Working Inside Hypnotic Pods

Each morning you wake up to your daily life. Most of your activities will be on automatic pilot. You might not even remember doing some things, such as brushing your teeth, drinking your coffee or driving to work. Automatic pilot is a trance state that can be very useful for what is considered the habitual activities of life. After all, it would be exhausting to be aware of each and every moment that transpires. As one goes through life many new activities are placed on automatic pilot as their level of proficiency is raised. Learning to drive a car is a good example. In the beginning the student driver is hyper-aware of all aspects of driving. Once experience sets in, the driver may not be aware of driving from point A to point B. Of course, the subconscious mind is programmed to awaken the individual if danger is noted, or if the journey becomes rough for some reason. Perhaps new information or direction is needed.

Sometimes we forget to review habits, leaving them in their original automatic pilot mind file. It is a good idea to review these files, even before wake-up calls. This is a form of prevention, keeping free of many complications. Not paying attention to automatic pilot files can get you into trouble, especially if new information is needed or if the direction is off-course. Keep in mind that habits are re-etched in the subconscious mind each and every time they are performed. Some are very deeply ingrained, perhaps originating in early childhood. Some habits are triggered by emotional crayons, often as stress releasers, even if they are unhealthy. Smoking, sugar, food addiction, bingeing and alcohol fall into this habit category. If you think about how others manage stress, you will find things such as compulsive gambling and shopping to name a few.

It is especially important to review habits, especially those that are related to health outcomes. Once you begin to look in a focused way, many will come to your attention. Some may appear innocent, even silly, but that is an illusion. Take flossing your teeth for example. If a person does not pay attention to consistently flossing well, not only can teeth be lost, but the ongoing, often sub-clinical infections can lead to serious and even life-threatening diseases.

There is an additional benefit to paying attention to already formulated automatic pilot programs. They have self-discipline already ingrained through the continuous etching or repeating of the habit. Ingrained self-discipline is like gold waiting to be discovered, asking to be utilized in a creative way. You are now ready to capture this gold through the use of Pods. Pods are very special interactive self-hypnotic images that encourage the subconscious mind to participate in your life self-discipline.

Pods are like rooms that hold the particular discipline or activity. These can be automatic pilot activities or those that are especially important for initiating a lifestyle change, or for enhancing health and performance. They are particularly important for the management of disorderly eating and addictions. Health and performance Pods can include breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, teeth care, exercise, water, meditation. When you set and work with a Pod, the subconscious mind sees this as a very important focus and will work in a creative manner within the Pod. The inner mind will help program the mind for change, bringing forth details that might have slipped through the cracks. The subconscious will also make creative suggestions, some of which can be very serendipitous.

When Pods are properly set up for daily discipline, other areas of life will become disciplined as well, just as if the Pods were acting as role-models or active mentors for these other areas. Other activities seem to jump in between the daily discipline Pods, appearing to organize themselves in the same way as the neighboring Pods.

It is important to understand that the day is only "so long." The number of hours dedicated to awake activity are also limited. Most people build high levels of stress because they have too much scheduled, their "to-do list" is not properly constructed or both. It's not uncommon for someone to sit down with the daily to-do list and then to begin major procrastination. Some people read their list with an unfocused mind. Their eyes do the seeing, but the mind is simply not in residence at the same time. Goals that are not clearly defined or actively motivated seem to stay on shelves forever, leaving many wonderful and prosperous opportunities sitting lost in the shelf-dust. However, once the daily self-discipline Pods get going, they can dust off those lost gifts, working to bring them forward in new ways.

While everyone's Pods will be different, I highly suggest that you place your most important lifestyle needs in place on the time-line. Some of those suggestions are listed above. It's important to write these out in a similar sort of chart. Once the Pods are in place, it's important to know how to work with them in order to creatively activate the subconscious mind. The image below will help your own creative mind to get in tune with mine.

MIND EXERCISE

Take a moment to relax deeply. Remember, you want to slow your brain waves, turning off and releasing all stress chemicals. This is centering, making yourself ready for new mind programming.
Outside each Pod is a chair. I ask you to sit in the chair, inviting stillness to enter your mind and body. There are many ways to do this. A simple technique is to breathe from your lower belly, just as if it contained a balloon of any color you desire. I like to sense my body being gently pulled down by magnets. It is perfectly fine to be standing instead of sitting. The chair is simply a metaphor for centering before entering the Pod Room. I also like to enhance my centering by imaging a golden egg surrounding my entire body. As I tilt my eyes up about twenty degrees, I locate my mind screen. This is where I will communicate with my Inner Coach.

There are many different ways for me to communicate. I can choose images or place words or simply think word-thoughts or combine both. I can ask questions or ask for what I would like or need. I always communicate "as if " I already had what I wanted ", perhaps want to know more about it or how I obtained it. When working with daily self-discipline Pods, I might ask my subconscious mind how to make these better or how to highly motivate them. This works especially well when looking to re-program behaviors that are highly etched, such as disorderly eating or addictions.

Think of each Pod as a separate room that is only about the specific activity of choice. Everything in that room is related. While you will be familiar with many of the things in the Pod Room, there will be other things that are new to you, some of which you may not even be able to see clearly right now. You can also enter Pod Rooms just in the theater of your mind. This is especially useful when looking to highly create or to rehabilitate in a particular area that has been problematic in the past. Simply take some time to wander about, investigating whatever interests you. Allow your intuition to play out.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

It’s time to replace old automatic pilot behaviors and patterns, many heavily etched in your subconscious mind. You will be placing new mind programs directly over these, etching them again and again. Some will be edited versions, others brand new, highly original multi-faceted patterns and behaviors. This etching action is called consistency. Perhaps you heard that word somewhere and have personally experienced how difficult it is to come by. That is only because you didn't know the four steps you are learning here. These new etchings will become your new automatic pilot programs.

In the beginning these will feel like new shoes, but after twenty days or so, they will flow quite easily. You already know about Pod Rooms and the communication chair that sits outside. You also know how to communicate with your subconscious mind. Below is a example of a daily self-discipline Pod Plan. Actually it's one of mine that I'm happy to share with you. When I design my plans, I have space for thirty days. I print this out and place it in my journal. Each day I enter the date and give myself a check mark after communicating and entering each Pod room. This is called focused re-etching. It is key to building a sound self-disciplined program.

My basic, daily self-discipline Pod Rooms are very well designed with what is needed for my high level health and performance. My subconscious mind often shows me new areas, as well as how to make things easier and better. This then connects to other areas in my life. The Pods are mentoring my other goals, building them into Automatic Pods.

It you have particular addictions, it is important to add Pod Rooms for these, for example for not smoking or not drinking. I happen to have a sugar free Pod Room. I may not put a check in it every day, but my subconscious mind knows that it is there and therefore motivates me in the right direction.

A NOTE TO NEW READERS:

This experiential blog/workshop is based on my new book, "How Many Cookies Will It Take to Make Me Happy?" This book is not published as yet, but you have the opportunity to read it in it's unpublished state. If you are new to my writing, you might want to read the earlier mini-chapters. They are available on FaceBook, The PublishersMarketPlace & at the following link. Remember to scan down to find the earliest chapters & work your way up. http://beyonddisorderlyeating.blogspot.com/
A bit of background.... we are working with creative Interactive Self-Hypnosis imagery, planting suggestions directly into the creative subconscious mind as you read along. What appears like a story is a series of self-hypnotic sessions, designed to bring about desired lifestyle changes. The inner mind is creative & rather child-like, loving to play with images, especially when they are emotionalized. Just like the saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words", well-planted mind images, can be worth hours of therapy. We can actually change or motivate in 1/200th of a second. So come along & look forward to some lifestyle-changing events.


Copyright 2009 Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht
May not be copied or reproduced without permission of the author.

Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht is author of Sugar...the Hidden Eating Disorder & How to Lick It. She is also the writer/producer of over 350 mp3/CD programs in the areas of medicine, health, prevention, addictions, self-development & sports for adults & children.

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Checking Your Emotional Crayon Box

The four steps of this program are equally important, but the order of progression is also important. Disorderly eating is like any other disorder or mess, and we get out of this in the same way. First we wake up, and then we bring organization to all of the facets.

Disorderly eating rarely lives alone. When one area of a life is in disarray, you won’t have to look far to find another. Disorder and stress go hand in hand, bringing imbalance to the mind and body. Addictions become the easy answer for managing the discomfort. We can grow to like, even love them, and like other bad relationships, they can consume us. It is important to understand that while we may have genetic tendencies towards addictions, we do have choices in the matter. We can choose to stop and new behaviors will begin.

Changing disorderly life patterns and addictions means giving up those dangerous relationships while managing stress in new ways. This is where most people make their mistake when looking to stop smoking, drinking, bingeing, etc. First order of business is to have a very good stress management program in place, one that includes the four steps of this program.

Managing emotions is key to managing addictions and disorder. From the time you were born, you have been developing your own brand of emotional-patterning. Some of the patterns have been heavily etched and are super-automatic. You may have mentored some of these from others, especially when you were very young and more sponge-like. At that time of life you absorbed everything, even if you didn't like it or agree to it. A good exercise is to become aware of what you dislike, or what annoys you about your parents or siblings, then look for those in yourself. You can do the same exercise with your significant other relationship, or your relationship with your children. Try the same mind game with your work relationships. They will be there as well. It's not uncommon to be blind to one's own patterns, as well as to the emotional states that automatically attach to them.

