Changing Limitations – Learning to Thrive in life: by Dublin based hypnotherapist Ailish McGrath

 

The Mind Training Programme:

This is a 4-8 week course empowering you to be happy, confident and in control using the resourcefulness of your mind. It follows the structure of the ‘Happy Ways, Happy Days’ which is a mind training programme designed to teach you how to:

 

What are ‘Beliefs’ & how important are they in your life?

Beliefs are the precursor to every experience you have in life. They are the lens or filter through which you view yourself, others and life. They are behind and drive EVERYTHING you think, do, say and feel.

 

Beliefs STRUCTURE your reality.

There are two types of beliefs we can have:

1. Supporting e.g ‘I am capable’, ‘I am lovable’, ‘I am safe’, ‘I have what it takes to thrive’.
2. Limiting e.g ‘I lack confidence’, ‘I’m not interesting’, ‘other people are better than me’.

 

There are two ways we can acquire beliefs:

1. Conclusions derived from information e.g your friend tells you about a wonderful holiday and the information causes you to believe that it would be a good place to visit.
2. Experience e.g you go someplace on your holiday and this experience causes you to believe that that place is lovely.

Most of our fundamental beliefs about ourselves are recorded before we are 7 years old. Childhood programming becomes our habits of perception and behaviour.

 

Biologically we can only ever be heading in one of two directions:

1.  Growth – thriving, succeeding
2. Protection – shutting down, restricting, stagnating

What determines whether we are mostly ‘in growth’ or ‘in protection’ mode are the ‘I can’ messages as a child along with the ‘I can’ experiences as an adult or the ‘I can’t’ messages as a child coupled with the ‘I can’t’ experiences as an adult.

Here are some examples of the ‘I Can’t’ (limiting) messages often internalised from childhood:

• You’ll never amount to anything
• You’re worthless
• You are not smart enough
• No matter how hard you try it’s never good enough
• Money is hard to come by and hard to keep
• You don’t deserve to succeed
• No one will ever love you
• You’re going to get cancer because it’s genetic

What if you could change them to I Can (supportive) messages? For example:

 

• I can accomplish anything I choose
• I am a worthy and valuable person
• I am intelligent and capable
• I do my best and my best is good enough
• I easily attract money into my life and use it wisely
• I deserve happiness and success in my life
• I love myself and I am loved by others
• My beliefs control my genes and I control my beliefs

 

A Mind Model:

There are two parts to our mind and these two parts are very different.

1) Your Conscious Mind – what you are aware of about yourself.

• Volitional – sets goals and judges results.
• Likes to try new things.
• Thinks abstractly
• Conceptually based
• Short term memory e.g 20 seconds
• Time bound – past and future
• Limited processing capacity – 1 – 3 events, averages 40 bits per second

 

2) Your Sub-Conscious Mind – what you are unaware about yourself.

• Habitual – monitors operation of the body. E.g motor functions, heart rate, digestion etc. It prefers the familiar.
• Thinks Literally
• Sensory based – it understands what you can see, hear, feel, taste, touch, smell.
• Long term memory…stores past attitudes, experiences, values and beliefs
• Timeless – present time only
• Expanded processing capacity – thousand events, averages 40 million bits per second

Your sub-conscious is the store house of all of your beliefs. Your sub-conscious is directly responsible for how you perceive life, due to the beliefs it runs automatically, and therefore it influences how you behave and ultimately the outcomes you experience.

 You may think you are thinking and acting consciously, but you are not!

You really do have two minds…. have you ever tried to change your mind, only to find your mind has a mind of its own?

 

What happened the last time…. 

• you promised yourself you’d get in shape?
• you made a new year’s resolution?
• you tried to quit smoking?
• you said you’d stop procrastinating?
• you swore you’d never get involved in another relationship?

You may make a conscious decision to change only to find yourself sabotaging and reneging on your deal. It’s frustrating. But why do you do this? It’s because your sub-conscious mind has opposing limiting beliefs.

Imagine yourself at a party and if your sub-conscious has mainly limiting beliefs you will perceive the party as socially threatening, feel anxious, act withdrawn and frightened, resulting in being alone and not having any fun.

If your sub-conscious has mainly supporting beliefs you will perceive the same party as safe and a place for you to enjoyably express yourself, you will feel excited, sociable and safe, as a result you will act open and friendly, resulting in having a great night mingling and meeting new friends.
 

Beliefs are FILTERS for reality.

You don’t see the world as it is…..you see the world as you are.

