Now obviously, if you are suffering some kind of addictive pursuit in your life, some kind of addictive substance is going into your body, the first thing is to get out of the river of denial and to acknowledge that you have an addiction. That's the very first thing. Once you can acknowledge it, then you can start to do something about it. So if you're watching this video and you have knowledge that you're suffering some kind of addiction, then congratulations to you, that's the first step in recovery.
And the next step is obviously go and to check yourself out with a medical professional in this area. Seek some help, seek some counsel there.
Where hypnotherapy comes in is once you've acknowledged you have a problem, you've obviously spoke with your medical practitioner, you've spoke with a doctor and you need additional help at that point. Hypnosis can really, really help to banish what we call old anchors. An example of this is, potentially, whenever you go out of your friends, for example, you would drink too much alcohol. So recognizing anchors like that. Or whenever you go into your car, that's when you light up your cigarette the most. Identifying areas like that so you can collapse in and of themselves and replace that addictive behavior or doing something more advantageous, whether that be taken a couple of deep breaths, drinking some water, making some new friends. If it's eating, if you realize that when you watch TV at night, you start to eat recklessly or unconsciously, then breaking up the anchor of the TV and eating together and watching TV but not eating and eating and not watching TV, doing those at separate times. Hypnosis can really help to dissolve those anchors so there's a lot less pleasure when it comes to anxiety.
And also helping you logically to fire off the neurological pathways in your brain to allow you to feel better about yourself, potentially releasing serotonin, the feel good neurotransmitter or dopamine, which is what makes you feel alive, what makes you feel alert, like after having a good workout of some kind, and getting that natural feedback loop back into your brain so you won't have to reach for substances outside.
Oftentimes as well, my experience of working with addictions of all kinds is it's a lack of some kind of connection, physical connection, emotional connection with other people, potentially with yourself. So it's about acknowledging that, looking where, potentially, there's been a lack of communication, lack of little connection in your life and building real bonds with other trusted people in your life, especially making some new friends, getting some new partners, also that connection inside yourself as well. Hypnosis can help with that.
Also filling in that well of self-esteem. Oftentimes people tell me, "I want confidence." I reach into my desk and I pulled out a tub of confidence. This is coffee, not confidence. But you get the point, there's no such thing. It's not a tangible thing. And what really…confident is transient, it comes, it goes. Like happiness, like sadness, it comes, it goes. However, self-esteem is that rich background that's always there. It's almost like the screensaver on your computer. If you just stop for a moment, that screensaver will come back because it's always there and that's what self-esteem is. And my experience of working with people of all kinds of addictions, there's a lack of self-esteem. That reservoir has become very, very dry and really filling that reservoir up. Because when that reservoir is filled, you have less likelihood of doing these addictive behaviors, these bad behaviors because you reservoir is filled and you don't need do it. You don't need to seek those highs anywhere else, you can seek them in yourself.
And hypnosis can really help to fill that reservoir inside of you so you don't need to look to outside substances to be stimulated and allowing you to get those connections, banishing those old anchors and realizing that just because you did an addictive behavior, you're not addicted and you could change at any time with the right neuropsychology going on. And hypnosis and hypnotherapy can help you with that.
Always Believe,
Luke Michael Howard CH
Clinical Hypnotist
