Saturday, April 1, 2017

The Importance of Keeping Your Word Updated



A few years ago I wrote an article about how important it was to keeping your word. It's proved to be one of the most read articles appearing on my blog - who would have imagined?

I recently had the opportunity to expand on the topic and so updated it with new material.

My main focus on the original and newly updated article was on keeping promises to yourself.

You see in my hypnosis work with clients its important they treat themselves with the same commitment and authenticity they treat and expect from others. In between sessions there are many opportunities for a client to "fall off the wagon."

To feel stressed one day and just go back to one cigarette, or quit dairy for their diet, but love coffee and can't bear it black or without milk or cream... so in either case... they cheat a little.

Of course it's a slippery slope... really slippery.

In fact your unconscious mind makes note of what you did and doesn't pass judgement on you but remembers this habit next time. And when the same situation arises again there's a little voice inside saying, hey no big deal you did it before...

So this client, while they've made a promise to themselves to quit or lose weight, they just don't take it as seriously as they would keeping a promise to others. So I spend time working with them on this commitment and just what it says about their respect for themselves when they don't keep their promises.

I haven't done any personal research, but I would be willing to wager the cost of a client's session that if they don't keep promises to others then there's little chance they'll keep it to themselves.

Why would they? They have a habit of broken promises.

And frankly, that's what it all comes down to... habit. Are you a person of your word? Can you be trusted? After all, how you do anything is how you do everything, right?

So, need a little exercise?

In order to keep promises to yourself you need to exercise the muscle.

Not by going to gym - although if you like that metaphor that's okay - but by doing what you say you'll do... for yourself.

Start small. Think of 5 things you can do today. Make them easy to begin. Take a walk for 20-minutes... yes, okay, walking the dog counts. Call a friend for a chat. eat some fruit, or a healthy meal. Feel the power as you tick off each item as you go through the day.

Believe me its infectious as you see a string of days of doing the five things you said you'd do. Keep doing it until you feel you're ready to "add more weights to the bar." That is make the five things just a tad more effort required.

In quick time you'll do everything you can to ensure you keep all your promises to yourself. Because... you've made it a habit, and good habits are as difficult to break as bad ones!

If you're interested in reading the full article at my blog on the importance of keeping your word then click here >>>

Let me know by leaving a comment if you enjoyed this post.

Erika Slater CH
Free At Last Hypnosis
Massachusetts

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Noise and Sound Sensitivity - New Treatments



I suffer with Tinnitus.

Maybe a more appropriate word for me is "endure." I'm aware there are people who experience "ringing in the ears" to the point they contemplate suicide.

This is not me. My tinnitus withdraws into the background when I focus on other activities.

This doesn't work for others.

One treatment for more distracting and painful levels of Tinnitus involve TRT or Tinnitus Retraining Therapy. The therapy involves counseling and a sound generator. It has to be administered by a qualified specialists. It can take 3-6 months to see results.

Other sound sensitivity issues such as Misophonia and Phonophobia are psychological rather than recognized as hearing issues. Treatment for these also include TRT.

Misophonia is caused when a particular sound causes a violent reaction in the person afflicted with it. The most common example is people chewing food. Phonophobia is the fear of sounds and can make the sufferer a recluse. They avoid events or gatherings where sounds will be prevalent.

Though sound sensitivity is still a relatively new field in the medical world, new treatments are being designed and tried to "cure" the most persistent and challenging cases.

For example Sequent Repatterning as a treatment for Misophonia has been developed in England by Chris Pearson. This uses hypnosis as a component of the treatment.

Two other treatments being pursued for helping control sound sensitivity are EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing - and IEMT - Integral Eye Movement Therapy. IEMT was developed by Andrew Austin in UK. While they both use the term eye movement they're two different therapies in the way implemented.

There are still more questions than answers today for people suffering with any sound sensitivity issues and its worthwhile keeping in touch with the resources that cover this area. When I was doing research for the article I found lots of different resources but no one place covering most of treatments.

A few weeks ago I set out to try and pull a resource together for folks and you can find it at my blog.

The resource is called treatments for noise and sound sensitivity including misophonia and  hyperacusis here >>> 

For the hearing issues that are psychological as in Misophonia and Phonophobia, hypnotherapy offers an alternative or complimentary solution to other treatments.

Erika Slater CH
Free At Last Hypnosis
Massachusetts