 Is success hard work or luck? We believe a lot of foolish things to be true. Trust me I am a hypnotist, I know! Sometimes though, the silly things we believe are good for us. I want to talk about one particular delusion that can help us in life. Perhaps you have heard of success bias or survivor bias before? The basic idea is that if we have done well at something then it is because we are better at that thing than other people. To get you to where I’m going with this we need to take a small detour. I want to tell you about an infamous story. During World War II the British Royal Air Force noticed that a bunch of planes were coming back with holes punched in them from enemy fire. They catalogued where the most holes were and it looked something like this:  Is success hard work or luck?
We believe a lot of foolish things to be true. Trust me I am a hypnotist, I know! Sometimes though, the silly things we believe are good for us. I want to talk about one particular delusion that can help us in life. Perhaps you have heard of success bias or survivor bias before? The basic idea is that if we have done well at something then it is because we are better at that thing than other people. To get you to where I’m going with this we need to take a small detour. I want to tell you about an infamous story. During World War II the British Royal Air Force noticed that a bunch of planes were coming back with holes punched in them from enemy fire. They catalogued where the most holes were and it looked something like this: (image courtesy of Wikipedia) They wanted to improve the survivability of their planes but could not afford to add much weight. So they concluded that the places most damaged needed to be reinforced and protected. This is a case of survivor bias because they only focused on the winners, the planes that survived. Planes that were hit anywhere else tended to crash and therefore not make it back to be examined. It turns out they were reinforcing exactly the wrong parts of the planes. We make this mistake all the time, especially when we are looking at ourselves. We look only at success and not at failure. We look at the people who have made it in life and ignore all the people who are just as talented and hard working who haven’t. For example, astronauts; In 2019 NASA had over 18,000 applicants who were all hard-working, skilled, and passionate people. NASA selected 11! If you interviewed those few successful applicants, they would almost certainly attribute their success to their hard work, to the drive to succeed at an early age, to a love of mathematics or space that was encouraged by a mentor or parents. That they just got lucky is not something that would ever cross their mind. And fair enough, if you have worked hard for something and you get that thing it is natural to assume that you got that thing because you worked hard and were talented! But what about all the other, unsuccessful applicants who worked just as, if not harder, or even, what about the people who grew up in poorer neighbourhoods and couldn’t afford to take time off work to apply for the role? No-one gets to be an astronaut without being lucky… The converse of this is also true, when we fail at something we tend to believe that it is because we are somehow less worthy, that we didn’t deserve it. Certainly the people who succeeded, who made it to the top have a tendency to believe that we just aren’t as ‘good’ or ‘competent’ as them. Essentially, we like to believe that we succeed or fail based on our own personal qualities. We have a tendency to ignore external factors (also known as ‘luck’) and to believe that it was all us. This is a stupid thing to believe, but it is also a useful thing to believe. If we truly thought that it was all just random chance then there would be no point in even trying. It would demotivate us to the point that we would remove any chance of our own success. We all know someone who hasn’t accepted the delusion, perhaps it is you? Knowing that there are a bunch of talented and hard working individuals out there who are competing with you prevents you from even trying. Well, you have to try to succeed but more importantly you have to keep trying when you fail! You have to act as if it all comes down to your personal qualities and efforts. At the same time, win or lose, it is vital to accept the role that luck plays in the process. A final thought: numerous psychological experiments have shown us that people who chalk their success up to external factors, who essentially feel like they got lucky, are judged as being far more likeable than people who say that they got where they did through their own hard work.
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 I had a lady come to me, years ago… pre 2020 if you can remember such a time. She came to me because she wanted to lose weight.
Almost the first thing she said when I met her was “I have to get this done in a month!” I replied that that shouldn’t be a problem but I asked why the urgency? What she said next made me laugh, but in hindsight made perfect sense. She was booked to fly to France for a month-long gastronomy tour. She was going to get on a bus with a group of like minded foodies. Together they were going to travel from café to bistro to restaurant around France enjoying fantastic meals. I promised I would have her on track in time but in return, when she got back, she would have to tell me how it went. A few months later she got back in touch with me. She had loved every minute of the trip she told me. One of the first things that happened was that she made a new best friend. He was a big bloke who soon realised that she rarely, if ever finished her meals. So, being a gentleman, he polished them off for her. She soon realised though that she was getting much more out of the trip than anyone else around her. Where everyone else was ploughing into their meals with gusto she was instead savouring the flavours, imagining how the food was being made and enjoying the contrasts. The highlight of the trip was a Michelin starred restaurant where she had had a lovely meal consisting of several courses. She was content and her friend was very happy with his share of her meals too. Then she noticed the dessert menu. It would be a criminal shame to be at the restaurant and not try a dessert, right? So, she ordered some chocolate coated truffles with some sort of complicated sounding rich sauce. When it came out her eyes grew huge, his eyes grew even bigger. As a pyramid of heaped truffles in this sauce was placed in front of her. She thanked the waiter and proceeded to take the top truffle off, she sliced it in half and swirled the half truffle in the sauce and then slowly and thoughtfully bit into it, savouring the flavours and textures, admiring the composition. Then she was done! She passed the rest over to her friend and sat back to digest her meal and enjoy the company and atmosphere. She had got exactly what she was wanting out of the meal and out of the trip. The best part was that she was continuing to lose weight the whole time she was there.  Fear is a very reasonable response to a lot of things.