Once a negative pattern has been self-embedded, it must to be removed subconsciously. If not, the pattern will have a tendency to adhere to other experiences "in the moment" or even to future experiences.. Suppose you are thinking about meeting someone you know. You have a history of being annoyed with this person's idiosyncrasies. In your present thoughts, your emotional state crayons are already engaged, coloring your expectations. Even if that person isn't demonstrating the irksome traits in the real-time meeting, you will probably find yourself in your old programmed mind-state anyway, responding “as if” there were.

Let's work with a different future-paced example. Suppose you are going on vacation. On the last vacation you had difficulty adjusting to a non-working relaxed state, finding the vacation finished before you really began enjoying yourself. Even though your current vacation is not for some time, you are already anticipating this, probably playing it in the theater of your mind. This is a special kind of mind program called a negative expectation. If you play this over and over, you will actually pre-program enhanced mind and body tension. Other negative emotions may choose to join in with their negative color crayons. The chances of an enjoyable vacation is becoming slimmer with each negative mind-etching.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

Working with emotional states is a skill just like anything else. We have emotions that work in a positive way for us, and others that don’t. These are often called negative emotions, but it’s important to keep in mind that even negative ones also have their good points and can be useful in certain situations. You’ll come to also have their good points and can be useful in certain situations. You’ll come to understand that these emotions can help to open the subconscious mind through releasing.

When looking at emotional states it’s a good idea to know that there are hundreds of them. Few people can name more than twenty. . Some emotions are experienced as having negative high-power such as anger. You also have positive high-powered emotions as well, for example ecstasy could be considered in that group. You also have negative lower-powered emotions, for example annoyance and on the positive side you might consider the emotion of being pleasant. Sometimes the momentary experience is about the choice of emotion and other times it’s about the intensity of the crayoning.

Interactive awareness practice helps you to see the details and what is truly unfolding in the moment. How good are your self-observation skills? While most of us can name or describe our high-powered positive and negative emotions, most of us fall short when it comes to the lower-powered ones. This is most unfortunate because these are the emotions that hang around more frequently, coloring daily experiences, and are usually the ones responsible for stress related diseases and interfering with goal achievement. We often call them our personality traits, often believing that they can’t be changed because “they are who we are.” This in itself conjures up some interesting images. For example, what would happen if one’s anger, resentment and failure programs were diminished or removed? Would they evaporate? This is a living example of how “nonsense language” finds it’s way into our subconscious mind programs.

Here are some others that might live in your crayon box....

abandoned accepted affectionate afraid
alarmed amazed angry annoyed
anxious appreciative apprehensive approval
ashamed aware balanced balmy
belittled belligerent bitter bored
bottled up burning calm capable
competent clinging confident conflicted
confused contented contracted crushed
defeated deluded depressed desolate
desperate despondent discouraged disinterested
disparate dissatisfied dispassionate distressed
ecstatic elated embarrassed empty
envious energetic enthusiastic euphoric
equal excited exhilarated fearful
free friendly frustrated furious
futile generous grateful greedy
guilty happy hateful helpless
hopeless horny humble humiliated
hurt identify inadequate incompetent
inflamed insecure insignificant inspired
jazzed jealous joyful limited
lonely longing loved loving
moral mindful miserable misunderstood
needed negative neglected nervous
numb passionate patient pleased
pressured proud put down puzzled
reborn regretful rejected rejecting
rejuvenated relaxed relieved resentful
resolute sad satisfied sensual
serene sexy shocked startled
stuck suffering surprised supportive
tearful tense terrified threatened
thrilled tight transcendent trusting
truthful uncertain uncooperative understood
uneasy unhappy unloved upset
uptight vengeful vindictive wanted
warmhearted wise worthless worthy
yearning

MIND EXERCISE. Take some time to review the emotional visitor list and highlight those that fit into the above criteria for you. Obviously everyone reading this book will have different ones and keep in mind that everyone who is not reading this book will also have a different list. That includes each member of your family, your colleagues, friends and those people you come in contact with during your day. The more you practice your own interactive awareness emotional sightings, the more you will notice in others. You will also begin to notice what emotional visitors arrive in direct response to those of another person. In fact, many of these “emotional transactions” are on auto-pilot! Knowing what you now know about auto-pilot, don’t you think you would benefit from having a good look at what’s going on in your life in regard to emotions? Later on you will be presented with some mind exercises in this regard. They are lots of fun and true eye openers!

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

On the third step of this program you are working with imaginology or active imagery, picturing emotional states as little children wearing tee shirts with their names on the front. Each child has their own personalized box of crayons for coloring moment- to- moment experiences. This type of active imagery invites you to disassociate from your emotional state. You are also able to image, as well as sense what is going on in any given moment, in your thoughts, as well as in your body communication system. Instead of an automatic pilot program with its attached emotions dictating your actions, you are now taking your rightful position as the writer-director-producer of your own life. At the same time you are invited to re-editing old subconscious mind programs, including the re-education of your emotional mind states. This is all key in bringing order to your life and managing addictions. In the past, before you began paying attention, you simply lit a cigarette, poured a cup of coffee, or put a piece of candy in your mouth in answer to stored or momentary stress.

The art of disassociation also makes it clear that you are not your emotions. They are outside or separate from you. For most of us this is a tremendous relief. This view allows us to forgive ourselves, as well as to have some self-compassion. Emotions are simply a part of us that needs management, even if they are acting out in a positive way. You'll come to understand more about this later on. Remember, emotions color experiences all day long. Sometimes the colors work well and other times not so well. On occasion the crayon colors are too heavy and other times too light. And if the emotion holds the crayon too tight, or presses too hard the crayon can break. You might experience this as a complete loss of control of your emotional self.

READER QUESTION

"I’m Italian and from the time I was a baby, everyone around me was highly emotional. My base-line emotions tend to be quite high. When my food is out of order and the sugar intake is up, I can feel the intensity of the usual base-line emotions go much higher. I’ve been improving my food intake, but still find that I get into trouble with my emotions. Should I try to change who I am?"

It’s important for all of us to understand that we are not your emotions. Emotions are like visitors who knock at your door. You can choose who enters, as well as the decorum you expect or need in any moment. Remember that each moment is separate unto itself, just like each breath is different from the one before. Each moment has a separate goal, something you want, colored by your emotions. Pay attention, for some are positive while others are negative. No matter what their classification, your subconscious mind interprets them as your goal of choice. Begin to assess. What does your goal look like, what emotions and/or crayons are best in this moment? You might have to give up some automatic pilot programming if you want the goal. This is maturity and the ability to see your outcomes very clearly. This is self-development and self-growth.

MIND EXERCISE. Just imagine how much power you have given to your emotions over the years and still tend to give! Think about today. Can you locate any moment or group of moments forming a remembered experience when your emotional children were in charge and not your mature self? Sit back and view this happening on your mind screen? How would you rate this production? The library of your mind is filled with these experiences. The good news is that you now know how to release these programs. When you climb up to step four, you will be able to re-edit these, programming your mind for what you want instead.

"Super-Punch" Negative Emotional Crayons Include....
Fear - Anger - Sad - Guilt - Shame -Victim

These familiar emotions can be destructive, as well as dangerous to the body and mind. They change the body chemistry leading to stress-induced disease states. They also present themselves in disguise, so beware... Keep in mind that they are contagious, infecting your life and those around you.

"Super-Punch" Positive Emotional Crayons Include....
Gratitude - Love - Forgiveness - Compassion - Peace

These are familiar, but often strangers in the middle of our daily stress-collecting experiences. Be sure to hunt them out, actively inviting them into your life. Not only do they feel good, but they also produce healing hormones. You will also find that these are contagious as well, only this is a positive source of infection.

A NOTE TO NEW READERS:

This experiential blog/workshop is based on my new book, "How Many Cookies Will It Take to Make Me Happy?" This book is not published as yet, but you have the opportunity to read it in it's unpublished state. If you are new to my writing, you might want to read the earlier mini-chapters. They are available on FaceBook, The PublishersMarketPlace & at the following link. Remember to scan down to find the earliest chapters & work your way up. http://beyonddisorderlyeating.blogspot.com/
A bit of background.... we are working with creative Interactive Self-Hypnosis imagery, planting suggestions directly into the creative subconscious mind as you read along. What appears like a story is a series of self-hypnotic sessions, designed to bring about desired lifestyle changes. The inner mind is creative & rather child-like, loving to play with images, especially when they are emotionalized. Just like the saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words", well-planted mind images, can be worth hours of therapy. We can actually change or motivate in 1/200th of a second. So come along & look forward to some lifestyle-changing events.


Copyright 2009 Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht
May not be copied or reproduced without permission of the author.

Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht is author of Sugar...the Hidden Eating Disorder &

Waking Up Emotionally!

Interactive Awareness is the overarching umbrella for the many wake-up tools you are learning. In the last chapter you worked with mental biofeedback, also known as body scanning. Now that you have experience with cell manager communication, you are ready for your next “containment”, that of emotional and thought management. You will also meet up with the emotional crayons that color your experiences.
These are powerful mind and body tools that allow you to manage disorderly eating and addictions, right in the moment, as well as in every other nook and cranny of your life. Remind yourself that your problems are not singular entities. They have many facets, all needing management. Learning to work interactive awareness will move right you out of automatic pilot and into the moment where new choices are always available in your subconscious filing system.

