Hypnotherapy

It is estimated that one in four people experience insomnia at some point in their life. You need sleep to recharge your battery. Insomnia can leave you feeling drained and exhausted. When you haven’t rested well it makes it difficult to concentrate; it leaves you feeling irritable and challenged as you move through your day. It is worth it to establish a specific wind-down routine at the end of the day so you can slip into bed in a relaxed state. If you are concerned about falling asleep in the middle of hypnosis because you are overtired, don’t worry because you unconscious mind is always listening.

Many people with insomnia believe that they are not going to be able to sleep, which often means that they don’t. Imagine if you are a golfer and you are on your favourite golf course. You are approaching a water hazard, one that intimidates you. What do you do? You get out your best “water” ball because you know you are going to sink it. Well, you know where that is going. You’d be better off visualizing your ball flying high above the water right onto the green.

Sleep is the same. You have to change your way of thinking and visualize success. I remember when my partner and I both had trouble sleeping…just before closing our eyes we’d say “Good luck” rather than “Good night”. Not a good idea. I went for hypnosis for insomnia and fell asleep during the session. At first I was disappointed, but I knew that my unconscious mind was listening and the positive suggestions sunk in anyway. My sleeping has improved significantly. Part of the solution is simply believing that you will have a good sleep when you lay your head down on the pillow.

Hypnotherapy will help you to relax both mentally and physically. As part of your session you will establish a new bedtime routine. Relaxation techniques will help you to clear your mind of any worries or unfinished business lingering from the day. Often, following a hypnotherapy session you will sleep quite soundly due to the deep relaxation achieved during the session itself. Just imagine waking up and stretching your arms and saying…”Ah, that was a good one!”

Lack of confidence is all about uncertainty. How do you get to the point where can do something which frightens you so that it just isn’t scary anymore? Usually this happens by doing it again and again. Hypnotherapy can speed up this process. Often the challenge is just getting started. Wouldn’t you love to feel relaxed and self-assured when you walk into a room? Or approach new relationships with confidence and ease?

Most of us are born with a fairly high degree of self-confidence. We haven’t yet categorized ourselves as smart or dumb, beautiful or homely. We haven’t been influenced by the judgements, fears and the limitations of others. And then life happens. Somewhere along the way you learned to feel you are lacking. Anything you have learned, you can unlearn.

Are you that person who doesn’t feel comfortable with the opposite sex? You walk into a room and see people turning away from you? You probably feel tense, your breathing is shallow and your mind goes completely blank…and all of this happens despite the many hours you have spent rehearsing. Chances are that you are so caught up in how you feel that you don’t even notice the people who actually are interested in meeting you.

It may seem impossible now, but hypnotherapy can help to rebuild your self-confidence so that you can believe in yourself again. It begins with letting go of limiting, irrational thoughts and beliefs that you have about yourself and replacing them with ones that make you feel good. These positive beliefs about yourself, your abilities and your skills help you to regain your confidence.

In hypnosis your unconscious mind becomes much more receptive to ideas and suggestions. It does not know the difference between real and perceived. It believes these suggestions to be true. With reinforcement you will begin to feel and behave in a way that demonstrates these new beliefs. You will take away a technique for confidence you can use whenever you need a boost and strategies that will help you to manifest what it is that you truly want in your life.

Have you ever wondered why you are afraid of spiders? Little itsy, bitsy spiders. Phobias can be hereditary or can be learned from a family member’s reaction to an object or situation early in a person’s life. For some of you, your phobia is mildly distressing while for others it can cause a panic attack. In hypnosis, we can uncover the initial event that may have been locked away for a long time and we can bring it forward so you can be taught to react in a whole new way.

A phobia starts when a person begins organizing their lives around avoiding the object of their fear. A phobia is much more serious than a simple fear. Sufferers have an overpowering need to steer clear of anything which triggers their anxiety. If it is something you rarely come in contact with, like a poisonous snake, then it is easy to avoid. If it is a common as using a public washroom, then it would be a good idea to do something about it.

Some phobias are specific (simple) and start early in life and carry on into adulthood. Examples would be arachnophobia (spiders) dentophobia (dentists), and aviophobia (flying). Then there are complex phobias such as social phobia (social anxiety disorder) and agoraphobia (fear of being in situations where there is no escape). If you have a phobia, you may experience trembling, sweating, nausea, blushing, headaches, heart palpitations and/or have difficulty talking.