I say that, but I also don’t really mean it. The reality is that fear is an emotional response to the world around us, reasoning and logic don’t have very much to do with our fear response. Fear is a motivator to either make us do something or prevent us from doing something and it’s a very powerful motivator. It’s a rare individual who can ignore something that terrifies them. The problem is that most of the time our fears are irrational. We aren’t supposed to be able to sit there and weigh up the pros and cons of the situation, we are supposed to have an immediate reaction right then and there when we come across something that we fear. Sure, there is that moment of “what am I going to do? There are bills due and I’m out of cash!” That sort of anxiety is fair enough and I see a lot of people for perfectly rational anxiety and stress management too. Sometimes though, our fear response is hampered by that creative imagination that so many of us have. I met a great young child recently who was actively scared of most foods. The thought of eating a tomato, a lettuce or a chicken leg actually scared him. I remember a lady who came to see me because she felt trapped in New Zealand. She was desperate to visit her family who had moved to Australia but was crippled by her fear of Australian spiders. Too scared to even get on the plane. Someone came to me a month or two back with a fear of holes such as the ones in office ceiling spaces, and slugs. Every now and then I get someone who is scared of flying and I still often help people who are scared of needles. My point is that these fears don’t make much sense but quite often, for the people who have them, they structure their lives in elaborate ways in order to avoid the object of their fears or limiting the ways. This can be easy enough if your particular fear is a fear of sharks in swimming pools. Simply don’t go swimming at the pool and you will be fine. It’s an occasional inconvenience but easy enough to manage. What if it’s a bit more commonplace though? A fear of dogs, or crowds or open spaces? Sometimes people attempt to tough it out or desensitize themselves through more and more exposure. Sometimes they try to talk it out and discuss their fear with a therapist. Sometimes it might even sort of work. However, these are rational and sensible approaches to an irrational and unsensible problem. The part of the brain that deals with fear is the amygdala, it’s one of the oldest structures in the brain. It’s part of the limbic system that is also known as the lizard brain. By way of contrast the frontal lobe, the bit that deals with logic and reason, only developed in primates including humans. Fear is not a ‘let’s talk about it’ sort of issue, it has very little to do with logic and logic has very little to do with it. I’m grossly simplifying an extremely complex part of neuroscience and my apologies to anyone reading this who has actually studied the subject in depth. Still though, I’ve yet to meet anyone who hasn’t been able to shed an irrational fear after asking for my help. It would seem that irrational fears are best dealt with using irrational and emotional methods. Ready to overcome an irrational fear that has been unnecessarily creating obstacles and challenges in your life? Book a session now at the link below and I’ll show you exactly how I can help :)  So I was helping Mum shift house recently. It was a daunting project but luckily the whole family was on board.
The process had, if I’m being entirely honest, taken months rather than days. Because she was downsizing there were tearful send-offs of books, paintings and furniture with their associated memories. There were ridiculous worries about how her dogs would adapt? Could her clients accept the new location? As it turns out to those questions yes to both and very easily. Still though, there was an underlying sense of unease that she kept mentioning. And I thought to myself several times “Why is this so hard?” If we ignored the things she got rid of, things she hadn’t used in the last two years anyway, what was it that was so hard? I’ve touched on this subject before, but, given the state of housing in New Zealand I thought I’d talk about it again. According to a study by researchers DeGrauw & Norcross in 1989, one of the most stressful things we can do is relocate or move. It was rated by participants in the study as even more stressful than the death of a friend or family/personal illness. Does that really matter? Yes, moving is stressful but we only do it every now and then right? The truth is that kiwis move a lot! According to Statistics NZ even back in 2007 more than a quarter of New Zealanders had moved within the last two years. So it does matter, it’s one of the most stressful experiences we can face, subjectively up there with getting married, and yet many of us seem to be moving on a regular basis. Are we masochists? Do we like inflicting stress and distress on ourselves? Obviously not for most people. So obviously we aren’t moving by choice for the most part. We are driven by the economic realities of house flippers, or rising rents or having to move for work. For some happy few they are moving into a home they have bought with the joy and trepidation that a mortgage brings. These are things that are largely outside our control, brought about by necessity rather than choice. These are things that we cannot do a thing to change, just a part of life’s rich tapestry that we seem to face more than most other nations. So what can we change? Here are my 7 tips on making a move a successful and, more importantly, less stressful move.
