Habit and belief

Hi,

Everybody learn something every day.  It range from “oh, this bus don’t stop at certain place!” to having some insight about what happened in life , and to realize they can be better than who they are, what they are.

And when you are asked 1+1 = ? , you answer are usually 2, have anybody question why it is 2 and not 4?

You see, we learned some of the things we knew consciously, conscious about acquiring knowledge, skills on how to adapt to the environment,  learn to use and create tools to save time and energy…..

Some of the things we learned,  we learned them unconsciously,  when you are warm, you go into shades, we learned how to balance on a bicycle without really paying attention on how to do it.  That is true for skill such as walking, swimming, running etc.

And some of the thing we learned it just by complying, just like the answer of 1+1. ‘B’ is after ‘A’ and ‘C’ is after ‘B’, and ‘an’ is before any word starting with A,E,I,O,U instead of ‘a’.  This  usually happened when you are learning new things which you have no prior knowledge of.  That is why children learn the fastest, cause they only take in, not like adults whom needs to make sense out of everything.

There is a saying “Awareness if the first step to change”.  That is why if you are aware of the problem, the chances of resolving the problem are higher.

But how about those things, habits, belief, behaviors that you have which are not helping you in achieving what you want to achieve, be who you want to be?

Everything we knew, are learned,  and what we learned forms our believes,  and believes influent out behaviors, which in turn causes us to take those action we took, do those things we did.

If you perform a task so many times,  it will become a habit.  And habit is difficult to kick as most people knows.

One way to change your habit is through repetition or what I can conditioning.  If you replace the action of your habit with something else, and you and do it enough times, then the new action will become your new habit. According to studies, 21 times consecutively, for example, if you start to change your hand to brush your teeth in the morning,  after 21 days, you will be so use to brushing teeth this way.  Of cause this way has it disadvantage, the short coming of this approach is, not many people are persist until the new habit are formed.

So is there any other way, you ask. Of cause there is.

Do you still remember our belief causes our action? So if you want to remove a habit, you have to make sure the understanding/information that you have that causes the belief to be formed are changed,  if you come across a fact that one of the substance in your favorite drink are poisonous. Will the drink still be your favorite drinks?

And how do we do that?

We can do this by talking to our subconscious, where we store our memory, our believes, habits and our emotions. By influencing our subconscious, habit will start not to make sense, and it will cause us to perform difference actions which will eventually make the habit irrelevant, thus make the old habit not appropriate to perform any more.

Being a science in dealing with your mind, particularly effective in your subconscious, this make Hypnosis one of the most effective way to achieve what your goal, either you work with a hypnotherapist in a therapy session or work with yourself in self-hypnosis.

Because of the wonderful effectiveness Hypnosis has , it has been mystified by movies, TV and other media and the public to a level that most people are fear of it. Fearing they will be controlled, which is not the case.

Talk to any Hypnotist or Hypnotherapist and you will realise it is safe and effective.

Oliver Tan

Certified Hypnotherapist.

Certified 7th Path Teacher.

Mind over body, indeed it is!

I have a friend who just gave birth to a baby girl weighing at 4.412kg, the heaviest Asian baby in the hospital’s history.  You might think.:"What is so special about it, there are baby who are larger, the baby is just bigger than usual, thats all”,  The amazing thing is, the process was done all natural, no induction medicine , no pain-killer,  no epidural, just plain natural, the way nature intended it to be, and to top that, there was also no screaming, no shouting. Now, isn’t that special?

How can it be, that is not what most of us know about in regards to delivering a baby. should there be pain? shouldn’t there be pain-killer to ease the pain? shouldn’t medication be used to help speed up the process, which we all are familiar about?  

Why, because she believed this can be done, and she has a supporting husband who share the same belief.

I don’t know whether anyone of you guys/gals out there watched any documentary about mammals delivering their baby, there are also no screaming, they don’t have pain-killer, no epidural, don’t even have mid-wife, and the baby arrived into this world without any complication, or at least rarely.

If there is God, God is unfair in this aspect, why are other mammals mother enjoying this easy baby delivery process and not us, the human, the supreme life form, the peoples who worship God.  or maybe it is our own freewill that is causing this pain.

I’m my training in NLP and Hypnosis, our Mind does a lot of wonderful and sometime not so wonderful things for us. it amplified our pleasure so we have greater joy and feel more challenged to pursue our goal. sadly, the reverse is also true, our fear can also be growing exponentially and causes us to be stuck in a situation.

