Finding True Magic, the blog

I am excited today to share with you a You Tube clip that documents the effectiveness of hypnosis for medical anesthesia. It is just a 2 minute clip, but it is from ABC News with Diane Sawyer so it should carry a lot of prestige with the public.

At the same time, I am concerned that vested interests in the medical community, especially anesthesiologists, will be against the spread of this knowledge, or will try to make it legal only for doctors to practice hypnosis in this way. Of course you need the doctor to do the surgery, but not the hypnotic anesthesia.

The healing power of our mind is our healing power and we have a right to learn the simple yet profound means to access it. To be able to do surgery under hypnosis understandably raises doubts and fears and the inclination is to think such a use of hypnosis must be complex and require years of training.

Not true! It is so simple – all that is needed is trust, rapport, motivation, and openness to suggestion (which follows from the first 3), and knowing what to suggest and how to suggest it. With these relationship dynamics present, and the easy to learn way to phrase suggestions, anyone can hypnotize anyone else to access and activate their own healing power.

I have several anecdotes of laypeople known to me who hypnotized a loved one (the relationship contained the required trust, rapport, and openness) for pain and surgery. One was a student of mine who, after the first weekend of class, hypnotized her husband to have a pain free dental surgery with little bleeding or swelling and rapid pain free healing. In this case the husband knew he was being hypnotized. And he trusted his wife.

In another situation the person did not know they were being hypnotized. They were having a phone conversation with their best friend, a graduate of my course. The person was about to have a liver biopsy, known to be always a very painful procedure. Her friend just started to give her suggestions in a casual loving reassuring way about how nice it would be if…(you felt delight at little things moment by moment, and appreciated the good will of the doctors and told your body to be pain free and it agreed). The person did not think this was hypnosis — it was just reassurance from a friend.

Afterwards, this person reported with great surprise how delightful and pain free the procedure, and, in fact the whole day, had been. About six months later the procedure was needed again. But this time this person forgot about the prior experience and didn’t talk with the friend. The procedure was very painful as it was “supposed” to be.

Now that you have read this, what is your inner response? Do you believe such abilities are available to you? You can begin to experiment and train yourself to master pain with some of my recordings like my ‘Quick Pain Relief’ or my ‘Deep Relaxation: Spontaneous Healing’ CDs or Mp3s.

Here’s the You Tube clip: 

Good luck!

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Jack Elias, CHT is founder and director of the Institute for Therapeutic Learning in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP, a book and course which blends NLP training modalities with philosophical traditions of both East and West. Jack offers private sessions in Lucid Heart Therapy and Life Coaching. He offers live trainings and distance learning trainings in Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP. Jack also presents keynotes and other programs to teach audiences how to use the techniques of  Transpersonal Hypnotherapy/NLP to achieve success,confidence, and a consistent sense of well-being.

Book Jack Elias to speak to your group or organization.

First I wish you a loving, safe, and healthy Holiday season!

This is the fourth installment of the 4 part series on ‘Everything That Distresses You is Irrelevant.’ (It may have additional parts)

This series will be especially helpful for the enjoying and dealing creatively with the challenges that the holidays can bring mentally, emotionally, and physically.

You can find the first 3 installments at:

Part 1 – http://blog.findingtruemagic.com/?p=877

Part 2 – http://blog.findingtruemagic.com/?p=902

Part 3 – http://blog.findingtruemagic.com/?p=921

The 4 main issues causing needless distress are:

• 1) Confusion about Desire vs. Attachment,
• 2) Limited Self-Concepts,
• 3) Unrecognized Nature of Fear-based Thinking, and
• 4) Confusion about Cause and Effect.

This month we will look at issue #4) Confusion about Cause and Effect.

Every time we make a move, we are motivated by a desire, resolution, intention, or inspiration (let’s call these ‘beginnings’). Every beginning gives rise to a goal, the fulfillment of the desire or inspiration, etc..

Often wonderful beginnings do not end at the wonderful goal. I am sure you have heard the saying, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” I’m sure you have also heard the New Age aphorism, “You always make the best choice.” Or the age old, “Everyone just wants to be happy.”

