United Hypnotherapy Blog

It’s All About Feelings and Emotions

August 14, 2007 in Personal Growth by Rick McFall | No comments

People come to me in my private hypnotherapy practice for all sorts of what I call “presenting issues”. It may be weight loss, or stress management, or difficulty sleeping. It may be personal growth that people are seeking, or to get over a fear, or improve themselves in some way. It all boils down to the same thing, however. No matter what the presenting issue is, people decide to come to a hypnotherapist (or any therapist0 for one reason, and one reason only. They don’t feel the way they want to be feeling. Oversimplification? I don’t think so.

Emotions and feelings are amazingly powerful motivators for almost everything in life. Our minds and thoughts affect the emotions and feelings, or even talk us into remaining in them even when we don’t want to keep feeling that way. Let’s look at a few examples.

I often have weight loss clients come to me to lose weight. Now, on the surface, weight loss seems to be the entire issue at hand, but it really isn’t. People don’t want to lose weight for the sake of shedding the pounds. They want to lose weight so that they will feel differently, and they have associated they way that they are feeling with their being overweight. Perhaps they are unhappy in their love life or lonely, and they think that by losing the weight the “feelings” they have will change. So losing weight is their attempt to change feelings and emotions and the way they are experiencing them. People may want to lose weight for health related issues also, but it’s still to change how they feel. They want to feel healthy and energetic, for example.

Let’s say someone comes to me to overcome the fear of public speaking. Are they coming so that they can actually become a public speaker? Probably not. More than likely, they can already get up in front of a group of people and give a talk (and often even a GREAT talk or presentation), but they don’t like how they feel when they are doing it. They don’t like the nervousness, and fear, and self-consciousness that they experience.

Lots of people come to me or buy my CDs and downloads to attract more money. Did they decide this just because they need more money? Again, it’s more than just the perception that they don’t have enough money. It’s because they don’t feel the way that they think they would if they had more money.

In every example above, as simple as they are, the client has looked inside themselves and found that they don’t like how they are currently feeling. They are unhappy with their present emotions and feelings and have decided things need to change. That’s quite powerful — to recognize what you are feeling and to decide to change it. At this same powerful point, though, is where it is important to perhaps make a “shift”. This is where all the change happens. This point will determine the success of the journey the client makes.

Most people who come to the realization that they aren’t feeling what they want to feel, begin to let their thinking mind take over at this point to determine what needs to be changed in order to feel differently. They look at themsleves, decide “what’s wrong” in their lives, or what they “perceive” to be the cause of the feelings they don’t want, and then they very “logically” begin to work on that issue. I don’t fault anyone for that. It’s a process that virtually everyone goes through, and a lot of the time it works. The times it works are the times when our logical mind was successful at finding the right issue or combination of issues to change, and then being successful at making those changes.

What about the times where that perception is less than accurate? What if someone who is overweight and unhappy in life loses all the weight they thought was getting in the way of his or her happiness and they find that they are STILL unhappy?

Well, let’s back up just a bit. The person who was overweight looked inside themselves and determined that they weren’t feeling what they wanted to feel. They decided to do something to change that feeling. Both of those actions were really good progress. When their conscious mind kicked in and identified the weight as the thing that needed to be changed, they missed it, though. The issue wasn’t the weight. The issue wasn’t the reality of having those extra pounds. The issue was an emotional one, not a physical one. The issue that needed to be solved was the “feelings and emotions” not the calories and exercise.

So…. how do you change it and what about the weight? Well, as crazy as it sounds, forget about changing the weight. Forget about diets and exercise and anything else that you “think” will work. The focus that needs to be shifted here is the focus on the feelings and emotions. Put everything else aside, throw out all of your preconceived notions about weight loss, and begin to imagine what it would feel like if all the weight were gone. It goes something like this:

If you were at your ideal body weight, what would you be feeling — emotionally? Where would you be? What would your favorite meal be? What would be different in your daily activities? Would you have the same job? Would you have the same car? Would you live in a different house?

Take each one of those questions and just “imagine” what the answer would be. Throw out all preconceived ideas and let the answers come. FEEL the answers. I mean it, really FEEL the answers as you imagine them. Here is a different example that I’ll actually do as I’m writing this, and I’ll tell you what I’m imagining as my answers. Let’s say I’m feeling a bit stressed, and I want to feel relaxed…
Q. If you were completely relaxed and at peace, where would you be? A. I’d be lying on an inflatable raft floating on a lake in the warm summer sun. Q. What sounds would you be hearing? A. I’d hear birds chirping, and the light rustle of leaves of the trees on the shore as they blew gently in the warm breeze. Q. What would you be feeling physically? A. I’d be feeling the water lap against my hands and feet as they dangled in the water off of the raft. I’d be feeling the warmth of the sun on my chest and stomach as I lay there just gently drifting on the lake. Q. What would you be feeling emotionally? A. Completely relaxed, centered, and at peace.

With that feeling being strongly “imagined”, what happens is that I now actually DO feel that feeling. I can stay in that feeling now, and approach things from a place of being relaxed, centered, and at peace. My reality has just shifted by doing that. My perceptions of my activities, thoughts and feelings have shifted. My perceptions of myself, whatever they were BEFORE I did the active imagining, have now shifted also. I actually feel differently than I did before.

What does that mean for you? It means that instead of looking for the things that need to be changed in your life, just imagine what you want to be FEELING in your life. That’s the power. That’s the focus. ALL the power comes from focusing on what you DO want, and then imagining what it will feel like when you get it and filling in all the unknowns.

I don’t want to have a fear of public speaking (for example). What do you want? I want to feeling calm, relaxed, and energized while speaking in front of an audience. Ok, if you were feeling relaxed, calm and energized speaking in front of an audience, what would you be wearing? Would you be standing still or walking around or sitting or what? What volume would your voice be? What expression would you have on your face? What sounds would you hear? Etc…etc…etc… AND… After your presentation was finished, what would you feel?

Allowing yourself to FEEL the feelings while imagining all of these things is what will instruct your subconscious mind to make it so. It will bring the imagined scenarios into being. Your emotions will become your reality, and you can change your emotions just by thinking about them.