 Photo by freestocks.org from Pexels Why New Year's Resolutions Don't Stick!...
I thought I'd approach the New Year with a few thoughts on the subject of New Year's Resolutions and how a session with a hypnotherapist can possibly help. We are all familiar with the concept. There is something that's been sort of bugging us for the last few months or, even worse, last few years. This time though, it's all going to be different! A fresh new start for a fresh new year! It doesn't really matter what the change is although the ones we are most familiar with are exercising more and/or losing weight, quitting smoking, saving more and/or spending less and taking up a new skill or hobby. A Promise We Make To Ourselves According to this study only 46% of the resolutions we make are actually followed through on over the next six months. So what happens to the rest of the resolutions, the other 54%? Is it that promises we make to ourselves whilst high on the emotions of seeing in the New Year, glass of alcohol in one hand are somehow less desirable in the cold light of January? Probably not... It's rare that we make a resolution that we actively think is a bad idea. Most of us think that improving our lives is a good idea and most of us are pretty sure that we know what would need to change to make our lives better. So what's going on? Think about it... When you make a promise to someone else are you comfortable with only following up on that promise a little under half the time? So why does a promise to yourself matter so much less? Clearly something is going on here. Habits and Routines Here's the truth, most of the time, when you make a promise to yourself to change a habit, you are already starting to talk yourself out of making the change. "I've got too much going on right now so I'll start next week". "My jogging partner is on holiday". "I'll quit when I'm back at work after the break". That sort of thing sound familiar? We are creatures of habit and we don't much like to change even if we know that we would like the change or the expected rewards of change. Using Hypnosis to Rewire Ingrained Habits For a hypnotist, it's even more clear cut: Our habits don't like to change, they like being in familiar territory. The old way of approaching things is the best way as far as our habits are concerned and they fight to stay unchanged regardless of what we would like to think. This is true for almost every habit we have, good or bad. Deep down in our unconscious mind there is a well worn neural pathway that all things considered would like to keep doing what it has always done. When we decide to change our ways we essentially have to fight ourselves! Pain-free Solution Luckily, there is a reliable and painless way to make the shift and turn the old habit into a more productive new one. Hypnosis works! In fact it's one of the most effective ways to make a change. There is a reason why it's the most effective way to give up smoking. If you want to truly see a New Years resolution though. If you want to be able to reach the end of the year and look back with pride at your accomplishment, let’s talk! See what you can accomplish. Daniel Steadman Certified Hypnotherapist Compulsive Shopping So as we head into Christmas a lot of us also head into the grand experiment of spending huge amounts of money on friends, family and ourselves. It’s supposed to be “fun”, but for most, this is one of the most stressful times of the year for many of us. Our routines are disrupted, often being forced to take time off work, spending time with extended family who, whether we love them or not definitely disrupt our normal daily patterns. The Financial Burdens Of Christmas  I thought that I might take a moment to talk about the financial burden part of Christmas a bit more though. Specifically, I thought I might talk a bit about that moment of pleasure we receive when we put down a deposit or pay in full for an item that we cannot afford and how hypnosis might help reign in those impulse buys. We picture that affirmation of love we get when the kids tear open the wrapping paper. We picture that moment of smugness when we outdo 'such and suches' gift. We picture that small flutter of excitement as our bank balance depletes itself, mistaking that moment of tension as excitement. Battling With Our Own Minds Of course, rationally we know that spending money we don't have or money that should be going to other things is a terrible idea. If only our rational mind was the only part of us that made these snap decisions. But it's not! It's like the old wisdom to never go grocery shopping when you are hungry. If your stomach does the shopping you end up buying far more than you need! It's the same thing with so-called 'retail therapy.' Unless you have a bottomless wallet spending money to make yourself feel better is a bad habit that is almost worse than gambling because there isn't even the promise of a potential return. Compulsive Buying Disorder  Our house fills up with things we don't need or duplicates of things we already have. Our friends get lavish gifts they may or may not appreciate, possibly even resenting because they feel they have to reciprocate. Intellectually we know all this. We know that a dollar saved is a dollar earned. We know that maxing out the credit cards is going to stress us out far more than we will be rewarded by spending it! It's like there's a part of us that doesn't care and just goes ahead anyway. There are all sorts of strategies to cope from leaving the credit cards at home or only carrying cash but there are all sorts of moments of weakness, especially in the age of internet shopping when we can buy at the click of a button. Hypnotherapy To Reign In Compulsive Behaviour This is where hypnosis can step in. Hypnotherapy is better at breaking the chains of bad habits than any other method we know. We already know that it's the most effective way to give up smoking. We are coming to realise that it's the most effective method for staying the path to long term weight-loss and managing eating habits. What we don't always realise is that hypnotherapy is really good at derailing all sorts of bad habits and patterns of behaviour. Compulsive shopping is just another one of those. For more information on how hypnotherapy can help you, reach out and let’s connect.