There are many benefits to working with mind tools. For example, the skill of interactive awareness allows you to practice the art of detachment from the presenting moment and emotions. In detachment you are no longer participating in the moment, but you are coming to it as an observer. As an observer, you are able to look very closely at what is unfolding, just as if you were the producer/director of this very moment in time. You are no longer the actor who is participating in the momentary event.

It is key to understand that your subconscious mind responds very differently to this mental/physiological shift. For a start, stress chemicals are turned down as the physiology waits for emotional direction. From the position of producer/director, it is much easier to take off your self-judging eyeglasses. You can choose to see this moment in time through clearer, more beneficial lenses. The producer/director’s job is to see all the details, so changes can be made and the production will be successful.

And just like the producer/director you cannot change things you cannot see. As you observe closely without judging, your own subconscious mind will send up the necessary details. Once you learn to work with "interactive self-hypnosis", you will find that these very details hold powerful creative ideas for taking you towards your goals. Learning to live in the moment is very beneficial, and just like anything else the more your practice, the higher your level of mind and body functioning.

MIND EXERCISE

Adults tend to learn mind management tools best with small spoonfuls. Begin by choosing a chair for your interactive awareness work. You might like to try out a few chairs. Be certain that it is comfortable and located in a place where you can have quiet and privacy. As you sit in each chair, close your eyes gently and take in a big yawn breath allowing your body to sink into the surface of the chair. How does it feel to you? Your subconscious mind will let you know if it’s a good choice. You might think about having one chair at home, and another at work. You may even choose somewhere outside of your home and workplace. Some people have a particular park bench, or even their car. I know one man who parks his car in a beautiful spot and then gets in the back seat. So open your mind and look around for what suits you best.

The actual physical practice of interactive awareness is very simple, but the inner happenings are very complex. You are actually changing your internal body chemistry, thereby altering your heart function, blood pressure, hormonal and neurological system balance, immune system function, not to mention the memory storage of your own subconscious mind. In the actual moments of practicing, you are etching new mind programs, teaching your mind and body how to work together in new ways. Some of these new ways will be placed in an automatic pilot program, keeping your body in balance or homeostasis. There is no right or wrong way to do the practice. Each time you practice, the experience will be different because you are involved in a living process.

I’m going to ask you to read through this material in small chunks and then close your eyes, doing the small exercise right now. Later on you can re-read this as you work to build your skills. Just as you did when practicing mental biofeedback, make yourself comfortable in your chair, sitting up straight, head nicely positioned on your neck, and feet flat on the floor. You might like to take in a big yawn breath, letting it out slowly as you learned earlier. This is always a good beginning for interactive awareness practice. You are centering, or settling in.

Now it’s time to slow the brain waves a bit more. Remember that the faster the brain waves, the faster the thoughts, the more stress chemicals produced. There are many great ways to slow the brain waves. I call these deepening tools. I’ll give you some here, and as you continue through the book you will obtain more of them. You already learned a few in the earlier chapter. Calling in the numbers is one of these. In fact, practice that again now. With your eyes closed, tilt them up about twenty-degrees, just as if you were sitting in the second row of a movie theater, focusing your attention on your mind screen.

Start with the number four, having it come in slowly towards you, remembering that imaging is different than seeing with your eyes opened. Follow the arrival of the four with the three coming in gently, and work with the following numbers.

I like to use other senses as well for deepening. Take a moment, locating the sound of silence. It has a particular resonance. Even if there is noise all around you, silence is there in-between the noises. This is a particularly powerful tool for mothers with young children, as well as for those working in a noisy environment. Once you have located the silence, stay with it for a few minutes. Your mind will wander, so gently bring it back to the silence. Think of silence as an object. Each time you bring your wandering attention back, allow your body to go deeper into the chair where you are sitting.

You can also deepen by doing a body scan. Start at the top of your head and work your way down, noticing what body parts have something to say. As you go downwards, invite your body to go deeper into the chair, as if magnets were pulling you down. Remember you are not looking to become unconscious. Your goal is to quiet your mind and body. Then you will move to position of observer of thoughts, emotions and connected body sensations.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

READER QUESTION:

"I get so relaxed when I do this work that I fall asleep and then I get annoyed with myself for messing up my practice. How can I stop this from happening?

This reader is self-judging because he hasn’t been perfect! Later on, as you begin your work with emotional crayons, you will be able to spot these little offenders with ease. Meanwhile, let’s address the main issue. It’s best to practice interactive awareness in a sitting position. If you find yourself dozing off, lighten the depth of your trance by placing a higher number on the mind screen. You can also open your eyes for a moment, re-center, going back down again. Remember that there is no right or wrong way to do interactive awareness. It is the doing, or action, that is important.

In the practice of Interactive Awareness you will need a focus. I like to work with my lower belly breath. It’s convenient, having the additional advantage of deepening the trance state simply by observing it. Place your fingers gently on your lower abdomen, below your navel, inviting it to become full and round with your breath. You can use the image of a merry-go-round horse going up and down, or a balloon that inflates and deflates. After you have practiced for a few weeks, just thinking of the image will slow your brain waves and release stress.

Continue to observe your focus as if each breath, or rising of the ball was a completely new event. Each time you breathe it is a new breath! Observe it. Remember you are the producer/director, wanting to experience the details. Your mind will wander. That is a part of the process. Your work is stay detached, out of the way. I like to use the image of a parade going by. You are the observer, standing on the curbside. You are not part of the parade. Whenever you find yourself involved in your thought processes
( the parade), return to the position of observer by bringing your attention back to your focus breath or ball. Your mind will continue to show you a thought, you will notice, returning then to the focus. It’s not uncommon to get lost in thoughts. This is because your mind is not well disciplined. In the future, you will begin to notice much earlier, allowing you to return to the focus.

The process of breathing, noticing a thought, and then returning to the focus is a full release cycle. Releasing is also called “letting go.” If someone has ever told you to let something go, this is the actual process of doing just that.

There are three general classifications of what the mind will present to you. First are the thoughts. Some of these are presented in the form of pictures, and others as sound bytes or inner mind audio tapes. They can be with or without video. There are many classifications of thoughts, and later on in your work with your Inner Coach, you will be identifying some of your major thought areas, learning to work with them to profit you and your goals.

Your mind may also show you the body communications. These are sensations representing body tension. The more stress, the more body tension. When practicing interactive awareness, place flowers on the body sensation, then open the flowers as you did earlier in your mental biofeedback work. Next, return to your focus breath. Do not be tempted to stay in the sensation and examine it. That is not the purpose of this practice. This is simply awareness of what is, providing you with an opportunity to observe your mind in action.

The third area includes the emotional states. In our work emotions will be viewed as images of children wearing tee shirts with their names on them. Identifying and separating emotions allows for easier release. If you are working with this image, notice that the children have crayons for coloring your experiences. Later on you will be identifying some of your most frequent emotions and their crayons.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

Just as with mental biofeedback, it is important to make nteractive awareness part of your daily living. This is achieved through a self-discipline I call banking and fractionation. This self-discipline will prepare you for working “in the moment” in the workshop of your world.

The term “banking” is a metaphor for making valuable deposits in your mind and body bank. The more you practice the discipline, the more value you have to utilize in other areas of your life, be it managing addiction or anything else. For example, your body will become more stress-resistant, your cognitive functioning enhanced. You will be designing a doable self-discipline, but one that expands your current boundaries.
Few of us work to our potential, so this is a good opportunity to practice moving from mediocre to excellence. The steps that you are climbing to manage your addiction and disorderly eating, are the very same steps for accelerating learning and high level achievement. It is ironic that your addiction and disorder are becoming catalysts for optimum health and high level performance.

In the practice of banking your mind is set free, with you in the position as observer. This type of heightened awareness is an actual living meditation, but it is more than that. It is the opportunity for you to see clearly without judgment. You are now privy to your subtle stresses, the thoughts that are attached to them and the emotions that carry the thoughts to your mind. Remember, you cannot change what your cannot see. Now you are seeing much more than ever before. You are a detached observer, free from judgment. Your subconscious librarian is now willing to show you much more. Later on you will be able to work with your observations, having the opportunity to change them completely or edit them to meet your current goals.

Here we will fractionate the banking practice. This simply means breaking your day into segments. This is like taking out the garbage several times a day. It’s a great stress reducer, allowing for quality emotional and thought managing throughout a long day. I fractionate my day in this way. I sit for five minutes before work, and again before lunch. After returning from lunch I do so again, and then before I head for home at the end of my workday. I then sit again before going to sleep, especially because this is an excellent time to program the subconscious mind for dream work. You will learn more about dream programming in a later chapter. If my day is very stressful, or if I have need for heightened creativity, I may fractionate even more frequently.

Harry: I’m getting quite good at fractionating and wonder if I can do this at other times to help my stress from building up. Right now I’m doing this more as a stress release, but I’d like to prevent the stress from coming at all. Is that possible?

