How to Feel Safe in Your Body

How to Feel Safe in Your Body

by | Apr 5, 2022 | Addictions, Hypnosis, Hypnotherapy, Weight Loss

All human beings need three things to survive and thrive in the world. Without them, it makes everyday living a struggle.

It’s hard to move toward your goals and dreams when you are struggling every day to feel safe in the world.

Safety, Self-Love, and Belonging

All humans need safety, self-love, and belonging to not only survive each day but to thrive and fully participate in a life worth living.

If we don’t have safety, it is very difficult to move on to the next stage of self-love and the stage beyond that, belonging.

It all starts with safety.

What do humans need to be safe?

Food, shelter, and water.

Without these things in place, it can be very difficult to focus on self-love when you’re working every day to pay the bills and put food on the table.

When we don’t feel safe, it is easy to reach outside of ourselves to help relieve that uncomfortable feeling. Maybe it’s cigarettes or alcohol or drugs. Maybe it’s even food…like sugar or bread, chips or donuts, ice cream or cakes.

As humans who need to feel safe in the world, we are brilliant at learning strategies to help meet our own needs. Even if these strategies are hurting us in the long run.

It’s easy to eat sweets and carbs when we feel sad and empty or lost and bored. And you’re not to blame. Our society promotes emotional eating through food pushing and offering sweets to “make us feel better”.

I’m here to tell you there is a better way to feel safe in your body. A way that helps you both to feel safe in your body, put an end to emotional eating, and learn the power of hypnosis to lose weight.

Hypnosis to Lose Weight

With Hypnotherapy for Weight Loss, you will discover the real reason why you aren’t losing weight, remove the blocks to your weight loss goals, and learn powerful new tools and strategies to be free in your body, mind, and soul.

Using hypnosis to lose weight is what the Trim-Life program is all about.

This 6-week program will empower you to manage your hunger and your weight through the power of mindfulness, relaxation skills, and hypnosis.

Trim-Life is offered online and uses the power of hypnosis to lose weight. All you need is an internet connection and a computer.

Need support with emotional eating?

Ready to lose weight the easy way?

Join Trim-Life: 6-Week Hypnosis for Weight Loss course and discover what it is you’re REALLY hungry for!

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Hypnotherapy in Boulder, Colorado
Hypnotherapy for Weight Loss

Hypnotherapy for Weight Loss

by | Mar 28, 2022 | Hypnotherapy, Weight Loss

Hypnotherapy for Weight Loss

Do you find yourself eating when you are stressed?

Do you ever get bored and decide it’s time to eat?

Does your nighttime snacking have a mind of its own?

This could be a case of emotional eating.

What is emotional eating?

It is eating to feed your emotions vs. your body. It is sometimes known as stress eating because many emotional eaters eat in response to stress (though stress is not the only trigger – happiness, sadness, among other emotions can be triggers too).

Emotional eating is the result of an unhealthy relationship with food. Instead of seeing food as what it is, something you consume for survival (like air and water), you misconstrue it into something else. You become attached to it, give it emotions, personify it, and make it out to be something it isn’t. Sometimes food is love. Sometimes food is a pain killer. Sometimes food is entertainment. Sometimes food fills the loneliness.

Binge eating is an aggravated form of emotional eating. It happens when (1) the original emotional eating issue is not addressed (2) the triggers for emotional eating are activated, leading to an increased need to eat to feed the emotion(s).

Given time, an emotional eater switches from merely eating in response to emotions, to massively overeating in response to emotions, since they are unable to get relief from their original consumption. While not always the case, compulsive overeating often comes with poor body image and low self-esteem.

Emotional eating is more prevalent than you might think. Believe it or not, nearly 2.5 million adults in the United States today suffer from compulsive overeating, with probably many more unreported cases. Because of how our society has wrapped itself around food, almost all of us have a skewed relationship with food, whether we acknowledge it or not.