Have you ever wondered “why, if I want to be happy and I am always making my best choice, and I have a good intention, things can turn out so badly?”

The answer is that you didn’t accurately understand how the laws of cause and effect were operating in the given situation. The Law of Cause and Effect is operating in an all pervasive, unimpeded, and unrelenting way. It is totally reliable and impartial. If you act in accord with it, results are guaranteed!

When we make our very first move to act on our “beginning” we are making a statement of trust in the law of cause and effect and an affirmation that we understand how to apply it to get the outcome we want.

But we often forget or don’t realize that any action we take represents such a statement and affirmation.

When we don’t appreciate that we subconsciously trust and recognize the law of cause and effect, we forget to pay attention to it action by action. This is important because, action by action the law of cause and effect (LCE) gives us feedback about the action(s) we have taken — feedback that let’s us know of any course corrections we need to make and also additional knowledge about the nature of the project in general.

When we forget that we must attend to the impartial feedback from the LCE we get into big trouble. If we don’t pay attention to the actual LCE, we invent our own version of what we want the LCE to be.

Living by our desired LCE produces these delusions:

• I’m a victim of circumstance
• The universe is out to get me
• This shouldn’t be happening to me or “Why me?!”
• It’s hopeless; there is no way out
• I am unworthy to have any good come into my life
• Nothing ever works out
• It’s not my fault or It’s your fault

I could go on. Simply put, when we forget that the LCE is impersonal, impartial, reliable, and all pervasive, we delude ourselves thinking the LCE is personal, unreliable, and “patchy” in its application.

This enables us to indulge in victim mentality, believing that whining and complaining will somehow produce a good outcome. Or that actions determine the worth of our being.

If however, you appreciate the true nature of LCE, you always make an effort to engage with life moment by moment in a positive constructive way with and inner sense of self-encouragement, self-love, and patience.

You don’t do this to be a good boy or good girl. You do it because you know that the LCE is reliable and that ‘like comes from like’. If you want good in your life, constantly plant seeds of good – mentally, emotionally and physically.

If life brings you something you don’t like, you don’t complain (you may feel sad, which is very different). You meet it with interest (to learn more about LCE), with enthusiasm (because you know your worthiness is not at stake), and with patience (because you are clear that fear, masquerading as impatience, is never your friend).

You see that absurdity of acting in a negative way if something negative show up – adding a negative response just plants seeds for more negativity to bear fruit!

When you understand these insights about LCE, whatever comes, you smile at it. Not because you are faking that you like it, but because whatever comes reminds you of your own inner value and resourcefulness, and that the real LCE is on your side.

Results are guaranteed! Develop the habit of planting positive seeds – mentally, emotionally, and physically, even in the face of negative circumstances (the result of prior negative actions – no blame – just the action of the LCE) and positive results must come to you.

Good luck!

Someone living in Mexico with severe back pain downloaded the Stress Release and Quick Pain Relief Mp3s the other day. Within a couple of hours, they emailed me that they were feeling better already! This Stress Relief product is great for holiday stress. The Ending Insomnia Mp3 can be a life-saver during the holidays too.

January 2012 Winter Spontaneous Solutions© Transpersonal Hypnotherapy/NLP Training begins January 13th. Details here.

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Jack Elias, CHT is founder and director of the Institute for Therapeutic Learning in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP, a book and course which blends NLP training modalities with philosophical traditions of both East and West. Jack offers private sessions in Lucid Heart Therapy and Life Coaching. He offers live trainings and distance learning trainings in Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP. Jack also presents keynotes and other programs to teach audiences how to use the techniques of  Transpersonal Hypnotherapy/NLP to achieve success,confidence, and a consistent sense of well-being.

Book Jack Elias to speak to your group or organization.

Welcome to the third installment of ‘Everything That Distresses You is Irrelevant.’

• Confusion about Desire vs. Attachment, (first installment)
  
• Limited Self-Concepts, (second installment)
  
• Unrecognized Nature of Fear-based Thinking, and
• Confusion about Cause and Effect.

