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Wake Up And Smell The Coffee

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One of the reasons I fell in love with my husband is his great coffee. He makes the best coffee ever. Further more, he serves it to me in the morning, every morning as I am still foggy from the night’s slumber. Before we were married, this marvelous man would sneak into my home on his way to work and fix my coffee, so that I would stumble down to the kitchen and find a fresh brewed cup waiting for me!

I limit myself to one or two cups of coffee, most days. That is a miracle, considering my heritage. You see, my mother always repeated that we were weaned from the breast by cups of coffee. (Remember that our truths are filtered by the words we hear from birth to age 8, so she was setting me up to have a love affair with the seductress coffee.) I believe I have vague memories of my mother wandering the house hooked up to an IV with a coffee drip. (OK, maybe that was just a fantasy my mother often spoke of.) Coffee ice cream was a treat reserved for something special, like living through the day, maybe? Iced coffee was a staple in the summer.

I have passed this legacy on to my first born. Every Monday, I write him a note in a funny card and include something like an article or a comic I thought he would enjoy, a crisp $20 bill or a gift card to Starbucks. His favorite find is the Starbucks card. My youngest son does not have the same love of coffee and I am wondering if maybe he was switched at birth because of that, but I will save that for another day.

Why all this information about coffee, especially in a hypnosis blog? Well, partly because of the power of suggestion. I just read an article pertaining to coffee and current brain research. Also, anything to do with brain research is guaranteed to interest me and I love to share the news. So, here is the scoop:

Studies in the past have shown that drinking coffee can relieve stress as well as reduce depression, but scientist attributed these effects to the caffeine in the coffee, not to the smell. Scientists have found that the mere smell of coffee has an effect on the brain.

 

Korean researchers conducted experiments with rats to study the effects of coffee’s smell on the brain. Stressed, sleep-deprived rats and rats that were not stressed were exposed to the aroma of coffee. The activity of the brain of these two groups were compared to two other groups of rats. One group was stressed and sleep deprived, the second group was unstressed, neither were exposed to the smell of coffee.

The researchers found that when the rats were exposed to the smell of coffee, thirteen genes in the brain that control anxiety were stimulated at different levels of activity. The result was a reduction in stress of the sleep-deprived rats.

 

According to the Korean researchers, for the first time, their experiment provides “clues to the potential antioxidant or stress-relaxation activities of the coffee bean aroma. These experiments indirectly explain why so many people use coffee for staying up all night. The stress caused by sleep loss via caffeine may be alleviated through smelling the coffee aroma.”

P.S. Honey you now know one of the 180 reasons I listed, only 179 to go!

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Dear Debbie,

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Hi Debbie.

Congrats on another satisfied client. Are the tapes the client is referring to subliminal tapes? If not, I’d be curious to know what your “take” is on this type of device?

subliminal: adjective

existing or operating below the threshold of consciousness; being or employing stimuli insufficiently intense to produce a discrete sensation but often being or designed to be intense enough to influence the mental processes or the behavior of the individual: a subliminal stimulus; subliminal advertising.

In 1957, marketing researcher James Vicary reported significant increases in Coke and popcorn sales after flashing directives to “Drink Coke” and “Eat Popcorn” during a movie. Although Vicary never actually published these findings, his reports created a frenzy of consumer concern and government legislation aimed at stopping these forms of seemingly insidious mind control. There was, however, one significant and often unknown problem with Vicary’s study — it was all a hoax. Years later, Vicary himself admitted this scam was simply an attempt to save his dying advertising agency. Efforts to replicate the results of Vicary’s reports have never resulted in success.

The January 1991 issue of the University of California, Berkeley, Wellness Letter refers to “the complete lack of any scientific evidence that such messages can alter human behavior. Nevertheless, one survey shows that 68 percent of the public believes in subliminal tapes, which are now a $50-million-a-year business.” The article further states, “double blind tests have consistently shown that these products [subliminal tapes] fail to produce their claimed effects.”

Now there are many who today who still tout the use of subliminal(s) in their products, including hypnosis products. If the consumer believes them to be of value, then at some level they are. After all, the placebo effect is a valid part of healing. I, personally do not use them, nor do I recommend them to my clients. If subliminal(s) have any effect on the brain (some research has shown it can be detected with brain scanners) the effect is negated if the brain is busy. Bahador Bahrami, a neuroscientist at University College London, found a way to get around subliminal messages, showing that the brain’s susceptibility to those messages alters as it works harder. “If the brain is busy … it can filter out those subliminal things,” said Dr Bahrami, whose research is published today in Current Science. Well, most often, a client wants to play subliminal audios in the back ground while performing other tasks.