Beliefs create Perceptions….That Affect your: 

• Self esteem (whether you mostly consider yourself worthy or worthless)
• Relationships (if you believe you are loved or unloved)
• Prosperity (do you believe you easily attract money or do you think it’s hard to make and hard to keep)
• Job Performance (do you consider yourself competent or Incompetent)
• Mental Health (do your beliefs result in happiness or depression)
• Physical Health (are you mostly ‘in growth’ i.e healthy or ‘in protection/fear’ i.e disease promoting)
• Spiritual Outlook (do you believe you create your own experience or are you a victim of circumstance)
• And more….

As beliefs filter every experience of your life, it is imperative therefore that you have as many supporting beliefs recorded consciously and sub-consciously in order to succeed in and enjoy life to the full.

It’s easier to change habits of thought behaviour if you access the subconscious mind, because it’s the store house for attitudes, values and beliefs.

When you change the way you perceive the environment, you can change the environment. E.g you will be treated differently, when you treat yourself differently.

 YOUR BELIEFS DETERMINE THE LIMITS OF WHAT YOU CAN ACHIEVE!

Or, as Henry Ford once said:

“if you believe you can or you believe you can’t – you’re right”

 

But how do you change a limiting belief?

Changing a limiting belief requires two things:

1. Information: becoming aware that you are not a victim and that you CAN affect outcomes by changing how you think about yourself, by changing how you perceive the situation, by changing how you speak to yourself in your own mind. Learning how the mind works and what you can do to manage your thinking, access your sub-conscious, rewrite limiting beliefs and act differently in those situations that previously you were frightened of.
2. Tools: Apply effective strategies and techniques to change your brain.

 

We all experience limiting beliefs in various areas of our life.

• In the area of relationships we can have limiting beliefs about our attractiveness, lovability, dependability, communication, trustworthiness.

 

• In the area of work often we can have limiting beliefs about lack of confidence, ability to succeed, limiting beliefs about competition and scarcity, along with presentation and self-esteem issues.
• In the area of our health we can have limiting beliefs in our ability to stay fit, to be the correct body weight for our height and age and overcome illness. Many have been erroneously educated into thinking their health is genetically determined, whereas new research from Bruce Lipton and others proves that what turns on a gene is our perception of the environment, or our beliefs.

Regardless of what area of your life is adversely affected by limiting beliefs and perceptions this course will empower YOU to help change your life, completely.
 

The Mind Training Programme:

The ‘Happy Ways, Happy Days’ Programme, is a theory and technique approach to training people to completely change their limiting beliefs – empowering them to take back control of their life.

This short training programme teaches you how to take control of your conscious thoughts, feelings, emotions, doubts and worries.

It also shows you how to access and change limiting sub-conscious beliefs and perceptions, thereby making sure that the change is accepted by your whole mind, so you have your whole brain on your side, working towards achieving the goals you set for yourself.

It is able to completely change the way you think and feel about yourself and challenging situations – enabling you to live a happier, more successful and positive life.

It generally takes around 6-8 training sessions to complete.

It is not about someone else doing something for you or to you but about YOU taking control of your life. It is so much more empowering to take control of your own problems, rather than someone else resolving them for you, and this training will enable you to do just that.
 

Myths and Facts about changing beliefs:

Myth #1 If you have had a limiting belief for a long time, it will take a long time to change it.

Fact: Most of the time, changing a subconscious belief is much like changing a document on a computer. It doesn’t take any longer to change a document you have had on your computer for 30 years than it does to change one you have had only 30 minutes.

Myth #2 Changing old behaviours and thought patterns is difficult and often painful.

Fact: Thought patterns and behaviours are caused by perceptions (beliefs). Beliefs are represented by specific configurations of photons of light held in an electromagnetic field. Change the field and you change the belief. Change the belief and you change the thought patterns and behaviours.

Myth #3 You need to consciously know what caused the problem in order to change it.

Fact: Becoming consciously aware of the source of the problem is seldom necessary to change most of the beliefs or behaviours when dealing with the subconscious mind.
 

Symptoms that ‘Happy Ways, Happy days’ will help with…

The main thing that prevents you overcoming a problem or symptom, the main thing stopping you from succeeding, is your belief that you can’t. It is your underlying belief that whatever you do will not be enough to sufficiently improve the situation, so what’s the point in even trying?

Be reassured that your belief in powerlessness is only a belief; a filter for reality. You actually have more resources within you to overcome any symptom, but as long as you believe there’s nothing you can do, you will prove yourself right – every time. So the first and most important belief to challenge is the belief in your own helplessness or powerlessness.

