Do you need to learn how to make changes that seem impossible? Losing weight, making lots of money, feeling confident, being at peace, changing a relationship…can seem out of reach. When you’ve been a certain way for a long time, other options feel unrealistic, right?
This post will help you determine whether or not the changes you want are possible.
I gave up hypnotherapy for one annoying reason.
The clients.
I know that sounds unprofessional. I really wanted to help people benefit from hypnosis, and being newly trained, I hung out a shingle. When the people came, there was just one problem.
They wanted to be fixed. Most clients who responded to my ads showed up and said something like:
I just want you to ‘put me under’ and make this problem go away.
Make it go away! I don’t want to put forth the effort. Just disappear my pain, please. See you when I wake up.
I tried. It worked in some cases. Some problems can be cured quickly and easily. Most issues people are willing to pay a therapist for, however, can’t be cured with the wave of a hypnotic wand.
But I also hate it when people say:
You’ve got to work at it. Keep trying. Nothing changes without effort!
Difficult problems do not change with effort. If they change, it happens with the right effort, which is usually based on rare and timely insight. Otherwise, you can work on problems unproductively, forever. Tons of effort. No results.
When you make the right effort, things change. The problem is, the right effort is usually counter-intuitive. And this is where rare insight matters.
If only life weren’t so complicated, I know.
How do you get the right insight and make the right effort?
This is the $64,000 question. If you find the right insight and follow through, your impossible problems may become a thing of the past. Most challenges open to solutions when the right insight comes into play.
Here are some clues to guide you in your search for rare insight and the right effort.
Rare insight includes one or more of the following characteristics:
• It never occurred to you before (or has never clicked)
• Makes you nauseous
• Feels painfully liberating
• Takes your breath away, followed by a sigh
• Makes sense of your whole life
• Is motivating
• Is based on a structural understanding of your life and personal history
Someone has to put patterns together. If not you, then someone.
The right effort includes on or more of the following characteristics:
• Is qualitatively different than what you’ve done before
• Still requires practice and work
• Demands more of your consciousness than you’re used to
• Is motivating because it inspires hope and progress
Now we need some examples of rare insight. The following are real, though they may not hit you in the right place, because they aren’t your rare insight.
The endless procrastinator who realized he secretly believed success would bring endless pressure and impossible expectations.
The anxious mother who realized she was projecting her anxieties onto her children and attempting to control her fears by controlling her children.
The overweight executive who realized how attached he was to the silent humiliation of being the ‘happy fat guy’.
The hopeless romantic who learned that she was reliving her childhood abandonment issues through her tendency to control men, who soon left her.
The compulsive worrier who realized he was making himself helpless – and therefore entitled to the help he never received as a child.
There is no end to the scenarios your psyche can cook up to create mental and emotional problems. These traps include childhood beliefs cast upon an adult world. Once snared, it’s difficult to escape without rare insight and the right actions. Most of us get stuck in childhood, before we even know what’s going on.
Finding Clues
If you’re looking for insight, consider this: The mind is a labyrinth of defense mechanisms that keep you in denial.There is a way to cut through the maze and find answers, however.
Here are some tips to get you started:
Part of you wants the negative results you complain about. Understanding this aspect of your psyche is a goldmine of personal growth opportunity.
Unconsciously, we set ourselves up for failure. Consciously, we make excuses to justify doing so. If you want to dig deep, ask yourself which behaviors or feelings your excuses justify.
Healing involves becoming consciously aware of what you are seeking at the unconscious level. Another problem now: If it’s unconscious and so well defended, how do you get to the right insight?
Are you still wondering how to make changes?
If all of this makes perfect sense to you and you would love to help someone else understand the same. Life Coaching might be a fit for you. If you notice the clues and would like to help others make the changes they need in their lives, consider a rewarding career as a life coach.
Click here to take a free aptitude test to see if you have the innate ability to become a life coach.