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Jack Elias, CHT is founder and director of the Institute for Therapeutic Learning in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP, a book and course which blends NLP training modalities with philosophical traditions of both East and West. Jack offers private sessions in Lucid Heart Therapy and Life Coaching. He offers live trainings and distance learning trainings in Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP. Jack also presents keynotes and other programs to teach audiences how to use the techniques of  Transpersonal Hypnotherapy/NLP to achieve success,confidence, and a consistent sense of well-being.

Book Jack Elias to speak to your group or organization.

Welcome to the 2nd installment of ‘Everything That Distresses You is Irrelevant.’  The 4 main issues causing needless distress are:

• Confusion about Desire vs. Attachment,
• Limited Self-Concepts,
• Unrecognized Nature of Fear-based Thinking, and
• Confusion about Cause and Effect.

If you missed the 1st installment, it’s at http://blog.findingtruemagic.com/?p=877.  Also,

Part 3 – http://blog.findingtruemagic.com/?p=921
Part 4 - http://blog.findingtruemagic.com/?p=931

Let’s look at issue #2) Limited Self-Concepts. Here are the primary root forms of limited self-concept:

1. I’m unworthy (not good enough, not deserving, therefore the universe is against me, nothing I do will work out)
2. I’m a victim (not strong enough or smart enough)
3. I’m special (other people get the right help and can change; not me)
4. I am what I think I am and nothing more (don’t try to trick me into trying something new; it won’t work because the universe is against me – cycle back to #1)
5. I take up too much space/there is not enough space for me – if I expressed freely, I’d bother people
   

These are so painful when we deeply believe them that we do not recognize that they are basically complaints. Recognizing them as complaints can actually diminish the power they have over us. It can take them off the pedestal we have put them on as unassailable truths.

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Jack Elias, CHT is founder and director of the Institute for Therapeutic Learning in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP, a book and course which blends NLP training modalities with philosophical traditions of both East and West. Jack offers private sessions in Lucid Heart Therapy and Life Coaching. He offers live trainings and distance learning trainings in Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP. Jack also presents keynotes and other programs to teach audiences how to use the techniques of  Transpersonal Hypnotherapy/NLP to achieve success,confidence, and a consistent sense of well-being.

Book Jack Elias to speak to your group or organization.

I am happy to share this wonderful blog by Lisa Saubolle.

Lisa Saubolle is creator of The Bodymind Journey, a heart centered approach to healing and self-discovery. She is a hypnotherapist and Certified TAT® (Tapas Acupressure Technique) Trainer, with a background in energy healing and body-centered methods.  Her blog shares her personal experience and the life-changing lessons she learned from her contemplation of them. A great example of diligence and compassion to oneself! Enjoy:

No More Self-Improvement

For most of my adult life I was a self-improvement junkie. I can’t even begin to count the hours (in the thousands) and the amount of money I spent on books, products, and trainings over the last 25 plus years.

At first it came in spurts (when the pain got bad enough), but eventually it became a way of life with me. Other people took vacations; I worked on myself.

At some point I began to support other people who were also looking to feel better and live happier lives and I loved it!!  Except that I put more pressure on myself to “be the best I could be” in order to help others. Reading about perfectionism, I saw some ways that label fit; so I started working on my perfectionism – another way I could improve! More learning, more seeking, more work.

Not good enough.

Though in many ways life was feeling better and I had worked through some really big things like panic attacks and various forms of not-so-healthy behavior, I began to gradually realize that in all my efforts to learn, grow and develop, I still didn’t feel good about myself. It seemed natural to think of myself as a person in need of constant improvement, and my inner “coach” kept whispering “you can do better, I know you can!” What’s wrong with wanting to be a better person??!

But I had a growing realization that whatever I did, whoever I was, it would never be “enough.”  I knew I “should” love and accept myself but had no idea how that would be possible, or what it would feel like.

Then something big happened.

