Anxiety Control Center

My dad just gave me a note that he had been carrying around with him for the past 2 years.  I had sent him the  note  when he was grieving the loss of his wife of 32 years. I am reprinting it her in hopes that it can help others who are grieving, as it helped my dad.  I have removed the very personal parts and just left the information I sent him about how to change feelings  by  creating pictures and  thoughts that create pleasant scenes rather than ones of pain and sadness.

USING THE MIND-BODY CONNECTION TO GAIN CONTROL OVER EMOTIONS

Dad read this, I hope it might help in some way, with you pain and loneliness you are feeling.  Dad, in this very sad time I realize how hard it is to believe you will ever feel happy again.  And grief is normal and expected when you lose someone you love.  But, as the months have passed  I listen to you, and as you describe the pictures you are remembering they are about feeling hopeless because of the pain and suffering you keep seeing your wonderful wife going through.   I see how these “pictures”  affects you as you relive those traumatic memories.   Yet, I also hear you talking  about many wonderful times you had together before her illness, but almost as soon as you have those thoughts the pictures of pain and sadness, overtake you again.   I am sending you some thoughts that come from the book I wrote called, Power of Thought.   I know what a positive person you have been your whole life.  Always finding the “silver lining” no matter how hard the situation, and I hope as you read the words they will remind you of how to do this again.  Perhaps you will use you wonderful creativity to add to my thoughts on this and use your thoughts and memories in a way that creates sweet joy, instead of horror and pain.

Dad here is the excerpt, I’m not editing it too much.  First I want to say that it’s important to know that  emotions are brought on by the thoughts and pictures we create.  A thought is an image that you project.   It has force and energy and carries vibrations that move throughout the mind and body.  A vibration, as I am using the word  is an energy wave or feeling that comes from the mind of the thinker.  Vibrations that come from thoughts have an impact on the mind and body.  Thoughts and the vibrations attached to them, function like a magnet that attracts similar thoughts. So when you have painful thoughts they attract more memories of pain and sadness. And,  you can change your thoughts to ones that create peaceful feelings, and they will attract other memories and feelings of peace and balance.

Even if the images that are created  are not on the conscious level, they still vibrate within your system.  The more emotion a thought holds, the more impact the “thought, picture or vibration” will have.

No matter what is going on in life, people can learn to be in command of the thoughts they create.  Even when there are stressors and events outside of your control, your thoughts can be developed in a way that has a positive impact, even changing  how you interpret  events.  Dad, I know that you have used this technique many times in the past, like the time you went to get the wig for your wife, after chemo, and you were so touched and happy about how caring the person who helped you was, you came back from that appointment feeling uplifted, even though the situation was still a difficult one. So you already understand that, no matter what events may have transpired  your mind can  create thoughts that enhance your well-being.  Your own mind, and the thoughts you create, can be the most powerful resource for you when you use it in this enhancing way.  So continue to guide your thoughts with positive energy, putting a positive spin on even a “negative” event.

I haven’t sent you the previous chapters which have an introduction on how old events influence a person’s present outlook, because I know how you have used your mind in a positive way through out my growing up years. So, I’m not sending you the discussion on creating the deep change, by clearing out old limiting beliefs and repressed emotions.

I am reminding you that without even doing deep change work, to release those old sad memories and trauma of the past few years, you can make changes using your thoughts to re-program  the way your mind works, creating thoughts and pictures that work better that those of pain and loss. This is powerful way to reduce sadness, loneliness and stress.  So remember pictures and thoughts that lead to reactions can be changed on a conscious level (as you know we did some unconscious work to get rid of your headaches, and we can do some more NLP work if you want to change the mental images that are troubling you, but for now start being curious about new images you create.  For every negative one, create two that work better.   I know it is a “push” to do this when you are sad, yet it really can make a powerful difference in your emotional state.   I’ll talk to you more about this later.    Just wanted to have it in writing so you can refer to these notes when you want.

Remmeber your body is a complex living system,  every part affects every other part, including your emotions and you healing.  Your thoughts create physical reactions, such as the clenching in your stomach after a particularly traumatic memory.  Even a quick thought can generate a physical reaction in the body.  For example, just thinking about a fun vacation you had, remember the boat trip in the blue lagoon in Italy, I can see you smiling as you talk about it.   That memory created a reaction or vibration in your body, as if it were happening in the present.   What you think has an impact on the “vibrations” that are sent throughout your body.  So, the way a you think can lead to positive vibrations, which lead to feelings of happiness, joy and contentment.    So I leave you with this to think about, I know you have already created a path of positive memories, so this is just a gentle reminder in how to use your mind in this time a recovery.  With all my love. Audrey

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Continuation for yesterdays post on creating the state of mind your desire.

I welcome your feedback and questions, and will write more on specific issues you send in.  To contact me with your questions click here.