In hypnosis, you can go back to the time and place when this event first occurred and review it in a very safe way, without experiencing any nervousness. Addressing this old memory will enable you to better understand it. You will begin to see it in a way that it is no longer threatening. In fact, this event may become quite boring when it has lost its power over you. You will create new thoughts and responses to whatever it was that used to bother you.

Will it be today, or will it be tomorrow that you decide to end your phobia once and for all?

Pain is a signal that something needs attention. As we age, we often we think that once something starts hurting it will continue to hurt – forever. This is not necessarily true. If you stub your toe the pain can be intense or acute but you know it will heal quite quickly. If you have an injury and the pain goes away briefly but keeps coming back, that is chronic pain and it may last months or years. Your attitude, belief and expectations directly impact the way you experience pain.

Any thought that you have sets off a physical and chemical reaction in your body. If you imagine biting into a lemon, your mouth automatically releases saliva to counter the acidity and you probably pucker your lips and make a funny face just thinking about it. Your mind and body influence each other. Where your mind goes, your body follows. Hypnosis can change your psychological and physical experience of pain.

I’ll want to know how you feel about the pain you are experiencing. I’ll ask if you have been to see a doctor or specialist about it. Is it ruling your life; do you believe that you can’t do anything about it? Or do you see it as a passing thing and get a sense that it won’t last long; you have control over it? The unconscious mind does not know the difference between real and perceived. Knowing this, in a hypnotic trance, we can cool a burning pain and still a pulsating one.

You can choose where to put your attention. For instance, if you stubbed your toe, you would most likely feel more pain if you just stood there and looked at it – but jumping up and down and screaming would be a good distraction. The pain would be diluted. The natural numbing and dissociation that happens when you enter hypnosis is extremely useful in pain management. Reframing how you think about the pain allows you to cope better too.

We all experience stress in our lives. Some people more than others. I’m sure you’ve got a friend or family member who has a very demanding job, a growing family and health issues to deal with and you wonder how they keep their head above water. Or maybe I’m describing you. Life is challenging but it is meant to be enjoyed. It is all about having a positive perspective and seeking balance.

The positive influence of stress is that it can motivate you to perform to your optimum level and boost your energy significantly. It can be exhilarating to achieve new heights but it may come at a price. The negative influence is that it can be detrimental to your health. Stress is caused by the body’s natural ability to defend itself so we can function well if an emergency should arise. When our body is ready to face an emergency, our blood is coursing with adrenalin and if no emergency actually happens, all the extra energy has nowhere to go, causing negative stress. It can leave us feeling angry, depressed, frustrated and rejected; it can also lead to high blood pressure and insomnia.

The trick is to establish a work-life balance that allows you to enjoy all aspects of your life. Together we will review your chief stressors and determine if they can be eliminated or if you can reduce the negative impact they are having on your happiness and sense of well-being. Change is constant. It can be difficult to embrace but it can make all the difference in the world.

It is important to weave some exercise, good food, relaxation and fun into every day. Figure out what it is that you love to do so much that when you do it, you lose complete sense of time. You are in the zone. And then…do more of it. I guarantee this will help to relieve your stress.

Using positive suggestions, relaxation and visualizations, I will help steer you towards a life that is productive, satisfying and full of adventure. An adventure is doing something with an unknown outcome. It involves spontaneity. We want to do more than keep our heads above water…we want to surf the waves!

How is it that you can be so intelligent, so resourceful and so respected and yet getting in front of an audience to speak is utterly terrifying? Many people experience this sensation when asked to give a speech at a wedding, make a big presentation at a conference or share their ideas at a small gathering of people. The good news however, is that we can re-educate our minds to no longer see public speaking as a threat.

I remember a classmate at university jogging around outdoors in the winter with no coat or hat on before he had to give a talk. He said this was his way of coping with the jitters. We gathered moments later to hear him speak. It was going well for a minute or two, and then he passed out cold, doing a face plant on the conference table.

The fear of public speaking is a form of social phobia. Our “fight, flight, freeze” mechanism kicks in and we feel like we are in some kind of danger that we need to escape from. When this happens we may experience a tightening in our throat, sweating, or nausea but the worst fear is that our mind will go blank. Different things can cause this such as lack of confidence, fear of making a mistake, or a fear of being judged or laughed at, to name a few.

In hypnosis, in that beautifully relaxed trance state, you will be given powerful suggestions that bolster your confidence, and strategies for remaining calm. We’ll find out where your fear of public speaking is rising from and create new positive ways of thinking and feeling. This could not only change your life but fast track your career.

