My HypnoLife

01/02/2025

I speak to this concept often. I call it "toxic forgiveness" and it is a cultural construct that often serves to continue a cycle of victim blaming.

Forgiveness can be beautiful and healing, but it is a personal choice and it is equally appropriate to withhold forgiveness.

I regularly see people who have been used, abused, and gutted to their souls. Their shame is palpable as they physically wither before me, averting their eyes, and express guilt as they sheepishly say, "Yeah. I know I have to forgive..."

Toxic forgiveness revictimizes a victim. It tells a brutalized person that it does not matter what was done to them- but
"if YOU don't forgive your perpetrator, that something is wrong with YOU. That YOU are the guilty party. YOU are the sinner. YOU are unworthy of grace or forgiveness or freedom. YOU are the one in the wrong."

This is harmful and toxic ideology. If a person genuinely WANTS to forgive and release, then I can help with that. But if a person does not choose to forgive or isn't ready, there is ZERO pressure for them to do so. Anger and even rage is often a valid emotion that deserves to be respected and given a safe place to process.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1By2Ziw5FC/?mibextid=wwXIfr

01/02/2025

Alcohol- related anxiety, "Hanxiety" is a real thing and is caused by an interaction of chemicals in the brain. People who struggle with Generalized Anxiety Disorder or Social Anxiety may be particularly susceptible, although almost all drinkers have probably experienced this condition from time to time.

If you or someone you love suffers from anxiety, know that it is treatable and there are effective evidence-based interventions to help! Please reach out!

Hangxiety is a mashup of the word “hangover” and the word “anxiety,” and it combines distressing elements of both.

10/26/2024

“It’s only a game”
Therapeutic changes from an unlikely source

I would like to share a powerful and surprising new realization that touched me deeply. Often, healing can come from the most unexpected places. My heart feels so full.

My husband and I are gamers in our spare time and we love to play World of Warcraft Classic. A dear friend was recently working at a movie festival where a documentary premiered, called “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.” It tells the story of a man who was born with a genetic condition that bound him to a wheelchair and seemed to limit his life. His family was distraught that when he passed away at 25 years old, he had never had the opportunity to live, love, have a career, or make a difference in society. And then the letters began arriving from all over the world from “strangers” sharing their grief and telling his family how he impacted their lives personally. Mats was also a Warcraft gamer and played by the character name Ibelin.

Through the game, the boy who could not walk could run and fly and fight. The boy who could not go on dates fell in love. The boy who could not work had a profession. The boy who could not engage in the typical social activities of youth had a rich and meaningful world of friends.

I was struck at how this game could provide an outlet for those with similar restrictions. But the rabbit hole went even deeper.

One of his close friends in the game had a son who was severely autistic. The son could not stand being touched and could not tolerate being around people. He had confined himself to his bedroom and had refused to go to school. His relationship with his mother was severely strained and his mother felt powerless to change the situation. She confided in Ibelin whose deep wisdom shined through. Ibelin suggested that she encourage her son to also play Warcraft with her. If they could not connect in person, maybe they could connect through the game. It worked. The autistic boy who could not stand being in crowds found a safe place to be surrounded by others. The autistic boy who was afraid to speak to people slowly found his voice. The autistic boy who would not allow himself to be touched was able to hug his mother through his avatar.

In therapy for distressing thoughts, anxiety disorders, obsessions and compulsions, and numerous fears and phobias, the evidence based research shows that sitting with the discomfort through exposure allows the individual to desensitize to the unwanted feelings and that distress levels do reduce with repeated exposure. I was shocked, surprised, and deeply touched that through this role playing game, an individual could sit safely behind a computer screen, play a game, join a guild, build a community, interact with friends…. And through this safe and non-threatening space, begin to desensitize and complete the therapeutic goal of generalization. Eventually, what he could do in the game transferred to real life. The autistic boy could leave his room, speak to people, return to school, and hug his mother.

