Tuning Out & Tuning In

Welcome back to the BlogAlong Self-Development Workshop. This online workshop follows my books/programs including Sugar....the Hidden Eating Disorder & How to Lick It, Beyond Disorderly Eating, the Mind & Body Fitness Boot Camp, Stop Nail Biting Now: 4 Steps to Success, as well as many of my CD/mp3 programs. If you are new to the Workshop, please read the early entries because this is like any other workshop you might attend. If you are late, there are things you have missed that will interfere with your understanding of the process for the attainment of high level health & performance.

I apologize to the group for needing to repeat these messages for those who are new. My suggestion to you is to take a cleansing breath, relax deeply & release. Make this part of your practice for managing those emotions of impatience & urgency to hurry along. BTW, I just came back from the Galapagos Islands where the iguanas, sealions & boobies taught me much about this.

The BlogAlong workshop is both didactic & interactive. The latter includes active discussions, mp3 downloads from my available library, as well as some designed specifically for this workshop. To participate in the discussions you will need to join one of my email yahoogroups. There are ten of them, located on my website or you can email me for an invitation. I suggest you work with a three ring binder &/or a journal. This will reinfoce your subconscious mind programs.

Group members are working on different aspects of their lives. All of us have something to do in this regard. Some problems appear worse than others on the surface, but sometimes what one cannot see or chooses not to see is the most problematic. That's why a good portion of our work here is about heightened awareness. Fear of seeing is a huge issue. I hear this all the time from patients who are afraid to let go & utilize their mind screens.

It's true that many of us have faced some horrible experiences, some of which our mind has blocked out. This is why we utilize the tool of disassociation or disconnect. We relax deeply & enter our egg shape, our personal place on the face of the earth. The mind screen allows us to review old mind files without being in them. We practice with easy things first, gaining confidence & realizing that we can actually enjoy the process. We can feel our power & for some of us, this is a totally new experience. Most of us roam the earth feeling hopeless & helpless, often spiraling down deeper into anxiety or depression. It's no wonder we turn to addictions of all sorts or to habits that harm our body such as hair pulling, nail biting, skin picking & a host of others.

Some of us turn to food or drink for comfort. Anything to tune out, but we all know that there is never enough of anything that works for very long. And so, we need a different approach. First, we need to reprogram our body to function at a lower level of tension. Next, we need to wake up to those bothersome facets of our addictions, habits, negative patterns, thoughts, etc. that are not benefiting us & we need to let go or release them. And then, we need to program our mind & body for what we need & what we want. This is our order of business here in this BlogAlong Workshop.

ON BEING HUMAN

We all want everything yesterday & the idea of working for our desired outcome isn't the way we've been trained as children. And so, we ask for medications, hoping that they will do the job for us. While they might reduce some of the symptoms, the truth of the matter is that the underneath work cannot be managed with a pill. We need to move out of the fear, build our mind & body muscle & take charge of our inner programming. In order to do this, we must start at the beginning & practice deep relax, releasing, disassociating, mind editing & then programming. I know it sounds like a lot & it is. However, this process will take you to places you never dreamed of going & gift you in ways you never dreamed of being gifted. It's an extraordinary journey on which you are embarking & so I hope you stay for the entire journey.

MIND EXERCISE

The crux for today is to accept that you can relax & release better & better each time you practice. This is the truth for me, as well as for each of you & I've been practicing for three decades. Here's why. The more you become aware of what's taking place in the theater of your life, the more frequently you will want to release, relax & re-program. What happens is that your subconscious mind librarian begins to spot those areas that you have chosen to release & re-program & so then you are presented with additional facets or mind patterns that are closely related. So, if you have a tendency towards being impatient or intolerant ( two of my favorites ), you will be shown different varieties of those emotional states. Then, you have the opportunity to relax, release & re-program those. All of this will become second nature to you as you continue along with this work, that is IF you are practicing & not just reading.

You already know how to do the beginning exercise. For those of you who are new, it is in the first installment of the BlogAlong. We learn from others & so here are some questions I received from group members.

SARA - I'm a member of the Sugar Addiction Group & have active bulimia with purging. I am a true food addict, with sugar playing a large part of my intake. After I get inside my egg shape, should I see these negative images on my mind screen? Won't this program my mind for what I don't want?

ELIZ - This is an excellent question. For now, I want Sara to be aware of what she is actually doing. Most of us live on automatic pilot & so we are not fully participating in our negative or hurtful behaviors or patterns. In addition, Sara is not even engaged with her positive behaviors. She tends to see & sense everything from the perspective of what she does wrong. When I asked her, what she does right, she couldn't tell me.