Did you know that flying has been proven to be one of the safest ways to travel? The fear of flying can affect anyone and it is not a sign of weakness. It is a learned fear and people can actually unlearn it. It could be caused by other anxieties such as fear of heights or claustrophobia. One of the things you will appreciate about flying is that it gets you to wherever you are going so quickly.

Your fear of flying is rooted in a memory or experience that you have filed away in your unconscious mind. It is like a weed with a big, long taproot. People sometimes get angry with themselves about still being affected by things that happened a long time ago, but remember we learn from our experiences, especially the uncomfortable ones. It is natural for these lessons to stick with us.

With hypnotherapy we can begin to pull out the weeds and replace them with flowers. We can lay a positive thought over top of a negative one to establish a balance in which you remain mindful, accepting and curious about trying new things.

Hypnosis can be used to communicate with your unconscious mind in order to re-evaluate your thoughts about flying. With the help of breathing techniques and progressive relaxation you will be able to remain calm before, during and after your flight.

One of the most common questions I get asked is “Have you ever failed to hypnotize someone?” What is hypnosis? Actually, it is a profound state of relaxation. If someone is willing and they’ve got the time, they will succumb eventually. There is no rush. When you are relaxed your mind and body are free of tension, stress, and anxiety. Just try to resist sinking into this incredible feeling of peace and contentment…you cannot.

Stress affects us all in different ways, and often we don’t even realize just how stressed we are because we have become too accustomed to being tense. We’ve come to see this as normal. What are the signs to watch for? Perhaps you wake up tired, you grind your teeth at night, have difficulty sleeping, or have headaches. Do you have a sense of rush, panic or lack of time when you look at your agenda for the day? These are just a few signs that relaxation could be helpful for you.

The relaxation response refers to how we can directly control our body’s release of specific chemicals and brain signals that loosen up muscles, slow down our organs, and increase blood flow to the brain. Relaxing quells the body’s natural “fight, flight, freeze” syndrome. Relaxation can boost your immune system, lower your blood pressure, improve concentration, aid sleep and diminish emotional upsets.

I will send you home with self-hypnosis techniques so you can keep on top of your stress levels and cope with day-to-day problems more effectively. Self-hypnosis allows you to incorporate relaxation into your schedule on a daily basis. Hypnotic relaxation…that’s the icing on the cake!

We all know that whether it is through professional or personal experience, having fertility problems can be very challenging and going through fertility treatments like IVF can add to your stress. Hypnosis is an effective tool which can help your mind to support your body throughout IVF treatments. When you achieve a deep state of relaxation your body relaxes thoroughly and therefore your womb relaxes and is better able to receive the precious little embryo.

The deep relaxation achieved in hypnosis will automatically reduce your stress levels. Self-hypnosis is a powerful tool and if done as directed will help you to relax on a daily basis. Positive visualizations will help you to experience a joyful outcome. You will learn to draw on your inner resources to cope better and make informed decisions. Hypnotherapy will help you to prepare mentally, emotionally and physically for IVF. A lot of it comes from subtle lifestyle changes, and the release of limiting emotions, experiences and thoughts around parenting, finances, health and career.

Often trying to have a baby can become all consuming and because of this not enough attention is paid to other areas of your life. We will ensure that a general sense of well-being is restored so that you can to continue to lead a productive life.

First I will have you come for a couple of hypnotherapy sessions so you are perfectly comfortable with the feeling of being in hypnosis and understand that you are totally in control at all times. Secondly, with the clinic’s permission, I will hypnotize you for the embryo transfer. Having experienced talking and moving around in this very relaxed trance state, you understand that you will able to pop in and out of hypnosis to choose how many embryos you would like to have transferred and to sign the necessary paperwork. You will find that everyone present, including the doctor, nurse and your partner, will be as calm and relaxed as you are.

Improving your memory is not as difficult as you would think. It is a case of paying attention when information is coming in and then having a filing system so you can retrieve it. It is like attaching an icon to a desktop so you can quickly access what you want.

When you take the time to organize the information you want to recall, you will have more confidence. It will also help you to remain calm and relaxed in many social settings. We don’t need to remember phone numbers anymore because they are loaded into our cell phones and most information, such as a movie title or the name of a flower, is easily accessible on the internet. We don’t exercise our memory muscles as often as we used to. How long has it been since you memorized a poem?