I would encourage you to watch this movie. Keep your Kleenex handy.

The secret life of a young World of Warcraft gamer is vividly reimagined when his online friends contact his family after his death.

10/19/2024

Distressing, Unwanted, Obsessive, or Ruminating Thoughts: THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
If you have ever taken meds for anxiety, I have important information at the end of this article.
Distressing, unwanted, unhelpful, ruminating thoughts. They happen to all of us from time to time and are a normal part of being a healthy, fully functioning individual. Even those really gross ones- they happen to us all. The fact that distressing thoughts exist may be unwanted or uncomfortable when they pop up, but in most cases, they are not problematic. But what happens when they DO become problematic, intrusive, and disruptive to our daily lives and general sense of peace?
My purpose here is not to give a step-by-step of how to deal with this issue, but to fly up to about 500 feet and look at the big picture goals.
Let's look at what is happening inside the brain. Think of **EVERYTHING** that you have a concept of as having its own box inside your brain. Boxes are connected to other boxes. Some of those links may be very weak and some may be very strong. There is a saying that "Neurons that fire together wire together." What does this mean? It means that the more a link is reinforced inside the brain, the stronger that link becomes. Emotions have the role of telling the brain which of those is important. The problem is NOT "having a distressing thought", but the person's emotional relationship to the thought. When a distressing thought arises and you respond with very strong emotion, your response tells the brain that "this is REALLY important and we NEED to hold onto this for survival." A strong emotional response actually strengthens the link, strengthens the thought or image, and in this example, strengthens the distress.
There is another saying that "What you resist, persists." So when it comes to distressing or obsessive thoughts, AVOIDANCE DOES NOT WORK. It actually has the opposite effect of increasing anxiety, strengthening that unwanted link, and makes the brain EVEN MORE prone to serving up that unwanted or distressing thought or image. It is impossible to "just not think that."
The GOAL is to desensitize to the thought. To reduce the amount of emotional reactivity. To be able to simply observe the thought such as "Oh! Hi thought. There you are. I see you." and to come to the place where emotional distress is diminished. When this happens, the lack of reactivity gives your brain the space that it needs to weaken that link, to recognize it as less important, and to focus on other things. Eventually that unwanted thought has the freedom to either go away or to just simply fade into the background and be less intrusive.
I wish that doctors would provide more psycho-education about this when they prescribe medications for anxiety. Not everyone needs prescriptions. But if you do, they work as ONE approach to treat anxiety and obsessive, ruminating thoughts (you still need to work with a therapist to help with all of the other pieces necessary to successfully combat this situation). Meds are a mixed bag filled with pros and cons. As a con, they tend to dull the senses and make ALL emotions less reactive- even the positive and desirable ones. We don't get to choose which emotions they dull. But on the other hand, by decreasing the emotional reactivity to those highly distressing and intrusive thoughts, it gives the brain a break and the space it needs to begin to weaken the links. Then, when the time comes that you and your doctor decide to end prescription interventions, the brain has had a chance to "re-wire" so to speak. That is the goal of prescriptions for anxiety. You do still need therapy to help you learn what you need to heal and maintain as the other prongs of approach.
If more people understood the big picture and understood the goals, they would have more agency in recognizing success or in even knowing how to define success. They would be more involved in their own recovery rather than automatically assuming that meds are necessarily a "life sentence."

08/28/2024

Important information for loved ones of a person who has a Body-Focused Repetitive Behavior (See my previous post)

It can be distressing when you see your loved one damaging their body. It is natural to want to DO SOMETHING to make them stop. But shaming them, punishing them, and harassing them does not work. It can actually increase the feelings of anxiety that contribute to the behavior. While this is not necessarily an anxiety-caused behavior, and even if we could "cure anxiety" the behavior would not necessarily end, we DO know that anxiety is often a contributing factor.
Of course you want to say something when you see your loved one damaging themselves! That is understandable!
A better option would be to agree on a codeword that you can create together so that you can mention it in an empathic way that is free from judgment, disapproval, and simply brings awareness. But know that you are not responsible for how they respond.
We can use hypnosis to strengthen your codeword, as well as in the ways mentioned in my previous post. Comprehensive treatment will usually include more than hypnosis alone.
And finally, don't be surprised if your codeword needs to change from time to time. People can become desensitized to the effectiveness of a particular word.

