Finding True Magic, the blog

One of my favorite quotes from myself (eye roll!) is,

“We think we live in the world, but we live in our minds.”

Another (double eye roll!) is,

“Once you realize your innocence, you can accomplish anything.”

I am surprised when people don’t have a clue about what I am saying with these statements. (jaw drops)

Regarding the first quote about living in our minds, try entertaining the awareness that the outer world is really a creation inside your mind. We think our mind is in our head and our chattering certainly seems to be located there. But our mind is more than our chattering. Spend some time thinking of your mind containing all your sensory fields.

Don’t mistake this to mean I want you to pretend the outer world is in your head. No, just simply consider that your mind is outside of your head. Consider your mind to be that which contains your body and its chattering thoughts, and everything in the outer world. Relax and sense your mind’s pervasiveness and spaciousness.

That brings us to the second quote: “Once you realize your innocence, you can accomplish anything.” If you have the thought that the above exercise is too strange or difficult to even try…that is a sign of lack of awareness of your innocence. Don’t let yourself miss this opportunity to play with your mind because of some stodgy old judgments. (Stodgy old judgments = opposite of innocence.)

Click on this Podcast Link to hear me discuss my ideas with Greg Voison of Inside Personal Growth.

Greg recently interviewed me about, Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP.

Greg kindly says,  “Jack’s mind blowing, thought provoking ideas you really need to listen to, and take action on. This interview could truly transform your relationship with yourself, and more importantly everyone you love.”

In our talk, greg and I get at the root of most of  our struggles. When you listen you will better understand how hypnosis for pain,  for weight loss, for depression, for phobias and trauma, for anxiety, and virtually any other issue is a tremendous life-enhancing tool.

May we all prosper together.

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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.

Inception, the new film about the mysteries, dramas, and possibilities existing in our inner life, relies on many hypnotic principles to develop its story.

Inception explores the intricacies of implanting an idea in another person so that they think it is their own original idea.

It is actually much simpler than they make it out to be. In hypnosis jargon its called a suggestion. All that is required is to successfully bypass a person’s critical faculty (the ability to evaluate and say “No!”) and deliver the suggestion while the  critical faculty is suspended.

Hollywood must make it mysterious and dramatic, of course. But the goal of inception is quite easy and we are the constant subjects for inception through the ever expanding technology of mass and social media propaganda and advertising. The recently deceased Dr. Herbert Spiegel, psychiatrist and master hypnotist, demonstrated time and again how easily people can be made to adopt a suggested reality.

Even though hypnosis has been around for over 300 years, few people understand hypnotic principles. This makes it a big box office draw stimulating interesting analysis as if these are new and rare phenomena.

Besides the critical faculty bypass, all you need is repetition of a suggestion that is vivid and emotionally engaging. The more vivid and emotionally engaging the suggestion is, the less repetition is required.

Sorry to say, we must make a great effort to guard our minds and sanity in this age of expert spin doctors spreading their suggestions with ever more powerful technological and media advances. All too often they are serving money, power, and greed rather than the uplifting of humanity.

Here is a CD that will help you guard your mind and stay connected to your best impulses:  Opening to Higher Self Purification.

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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 sessionsin 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 present this insightful article by  Michele Rosenthal, founder of HealMyPTSD. Michele is a trauma/PTSD survivor who now does healing coaching for people suffering from PTSD. We are trading blog posts. Look for my entry, Insights and Strategies for Dealing with PTSD and Profound Challenges, at her HealMyPTSD blog site.

Enjoy Michele’s article:

PTSD makes communication difficult. Many survivors can’t find the words to express what they’re feeling. Even when they do, it’s very normal for them not to be comfortable sharing their experience. Elements of shame, fear, anger, guilt and grief often get in the way of a calm, focused discussion.

Friends and family (and anyone else who is not the source of the PTSD but is standing by while someone attempts to heal) need something that translates PTSD language. Armed with knowledge, insight and awareness you’ll have an easier time knowing how to react, respond and relate to your PTSD loved one during the healing process. The more you appreciate things from the PTSD perspective the more helpful and supportive you can be. Now is the time for empathy, compassion and patience.

#1 – Knowledge is power. Understanding the process of a triggering event, the psychic reaction to trauma, the warning signs and symptoms of PTSD, and available treatment options for PTSD allows you to help recognize, support and guide your PTSD loved one toward diagnosis, treatment and healing.

We need you to be clearheaded, pulled together and informed.

#2 – Trauma changes us. After trauma we want to believe —as do you—that life can return to the way it was; that we can continue as who we were. This is not how it works. Trauma leaves a huge and indelible impact on the soul. It is not possible to endure trauma and not experience a psychic shift.

Expect us to be changed. Accept our need to evolve. Support us on this journey.

#3 – PTSD hijacks our identity. One of the largest problems with PTSD is that it takes over our entire view of ourselves. We no longer see clearly. We no longer see the world as we experienced it before trauma. Now every moment is dangerous, unpredictable and threatening.

