If you were on a tightrope and I kept hammering into your head the words, "Don't fall. Don't trip off the rope," what do you think would happen?
You would be so focused on falling and tripping that is exactly what you would do. You would not be paying attention to the rope, at all.
Now if I were to tell you, in the same situation, "Focus on putting one foot in front of the other carefully. Focus on staying on the rope as you move forward."
How does that feel now?
It is an accepted fact that we can make ourselves sick with our thoughts and words, or make ourselves well, in the same way.
One can choose to speak in terms of what you don't want - which necessarily keeps you stuck in the past - or what you do want - and that enables you to move into the future. You can look for and point out the negatives in any situation, or look for the positives.
Can you imagine how much happier you would feel and how much more successful you would be in any endeavor, if you were able to change that negative loop of thinking from: "What if it doesn't work?" into "What if it does?"
About 95 percent of our thoughts during the day are repeats. Only about 5 percent is brand new.
Imagine if you are under a constant barrage in your mind of negative dialogue, looping over and over, all day long. And we all do it.
Each time you have a though, or emotion, it causes a chemical reaction in your brain that washes over your entire body.
Your brain has nowhere else to put the emotion into, other than your body. Think for a moment about the effects of such a chemical bath, literally millions of times a day on your cells. So, are you making yourself ill? Or keeping yourself healthy?
When we experience the constant production of a particular chemical in our bodies, we ca actually become addicted to it - for the good or bad. When we are used to dealing with life under stress and drama, we begin to feed off of that "high," often searching it out in any give situation.
Your subconscious beliefs and attitudes are responsible for this. And how you develop those views about yourself and the world are often a direct result of your childhood experiences. Did you grow up in a dysfunctional, stressed-out household? As a matter of survival, did you need to learn how to cope early on with high stress, tension and negativity?
If so, as you began creating your subconscious life script, you were already developing the addiction to a negative outlook, or what I like to call, comfortable and familiar, but not necessarily healthy.
As with any habit, and with chemical reinforcement, your subconscious mind prepared you for an adult world of negativity.
In fact, many people have no idea how to cope with calm. They don't know how to function in a positive environment.
On a subconscious and physical level, it's uncomfortable and unfamiliar, even though they can understand consciously that it is better. This is why people are not able to effect changes in life on their own very well. Their subconscious beliefs and expectations do not match their conscious ones.
So we need to go back and reprogram the subconscious mind to believe in the higher expectations you desire and create a more positive way of seeing the word. To create different expectations of how life can be. And to enhance the desire for a new reference of "comfortable and familiar." To let go of the limiting beliefs about yourself and how you expect to function.
This is done though hypnosis. In this totally relaxed state, we are able to be in direct contact with the subconscious mind and input your own positive suggestions for change.
You can give instructions to begin searching out the positives in your environment, let go of the drama, stop the loop of negative supposition and browbeating and remove limitations.
You can learn to reframe any situation or thought into a positive statement, bathing yourself in healthy chemistry - creating a new addiction to positive perception.
Sheri Neuberg is a local Certified Hypnotherapist who holds a B.A. in Psychology from UCLA and can be reached at 323-691-6375.
