Category: Uncategorized

“What is needed is the development of a therapeutic situation permitting the patient to use his own thinking, his own understandings, his own emotions in the way that fits him in his scheme of life.” – Milton H. Erickson

Milton H. Erickson (1901–1980) was an American psychiatrist and psychologist specializing in hypnosis and family therapy. His innovative ideas and techniques are the basis of Solution-Focused Motivational Coaching (SFMC).

This charming anecdote—as told by Bill O’Hanlon, who studied directly with Erickson—captures the essence of SFMC:

“Erickson grew up in rural Wisconsin. One day he was playing in the farmyard with a friend when a horse ran in, his reins askew, obviously having thrown its rider. The boys caught the horse, petted it and calmed it down. Erickson said he would take the horse to its owner.

His friend said, “How do you know where to take him?”

“That’s okay —the horse knows,” Erickson replied. He jumped up on the horse’s back and steered it onto the road.

“The horse turned right and trotted off, stopping now and then to munch on the roadside grass. Eventually the horse turned left and pulled into a farmyard some five miles away, a long distance in those days.

“Having heard them come in, a farmer came out of the house and said, “There’s my horse! He threw me a while ago. But I’ve never met you before—How did you know to bring him here?”

“I didn’t—the horse did,” replied Erickson. “I just kept him on the road and kept him moving!”

One day a while ago, I caught a glimpse of myself reflected in a store window. What I saw made me stop and stare. Instead of the relatively lean guy I still believed I was, I saw a heavyset person with a protruding belly.

This was the wake-up call I needed to shock me into facing up to what my bathroom scale had been telling me for a long time: I had fallen into the very same pattern of creeping weight gain—a couple of pounds every year—that I had helped many of my clients overcome with solution-focused motivational coaching (SFMC).

My first step was to see my doctor for a checkup. Tests showed that I was pre-diabetic. The doctor suggested that I follow a low carb, or “keto” dietary plan from the Lifestyle Medicine Clinic at Duke University Medical Center. Next, as in the famous quip, “Physician, heal thyself”, I began a series of self-coaching sessions to reinforce my commitment to managing my weight.

In a short time, I got used to a new way of eating and the results began to show. My A1C fell a full point into the normal range. Over the course of a year, I dropped 40 pounds without feeling hungry, and I’ve kept it off ever since.

You can lose weight, too— on any dietary plan—by tapping into your own hidden strengths with SFMC, as I did. It’s much easier than you may think.
Sound interesting? Call me. I’ll be happy to provide a complimentary phone consultation without obligation.

Sincerely,

Fred

PS If you’d like a copy of the low carb Duke dietary plan, simply text me with your email and I’ll send you a PDF.

847-322-0945
fred@fredkutchins.com

by Baltasar Gracian (1601-1658)

Written over 350 years ago, this fascinating book is collection of 300 witty and thought-provoking original aphorisms. From how to be lucky to the healthy use of caution, these elegant observations were created as a guide to life, with further suggestions such as cultivating good taste, knowing how to refuse, the foolishness of complaining and the wisdom of controlling one’s passions

A few examples –

“Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.” “A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.” “Never compete with someone who has nothing to lose.” “The best skill in cards is knowing when to discard.”

I’ve adopted this one as a personal motto –

When you visualize or vividly imagine something, the same neuropathways in the brain are activated as when you actually see or do it.   It’s a form of self-hypnosis you can apply to bring about a state of calmness whenever you’re experiencing stress.

Try this exercise. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you begin to feel more relaxed and at peace.  It’s like taking a natural “chill pill”!

1.  Shut your eyes and take three slow, deep breaths.  Picture your emotions of anger, frustration, fear, anxiety, etc. as dark colored shapes with jagged edges that are residing within you.  If you have difficulty creating these images,  just imagine them as physical sensations or sounds.