So it is not what happened around you that causes your enjoyment or suffering, it is how you perceived the situation to be, its your perception that is doing the trick, tricking you to take actions, or not to.

Remember, if you allow your mind to change the perception of your life, life will never be the same again! and of cause, this works both way as well. just like what Napoleon Hill said: “Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve!”

Wear your seatbelt!

Saw this video regarding the use of Seatbeal, it brought out a very clear message, meeting an accident is not your own issue, it involve many family member, friends and others close to you. so it is not about you insisting on your freedom of you can do whatever you want and like, your decision sometime does affect others.

The most beautiful seatbelt advocacy commercial ever

In contrary to most people’s belief, family are usually very important to most people, because when asked why they are doing or wanting to do for, most people will usually have ”to provide for my family” as a reason.

What am I driving at?  Don’t ignore someone important to you! Make sure you don’t risk yourself unnecessarily. that’s what I’m driving at!

Monkey Business

There once was a rhesus monkey who was put into a special cage. This cage had red, yellow and green squares. After serveral days, an “experimenter” set it up so that the red squares gave out intermittent shocks causing the monkey much pain. The monkey became anxious but soon learned to avoid the red square. Next the experimenter cause the red and yellow squares to give off intermittent shocks, and the monkey acted as if he was a manic depressive, althernating from hyper-anxiety to depression and withdrawal . The monkey soon learned to avoid the red and yellow squares and then all the square were electrified. The monkey bagan to bite itself, beat its head against the bars and defecated on himself.  You might say the little monkey had been driven crazy.

This experiment took one month. He was then transferred to a second cage with a white floor. Soft music was played, he was touched and held and fed. Within a short time, he clamed down and within two weeks he was playful and exploring his cage. He could not be seen as different from a monkey from a rhesus population that had not been subjected to the experiment.

Well, what do you expect from a dumb monkey? He’s not as smart as a man. He didn’t know how to hold onto the past forever, nor continue to anticipate disaster. He only knew how to adapt to changing circumstances.  – Monsters & Magical sticks

A Wise Donkey

One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally he decided that is was not worth retrieving the donkey as the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway.

He invited his neighbours to come over and help him. They each grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realised what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement, it quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer looked down the well and was astonished at what he saw.

As every shovel of dirt hit its back, the donkey did something amazing. It would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer’s neighbours continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, it would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off to everyone’s amazement!

So why don’t you shrug it off and climb right out!?

We can’t forget what we’ve learned, Why’s that so?

Have you ever wonder whether you can forget how to cycle, or swim after you have learn how to?

bicycleI’m sure you’ve realises by now, whatever skill we’ve learned, we can’t seem to be able to forget them.  For those who dispute saying they can’t remember what they learn in school, think again, do you really learned and understand the topic, or are you just study and memorise for 2 days, go for exam and then later realise the content can’t stay in your brain soon after the exam or test.

When I say ‘learned’,  what I meant is those thingd that you have good understanding, practiced many times and are able to perform it without much thinking. those things we do habitually, instinctively.

I’ll like you to  recall how you brush your teeth every morning, it the routine the same all the time, or do you brush teeth differently every morning? Now, recall how you wear you cloth, the same way everytime?  Ever wonder why you always do the same thing the same way? This is because there is a function of our Mind to make sure we are efficient in performing things that we need to perform many times in repetition. In another word, we commit this kind of learning to our subconscious which also control our habits, our believes, and our memories.

Do you also realised that those things that we perform best are those which we do not have to think about when we are doing it.  For those who drive, ever have experience of yourself wanting to get to a place, but your conscious mind is preoccupied, thinking of some issue in the house, the work, and eventully you are on the way to your office or home instead of the intended destination?

you see, our Mind has a protective mechanism to make sure we do not run into trouble. and in this case, while your conscious mind is working so hard in resolving a issue, your subconscious mind have to take over and control the car, and the office and home is the most frequent destination of your driving, hence it guide you to either of it automatically, this is to make sure you are safe while not focusing on the road.

Now that you know your Mind can go ‘Auto pilot’,  are you any bit worry that the ‘auto pilot’ lead to something undesirable? This is true for somebody, they can get agitated easily, become sad for no good reason, and the example can go on..

why do we have habit you might ask, to answer this, first imagine if you have to learn to walk everytime you want to move from one place to another, not a desirable outcome, isn’t it.  Habit are task that we perform time and again, and through the repetition we’ve performed, your subconscious register the way as the ’best’ way to peform the task. q habit is formed.

