Do You Have Will Power?

Have you ever heard someone say “I don’t have the will power to quit”? Maybe you’ve even said it yourself.  It’s a sign of resignation, giving up, isn’t it?

Will power is related to our ability or inability to resist temptation.  Generally the term is used when referring to sex, drugs, alcohol or even gambling.

When it comes to addictions, there’s always a benefit even a short term one that causes us to take the action that we consciously want to avoid. The challenge is that it’s not our conscious mind that’s in control.  It’s our unconscious that’s very often in charge.

Think of your unconscious mind like a five to seven year old little child that loves you very much.  As a little child, it’s not concerned about the future just right now. So, as much as you want to avoid the temptation, your unconscious wants right now.

Addiction, like grief, comes in stages; experimentation, misuse, abuse, and dependency.  Unlike grief, it’s not necessary to progress through all the stages.  In fact, some people never progress beyond experimentation.

In the first stage, experimentation, you are still in control. You may enjoy the short term benefit without progressing to abuse.  Unfortunately for many young adults, a lot is going on chemically in their bodies as they progress from adolescents into adults throwing them off balance and often times making rational thought difficult.  For them temporary benefit the temptation brings is far better than facing the problems of their young lives.

One has progressed into misuse when the experimentation causes a problem.  This is the case when someone gets pulled over for driving under the influence or empties their bank account when gambling.  While a single occurrence of misuse does not mean a problem exists, repeated instances do indicate a slide towards addiction.  This may also be the beginning of denial for many where they deny that there is a problem at all.

When the need for the temporary benefit outweighs the negative consequences, when there is frequent misuse, the problem has progressed to the third stage; abuse.  It’s at this stage where your little child, your unconscious has started to take over.  While you are aware of the consequences and may swear that you’ll never fall victim to temptation again, the little you likes the temporary benefits and wants you to have that good feeling as often as possible.

The fourth state, dependency, is where the temptation has gone from a desire to a need.  For many, their thoughts are consumed with whatever they’re addicted to and they are subject to mood swings and withdrawal symptoms if they don’t get what they seek.

The question is, what can you do about it?  Unfortunately, like so many things, the answer is that it depends on what stage one is at.  For example, in the experimental stage, simply making one aware of the dangers of addiction could be enough.

Sometimes a single incidence of misuse is enough to scare someone straight.  Other times, it requires a little more convincing.  If the subject is willing, hypnosis can also be very effective here.  At this point, it’s the hypnotherapists job to convince the subject’s unconscious mind that the behavior will have long term negative effects on subject and his health.  Time Line Therapy® can also be effective to help remove any of the reasons that one would be seeking the benefits of the temptation.

When you step beyond misuse into abuse and dependency, then the therapy takes a more drastic turn.  If there is a chemical dependency involved, then part of the challenge is to work with the subject to have the chemical leave the body as quickly as possible and to eliminate or reduce the effects of withdrawal.

There’s also the mental addiction to consider.  Even though the chemical dependency may be handled, the subject may still want the temptation.  Many smokers who’ve not been through hypnosis still desire a cigarette long after the nicotine has left their body.

No matter what the temptation, effective therapy will include:

• Time Line Therapy® to remove the root cause of the issue.  What causes one to misuse or abuse the temptation?
• Hypnosis to make the unconscious mind aware of the immediate and long term effects of abuse, force the body to expel any chemicals and give the unconscious mind choices to create the same emotional effects.

Whether or not you have will power really depends on whether or not your unconscious mind realizes the long term effects of the temptation.   To find out how you can overcome temptation, contact The New You Academy for more information.

Are you deluded?

Looking back over your life, have there been times when you something you thought was not for you turned out to be a missed opportunity?  Were there times when you made the wrong choice?

You are where you are today as a result of the choices you’ve had and the decisions you’ve made along the way.  Those decisions you made cloud what you see and what you don’t see.  They determine whether or not you see opportunities.

It’s because of those decisions, you may not be able to see an opportunity when it’s right in front of you.  It’s also the reason that you might be deluded into thinking that an opportunity is not an opportunity at all.  In hypnosis, we might call that a negative hallucination, meaning that you can’t see what’s right in front of you.

