When Is It Time To Seek Outside Advice?
The time to seek outside advice is when we can no longer be objective about a situation or problem. How can we remain objective about the frustrations we feel towards co-workers, spouse or our own kids, or even ourselves and the things we want to change on a personal level? When we try to make changes with others or ourselves, we unknowingly bring our own mental and emotional hidden and unknown fears and conditioning into the problem, ruining objectivity.
Without objectivity we can feel overwhelmed by a situation, or find ourselves going back to similar patterns that never work. If our negative, toxic or self-destructive behavior continues after awareness of the need to change and we make attempts to change, the next step is to acknowledge that we cannot resolve everything ourselves.
So who can we turn to? Family members may be part of our issues and they also cannot remain objective due to years of personal experiences within the family. Sometimes a reliable friend can give you good counsel, however, their ability is limited to their own experience and they too suffer from many unknown issues that influence their ability to remain objective or provide adequate and appropriate advice. Family and friendly advice is based in individual personality which only works for that individual. They do not understand that each person needs a customized answer to their questions. The bottom line is that friends and family are not trained properly to give proper counsel and advice or to know how to remain objective and can make things worse.
The time to seek outside advice and counsel is when you want a fresh, objective viewpoint of your goal and when your desire to improve yourself or a situation is vital. A trained professional who cares can give you the strategies you need to overcome all obstacles, change negative to positive and to succeed in forging better relationships with the one’s you love and the world around you. The best methods can employ a variety of modalities, like hypnotherapy, consciousness training and counseling, to name a few, rather than one conventional formula or medication. There is a solution to every problem and sometimes more than one.
Scott Spackey is a Life-Coach, Clinical Hypnotherapist, California Registered Addiction Specialist Counselor & Interventionist, 661-299-1966, Scott@Life-Mind.com
| Life-Coach + Hypnotherapy:
A Winning Combination
Life is full of options and you should have access to all of them. In the past, when a person felt confused or overwhelmed, they would seek a therapist. This would typically consist of sessions of cognitive therapy (a lot of talking) resulting in some new understanding of the self and a period of change followed by reverting right back to old behavior. A newer and more effective method is hypnotherapy where cognitive work is done and then the mind is sort of rewired to reinforce the new and better behavior at its source: the subconscious. Hypnosis is very effective, plain and simple. More and more people are recognizing this every day. The days of “trying” to feel better are over as hypnosis has been de-mystified and revealed for the true science of mind that it actually is.
Another choice for finding clarity and direction in your life is life-coaching. Life-Coaching assists clients in determining and then achieving personal goals. These goals can be health, profession, relationship, educational, or anything else the client can dream of. The qualified Life Coach acts as a sort of mentor and understands that success in reaching goals is a formula.
So what can happen when these two highly effective practices some together? Life-changing and mind-altering success, that’s what.
As a hypnotherapist I have been extensively trained in consciousness and subconscious behavior. As a Life-Coach and state certified counselor, I draw from a variety of disciplines that include sociology, psychology, mentoring, management, counseling and even western and eastern philosophy. Between the two of them I have built a successful practice. A private practice only succeeds if my clients succeed. By using non-conventional and highly assertive methods, my clients succeed… and so can you!
When seeking the help of a professional, interview them thoroughly and make sure they have the skills and experience you need for permanent change.
Here’s what Hypnotherapy and Life-Counseling can treat for you: depression, anxiety, unwanted habits, health and weight concerns, relationship and sexual enhancement, career choices and goals, motivation, creativity, memory, life direction/purpose and too, too much more to list here, including conditions that range form sever to mild. If you truly desire change and feel that a better life is possible, it can happen with a winning combination.
Scott Spackey is a Certified Life-Coach, Clinical Hypnotherapist, State Certified Counselor and Interventionist. www.LIFE-MIND.com Scott@Life-Mind.com 661-299-1966
| Relationships Strategies: An Unconventional Understanding
We all have needs that we want satisfied within our relationship and most of us believe we are doing an excellent job at understanding the needs of our partner, but in fact we don’t. This is because our true needs exist on subconscious levels and to truly satisfy our partner, we must satisfy those subconscious needs which means we have to understand them first.
To feel happy we have to feel secure. There are many types of security: financial, intellectual, romantic, sexual, emotional, etc. If one area of our lives in insecure, the others suffer as well. The more of a priority an area is to the subconscious, the more suffering and in need of feeling secure we become, sometimes behaving in almost desperate ways to feel better.