Of course you can do that and even more! The world is like an enormous workshop for interactive awareness practice. At this level of skill building you are working only with interactive awareness and not with interactive self-hypnosis. That is the fourth step. It will allow you to edit and change what you see, but remember that adults learn best in small spoonfuls, so practice patience. You will truly benefit from managing this particular emotion!

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

Moments are very small fragments of time, each holding automatic mind programs in the form of thoughts and emotions. The emotions color the moments with their crayons. The body is also involved as it responds to whatever is passing through the moment. Keep in mind that every moment is valuable. You already know that you can only catch a small number of them. Later on you will learn how to program your subconscious mind for waking up to genres of thoughts of your choosing. For now the goal is simply to practice waking up and releasing.

It helps to set some triggers to help you wake up, just like little alarm clocks. Sticky notes work well for this. No one else needs to know what you are doing. It’s not necessary to write anything on them. You already know what they are for. When I’m working to improve this skill for myself, I place a sticky note just to the right on my telephone, one in the car, one on left wall in my office. At home I like the bathroom mirror, the refrigerator, the head of my bed. Move the notes occasionally so that your automatic pilot doesn’t set up a program to ignore them.

Each time you notice a sticky note, check the moment. Pay attention to your thought processes, noticing the type of thought, the emotional states and crayons that are being utilized. Next, scan your body, noticing the stressors present, gently placing flowers on the bigger areas. This entire exercise takes less than thirty seconds, but provides tremendous benefits, immediate and in the future. You are building awareness about who you are, your automatic program, your emotional terrain and what crayons you allow to color your life without deciding if they work for you or not.

There are many other tools for building Interactive Awareness skills that you will receive throughout the book. Later on when you meet your Inner Coach, you will have the opportunity to practice skill building on your road to addictions management and the practice of excellence.

A NOTE TO NEW READERS:

This experiential blog/workshop is based on my new book, "How Many Cookies Will It Take to Make Me Happy?" This book is not published as yet, but you have the opportunity to read it in it's unpublished state. If you are new to my writing, you might want to read the earlier mini-chapters. They are available on FaceBook, The PublishersMarketPlace & at the following link. Remember to scan down to find the earliest chapters & work your way up. http://beyonddisorderlyeating.blogspot.com/
A bit of background.... we are working with creative Interactive Self-Hypnosis imagery, planting suggestions directly into the creative subconscious mind as you read along. What appears like a story is a series of self-hypnotic sessions, designed to bring about desired lifestyle changes. The inner mind is creative & rather child-like, loving to play with images, especially when they are emotionalized. Just like the saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words", well-planted mind images, can be worth hours of therapy. We can actually change or motivate in 1/200th of a second. So come along & look forward to some lifestyle-changing events.


Copyright 2009 Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht
May not be copied or reproduced without permission of the author.

Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht is author of Sugar...the Hidden Eating Disorder & How to Lick It. She is also the writer/producer of over 350 mp3/CD programs in the areas of medicine, health, prevention, addictions, self-development & sports for adults & children.

http://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.bohorquez
http://www.twitter.com/elizRN

http://www.hypnosis-audio.com
http://www.sugar-addiction.com
http://www.international-medical-health-writers

Cell Managers

This is a continuation of the last BOOK/BLOG. We are working inside the mindBody, looking for areas of tension that block the creative process. As you locate and then open these areas, the creative mind will open for you.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK – MEET YOUR CELL MANAGERS

In any given moment your cells are working in your behalf. Interactive Self-Hypnosis invites you to meet the managers of each and every one of your billions of cells. If you are like most people, you don’t think about them unless they scream out, but sometimes the screams come too late for change. We do, however, expect them to do whatever it is they do and give little to no consideration to their complex tasks, often offering no help and even placing them in harms way many times a day. Think for a moment about having to take over the tasks of one of your managers, perhaps to be a heart cell for a day, maybe one that is in charge of the electrical circuits. How comfortable do you feel being in the shoes of this manager and being responsible for your own life or death?

Why are we so complacent about something so serious as the workings of our heart, lungs, stomach and all the others? I believe it is because most of us are simply asleep, blind or lazy or so caught up in the web of addiction that life is just too overwhelming. Remember, when the fire is too big, containment is needed.

Our body is remarkable. It can walk, sit, reach, judge distance, digest food, see, touch, and the list goes on and on. Most of these things we take for granted. We don't appreciate these things until they are taken away. As we learn to tune into our body and it's processes, and be mindful, we make ourselves more real and alive. We can also utilize the awareness of body sensations to transport us to the door of the subconscious mind and proceed with our Interactive Self-Hypnosis work. This process re-energizes the body as stress chemicals are decreased and healing chemicals are enhanced.

SELF-EXPLORATION

It’s amazing how little our cell managers ask from us, especially as we come to understand the complexity of their tasks in light of our ongoing behaviors. As you move through this book I will ask you to visit particular paragraphs with Interactive Self-Hypnosis. This is because they are so vitally important. Just because the presented images appear simplistic and even funny, there is nothing funny about your work here on this path. For some people reading this book, this could mean the difference between life and death.

MIND EXERCISE

Here comes one of those paragraphs! After reading it, relax deeply and work with the imagery on your mind screen.

Sit straight up in your chair and deepen your body as you did earlier on. Call in the numbers, starting with four and when the number one comes in allow it to form your cookie cutter. Now tilt your eyes up and focus on your mind screen. One of your cell managers is inviting you in. As you enter notice the complexities of the interior. The wallpaper is genetically formed and you know from your own assessment work what that wallpaper looks like. You also know about your earlier self-care behaviors and addictions history, so have a close look at what your cell manager is up against. This is probably a good moment to ask for forgiveness for everything you’ve done and to assure the manager with conviction that things are changing. You are learning new tools now and you can be counted on to do what is needed.

If you are a smoker, notice the smoke hole in the wall. This is where smoke enters each time you take a drag. Each puff is filled with 5,200 chemicals, leaving the cell manager to drop whatever he/she is doing in the moment and tend to the emergency. The cell manager is showing you the delivery basket on the front door. This is where your nutrition is delivered. Every four hours the manager looks for nutrition, praying that it will be something healthy. There is also the area for fluids and again the prayers are for water. Some managers receive lots of alcohol and this can be very problematic in many instances depending on the wallpaper. You are being shown your record book. Open it. This is about you and what you have done to date in helping this particular cell manager do this complicated work. How do you rate yourself? Think about it for a moment. The manager is bringing you two future books and asking you to choose. Open them and look inside. One takes you towards health and the other away from health. Go ahead and choose.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK – RELEASING AND LETTING GO OF BODY SENSATIONS

Body scanning has many benefits beyond those already discussed. It helps develop concentration and flexibility of attention simultaneously. This is invaluable in performance of all kinds. It allows us the opportunity to release and let go. As we go through the body, noticing, placing flowers and then opening them, our brain becomes retrained in this opening, or letting go process. Letting go is the same as releasing. You will be carrying this discipline over to other areas of Interactive Self-Hypnosis training including the management of your thought bank, your emotional states and their crayon box, as well as aiding in the actual processing of suggestions and affirmation plants. Each time you practice you are actually working in the field of mindfulness, or being totally present in the moment.

Releasing or letting go is vital for health and also for performance. Let’s use the image of a completely cluttered desk. In fact, you can’t see the desk for the clutter. Let’s bring in some containment. This time we’ll use folders, but of course they need to be labeled so you will know what’s inside. Later on when you work with your Inner Coach you will have many opportunities to build folders for your life, but for now just label a few that you know are related to your collection of body sensations, perhaps your work and your major relationships. Start organizing your desk and notice that you can also use your wastebasket for things that simply need to be thrown out. Notice that papers you are filing are separate from each other. These are parts of the problem or issue. As you come to work with them later on, you can do so piece by piece. You will come to learn that you can also release in smaller portions.

SELF-EXPLORATION

As in all areas of life you can release a portion of a body sensation. You already know how to bring in the cookie cutter, so I won’t repeat the whole process. As you get more skilled with the tool of body scanning, you can do this in a matter of seconds. Once back in the cookie cutter, begin to scan down and locate an area that has a larger amount of sensations. Now take your flower and open just a segment of the area and if you like open another segment further away from the first flower. Leave this area, scanning downwards and now go back to re-evaluate your partial released body part. Notice the difference.

Sometimes it helps to utilize color when doing this work. When the sensation is bigger and before partial releasing color it red. When you return, notice the color has either faded or changed. What has happened here is that your subconscious mind has made adjustments in the tension of the entire area, despite the fact that you released only a portion. When you work in the awareness meditation chapters and apply these knowledge hooks to emotions and then other images, you will begin to fully appreciate the power of this magnificent tool.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK – RELEASING PHYSICAL CRAVINGS

Having an addiction, and especially a sugar addiction means having to deal with physical cravings. Not all cravings are physical and in this work you will come to understand the difference between the two. For most people, physical cravings are the easiest to manage. You have already walked the path of the nutritional chapters of this book and hopefully by now you have put your physical cravings to sleep, as most of them are related to reactive hypoglycemia. Sometimes emotional cravings will disguise themselves as physical cravings, thinking that you will fall into the trap and give them “the fix” that they want. This scenario calls for you to take your body scanner tool off of your tool belt and see if this is indeed an inside job of tension and stress that’s needs release.