This trait is neither good nor bad.  It’s just a characteristic that you have based on your beliefs.  The question is, does this behavior serve you?  Is it helping you to achieve what you want in life?

Through Time Line Therapy®, you can re-evaluate the decisions you’ve made.  This will allow you to change your beliefs and become aware of new opportunities and opportunities that you missed along the way. It will also give you the ability to see what you’ve missed.

Of course, you can do it on your own … simply make a decision to always take advantage of those opportunities when they come, which may or may not be the best thing to do.  A more appropriate choice might be to trust your intuition and allow it to guide you.

Do you trust your intuition enough to let it guide you?

For more information on Time Line Therapy® and Hypnosis, contact The New You Academy at (888) 505-1399 to talk to a Master Practitioner.

Are you a closet smoker?

“I’m nervous,” Molly said as she sat down and smoothed out her skirt.  “No one knows I’m here.  No one knows I do this.”

Molly, like so many people today, is a closet smoker.  She had quit, stopped cold turkey.  Then, one day, the stress of her job got to her and she picked up a cigarette.

“Originally, I started smoking when I was 17. My sister got me started.  It wasn’t pleasant.  In fact, I started coughing after the first puff, and again after the second.  But I wanted to hang out with my sister and her friends because it was cool.  I went from one cigarette to more than a pack a day in short order.

When I got married and found out I was pregnant, I decided to quit because I didn’t want to harm my kids.  It wasn’t easy and I really wanted a cigarette, but I stuck with it.

Then, my kids grew up and I went back to work.  Everything was fine for a while.  I was even OK being around my coworkers at work that smoke. Then hard times hit, and a bunch of people were laid off and I found myself doing more and more work and one day, I just had to have a cigarette to help me relax. It was like an old friend.  It just felt so good, so right … at least for a few moments.  Then one cigarette turned in to two, then a dozen.”

Does Molly’s story sound familiar?  She hid her habit from her family and friends.  After all, they all believed she’d quit.

“I couldn’t tell anyone.  I couldn’t let me kids down or my husband.  And my friends who’d supported me when I quit the first time … what would they say if they knew?”

Of course, Molly’s tale is no different than that of other closet smokers except in the details.  Molly, like so many others, hid her habit out of shame, fear and guilt.  She didn’t feel that she could reach out to her family to get help without suffering their disappointment, shame or rage.

There are a number of different methods Molly might use to quit including Nicorette and Chantix, most of which have their side effects or might reveal her secret.  There are also a few techniques that Molly can use on her own to kick the habit.

• Exercise: a good workout program will help battle stress, reduce depression and improve mood.  It will also elevate metabolism helping to keep weight off.
• Diet: Cigarettes contain up to 25% sugar as part of the tobacco preparation process.  Fruits and vegetables will replace the sugar in of the cigarettes without causing your body to want more sugar.

Of course, if Molly doesn’t feel up to the task, which is quite likely given that she’s keeping it a secret, there are other options.  For example, there are support groups for smokers and closet smokers designed to help her slowly and carefully quit.

One of the other, more effective options that Molly might choose is Hypnosis.  Using progressive states of relaxation, a hypnotherapist can talk directly to Molly’s unconscious mind and appeal to its highest prime directive to preserve the body.  It’s a matter of letting the unconscious know of the dangers of smoking, what nicotine is and how it harms the body.  In just a few hours, Molly can be a non-smoker free of cravings, withdrawals, weight gain and side effects.

The challenge is that sometimes, triggers such as stress can cause the unconscious to revert back to what it believes will solve the problem; in this case, cigarettes.  Fortunately, using Time Line Therapy®, Molly can eliminate the triggers that caused her to start smoking again.

Time Line Therapy® allows Molly eliminate the stress that originally caused her to start smoking again.  In addition, Molly can let go of any other issues that might cause her to start smoking again ensuring that she never is tempted to smoke again.

The benefit of using Hypnosis and Time Line Therapy® is that in just a few hours, Molly can switch from being a closet smoker to a non-smoker without issues.  So, for those closet smokers out there, there’s hope.  Whether you want to keep your secret or not, you can become a non-smoker with or without the support of those you are keeping the secret from.