Another question I have is about playing these audios or even mine while you sleep, to help you improve learning, create changes, etc. Hypnosis is not sleep. Therefore, if I allow a client to fall asleep in the office, they are not getting the full benefit of our session. Exceptions are made when I know that a few moments of sleep and then awakening a client will help them better be able to focus. I have clients who have been so relaxed they thought they were asleep, but I knew better, they were simply relaxed, the conscious mnd will wander and drift while the subconscious mind hears everything I say. (I tell my clients I am not that nice, I don’t let you sleep!)

The last brainwave prior to sleep is a hypnotic brainwave, so I don’t object to falling asleep at night to one of my audios. After all, you may be awake longer than you realize and either way, the last words you heard as you drifted off to sleep were words of empowerment! It is just that I want my clients to understand, once you are asleep, the benefits of what I am saying are lost until another time.

My husbands jokes that people around the world sleep with his wife at night, but he knows where she is. The truth is, many people have bought audios from me to help them with a variety of issues and yes, they may fall asleep to them. In fact, my sleeping audios encourage that! The real work is done just before that final moment of wakefulness, as you go deep, deep into a pleasant, restful sleep.

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Monday Morning Musing….

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Our words have power. The way we phrase things can make a big difference in our outcomes. Einstein said, “the formulation of the question is far more important than the answer”. Recently, I have noticed on several occasions people using their words in ways that will sabotage their attempts at reaching a particular goal. For instance, with weight management. We refer to weight loss, so often. Ads read, “Lose weight now!” or we may say, “I need to lose 5 pounds.”

Think about loss in your life. Loss of a job, a loved one or even simply losing your glasses. When you lose something, you mourn that loss. Next, you look to replace it. It is human nature to want to regain. So, when we lose weight, at some level, we often mourn that loss. We eat to fill that void and the weight returns. In fact, often we double the weight, after all, just like losing glasses, we don’t want to go through that again, (I have several pairs of reading glasses kept in every possible location, to avoid being without.) Maybe this will explain the yo-yo dieting that so many people go through.

Perhaps what we want to do is to begin looking at our weight as part of our lifestyle. If we can move easier and feel better, how much better would that be? Take a moment and imagine yourself healthy, lean and strong. What would that look like for you? How would you feel? Can you imagine moving freely, with increased energy? Begin to shed excess and release the weight.

According to Jung, what we resist will persist. So, if we have not first embraced our excess weight, how can we release it? It is important to face our shadows in order to release them. If you take a moment and embrace your body and think about how it got into the condition it is in you may find it easier to shed extra pounds of fat. Think of the times you ate to console yourself, rather than examine the emotions you were feeling. Or did you fill your spare time with eating, rather than other life experiences?

Take a moment of quiet to examine where you are in this moment. Where do you want to be? What might have contributed to how you arrived where you are and what is a possible path to getting to where you desire to be? Embrace the lessons you have learned on this journey and begin to create positive thoughts about yourself that coordinate with those goals. Give your mind and your body the opportunity to work together towards living fully.

Imagine life the way you desire, embrace those lessons, release those old negative beliefs and become your authentic self today!

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Friday Silliness

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The Law Of Attraction is pretty much discussed everywhere. The movie “The Secret” has been out for quite a while now as well as the book and now other assorted complimentary items. I have taught about attracting what you want in life for a long while now, in many different forms. I believe that what you focus on is important. I have seen evidence that our bodies respond to our thoughts, illnesses are created by the stresses we carry around.

All of that being said, I draw the line when someone wants to implicate the victim of a natural disaster or some such similar occurrence. Unfortunately bad things do happen to good people. Call it a life lesson or simply state that life isn’t fair, it is a truism we all must accept. Therefore, when a colleague of mine sent this link, I knew I had to share it. It is to the Guru You University. There is a movie on this page called SHHHHH! We learn that it is by knowing our SHHHH! we use the magic of SHHHH! to change our lives. We all have bad SHHHH!, we can change it to good SHHHH!

So click on this link, watch the movie and step into SHHHH!

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Dear Debbie,

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My wife is stressed and has lost her happiness. She is always upset and I have to hide it from the kids. Can you help her?

My first question would be does your wife know you are calling me? Is this help she wants or you want for her?

I often have well meaning friends and family call or write me wanting help for a loved one. “I want my Dad to quit smoking or my wife wants to lose a few pounds.” While it is great to be supportive of a loved ones goals for positive change, allow those changes to be the desires of the loved one.

Now, when a spouse asks me about the others emotional side, I want to know why that individual is not placing the call. It is important that I spend a few moments speaking privately with the person who will be receiving the help. I have also found it helpful to interview the one who places the call in private as well. In the case of the individual who wrote the above note, he was feeling overwhelmed and trapped by his wife’s emotional state. He was doing his best to remain strong and solid, but, he had sacrificed any time for himself in the process. He was becoming controlling, because he felt his life was so out of control.

