Positive Feedback

I received some positive feedback today, from a client of mine from several months ago, who asked for my help in the quest to become a non-smoker. Client confidentiality being what it is I'm not going to discuss specifics, But when I asked if I could write about some of the stuff we talked about, I was given permission as long as I don't identify him.

So we're talking a middle-aged Australian male, urban and well-educated, living a secular, white-collar, well-paid lifestyle. He smoked cigarettes, his wife smoked cigars. One of them developed mouth cancer, both of them agreed to stop smoking. The wife seemed to have little trouble stopping cold, but the husband struggled. He had all the usual issues with addictive cravings, but I know they end. Years ago I used to smoke heavily myself, and for me the hardest things were patterns of behaviour: lighting up during TV commercials, lighting up when waiting for buses to arrive, having a smoke before leaving work, having a smoke after getting home. That took a lot longer than the physical cravings, and even than the belief I'd developed that when I was under stress a cigarette would relieve that stress.

We established he started smoking as a teenager, early in the period of time when he was a bit off the rails, stealing cars to joyride up and down the eastern seaboard, getting into fights, doing a bit of vandalism. Turned out that although as a young boy he'd been quite proud of his bad-boy reputation, there'd been something he'd been terribly ashamed of doing - he told me what it was but I am not going to share it publicly - that filled him even back then with utter shame. Smoking made him cool, and if he was cool he couldn't have been the same person who did that thing. Also, when he remembered that event he would be hugely stressed suddenly, and smoking would give him that calming nicotine hit that enabled him to cope with the wobblies.

The first session I spent with him was about two hours long, which was unusual. The first fifteen minutes or so were about taking a history, signing the disclaimer, then simply encouraging him to talk around all the issues that, in his mind, surrounded smoking now and in the past, how it made him feel, how not smoking made him feel, and just encouraging him to open up to me. During that session I came to feel very privileged: he willingly peeled back layer after layer of his personality and his past, with my doing not a hell of a lot more than listening very closely and accepting everything he said and everything he had done in the past. At the end of it despite the fact that I'd heard about a lot of things I really didn't want to know that he'd done, I understood a lot more about him than I understand about many of the people I have known for years.

Our second appointment was six days later. I asked how his week had been - turned out that he had felt really relieved after just talking a lot of things through with me that he hadn't even been able to talk through with his partner, and in fact he had smoked marginally less during the days since without any conscious effort on his part to cut down. Apparently his whole family had noticed he was more relaxed, even his dogs. We discussed what we would do, then I dropped him into a light trance, deepened him a bit into a working trance, and gave him some post-hypnotic suggestions about dealing with the habitual aspects and the cravings associated with smoking. that would give him tools to use in his bid to become a non-smoker.

Then we got to the real work. I deepened his trance, and got him to visualise an empty office chair, filling up with cigarette smoke which thickened and thickened, until it became the spirit of his addiction sitting there. He indicated when this entity was real and strong to him, and then became a dialogue. I got him to question the addiction itself. What did it want? What were its motives? What benefit did it get out of him being addicted that it didn't get out of him not being addicted? What benefit did it think he got out of being addicted? At that point the dialogue paused, and I asked him if he really benefited from this benefit the addiction through it was giving him.

Then we changed tack, my client and I working together. All the way through I would provide gentle direction and he would comply, negotiating with his addiction himself, and reporting its replies back to me. Now that we knew where the spirit of the addiction was coming from and what it was getting out of it, it was time to bargain. We pointed out other ways it might get its needs met without my client ever having to light a cigarette. We offered it a symbol in the client's house - a potted plant in the same family as tobacco, actually, which my client promised to tend himself and keep healthy as long as the spirit of addiction kept away. And eventually my client and I agreed that we had reached a point where not only was the spirit of addiction satisfied, but he was, too.

So I got him to allow the being to break up into smoke and float away, and to leave the place with the chair, and I reinforced the post-hypnotic suggestions of calmness, self-forgiveness for his distant past, lack of desire for a cigarette, and replacement activities for smoking, then brought him back into normal consciousness. He was really happy with the session. I said he was very welcome to ring me and make an appointment if he needed to bolster up the work we had done together and he thanked me, and I didn't hear a thing until today. I asked him if he wanted to set up another session, he said no, he was still at peace with himself and still a non-smoker. He was just ringing up to let me know he was doing well, and that he had saved thousands of dollars in the cost of cigarettes. And it was good to hear that the person in that household who had had a tumour removed was still doing well and had not relapsed.

It was very good of him to ring, actually. Theoretically, every client who sees me, seems happy at the end, and doesn't get back to me is a satisfied customer - but are they? Or could some of them be people who just lost faith and didn't want to waste time on me again? I would never know without feedback. So I was delighted when he rang, and we talked for quite a while. Now that I have better-quality audio equipment, I offered to make him a free meditation CD tailored to his own internal imagery and preferences as a thank-you gift for the detailed feedback, but he serenely refused even that.