One day as I was trying to “shift” my emotional state (I was working with Law of Attraction back then), I heard a little voice from somewhere inside say “you hate me!”  It was so unexpected and felt so real (I’m not prone to hearing inner voices), that it completely captured my attention.  My first impulse was to reassure “it” (whatever “it” was) and as I sat there, I became aware of something in me that was in tremendous pain and feeling very kind of “squashed down.”  The whole right side of my body felt contracted.

This pivotal event started an amazing journey for me.  I learned to listen more to what was really going on inside instead of just trying change it; I realized that I had been blind to my own suffering because I was so identified with a part of me that was pushing for constant improvement and change.

A different way

As I worked with things in a different way, I began to come in contact with something in me that was beyond the conflict, beyond the history, beliefs and the rest of it; something that really felt more like ME.  From this place, I could see the stuck places, the barriers and know it was just “stuff” and NOT who I was.

I saw that it’s not about self-improvement — it’s more like self-unfolding and development. There’s nothing wrong with personal development, growth and healing — it’s our inborn tendency to move towards more wholeness.  It’s the WAY that we do this, the way we approach ourselves (and each other), that makes all the difference.  It’s also a recognition that there is something beyond our emotions, reactions, thoughts and the conditions of our life, that is authentic and who we really are; we may not be in touch with it, or may glimpse it only rarely, but it’s there.

Things to consider:

• Are there things about you and your life that are just “unacceptable?”
• How do you go about making changes?
• Could you imagine treating your own feelings and your own self with as much care and understanding as you would offer a hurting child or animal?
• What if it were possible to change, grow and experience a fulfilling life without acting from a place of “I have to” or dragging yourself kicking and screaming into uncomfortable territory?

Copyright 2010   Lisa Saubolle  all rights reserved

Thanks, Lisa! Remember, visit Lisa’ website  The Bodymind Journey and see what she has to offer!

In the spirit of affirming self-respect, your basic goodness, and your right to exuberantly express yourself, download this Mp3 Erase Performance Anxiety – Share Your Gifts & Joy With the World! Now!

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Jack Elias, CHT is founder and director of the Institute for Therapeutic Learning in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP, a book and course which blends NLP training modalities with philosophical traditions of both East and West. Jack offers private sessions in Lucid Heart Therapy and Life Coaching. He offers live trainings and distance learning trainings in Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP. Jack also presents keynotes and other programs to teach audiences how to use the techniques of  Transpersonal Hypnotherapy/NLP to achieve success,confidence, and a consistent sense of well-being.

Book Jack Elias to speak to your group or organization.

Distress…irrelevant!? Most people are interested and puzzled by this proposition – some angered! How can I not be distressed about being unemployed, sick, or because of a significant loss?

I find in working with clients that the main causes of confusion about the needlessness of distress relate to 4 main issues:

1) Confusion about Desire vs. Attachment
2) Limited Self-concepts
3) Unrecognized Nature of Fear-based Thinking
4) Confusion about Cause and Effect

Briefly, here’s my take on these,

1) Confusion about Desire vs. Attachment

I find many people believing themselves to be basically “sinners” think their desires are selfish and therefore wrong. Yet they can’t give them up so they feel distressed in the pursuit of them. Since they are wrong, they feel ashamed and guilty. Since they are selfish, they have to be covert and manipulative in their effort to satisfy them.  Very distressful orientations, indeed!
How’s this – it’s natural to have natural desires and to meet them with ease and self-respect. Natural desires arise from simply being alive – life desires what it wants to celebrate being alive. Respecting life, being grateful for life, means being respectful of and grateful for the guidance of natural healthy desires.
Desire is not the problem. Grasping at desires is the problem. Grasping is a problem because you can’t grasp a desire, all you can really do is squeeze your guts. Squeezing your guts is the actual activity (to put it politely). What we think, what we hallucinate, is that we are grasping our desire. But the actual squeezing is causing the distress. If you recognize the actual activity of squeezing you can evaluate:

1) how does squeezing my guts help me get my desire or
2) to get over not getting my desire

It doesn’t, clearly! Enjoy the desire with ease if you meet it. Move on, hopefully with a lesson learned (and gratitude for it), to other desires (enjoyable pursuits) if you don’t.  No squeezing required!

