I’ve got a bit of a confession to make. I am a change enthusiast!
Now I completely understand that sometimes change is scary, particularly when it’s forced onto us. We all experienced that near overnight during the pandemic, and I’m yet to meet anyone who found that experience easy.
But for me I think change is a continuous part of life so I choose to embrace it. I’ve sought out considerable change in my life making quite a radical career change being perhaps the most obvious example.
But most crucially I now help others change too. Every single one of my hypnotherapy clients come to me with something they want to change. That may be a feeling or fear, a habit or action. Either way they have concluded that the pain of staying as they are outweighs the discomfort that comes with change.
So why is it then that even when we have chosen to make changes in our lives it can still feel so challenging, and why when multiple things come along at once do we feel like its too much change?
Well simply its a trick of the mind! Our minds number 1 aim is to protect us. So without us even knowing (subconsciously) our minds naturally move us away from any potential source of discomfort or pain including any feeling or situation that is unfamiliar to us in other words a change! The desire for comfort and the familiar is so strong our minds simply love it and pull us back to it time and time again.
Therefore if you're trying to make changes in your life use this knowledge to work with your subconscious mind and make what feels unfamiliar (the change) familiar!
Take for example smoking. If you want to quit you need to make sure that any sensations of smoking, any actions associated with smoking such as buying cigarettes, or lighters or saying yes when offered one start to feel alien or unfamiliar to you. Replacing that familiarity with the new habits, actions and thoughts getting used to saying no thanks, when offered a cigarette, getting used to describing yourself as a non smoker, knowing that if you go into a shop you simply never come out with cigarettes. Our minds can further be convinced of this new way by doing it on repeat! Our minds learn an incredible amount by repetition. So the more you say no to cigarettes and the more often you go into a shop and don't buy them the more your mind starts to feel comfortable and familiar with this way of being and therefore the more it naturally moves you towards it.
So if you are looking to make changes in your life and make them last I suggest that you learn to work with your mind to make that happen. Make what feels familiar unfamiliar. What is unfamiliar familiar. And do it on repeat!
If you want to speed up this process significantly working with your subconscious mind as we do in hypnotherapy will facilitate this process. Enabling you to release any old familiar ways and wire in the new making them feel so familiar that they last.
So if there is something in your life you would like to change or feel less familiar why not reach out to me and discuss how hypnotherapy could help.
Liz x