Daniel Advanced Clinical Hypnotherapist Wellington, New Zealand Coping With Anxiety
For many, if not most, people anxiety is a blip on their radar. It comes when they can't find their car keys or they are running late for an appointment and then it disappears when they have a good night's sleep. If only that were true for all of us but I would say that as a hypnotherapist, anxiety and stress is one of the most common issues that people come to see me about. Strong Mental Foundations Why is it that some people can just shed anxiety like water off a duck's back and yet for others every setback in life is more like a millstone around their neck? It comes down to coping mechanisms and the mental foundations we have set up to cope with the tribulations that life invariably throws at us. This is why some people smoke, as a crutch to handle their anxiety. This may seem obvious to many people but there are a lot of stressed out and anxious people out there who have no idea why life seems so hard for them. The Straw That Broke The Camel’s Back We have all heard of the straw that broke the camel's back, possibly so often that we've never even thought about what that means. I'm going to take a moment to describe what it means for me. A camel is a beast of burden. They carry people and huge loads of supplies through the blazing heat and cold of the desert relying on their own reservoirs of fat and water to carry them through the journey. Imagine being so loaded up that just one more tiny weight is enough to make you break down and cry mercy. The thing that makes most anxious people like that camel is that they are used to carrying that load. That is their coping mechanism. They carry all that stress, all that anxiety with them and they don't let it go. Ever! Anxiety: The Breaking Point Eventually they reach their limit and they break in some way. Maybe an actual breakdown, maybe withdrawing from their life or job, maybe experiencing weight gain, maybe having the traditional midlife crisis. What anxious people often don't realise is that a lot of us learn to let go of the stressors in our lives. Stressful events get categorised by successful coping mechanisms. Things get sorted into 'things I can't do anything about so I can ignore them' or 'things I can do something about'. Because they don't carry a seemingly unending load of dead weight around they find it easy to take on individual stressful tasks as they happen. More importantly they have the emotional reserves to cope with the big problems when they come up. Anxiety and Hypnotherapy My task as a hypnotist is to help the first sort of person find a way to become the second. It's not always easy to do, often we have to change a lifetime habit or habits to do so (for example: selective eating disorders). To even start the process though we have to dump all the dead weight that's been holding every person with anxiety problems down. Luckily, hypnotism is great for this sort of thing. A hypnotic trance can be very peaceful and relaxing. It's a great way to temporarily de-stress. Unfortunately, this only goes so far and with bad habits still in place all the self limiting worries and fears soon come back. For more information, check out this article on the effectiveness of hypnotherapy. Dealing With Bad Habits It's just as well that hypnotherapy is good for the next bit too. Dealing with bad habits. Helping the part of the mind that deals with stress to find a new, more successful way forward. It may sound silly but the reality is that most of our stress and fears are internal rather than external and the solutions are internal too. We've all heard of lottery winners whose lives fell apart shortly after winning huge amounts of money. It's not that their life was terrible that led to their downfall. It's that they were mentally unprepared to deal with a windfall and so it became a problem for them. That's an internal problem, rather than the world having it in for them. How Hypnotherapy Can Help Anxiety is the same thing, it's an internal mental condition that holds us back unnecessarily. It doesn't have to be that way. We all have it within us to cope with just about any sort of anxiety and stress and hypnosis is one of the most powerful tools to help unlock that ability. Hypnotherapy may be the tool you need to help that camel take a load off and get back out there to enjoy the journey once more. If you’re feeling anxious and you feel that no matter what you try, you just can’t seem to shake it, get in touch and let’s talk. I’d love to see how I’d be able to help you. -Daniel 021 2033374 daniel@capitalhypnosis.co.nz Wellington, New Zealand Today I thought I'd talk a bit about hypnosis and something called Selective Eating Disorder or SED. It's an odd subject and for the many people that suffer from it it's often easy to pretend that it's not a problem or even that it's a personal choice.