Good luck!

I discuss the other causes in these next 3 blogs:

Part 2 – http://blog.findingtruemagic.com/?p=902
Part 3 – http://blog.findingtruemagic.com/?p=921
Part 4 – http://blog.findingtruemagic.com/?p=931

Subscribe (RSS) to this blog in the right column over there!

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Jack Elias, CHT is founder and director of the Institute for Therapeutic Learning in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP, a book and course which blends NLP training modalities with philosophical traditions of both East and West. Jack offers private sessions in Lucid Heart Therapy and Life Coaching. He offers live trainings and distance learning trainings in Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP. Jack also presents keynotes and other programs to teach audiences how to use the techniques of  Transpersonal Hypnotherapy/NLP to achieve success,confidence, and a consistent sense of well-being.

Book Jack Elias to speak to your group or organization.

If you want to go to Hell, worry about what other people think of you. I don’t’ mean the Hell supposedly created by God, but the Hell we create in our own mind. This may be the only Hell there is – the self-created one!

To escape from these self-created Hells we need to look at them and look into them. What do we believe that got us involved with them? What seduced us? What distracted us (from more joyful pursuits)? What do we get out of remaining in them (which may be why it seems so hard to get out of them – they have value for us)?

An ancient story has a tormented person asking a saint (a Free person) how to free himself from the grasp of his tormenting thoughts. The saint, who is leaning against a tree relaxing says, “I will tell you how to get free as soon as this tree lets go of me.”

The tormented person says, “But Sir, the tree is not holding on to you, you are leaning on it! Just stand up and walk away from it.” The saint looks the person directly in the eye and says with great passion and compassion, “Just so! The tormenting thoughts do not have a hold of you, you are holding on to them. Walk away and be free!”

I had an experience at 19 that taught me a very similar lesson. I share it in my book, Finding True Magic, pg. 45:

“When I was 19, I was helping my father screen in our back porch. The 2 x 4 beams that would support the screening were set about three feet apart, and we put up the screen section by section. It was nice June weather and, of course, flies were buzzing around us as we worked. I was really impressed watching a fly repeatedly buzz up against the screen I was working on—he was obviously trying to get free! We had only put up the first section of screen, and this was the one he kept knocking against, so he had plenty of space everywhere else in the direction he wanted to go, not to mention the option of going back the way he came. But he was willing to buzz against his obstacle to the point of exhaustion and even death.

I like to imagine that he was a fly philosopher or a fly psychologist; I like to listen to his discourses decrying our existential dilemma. Maybe I sound just like him, when I’m complaining or feeling stuck.”

I learned to take this insight to heart:  we suffer because we do not see the reality of our situation, in particular the spaciousness and freedom of movement that is always available. Like the fly, we insist on our desired direction as being the only direction we can move in. And so we suffer from conditions we create,  but we interpret our suffering as being imposed upon us by someone or something else.

Try this basically easy yet subtle method to free yourself from the torment of thoughts and emotions. It sounds simple, and it is, but it requires practice so that you make it  your habitual way of relating to thoughts and emotions:

• Notice that you talk to yourself and that you listen. Other people are not the problem. What you tell yourself about other people is, by itself, not the problem either. It only becomes the problem when you, listening to what you think about other people, believe and accept it.
• Start witnessing or watching and studying this process of talking to yourself (or just being aware of thoughts and emotions) and believing them and agreeing with them.
• No matter what happens, just watch. Develop the habit of watching the mental/emotional movements. Develop a strength of habit of being the watcher, even if the thoughts/emotions are strong, like those of anger. Just breath, relax the body as best you can in a position that helps you stay alert, and watch.
• Keep coming back to breathing naturally, relaxing, and watching no matter how often you get pulled into the thinking. With practice you will get better at staying in the position of watching.
• Watch the thoughts and emotions that try to pull you away from watching – especially fear or boredom. Watch them too. Breath. Maybe make a gentle smile as well. Notice how watching in this way changes the thought/emotional state you are experiencing.
• Watch the watcher. Stay relaxed. In the beginning if you “try too hard” to watch the watcher, you will just get frustrated, which is OK if you remember to just watch the frustration. In the beginning, chances are that the frustration will make you stop practicing, so it’s better to watch the watcher a little at a time. Just let yourself have a brief glimpse, a brief recognition, and go back to watching thoughts/emotions.
• Watching the watcher will give you the experience of spaciousness and freedom. Even if you are in a challenging relationship!