12 Signs of Emotional Eating

There are many kinds of emotional eaters – some eat in response to a negative emotion, while some eat in response to a positive emotion. Below are 12 signs of emotional eating:

  1. You eat when you are stressed. When you have things to do (work/studies/exams), you reach out for food subconsciously. Especially when you’re up late at night and by yourself, though it can happen in the day and in front of others too.
  1. You eat as a response to your emotions. You eat when you feel sad / annoyed / disappointed / angry / lonely/ empty / anxious/ tired / bored. It’s a reaction so subconsciously embedded that you don’t even think about it. You just automatically reach out for food whenever you experience those emotions.
  1. You seek solace in food. When you feel down, you seek out “comfort food”. You bury yourself in food like ice cream, cake, chocolate, and cookies, even though they are absolute junk and have zero nutritional value. For some reason, you can’t quite explain, they provide you with comfort.
  1. You have trouble losing weight (due to the way you eat). Even though you want to lose weight and you know the technicalities behind losing weight such as the foods and quantities you should eat, you have trouble sticking to your diet. You can’t seem to stop yourself from eating as and when you want to.
  1. Your eating is out of control (You can’t stop eating). You eat even when you are not hungry, and you continue to eat even when you should have stopped long ago. Your desire to eat seems to have taken a life of its own. At times you would even go out of the way just to get food or to satisfy a particular craving, even though you may not be hungry at all.
  1. You eat to feel happy. You are emotionally dependent on food, relying on it for happiness. You derive positive emotions from eating, even though it’s nothing more than a neutral activity to help you live, just like breathing, drinking water, and passing waste. Note this is entirely different from appreciating food as you eat it, which I’m all for. This is about eating specifically to derive the feeling of happiness, which creates a lopsided relationship.
  1. You eat when you feel happy. You see eating is a necessary companion to happy emotions, just like how people eat to celebrate good news.
  1. You are fascinated with eating/food. You love food. You love to eat. When you’re not eating, you can’t help but think about food. You long and crave for it. When you’re eating, it’s like you’re in a wonderland. Eating and food draw an intense level of interest from you. Interestingly, none of your fascinations is reciprocated by food or eating.
  1. You use emotionally-charged words to describe food/eating, like “sinful”, “decadent”, “guilt-ridden”, “love”, “lust”, “indulgent”, “enticing”, “craving”, “tempting”, etc, even though food is a non-living thing, incapable of feelings nor returning your love/hate.
  1. You eat even though you are rightfully full. No matter how much you eat, no matter how full you feel, you never feel quite satisfied. Whatever satisfaction you get from eating is momentary, and you return to eating after a while to recapture that emotion.
  1. You think of eating even though you are rightfully full. Even after you’ve had your fill, you continue to think of food. You think about what to eat for the next meal right after you’ve finished eating. You obsess about X, Y, Z food, and when you can eat it. You can’t wait till it’s time to eat again. You think about how satisfied you’ll be when you finally get to eat. You count down to the next mealtime.
  1. You have random food cravings out of the blue. Sometimes, you get urges to eat a certain food, which you can’t explain yourself. And it’s not even that you’re hungry. It’s just a craving which you must satisfy, else you’ll feel unhappy for the day.

Need support with emotional eating?

Click here to schedule a hypnotherapy session at Boulder Hypnotherapy.

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5 Ways to Find Happiness Without Seeking It

5 Ways to Find Happiness Without Seeking It

by | Jan 20, 2021 | Affirmations, Self-Hypnosis

It can easily be argued that every decision a person makes is in the pursuit of happiness. You might say, “Wait a minute. I go to a job I hate every day just so I can pay my bills and barely survive.” True, but you really think that going to that miserable job will leave you happier than staying home and losing the ability to pay your bills.

The need to be happy drives everyone, but people pursue happiness through different means. Some believe they’ll be happy if they can only amass a large enough fortune. Others believe they’ll be happy by helping others. Some pursue a family, while other believe the freedom of staying single provides a better opportunity for happiness.

An investment banker and a Buddhist monk are still pursuing the same thing, only in dramatically different ways.

“Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.” -Thoreau

Can you make yourself happy on purpose? Can you pursue happiness and capture it like a child chasing a firefly? Science says “no.”

Find happiness without pursuing happiness:

1. Avoid overestimating the effect of your circumstances on your happiness. Even a perfect relationship and perfect job can become a grind after the newness wears off. You don’t need to live in the perfect location or have the ideal career to be happy. Nothing is perfect all the time.

* Studies show that people with modest incomes and possessions can be just as happy as the wealthy. There are happy and miserable people in the US, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and everywhere else in the world.

* There are happy and miserable doctors, clowns, homeless people, Christians, Jews, Muslims, tall people, short people, men, and women.