There are two types of personalities. One subconsciously seeks security through external validation & relationship security is their #1 priority. They want to feel connected to their partner and without this connection their subconscious influences their behavior to pursue it; sometimes through neediness and irritation. The other type seeks validation from within which makes them seem distant and withdrawn as they pursue their own interests to feel secure. This causes the first type to feel invalidated, i.e. insecure, and their subconscious feels desperate. The second type then feels resentment towards their partner’s need for validation and then real problems arise. In the first type, if the relationship is healthy and they feel validated by their partner, then life is good, regardless of other issues. The second one, however, cannot feel secure until all their other issues are secure and only then will they give attention to their relationship, causing again, the first one to feel invalidated.
What do we do about this? The first type needs to give space, refrain from pursuing attention and validation. The second type needs to stop withdrawing and go towards their partner and validate them. When this happens, both feel more secure and their behavior is subconsciously modified. This profound behavioral understanding is too deep to be explored in this small editorial. I teach these behavior modifications to people in crisis every day whereby they learn to resolve their issues and meet each other’s needs again, like the honeymoon days. It is a life-changing strategy that must be experienced!
Scott Spackey is a Certified Life-Coach, Clinical Hypnotherapist, State Certified Counselor and Interventionist. www.LIFE-MIND.com Scott@Life-Mind.com 661-299-1966
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THE DEFINITION OF STUPID:
“Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.” This is actually Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity, but it applies to stupid as well. Many of us act surprised when we repeat the same behavior and still find it difficult to self-improve.
Yet most of us persist with our repeated ways of living and thinking, stuck in mental paradigms that seem to obstruct our progress and conscious evolution. If we want to be different, we must think different. If we want to think different, we must rewrite the “mental script” that we are unconsciously following.
The desire to grow and improve is part of our evolutionary impulse. According to science it has taken man 150 million years to evolve. PDQ we got out of the cave and onto the freeway; from torchlight to neon light. Space Shuttles, TIVO, laptops, digital cameras in your cell phone. It took a long time to crawl out of the primordial ooze, but man finally stood upright, walked and then ran, and in developing memory control and language became master of his world. So what’s next?
We have, for all intents and purposes, completed our physical evolution. But what about mentally? Consciously? What about spiritually?
The next step in our evolution is not physical, but conscious and even spiritual. We must improve our minds and often this begins with letting go of old habits like smoking, poor diet, stress or anger issues. So long as we persist in behavior and ideas that we know are not right for us we are not evolving. Without progress, our lives begin to lose momentum and purpose. Without purpose, we can only hope for happiness and we cannot realize it. Why should we live in the “hope” of happiness when we desire to live in it?
Have you changed your mind today?
Changing our lives is as simple as changing our minds. But this is trickier than it seems. We have spent decades writing the subconscious mental “script” we live by.
How do we know what path is right for us? There are many books, tapes, pseudo-gurus and secret societies all offering ways for you to be your own cosmic hot dog vendor and make yourself “one with everything”. The way you begin is by examining yourself. If you could improve just one thing about yourself, what would it be? If you could improve anything about yourself, what wouldn’t you improve?
How do we realize our highest potential?
Where do we begin?
You begin right where you are: here and now. You begin on the path that is in front of you, one step at a time. Change that one thing about yourself and when that’s done, think about the next one. The only thing you need for change is the desire for it. We will achieve what we believe. Buddha once said, “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The Mind is everything. What we think, we become.”
Just think of what you can become.
These two paragraphs were edited out to lower the word count. I’ve left them here so you can see if you think they belong back in or should replace some other section.
For thousands of years, wise sages and teachers, from Christ to Gandhi, from Lao Tzu to Martin Luther King and many of the great Indian swamis have laid down methods for conscious (and spiritual) evolution and improvement.
If willpower were enough, none of us would need to improve at all- we’d all be perfect already. But willpower is a funny thing; it is a wonderful tool that is highly effective and is always there- except when we need it most!
| Getting The Most From Your Life
Seriously, are you getting all you can from yourself? Is your life getting the best of you or are you getting the best out of life? How do we solve problems, improve ourselves and make our lives substantially happier in these troubled and anxious times? It’s hard to remain focused on personal growth, our families and personal problems the way things have been lately, but we must continue improving our own lives and solving our own problems. So how do we do this? How can we effectively solve our problems and improve our minds and hearts?