Going back to my story as a metaphor, before practicing watching the mind we are like the fly. As we watch the mind and watch the watcher of the mind, we become the observer, free of any dilemma. Just as that 19 year old “me” saw the needlessness of the fly’s dilemma, and saw the freedom and spaciousness so easily available to the fly, we find a freedom in living that is unobstructed by thoughts/emotions. We no longer buzz on the screen of what other people think.

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Jack Elias, CHT is founder and director of the Institute for Therapeutic Learning in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP, a book and course which blends NLP training modalities with philosophical traditions of both East and West. Jack offersprivate sessions in Lucid Heart Therapy and Life Coaching. He offers live trainings and distance learning trainingsin Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP. Jack also presents keynotes and other programs to teach audiences how to use the techniques of  Transpersonal Hypnotherapy/NLP to achieve success,confidence, and a consistent sense of well-being.

Book Jack Elias to speak to your group or organization.

My primary experience as a teacher is in the field of hypnotherapy training. This is a rather esoteric field, but one that is quickly gaining more and more exposure as a credible field of therapeutic work.

Students often come to the class thinking it is going to be totally foreign and difficult to learn these “mysterious” techniques.  Most come with a fairly heavy dose of negative programming from their childhood schooling experience ! They have performance anxiety and beliefs about  not being smart enough. They are afraid to ask questions, afraid of appearing stupid, and of being shamed for making a mistake.

All these variations of fear associated with the learning process make being in a class an unpleasant experience. Learning should be interesting, enlivening, and fun! It feels good to learn something new. It feels good to make discoveries and to experience your capacity to learn. It is essential to recognize you have a reliable intelligence you can trust if you treat it right.

Recently I had the wonderful experience of watching my granddaughter’s opinion of herself change dramatically for the better. She had been classified as learning disabled because she was not reading well. We found a reading program that actually has the appropriate techniques to help people read — it’s called ReadRight!

In her ReadRight tutoring, my granddaughter discovered she was teachable and that her brain could learn to read once she was presented with appropriate guidance and techniques. She loves to read now! She enjoys telling us about all the good grades she is getting in school because she can read! And her posture is now upright and there is a new light in her eyes since she has discovered she does have a good brain and can learn. Priceless!

Consider this CD to get past some of the most common blocks to the joy of learning:

“Erase Performance Anxiety: Share Your Gifts & Joy With the World!”

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Jack Elias, CHT is founder and director of the Institute for Therapeutic Learning in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP, a book and course which blends NLP training modalities with philosophical traditions of both East and West. Jack offersprivate sessions in Lucid Heart Therapy and Life Coaching. He offers live trainings and distance learning trainingsin Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP. Jack also presents keynotes and other programs to teach audiences how to use the techniques of  Transpersonal Hypnotherapy/NLP to achieve success,confidence, and a consistent sense of well-being.

Book Jack Elias to speak to your group or organization.

Absolutely Nothin! Uh-huh! Yeah!
I am writing to myself as much as to you today. Because over the years I’ve noticed there’s a sneaky quality to  my anxiety. Whenever I notice it sneaking up, I’ve developed certain ways of talking to myself, to rouse the courage to challenge this self-defeating attitude. Here are my Top 5 Tips for dealing with anxiety and fear of failure:

#1.  Anxiety is a luxury.
Not necessarily a material luxury,  because obviously you can be poor and anxious.  You may not  realize it, but we have to have an attitude of luxury about our time, even to be able to “do anxiety.”  I have to feel I can afford to spend time on my hobby of anxious thinking. Because let’s face it: anxious thinking and worry take up time and energy.