Once the habit is formed, the only way to change it is to replace it with another habit, study have shown that to effectively change a habit, you have to perform the new task 21 times consecutively to get familiar with the new routine. Part of the reason why the motivation does not last after we go for motivation workshop is because we are not familiar with the motivated state, so our Subconscious Mind command it to revert to status duo. the state that it is familiar with. to ensure our ‘efficiency’!

So, is there other way that we can do to change our ‘unuseful habit’ in a more efficient and elegent way?

The answer is yes, and Hypnosis is one of the way.

Motivational Workshop didn’t work! or do they?

I’m sure if you stumble upon this web page, you are those people who belief in attending motivational workshop to improve yourself, learn to make better choice, take action, be more focus and have more drive to achieve what you want in life.

The fact is, most motivational workshop didn’t really work, did they? If they did, then there will not be a need for you to attend another workshop ever.

You see, most motivational workshop did worked, why, did you recall how motivated, how charged up you are during and shortly after the workshop, you felt you can concurred the world, didn’t you? And what happened shortly after that? A week later? A month later? 3 month later? 1 year later?

I’m sure you’ve realised by now, the workshop did work, it just didn’t lasted.

And why is that so, didn’t the technique and the knowledge thought by the trainer have any truth and value in them? I’m sure you can agree that they do have value.

And why can’t it last? You might be wondering.

Let me bring your attention to the time you are learning to cycle, or drive or swim, it doesn’t matter what you are learning.

In the beginning, you have to pay attention to everything that are requiring your attention, you need to pay attention to keep the balance, to paddle, to breath, to move you hand, to …… the list go on.

It is not an easy task, I’m sure you agreed. After so much painstaking falls, bruises, and failures, you finally learned how to cycle, or swim or drive.

I’ll like to ask you a question. After learned that, do you pay attention to how you do it anymore?  Any normal person’s answer will be a ‘no’ I’m sure.

Why is that so? learning is conscious and doing is unconscious?

Hmmm,  it must be for a reason!

You use your Conscious Mind to analyse what can and might work, you tested it out, if it work, you practice and perfect it. and after perfecting, this will be registered in your subconscious, and when you are cycling, swimming, etc, it will be call upon and executed without your conscious mind intervention.

This is the way we are designed, so we can be more efficient in what we do, especially for task that we need to do often.

OK, next question. do you change how you cycle or swim after you learned them? most people will adopt the mentality “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”, are you?

That’s right, imagine you keep changing the way you walk. It will be very confusing for you, and it is also not efficient, cause if it is not you subconscious performing the task, you have to consciously work on it, and that occupied you conscious mind and you will achieve less in life because you have to work on routine task all the time.

So to make sure you are efficient, those routine task are handled by your subconscious and those requiring logical thinking and analysis are handled by your conscious mind.  This way, you can subconsciously walk and consciously think of solution of a problem at the same time.

To achieve this, our mind must make sure those thing in our subconscious mind are not changed unless it is absolutely necessary, and this is performed by another function called ‘Critical Factor” or “Critical Function”

Whenever there are a new information or insight that our conscious mind discovered. Critical  Factor will check whether the new information coincide or are related to what are already registered in Subconscious Mind-your memory, your believes, your habits.  If it does, content in our Subconscious Mind will be updated to reflect the necessary change.iceberg1

And the Critical Factor and Subconscious are really stubborn, they will make sure we stay with what we are comfortable with, stay unchanged so we can conserve whatever energy we have, that is why many people won’t change unless they are really required to, like in situation which will cause severe harm or might cause death!

Your Conscious Mind is like the portion of the Iceberg that is surfaced above the water, the Subconscious are the part that is submerged in water. So imaging how difficult it is to change the subconscious with your conscious.

So now you know, why it is not easy for anybody to initial a change in him/herself.

“But somebody did changed!”  That’s right, some!  if you want to know of a better way to start the change toward what you want you life to be.

Stay tune!

More information regarding the Mind and how it work in The Mind, how does it works?

Oliver Tan

Certified Hypnotherapist (NGH)

Certified 7th Path Self-Hypnosis Teacher

The Mind, how does it work?

Model of the Mind

In order to understand hypnosis more easily, we need to first know how the mind work and what it is consists of. hence I’m using this Model of the Mind to work with.

This model provides us with an understanding of how different parts of the mind work and defines some terms for us. This is only a model and that all of its components are best understood as functions rather than specific parts.