With the help of positive suggestions and powerful visualizations in hypnosis you can train yourself to slow down, pay attention to the information that is valuable to you and save it in a manner that works for you so you can recall it, even under pressure. In our session, I’ll instruct your unconscious mind that whenever you hear or read something, you will have no problem retrieving that information when you need to. All of the blockages you are experiencing which prevent you from recalling things will dissolve away. What a relief.

There is so much to be gained from quitting smoking. If not for health reasons, do it for your family, your friends. They love you. They want you to be around for a long time to come. If nicotine lozenges, patches, chewing gum, counseling, and other smoking cessation methods haven’t helped you kick the habit, don’t give up. Hypnotherapy may be exactly what you need.

Quitting smoking can be a real challenge. But it’s one of the best things you can do for your health. Smoking is a dangerous, even deadly, habit. It’s a leading cause of cancer. It also increases your risk for heart attacks, strokes, lung disease, and other health problems, including bone fractures and cataracts.

As part of the smoking cessation program we will work with visualizations. You will gain a new appreciation for just how dangerous and disgusting this habit is and also experience the euphoria of having quit and being surrounded by loved ones who are so proud of you.

Sign up now and enjoy living longer, looking younger, having lots of energy and really tasting your food.  What would you do with all the money you will save by not smoking?  It is fun to think about, isn’t it?

Decisiveness is a characteristic of high performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all. It gets uncomfortable sitting on the fence, doesn’t it? Sometimes fear of failure, lack of confidence, or self doubt clouds our ability to make a choice. What can help is strengthening the communication between our conscious mind and our unconscious mind.

The decisive person appears to make decisions effortlessly but that is not the case. They pause for a moment or two… not to think, rather to listen to the still, small, subtle voice of intuition. Your intuition will give you the correct answer every time. You have to be open and receptive to your intuition. This requires trust. If you are wondering if your answer is correct, it is usually because you haven’t learned to discriminate between personal and intuitional. The personal is always mental, emotional and stressful, while the intuitional is always calm, composed and neutral. One is pushy and the other is passive.

I can teach you a helpful technique to make decisions using your intuition. You will consider a situation, think of the solution and test it out to make sure it is sound. Your mind will be clear and your intuition will have a stronger voice. It feels extraordinary to be free to make decisions that used to weigh you down. You will feel light and spontaneous.

Does your jaw ache perpetually or do you wake up with a headache? Has your dentist suggested that you get a mouth guard to save your teeth? How do you fix something that happens while you are sleeping? Learning ways to relax your jaw during the day and just before bed can help to set you up for a good night’s sleep and allow you to wake up feeling great in the morning.

People ask me all the time what kinds of things hypnosis is good for. Typically I reply weight management, smoking cessation, clenching and grinding of teeth and their eyes become as big as saucers; I know I have their attention because their mouth guard is sitting on their desk, broken. You are not alone. This is very common. Doctors do not fully understand why clenching and grinding happens. Alcohol and caffeine can contribute to bruxism and stress can be a trigger. It can also be caused by the use of antidepressants or increased anxiety, anger and frustration. So what can you do about it?

Clenching or grinding can be indicated by inflamed gums, worn down tooth enamel, limited jaw movement, chronic facial pain or pain that goes all the way down your neck into your arm. Although the negative effects of bruxism disappear quickly when the habit ceases, there can be some long term damage, such as temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ) or irreversible tooth wear and breakage. These are key reasons why you want to take care of this.

In our sessions you will learn relaxation techniques that will help you to release tension in your jaw and belly just before you go to sleep. Through hypnotic suggestions, we will reduce the anxiety that contributes to bruxism and replace it with a healthier response to your stress. In hypnosis you will visualize a peaceful night’s sleep and waking up refreshed and relaxed. Positive thoughts lead to positive outcomes.

It can be very nerve-wracking to write an exam or perform in a concert. It may feel like butterflies in your stomach, or you may have sweaty palms, an elevated heart rate or a fear that you won’t remember anything you have learned or prepared. These feelings are natural and common; they can actually help some people to focus. But it is not comfortable if these negative sensations become too intense and threaten your performance. Wouldn’t it be helpful if you could have a “calm” button installed in a control panel in your mind?

Exam/Performance nerves can affect anyone, no matter how clever they are or how much they have prepared. The pressure to perform can be overwhelming. When we allow our nerves to take over it can lead to an anxiety attack. I used to experience this when I played the piano. To avoid this I had to just keep reminding myself that I love to play. I’m here to have fun. I’d imagine I was all alone in the concert hall, playing for my own pleasure.