A Bad Habit The reality is that it is neither of those things. What it is is a massive restriction on personal freedom and opportunities in life. It's also a bad habit and like most habits (like smoking), hypnotherapy can be a remarkably effective solution. Selective Eating Disorder also known as Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) is basically being a picky eater. Irrational Fears It's different from other food disorders in that it stems from a fear of food itself rather than suffering from body dimorphism. Some people with Selective Eating Disorder just have very little interest in food. Some are afraid of various textures, temperatures, tastes and smells. Some are irrationally terrified of choking. allergic reactions or nausea. ARFID can utterly restrict a person's social life, going to a restaurant with a potential date becomes a huge hurdle. With kids it is common that they miss out on vital nutrients, usually iron or vitamins A and C which are of vital importance to a growing body. With adults it commonly leads to low energy levels and stress at meal times. Real Case Study: Two Daughters & A Husband The reason I'm talking about it today though is that I recently had a mother approach me because her entire family. Two lovely little girls and her husband were all fussy eaters. She ended up making at least two, often three different meals every dinner time. Every day was a stressful chore, her fridge was packed with so many foods it was like a student shared flat. Her husband would regularly blow money that could go to more practical ends buying bland takeaway (invariably without vegetables). Hypnotherapy was a last resort for her. A New Hope A co-worker of hers had seen me for weightloss and suggested she get in touch with me. This isn't unusual, most of my clients come from referrals. What was unusual was that the mum was contacting me on behalf of a six and a five year old. I think she had decided that her husband was set in his ways but there was still hope for the kids. What she had been doing prior to contacting me was reward based. If the kids ate one piece of fruit or veg she would give them what they wanted as well. On the face of things that seemed like a winning strategy. The problem was that by making the bland familiar food the reward she was making old habits seem more attractive. Overworked, And Overstressed They also saw dad's example and thought it was quite reasonable for mum to be making several meals a day. To be honest, she confessed to me that it was doing her head in. Pita bread, cheese and tomato sauce pizzas don't make a good diet and her littlest was suffering terrible flatulence as it clearly didn't agree with her. Drastic measures needed to be taken and that's why she came to see a hypnotherapist. I don't normally help little kids, they tend to fidget, get distracted or clam up around strangers. The mum was at the end of her rope though. The solution was a questionnaire that the mum asked her kids about food and how they felt about it. A Simple Bedtime Story With the help of their answers and a chat with the mum I wrote a little bedtime story. Each evening as these two delightful little monsters went to bed Mum would read their story about the two little girls, let's call them Joanne and Samantha and the magical dinner table. Needless to say, within a week the mother got back to me telling me how her little princesses were now clamouring to try some of the foods that the magical girls in the story ate. Hunger and Habit Habits are basic guidelines we learn and apply to our everyday life. The reasons are many and varied. They can stretch from celebrity endorsements to what mum used to make tell us when we were children. When it comes to food choices we are exactly the same. We can very easily get stuck in a rut. Hypnotherapy and hypnosis is a particularly good at breaking habits. Especially bad habits. The ones that we know aren't good for us but we do anyway. The People We Love It can be distressing when we are looking after loved ones. Children or partners and they insist on being fed foods that we know aren't doing any good or food that we find to be bland. Occasionally even foods that we know are actively against their interests. The foods that are going to leave them with low energy, bad teeth or overweight. Imagine for a moment that, with an hour or so of help the mechanisms that reinforce those habits could change. What might that mean to someone's life? To their whole family? Hypnotism can be the answer. When Hypnotism Isn't the Answer Here is the basic rule of hypnosis. Long term change only happens when people have buy in. When they agree that they would be better off if they made the change. I have turned away clients in the past when they have come to me because "The wife wants me to do it." That said, if someone comes to me and genuinely is interested in making the change or they are willing to see if they enjoy a change in their life it can be a magical experience. It can be incredibly rewarding to watch the change as people decide to try fruit for pretty much the first time in their life. Or they go out to a restaurant for the first time and try something other than a plain pizza or steak. For little kids they buy in comes early. Once they beat the self limiting beliefs of "But I don't like it!" that they learnt from their school friends or a family member. Once they get past that they start to enjoy food like the adventurous explorers that they were born to be. Without a doubt these are self limiting beliefs... Family and culture teach people their tastes. Not to put too fine a point on it, I have a