First we need to know who we are. It sounds simple, but it can actually be very challenging. We live in a culture that encourages us not to think as individuals and not to ask big questions. We live in a consumer culture and we often get buried by other people’s philosophies and ideas whether these came from our parents, our institutions, government or just “life on the way”.
Getting to know how you feel and think is key to getting the most out of your life. Psychiatrists want to diagnose everyone and medicate them. Maybe we need less diagnosing and more personal effort towards change. Maybe we can think of inner and outer change first- meds last. Counseling and coaching can help you unravel the mystery of you. Having a personal coach is like having a really smart and objective best friend who knows a lot about stuff you really care about the most: Your own happiness and how to live better which instantly makes the world a better place!
No drugs.
No diagnosis.
Just problem solving, strategy building and learning self reliance. Drug free methods can also include hypnotherapy and bio-feedback. Isn’t it time to try something new, different and effective? Someone certified and professionally trained but highly insightful, result oriented and passionate about change?
In another section of this publication I wrote about prescription meds. I hope you’ll read that too and consider how you can take your life and future into your own hands and create a force of change within yourself. Your potential is waiting for you and it is unlimited. Don’t let these turbulent times put anxiety and fear into your life.
Scott Spackey is a Certified Life-Coach Hypnotherapist, Bio-Feedback Technician & CA. Registered Addiction Specialis & Interventionist,
www.LIFE-MIND.com 661-299-1966 Scott@Life-Mind.com
| SELF-DEFEATING BEHAVIORS
Sometimes there seems to be some unseen force, some undetectable presence which blocks our ability to succeed at things. Whether we are trying to shed a few pounds, stop a bad habit or just rid ourselves of some underlying negativity that nags away at us, this invisible force seems to stand like an impassable gate to the other side where happiness, feeling good and being better at things reside.
This unseen force is a very real thing, however, and does indeed impede our ability to feel that next level of joy, confidence and control over our lives. The reason it is invisible is because it exists in our mind, but it is not imaginary.
In our early childhood we are very impressionable. Our parents, social environment and all of our experiences condition us to be and to react to things in certain ways. The most obvious example of this is of a child raised by hypercritical parents (who wasn’t?). This child grows up feeling like nothing they ever do is good enough, i.e. low self-esteem. Even when this child grows older and gets independent from the family, he or she still carries this conditioning in the subconscious mind. Consciously, this person knows they are good, but there is a conflict between this conscious understanding and the subconscious conditioning. As a result, a subtle feeling of low confidence persists, no matter how this person tries to overcome it. This example shows how early conditioning keeps a hold on us even into adulthood and can debilitate a variety of areas of our thinking, feeling and living. This explains how many people, even though they have a good life feel like “something” is missing.
It can be difficult to break through this learned conditioning and when you fail at it, you might think it is your fault which makes you feel even worse. This is because the subconscious part of the mind is simply doing its job- unaware that the behavior is unhealthy, it simply enforces what it has been taught to believe and associate with. “Sub-conscious” means that which is partially unknown. Since we are unaware of what the conditioning is, we have a very difficult time changing it with conscious choices.
Persistence is key. To change behavior we need to create a new behavior and that takes time and effort. We also may need to create new associations within the mind to make us feel differently about things. Hypnotherapy and life-counseling are the two methods that I use as a professional to help people through these changes. They are effective, quicker than the self-directed method, and also lead to even greater changes and even greater happiness about your self and life.
Scott Spackey is a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, Life-Counselor and CA. Registered Addiction Specialist who works with all ages, children to adults, in the SCV.
661-299-1966, www.LIFE-MIND.com, Scott@Life-Mind.com
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How the Mind Works
It is the power of the mind that drives us, motivates us and allows us to create our reality.
There are 2 parts to your mind: the conscious and the subconscious. The conscious portion of our mind is almost insignificant and only works part time. When we are asleep the conscious mind stops working all together. When we keep our conscious mind focused, it is working, but when we get distracted by our relationships, work, stress or other issues, then it is the subconscious mind that takes over.
The subconscious mind is always working: when we sleep, dream, become stressed or emotional it is the subconscious mind that is influencing our behavior 24/7. So… conscious willpower is great; it seems like it’s always there… except when we need it the most!