SELF-EXPLORATION

As before, call in your numbers and put the cookie cutter in place. By now you probably know that you don’t have to be sitting, or even close your eyes to do this work in the moment. This is very different from skill building. This is an action application of your skill. When a craving calls, scan the whole body and not just where the craving sits. The reason for this is that the tension or stress may be in other areas and so it needs some flower power as well. Once you have accomplished this, go to the area of the craving and open it.

Next, call in the cell managers and ask what is going on. If you have missed a meal, or the meal was insufficient you will be told. The cells may need fluids or simply a moment of rest. Listen carefully and the subconscious messages will be delivered to your conscious mind. Your job is now to make whatever corrections are needed and to make some mental notes about what not to do the next time around. Remember, your job is to get better and better!

SUMMING UP AND GOING FORWARD…

As you work with body scanning, you will begin to find your breathing patterns change throughout the day. Your breath will sit on it’s own for longer periods of time in the lower abdomen. From time to time, notice it there. This noticing will actually engage in the slowing of your brain waves which releases stress chemicals and delivers you to the door of your subconscious mind.. This is very important in the practice of Interactive Self-Hypnosis, because you will want to stay in contact with your "inner librarian" so you can request anything you might need in the moment.

A NOTE TO NEW READERS:

This experiential blog/workshop is based on my new book, "How Many Cookies Will It Take to Make Me Happy?" This book is not published as yet, but you have the opportunity to read it in it's unpublished state. If you are new to my writing, you might want to read the earlier mini-chapters. They are available on FaceBook, The PublishersMarketPlace & at the following link. Remember to scan down to find the earliest chapters & work your way up. http://beyonddisorderlyeating.blogspot.com/
A bit of background.... we are working with creative Interactive Self-Hypnosis imagery, planting suggestions directly into the creative subconscious mind as you read along. What appears like a story is a series of self-hypnotic sessions, designed to bring about desired lifestyle changes. The inner mind is creative & rather child-like, loving to play with images, especially when they are emotionalized. Just like the saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words", well-planted mind images, can be worth hours of therapy. We can actually change or motivate in 1/200th of a second. So come along & look forward to some lifestyle-changing events.


Copyright 2009 Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht
May not be copied or reproduced without permission of the author.

Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht is author of Sugar...the Hidden Eating Disorder & How to Lick It. She is also the writer/producer of over 350 mp3/CD programs in the areas of medicine, health, prevention, addictions, self-development & sports for adults & children.

http://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.bohorquez
http://www.twitter.com/elizRN

http://www.hypnosis-audio.com
http://www.sugar-addiction.com
http://www.international-medical-health-writers

Tuning In

A strange as it sounds, we only have a vague idea of what we look like on the outside. Many of us can’t bear looking at self-photographs and work hard to keep cameras away. Of course not everyone is the same. Even if we like the way we look, and view photographs of ourselves, what we get to see is only a momentary image caught by the lens, now seen through our own perception and inner judging program. For certain, we do remain a mystery, both outside and inside!

A very large percentage of what resides inside of us, physical or emotional, tends to remain mysterious for most of our lives, mainly because we’re not attentive to the clues sent up by the body departments. Sometimes we awaken if the body part screams loud enough, but even then, little is done about the underlying cause. We may turn to medication to obliterate the symptom, or to another substance to mask the truths. If the family history pulls towards addiction, these symptoms then become the hooks, and an unhealthy pattern of behavior is etched into the subconscious mind.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK – WORKING WITH MOMENTS

The practice of interactive awareness helps us to work where the action is, right in the middle of the moment. It will be important to have a working image tool, representative of an actual moment. The reason for this is that moments are difficult to catch, especially in the beginning of your mind-body work. Most of us tend to auto-pilot through life. As you learn to catch moments, you will be practicing the techniques of releasing or letting go. Then, you will be able to add subconscious mind re-programming for managing the many facets of all problems or issues.

In my practice, students and patients work with dry lentils, keeping a jar of them on their desk. I suggest you do the same. Some patients have two jars, one symbolizing moments that are left in life, the other representing those that were missed because of inattentiveness. Of course, we cannot catch all moments. It is ridiculous to think that we would even want to, but we certainly do want to catch the key moments. Those will be different for everyone, but as you learn to work with the tools of interactive awareness and self-hypnosis, you will become aware of the areas where you need to wake up, then change. Your subconscious mind librarian will assist you.

READER QUESTION

"I’ve noticed that when I am eating lots of sugar foods or involved in disorderly eating, my body is filled with tension. I’m a runner and areas of old injury hurt more on these days. Perhaps the most frightening part is that I have an underlying anxiety that doesn’t seem to be connected to anything that is going on in my life. I just feel awful. I would like to understand what is happening and why. Knowledge is definitely motivational for me."

In this chapter you will begin to understand more about listening to your body communications. This reader is ahead of the game. She has already noticed that her body speaks a different language when her diet is inferior. More than likely, the underling general anxiety represents reactive hypoglycemia. In Chapter One you learned how food stress changes your biochemistry. Now you will begin to see those Knowledge Hooks as they appear in your own body and mind. Remember that it is not enough just to know something. You must go the next step, joining in the action.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK –MENTAL BIOFEEDBACK AND BODY SCANNING

Most of us are familiar with the term "biofeedback". Individuals are hooked up to a special machine, then taught relaxation techniques that help the body to maintain a healthy blood pressure, heart rate, breathing, etc. The person can see the special screen that shows their progress. This type of training can be very empowering, as the mind and body connection is personally experienced. This is especially important for individuals caught up in stress reaction that can be dangerous to health outcomes.

Body scanning is mental biofeedback. There is no need to be hooked up to a machine to change the way your body functions. This mind-tool holds a big advantage because in any moment in time, the person practicing mental biofeedback can change a mind or body outcome. There are also other advantages. As one learns to observe the momentary body sensations over a period of time, the body sensation patterns become clear. One can see how they are attached to particular emotional states, or perhaps other triggers such as situations or even relationships. Another advantage is the feeling of self-confidence in being able to change an unpleasant or frightening sensation, right there in the moment, whether it be peaking or just beginning to build. As one becomes more practiced in the skills of mental biofeedback, it becomes easier to catch the body sensations at earlier moments, when it is much easier to diminish or release them. This is extremely empowering. Later on you will learn many applications for doing this.

CONTAINMENTS AND RELEASE

Containments are invaluable because they allows us to work in big areas of our lives without feeling overwhelmed. Body sensations can be overwhelming, especially if they are not contained or released. In that circumstance, the body and mind will produce even more sensations to deal with. A good example of this is anxiety and panic disorder. Anyone experiencing this problem can certainly attest to this. It’s simple to set up a mind-container. Let me show you how. Take a moment to relax deeply. On your mind screen label a special container for body sensations. Later on you may decide to have several containers for different kinds of sensations, but for now we will work with one container. Notice a particular sensation in your body. Focus or pay special attention to that sensation. Now move it into the mind container. Pay attention. Keep the focus. You can now change the sensation. Practice diminishing it; making it smaller. Dim it, just with the power of your mind. Change the color to one that is pale or uninteresting.

We all have tons of body sensations, but sense very few of them, as they build through our daily physical, mental and emotional stress. The stressors do not have to be big. Low level or chronic stress is responsible for much of our illness. If you are addicted to sugar, practice disorderly eating, or partake in other addictions, you will tend to have even higher levels.

Through body scanning you will have a glimpse at more of them. Just this small peak will act like the lens of your camera. The sensation will be caught and now you can change it through the mind and body communication system provided by Interactive Self-Hypnosis tools.

SELF-EXPLORATION – TRAINING YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND

The results you get will equal the amount of work you are willing to do. Mind training is no different from any other training. As you train with the tool of mental biofeedback, you can either become excellent or mediocre. The choice is yours.

You already know that it is not possible to catch and examine each moment. Your true purpose is to engage your subconscious mind in assisting you to release stress throughout the day. It is rather like hiring a highly skilled personal assistant whose job it is to check the body continuously, releasing as much stored stress as possible. The personal assistant will also bring to your attention any body sensations that are too big for it to handle. These you must release, as you did in the above exercise.

As your Therapeutic Self becomes highly trained, you will find yourself spending more time at the slow brain, or alpha level. You will be producing less stress chemicals at this level. In addition, when you are at the alpha level, you are also at the door of the subconscious mind. In this position you have all the freedom to practice many different Interactive Self-Hypnosis applications. You will be learning more about this later in this book.

MIND EXERCISE

You will want to practice body scanning or mental biofeedback several times during the day. It doesn’t take long to do this once you get the idea. You can also train with audio I’ve designed for this purpose, but you will still want to be practicing right in the moment as well. You already have a “mind container” and now I’ll help you design a body container. Please read through this exercise and then close your eyes to practice.
Sit up straight in your chair with your feet flat on the floor. Take a big yawn breath and hold it in your mouth for the count of four. Let it release slowly, taking time to do this. Place your fingertips gently on your lower abdomen, allowing it to rise and fall, just like a merry-go-round horse goes up and down. Next, image magnets pulling your body down into your chair, under your buttocks and behind your back, almost as if you were the chair and the air of the room was sitting on you. Tilt your eyes up about twenty degrees and on your mind screen image the number four coming in slowly from a distance. Allow the four to enter your forehead and now focus on the number three coming in slowly, noticing it entering your heart. The two is making it’s way in and entering your lower body and now the number one is coming towards you and outlining your body in white paint, just like a big cookie cutter. Notice you can take the cookie cutter image off and put it back on.

