Procrastination Is Anxiety In Disguise

And we are live from Toronto here today. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life for  an impromptu Facebook Live today about procrastination. So I'm gonna talk about procrastination, and really what procrastination is, coming up a little bit later on today. But just had a very successful client session, won't give out the chap's name. This is not his real name. We'll call him Steve, which did do the Zoom session. He wants to quit smoking, and he's only smoking about seven cigarettes a day. You know, oftentimes I'll meet someone, they're smoking, I don't know, 20, a pack a day, 2 packs a day. Whoever just gave me the thumbs-up, thank you. If you just joined us, give us a wave. Just give us a thumbs-up or a heart. Kevin was only smoking seven cigarettes a day. And sometimes somebody smoking 7 cigarettes a day as opposed to 20 or 40 can actually be a bit more difficult to deal with than somebody who's smoking a lot more. It's like the old analogy, right, someone's got a shitload of weight to lose, they say they got 100 pound to lose versus the person who's got 10 pounds to lose. The person who's got 100 pounds to lose will start to notice changes a lot quicker because he got more to lose in a good way, or release, I should say, versus the person who's got 10. Sometimes it can be a little bit more of a challenge. By the way, I'm gonna tell you how this ties into anxiety in just a moment.

So he came on and he is in Ottawa, I'm in Toronto, so there's about four hours drive between us, first session over Skype and he actually really wants coming in person but, unfortunate, because of lockdown and essential businesses and stuff... Hey, Homa [SP], how are you? Everything is over Zoom now. And even before this corona bullshit was happening, about 60% of my clients were online international clients from England, Australia, Japan, America, and so forth. He had a preference to work in-person one-on-one, I said, "We actually don't know when that's gonna be, right? We're at the mercy of the government and when we can open up. So you can wait, but we don't know when that's gonna be and keep smoking, or we could just do it over Zoom." And he is like, "Is that the same?" I'm like, "Yeah. It's exactly the same. The same results. It's no different." It kinda surprised me when I first began doing hypnosis in this format. And we did it and he came in and his urge to smoke was an eight, was a nine... Good to hear, Homa [SP]. It was eight or a nine and within, like, the first five minutes, we got it down to a zero. So I teach people a technique even before we go into hypnosis to take the urge down because I ask my smokers to not smoke for about 24 hours before our first session because I want 'em craving, I want 'em really desiring that cigarette, jonesing, if you will.
Hey, Dora, how are you? In the old days, I'd let my smokers smoke all the way up to our first session, they come through the door and after pleasantries, I say to them, "How much do you want a cigarette on a scale from 10 to 0? Ten is, like, I'm completely jonesing and I would rip your arm off for a cigarette, Luke. Zero being I have no desire at all to smoke." Because I want them craving it because if they come in, if they just smoked and they've scratched that itch so to speak and they come through my door and I say, "Where is that craving?" They would say, "Well, zero, Luke, because I just smoked." To which I'd say, "If it's a zero at the beginning of the session and we haven't done any work, how are you gonna know this shit worked at the end?" And they'd be like, "Good point." So I like my clients coming in having that urge, having that scratch that they need so when come in and it's a seven, an eight, a nine, whether that be they smoke, [inaudible 00:03:45] a heroin addict, whether that be the person's suffering from anxiety, I want it to be high when they come in so they know that neurology has been triggered in their mind and body so when they leave and the session is done and that eight goes to a zero, they're like, "Oh, shit, this stuff works."

How does this tie into anxiety? Well, I found a lot of times with not everyone but a vast majority of people, smokers, I found is they will say to me, "Luke, it makes me feel good. Makes me feel calm." And I say that's kinda interesting because a cigarette has about 2,500 chemicals, none of them make you feel calm. They're laced with sugar, which is a stimulant, nicotine, which is a stimulant, and formaldehyde, which is what they use to embalm dead bodies. There is not one ingredient in it, chemical compound that's been proven to make you feel calm. Yet, over the last 20 or so years, working with, I don't know, well over 8,000 smokers, generally one-on-one, is I hear the same story over and over again, "It makes me feel calm." So I'm like, "Well this is an interesting thing. I don't think all these smokers, they're having a conspiracy to lie to me because there must be something to this." So what I found is most of us, smokers as well, are chest breathers. They're breathing in. They activate their parasympathetic nervous system, fight, flight, or freeze, and they light on that cigarette and that first puff... I always ask, "What's your favorite part of the cigarette?" Oftentimes, they will say the [inaudible 00:05:14] puff. And I say, "Why?" They say, "Well, it makes me feel calm." And what has been happening is they've been stimulating, excuse me, parasympathetic nervous system, I haven't had my coffee today, which is fight, flight, or freeze, anxiety, anxiety attack, panic. When they breath into their belly, it's the first time, maybe the only time in the day when they activate their parasympathetic nervous system which is rest and digest. So when I ask what the good thing is, what does that sound a lot of smokers get from smoking a cigarette, there is always a good thing, what we call secondary gain in hypnosis. It's always a good thing. And for this guy, I will call him Steve, the smoker that I dealt with today, he's like, "Luke, it makes me feel calm. I'm very, very stressed in my job and today, and when I smoke, it makes me feel calm." And when I explained to [inaudible 00:06:00], it can't be anything about the cigarette that makes you feel calm. Also, it takes about five to six minutes for the ingredients, for the nicotine, tobacco, to pass through the bloodstream to get into your body for you to have an effect. So the people feeling an immediate relief within one puff of a cigarette means it can't be the cigarette because none of those chemicals have entered the bloodstream yet. It's essentially they've just changed their breathing and they start to feel calm. So the calmness is not a lie, they do feel calm. Has nothing to do with the cigarette though, it's because they've changed their breathing pattern. So, yeah, how does that tie in? A lot of smokers I find are looking for relief from stress or anxiety or panic so they light up a cigarette. And all chain-smoking is is trying to keep hold of that calmness in an artificial way, but if it's artificial then it always disappears and it's not good for you. So it was a successful session and we'll catch up with him in a couple of weeks to see how well he did, and I'm sure he did amazingly.