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The formula for Life Changing Mantras

Quite simply, mantras are the things we tell ourselves. For example, on the golf course if you felt annoyed because of a badly played hole, it wouldn’t be a problem if you were able to start fresh on the next hole.  But when one negative thought leads to the next, it can destroy your focus for the rest of the game, and even follow you after you leave the course. In this case you have a negative mantra that is playing havoc with your state of mind.  There are 7 steps you can put into play to stop this disabling habit of negative mantras.

When people think of mantras they usually think about those used in eastern religions for positive spiritual change.  And although you might not have such a fancy name for it, the chances are that you probably use positive mantras yourself, everyday.    A mantra could be what you say to yourself to get psyched up for a big meeting,  a golf tournament or going out to a social event.  Or what you tell yourself in order to stay positive when life is getting you down. When mantras are positive and constructive, they can help us enjoy our lives and achieve our goals.  But the negative things we tell ourselves can also act as mantras, leading us in an undesired direction.

Negatives mantras “playing in the back of your mind” can cause. . .   more to come tomorrow.

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Sorry for the delay in this post. Some family issues came up.  Luckily my family members are familiar with many of  the stress relief exercises I teach and they told me how much it helped to have them ready to  use in their “stress relief tool box.”  Happily things are fine with my family now.

There are many ways to reduce stress.  In the  following exercise we will be changing negative  thoughts and images to change the anxiety/stress  cycle.    By making changes using the conscious part of your mind,  you can begin to re-program your reactions.   The beauty of this exercise is that it can help change old patterns of thinking, without your having to do deep change work on the unconscious level.  The down part is that it does take work to change a habit on the conscious level, but you will find it is well worth your time.

The exercise I am describing today stops the stress cycle at the cognitive level  by changing scary  “thoughts”  into equally possible images that will serve to create calm instead of fear.  There are other exercises to release anxiety at the physical and emotional part of the stress cycle which use hypnotic techniques to get to unconscious information at the root of the problem.

It is important to understand that your own thoughts create physical reactions.  Even a quick thought can generate a physical reaction in the body.  For example, when you  imagine biting into a lemon your body creates a puckering in your mouth as you “taste” the lemon.  Your thoughts touch off and trigger a physical reaction.  Although there wasn’t a “real” lemon, the reaction was the same “as if” there was.  If one never had tasted a lemon, there would be no reaction..

Thinking about someone you love will create a very different reaction or vibration in the body than thinking of a situation that caused upset.    What you think has an impact on the “vibrations” that go through your  body.

Therefore the way you use your mind can lead to positive vibrations, which lead to feelings of happiness, joy and contentment.   Or to uncomfortable vibrations which lead to feelings of anger, upset, hurt or anxiety.

Use this exercise to change thought patterns.  Whenever an old unwanted thought pops up,  change it to a more positive image and then  “steps into” the new desired image, as if it were real.  You are already good at this if you have created anxiety using your thoughts, we are just using your thoughts in a way that will work better for your health and well begin.    The more you use this technique (by stepping into the positive image)  the more power the image will feel.

Using your imagination to “be in the positive future image” works in a number of ways.  It not only changes the negative image – it also actually begins to creates a new “memory.”  The mind stores the new image, as if it had already happened.  For this type of technique to be effective, the new positive image needs to be just as strong as the old “scary” image.  There are  hypnotic ways of creating powerful images that you can also learn,  they will be more powerful and work more quickly than just using the conscious part of your mind,  but this is a good place to start.

In my next post I will give a detailed worksheet for using this method of changing negative thought to positive ones.  It is called the “2 for 1 Exercise” because you will need to create 2 positive thoughts for each negative you.

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Have you ever been watching your child at play, feeling love and joy and all of a sudden find your thoughts spinning off into all sorts of worry? Has one worrisome thought ever brought on a terrible cycle of more fearful thoughts?  If this has happened you are not alone.

Sometimes worry is a fleeting feeling of concern which is just a part of being a parent, trying to protect a child. But, for parents of children who have special needs it is understandable that worry can take on a whole new meaning. The reality is, that your child has to overcome additional hardships and you are now dealing with the additional stress that comes with loving and caring about your child.  Wanting to protect your child and at times feeling helpless not knowing what the future will hold.   When we create thoughts about possible negative future concerns, ones that are outside of anyone’s control these types of worry serve no positive purpose.  And these are the ones we will talk about changing because they can create great pain that mixes in with the joy and love of your child.

Before I talk about techniques to stop worry in its tracks, let’s look at the positive purpose of worry.  It can alert you to things that need to be taken care of, or of consequences of certain actions.  Worry can keep you watchful for symptoms that indicate a possible life-threatening problem, or it can motivate you to take care of something that needs to be done.  But when worry starts to cycle into all sorts of negative, scary future possibilities over which you have no control it stops serving a positive purpose.