The cookie cutter is your containment. When you are wearing it, all body sensations are contained and you can read them easily. Start reading and inner communicating from the top of your head. Simply visit the areas and notice if there are any sensations. Place an image of a flower on each visited part and allow the flower to open. This is instructing your subconscious mind to open and release this area. Go slowly as you are currently building a mind program for this skill that will be carried on in the future by your own subconscious mind. Your etching is very important, so do take your time. Visit your eyes right and left, noticing they are different. And now, your nose, inner and outer, sinuses right and left, ears, mouth outside and in. Going down systematically visit your neck, both front and back. Go inwards and visit the inner structures placing flowers as you go. Downward now and into the upper chest looking into your heart, lungs right and left and further down into your esophagus, stomach, spleen, pancreas and liver. Now enter your lower abdomen, visiting your intestinal areas, kidneys and connecting tubes, urinary bladder and sexual organs, placing and opening flowers as you go. I suggest you do all bones and muscles systematically from the top to the bottom with special attention to your spinal column, just as if it were a long train and you were inspecting each car as if it were different.

Now bring your attention back to your cookie cutter and have it in place over your body. With your mind allow the cutter to sparkle and invite the sparkling to enter all visited areas holding opened flowers. There you have it….. you have build your first communication with your body and now you will be able to work further with this gigantic and powerful tool.

READER COMMENT

"When I relax deeply some of body parts, like my neck, are extremely painful. I thought they would feel better in deep relaxation, but instead I’m having the opposite experience. Am I doing something wrong?"

It’s not uncommon for certain areas of the body to communicate increased pain or discomfort during mental biofeedback. You are now in direct contact with your body. Earlier on you were on automatic pilot and the body part could not get your full attention. So it’s not that the area is having more tension, it is simply able to have your attention now and is communicating it’s truth to you. When this happens utilize an image of a flower. Place the flower on the body part and open it slowly. This will place a suggestion in your subconscious mind to release the tension in that area. Move on to the next area in your body scanning, and if the objecting part calls you back, gently return and place another flower or apply some mental light to the area. The following paragraphs will give you more insight, as well as suggestions in releasing sensations.

Continued in next blog

A NOTE TO NEW READERS:

This experiential blog/workshop is based on my new book, "How Many Cookies Will It Take to Make Me Happy?" This book is not published as yet, but you have the opportunity to read it in it's unpublished state. If you are new to my writing, you might want to read the earlier mini-chapters. They are available on FaceBook, The PublishersMarketPlace & at the following link. Remember to scan down to find the earliest chapters & work your way up. http://beyonddisorderlyeating.blogspot.com/
A bit of background.... we are working with creative Interactive Self-Hypnosis imagery, planting suggestions directly into the creative subconscious mind as you read along. What appears like a story is a series of self-hypnotic sessions, designed to bring about desired lifestyle changes. The inner mind is creative & rather child-like, loving to play with images, especially when they are emotionalized. Just like the saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words", well-planted mind images, can be worth hours of therapy. We can actually change or motivate in 1/200th of a second. So come along & look forward to some lifestyle-changing events.


Copyright 2009 Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht
May not be copied or reproduced without permission of the author.

Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht is author of Sugar...the Hidden Eating Disorder & How to Lick It. She is also the writer/producer of over 350 mp3/CD programs in the areas of medicine, health, prevention, addictions, self-development & sports for adults & children.

http://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.bohorquez
http://www.twitter.com/elizRN

http://www.hypnosis-audio.com
http://www.sugar-addiction.com
http://www.international-medical-health-writers

BodySpeak

These mindBody exercises are a continuation from the last blog entry.

INNER MOTIVATION

Relax as before and bring forth one of your cells. This time I want you to go inside, observing the manager fighting an invader. This one happens to be a bacteria delivered at the water cooler. Notice the manager is looking for supplies in the way of deliveries of food and beverage. You know what you delivered today, so notice this and how the manager responds to what is available. Notice the state of affairs in the cell based on the deliveries of the past week. Notice the response of the cell manager. Open the door and notice that healthy supplies have arrived. Observe the cell manager in action as the bacteria invasion is managed. Know how important your behaviors and habits are to outcomes. Take this moment to make a commitment to a better relationship with your body.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

Food allergies and sensitivities are not uncommon especially in those with sugar addiction and eating disorders. Common ones include wheat, corn and dairy. If there is a history of alcohol problems in a family, even if that individual does not drink or is a child, it is not uncommon to have grain allergies. These often surface with accompanying personality or behavioral changes including compulsions, anxiety and depression.
You are working to be aware of how your mind and body react to what you eat and drink. As awareness develops connections may become clearer, an allergist may need to be consulted. Sometimes it is as simple as removing a particular food group and then reintroducing it later on. Other ties the food group may need to be removed permanently to manage the symptoms. In the long run, even though this may not be poplar, the end results will far outweigh the enjoyment of the offending food or food group.

INNER MOTIVATION

The subconscious mind remembers and will pull information together for you. If you have lots of body communications, ask your subconscious mind to remind you to observe particular foods in relation to these outcomes. Ask to be alerted with flags. Sometimes we are so lost in automatic pilot that we simply forget about what happened the last time we had problems with a food. As you learn what you body has to say about something you eat or drink, you will be able to study it more carefully. It's amazing how common food sensitivities are. Relax for a moment and see yourself requesting this service offered by your own subconscious mind.

Now it is time to focus on eating patterns and behaviors. You will soon come to learn that these are just as important as food choices.

WAKING UP TO EATING PATTERNS

Waking up to eating habits is the first step in getting sugar and disorderly issues under control. This is also paramount in developing a nutritionally sound eating plan for your self. We live in a society filled with unhealthy food at every turn. Most of us walk around without any self-discipline. I know many children and adults who have never eaten a fresh vegetable or protein that hasn't been processed. People eat at all hours and often all day long. Few people know what a serving size looks like. Look around. It’s easy to find serving sizes that have multiplied to the point of being ridiculous. The next time you are in a restaurant focus on the plates that come out of the kitchen. The other day I spotted a plate of food that was taller than the woman who was eating it!

Then there are the people who don't eat at all. Many are addicted to nicotine and some to alcohol. They turn their backs on healthy breakfasts, often miss lunch and then have "whatever" for dinner. Addicted people tend to drink lots of caffeine in the form of coffee or soda. Thin people feel it is just fine to drink the regular versions. The more obese tend to drink diet versions, believing this is o.k. as the calorie count is low. Grazing behaviors have become the norm, often replacing regular meals while interfering with normal appetite levels.

Eating habits and the problems that plague them have an extraordinary number of facets. It will help you to observe those of others, even if you do not experience the same. As you collect more and more awareness, your own subconscious mind will feel confident in showing you additional facets of your own. This is key to self-improvement.

QUESTION FROM A READER

"I honestly don’t like “healthy food” and never have. Does this mean that I will never enjoy eating again if I choose to lick my sugar addiction? This doesn’t exactly motivate me to want to change!"

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

It’s not uncommon for those addicted to sugar to report not liking healthy foods, but this is more of a generalization that a fact-filled statement. If Pierce were asked to choose some foods that he enjoyed off of a table with a hundred or so choices, I will bet that some of the foods he would choose would fall in the healthy category. “Generalizing” is a common pitfall in the addictive personality, often used as an escape mechanism from dealing with the truth and making change. As you continue to explore this book you will find that managing sugar addiction is more about what you need to add to your nutritional intake and less about what needs to be taken out.

There is tremendous power in awareness and waking up from automatic pilot. As your awareness is heightened, new choices will appear almost magically. Change and lifestyle change in particular is often perceived as being difficult, if not impossible. While there may be some obstacles to overcome, if the new chosen behavior is imaged with powerful, positive emotional states and then placed hypnotically, the journey miles will be very different.

Lifestyle change means what it says. This is not something temporary, but permanent. This alone scares people who prefer to hang on to what they know, even if it is not working or is truly detrimental to their health. You can see examples of this without even looking very hard. In fact, why not look right inside yourself and find some very personal examples.

Earlier you learned about your family and personal medical history and how it connects to sugar and carbohydrate issues and how they connect to weight gain or yo-yoing. While it is important for everyone to pay attention to eating habits, it is paramount for those with sugar, carbohydrate or any other addiction. Not to do so is flirting with disaster in the present, as well as down the path. Make no mistake, every meal is important and can either take you towards chronic killer disease or towards a very high level of health and performance.

SELF-EXPLORATION

What time do you get up in the morning? Do you feel well rested? Do you dream? These are all-important questions and need awareness application. Some people are early risers and have a morning ritual. Others prefer to wait until the alarm rings for the third time and then find they rushing through their morning needs and often out the door without any nutrition at all. Smokers or those with a history of smoking often stop long enough for a morning coffee or grab this on their way to work.