Somewhere deep down, I must have decided that my most heartfelt goals can wait. How do I know this? Because I always seem to have the luxury of wasting my intelligence and energy — anxiously worrying, spinning inside a “poor me” hamster wheel. I’m  just spinning away, spending time. But is it a luxury I can afford?

#2. Anxiety + Fear of Failure Fantasies = Procrastination.
It starts like this: I’m about to begin to address some issue — a project, a goal, a resolution. But then I have a thought: “What’s going to happen,  if I start focusing my energy in some productive way to meet this challenge?” I might fail in never-before-dreamed-of ways! Onto the wheel I hop, and the spinning begins. My heartfelt goal? Oh, it can wait.Anxiety often masquerades as procrastination. We avoid taking action on our goals and choose to obsess in anxious thinking – because it delays the possibility of making a mistake. We meet up with a fear of failure, and we freeze.  Instead of taking action, we make a withdrawal from our luxurious bank account of extra time and energy, and we spend it putting off making our best effort. We think we’re avoiding failure, but . . .

#3.  What’s failure got to do with it? Absolutely nothin!
Have you ever been in a fight? If so, you know that whatever anxiety you had about the fight disappears once you’re actually engaged in the act of  fighting. If you are attacked, fighting back is an appropriate course of ACTION, and you plan and make course corrections moment by moment. You act and make adjustments according to the results you get. You don’t freeze and obsessively think about, “What if I do this…what if I do that…what if…oh, my god!” (If you stop to do that, you’ll get clobbered!)

#4. When Anxious — ACT NOW.
The main remedy for my anxiety is to start taking action . . . Now! Of course, I can only take action Now (when else would I do it?). But I have to remind myself of Now, because I so easily fantasize taking action in the future. “I’ll do it as soon as . . . .”  The problem is, the future never becomes now and now is the only time I can act!

You can’t be anxious now, if you are focused on this moment – you can only act and make course corrections in the subsequent moments of now as they arise. You can only be anxious if you are focused on the past and future, bouncing back and forth fearfully concerned about “poor me.”

#5. Don’t Try. Just Do. (Thanks, Yoda and Nike.)
In my Transpersonal Hypnotherapy trainings, one of the first points we cover is how to talk to your subconscious mind to get that mind to ACT in your best interests:

“The suggestion is stated in the present tense. You must recognize that the “subconscious” mind lives in the now. The mind that is able to cause change lives in the now, and changes things in the now. Everything is happening now; therefore you do things now, you don’t “try” to do things.” (Finding True Magic, p. 16)

“Trying” to do things is delaying doing things. And delaying means putting things off to the future. It means I’m acting as if I have the luxury of  spending time as if I have forever.  And as we NOW know . . . the future never comes!

I don’t beat myself up when I forget my own Top 5 Tips. I just keep ACTING. I practice making my best choice and best effort Now, moment by moment. You and I have what it takes to turn our minds in a positive direction. We can meet any challenge that has caught our attention, unconcerned with how we may be judged by others (Success or failure, fool or hero — it doesn’t matter. I’m the one who decides to stop spinning. I choose to move forward. Fear is a luxury I can’t afford, and Anxiety, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Yeah!

Good luck!

Check out Developing True Heart Intuition & Self Integration – a great experiential seminar that will set you on your True path to accomplish your heart-felt goals. This program is one of 5 experiential life-changing programs in the Living from the Heart Collection.

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Jack Elias, CHT is founder and director of the Institute for Therapeutic Learning in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP, a book and course which blends NLP training modalities with philosophical traditions of both East and West. Jack offersprivate sessions in Lucid Heart Therapy and Life Coaching. He offers live trainings and distance learning trainingsin Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP. Jack also presents keynotes and other programs to teach audiences how to use the techniques of  Transpersonal Hypnotherapy/NLP to achieve success,confidence, and a consistent sense of well-being.

Book Jack Elias to speak to your group or organization.