08/28/2024

I would like to discuss "Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors "(BFRB). These are habits, both conscious and unconscious, that result in damage to the body, including hair pulling (trichotillomania), skin picking (excoriation), nail biting, cheek or tongue biting, lip biting or picking, and compulsive nose-picking.

Since I am always seeking to expand my toolbox and better serve the needs of my clients, I have received a certification in the treatment of Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to any issue, hypnosis can help with certain aspects of these conditions, and we can use hypnosis to help establish pieces of other evidence-based Cognitive Behavioral therapies such as Habit Reversal Training (HRT) and the Comprehensive Behavioral Model (ComB).

Hypnosis alone can often provide relief from repetitive body-focused behaviors using habit breaking techniques, but many clients may find that they need refreshers from time to time. (But wait- there's more!)

I really understand this issue. I have been a nail-biter and destroyer of cuticles since I was 12 years old. That is about the age that most BFRB's tend to emerge. I can tell you exactly where I was, what I was doing, and what I was thinking the first time I bit into my nail. Right now, I have 10 long nails and 10 cuticles that range from perfectly healthy to somewhat damaged. I have personally used hypnosis from a colleague that ended my nail biting habit for almost a year. But I found that with added stress, the habit returned. I have learned so much more about these habits since then!

These body-focused behaviors are best treated by taking a multi-prong approach.
We can use hypnosis and other cognitive therapies to increase our awareness of the unwanted habit (there is some really cool tech out there that can be programmed to alert a person to unconscious movements).
We can learn triggers that engage in competing responses to the behavior (for example, playing with putty or string when you feel the urge to pull hair.)
Hypnosis can help with alleviating the feelings of shame that often follow BFRB's.
Hypnosis can help with relaxation training and generalization skills,
and can help with "negative cognitions" that support the behavior (for example, a person who repeatedly injures themselves by picking scabs may have the thought that "I must ALWAYS have smooth skin.")

In addition to hypnosis, a solid treatment plan will involve so much more... social support and family education (See my next post), habit blockers, stimulus control, and an evaluation and response to the sensory, cognitive, emotional, motor, and environmental conditions that contribute to the behavior.

For example- for my OWN treatment, I am now keeping a bowl of sunflower seeds beside my living room chair. When I feel the urge to bite my nails or become aware of unconscious movements, I can reach for my sunflower seeds as a healthy and non-damaging alternative. There are so many fun things that we can do both in the office and at home to reduce and change these body-focused repetitive behaviors.

Success is NOT measured by NEVER engaging in the behavior again. Success is measured by reducing the behavior, by increasing awareness, and by use of alternates.