So, why are some people more prone to worry than others? The reason people react differently is rooted in what they experience in childhood.  Children learn patterns to deal with stress that serve a positive purpose at the time, but many times these patterns are no longer useful for the adult.  Children also form beliefs in childhood continue to run in adulthood.  I had a client who believed that worrying about someone meant that she cared.  You can see how difficult it would be for her to stop worrying about those she cared about, until she was able to change that old belief.  I had another client who felt that if she didn’t worry something bad would happen.  She had an number of experiences in her very traumatic childhood where she learned that just it wasn’t safe to just be, she had to run every possible consequence through her mind to keep her safe from her alcoholic parent.  She learned that worry protected her, so that even as an adult, she found it difficult to let go of the old belief that if you don’t worry something bad will happen.  There are techniques to change these types of patterns and beliefs, which are best done with someone trained in Transformation System techniques.  There are also techniques to use your own thoughts to change patterns, and that is what I will share with you today.

It may surprise you to learn that you can get relief from even the most painful feelings. These techniques are easy to learn and with practice they can become part of a new way of reacting to worry

If you feel anxiety, worry, sadness or even anger, you already have the secret of changing these feeling. It does require knowing how your mind works which gives us information that can be used to change old patterns.  More on this in my next post tomorrow.

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Question:  Are there different techniques that can be used to get relief from worry?
There are many different ways to stop negative thoughts that results in  stress and worry.  We can break the stress cycle in three different areas.  There are techniques that work on the thought or cognitive part of the worry cycle.  I will give an example of something you can put to use right away for this part of the worry cycle.

There are also techniques that are easy to learn for the physical part (that includes the reactions of your body).  One technique is designed to change the breathing pattern and is called the HAAA breath.

And there are very advanced techniques that be used on emotional part of the cycle.  These usually involve the help of someone trained in techniques of hypnotherapy, time line and vibrational healing.  These techniques go to the root of where reactions come from and heal them there.  After doing this type of work people say that is feels like a weight is lifted off of them

The technique I will share today breaks the worry cycle by changing thoughts that create stress.

The secret to getting relief from worry.
You have a special gift inside of your own mind, just waiting to be opened.  It is one you can learn to use to stay in control of your state of mind, no matter what is going on around you.

This secret is what Viktor Frankl used, that allowed him to survive the holocaust and maintain his mental balance.   It is what author Napoleon Hill weaves into his famous advice on achieving financial success in “Think and Grow Rich.” And it is something that you have within yourself right now, like a gift, all wrapped up waiting for you to unwrap and put into immediate use.

Anyone can learn to use this gift.  And the really amazing thing about this gift is that it never gets used up. The more you use it the more powerful it becomes.

There are 2 things you need to open and use this wonderful gift to control your emotional state at will.  The first is an understanding of how the mind works, both on the conscious and unconscious level. And the second is the step-by-step method of creating what you want in your life, instead of what you don’t want.

To understand the way your mind works, it’s important to know the two major ways that people create negative, uncomfortable feelings.

1) Thinking about upsetting past events.
2) Thinking about awful things that might happen in the future

When you concentrate on all the possible negative scenarios that have happened in the past or might come about in the future, the thoughts, pictures and memories that move through your mind trigger feelings of worry, sadness, overwhelm, fear and insecurity. Thoughts can even create pain in the body. Sometimes you are aware of the thoughts, and at other times you are completely unaware.

The good news is that you can get relief from even the most painful feelings by learning to change thought patterns that bring them about.   More on this in my post tomorrow

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Changing the Breathing Pattern

The calming “HA” Breath for relaxation and beginning self-hypnosis

START with the calming  “HAAA BREATH.”
It is the easiest way to begin changing the stress response.

The calming HAAA Breath is the beginning step in the process of
gaining relaxation when you want it.

It is one of the easiest skills to use.  The only effort required
is to learn proper breathing patterns.

This new pattern changes the message in the brain from,
send more adrenaline to things are safe, no more adrenaline is needed.

This breath leads to a settling down feeling in the body
as the body again seeks balance.

DIRECTIONS: HAAA Breath, the 60 Second Instant Relaxer

1.  Start this exercise with a short 2-second inhalation.

2.  Hold your breath for the count of 4.

3. Next you exhale with your mouth open, making a soft “HAAAA” sound for the count of at least eight seconds. The longer you exhale, the better this exercise will work for you.

An important part of this exercise, is to
make a sound like you are saying a soft “HAAAA”

4.  When you have released as much breath as you think you can, push out a little bit more.

5.  Then, inhale gently for the count of 6 to 8.

6.  Hold for the count of 4.

7.  Continue with step #3 (exhale).

8.  Repeat two more times.

A complete breath consists of three full repetitions
that are done at least 3 times a day:
1.  Upon arising
2.  At lunchtime
3. When going to sleep
4.  In addition, do the HAAA breath in times of stress

This exercise is an excerpt from the book
Power of Thought – Untold Secrets of the Unconscious Mind.
by Dr. Audrey Sussman

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