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One costume that has been making the rounds before Halloween is even here is the scary clown, not to be mistaken for the beloved circus clown. They have created a lot of fear as there have been sightings of these clowns along roadsides. Some reports speak of an attempt to pull children away from safety. Here is an article from Scientific American that explains a little bit about clowns and fear and the current trend going on. I found it interesting reading.

Why Clowns Creep Us Out

Just a reminder, if you have an irrational or paralyzing fear of clowns, hypnosis can help you!

“I wish that I could be like the cool kids,” is the hook for the hit song by Echosmith, with over 68 million views. At one time or another you may have been preoccupied by the idea that someone, somewhere, is having a better time, making more money, or living a more exciting life.  Social media has made our lives public and we feel the need to make our lives seem glamourous. We take selfies in glamorous places, we post our every meal and drink and we tag one another at galas. All in the name of proving we are one of the cool kids. Thus, in 2013 the term FoMO (Fear of Missing Out) was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.

There isn’t anything wrong with wanting to keep tabs on friends and family, it is a part of our humanity to want to be social. However, our party selfies are having a whole lot more fun than we are. We share links to news articles in order to look savvy and yet according to research done by Columbia University and the French National Institute we don’t read what we are sharing!  (Yes, I read the report.) This causes me to think about the Jimmy Fallon Lie Witness News bits where he interviews people with fake facts and they answer as if they had seen it on social media.

We enjoy a pants free night. You know the kind of evening where we can sit around the house and binge watch the latest episodes on Netflix or maybe even play endless hours of chase the string with Kitty. It could include take out for dinner or trying a new recipe. It is just nice to have that time at home without obligations.

Apparently that concept is catching on. There is a new phrase in town, PoMO or Pleasure of Missing Out. According to Yelp Eat24 CEO Mike Ghaffary, the delivery orders have risen by over 50% in the past several years.  When people opt out of all the events they are invited to attend on Facebook, Twitter, Meet UP, etc. they leave room for breathing. They create space for real connections and they save money that could be used for say, a vacation? To me, this is a wonderful reframe. Perhaps we can live in a world full of social media and still find time to put down the phone. Maybe connecting with our friends and neighbors can once again become enriching. More importantly, imagine taking time to connect with your true self? I have mentioned before how our addiction to technology can be dangerous if we don’t remain aware. If you want to go from FoMO to PoMO and need some help with that, think about trying hypnosis. Now that is a real connection with yourself!

The Fourth of July is almost here and recipes for everything barbecue and decadent are all over the media. Fourth of July parties are being planned. The fireworks are set for display. In fact, one town near me has already had their fireworks show, so that locals could get in as many shows as possible. I love the anticipation, the joy and the excitement this all brings. More important though is what all of this symbolizes. We are celebrating freedom. The freedom of our country yes, but I believe it is a deeper freedom we want to celebrate.

We are born with a psychological freedom, by that I mean a detachment from labels, styles, failures, possessions, occupations and more. We arrive in this world naked and pure. As we grow, one by one the layers are placed upon us. We learn to “fit in”. We are given labels and uniforms. The purity turns to judgement, the harshest is what we heap on ourselves. We begin to find more and more reasons we don’t measure up, which means we have to work harder at obtaining labels that we believe will free us.

My clients come from all walks of life. Some are wealthier than others, some are more classically beautiful and some are more social. The one thing all of them have in common is that they see themselves as “broken” in some way. Eventually, freedom has been reduced to an impossible label of perfection. If they could only lose more weight, speak more clearly, be a better athlete, then they will be free to be themselves.

I will ask my clients, if you were to have already accomplished your goal, how would you be different? Some will say they will feel better about themselves, others tell me how they will be happier, less fearful or any variety of feelings that freedom brings. I will ask them to imagine how that feels. How it might look if they were free. I want to know what their inner dialogue might sound like if they were free.

Next we take the abstract concept of personal freedom and transform it into something more concrete. I have had clients identify the negative sensations as shapes, colors, textures and even scents. We find where it resides in the body and I will ask them if they can hand what they have just identified over to me. From there, we may shrink it, move it, shred it or even flush it in the commode!

Once the old concept is gone, it is time to fill the space it occupied with the sense of having achieved the goal. Filling themselves with freedom is a lighter and happier experience.  We naturally move away from pain towards pleasure. This makes the process of filling the empty space with goodness a natural one. As we practice those feel good moments, they become more and more comfortable and natural to us.

The Fourth of July And Your Freedom

Maybe it is time for you to experience freedom.

You can choose from the list below and declare on this Fourth Of July that you are now free.

I am FREE from:

• my ego
• the blame game
•  depression
• shame
• pride
• ego based anger
• having to justify myself
• the fear of self-ridicule
• self-doubt
•  self-damning
• manipulation of my ego
• the game of pride or shame
• the lies of self-esteem
• the pressure to be something
• the pressures to become something
• ego based anxiety
• having to prove myself

Enjoy your barbecues, parties and celebrations. When you watch the fireworks this year, celebrate true freedom, personal freedom not only this Fourth of July but everyday beyond!

At the end of my yoga class today this song played. It reminded me of this video that I had put together six years ago. I still feel the same about my life and gratitude, so I thought it might be fun to post again!

I thought I might be Gollum, you know the fictional character from Lord Of The Rings. Like Gollum, I have coveted something “precious” in the past and it has stolen my joy. But after researching more about Gollum and his psychological profile, I am relieved to say I am not him. Still, the truth is, I have envied others and it did steal the joy from that moment.

What I have come to realize is that it is up to me whether I enjoy my life. I can see the beauty in my morning walks and feel gratitude that I am able to walk safely where I live or I can resent that I have to get up and out by a certain time every day in order to keep my dog from having accidents and keep up with my work schedule. I can enjoy creating fun and different dinners each night with my husband or I can feel put upon that I have to cook. If a friend or neighbor gets a newer and fancier vehicle than mine, does that diminish that I have a safe mode of transportation?

I recently spoke with a client who expressed that she was angry with the Universe because she thought she might not get a job she had interviewed for, her gym was possibly closing and she had to delay a home improvement project due to finances, while someone she knew had just won $5000.  When we broke things down into smaller chunks, she realized life might not be all that bad. The job had not been assigned to anyone yet and she was still a candidate. Furthermore, she currently has a very good job. The gym was still open and she had also signed up for some classes in another club where she was making new friends. While the home improvement project might be delayed, she has a lovely home for her and her children to live in. So, maybe she isn’t the Universal Hacky Sack?

Her real issue was something totally different and she had begun to allow that situation to color all of her thinking. She is not alone in doing that. To some extent, it seems we all do. We allow one aggressive driver who cuts us off to change our mood for the day. If you break things down into numbers and percentages though, how much of your total day did you deal with that one incident? I am not fond of being left on hold for twenty minutes by customer service, but out of 24 hours, it is really less than one percent of my day.  When I remember that, I can choose to use the time more constructively. I can deep breathe, color or doodle, clean out my spam files; there are any numbers of possibilities. Imagine if I took that time to make a gratitude list, so that the next time I felt jealous of someone else, I could pull it out and remember why my life is so good?

Had to share this…

Debbie Lane – Wisdom Hypnosis

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