friend from Andhra Pradesh in India and their 4 year old child eats pickles and spices that make my eyes water to be even in the same room. They eat these foods happily and with great pleasure because that is what they are used to and what their family is used to. We are capable of being so much more. Of doing so much more once we realise that the biggest obstacle in our lives is us. Hypnotism and Change All it takes to make a change in our lives is for someone to recognise the value of that change and to share that value with us. When I use hypnosis, I don't change anyone's mind. All I do, the only thing I do, is allow them the opportunity to break past the barriers that they have set up in their own mind. I help people to see a way forward to making a change for themselves. Whilst habits can be useful short cuts in making decisions, there is nothing more limiting than the belief that we are unable to change. What Hypnotherapy Isn’t And this brings us to a really good point to close off this post: when most people think of hypnosis, they think of stage hypnotists, and people being made to do silly and ridiculous things, or that it somehow involves some kind of mind control. That nonsense couldn’t be any further from the truth! Real hypnotherapy is as simple as telling ourselves a good bedtime story, and training our minds to look forward to good rewards, and to avoid bad habits. That’s it. If you’re not happy with the “bedtime” stories you keep telling yourself, get in touch and let’s talk. I’d love to see how I’d be able to help you. For more information review this article on the effectiveness of hypnosis. -Daniel 021 2033374 daniel@capitalhypnosis.co.nz Wellington, New Zealand On Cravings, Health, Hypnotherapy, and Quitting Smoking Forever
Time To Stop Smoking? Then This Is How You Do It: The struggle to quit smoking isn’t easy, but the immediate health benefits are amazing. How old you are dosen't matter, there’s an immediate reduction in risk for smoking-related diseases and the likelihood of serious health complications or even death! These include: Quit smoking before your 50's reduces the risk of lung cancer by 90%. After 12 to 15 years after you quit smoking, the chances of a stroke are reduced to that of a person who has never smoked. After only one year of being a non-smoker, the risk of a heart attack are reduced to those of a non smoke of similar fitness and age.. Quit Smoking Capital Hypnosis Hypnotherapy In New Zealand: Here at Capital Hypnosis we proudly developed our Quit Smoking Hypnotherapy Programme which helps you eliminate unwanted habits and is actually easier than losing weight. The reason why it works is simple: The decision to Stop Smoking is simply a “Yes” or “No” decision. Where we all have to eat to survive, which complicates the weightloss equation. A cigarette has never saved a life yet which makes the question "Do I need a cigarette to survive a simple "No!" Most people trying to quit smoking, took their first puff at an early age, often their childhood or adolescence and have never lived smoke-free in their adult life. The youthful habits continue to hold strong even after the smoker becomes an adult. The Capital Hypnosis Quit Smoking Hypnotherapy Programme: We start with some deep relaxation, then we focus on what those habits mean to you. We flip those habits so the part of you that reaches for a cigarette now agrees with your adult mind about how bad an idea smoking is. This takes place over a week long period and in that time, we allow your mind to process the change and then we reinforce it. We don't give you a chance to quit for a month or two before going back to the bad old habits. You not being a smoker is too strongly a part of you for you to fall back into bad old habits. This programme was created to give you a chance to beat the ctupid cravings that you already know are probably going to kill you. The programme is designed to beat the lies you tell yourself about how you actually enjoy the taste of smoke and ash in your mouth. When you complete the programme you should feel perfectly ordinary, no withdrawal period. Effectively you are just another non-smoker. With the assistance of hypnosis it is so easy to give up smoking with the therapy being tailored to you, because smoking is a Yes or No decision. The Quit Smoking programme works and has massive, proven success record. As many people who have been through this programme come out the other end and when checked six months later, remain proud non-smokers. And that 'IF' you really feel the urge to smoke within that six months, you can come back and we will do a free top up session. That's how much we back ourselves! The cost: probably just what you already spend in a few weeks on cigarettes! The first session, about two hours, investigates all the issues around your smoking habit, and sets you on the right path. Where we discuss together why you want to change. We then cement this with hypnosis. It's a process which helps you to be more focussed, that allows you to create the change you are looking for. Quit Smoking Now Your second and last hypnotherapy session buids on that. You're done YOU'LL NEVER HAVE ANOTHER CIGARETTE, EVER. We charge $300 for the two hypnosis sessions, payable on the first session. Did you know? If you’re now smoking a pack a day, the cost of this programme is less than two weeks of cigarettes. It’s a gift that keeps on giving (your bank account and your doctor will be over the moon). When we finish that first session, I'll also give you some support information. I'll also include an MP3 file which you can download and listen to. To give you