2. Searching for strong emotions. Studies find that the happiest people are moderately happy on a regular basis. The frequency of positive emotions is much more important for happiness than the intensity of the emotions.

3. Focusing on happiness leads to misery. Several scientific studies have shown that when subjects focused on happiness, they reported feeling lonely and depressed. Searching for happiness is a singular, perhaps even selfish, activity. Putting too much of your attention on yourself results in lowered mental health.

* Keep your attention on others if you want to be happy. It’s hard to be happy if you spend a lot of time alone.

4. Gratitude is an important component of happiness. If you have a lot to be grateful for, you’ll naturally be happy, too. Make gratitude a habit. Ask yourself what you’re grateful for several times each day.

* Set up trigger points, such as when you take a shower, put on your shoes, start your car, walk into your place of work, take off your shoes, and get into bed. These are just a few ideas. Think about your own life. What are your current morning and evening routines? Use those routines to remind you to be grateful.

Happiness is the goal, but it can’t be pursued. It just happens when you’re living your life. A few good friends, the right mindset, and gratitude are all the intelligent person requires to have a happy life. Live your life per your values. Following your values might not make you happy, but it will help to avoid being unhappy.

There’s no reason to put off being happy until you’re married, make six figures, or climb Mount Everest. Choose to be happy now.

8 Easy Steps to Greater Self-Esteem With Affirmations

8 Easy Steps to Greater Self-Esteem With Affirmations

by | Jan 18, 2021 | Affirmations, Self-Hypnosis

Don’t feel 100% great about yourself? Join the club. Most of us could use a little boost regarding our opinions of ourselves. Affirmations can be an effective way to boost your self-esteem.

The key to using affirmations is to state them in the positive and to use them religiously. It can take thousands of repetitions to make a dent in your current level of self-esteem.

Use this process to harness the power of affirmations to enhance your self-esteem:

1. Determine the weak areas of your self-esteem. In what aspects of your life do you feel negative about yourself? It might be related to work or your relationships. Hone in on the areas of your self-esteem that need the most work.

2. Create affirmations that address your areas of weakness. Suppose your self-esteem regarding your work is less than you’d like. Be kind to yourself and create powerful affirmations even if they seem over the top.

For example:

I am the most capable person on my team at work.

I contribute regularly and in a meaningful way toward solving the biggest problems at work.

I am the person most likely to receive a promotion and a raise.

I am calm, cool, and collected in even the most stressful work situations.

Try to come up with a minimum of 10-15 affirmations. Make them positive and in the present tense.

3. Create an audio recording of all your affirmations. This will be used later. Ensure that the quality of the recording is decent. You don’t want the sound of a phone ringing or a dog barking in the background. Your recording doesn’t have to be professional quality but give it your best effort.

Read each affirmation at a normal speaking pace and speak clearly. Leave a short pause between each affirmation.

4. Write or type each affirmation clearly on a piece of paper. It’s important to be able to carry your affirmations with you everywhere. That could mean putting them on a small piece of paper or having an electronic version on your phone or tablet. Whatever format works for you is fine.

5. Spend some time each day listening to your affirmations. Ideally, at a minimum, you’ll listen to them while you’re lying in bed in the morning and in bed at night. Put on your headphones and listen to your affirmations repeat over and over. If you can fall asleep with your affirmations in your ear, great!

You could even take a walk at lunchtime and listen.

6. Spend some time writing your affirmations each day. Pull out a pen and some paper and write them by hand. Typing doesn’t count. This a highly effective way of implanting your affirmations into your subconscious. It’s not enjoyable, so you’ll have to be tough and ensure you get it done.

7. Read your affirmations. You’ve been listening and writing. Now, it’s time to read them. Pull out your list of affirmations and read over them a few times each day. Let your subconscious know that you’re serious. Keep at it.

8. Consider a little electronic help. There are free programs you can get for your computer that will flash your affirmations on your computer screen for short periods of time. You can program them to flash for periods of time so short that you can’t possibly see them consciously, but your subconscious mind will see them.

Imagine seeing your affirmations all day long at work!

Affirmations can be a useful tool for increasing your level of self-esteem. With more self-esteem, life will be more enjoyable, and you’ll be more capable. Create a few affirmations and use them several times each day. Write them, listen to them, and read them. Your self-esteem will grow.

Need an extra boost with cultivating greater self-esteem? Click here to schedule a hypnotherapy session at Boulder Hypnotherapy.

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