  1. The Unconscious Mind
  2. The Subconscious Mind
  3. The Conscious Mind
  4. Critical Factor or Critical function of the mind

each part of the Mind serve specific purpose and perform its intended functions.

The Unconscious Mind

The unconscious mind was first proven to exist by Dr. Ivan Pavlov. It is our body’s consciousness. Even though it is called the “unconscious” it is a very active level of consciousness. It is called “unconscious” because we are not consciously aware of what it is doing. It seems to do all of its work automatically. It is associated with the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS).

Below are some of the bodily functions that it continually manages:

  • Protective functions such as reflexes and the immune system
  • Breathing, heart rate etc.
  • Physical emotional responses
  • Smooth muscle responses

The Subconscious Mind

In the field of psychology, it is well accepted that the existence of the subconscious mind was proven by Dr. Sigmund Freud. The subconscious mind is who you really are. It is the sum of all of your experiences. It makes up what we call personality. It is where permanent memory is kept. It is amazing in its organization, shown by your ability to access certain bits of information or behaviour almost instantly. It works by association.

All of your experiences are held within the subconscious and can be uncovered by using hypnosis. The more important or more emotionally packed a particular incident in your past is, the more easily it can be found, and relived(revivified), unless a blocked by a protective function which can make the retrieval more difficult.

Below are the functions of the subconscious mind which make up who you are:

  • Protective function (resists incoming information that is inconsistent with previously accepted information)
  • Habits
  • Beliefs
  • Unlimited in capacity
  • Highly organized
  • Feeds imagination

The Conscious Mind

Your conscious mind is effectively your point of focus. It tends to focus on whats is happening now, but can easily be refocused on the past and our imagined future, or into a complete fantasy situation.

It is really the smallest part of your consciousness, while the subconscious mind appears to be limitless, the conscious mind can only hold a few things at a time.

Hypnosis does not cause someone to lose consciousness. Hypnosis is not a state of unconsciousness, but rather a state of focused consciousness.

Below are some functions of the conscious mind:

  • Protective
  • Logical
  • Limited
  • Will power

Critical Factor or Critical function of the mind

Experts in hypnosis will differ in where exactly the critical factor resides. Some say that it is a function of the conscious mind while some believe it is a function that interacts between the conscious mind and subconscious mind. The important function of the critical factor is that it operates like a filtering mechanism which compares new information coming in through the conscious level of the mind with the old beliefs and perceptions held within the subconscious mind. The critical factor will either allow the information to be stored as data or allowed to either weaken or reinforce the beliefs and habits that already exist.

Through the process of hypnosis, we are able to bypass the critical factor. After we create this bypass, then the subconscious mind achieves a state of heightened suggestibility.hence hypnosis always acheve  a better chance of success when dealing with individual’s issue.

Rules the Mind follows: 7th rule

7th Rule: An emotionally induced symptom tends to cause organic change if persisted long enough.
It has been acknowledged by many reputable medical men and women that more than seventy percent of human ailments are functional rather than organic. This means the function, of an organ or other part of the body has been disrupted by a reaction of the nervous system to negative ideas held in the subconscious mind. cause the nervous system are linked to the organs, glands and other part of the body. After all, we are a mind in a body and the two cannot be separated. Therefore, if you continue to fear ill health, constantly talk about your “nervous stomach” or “tension headaches,” and have mental image or feeling of such event happening, then in time to come, the mind will eventually make the shift and command the organic changes to occur.

Rules the Mind follows: 6th rule

6th Rule: When dealing with the subconscious mind and its functions, the greater the conscious effort, the lesser the subconscious response.
I’m sure you have had insomnia at least once in you life, and at that time, did you recall how you get to sleep? use your “Will power”? Try very hard to get to sleep? I bit not, cause the harder you try the more difficult it becomes. The harder you try to go to sleep, the more wide awake you become.
This proves why “will power” does not really exist! you’ve learned the law of reverse effect. The rule is, “When dealing with the subconscious mind, TAKE IT EASY.” As your faith in your subconscious mind increases, you learn to “let it happen” rather than trying to “force it to happen.” Some people want to relax so badly that they try to help it happen. This keeps the conscious mind active and hence moving toward the different direction of relaxation. and relaxation becomes impossible. The understanding and implementing of these mental laws will make you get into a hypnotic trance easier. and,
Do you realised why some time you are working on some tough problem that you can’t solve for days and the solution just happened after a good rest? that is the power of our subconscious, do not underestimate your subconscious mind for it has more resource and experience than you can imagine comparing to your conscious mind.

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