He said in passing that I crafted the inside of his head with as much care and skill as he'd craft the inside of a building. I was flattered. Let's just say that if any of my friends or contacts are in need of an architect, I know whose business card I will be handing out.

If you would like to discuss making an appointment to transform into a non-smoker,  contact me and we will discuss your particular needs privately.

Dealing with the Demons

We all have our demons. Quite apart from the broiling, roiling storms of our subconscious, we are plagued by the broiling, roiling storms created by attachments to unhealthy, so-called friends and   non-physical entities, and our subconscious battles to free ourselves from our past.

Compulsive behaviours (of which any kind of addiction is really the most visible sign) are one of the more common outer signs of this struggle. To a greater or lesser extent we all struggle in this way at some stage in our lives, for greater or lesser periods of time.

The fundamental human addiction we all have in common is the addiction to being comforted. All other addictions, from alcoholism to cigarettes, narcotics to sex, painkillers to routines, all everything in between, are all just chasing the addiction to being comforted: we all subconsciously long for completion and comfort, and believe that our current addiction of choice will offer it in at least the short-term.

Many unfriendly entities also offer us comfort. Some of us are comforted by the illusion of personal power, especially if we have a history of personal powerlessness in the past, in our relationships, childhoods or work. Some entities offer us a sensation of power, which we don’t realise is not being worked by us but by them through us, with a temporary euphoria being our own payoff that keeps us going back for more, feeding the entity’s needs for a link into this world.

Some of us are comforted by the illusion of ease, of floating through life without too much effort, and quite a lot of moderately unfriendly entities present us with that option as our payoff, letting us take the lazy way out in our lives and get away with it, with a greater or lesser sense of dissatisfaction being masked by a pleasure at how little effort we actually have to use to get away with living.

Some entities even use the mental image of white feathers, white robes and even Biblical names to convince humans to “feed” them who would normally keep well away from parasitic entities in the name of advancing their spirituality, for spirituality itself can offer comfort to us.

We are all personally responsible for everything we do, and every choice we make, even if it is to further our own addictions and compulsions. That being said, is there is something or someone else working against us, it is much easier to backslide back in to old comfort-zones, old rewards – and old addictions. All of these things must be dealt with.

In 1987, I achieved my Diploma in Applied Hypnotherapy. As well as hypnotic techniques such as replacement behaviours and changed perceptions, we also looked at psychology and psychological therapies such as neuro-linguistic programming and Gestalt therapy. There were others – but despite the fact that they are less popular now, I find these two techniques in particular work very, very well not only in de-programming a person’s “bad habits” and the anxieties and need for comfort that may lie behind them, but also for actually addressing any part of addictive behaviour that is down to parasitic non-physical entities.

Dealing with them, I might do something akin to a Gestalt therapy technique of getting the subject to visualise their problem as an independent entity sitting in front of them, but while this is happening in conventional psychological models, I will drop myself into a trance an old teacher of mine used to call “shamanising”, find the energy-strings I need to find to pull the actual independent entity behind the subject’s behaviour (if there is in fact an independent spirit there), and bring it into the dialogue, finding out if there is room for compromise or bargaining (a lot of these very negative entities will be surprisingly honourable if you can find a middle road where their own needs are met), or indeed battling it and evicting it completely from the person if it is not disposed to bargaining – something known by various churches as “exorcising”, but when it is done by shamanising it involves  few of the techniques of physical and emotional violence that many Christian-based and other cults use to effect their ends.

The whole idea is to help somebody heal and be strong enough to take responsibility for their own self, not to harm them further and make them even weaker and more likely to be spiritually parasitised!

I have a programme set up specifically for dealing with smoking addiction, given that with the new taxes the addiction is becoming even  more harmful to families as their income is diverted towards maintaining the supply of a poison to the victim of the addiction. You can spend $20 on cigarettes these days, depending on the brand you prefer, and if you’re like I used to be at the height of my addiction when I was smoking over fifty a day, that represents something like $120 a week taken out of the budget to maintain an addiction that was slowly killing me.

I gave up smoking in 2005, saving myself tens of thousands of dollars over the time since then, enabling me to have more fun than I would otherwise have had if I were still addicted. For $350 and about two hours of fairly intensive time on your part (I really recommend not returning to work or to any demanding personal tasks for 24 hours afterwards), I can help you do the necessary work you need to do, to become an ex-addict who will never need to budget for their addiction again. It won't be easy and it certainly won't be pleasant, but it will work if you take it on board and do your bit.