a daily boost. You can listen to this anytime, anywhere, and for as long as you feel the need. After our time is finished and we are done with the smoking sessions, if you ever, in the first six months, for any reason, feel yourself thinking about smoking again, you can give us a call. We will do our best to fit you in as quickly as possible. We are as determined as you to make your quitting last permanently. Here’s to your new life, one that has no longer got cigarettes as part of it. My name is Daniel and I run a small, online hypnotherapy clinic where I help people to quit smoking from the comfort of their own home. While I live in Wellington, New Zealand, through the wonders of the internet, I can see clients anywhere in the New Zealand and have even seen clients overseas. Get in touch with me today and together we can get you past what in reality has been a hugely dangerous waste of time and money for you. Together we can get you to a place free of cigarettes, a place where you can be proud of yourself and free to be the person you want to be. Quit Smoking with Capital Hypnosis New Zealand Hypnotherapy Quit Smoking There is no easier way than this *********** When I saw Daniel it was simple and easy, it took two sessions but I now have zero interest in cigarettes. It was pretty easy and relaxed. I would recommend Daniel’s help to anyone who want’s to kick the habit. – James ***** I am doing really well since you saw me. So now I will be booking my daughter in too as she is so impressed. Thank you so much. Claire ***** Quit Smoking Forever You might win the lottery... Growwing up with a French mother, I often heard the story of Jeanne Calment, arguably the world’s oldest person. She died aged 122, having been a smoker for almost all her life. When she was 70, she ‘sold’ her house to a lawyer, the understanding being that she could live in there until she died, free of charge, but that the lawyer would posess the house when she died. It was a gamble, but it paid off with a surprise twist. The lawyer, pretty sure that Madame Calment would die fairly shortly, particularly as she was a smoker, felt he was in for a bargain. But Madame Calment refused to cooperate. In fact, she lived for another 52 years, long past the lawyer and his successors. So yes, she won lotto! We all know or have heard of someone, some statistical anomaly who dodged the cancer bullet, who drank like a fish, smoked like a chimney and lived into their 80's or 90's. However, if you smoke, if you know of a smoker, here are some facts. Every cigarette smoked, approximately three thousand different chemicals are inhaled. Nine hundred of those are poisonous. Some will just stain teeth and fingers, damage your skin and hair or just make you smell offensive to other people. Some though, they can give the smoker a whole variety of cancers. I don't need to talk too much about that, you can see it on every pack of cigarettes you pick up, even pictured of the cancers they can treat ao they don't end up in the death statistics. Sure the victims don't die but how fun is talking with machine assistance or eating once your jaw has had to be removed? I could go on but I think it's far more intesting to ask why do people continue to do something so dangerous, that has so little benefit for them? I think that it's fear. The irrational fear that they have become so addicted to cigarettes that if they give up, they will become bad-tempered, or fat, or sleepy, or any number of other 'sypmptoms' of withdrawal. What if I told you that, none of those symptoms are necessary? So various nicotine patches and gums have now been around for nearly thirty years. Long term, study after study shows they work less than 5% of the time. That's a pretty terrible result considering that 6% of people quit smoking without any intervention! Why is that? It's simply because smoking is a head habit, it's almost entirely mental and chewing bad gum or sticking patches on your arm does nothing to address that. But can we give up the smoking habit without going through withdrawal? Without packing on the weight? According to the University of Washington School of Medicine in 2001 (amongst many other scientific articles), they found a massive 90.6% long term success rate for quitting smoking using hypnosis. The problem is that using nicotine replacements, smoking e-cigarettes or even just using sheer willpower alone, None of those address the core reasons why you smoke! On the other hand, using hypnotherapy, you walk in a smoke and, an hour or two later walk out never wanting another cigarette: smoking is just a question of habit, not of addiction and habits can be broken. But of course, the smoker has to be ready to give up, they have to want it! Hypnotherapy isn't magic. I'm not Harry Potter, able to wave a magic wand to make it go away. Instead I'm like a facilitator who makes it easy and painless, giving you the tools and knowledge to walk away from your terrible relationship with cigarettes. You walk away a non-smoker. So when you are next out with friends and one of them offers you a cigarette imagine your pride and sense of achievement when you say with a smile “No thanks, I don't smoke”! Firstly I would like to add a disclaimer before I get into the main course if you like. I've recently had a few people say that they did a session with a hypnotist to lose weight, or they changed their eating habits for a few days but then went back to the same old, same old realising too late that they had thrown their money away. Every time, my sympathy goes out to them, and I can't help but feel that those poor people were taken advantage of.