The subconscious mind’s number 1 job is to reinforce behavior based on our conditioned responses. This means that it does what it knows and has been taught to do, regardless of whether that behavior is healthy or not. If we have been taught or have self-taught bad behaviors the subconscious will enforce that, no matter how much we want consciously to change. This is why it is so difficult to lose weight and keep it off, quit smoking and stay that way, cope with stress effectively and rid ourselves of self-defeating attitudes and disorders.
The conscious mind is 12% of the mind and the subconscious is 88%! Trying to defeat it is like to trying to take a banana away from a 400 pound gorilla!
Fortunately, there are tools we can use to recondition the mind. By using suggestibility properly, we can provide new conditioned responses to the mind in a healthy, natural way with hypnotherapy and the correct style of counseling and coaching. Training provides the right thinking and strategies, which can then be combined with hypnosis to condition the subconscious for positive associations. This fascinating process must be experienced to appreciate. If you want to learn more, you don’t even have to know what to ask, a good professional will know how to guide you. With a powerful mind, you can do anything.
| SLACKERS:
ADULT CHILDREN WHO NEED TO GROW UP
I get about a dozen cases a year: Adult children who seem directionless, lazy and unmotivated brought to me by parents who are fed up. Typically, by the time I meet them, the parents are out of patience. They are tired of working hard to support an adult child who should by now be independent or at least moving progressively in that direction. Lecturing is a waste of time, consequences don’t seem to work, support seems to go totally unappreciated. They’ve tried getting them to be more serious about school, work; life in general, and nothing seems to be changing. The resentment and frustration begins to be felt by all the family members as they pull the extra weight of the one individual who seems to be basking in the luxury of a dependant lifestyle. Most of the time, but not always, some drugs are involved, copious amounts of pot is the most common substantiating the theory that a pot-induced lifestyle creates physical and mental lethargy. Lying is also a component as the “slacker” has a tendency to make endless empty promises to change and to use resources that don’t belong to them (taking money, using phones, credit cards, cars and gas, etc. without permission or behind the family’s back).
My initial thought is, “Why, oh why, did they not contact me BEFORE they were on the verge of throwing them out and cutting them off.” Because this sort of change is a process and takes time and patience; something the family is sorely lacking by now.
What the individual needs is a process that alters their thinking and begins to get them in touch with the benefits of growing up instead of the benefits of perpetually staying a child. A process that forces the transition from youth to maturity, without loopholes or exit routes. The process cannot be learned from a book or a seminar because the genesis of such dynamics varies from person to person; family to family. It needs to be a highly customized process; exploiting the strengths (and weakness’) of the “slacker’s” personality. Eventually, we will all grow up. If your adult child is stuck it may be time to give them a jolt.
| LIFE-COACHING YOUR KIDS:
ROAD MAP TO MATURITY
How mature are your kids? Many of them are destined for college, but are they ready? There's more to preparing for college than a qualifying GPA and required classes. Many kids have to be "nagged" by parents to keep up with their work and follow through with responsibilities and the "unpredictables". Kids say, "don’t treat me like a child". But you have historical proof that if you don’t nag them things won't get done; "If you act like a child, you get treated like one!"
If kids aren't capable of managing their lives, then maybe they're not mature enough for what is waiting for them. If you're kid is a junior or senior and still needs parental motivation to complete school work and get good grades, I can assure you they are NOT ready for what lies ahead. But parents feel they're running out of time since high school is almost up. But I say, if they don’t fail now and learn from these failures, they will only fail later. Every year of life the stakes get higher, not lower, life gets more challenging not easier and certainly college failures will be more expensive and esteem damaging than high school ones. Maturity is an ongoing, life-long process, but certain milestones need to be reached before we move on to each level of life like career, marriage, home, family, etc. If your kids are not prepared and mature at each stage, they will not succeed at any of these endeavors.
What kids need is a Road Map to Maturity. A well defined and structured method by which their maturity can be measured, gauged and coaxed along so that it can actually come to fruition in the amount of time they have left.
As a counselor and Life-Coach, this is my job. I facilitate and accelerate maturity. By working one-on-one with clients and families, I organize and customize a plan for the teen to mature; gauging where they are and where they need to be and then working to help them realize each mile-marker on the road-map. By the end, they can get the grades they need on their own, meet their obligations, manage their lives, clean their rooms, handle chores, drive themselves to and from, return home on time, stay off drugs and get into the future.
It requires a lot of work. The teen AND the parents need to make changes, but it IS possible!
Parents: You can see the finish line. I know; I have a senior in school too. It's exhausting, but you can't give up!
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