To learn more about how Hypnosis and Time Line Therapy® can help you quit smoking, please contact The New You Academy at (888) 505-1399 for more information.

It’s a Green Machine!

Did you know that up until the mid-19th century, most Irish immigrants in America were members of the Protestant middle class. When the Great Potato Famine hit Ireland in 1845, close to 1 million poor and uneducated Irish Catholics began pouring into America to escape starvation.  These new American’s were ridiculed for their beliefs and unfamiliar accents by the Protestants.  They even had trouble finding jobs.

The American Irish realized very quickly that their large numbers gave them political and economic power they could exploit.  Annual St. Patrick’s Day parades became a show of strength for Irish Americans and a must attend event for political candidates.  They became a Green Machine.

It’s not unlike your unconscious mind, which represents 80% – 90% of your mind and your thought processes.  It’s the part of you that runs the body, preserves the body, stores and organizes your memories, and represses memories with unresolved negative emotions.  It enjoys serving and follows orders provided they are clear.  Think of your unconscious mind like a five to seven year old child that loves you very much.

When you realize that it’s like the Green Machine, it has a great deal of power to influence your life, you begin to recognize how important it is to work with your unconscious mind.  Let’s say that at some point in your life, you decided that you don’t deserve to have a good life.  You may not be consciously aware of this decision and yet, because of your Green Machine you will continue to sabotage your potential to have the life you desire.

In fact, if you envy someone else or are jealous of another’s accomplishments, your Green Machine will prevent you from getting what you envy or are jealous of because it doesn’t want you to be envious or jealous of yourself.  Logically it may not make sense until you realize that logic is not part of the unconscious minds domain, it’s part of the conscious minds domain.

Using Time Line Therapy® and Hypnosis you can talk directly to your Green Machine to help change it’s mind.  The challenge comes when you are not consciously aware of what’s stopping you from having the life you desire.  That’s where a Master Practitioner can help.   Using a Detailed Personal History, a Master Practitioner will uncover the guide posts that your Green Machine is using as it’s road map for your life.

Want to know more?  Contact The New You Academy at (888) 505-1399 today to talk to a Master Practitioner.

You are Amazing!

What kind of messages did you get growing up? Were they messages of hope and possibility or doubt and failure? Did your friends and family believe in you and support you or did they cut you down?

For most people, what they were told early in life was “no” or some version of “no”. It’s not that people were trying to be mean or unsupportive. Rather, they were being “honest” or “realistic”.

What those early messages tend to create are lack and limitation. It creates adults who never reach their true potential. It creates mediocrity.

And yet, there are those who see you as shining examples of humanity. These people are always looking out for you. They are always interested in your highest good. And, they’re not even related!

Who are these angels, these guardians of your light? They are the Master Practitioners of NLP, Time Line Therapy® and Hypnosis. We have to believe in you, we have to see the you that you can become in order to guide you to becoming it.

Whether it’s your doctor, lawyer, coach, colleague or best friend; you need people on your side who believe in you, support you, see what you can become and lift you up. If they don’t, perhaps it’s time to replace them.

When Bette Midler sang about wind beneath her wings, she was talking about the support system that we all need to have in place if we want to live the life of our dreams. It’s what ever successful person does … Hang around with people who lift them up, who support them.

They’ve also released all the limiting thoughts and beliefs about their abilities. They’ve replaced lack and limitation with abundance and possibility. Isn’t that what you want for yourself?

To learn more about banishing lack, limitation and negativity from your life, contact The New You Academy.

What’s the Problem?

Ever had one of those days?  You know, one of those days when it felt like everything was going wrong?

It might have seemed like the day was filled with seemingly unrelated, random mishaps.  You may even be able to point back to when things started going wrong.

The challenge is that the root cause, the core issue is almost never what it seems to be.  In fact, figuring it out, defining the problem, can be the biggest challenge.

Fortunately, there are some steps you can take that will help you gain clarity and uncover the root cause.  Start by writing everything down.  Generally, these are the symptoms.  Add how you felt, what you were thinking and what was going on around you.  What was the process that you took to solve the problem or to get out of the situation?  All information is important.