Back to the topic at hand, how does procrastination... What is procrastination? Procrastination is just anxiety, yeah, just anxiety but in a different cloth, in a different gown. All procrastination is, is a form of anxiety because on some unconscious level, you are putting something off, and the only reason you put it off is on some unconscious level you're scared, you have some fear, "What would happen if this happens? What would happen if this doesn't happen? What would happen if I failed? What would happen if I succeed?" Projecting into the future which is causing you to feel anxious. So that's the reason people push off stuff. That's the reason people will have procrastination, it's anxiety. So when anyone's saying, "Luke, I wanna get up early but I procrastinate." "Wanna write that book but I'm procrastinating." "Need to get that assignment done but I'm procrastinating," that all I hear is, "I'm scared. I'm fearful. That's why I'm pushing it off."
So when we uncover, when we start to release that fear, that anxiety, that panic underneath, whether they're conscious or unconscious about why they are putting something off, oftentimes they are projects that need to be done, get done, that book that needs to be wrote, gets wrote, that conversation that needs to be had, gets had because we deal with what's going on, not just that surface level of, "What's happening when I'm having an anxiety attack? Oh, I'm getting sweaty, I'm getting shaky, my thoughts are all over the place, I'm having palpitations." That's just at surface level, that's just the symptoms of some wiring, some emotions that have gone untended, unlooked after, unreleased underneath. But oftentimes when they are released, the anxiety just falls like a house of cards, if you will. So if you, yes you, are experiencing any form of procrastination, understand it's anxiety. Understand it's just a fear and once you find out what it is you're scared of, whether you're aware of it now or not, you do some investigation, that house of cards can start to begin to get weaker and wobblier and wobblier to eventually we can just blow it down and it can drop.

By the way, if you got any questions about that, put your questions and your comments below. If you've just joined us, and I can see who you are lurking in the background, hey, give me a thumbs-up, say hi, give me a wave, or my favorite one, give me a heart. Let me know that you're out there, that you can hear this. And if anyone else that you feel that will benefit from this video then please do share it with your Facebook friends or any groups that you're a part of that you feel this information needs to get to. Thank you, Donna. And if you're watching this live, you got any questions about hypnosis, anxiety, or stopping smoking and you're live right now, put your comments below and I will endeavor to answer them. If you are watching on the replay, put your comments below and I will answer them.

Quick programming note, on Wednesday at 7 p.m. we're going on another hypnotic vacation, a virtual vacation because most of us are at home, right? We can't leave our homes or certainly can't leave the country. We may have had to cancel holidays, vacations. So every Wednesday at 7 p.m. Eastern Time, we go on a virtual vacation where I take you, as your guide, somewhere else in the world so you can have that vacation in your mind. This Wednesday at 7 p.m. Eastern, we're going on an American road trip, something that's near and dear to my heart that I'm still waiting to do, an American road trip virtual vacation. It's free, come and join us. I'll be open to that fact on Wednesday at 7 p.m. Eastern. Also, you may have seen if you scroll down, there is a video that has rather a lot of views. At last check it was about 550 views. It was just a fun hypnotic session that I did with someone called Scottie who often watches these Facebook Lives, and he just wanted to experience some fun hypnosis, no therapy, we're not digging out the skeletons, the bodies from your past. We're not doing any heavy lifting, we're not retraumatizing you, but you just want to experience some fun hypnosis, and who doesn't need more fun in their life?

So what I'm doing actually over the next week and I've got about two spaces left, is I'm doing fun Zoom hypnosis sessions with him, very quick sessions, about 15, 20 minutes. Now, I'll tell you, they're being filmed and they will be put on this channel or [inaudible 00:11:15] some other social media that I've got. But we're not finding out a lot of personal details. We're not healing up anything. We're just doing some fun to give you the experience of involuntariness of hypnosis, and I urge you, if you're like, "What do you mean by that? What are you gonna do, Luke?" Watch the video I did with Scottie, see how much fun that he has in that time that we do some hypnosis to kinda get an idea. But if you'd like to experience some hypnosis for just fun, for some shits, for some giggles...don't worry, I'm not gonna humiliate you in any way but just give you a sense of just how powerful your mind is when you direct it and some of the crazy and powerful stuff it can do with a sense of involuntariness, if you'd like to experience that, free of charge, again, it's gonna be filmed, put on my social media, not therapy, then drop me a personal message. Just click on my picture, click on my name, tap me, send me a personal message and say, "Luke, I'd like to do that," and we'll arrange a time over the next few days, next week to do that. Like I said, I think I've only got two spots left to do that and we'll have some fun, we'll put it on the Facebook and you could watch it and it will be great.

That being said, I'm gonna go enjoy the rest of my afternoon, gonna train, maybe take the electric scooter out, do some meditation, eat some food, do some reading and go from there. So wherever you are in the world, whatever time of the day it is, always... I'm trying to get it right there because I changed my camera angle, right, so when I used to do the angle this way, people used to complain, "Oh, Luke, the hypnosis on your t-shirt is reversed. We don't know what is written." So I reversed the angle on Facebook because Facebook reversed the angle automatically, so I re-reversed it so I usually go like that but then it would look different on my camera so it confuses me now. So I have to think before I do my always believe.

If you want to have a chat with me to see if I can help,  you can schedule something here; http://Lukenosis.com/screeningcall/

Always Believe,
Luke Michael Howard
Clinical Toronto Hypnosis