So for now, it's enough to work with awareness of the negative, no matter if it's an eating disorder, pain, nail biting, skin picking, etc. Very soon we will be directing the mind to diminish this WHILE programming the mind for what is wanted or needed. To this image, suggestion or direction, we will connect motivators.

HARLAN - I'm in your accelerated learning group & I'm embarrassed to say that I can't find my mind screen. I'm terrible at visualization, so does this mean that I can't utilize self-hypnosis?

ELIZ - First, embarrassment is an emotion that is not helpful. I asked Harlan to dismiss it to the playground. Now back to Harlan's question. This is one voiced by many people. Seeing in the theater of the mind, is very different from seeing through your actual vision. This is how I moved him past this block. Right now think about what you had for breakfast. And now, lunch. If you haven't had lunch yet, think about what you might like to have. I'm sure your thoughts were accompanied by some sort of image, even if they flashed through. That is inner seeing.

While it's true that most of us have a favorite sense for learning, all of us to utilize inner seeing. Now for Harlan's mind screen, I asked him to simply do the relaxation & then enter his favorite movie theater & find the screen. He had no trouble doing that, so now Harlan has a new image for working with his subconscious mind.

I encourage you to work within your yahoogroups or write to me directly for suggestions. I have a few complimentary mp3 programs posted for you & will be changing them in a day or so, so don't miss out. Please continue working with deep relax & entering the egg shape. Locate your mind screen & know that each time you do so, you will be building your ability to get there quicker. Then you can apply interactive self-hypnosis right into your life, wherever it is needed or you would like to place it. This is true power & you can do this.

The mp3 for your Authentic Self will be located on my website at the following link. AUTHENTIC SELF

Starting Over - Again!

Welcome to my BlogAlong Self-Development Workshop. This online workshop follows my books/programs including Sugar....the Hidden Eating Disorder & How to Lick It, Beyond Disorderly Eating, the Mind & Body Fitness Boot Camp, Stop Nail Biting Now: 4 Steps to Success, as well as many of my CD/mp3 programs.

The BlogAlong workshop is both didactic & interactive. The latter includes active discussions, mp3 downloads from my available library, as well as some designed specifically for this workshop. To participate in the discussions you will need to join one of my email yahoogroups. There are ten of them, located on my website or you can email me for an invitation. I suggest you work with a three ring binder &/or a journal. This will accentuate your subconscious mind programs.

The yahoogroups will give you some idea as to the goals of some of the BlogAlong participants. Some are focused on specific problems or medical/health issues such as chronic conditions, disease management, disorderly eating, sugar addiction, other addictions, phobias, compulsions, lack of focus, emotional imbalance, low self-esteem, undesirable habits & are looking for solutions. Others are looking to manage pregnancy & parenthood, accelerate learning, enhance creativity, improve their thought patterns, confidence levels, write better, reach goals & to enhance the working of their mind & body by accessing their unique & powerful subconscious minds.

It's interesting to know that we will all benefit from the very same tools & I will benefit through my teaching & designing materials for the group, for every group is different & so my work doesn't finish.

Today is the first day of the BlogAlong Workshop & the first order of business is to learn to disassociate from everything & to locate our authentic self. I will post an mp3 session to begin this process, as well as to give you a mind & body exercise here.

MIND EXERCISE

It's imperative to know that you are not your problems or your desires. You are authentically separate & in a way, a conduit to anything & everything, both negative & positive, both useful & not useful. Everything is a choice. All your responses are choices. This will be the major crux for today.

In order to review & then program the mind for what you want & to edit out what you don't want, it's imperative to completely disassociate so you can be an observer instead of a participant.

We do this through very deep relaxation. It's easy to do this, but it takes practice. I've been practicing for over 25 years, but don't be dismayed. Results happen quickly, if you have full intention. Practicing just makes us more proficient at disassociating & therefore we can work more quickly.

Find a place where you will not be disturbed & disconnect your phone. This is a special time for you & you alone. Most of us do not feel comfortable in quietness & so this is something you will have to work on. Sense the chair under your buttocks & behind your back. Take a deep yawn breath in from the bottom of your feet & observe it traveling through your body. Hold it in your mouth for the count of 4 & when 4 arrives, allow the breath to exit through the imagined valves on the ends of your fingers ten.

Next, draw imaginary circles around chosen parts of your body. Start with the head & then nice deep breath. Next your neck, front & back. Shoulders.....right & then left. Big bag around each arm, breathing after placing these. Circle around your chest & inner circle around your heart & then lungs. Breath. Moving down to your lower belly, going inward if you like, especially if you feel tension points there. Breathe. Then a bag for the left leg & then the right one. Breathe.