It seems like a lot of work and the truth is that it is a lot of work.  The good news is that once you define and resolve the root cause problem, you never have to deal with it again. The bad news is that it often requires assistance to solve the problem because you are too close to the problem, you’re in it … seeing your way out is not really possible,

Fortunately, there are plenty of people around who can help you.  A Neuro-Linguistic Programming practitioner will help you uncover the core issue by using language to help you uncover and reframe the outward symptoms to get you to have a different view point.  A Time Line Therapy® practitioner will help you release the core issue and any of the emotions around it across your entire lifetime.  A Hypnotherapist will work with your unconscious mind to open you up to alternative possibilities and the knowing that you always have the resources you need to succeed.

However you choose to resolve the issues you face, consider spending half an hour with a Master Practitioner at The New You Academy to find out how you can quickly get to the core issue and resolve it.

I can’t be hypnotized! Can you?

Have you ever heard someone say they can’t be hypnotized?  Have you ever thought that yourself?  Maybe you’ve seen stage shows where people are up on stage acting goofy and you thought “I could never do that!”

The truth is there are stages of hypnosis just like there are stages of consciousness.  In fact at some point in your life, you’ve been in a trance or an altered state of consciousness where your unconscious mind is more susceptible to suggestion and your conscious mind is less aware.

Many people come to a hypnotherapist thinking that there is something about a trance that is markedly different than their “normal” state of consciousness.  This is definitely not the case.  A light trance will feel no different from relaxation.  Since trance is a normal, natural state, then you will likely feel a feeling of familiarity, no matter how deep in a trance you go.

Roughly 20% of the population can go into a light trance only.  This is really a state relaxation.  You may have experienced this if you’ve been driving and suddenly thought “wait … where am I?”  Or, if you really get into a movie and get happy or sad at the appropriate times, or feel your heart pounding during an action sequence, you are in a trance.

Another 60% of the population will not get any deeper than a medium trance.  A medium trance more like that state that you’re in just before you wake up.  It’s a state where your conscious of not quite being fully awake and not being fully asleep.  Some call it the twilight state.

The remaining 20% of the population will go all the way into a deep trance.  These people will obtain that state where they are closer to sleep. Some have even said this state resembles a deep sleep or sleep walking.

Depending on the level of trance you can obtain, when working with a hypnotherapist, you can increase your focus and concentration, change the way that you feel about habits such as smoking or drinking, and change many other behaviors.  By consciously entering into a trance, you can improve your retention and recall, enhance your ability to relax and many other things.

So, can you be hypnotized?  Yes … the question is really, how will hypnosis improve your life?  To find out more, contact a Master Practitioner today to learn more about how you can use Hypnosis in your life.

Your Wizard Within

In 1991, Dr. A. M. Krasner published a book called “The Wizard Within”.  It’s a book on Hypnosis and the power of your mind.  In it he says, “When you are motivated to change, you can do so.  This is not difficult if your desire is strong enough.”

That’s the real issue though, isn’t it?  Is your desire strong enough?  Do you really want to change?  You may want to change your life consciously, but unconsciously may be another matter.

From a neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) standpoint, there’s only three reasons why you may not want to change:

1. You don’t desire the change.  Instead you’ve been “motivated” to change by someone else.  This might be the case if you are happy with the way you are, but someone has convinced you to change. For example, if you’re a smoker and your significant other convinces you to visit a hypnotherapist to quit.  The hypnotherapist would have more success convincing your partner to accept the smoking than getting you to quit.
2. You have made a decision at some point that you unconsciously still support, but doesn’t support you.  You may have made this decision when you were a little child based on something that happened back then. Decisions become beliefs, which can be difficult to change.
3. You are holding on to something because there is some external motivator to do so.  For example, if the problem seems to provide sympathy or support from another.

Fortunately, your mind is a powerful tool which will, given the right circumstances, absolutely support you in whatever you want to accomplish.  Rather than being a wizard, it’s more like a genie for whom your every wish is it’s command. When you clearly, consistently deliver your desire, your personal genie will do everything in it’s power to make it happen.