I’m sure you have heard this before! Breakfast is a very important meal and must not be missed, especially if your goal is to manage a healthy weight and move away from addiction. While you don’t have to eat the minute your feet hit the floor, you must plan for breakfast. In the chapters that follow you will learn about healthy choices and what your body needs if you are sugar or carbohydrate addicted. These choices will also hold true if you have a problem with nicotine, caffeine, alcohol or drugs. In this work you are learning to observe and so do notice your appetite, determining if it is high, medium or low. You might also notice if you body sends communications about hunger such as tummy hunger, other physical signs and of course feeling shaky, lightheaded or weakness. At this point you haven’t learned about what you need to be eating and so make note of what you currently eat and drink. It’s important to set up a knowledge hook for this and later you will hang a motivation on it.

Review your past behaviors and notice if you ever skip breakfast and the reasons why you might do this. These are areas that will need correction in the future. You will learn how to defend the needs of your body from outside forces, such as schedules, business breakfasts, etc. Notice if you ever become hungry between breakfast and lunch and again make a note about this. If you do notice mid-morning hunger, determine the distance from breakfast and then think about what you tend to do about this, such as getting another cup of coffee, visiting the snack machine, or perhaps smoking. Later on in this work you will come to understand much more about why your body responds in this way and what needs correction.

Most of us live on auto-pilot and have little idea as to what we put in our mouths to care for our body cells. Water is a very important health drink and water consumption needs awareness work. Think for a moment about your water consumption in the early part of the day and make some mental notes about this. Few people consume sufficient water, instead filling the body with coffee, tea and soda, all of which take away from high level health.

QUESTION FROM A READER

" For some strange reason I gag on water. This is why I drink diet drinks instead. I can’t imagine ever being able to drink eight glasses of water a day for the rest of my life. I almost have to laugh thinking of it ! How can I manage this kind of change?"

INNER MOTIVATION

You may or may not notice that you are building a new structure for your lifestyle behaviors. Your map is like a blueprint. When architects work with blueprints, they also have drawings of what the building will look like when it is completed. I'd like you to put together some inner pictures of what you will look like, as well as how you will feel physically when you are at 100% completion.

Perhaps you've been there before and so you know what images to bring forward. If you haven't any idea, simply make something up, just as if you had a photograph sitting in front of you, and you could sense the body communication. Look at the photograph through a mind-magnifying glass. While this may sound like a silly game, it is not. It is serious mind programming. You get what you think about. Later on you will find out more about the power of your thoughts, but right now go ahead and do this part of the work. Now hang those photographs on your new knowledge hooks.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

Managing sugar addiction means working continually to correct insulin resistance. This work could be called disease prevention. You must eat correctly every day. No day is an exception. Remember the bank account. Each and every day you must work to manage your emotional states and stress levels. It will take hot desire, motivation, persistence and self-discipline to achieve correction. Most of us have little or no experience in self-manufacturing inner chemical states, but this is what is needed to make a permanent lifestyle change.

Do know you are not a beginner. You weren’t born yesterday. Throughout life you have been building resilience that has been stored in your subconscious mind, and you can retrieve it. You have all kinds of resilience, big and small. Resilience means that somewhere along the road of life you have survived through something. The longer the survival process, the more resilience you will find in the memory. People who have stopped drinking, smoking or lived through a life-threatening experience, challenged disease or a disability usually have good resilience. However, if you feel you are short in this department, you can also build role models for resilience and actually transfer from them hypnotically. Let's practice.

INNER MOTIVATION

Let’s practice on the mind screen. Tilt your eyes up and locate it. Now take out your blueprint or map, placing a calendar of last month in the upper right hand corner. Tear off that calendar and place the calendar page for this month on the blueprint. Pick up the corner of this month's calendar and notice there is one under that for next month and one under that for the month after. In fact notice that there are unending calendars waiting to come to the top.

This is a mind program for understanding that the work you are doing is ongoing. It does not have a beginning or an end. Where did we ever get the idea that if we eat well this month, then next month we can eat whatever we want? It should be clear by now. The cell managers remain the same and need the same foods to stay healthy. That doesn't mean that you can't have certain treats, etc. and must live a rigid life. It does mean that you must be self-responsible and stay aware of what your body needs in order to function. Remember, you don't know how to be a cell yourself, so it is in your best interest that you stay in focus.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

It’s not uncommon for women to have gynecological or hormonal issues related to sugar addiction or disorderly eating. While there are other reasons for irregular periods, pre and post-menopausal symptoms, sugar or imbalanced eating can be the culprit. Be sure to check things out with your gynecologist. Then, correct your nutritional intake. You might be pleasantly surprised at how many symptoms are connected to not providing your body with what it needs.

KIDS AND SUGAR ISSUES

The sugar culprit begins its destructive work early in life. Even small infants are treated to this substance by doting parents who often have no idea that they are setting up a life long addiction in their precious offspring. In fact, most parents would deny that they do this at all. Many would insist that they only provide the very best nutrition for their children. I hear this over and over in my office. Then the truth is uncovered as we discuss what truly goes into the mouth of the youngster over a twenty-four hour period. This is why knowledge, coupled with heightened awareness is so very important.

I’d like to share a patient history here with you. Sarah was only five when she came to my office. As she was fair skinned and blonde, I had to look closely to notice that she had no eyebrows or eyelashes. In fact, a good portion of the hair on her head was also missing. Her Mother had cleverly combed it so it wasn't so noticeable. Sarah suffers from trichotillomania, or compulsive hair pulling. Although there have been no epidemiological studies to identify the actual number of people with this condition yet, it is estimated that in the United States alone, there are probably between 6 to 8 million sufferers of trichotillomania.

According to Dr. Doris Rapp, the author of Is This Your Child, children with tricotillomania respond well to dietary change including reduced sugar intake. Sarah's mother maintained that her nutrition was healthy, but my assessment didn't agree. Over 85% of Sarah's intake was in the form of very high-glycemic or refined sugars. The first order of business to help Sarah was to redesign her eating plan and eliminate a good number of the sugar foods. While it's a true challenge to clean up a child's diet, it is possible. It helps to allow the child to participate in the planning and shopping. Self-hypnosis etches new mind programs and helps the child manage the left over stress, once the food stress is in control.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

Learning to listen to your body is one of our most important holistic tools. The cell managers communicate with you through body sensations. The process of body listening is known by many names including mental biofeedback. We choose to take messages through the practice of body scanning. This technique is taught in the top stress reduction clinics of the world and is a way of re-training the body to release stress chemicals. The body and mind often have much to say about the food connection.

You will be learning more about working with body sensations later on in this program. For now let us focus on the food connection to body sensations. If you are not eating a balanced or sufficient diet, your body will produce stress hormones that will communicate with you through body sensations. These stress chemicals include insulin, adrenaline, nor-epinephrine and cortisol. Some corresponding body sensations could include headache, muscle spasms, weakness, lightheadedness, poor vision, nervousness, exhaustion, fatigue, mood swings, as well as a variety of tension related symptoms.

Most of us tend to eat on automatic pilot, without any concern for the resulting mind and body chemistry. As we travel through our day, we might have a tendency to pick up small snacks, cookies, candy, pretzels, coffee, soda or juice. Perhaps a coffee mug lives on your desk. Each time you eat or drink, your body must perform its chemical balancing act, making special effort to keep the body in balance. If you continue along in this way, day after day, the body often develops food stress, or the inability to manage, especially if the rest of the nutritional intake is poor or inadequate.

INNER MOTIVATION

Take a moment to elicit your relaxation response. Tilt your eyes up slightly, placing one of your cells up on your mind screen. It doesn't matter where it comes from. Each and every time you eat something, the food rings the doorbell of the cell and the cell manager cannot say no to the delivery. If the delivery is healthy and timely, the manager is delighted, but if it is unhealthy and untimely, the manager is in trouble. Feel how good it is to know that you do know this now and that you have powers beyond what you thought before you had this knowledge. We are motivated towards and away from. This imagery exercise is a good example of both. Be sure to place it in a place of honor on your road map.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

Boosting the immune system is another important focus of living holistically. The immune system is the defense system of the mind and body against microorganisms. One of the most negative results of excessive levels of stress, or poor body management is the effect on the immune response. This is often seen is someone who has frequent colds and other infections. There is much research in progress regarding how stress affects the immune system, and especially regarding autoimmune diseases including allergies and cancer. There is also the psychological aspect of seeing oneself as a frequently ill person. This can be potentially damaging to the self-image and self-esteem, thereby directing outcomes not in keeping with high level functioning.

How you choose to eat directly affects your immune system. There is little discussion about this fact of life. The problem is that we tend to be asleep to the needs of the body in the now, but more so in the needs of the body in the future. What you eat today has an outcome down the road as well. Imagery and self-hypnosis will help you to wake up and also to place permanent wellness programs into your subconscious mind. The work you are doing here is not difficult, but it is awake-work and this is where the difficulty lies for most people.

A NOTE TO NEW READERS:

This experiential blog/workshop is based on my new book, "How Many Cookies Will It Take to Make Me Happy?" This book is not published as yet, but you have the opportunity to read it in it's unpublished state. If you are new to my writing, you might want to read the earlier mini-chapters. They are available on FaceBook, The PublishersMarketPlace & at the following link. Remember to scan down to find the earliest chapters & work your way up. http://beyonddisorderlyeating.blogspot.com/
A bit of background.... we are working with creative Interactive Self-Hypnosis imagery, planting suggestions directly into the creative subconscious mind as you read along. What appears like a story is a series of self-hypnotic sessions, designed to bring about desired lifestyle changes. The inner mind is creative & rather child-like, loving to play with images, especially when they are emotionalized. Just like the saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words", well-planted mind images, can be worth hours of therapy. We can actually change or motivate in 1/200th of a second. So come along & look forward to some lifestyle-changing events.


