A time of change

At this time of year we see many hypnotherapists, diet clubs, weight loss clinics, stop smoking clinics and ad after ad on the TV telling you that they can help you stop eating, smoking and drinking and/or helping you to exercise more. But is this really what you want to do?

The fact is most people want to carry on doing what they are doing. Generally they enjoy doing what they are doing that’s why they do it. Ideally they want to just take a “magic pill” and for the problem to go away. However we know that overeating, smoking and drinking can be detrimental to our health. So what can we do? Quite simply the best way forward is to change our desires and behaviours. If we no longer desire to overeat, smoke or drink that is effectively a “magic pill”.

Hypnotherapy is about changing behaviours, not forbidding behaviour or forcing you to do anything. The mistake many therapists, diet clubs and clinics make is to create the “forbidden fruit”. Through our practice we have seen thousands of smokers, weight loss clients, drinkers and many others with addictive behaviours and we have noticed that the more these clients are told they must not do something the more they want to, creating an even bigger desire to indulge in the behaviour that they want to change.

At the Surrey Institute we take a different approach. Our behaviours and desires are part of our subconscious mind so any attempt to change behaviours at a conscious level will be extremely hard at best and nie on impossible at worst. What we do know is that hypnotherapy is very effective at changing things at the subconscious level. Just suppose we changed the desire for your inappropriate behaviours. E.g. lets imagine for example that YOU have decided that you are eating too many crisps each day, say three packets a day, and YOU decide that this behaviour is inappropriate. We would help you to change this behaviour so perhaps whenever you are confronted with crisps (even seeing a packet in the cupboard) you would link it to a food that you have NO DESIRE for, perhaps “lard” (or anything that you find un-appetising). If that occurred, how much desire would you have for that behaviour? Obviously each person is different with different triggers, dislikes and desires. This is why our programmes are specifically tailored to each client. One size does not fit all.

So when you decide to give up this or that, why not try something different. Why not try and change the your beliefs that surround the behaviour. Always remember it’s not that you are bad, greedy, stupid, ignorant, stubborn or have no will power. It’s just that you have some behaviours that are inappropriate.