When you release any limiting decisions, let go of any external motivators and really desire change, then change is what you get.  Focus on what you want and create the life you deserve.

When you are ready to achieve your dreams, visit http://www.TheNewYouAcademy.com/training/achieve-your-dreams

Through the Looking Glass

In the 1871 classic, “Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There”, Lewis Carroll created a world of opposites, reflection and mirror image.  Since then, a variety of others have created variations on the same theme.

The interesting thing is that Lewis Carroll wasn’t too far off.  The world you see through the looking glass of your eyes isn’t really what you perceive it to be.  According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience”, we receive approximately two million bits of information each second.  If we were to attempt to process all of that information, we would go insane.  Fortunately, your mind will delete, distort and generalize the information down to a manageable 134 bits per second.

What this means is that what we perceive happening in the world is not what “really” happens.  When you consider a shared event, such as a family gathering, and the different stories that result from that event, it becomes apparent that everyone’s perception is different.

How we decide what we delete, distort and generalize is based on where we’ve been and what choices we’ve made along the way.  It’s a factor of our beliefs, values, attitudes and experiences.  What we do, once we make a decision, is look for things to reinforce it.  That’s why you’ll find two people who witness the same event having different views of the same situation.

The question is, does your perception serve you?  For example, do you always see opportunity or roadblocks?  Did the decisions you made along the way lead you to where you want to be?

The good news is that you can change your mind and undecide.  You can let go of those beliefs, values, attitudes and experiences that no longer server you and replace them with new, empowering ones.  As you might guess, when you do that, you’ll find that you change your perceptions.

It’s the how that’s the difficult part.  Remember, the decisions we made are in the past.  Often those decisions are ones that were made so long ago that we don’t even remember them.   How can we change a decision we don’t even know we made?  How can we undecide a decision that we don’t even know about?

Fortunately, you store everything that has ever happened in your life.  You may not consciously remember the decision you made, but at some level you do.  A skilled practitioner or hypnotherapist can take you back in time to relive or experience any event.  At that point, you can begin to reevaluate the decisions you made and make new ones.

For example, as a baby, you might have decided that money ruins relationships and therefore you didn’t want to have anything to do with it.  Why?  Maybe you saw your mom and dad arguing about money.  Maybe your parents were poor and had a great relationship. As an adult, you might look at that same situation and realize that it isn’t really about money.  So, now you can change your mind and create a new, empowering decision.

When you change your mind, you will change your perception.  You will start to notice opportunities that you never knew existed.  You will create new beliefs, values and experiences.  Ultimately, you will change your life.

What does it mean when you make new choices?  Remember you delete, distort and generalize the information you receive so that it’s manageable.  What you choose to exclude is based on the decisions you made.  So, if you change your decisions, you will change what you perceive.  For example, if you realize that money does not destroy relationships, what happens?  You’ll notice opportunities for you to make money.

Once you become aware of the new opportunities, you can begin to take action to take advantage of them.  You’ll create new beliefs, which will in turn affect your values and ultimately, your experiences.

When you’re ready to make new choices and have new opportunities, consider talking to a practitioner who can help you heal your past.  A skilled practitioner can easily guide you to release the old decisions and make new choices that serve you.  Are you ready to go through the looking glass?

Live streaming!

For the first time ever, The New YOU Academy will be live steaming a training. This technology allows participants to attend the training from the comfort of their own homes … in their Jammie’s if they wish. Imagine … All the benefits of being at the training … including being able to ask questions … without the expense of traveling to the class.

Of course, if you still want to come to the class, you’ll get the benefit of the live instructor plus interaction with like minded individuals. Whichever option you choose, the training is sure to be transformational. As Joy Cooper Willet says “anyone lucky enough to attend this training will come away with so many techniques to help them truly get going creating the life they really want. You are one of the most accomplished trainers in the fields of NLP and life development potential!”

The December 4th/5th event will be held in Anaheim and live streamed over the Internet. For more information or to register, visit www.thenewyouacademy.com/training/unlocking-the-secret-to-your-success.