2.  Now,  experience these emotions as being drawn outside and away from your body.

3.  Gather them them all together and put them in a box. Again, you may do this as a physical or auditory sensation.  Push the box away, and turn your gaze inward, noticing how these negative emotions  are no longer a part of you, and that you have regained control of yourself.

4.  Pick up the box, and hurl it far, far away, perhaps even into the sun, where it burns up and disappears instantly.

5.  Slowly open your eyes when ready and notice how much better you feel!

“Quite without any inductions, you have ‘hypnotized’ yourself into all the beliefs you have – this simply means that you have consciously accepted them, excluded data to the contrary, narrowed your interests to those specific points and accordingly activated the unconscious mechanisms that then materialize those convictions through physical experience. Formal hypnosis merely brings about an accelerated version of what goes on all the time.”

– Jane Roberts in Seth Speaks

A Native American myth recounts that Creator gathered all of creation one day and said, “I want to hide something from humans until they are ready for it:  It is the realization that they can create their own life and their own reality.”

Eagle said, “Give it to me; I’ll take it to the moon and hide it there.”

But Creator said, “No, one day they will go to the moon and will find it.”

Then Salmon said, “Give it to me; I’ll hide it in the bottom of the sea.”

“No,” said the Creator, ” They’ll get there, too.”

Well, then Buffalo came and said, “Give it to me; I’ll bury it in the Plains.”

Creator said, “No, they will get there. They will cut into the skin of the earth, and they will find it even there.”

But then Grandmother Mole came, the one that has no physical eyes to see on the outside but has spiritual eyes and the capacity to see within, and she said, “Put it inside them; they’ll never find it there.”

And Creator said, “It is done.”

“Scientific studies show that people experience similar levels of happiness over the long-term regardless of external events.  Winning millions in a lottery, or getting paralyzed in an accident makes a significant difference for six months or less.  People living in poverty register only a few percentage points less happy than the most affluent, and there is no difference between the middle class and the rich.  In fact, the only thing that makes a difference is chronic pain or consistent health crises . . . . ”

– Dierdra Barrett in Supernormal Stimuli

These findings point to the fact that being happy is more a function of your attitude than it is about your actual circumstances; in other words, happiness is a choice.    A famous quote (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln) puts it this way:  ‘Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be’.

 

 

There is a common misconception that hypnosis is a form of mind control. And since no sane person wants to give anyone control of his mind, first-time hypnosis clients usually feel a bit anxious at the start of the session. Thus, the typical question, “Are you going to make me cluck like a chicken?” is not entirely a joke. Accordingly, a proper pre-talk, in which the client’s specific fears and concerns are addressed, is essential for a successful outcome.

But confusion about the true nature of hypnosis is nothing new. Some say that it goes back to Mesmer himself, whose theory of “animal magnetism”—an antecedent of modern hypnosis—catapulted him into the upper echelon of 18th Century European society and fomented a controversy that persists to this day.

Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) was a successful Austrian physician—a kind of genius with a penchant for self-promotion. Known for his compassion and intellectual curiosity, he proposed that there was a natural energetic transfer within human beings. He surmised that the body must have two poles, like a magnet, and must, like a magnet, be emitting an invisible magnetic “fluid.” According to Mesmer, disease was due to some interruption or maladjustment in the flow of this fluid, and it therefore could be cured by correcting the flow.

Mesmer successfully treated many patients, most famously a young female pianist, Maria Theresa von Paradis, who suffered from hysterical blindness. Nevertheless, dogged by critics in his native Vienna, he later moved to Paris and soon attracted numerous wealthy and influential patients, as well as a group of other physicians eager to learn his technique.

It has been said that Mesmer’s concept of a magnetic fluid may refer to the same energy flow that is the basis of acupuncture, reiki and qigong. But Mesmer’s preferred approach to utilizing this energy was novel: He held that it could be redirected into bent iron rods projecting out of a huge wooden tub, called a baquet, which was filled with bottles of water he had “magnetized” with energy from his own body.

