchange was the equivalent of a ping pong exchange in which one person suddenly grabs the ball, puts it in her pocket, and walks away, mid-volley! I imagine us all doing better than that. I really want people to be heard fully, even if the content of what they have to say is not agreed with, already known, or not wanted.

Maybe the ping pong analogy isn’t strong. I have after all always preferred the lazy, light fun of badminton…

For almost twenty years now I have been studying and practicing Holistic Health. For me, that means engagement as a whole person, i.e. every part of me is welcome and available for compassionate exploration and development. What a fascinating, wild ride it is to live the “examined life”, don’t you find? Because holism is important to me, and, okay, because I am a control freak insofar as possible, I have made it my figurative and literal business to learn how to analyze and work productively with every aspect of a person: mental, emotional, somatic, attitudinal, and intentional aspects.

I have studied and practiced–first on myself and then on others–working the component parts of thought (clarity, processing, creativity, memory storage & recall, beliefs, thought form variations, etc.), feelings (sensation & emotion), the body (energy, position, movement), attitude (also frequently called spirit or energy), and intention (the human will) and how they overlap and affect one another. Along the way I’ve gotten certified in Massage, Personal Thinking Patterns ™, Hypnotherapy, Medical Hypnotherapy, and as a “Hypnotic Anesthesiologist” (my favorite self-descriptor to throw out at a cocktail party!!!) I’ve also studied OrthoBionomy, Psychism/Intuitive Thought, 3 kinds of Breathwork, Trance Rhythms, and Astral Projection. (…As my grandma once wrote to me in a postcard: “You never know what a day will hold!”)

It’s rich stuff, the inner workings of any of us, and it all leads back to personal experience for one reason: while others can see different views of us than we have of ourselves, no one can know us better than we know ourselves internally. They can know us differently, perhaps at times even see some of what we can’t see about ourselves, but the inner world, when we remove the self-deceptions, is the essence of who we are here to be. And so, self-trust becomes a huge issue in wellness.

I happen to be a person with a lot of opinions. I was raised on the East Coast where people often enact the regional generalization of very direct communication and on-the-surface feelings being expressed. I tend to like others who also have strong opinions and who are open to backing them up through examined conversation. My hope as I start this blog is to share some of the opinions, values, perspectives, and resources that I’ve gained through my own experience of life, throw them out on the table to flop around. I plan on trusting myself, in gentleness and honesty, as I examine my life experiences, and if I can cultivate and encourage similar self-trust in you along the way, it will be worth my while. I invite dialogue: I’d like to know what this stimulates in you, where your thoughts go with it, and especially the questions that it awakens in you.

Thanks for reading and responding,

Heron

Heron Saline, CHT CMT
http;//www.fullattention.com
415/706-9740