I worked with the wife on her concerns, we did some regression work to allow her to see her strengths and to experience feeling safe in those situations that had sparked this emotional state. We also used Neuro-linguistic programming, allowing her to change her thoughts from those of doom and gloom to learning the lessons in her past without feeling the emotion. We carried her forward into future possible situations where she could apply those lessons and avoid the pitfalls. We worked on recalling thoughts that made her laugh and her husband was astonished when he heard her laughing later, it had been two years!

I worked with the husband on stress relief and we created a plan of action for him. Found ways he could get back to his favorite activity, body building. How great for him to get away from the stresses and release endorphins back into his system as well. There is more work to be done with this couple, but now their future’s so bright, they gotta wear shades!

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Monday Morning Musing….

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This weekend I had the opportunity to relax. What a blessing relaxation is, a chance to regenerate body, mind and spirit. One of the ways I chose to relax was to go for a kayak ride with a good friend of mine. We loaded up the kayaks on the spur of the moment and headed to a nearby beach.

Launching the kayaks was done in a mangrove area, where there are trails for kayaks and canoes to go through, eventually finding their way to the Gulf Of Mexico. Going through the tiny trail was interesting. My friend I both commented how beautiful it was, the sun finding it’s way through the mangroves in patterns, the tangled roots that reached deep into the water and the occasional crab or lizard crawling up the roots. It was also a bit scary, the trail is narrow and there wasn’t always room for the oars. We found ourselves reaching for roots to move our vessels forward. At times, we could hear one another, but not see one another. We encountered another group heading in the opposite direction and had to make room to pass in area that was too small for one vessel!

Eventually, we found our way out to the most glorious view of the Gulf Of Mexico and nearby spoil islands. We paddled around, swam and had a fabulous time. It seemed to occur to both of us that this adventure was a metaphor for life. We had each other to share and knew we weren’t alone, yet, at times we couldn’t see one another. We saw the beauty in the dark mangrove pathways, yet, we still felt a bit of the fear of the unknown. When we got through the most difficult part of the trails, we came out to such amazing beauty. Still, this beautiful and bright tour of the Gulf, took greater strength to traverse, because of the currents.

Just when we thought we had experienced all the joy and beauty and even lessons we could from this event, something amazing occurred. We were paddling nearby shore, when we heard a deep breath. Immediately to my left, within reach of my kayak was a mother dolphin and her two calves. They rolled up out of the water and back under. They continued by, so peacefully. I turned and followed them for a bit, from a distance. There are those who say that dolphins represent good luck or prosperity. To me, the good luck was just being so close to them in that moment. I definitely felt the abundance of life in that moment.

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Entrecard And My Buddy At Fantasy Baseball

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This is primarily for other bloggers who are members of Entrecard. If you aren’t, you reallly might want to consider it. It has been a great community for me, a newbie at blogging.

Anyway, one of the first people to step up and help me understand “the system” was Stan of Fantasy Baseball. He is a genuine guy, although he loves to act tough and will often tease others in the Ecard community. He has been my hero for awhile. I know of another he gave moral support to, when the kid needed it as well.

Well, Stan decided to have a contest and because it was Stan, I agreed to be one of the sponsors. So here goes, this is a list of the sponsors and prizes. One of the rules of the game, I am to list the prize I most want. I think I would like to be on the Diet Pulpit banner, myself.

By the way, I am not listed by my blog name, unlike every other blogger here. No, Stan just calls me The Hypnotist. There are other Ecard Hypnosis blogs, but to him I am The Hynotist. That’s ok, he actually called me sweet once in the forums too, shows what he knows. right?