In this modern age we have so many different things pulling us this way and that. We have limited money and limited time but we've been sold on the idea that there exists the 'instant fix'. Some part of us realises that the instant fix is usually a lie but we pursue it anyway. The fact of the matter is that changing your body shape takes time and effort. Anyone who tries to tell you that a one hour session will fix that, is selling you a lovely dream. One that isn't based in reality and it doesn't matter how much money you throw at it, is extremely unlikely to get the results you are hoping for. With that out of the way, I use a hypnotic process known as VGB or Virtual Gastric Banding. There have been others who have claimed to use this system but instead invented their own, usually less effective system but I do the original Sheila Granger method because it works and it's the reason why there is so much hype regarding VGB. I do this because it works. I've probably helped over a hundred people lose weight and it's only failed once. I know exactly why that was and, with the benefit of hindsight and, knowing what I know now I'd turn her away as she had no interest in changing. "How does that work" I hear you ask? "I've done all the celebrity diets, I've drunk the liver cleansing smoothies. Why can't I keep the weight off?" Or some come to me and say "No matter what I do, I just can't seem to stop eating, I open a bag of chippies and just can't stop until I've finished them, I walk past the takeaway on a Friday evening after work and I've just got to get a scoop with two fish and a hot-dog even when I know it's not good for me." Sometimes it's "when I get home I like a wine or beer but then I'll have two, or three, or more as I relax!" To me it all has the same solution. I'm not interested in making you do something you hate because you'll soon stop doing it. I have no interest in making you feel bad about yourself because you are already there and it's not helping. The solution, strangely enough is to start feeling great about food again. To start building a positive relationship between food and yourself where you enjoy each meal without feeling bad about yourself straight afterwards. "But that doesn't make any sense" you say. You think to yourself that you've put the weight on because you are weak-willed. In the back of your mind there are all these excuses, stress, injury, a bad break-up, a job that has free snacks, a job spent in front of a computer all day. Maybe your excuse is that your family has always been big-boned. Whatever the thoughts that run through your head, deep down you are sure that it's all your fault at some level. And, you feel really, really miserable about that. Sometimes maybe you try to make the effort to get some exercise but you are always too busy, too ashamed of yourself or it's all just too hard to do. These are all common thoughts, they are also just straight up wrong. Those thoughts are the reason you put on weight. Those thoughts are the things that stop you from making the progress that a part of you wants so dearly. Yes a part of you is what's holding you back but it's not the part you think. Willpower isn't the problem, it's that you are conflicted. There are two sides of you having a desperate battle inside your mind. They are both fighting tooth and nail for what's best for you, and the problem is, when you fight yourself you always... always lose. Hypnotism is a funny old thing, it's not what people think it is based on movies or TV shows or stage hypnotists. I mean the guy who gets someone to cluck like a chicken on stage, that's all real but it isn't what you think it is. Hypnotists tend to think of people as being a jumble of different parts. If we can distract or quieten the part of you that that reasons things out then we can talk directly to the parts that we want to affect. That's exactly what we do with weight-loss. To hypnotise someone to lose weight using VGB, to help them not only to lose kilos but to keep them off forever I have to get them on-board. Once they are in a relaxed space, no longer thinking about anything in particular I then talk to the part of them that keeps wanting to eat. Crazy I know, but it works, and it works because that's how we think! We'd like to believe that we are rational beings in control of everything we do but, if that was true why would we keep eating when we know that it's a bad idea? Virtual Gastric Banding is a way to beat that, to drop kilos in a safe reliable way and, more importantly, keep them off. There's nothing revolutionary in the advice I give you. I won't tell you to start eating lean meat and spinach. I won't endorse some cranberry and mushroom diet. I'm not a nutritionist and I don't need to be. Here's a little secret that people in the industry don't want you to know. It's not what you are eating that's making you gain weight, it's portion size! Sure, the amount of corn syrup that ends up in almost everything these days is bad but it's mainly bad because it concentrates more food into a smaller package but we are still eating more (plus it's not great for our teeth). So that's the secret behind VGB, we make it easy for you to eat less, smaller meals, gaps between meals and, strangely enough, starting to enjoy what you eat a whole lot more. When you say you love food and that's the problem, it's not! When you joke that you are on a sea-food diet... when you see food and eat it, that's actually true. You have developed the bad habit of associating eating with pleasure or comfort. Bad habits? That's what hypnosis is great at beating. When I take a client on and start them on the journey to being the shape and size they want to be I make no bones about it. I'm not a magician, there is no magic bullet and I can't lose the weight for them. What I can do is make it easy for them to meet their goals. I give them the tools they need to succeed. I help them develop that full feeling quicker, I make them aware of what they are eating, reclaiming the joy of food for themselves and, perhaps most importantly I help them develop the perspective that allows them to deal with the inevitable potholes and detours that they meet on this journey. Remember, this is a long term lifestyle change, not a quick fix! There is no reason to go back once you have hit your weight loss goal. Once you are the size and shape you want to be you can stay there. What's more, when something comes up like a baby in your life, taking a sedentary job or having an injury. It makes no difference, you have the automatic tools to cope. You don't have to deprive yourself or diet because you are no longer warring with those bad habits. One last thing that I want to add is that something I often note is that my clients stop caring about their weight, they are shedding kilos but they get caught up in enjoying life again. One of the first things that comes back is a sense of energy. They find that the changes mean they are sleeping better, maybe taking part in exercise or socialising more. I had one lovely lady recently who couldn't get over her new confidence. She was suddenly taking charge of work meetings and giving impromptu speeches, and people were amazed by the change. This self described 'quiet' person expressing all the things that she'd held back on before. |
Daniel
Certified hypnotherapist. Archives
January 2021
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