Times are tough with terrorism, war, the high price of oil, and endless inflation. It's not always easy to keep ourselves afloat. Our lives are so filled with responsibilities, concerns, worry, fear, needs and desires that our figurative 'cups' are literally spilling over. The more we struggle to fit into our schedules, the more stressful life becomes, the more likely we are to develop habits, compulsions, addictions, fears and become physically rundown. Habits and addictions are symptoms of deficiency and they can be overcome. Hypnotherapy, done by a qualified and skillful Hypnotherapist is the most thorough and expedient way to accomplish your goals of reclaiming your healthy self.

Over the last several years many of my clients have reported that they covered as much if not more ground after a few sessions of hypnotherapy than they had with years of using traditional therapy. There is a good reason for this. Our conscious mind it is the rational, logical part of our minds, it contains and operates what is known as the critical factor. The critical factor is the protective or filtering mechanism of our beliefs that must be bypassed in order to accept any new suggestions that conflict with our existing beliefs. The premise of hypnotherapy is to 'bypass the critical factor and the establishment of selective thinking', such as," I am now a nonsmoker." The subconscious mind does not think or analyze and the conscious mind cannot feel. Therefore to make the changes we desire, we must use our subconscious mind.

Regardless of whether we had a good childhood or not, we each take on impressions and misconceptions that are not always correct. As children we simply did not have all of the information available. Traumatic impressions or events may in fact include physical, verbal or mental abuse or simply be the misconceptions of a child. In each circumstance the memory remains with us in our subconscious mind; not only is the event stored in our subconscious mind, so too are the emotions attached to the memory. Sometimes the incident or idea is not initially a traumatic one, but given the right circumstances and/or enough reinforcement it can develop into real and problematic symptoms later on. For instance if a child grew up in a single parent environment, that child may feel lonely and abandoned and may think his parent doesn't love him. But the truth is the parent may be struggling to make ends meet, is desperately trying to hold down a job, get more education to improve the living situation and create greater income to provide more for the child.

As a society we have a long tradition of suppressing feelings. When we ignore our feelings it's either because we've been taught to be stoic or we're simply too overwhelmed to pay attention to our own needs. As children we may have been made to feel bad, even guilty for expressing our feelings, and in some cases expressing sadness, anger or fear may have lead to punishment. In some families children were taught not to be too optimistic because that could lead to disappointment. This type of modeling leads to negative thinking and may even lead to depression.

Whatever the reason, in denying our feelings, we deny our true nature. Feelings are nature's built in guidance system. Even negative feelings such as anger or fear have a purpose. They are there to guide us and are just as valuable as our five senses. The system is designed to let us know which of our needs aren't being fulfilled and to motivate us to take action to fulfill them.

In Dr. Emotos book, "The Hidden Messages in Water," he describes an interesting experiment with rice. A family put rice into three glass jars, and every day for a month said, "Thank you" to one jar and "You fool" to the second bottle, and the third jar was simply ignored. They tracked how the rice changed over time. After a month, the rice that was ignored rotted before the others. It seems that being ridiculed is actually not as damaging as being ignored." The most damaging form of behavior is withholding your attention," writes Emoto, confirming that even negative attention is better than none. Parents who tend to lock their feelings in may lock their children out. Young children are so eager to be loved they will mistakenly accept negative behavior as love because they don't know the difference. Those children are then left with feelings they don't understand and without healthy coping mechanisms.

Additionally, a tremendous amount of energy is used holding those feelings in that could be better spent, and we do this unconsciously until our energy wears out. Imagine how difficult it is to hold a beach ball under the surface of the water. It keeps trying to float, and once we let go, it flies into the air light as a feather. Similarly, once we reached our limit, our emotions fly outward sometimes uncontrollably and often inappropriately. For those of us who experience difficulties, it's likely that our feelings have been off limits for so long we've become deaf to the voice within us. Those voices are longing to be heard. Have you ever been struck out of the blue, when a sense of emptiness suddenly moves into your consciousness? When we cannot consciously recognize the origin of a feeling, we may tend to seek comfort in a bottle of alcohol, or pills, in smoking, eating, shopping or gambling. The emotions that we carry within us originate from three different places: the past, the present, and concerns about the future. The problem is that often we are carrying around a hefty load of emotions concerning the past that just aren't useful to us anymore. The problem behavior is a way of coping with those feelings. When we pay attention to our feelings and understand them we can express them appropriately. Hypnotherapy is an ideal way to get in touch with our true feelings. Once we address and undo some or all of what is causing the feeling, the problem behavior can then be removed, because it no longer serves a purpose, ultimately creating new insights, positive feelings and healthy behavior. Finally, not all hypnosis is created equal. It is true that knowledge is power but knowing what to do at the proper time is the key! Always look for a certified hypnotist with advanced certifications and years of experience with testimonials to back up the education. Additionally look for someone whose focus is primarily committed to hypnotherapy, one whose time and energy is not fractured by several different healing modalities.

I have been lucky enough to have been trained and practice 5-Path Hypnosis at the Banyan Hypnosis Center formerly in Minnesota, now in California. The importance of 5-Path is that it is a systematic approach to hypnosis. There are five phases that are addressed with each client. Those five phases are: regression to cause, forgiveness therapy, parts mediation therapy, informed child/adult therapies and direct suggestion. When one is trained in this comprehensive way, the outcome of the therapy is optimized. 5-Path addresses and resolves the habitual, mental, emotional and physical aspects of the problematic issue allowing for lasting change.

If this sounds provocative, there's more. There's a counterpart to 5-Path. It's called 7th Path Self Hypnosis and it is a body-mind-spiritual meditative practice that was born out of the 5-Path process. It is best used along with 5-Path hypnotherapy sessions, but can also be used effectively on its own. 7th Path is only taught by certified instructors and I teach it to my clients privately or in day long workshops. It is truly an amazing process that can change your life.

Jean Conway of Blue Moon Hypnotherapy is an experienced and well respected, Certified Hypnotherapist who has been practicing hypnotherapy in western Massachusetts. Certified as member of the National Guild of Hypnotists since 1999, Jean Conway, C.H. can be reached at Blue Moon Hypnotherapy in her Greenfield office at: 413 774-7171 or for more information please visit: www.bluemoonhealingcenter.com.