Stop Being Too Nice Sample [3:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (677)

Don’t get me wrong. Being nice, considerate and decent to other people is the glue that makes society stick. We need to be caring and considerate, and selfishness is damaging to ourselves as well as others. But (you knew there was a ‘but’ coming) sometimes we have to be cruel to be kind. Overly ‘nice’ parents, for example, can spoil their children rotten. And if you are seen as ‘too nice’ to others then you become a target for every manipulator and opportunist out there.

How can someone be too nice?

Being too nice is a real problem for some. If someone always quashes their own opinions, preferences, irritations and ideas in favor of other peoples’, then they are not being true to themselves. If you always defer to others, then you lose a sense of who you are. ‘People pleasing’ and overdoing it on the niceness front are usually born more out of fear than decency. Fear of rejection. Fear that your opinions are wrong. Fear that they won’t like you if you disagree with them.

No one respects the overly nice person

Of course, too much niceness isn’t much fun for the others anyway. In any relationship, always saying “I don’t mind” can put a real burden on the other person to always have to make the decision for two, and try to guess what you would both enjoy. Being too nice is so often about lack of confidence, or having been trained early on to ‘keep the peace’ and try and please at all costs. If you are too predictable and nice then no one will value your opinion when it’s positive – because it’s always positive.

Being too nice devalues niceness

Currency gets devalued when there is too much of it in circulation. If gold and diamonds were everywhere they would lose all value and be, effectively, worthless. So too with niceness. You really value pleasantness when it comes from someone who isn’t always trying to be pleasant. It’s that much more valuable when it’s not there all the time. The new hypnosis session especially for Hypnosisdownloads.com Stop being too nice addresses the self confidence issues of people who are too nice and seeks to make their niceness valuable again.

Best wishes

Mark

 Overcome Adrenalin Addiction Sample [3:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (321)

There was a time when we had to take time out because there was no electricity to give us electric light to see by or power to send our emails by. When it was dark or cold outside, we had to stay in and reflect, maybe read by candle light, or (heaven forbid!) actually to our fellow human beings.

Now we can and seem to feel we should work 24/7 – or at least continuously indulge our taste for instant connection and amusement. The media sends us the constant coded message that: ‘If it’s not exciting it’s a, not important and b, not worth paying attention to.’ This is like saying that if food isn’t sweet and instantly tasty it can’t possibly be nutritious. The problem is that if we can only ‘taste’ the exciting and the instant, then our capacity to appreciate the more subtle pleasures of life may atrophy through disuse. Which would be a tragedy. Adrenaline addiction is a real and increasing problem.

We are drowning in ‘information’ but may be losing the ability to discern between one thing and another.

Calm mind clear thoughts

A cliché I hear over and over is: ‘I never relax!’ People lay this at my feet as if it were a challenge. The kind of people who are always ‘on the go’, always having to be doing something. They fidget and look uncomfortable unless they are working or desperately entertaining themselves or are welded to their cell phones. Unless there is action, excitement and constant instant stimulation then they become bored, or feel they are somehow missing out. When such people are removed from the ‘adrenaline triggers’ of life they can show all the classic signs of withdrawal.

So what is adrenaline addiction and what is wrong with it?

Addicted to (the) base

Adrenaline is a vital hormone. It is part of the ‘fight or flight’ response that our bodies experience when we are faced with a stressful situation. It speeds up breathing, heart rate and metabolism, to prepare us for threat or to chase a potential reward. Advertisers need to activate our adrenaline to get us motivated to pursue their products. One of the problems of being an adrenaline junkie is that you are more prone to being manipulated by people who know how to get you excited.

Overproduction of adrenaline suppresses the immune system making people more prone to illness and generally subjects the body to stress. If we can only pay attention to attention-grabbing, fast-paced experiences we never develop properly. Having to be distracted by constant novelty and excitement may be all right for very young children at a certain stage, but adults need to have a flexible repertoire – more than one gear, so to speak!The new session ‘Overcome adrenaline addiction’ at hypnosisdownloads.com aims to reactivate the capacity to appreciate depth of experience and therefore be able to respond in a mature way to life – not just react like an over-excited chimp.We live in a culture that encourages instant responses and unsubtle emotional impact. But – as with all things – there needs to be a balance so we can become more than push-button automatons

 Negativity Shield Sample [4:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (264)

Some people are just wonderful to be around. Let’s see… well, they know not to speak over other people who are speaking, they are interested in others, they are positive, upbeat and fun. Perhaps they make you laugh and see the possibilities in life. But others are just so negative. They make you feel that nothing is worth any effort, that everything is doomed to go wrong and that life is to be endured rather than embraced. The type of person, in fact, who’s actually (and maybe not so secretly) pleased when things don’t work out, because… well, at least that proves they were right, doesn’t it?

Contagious pessimism

Emotions and attitudes are infectious. Negativity, pessimism, depressive thinking and unenthusiastic outlook all seep from one person to another. If we are not careful, we can become ‘infected’ by disempowering attitudes. Before long, households, workplaces and other social groups can be swamped by a general apathetic sense of pessimism. If people around you are sending out constant negative ‘vibes’ then it can feel hard not to be ‘brought down’ by them.