08/28/2024

Even more information about OCD!
As I mentioned in my last post about realistic expectations and goals of OCD treatment, people tend to culturally think of OCD as "being meticulous and orderly." In reality there are MANY types of OCD and ways that they manifest. I could go into deep detail about any one of these, but at a high level here are some common ones:
These are the ones people are most familiar with:
Contamination
Symmetry/Exactness/Order
But there are so many others:
-Aggression/Harm
-Doubting
-Religious/Moral/Scrupulous
-Sexual Obsessions
-Sexual Orientation Obsessions
-Gender Identity
-Loss of Impulse Control
-“Just Right” OCD
-Perfectionism
-Hyper-Responsibility
-Hyper-Awareness
-Meta OCD (OCD about having OCD)
-Real Event OCD
-Relationship OCD
-Postpartum
-Death/Existential
-Panic
-Body Image
-Social Anxiety
-Phobias
-Health Obsessions
I just want to point out that there is a difference between an OCD obsession and a values based behavior.
For instance, Relationship OCD is plagued by obsessive thoughts and fears that do not align with reality. A person is in an otherwise happy and fulfilling relationship but plagued by fear that may spark an obsession of constantly questioning, investigating, or seeking reassurance. This would be different than a values based behavior of a person who may have red flags that their partner is unfaithful and is gathering information to discern the truth.
Here is another: Some individuals truly ARE members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and it is reasonable for them to have thoughts, questions, perhaps even fears, regarding their authentic selves. In general though, authentic fears are *most often* dealing with how society will perceive them rather than an internal fear. This is appropriate values based questioning.
A gender identity or sexual orientation obsession is different. It would manifest as continuous intrusive and anxiety provoking thoughts such as "What if I'm really homosexual? What if I'm not really my gender? What if I'm really asexual? What if I'm really bi? What if I never figure it out? What if I'm in denial?" When you ask them, "What would you be doing if you never had this intrusive thought" they tend to answer, "I'd be happily living my life with my partner."
And one more: It is reasonable and values based behavior to seek medical intervention for a person experiencing frequent headaches. But a Health Obsession would become fixated. This would be the person who has a brain MRI and has ruled out any serious issues. They would tend to question the diagnosis. Get another doctor. Have more tests and more MRI's done. Constantly checking and confirming. Constantly researching and questioning results.

08/28/2024

Let's keep talking about OCD!
OCD has 2 major components. An obsession, and a compulsion that the individual engages in out of a desire to reduce the anxiety caused by the obsession. In reality, engaging in the compulsions only reinforces the cycle.
People tend to culturally think of OCD as being meticulous and orderly, but it is FAR more complex than that. I will discuss that in another post.
It is important with treatment of OCD that clients have realistic expectations. Too often, their expectations are unrealistic. Here is what we CAN'T do, (either with hypnosis or with ANY treatment), as much as I wish we could.
We can't get to a point of NEVER having another intrusive thought.
We can't come to a place of LIKING a recurrent, unwanted thought.
We can't "hypnotize away OCD", or make OCD disappear through any other treatment model.
We can't make the unwanted obsessions or compulsive behaviors "feel good."
We can't come to a place of NEVER having anxiety again.
And we can't guarantee that a feared event or consequence will absolutely never happen.
But here is what we CAN do, and what evidence based treatment models show is effective in treating OCD.
We can decrease the fear surrounding obsessions.
We can decrease compulsions.
We can learn to accept intrusive thoughts without being hijacked by them.
We can learn to tolerate uncertainty.
We can learn to decrease avoidance.
We can break the connection between an obsession and a feared consequence.
We can learn to resist the urge to "fix, fight, or avoid" intrusive thoughts, which are patterns that actually reinforce the obsession and only make them stronger.
The primary distortion of OCD deals with discomfort with uncertainty. "You feel as if you must have a 100% guarantee of safety or absolute certainty. Any hint of doubt, ambiguity, or the possibility of negative outcome (however small) is unacceptable."
One of the primary goals is to become more comfortable with uncertainty. The fact is that uncertainty is a fact of life. We DON'T know. That is a human experience. OCD fixates on that experience and inflates its importance. And rationalizing is not helpful. There may only be a .05% chance of something happening, but it isn't 0%. That's almost always true. And OCD cares about uncertainty, not probability. So learning to accept uncertainty is the goal. Not that you will ever LIKE uncertainty or be absolutely carefree about it, but that you come to a place where it is only a mild irritation (maybe a level 2 or 3) and not an anxiety provoking issue that causes anxiety at a 7 or higher.