Tying his patients loosely together with a rope around their waists, Mesmer had them encircle the tub and grasp the rods. Then, bedecked in a silken, lavender-colored suit decorated with symbols of the moon, stars and planets, he would move back and forth among the group, making passes over each person with an iron wand held in his hand. Oftentimes, patients swooned or fell into ecstatic convulsions as magnetic energy supposedly surged through them Meanwhile, an accompanist played soothing music on a glass harmonica, a peculiar instrument about the size of a small piano which produced ethereal tones perfectly in keeping with the circumstances.

The glass harmonica, or bowl organ, was based on the same idea as musical wine glasses. It consists of a series of exposed spinning glass bowls laying sideways and arranged on a common shaft that is suspended on the surface of a water bath. To play it, the operator lightly touches the rims of the spinning bowls.

It was an invention that sprang from the fertile mind of the brilliant and charismatic American ambassador to France, Benjamin Franklin.

Franklin, a person of wide-ranging knowledge and a popular figure on the French social scene, was appointed, in 1784, the head of a royal commission established for the purpose of investigating animal magnetism. Unable to find evidence for the existence of a magnetic fluid, the commissioners—all of whom including Franklin were notable scientists of the day—concluded that any reputed cures were simply due to ‘imagination’. This was tantamount to saying that Mesmer was a charlatan. Whether or not that assessment is accurate, and to what degree, is still a matter of scholarly debate. In any case, Mesmer ultimately returned to his native Austria and spent the remainder of his life in relative obscurity.

Some years later James Braid (1795-1860), a Scots surgeon living in Manchester, introduced the term hypnosis—actually neuro-hypnotism—as a designation for what he believed was the psychophysiological (i.e., mind-body) phenomenon that Mesmer had called animal magnetism. But Hypnos is the Greek god of sleep while hypnosis is a state of mental alertness. And so was added another layer of confusion. (When Braid realized that hypnosis was a misnomer, he tried to replace it with a more accurate coinage, monoideism, but the term failed to gain any traction.)

Even now, there is no universally accepted definition of hypnosis. Some psychologists have gone so far as to insist that hypnosis doesn’t actually exist—it’s merely role playing, they say. Or a return to childlike dependence. Or a variety of meditation. Others, either from a lack of knowledge or as a way to avoid negative connotations of the word “hypnosis”, employ euphemisms such as guided fantasy, visualization, selective awareness, the relaxation response, dynamic imaging, progressive relaxation, autogenic training, etc.

That’s okay: Like the man in Moliere’s social satire “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme” who was surprised and delighted to learn that that he’d been speaking prose all his life, it’s still hypnosis no matter what you call it!

Problems with overweight are complex, and it is wise to develop a solution approach that matches an individual’s background, habits, goals and personality.  But, in every case, stress management is a key factor in reaching a successful outcome.

When you feel stressed, your midbrain reacts as if a physical threat were present, exactly like when our remote ancestors were confronted with a saber-toothed tiger.  A neural shortcut instantly mobilizes your body for survival, initiating the stress response and telling you it’s time to fight for your life or run to safety.   A cascade of hormones begins to pour into your system, and your body chemistry is altered in ways that can cause you to gain weight.

Chronic stress overstimulates the adrenal glands to produce cortisol, which creates a wide range of negative effects, including suppression of the immune system. Most disturbing for weight watchers, cortisol promotes the breakdown of muscle, bone and connective tissue, resulting in a reduction in muscle mass and a corresponding increase in the amount of fat deposits, especially on the stomach and face.

Various scientific studies have shown that chronic stress increases the risk of high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and elevated lipid levels.  But chronic stress can also make you hungry.  Why is this? Because until recent times, famine has been an ongoing issue in human experience, and the midbrain may sometimes  interpret chronic stress as being the result of a famine, prompting you to seek out sources of food, especially foods high in caloric value, the so-called “comfort foods”.

If you want to lose extra pounds and maintain a healthy weight, hypnosis can help you to manage stress and avoid its most negative consequences.