Gently remind us and offer opportunities to engage in an identity outside of trauma and PTSD.

#4 – We are no longer grounded in our true selves. In light of trauma our real selves retreat and a coping self emerges to keep us safe.

Believe in us; our true selves still exist, even if they are momentarily buried.

#5 – We cannot help how we behave. Since we are operating on a sort of autopilot we are not always in control. PTSD is an exaggerated state of survival mode. We experience emotions that frighten and overwhelm us. We act out accordingly in defense of those feelings we cannot control.

Be patient with us; we often cannot stop the anger, tears or other disruptive behaviors that are so difficult for you to endure.

#6 – We cannot be logical. Since our perspective is driven by fear we don’t always think straight, nor do we always accept the advice of those who do.

Keep reaching out, even when your words don’t seem to reach us. You never know when we will think of something you said and it will comfort, guide, soothe or inspire us.

#7 – We cannot just ‘get over it’. From the outside it’s easy to imagine a certain amount of time passes and memories fade and trauma gets relegated to the history of a life. Unfortunately, with PTSD nothing fades. Our bodies will not let us forget. Because of surging chemicals that reinforce every memory, we cannot walk away from the past anymore than you can walk away from us.

Honor our struggle to make peace with events. Do not rush us. Trying to speed our recovery will only make us cling to it more.

#8 – We’re not in denial—we’re coping! It takes a tremendous effort to live with PTSD. Even if we don’t admit it, we know there’s something wrong. When you approach us and we deny there’s a problem that’s really code for, “I’m doing the best I can.” Taking the actions you suggest would require too much energy, dividing focus from what is holding us together. Sometimes, simply getting up and continuing our daily routine is the biggest step toward recovery we make.

Alleviate our stress by giving us a safe space in which we can find support.

#9 – We do not hate you. Contrary to the ways we might behave when you intervene, somewhere inside we do know that you are not the source of the problem. Unfortunately, in the moment we may use your face as PTSD’s image. Since we cannot directly address our PTSD issues sometimes it’s easier to address you.

Continue to approach us. We need you to!

Michele Rosenthal is a trauma/PTSD survivor, Self-Empowered Healing Coach and the founder of Heal My PTSD, LLC.

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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 sessionsin 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 never seem to stop needing reminders to broaden my perspective and lighten up. I can get disturbed about something transitory and basically unimportant on a daily basis!

I easily forget I’ve never missed a meal in my life; I’ve always had hot tap water at my fingertips, a heated home, and indoor plumbing. I still remember when I was 5 (1952) and we were showing my grandfather around our newly built home. He immigrated from the Middle East in the early 1900’s and was a simple street peddler.  When we showed him, with some pride, how our home had a second bathroom (a mere 1/2 bath), he said wryly, “Oh, now you can sh** lots!”

We laughed hysterically, but that was the first time in my life that I considered living conditions outside of the American Dream. We are so profoundly enmeshed in our extraordinary material wealth that it becomes a chore to maintain a genuine gratitude for the miracles we have in our lives. It was considered a great contribution to society when Oprah suggested keeping a gratitude journal! Here — where so many of us have gadgets, high fashion gear and gourmet food available 24/7 — we have to make a project out of being grateful.

But don’t try to be grateful so you can be a “good” person or to avoid guilt. Be grateful for the “selfish” reason that lack of gratitude weakens your mind and your character, because it does.

Watch this Louis CK clip to get an insight into how we forget our good fortune:

The question is, “How happy can we be with ourselves regardless of what is happening with our stuff?”  And what can we call this phenomenon — this way in which our sense of well-being  is all tied up with what’s happening to our stuff? In my line of work, I consider it to be a hypnotic trance. We give ourselves a hypnotic suggestion  (and we do this more or less constantly) that our happiness and well-being depend on our stuff. Plus, if we’re not happy with our stuff we can even begin to think life is pointless. And we can usually find other people to agree with us!

It is not easy for us, when we are so used to relying on our stuff, to enjoy it with detachment. A sign of character strength and self confidence is the ability to maintain mental composure and enthusiasm regardless of the condition of our stuff.

This challenge of ours with our material goods has been going on for quite a long time, hasn’t it? In  George Carlin’s classic comic stand-up commentary from 1986, he talks about the absurdity of this relationship with our”Stuff”:

May we all cultivate inner strength so that we benefit ourselves and everyone with our grace and generosity.

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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 sessionsin 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.

What can we do when we feel stuck? I am amazed at how easy it is for me to forget that my mind is creating my “stuckness” not the world. My mind is very good at pointing the finger at the world however — very good at not being noticed as the culprit.

And even when I wake up a bit and realize it is my mind that is disturbing me, not the world, it often seems a chore to change my state. My mind sometimes wants to hold onto its grumpiness and at times it even seems infectious.

I have a few ways to change perspective that help me shake my mind out of its rut.  One is recalling an interview with a World War II veteran who suffered terrible hardships and danger in his tour, including seeing most of his buddies get killed. When he came back home had several ups and downs in his life and business. He had to begin from scratch several times. The interviewer asked what kept him going. He said, ” I wake up every morning and think, ‘No one is shooting at me, so this is a good day!’” Remembering this can get me going.