Now draw an imaginary golden egg around all of you. You are now inside your golden egg. This is your place on the face of the earth. Everything else & I mean everything else, is outside. That includes desires, emotions, problems, people, sounds, things, etc. The only thing inside the egg is you & your mind screen. This is your connection to your subconscious mind & it is here that you will run your life from now on forward. And, while you will spend time in the outside world that resides outside your egg, you are only 1/200th of a second from being able to enter it, once you practice over & over. In othe words, you can enter in the blink of an eye.

The mp3 for your Authentic Self will be located on my website at the following link. AUTHENTIC SELF

ACTIVE AFFIRMATION CLUSTER

The seeds to my success are in my imagination in this very moment. I actively visualize all the things I want in my life in all areas. I actively make my mental blueprint and begin to build... Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht

Today I was working with a client of mine, I'll call Crystal. She, like so many others, has been frustrated by her search for what she wants to achieve in different areas of her life. She's changed jobs, houses, locations and even husbands in her quest for what she calls "perfection."

Now I always feel like running for cover when I hear that word, for most of us know that it simply doesn't exist, but for Crystal, it is a true destination. She reminded me of a gerbil on a treadmill, exhaused from her trek to nowhere.

Crystal is so busy looking outward, that she's lost her inner vision. Forget her resources. As far as she's concerned, she is a victim of life with nothing to show for it. How very sad....... She's only 32 years old.

I designed some active imagery for her based on the affirmation cluster for today. Interactive self-hypnosis gives us the opportunity to take an over-view of issues and then to develop a working metaphor in the theater of the mind. I needed to break Crystal's negative hypnotic mind states, of which there were many. Not only did she have a myraid of physical issues, but her thought patterns and sense of reality were quite distorted.

First off the bat, I needed the gerbil's attention. She talked incessantly, going over the same ground, truly stuck in the hypnosis of the turning wheel. To break this type of self-imposed negative hypnosis, we need to sweep the castle clean and then to begin re-furbishing. This was accomplished with a simple command of "shhhh....!!!! STOP.....listen." It never ceases to amaze me that a simple command given with kind authority can have such an effect. It was almost as if she were relieved that I stopped her. She was now in a submissive state and ready to receive positive hypnotic suggestion.

Affirmations are mini-mind programs that can pack a lot of power in a few sentences. When they are attached to active imagery or metaphor, they become even more powerful.

Anyone can work hypnotically. If you haven't experienced this before, here are few complimentary mp3 downloads. Each is a full interactive self-hypnosis session & part of a complete 2-3 track series. Each are filled with active imagery & affirmations.
Self-Image Affirmations
Making Changes - Affirmations & Imagery
Blending Work & Personal Goals

PLANTING AN ACTIVE AFFIRMATION

Let's work along with Crystal...

We always begin by reading the affirmational cluster out loud or slowly to ourselves. Prepare to spend some "real time" with yourself. Planting on the fly is not the way to go.

The seeds to my success are in my imagination in this very moment. I actively visualize all the things I want in my life in all areas. I actively make my mental blueprint and begin to build...

Gerbils are already in hypnosis from the movement of the wheel and so was Crystal. Once she stopped her motion, all that was necessary was some deep relaxation techniques. I utilized the colored circles around her body parts, starting at the head and ending at the bottom of her feet. I asked her to allow the cells that were in each part to slowly move apart from each other. Since she held lots of tension in her head, neck and shoulders, I placed additional inner circles in those areas. It wasn't more than a few moments when a good level of very deep relaxation was present.

I brought Crystal's attention to her mind screen and since she is very visual, I had her paint the gardens and the goal-den path. Then I appeared on it and put my hands out towards her. Like a lovely butterfly, she came towards me and gave me her disorderly backpack. I brought her attention to her lightness of being and how relaxed she felt as she walked along with my guidance.

I began to show her the gardens that contained all of her resources that she's collected over the many years of her life. Some were quite old, coming from childhood. Others were newer, and the newest ones were being planted as we walked along in this moment.

We then entered her workshop. This is where her resources were being utilized to build her successes. First we visited the planners who were working with blueprints. Next, we entered the construction area where many different projects were in process. Some were health-related, others having to do with work issues, prosperity and then relationships. I pointed out that everything she needed was already present. This was internal working.

The finishing area was over there. She could pick up and admire many of these projects, some of which she had indicated to me during our pre-hypnotic session, despite the fact that she reported not having been much of a success at anything.

Crystal has quite a bit of cleaning up to do in her pattern department, as well as in her thought and emotion areas. It was decided to remove the gerbil wheel and instead to spend active time relaxing and examining blueprints. While Crystal has much work to do, this was a good beginning