Copyright 2009 Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht
May not be copied or reproduced without permission of the author.

Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht is author of Sugar...the Hidden Eating Disorder & How to Lick It. She is also the writer/producer of over 350 mp3/CD programs in the areas of medicine, health, prevention, addictions, self-development & sports for adults & children.

http://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.bohorquez
http://www.twitter.com/elizRN

http://www.hypnosis-audio.com
http://www.sugar-addiction.com
http://www.international-medical-health-writers

BluePrints & Road Maps

INNER MOTIVATION

You may or may not notice that you are building a new structure for your lifestyle behaviors. Your map is like a blueprint. When architects work with blueprints, they also have drawings of what the building will look like when it is completed. I'd like you to put together some inner pictures of what you will look like, as well as how you will feel physically when you are at 100% completion.

Perhaps you've been there before and so you know what images to bring forward. If you haven't any idea, simply make something up, just as if you had a photograph sitting in front of you, and you could sense the body communication. Look at the photograph through a mind-magnifying glass. While this may sound like a silly game, it is not. It is serious mind programming. You get what you think about. Later on you will find out more about the power of your thoughts, but right now go ahead and do this part of the work. Now hang those photographs on your new knowledge hooks.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

Managing sugar addiction means working continually to correct insulin resistance. This work could be called disease prevention. You must eat correctly every day. No day is an exception. Remember the bank account. Each and every day you must work to manage your emotional states and stress levels. It will take hot desire, motivation, persistence and self-discipline to achieve correction. Most of us have little or no experience in self-manufacturing inner chemical states, but this is what is needed to make a permanent lifestyle change.

Do know you are not a beginner. You weren’t born yesterday. Throughout life you have been building resilience that has been stored in your subconscious mind, and you can retrieve it. You have all kinds of resilience, big and small. Resilience means that somewhere along the road of life you have survived through something. The longer the survival process, the more resilience you will find in the memory. People who have stopped drinking, smoking or lived through a life-threatening experience, challenged disease or a disability usually have good resilience. However, if you feel you are short in this department, you can also build role models for resilience and actually transfer from them hypnotically. Let's practice.

INNER MOTIVATION

Let’s practice on the mind screen. Tilt your eyes up and locate it. Now take out your blueprint or map, placing a calendar of last month in the upper right hand corner. Tear off that calendar and place the calendar page for this month on the blueprint. Pick up the corner of this month's calendar and notice there is one under that for next month and one under that for the month after. In fact notice that there are unending calendars waiting to come to the top.

This is a mind program for understanding that the work you are doing is ongoing. It does not have a beginning or an end. Where did we ever get the idea that if we eat well this month, then next month we can eat whatever we want? It should be clear by now. The cell managers remain the same and need the same foods to stay healthy. That doesn't mean that you can't have certain treats, etc. and must live a rigid life. It does mean that you must be self-responsible and stay aware of what your body needs in order to function. Remember, you don't know how to be a cell yourself, so it is in your best interest that you stay in focus.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

It’s not uncommon for women to have gynecological or hormonal issues related to sugar addiction or disorderly eating. While there are other reasons for irregular periods, pre and post-menopausal symptoms, sugar or imbalanced eating can be the culprit. Be sure to check things out with your gynecologist. Then, correct your nutritional intake. You might be pleasantly surprised at how many symptoms are connected to not providing your body with what it needs.

KIDS AND SUGAR ISSUES

The sugar culprit begins its destructive work early in life. Even small infants are treated to this substance by doting parents who often have no idea that they are setting up a life long addiction in their precious offspring. In fact, most parents would deny that they do this at all. Many would insist that they only provide the very best nutrition for their children. I hear this over and over in my office. Then the truth is uncovered as we discuss what truly goes into the mouth of the youngster over a twenty-four hour period. This is why knowledge, coupled with heightened awareness is so very important.

I’d like to share a patient history here with you. Sarah was only five when she came to my office. As she was fair skinned and blonde, I had to look closely to notice that she had no eyebrows or eyelashes. In fact, a good portion of the hair on her head was also missing. Her Mother had cleverly combed it so it wasn't so noticeable. Sarah suffers from trichotillomania, or compulsive hair pulling. Although there have been no epidemiological studies to identify the actual number of people with this condition yet, it is estimated that in the United States alone, there are probably between 6 to 8 million sufferers of trichotillomania.

According to Dr. Doris Rapp, the author of Is This Your Child, children with tricotillomania respond well to dietary change including reduced sugar intake. Sarah's mother maintained that her nutrition was healthy, but my assessment didn't agree. Over 85% of Sarah's intake was in the form of very high-glycemic or refined sugars. The first order of business to help Sarah was to redesign her eating plan and eliminate a good number of the sugar foods. While it's a true challenge to clean up a child's diet, it is possible. It helps to allow the child to participate in the planning and shopping. Self-hypnosis etches new mind programs and helps the child manage the left over stress, once the food stress is in control.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

Learning to listen to your body is one of our most important holistic tools. The cell managers communicate with you through body sensations. The process of body listening is known by many names including mental biofeedback. We choose to take messages through the practice of body scanning. This technique is taught in the top stress reduction clinics of the world and is a way of re-training the body to release stress chemicals. The body and mind often have much to say about the food connection.

You will be learning more about working with body sensations later on in this program. For now let us focus on the food connection to body sensations. If you are not eating a balanced or sufficient diet, your body will produce stress hormones that will communicate with you through body sensations. These stress chemicals include insulin, adrenaline, nor-epinephrine and cortisol. Some corresponding body sensations could include headache, muscle spasms, weakness, lightheadedness, poor vision, nervousness, exhaustion, fatigue, mood swings, as well as a variety of tension related symptoms.

Most of us tend to eat on automatic pilot, without any concern for the resulting mind and body chemistry. As we travel through our day, we might have a tendency to pick up small snacks, cookies, candy, pretzels, coffee, soda or juice. Perhaps a coffee mug lives on your desk. Each time you eat or drink, your body must perform its chemical balancing act, making special effort to keep the body in balance. If you continue along in this way, day after day, the body often develops food stress, or the inability to manage, especially if the rest of the nutritional intake is poor or inadequate.

INNER MOTIVATION

Take a moment to elicit your relaxation response. Tilt your eyes up slightly, placing one of your cells up on your mind screen. It doesn't matter where it comes from. Each and every time you eat something, the food rings the doorbell of the cell and the cell manager cannot say no to the delivery. If the delivery is healthy and timely, the manager is delighted, but if it is unhealthy and untimely, the manager is in trouble. Feel how good it is to know that you do know this now and that you have powers beyond what you thought before you had this knowledge. We are motivated towards and away from. This imagery exercise is a good example of both. Be sure to place it in a place of honor on your road map.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

Boosting the immune system is another important focus of living holistically. The immune system is the defense system of the mind and body against microorganisms. One of the most negative results of excessive levels of stress, or poor body management is the effect on the immune response. This is often seen is someone who has frequent colds and other infections. There is much research in progress regarding how stress affects the immune system, and especially regarding autoimmune diseases including allergies and cancer. There is also the psychological aspect of seeing oneself as a frequently ill person. This can be potentially damaging to the self-image and self-esteem, thereby directing outcomes not in keeping with high level functioning.

How you choose to eat directly affects your immune system. There is little discussion about this fact of life. The problem is that we tend to be asleep to the needs of the body in the now, but more so in the needs of the body in the future. What you eat today has an outcome down the road as well. Imagery and self-hypnosis will help you to wake up and also to place permanent wellness programs into your subconscious mind. The work you are doing here is not difficult, but it is awake-work and this is where the difficulty lies for most people.

A NOTE TO NEW READERS:

This experiential blog/workshop is based on my new book, "How Many Cookies Will It Take to Make Me Happy?" This book is not published as yet, but you have the opportunity to read it in it's unpublished state. If you are new to my writing, you might want to read the earlier mini-chapters. They are available on FaceBook, The PublishersMarketPlace & at the following link. Remember to scan down to find the earliest chapters & work your way up. http://beyonddisorderlyeating.blogspot.com/
A bit of background.... we are working with creative Interactive Self-Hypnosis imagery, planting suggestions directly into the creative subconscious mind as you read along. What appears like a story is a series of self-hypnotic sessions, designed to bring about desired lifestyle changes. The inner mind is creative & rather child-like, loving to play with images, especially when they are emotionalized. Just like the saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words", well-planted mind images, can be worth hours of therapy. We can actually change or motivate in 1/200th of a second. So come along & look forward to some lifestyle-changing events.


Copyright 2009 Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht
May not be copied or reproduced without permission of the author.

Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht is author of Sugar...the Hidden Eating Disorder & How to Lick It. She is also the writer/producer of over 350 mp3/CD programs in the areas of medicine, health, prevention, addictions, self-development & sports for adults & children.

http://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.bohorquez
http://www.twitter.com/elizRN

http://www.hypnosis-audio.com
http://www.sugar-addiction.com
http://www.international-medical-health-writers