Hello everybody.
Since about half a year, i am recovering from a set of psychological problems (self worth problems, porn addiction, lonelyness, etc) - and i have made great success by repeatedly listening to affirmations, meditation and hypnotherapy. I specifically want to highlight one professional clinical hypnotherapist whose work i enjoy a lot. The link is from their blog, where you can buy a few things to listen to.
But they also have a youtube channel, which i recommend. Some files i enjoyed a lot:
- 10 Minute Guided Meditation - I love My Body https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJZHi0aTWfM
- Train Your Brain To Focused On The Long Term Goal Hypnosis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl_6CUOATlg
- Freedom From Perfectionism Hypnotherapy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52N-DBA2FCo
how and why does it work?
(i am not a professional, my explanation might be slightly wrong)
when you have psychological problems like bad self worth, then this is also implemented in a set of thoughts in your brain. So your brain believes deeply that it makes sense to have a bad self worth. When you listen to positive suggestions that say otherwise, the brain thinks this is not true and rejects that. However, this control mechanism by the brain can be reduced/turned off when you are deeply relaxing.
Like: while sleeping, your brain is sometimes very active. This is the subconscious, that tries to process things in dreams for instance. There, the control mechanism are obviously shut down. When you are deeply relaxed, this state is not similar to sleep, but similar to a state right before sleeping.
And hypnotherapy first have a deep relaxation part to reduce the brains control mechanism where the suggestions are more effective. However, the subconciousness also has some protections, which means listening to bad things will still be rejected by the brain. so you are safe.
And secondly: the brain learns through repetition, so thats why repeatedly listening to the affirmations (even while doing sports or hanging up washed clothes!) makes your brain believe things over time. The resistance protecting the bad self worth will be reduced over time, making it easier to overwrite it with something healthy.
In general, it works a lot with your imagination. So for instance, the link about perfectionism is about you writing examples of perfectionism on some board and then you imagine to clean the board again and feel relief. Then you start write new things you want to learn instead.
how has it helped me?
- my addiction kicks in when i feel especially bad about myself. for instance when i feel not beautiful and attractive. The "i love my body" affirmations are great for remembering to care about myself. This worked wonders.
bad things?
yes! hypnotherapy is not magical and you have to be careful. For instance, i have once listened to a hypnotherapy file from this person where you would try to feel strongly about the bad things you want to cut ties with (in my case, my porn addiction), and then stuffing everything into a backpack and boxing it and walking away from it (i think). While great in theory, it didn't work for me and i was left with the strong imagination on my porn addiction, leading to a relapse.
Basically, it strongly depends on your specific situation. These files are not specifically for your triggers, for your situation and therefore some might not work.
Therefore, i made more success with the positive hypnotherapy/meditation/affirmations stuff.
So be careful. I recommend to first listen to things while having full attention and looking inside your heart, how you feel what the person says. When it feels great, you can do it while relaxing.