08/28/2024

Let's talk about OCD!
It seems lately that I have had a significant increase in clients reaching out to me for help with "OCD and related disorders", which would include OCD, hoarding, body dysmorphic disorder, and what is referred to as Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors. I will talk more about that in a separate post.
While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to any issue, hypnosis can help with certain aspects of these conditions. Evidence based treatment for OCD shows that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Exposure and Response Prevention therapies (ERP) are most effective.
On average 1 in 100 people experience OCD, and it takes on average ***14 to 17 YEARS*** for someone to seek treatment. Once a person seeks treatment, 70% of people will benefit, and will show a 60% to 80% reduction in symptoms when engaged in Cognitive Behavioral Therapies.
Unfortunately, we can not "hypnotize away" OCD any more than we can "hypnotize away" diabetes. But in the same way that we can use hypnosis to control sugar cravings to address one component of diabetes, we can use hypnosis to assist in reducing the anxiety caused by uncertainty that underlies OCD patterns, to break the connections between an unwanted thought and fear of a consequence, to find acceptance of unwanted thoughts, etc. These are some of the main goals of evidence based treatment of OCD and related disorders. And we find progress moves even faster when we can combine the work that we do in hypnosis with traditional Cognitive Behavioral Therapies.

08/27/2024

I am soon going to be making a series of short educational and informative videos regarding hypnosis and hypnotherapy. What questions do you have that I can answer? 

Feel free to ask them here or if you prefer, you can send me a private message. 

06/25/2024

Healing the mind through relationship with others!

It has been scientifically proven that "social medicine" is a real thing! When we engage in HEALTHY social interactions with others, a number of beneficial physiological reactions happen:

- Cardiovascular reactivity reduces
- Blood pressure reduces
- Vulnerability to catching a cold reduces
-Anxiety reduces
-Cognitive decline is slowed
-Sleep improves
-depression improves
-cortisol (the "anxiety hormone") levels are reduced

Interestingly, cortisol level are reduced BY the increase of oxytocin. Oxytocin is the hormone sometimes referred to as "the love drug." It is a feel-good chemical released in the body that creates the feeling of attachment to others. People suffering from depression are found to have low levels of oxytocin. It has a positive link to feelings of relaxation, trust, and positive psychological stability.

So be sure that you seek out your Tribe and engage in healthy community.

"Your biological stress response is nudging you to tell another person rather than bottling it up."

06/19/2024

Treating trauma in a nutshell:

This is highly oversimplified, but may be helpful. There are about six different brain functions that we seek to improve when we are working to heal trauma. You can do several of these on your own!

1. You want to decrease your body's stress responses. ENGAGE IN RELAXATION TECHNIQUES.
2. You want to increase, strengthen, and repair the memory center of your brain by producing a restorative chemical called BDNF. NOTHING DOES THIS BETTER THAN EXERCISE.
3. You want to learn to be safe in your own body. NOVEL MOVEMENT SUCH AS YOGA, TAI-CHI, DANCE, BREATHWORK, AND GROUNDING EXERCISES CAN ACCOMPLISH THIS. (And seeking a professional trained in EMDR and Brain Spotting techniques can also help with this.) There are even some trauma-focused yoga classes available in some areas.

Several of these require the assistance of trained professionals:
4. You want your memory processing center to store and reconsolidate your memories differently. THIS CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED WITH EMDR. (EMDR can also help with regulating the feeling of being safely in your body)
5. You want to strengthen your ability to self-regulate. COGNITIVE THERAPIES ASSIST WITH THIS. You can also help yourself through MEDITATION.
6. You want to strengthen higher reasoning skills and executive function. COGNITIVE THERAPIES ALSO ACCOMPLISH THIS.

In summary, Relaxation, Exercise, Movement, and Meditation can all help you to heal different components of trauma. And a trained professional can help you bring it all together with a combination of EMDR, Brain Spotting, and Cognitive Therapy.

Here is a short funny video to amuse you as you think about your own traumas.

NAME IT TO TAME IT!!! I'M TRIGGERED features two roommates who use psychology AND NOW NEUROSCIENCE to discuss 'triggering' issues. ...