Contact me for an appointment, further details or to ask any questions.

Acupressure and Magnetic Therapy Ear Studs

Just a refresher from the previous blog, that I can still supply magnetic ear studs suitable for magnetic therapy, acupressure therapy or just plain pierced-look jewellery for people who don't really want to commit to another piercing or want to be able to move the studs around themselves. The magnets are strong enough to grasp any part of the ear, plus the lip-area, although not strong enough to grasp the cheek-area. That is fair: if they were that strong and you used them on the ears, they would pinch so hard that they would be downright painful.

Acupressure works on the same theory as acupuncture: that there are energy-lines or nadis through the body connecting different organs and energy-structures, and that dis-ease is often a function of blocked energy-flow as much as it might be of infection or nutritional imbalance. Along those energy-lines are a sequence of points, and blockages can be cleared, symptoms can be reduced or removed, and even anaesthesia can be induced by giving a sharp stimulus to the appropriate acupuncture points, either in the traditional way by the insertion of a very fine needle, or in the form of acupressure, where a fingertip or a magnetic stud is used on the point to create a very firm, steady pressure.

That it works, I know for sure. When I lived in a large capital city I had had permanently blocked sinuses for my entire life, progressing from over-the-counter inhalers to prescription medications to ever-increasing dosages, and I still consumed two large boxes of tissues a week with the constant dripping. Somewhere in my middle twenties, I started seeing a Sri Lanka-trained acupuncturist and received twice-weekly treatments in my lunch break - he was close to my work at the time - with astounding success. Firstly I cut down, then stopped my excessive use of tissues, then I weaned myself off all sinus medications. And my nose was almost clear, despite the fact that I was still living and working in the same clouds of pollution that had induced the problem in the first place! I was delighted.

That it has anaesthetic properties I can also attest: one day, without telling me his reasoning, he chose to stimulate two extra points (he later said that people need a change from time to time), and my entire upper jaw went numb, just as if a dentist had injected both sides with novocaine. Well, it just so happens that I'm not too keen on either undue medications or physical pain, so I rang around dentists frantically, to find one who would be prepared to do the dental archaeology I happened to need before the effect wore off. And yes, I managed to get an appointment on the second or third call, and yes, the brand-new filling was in place and the dentist paid before feeling started creeping back into my upper jaw.

Not only had the acupuncture done its intended job, but it gave me a great deal of jaw-numbing analgesia that enabled me to have serious work done as pain-free as if I'd been injected, without the influx of chemicals into the system. That's a win-win, as far as I'm concerned. Before then I liked acupuncture: after that, I was an enthusiast, and handed out that practitioner's business card to everyone.

Today, every time I select one of my gorgeous pairs of magnetic studs to wear for the day, I hark back to that moment when I finally realised how powerful acupuncture and acupressure were - no mere placebo was ever going to cancel out the agony of a drill-tip going into a live nerve! Something real must be happening.

When I have sold or given away the studs, I haven't tended to supply maps of the acupuncture points in the ears or face with the studs. Something else that acupuncturist - who was a very wise man - told me was this: you can spend decades memorising where the points are, or you can apply firm pressure to a lot of different sites in the ear, and one or more of them will have a stronger sensation to the pressure than the others. When you feel that tenderness (or sting or tickle, depending on the individual), that is the point that needs stimulation. Some of them may relate to sinuses, some to kidneys or sciatica or high blood pressure, but the layman doesn't really need to know. The points that you need to treat at the time will be the ones that give you the extra sensation on being squeezed or pressed firmly. Another day, you may need to treat another point.

These studs are routinely sold in pharmacies for self-treatment of nicotine addiction and anxiety, with ear-maps. You are much better off finding out by using pressure and feeling the difference in sensation, than by following a printed map: all ears are slightly different shapes for a start, and you may need one set of points treated one day, a different set the next. So, take control of your own health, be pro-active, and make your own health decisions for your own health circumstances!

The studs I supply are hypo-allergenic and tipped with tiny but exquisite Swarovski crystals. I have seen the identical studs that I supply in a local pharmacy for $85 Australian, and I am pretty sure they buy them from the same manufacturer I do: I can supply them for $40 and make an ethical profit on that, throwing in mailing costs within Australia for free. The colours I have on hand and can supply immediately, are ruby-pink, pearl-clear, scarlet, amethyst and pure pink. I can post these within one working day of receiving your order. Other colours will have a fortnight extra lead-in time, as I  need to restock, and include: sky blue, sapphire, black and peridot-green.

Why not do something really nice for yourself today? Just be sure to send an email to me at nisaba.merrieweather@hotmail.com to let me know your full name and postal address, so that your order can be processed. If you like these studs half as much as I like mine, you'll be delighted with them.

Name and jewel colour