And that is where we start with this training; by challenging your belief in powerlessness and by building an internal sense of ability, resourcefulness and resilience you will develop the solid foundations needed to accomplish any goal you set for yourself.

There is plenty of research to suggest that if you feel that you have the power to affect your life and take control of the direction it takes, you tend to be happier and healthier. An example of this research is a study by Gale et al, 2008, which found that people who had shown an internal locus of control (a belief that at that they can control events that affect them) at age of ten were less likely to be overweight at age 30, and also had higher levels of self-esteem.

Another interesting piece of research (Rodin and Langer, 1977) looked at pensioners in a nursing home. Some pensioners were encouraged to take responsibility for themselves and given a plant to look after. Others were told that the nursing home staff would care for them and were given a plant, which staff cared for. Those pensioners in the ‘responsibility group’ who cared for their own plant became more active, reported feeling happier and appeared more alert. They were more involved in social activities with the staff and other residents. Even more incredibly, in the 18 months after the study began, 50% fewer pensioners in the ‘responsibility’ group died than those who were not given care of a plant. The act of looking after the plant gave the pensioners a sense of purpose, and contributed to a more internal locus of control.

The Mind Training programme is all about YOU taking control of your life and changing the way that you think and feel about situations.

That you create and can positively influence the outcome for every area of your life is the most important thing you can realise about yourself. Understanding and believing in your own creative potential puts you in the driving seat of your own life, it allows you to achieve and succeed in whole new ways, gives you a secure sense of power, enthusiasm, trust and belief in yourself.

When your sense of control over yourself and your life is located inside you, you can go anywhere, meet anyone, be in front of people or alone and feel resourceful, centred, capable, competent and confident.

This program will teach you about how your mind works, how to gain access to and the ability to change both limiting conscious and sub-conscious beliefs. It will teach you how to set goals that harness the power of your whole mind, and how to use that power to achieve your goal.

It will help you build a solid and lasting sense of self-esteem; learning to have high regard for yourself, your mind, your body and your life.

The course will give you insight into your personality make up along with the common thinking styles that go along with those types of people. Once you can clearly recognise your thinking style you can begin to use those gifts to work for you rather than against.

For example if you have a vivid and active imagination, that you are currently using to run ‘horror movies’ in your head of possible awful outcomes, then you can learn to manage the same skill of imagination to develop and play ‘inspirational movies’ in your head instead, thus giving you the energy to follow through on a goal.

You will learn the tools and techniques, that are tried and tested and proven, that you can apply to yourself to meet any challenge for the rest of your life.

The only thing most people suffer from is that they believe their stressful thoughts. And by believing their stressful thoughts they act and behave as if those stressful thoughts are true and as a result keep getting the same results.

By questioning and challenging limiting beliefs and choosing to look for the evidence for those beliefs that will support you, you begin to act and behave in favour of what you want and as a result get more of what you want in life.

In short the course is analogous to teaching you to fish, rather than just giving you a dinner.

It equips you with the insight, tools and techniques, that once applied by you will result in you making positive changes in your life, for the rest of your life! It enables you to take control of your own emotions and thoughts, by understanding more about yourself and your belief systems. As a result, it can help with absolutely anything!

Hundreds of symptoms, problems and conditions have already been helped through Changing Limiting Beliefs.

The training programme can allow you to conquer any phobias and fears, such as a fear of flying, driving, spiders, dogs, spaces, needles, dentists, heights, etc. This amazing training programme will allow you to take control of your emotions and completely alter the way that you respond to previously frightening situations.

This technique can, also, help ongoing symptoms and conditions such as M.E., Chronic Fatigue, Depression, Anorexia and IBS as well as many other physical and mental conditions. The Changing Limiting Beliefs training programme allows you to totally change how you feel about yourself and allows you to respond to external stressors in a very different and more constructive way.

It can help with symptoms relating to social anxiety such as blushing, stuttering and stammering, fear of presentations and being put on the spot. It can get rid of sexual problems such as premature ejaculation. In several cases people have managed to completely resolve their premature ejaculation problems in just one hour long session!

It can help with any instances in which limiting or negative beliefs are holding you back from doing something that you want to! You may often find yourself thinking something along the lines of ‘I could never be in a relationship with someone as attractive as that…’ or ‘I’m not good enough to get a promotion at work…’ or ‘I can’t do that, I’m sure to make an idiot of myself…’ or ‘I can never stick to diets, there’s no point in trying…’ In any of these cases, and many, many others, this training programme will allow you to completely alter the way you think and feel – enabling you to live a far happier, more successful and positive life.