Shield yourself from negativity

No doubt there were plenty of Cassandras only too ready to be negative when someone had the bright idea of deliberately sowing the seeds of edible plants to increase food supplies. Or when another bright spark came up with the notion of wheels and axles. Or when a thoughtful healer wondered if it would help to perform surgery. After all, such notions were bound not to work, weren’t they?

Aren’t you glad the inventors didn’t listen?

The fact is, if we buy into other people’s perspectives too much, we can lose ourselves in other people’s perceptions. And, of course, they too may have been infected in their turn by pernicious seeping pessimism. The cycle has to stop somewhere!

The theme of this new hypnosisdownloads.com session ‘Negativity shield’ is the importance of protecting yourself from being unduly unconsciously (or consciously) influenced by the negativity, short sightedness and pessimism of people around you.

Negativity surrounds us on a daily basis – from alarmist news stories to the office grouch. We’ve probably all worked with the whinger who constantly complains about how awful work is and never sees the positive aspects. They can drag everybody down with them if you don’t watch out.

Hypnotized by negativity

The negativity shield shows people first how to spot when others are being negative and then take defensive action. Pessimism can be so pervasive it can feel ‘normal’ if we are not careful. The session also gives strategies for staying detached from other people’s negative distortions and encourages calm objectivity and optimistic energy.

All the best

Mark

Full hypnosis download Overcome sibling rivalry

Resentment can last a long time. Many hypnotherapy clients over the years have complained to me of bitter resentments towards their siblings. Either they feel inadequate because brother (or sister) has always been the ‘golden boy’ (or girl) who ‘couldn’t put a foot wrong’ or they feel as if they have been competing with their sibling all their lives. Sibling rivalry can dictate how they respond even now as an adult to their brother or sister.

Sibling rivalry: The roles we play

Different children come to be labeled as clever, rebellious, bright, fun, serious, dim, and so on. Often siblings are labeled quite differently from one another. ‘He’s the smart one’ or ‘She’s the sensible one’. Or ‘She’s the pretty daughter; all the boys will prefer her!’ It’s no wonder that children, who are very sensitive about their developing identities, can begin to feel competitive with and resentful of their siblings.

Adult sibling rivalry: roles continue

I recall one woman saying to me: ‘You know, I am forty years old. I run my own business. But when I’m back with my parents and my brother at Christmas, I feel like that eight year-old little girl again, blinded by my brothers academic brilliance. It’s like I feel invisible when he’s around and I forget who I have become in the intervening years.’

It’s so easy to slip back automatically into our old roles when we meet up with our siblings.

Success is a relative term when your relative is a success

Some people were fed the message: ‘If only you could be more like your brother/sister!’ And some adults lament that they just don’t feel as bright or as successful as their sibling. But part of becoming yourself (rather than a pale imitation of someone else) is to understand that success for you may feel (and look) like nothing of the kind to others. And vice versa. Another woman told me that her sister – ‘the smart one’ – was working in the city earning ‘megabucks’ but was basically unfulfilled, while she herself was on a low income but felt blessed she had time to spend with her children. Yet her parents saw the other sister as the ‘successful one’.

The new download Overcome adult sibling rivalry for hypnosisdownloads.com seeks to help adults move beyond old feelings of habitual conflict with siblings and re-negotiate a more relaxed, less emotionally charged relationship with them.

Peace, brothers! (And sisters.)

Mark

 The Meaning of Life Sample [4:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (81)

In Douglas Adam’s comic novel The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the speaking computer Deep Thought is asked ‘What is the meaning of life?’ After furious and extended calculations, Deep Thought produces the answer to mankind’s perennial question: ‘The meaning of life is… 42!’

Ahem. This is a joke. But it illustrates a central truth. We are all seeking meaning in our lives.

The grandly titled new hypnosis session at Hypnosisdownloads.com The meaning of life (not to be confused with the movie Monty Python’s Meaning of Life!) takes as its central theme the reality that never before have we all been swamped with so much stuff. Yet in spite of having so many material things, so many new ways of diverting ourselves and escaping, so many people still report having a ‘meaning vacuum’ in their lives. Time and time again I hear the refrain: ‘What’s the point of all this?’ or ‘I just feel like I am going through the motions in life.’

The meaning of everyday life

Meaning is the juice of life; the mechanism for motivation and the ultimate human quest. People with a powerful sense of purpose and meaning have an end in mind; they can work hard for a cause and achieve great things because they are so connected to an empowering sense of meaning. In The meaning of life session I use exemplars, people who have discovered great meaning in their lives and succeeded in overcoming incredible odds with the power that meaning gave them. Hypnosis is used to create the mind set to live more meaningfully.

The search for meaning: dissatisfaction and misapplied searching

The meaning of life doesn’t really come from the material benefits you enjoy. If it did, Sting wouldn’t be trying to save the rainforests and Angelina Jolie wouldn’t be adopting half of Africa. We can distract ourselves temporarily through TV, entertainment, or mind-altering substances of one kind or another, but ultimately these distractions – like any indulgence – may have a part in life, but they cannot make a whole life.

Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist and Nazi concentration camp survivor, famously said: ‘What man actually needs is not a tensionless state, but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.’

I agree.

Mark