Another change of perspective that is often very beneficial is to kind of surrender to my mind’s anxious thinking. I just say, “OK” and imagine myself in the worst case scenario.  Ironically, this often dissipates the anxiety.  My theory is that fearful thinking freezes your brain so you can’t think clearly.

By surrendering to the fear and imagining yourself relaxing into the worst case scenario, you are no longer afraid because you have arrived where you were afraid of arriving.  (For example you can be afraid of getting into a fight, but once you are fighting, there is no more fear.) No more fear means your brain can think clearly again, and you recognize resources and options and  a  more realistic assessment of your situation.

In my client work I have often listened to people speak at length about their mental struggle with what they fear is going to happen to them.  At some point, I invite them to imagine the fearful thing has happened – “really be there!” Often, after a few minutes of silence with a far off look in their gaze, they say, “Well, that would never happen, but if it did, I’d deal with it.”

Yes! Their brain freeze melted and they recognized favorable  resources and conditions they had been overlooking.

Try it!

May all beings be happy and free! May our compassion for all beings, ourselves included, continue to increase!

Often, our habit of fearful thinking comes from our childhood. Her are a couple of great CD products to help you deal with old habits of fearful thinking:

Family Matters: 5 Ways to Stop Your Past from Screwing Up Your Future

Stress Relief, Rejuvenation & Empowerment

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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.

Most people have a problem thinking of themselves as confident because they don’t “feel confident.” Or maybe they don’t have a track record of success in their life — so far. But actually, such issues are beside the point. The secret to really being confident is to appreciate the gift of life and to make your best efforts with enjoyment and without fear of being judged.

How can we gain real confidence? It’s easy to talk about, but most people have deeply ingrained patterns and habits that keep us from appreciating ourselves and enjoying our lives. If you’ve ever really wanted to change something about yourself — shyness, a habit of negative self-talk or being late to appointments — you know it’s not usually just a matter of deciding.

To make lasting change in deeply ingrained habits, we have to interrupt those patterns where they’re lurking: in the shadows of your subconscious mind. It’s easier than you think. In fact, the way you think is most likely what’s making it seem hard to be confident.

Hypnosis and hypnotherapy can help you quickly and easily regain hope and enthusiasm about your genuine interests and aspirations. Your mind learned how to approach problems negatively and get discouraged, and it can unlearn all that, too — quicker than you think!

Stories abound of people overcoming the odds to rediscover their essential faith in themselves. Sometimes a big loss can show us where our strength really lies.

Learn about the Finding True Magic Audio CD “Strengthening Your Will”

Here’s a video showing one of my favorite examples of someone believing in himself, and inspiring others in the process.

May all beings be happy and free! May our compassion for all beings, ourselves included, continue to increase!

Here’s a guided practice designed to naturally increase your fearlessness:
Finding True Magic audio CD: Cultivating Fearlessness & Compassion

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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.

Recently I read this CNN article about a woman named Veronica Noone who had struggled for years to lose weight and finally was able to do it because her goal changed. The woman had dieted throughout her teens to fit in, but stayed overweight until she gave birth to her son. Now you may be saying, “Wait a minute — don’t women often put on weight after having a child?”  Well yes, sometimes. But in Veronica’s case, having a child made her extra-conscious of her food choices because she wanted to set a healthy example for her child. It wasn’t going to be great parenting, Veronica reasoned, if her young son saw her scarfing down candy or double portions of potato chips. She changed her eating habits (and I”ll bet she increased her exercise, too). In seven months, she took off 71 pounds and has now kept her healthy weight for four years. Instead of trying to shrink her meals, instead she made a small change in her thinking which gave her great results.

Maybe you’d like to slim down and get in shape, but right now you’re thinking, “I don’t think having a child is the answer!” Fortunately, Veronica Noone’s way isn’t the only way. But the essential method she employed is a great start. Finding the true reason why you want to lose weight — whether it’s to set an example for your child or to improve your own health — is central to weight loss success.

In my hypnotherapy practice I’ve helped a great number of people who wanted to lose weight and change old destructive eating habits into new, healthy eating habits. Transpersonal hypnosis and hypnotherapy get to the root of what’s holding you back from making this positive change. It doesn’t work if all your focus is on what you’re eating, when you’re eating, and how much you’re eating (or how much you weigh). What does work is when you discover what’s really motivating you to make a change. I don’t mean what your mind is telling you about why you “should” lose weight, but rather your real, true, heartfelt motivation for wanting something better. When I work with this issue in private sessions, at our very first meeting (in person or on the phone, it doesn’t matter) we eliminate the problem of guilt associated with unhealthy eating. That’s losing weight with love, and it works.

Learn about these Finding True Magic Audios:
Strengthening Your Will
Weight Loss – Health Gain

And if you still want to learn more about weight loss with love and hypnotherapy . . .