With the proper mindset, preparing for and completing an exam can become a more positive experience. It is not so much about the knowledge you have, but more about your state of mind. Just as an athlete gets psyched up for a competition, I can help you develop a set strategy which you will use each time before you write an exam or perform. This way you will be in control of the situation and will be more likely to reach your full potential.

Using your vivid imagination, you will visualize your current state of being when you have exam nerves. We won’t spend much time on this because this is not what you want in life. You will then visualize your desired state and build it up so it is very big, bright and powerful. We will anchor this state and make it accessible to you by the press of a virtual button located in a control panel in your mind whenever you begin to experience uncertainty about performing.

If you are reading this, your ears are probably buzzing. If you can imagine, many years ago people actually used to cut their ears off to get rid of the high-pitched ringing only to find that it was still there afterwards. You have tinnitus when you have humming, whistling or other noises in one or both ears. You can have this and still have good hearing. You just desperately want a little quiet from time to time.

Tinnitus is rather common and may occur at any age. I have it and can go for months sometimes when I can’t hear it at all and then someone mentions it and I notice my ears are ringing like crazy. Apparently it is caused by the malfunction in the movement of sound waves through your ear canal. It can be affected by a change in blood flow in the blood vessels near your ear and intensified by the mind’s increased awareness of this. It also happens when the tiny hair cells responsible for detecting sound at a set frequency, and measuring its volume, have died. Hearing loss, old age and genetic damage to the inner ear can also play a role.

For many, living with tinnitus is bearable. For those with constant ringing and humming of loud noises all day and every day, it can impact their life in a negative way. The loud noises can cause frustration, annoyance and heightened anxiety. A client once said to me, “I just want to go for a walk and be able to hear the birds sing”.

How can hypnotherapy help tinnitus sufferers? Hypnotherapy works because you allow me to have access to your unconscious mind. I can train you to react in a different way to tinnitus sensations by helping you to not notice the sounds so much and allowing you to naturally tune them out. We will also work on lowering your stress levels and elevating your mood so that you can better heal. Together we can revisit a time immediately before the tinnitus began and then bring you forward in time to when it actually began so you can pinpoint the exact moment when negative emotions associated with the condition arose. We will diffuse these emotional charges and instill a positive mental attitude.

Why is it that mothers, aunts, grandmothers and sisters feel compelled to tell expecting moms their worst stories about pregnancy and birthing? These stories can be troublesome and leave a negative impression on both mom and baby. The last thing you want is to be worried about the most natural thing in the world…having a baby. This is what your body was designed for, right? Soothing music, positive affirmations and self-hypnosis can make all the difference.

When we are afraid we depend on our sympathetic nervous system for fight or flight and all the blood goes to the muscles required to flee. Catecholamine (the stress hormone) is released and arteries to the uterus constrict. Birthing muscles become oxygen deprived and oxygen to the baby is limited. The baby’s head is forced against taut muscles which results in pain. Labour is prolonged.

Hypnotherapy helps to eliminate fear and therefore there is less tension both mentally and physically. When you revert to your parasympathetic nervous system, endorphins (the love drug) are released during birthing which act as a natural pain reliever. Labour is less tiring and often shorter because mom is relaxed. The baby is more alert because mom hasn’t had any pain medication. These babies are better adjusted and happier; they have been known to sleep and feed better.

Please click on the HypnoBirthing link under Services for more information about HypnoBirthing® The Mongan Method and the prenatal classes I teach.

Guilt is an unpleasant feeling of responsibility for some action we took that was not in line with our values. We can be so hard on ourselves sometimes. Don’t let unnecessary guilt prevent you from being happy and healthy – we all deserve to be happy. The interesting thing is that even though guilt is so hard on us, it can be good in that it helps us to determine the difference between right and wrong.

It is your values that determine your behavior, not your guilt. Once your values are aligned and ethical, then your behavior is appropriate and there is no need for guilt. People sometimes think that if they clear their guilt, there won’t be anything to stop them from doing undesirable things. Guilt doesn’t stop a person from doing bad things as people often feel guilty about doing something before they do it, and they do it anyway.

Guilt is self-inflicted and created by your mind. Are you ready to stop punishing yourself with negative thoughts? Are you ready to release your guilt? When you give up any lingering feelings of guilt you will be ready to bring self-love back into your life and focus on being the best version of yourself. Through clarifying your values, acts of kindness and perhaps some communication with those who you love, you will set yourself up for a much happier life. You will make those around you proud and show them how worthy of their love and respect you are.