SPONSORS

Fantasy Baseball – 10,000ec — You can trade in 10,000ec for, like, Graham’s car or something.
Q3-n – 5000ec — Q3-n is selling their 1950s dinette furniture to finance this contest. They say, “You’re welcome.”
Øblog – 4000ec — Wow! 4000ec is going for like $30 on the Entrecard market. Thanks, Weird Oh.
Evil Woobie – 3000ec — Hey, maybe she’s not so evil after all! Or is she? You make the call!
Turnip of Power – 1001ec — He was going to go with 1000 then he found an extra credit in his couch. Thanks, Turnip!
Celebrity Pictures – 1000ec — Credits were acquired through legal means. Supposedly.
Evil Entrecard Kid! – 1000ec — Entrecard trivia: Evil Woobie and Evil Entrecard Kid are not related. Yet.
Modern Glam – 1000ec — With the 1000ec, perhaps you’ll buy an imaginary 1000ec pashmina and hang it around your virtual neck.
Dot Com Mogul – 1000ec — With this 1000ec, you might be able to buy back Q3-n’s dinette furniture.
Blabberwocky – 1000ec — It’s a play on Jabberwocky.
Looking For Scoop – 1000ec — Nothing says “I can buy one popular ad” like 1000ec.
Eyespi20.com – 1000ec — And she’ll teach you how she does that weird signature thing. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, look at her site.
Travelin’ Show – 1000ec — Message from the year 2012: Macy’s is now taking credits and a 1000 gets you one earring.
The Hypnotist – 1000ec — She will put you under a spell. Recognize!
Diet Pulpit – 1000ec — You can buy a lot of imaginary rice cakes with 1000ec. Side note, imaginary rice cakes taste better than real ones.
The Realtor – 500ec — You want insight. Listen to her write. It’s like magic beans growing in the backyard of your brain.
Romelo – 500ec — Romelo, Romelo, wherefore art thou 500ec?
WebATBP.com – 500ec — With gas prices soaring, it won’t be too long before 500ec goes for 501ec.
Inspire Emotion – 500ec — Almost pay for your favorite 512ec ad!
Sue Doe-Nim – 500ec — She’ll probably give you the credits then mock you for wanting them. That’s right — bonus!
Thailand Land of Smiles – 500ec — Actually, that’s 500 smiles.
FitnessLifeClub – 500ec — You’ll have to promise not to blow these credits on any fattening foods.
Lisa Cooking – 500ec — Surprise the whole family with 500 Entrecard credits.
JunkieYard Dot Com – 500ec — If you put these credits in a 401K, in 45 years you’ll have enough credits for a free e-card.
Movie Reviews – 500ec — You can’t buy a movie ticket with Entrecard credits. Yet. (Graham twirls his mustache. Contemplating world domination.)

PRIZES THAT ARE NOT CREDITS (BUT STILL WONDERFUL):

Aerten Art – She’s donating a painting. Seriously. Go look at her site and tell me you wouldn’t want a painting. Now. We’ll wait.
ImpNERD – 125×125 ad for a month — Let’s see, ImpNERD usually sells advertising for 256ec/day. You get this for a month. Um, yeah, you want this.
PoemsofQuotes – A cheesy poem about the winner’s topic — Win this and then ask them to rhyme something with, “Orange.”
Eyespi20.com – A custom made 125×125 card. Some of you need this. You know who you are.
Diet Pulpit – One week ad spot right below the banner and a personal greeting from Lady Rose saying, “Congratulations!”
JunkieYard Dot Com – Three blogroll links. Okay, the thing is, you can’t just get these. They’re prizes only won here.
The Hypnotist – A Hypnotic Audio – I don’t think this will simply be trance music. I could be wrong.

Yes, it is an actual hypnosis audio, not just music!

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Friday Silliness

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This Friday I will suspend the silliness slightly. It is Independence Day (aka 4th of July) here in the United States of America. I am proud of my country and the freedoms we have.

When I was younger my mother took me to see a Peanuts movie. It began with the playing of the National Anthem by Snoopy before the Peanuts gang began a baseball game. My mother stood up during the anthem, no one else in the theater did. She was upset by that and let it be known loudly to the entire theater. I was mortified, after all, it was only a cartoon. Since then, I have matured (hopefully) and come to realize respect is respect. I am proud of my country and thankful to every soldier that has given service to this great nation, regardless if I agree with the politics of the wars.

So, in honor of today, I am linking to that movie moment. Just know, that I am standing in front of my computer as I listen!

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Happiness

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Do a simple Google search on any subject and millions of possible answers are listed. Your brain has the same ability for viewing any experience or thought in your life. So, what if you took any situation in your life and rather than worry about the outcome, you decided to go to the best case scenario?

Through hypnosis you can change your thoughts. Hypnosis allows the neuro-peptide chemicals in your brain and the receptor sites within the cells to create real happiness, thus allowing pride, contentment and serenity to become a reality. Using your mind’s amazing ability to find the source of misery and conflict you release the pain, reframe the experiences and move towards a dynamic new you. You can create optimism and hope and enjoy pleasure and gratitude.

Perhaps some questions to ask yourself when you are feeling challenged would be:

  • How can I use this situation to my advantage?
  • How can this be a real opportunity for me?
  • How can I grow from this experience?
  • What can I learn from this experience?

If you can think any thought you choose, you can choose to think an optimistic thought. Thinking thoughts is the beginning to finding solutions, so think about things you can do in the situation to make your life easier.

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Five Simple Rules

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There is an adorable blog I visit frequently. It is called The World Of Silly Willy and Fluffy. These two clowns (literally, I am not name calling) do some wonderful things for others to bring joy into this world. On Monday they posted Five Simple Rules To Be Happy!

Please stop over and read them, you’ll be glad you did!

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