Honest Hypnosis

Master Your Mind... for a Change

Progress

When Change Takes Too Long

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When Change Takes “Too Long”…

Hey! I was just reflecting with a friend on the process of discovering the keys to consistent weight loss and the sustainable shift to a new way of eating and taking care of your body…

Part of what triggered it was that I hit another new weight loss/fitness milestone yesterday.

I weighed 207 pounds for the first time since… MY EARLY 20’S…

COWABUNGAH!

In the past whenever I wanted to slim down a bit, I would just increase the number of clients I took on for weight loss hypnosis… LOL…

Because ALL hypnosis is SELF hypnosis, the hypnotist often gets the benefit of the hypnosis sessions he or she does with clients as well.

But there came a moment about 5 years ago when the stress I was going through and the way I was eating were overpowering my “Personal Mind Mastery”…

So, like millions of other middle aged people, I signed up for a gym membership and a twice a week personal training session… I mean after all, I was eating “healthy”. So it had to be the exercise.

Right?

6 months later. Nope. same weight. Same size. Just a little stronger.

Screw that! :o)

Then one day my personal trainer guy just never showed up… The gym had no idea where he went.

So I went back to my own personal supervision…
I took response-ability for my results and started researching and shifting through all the weight loss and fitness BS to find out what actually, consistently worked for me.

One of the first things I did was get rid of all grains and white, starchy foods like potatoes.

No change weight wise but my mind got much clearer.
So I kept that change and only indulged in bread or white stuff one day a week on “cheat day”.

(BTW reduced calorie diets fail because after about 7 days or “eating less” your unconscious mind adjusts your metabolism down to burn less. You can “reset” your hormone levels back to “normal burn” by “feasting” once every 7 days.)

I increased my healthy fats.

No significant change except I stopped feeling hungry as often… and wasn’t as obsessed with my next meal…

Next I got rid of my chair and made a standing desk… starting doing “slow burn” resistance training for less than 10 minutes a day…

Made progress! Started seeing the fat go down, the weight go down, the muscle % go up

Next I got rid of fruit and any “hidden” forms of sugar except on “cheat day”

Made more progress! Who knew FRUIT was making me FAT? Isn’t it supposed to be healthy?

(to test it I added fruit back in, in moderation once per day… and guess what? I started gaining weight back. So nix the fruit except on “cheat day”/”feast day”.)

Next I got rid of BREAKFAST… actually you CAN’T get rid of breakfast EVER… because it literally means “Break Fast”… but I started started moving my breakfast back on hour or so each week until I was actually having “Brunch”…

so I was fasting pretty much 5-6 days a week from dinner to “lunch time”. It saved me a lot of time! And I basically stopped even feeling hungry until noonish.

And I made progress…

And the key thing for me, the thing that has helped me smash through the “plateaus” was one or two days a week, fasting for 24 hours. From dinner to dinner.

I recommend you check out a book by Brad Pilon called, “Eat. Stop. Eat.”

So I would have dinner around 7 pm, eat nothing else afterwards, go to bed pleasantly satisfied and then push breakfast back until dinner time the next day… Once a week to maintain, Twice a week to lose.

And I combined it with every Friday doing what I started calling a FEAST day. On that one day, I eat pretty much the way I have eaten all my life.

Breakfast first thing.
Then Lunch
Then an afternoon snack
then dinner and a snack after dinner…
as much fruit, chocolate, carbs and bread as I want…

And it is pretty obvious that eating that way every day was why I was getting fat.  I was eating way more than my body actually needed…

So after what seems like a MASSIVELY LONG TIME, Instead of frustration, I have started getting MASSIVE, STEADY, PREDICTABLE RESULTS…

And the positive feedback loop is keeping me motivated.
I am setting my sights on ACTUALLY SEEING MY ABS!

and what’s really cool is that all of this TOOK A HELL OF A LONG TIME. This process took about 5 years! However when I got super serious about it was October of 2014. I saw a picture of myself and I was shocked by the size of my belly…

Ever have one of those moments of truth? The key is to hold on to that intensity of MOTIVATION over a long period of time. Particularly when progress seems elusive.

This has been a process of experimentation and practice that has not been without frustration. But with the tools of self hypnosis I was able to keep myself in the game even when it looked like I was not getting anywhere.

The point of today’s Mind Mastery Message is this:
Sometimes the desired goal or result we long for in our lives just takes WAY LONGER than we think it SHOULD.

And that is NOT FAILURE! It is only FEEDBACK.

It’s a sign of some limiting beliefs and old programs that need to be addressed.

It’s a sign that you are simply not done yet with exploring different ways of thinking and taking action.

Ultimately physical fitness starts in your MIND. However, if it just stays in your Mind, and you don’t actually implement intelligent action that actually leads you towards the results you want, you ain’t gonna make much progress…

We HAVE to combine the Mind and the Body.
We HAVE to get support from the important people in our lives.
We HAVE to keep track of our progress in multiple ways so we can Measure our successes.

One key to success in any endeavor is to uncover and clear the “hypnosis” of false beliefs and expectations.

If you’re interested in going deeper with me in this area of your own life, you might want to check out my online weight loss program that I call, “It’s Not Just About The Food!”  (this is a $900 course that you can grab for only $99 bucks right now)

In it you will discover and implement the tools and techniques that quite literally will work for anything in any area of your life that you want to accomplish or change.

If we don’t care of our bodies, where will we live?

So your Mind Mastery Assignment today,
should you choose to accept it, is to look at your own physical level of health, fitness, strength, size, weight, whatever you most important challenge is, and see if you can notice the repeating pattern.

You might want to make a note of what worked in the past and where you habitually stopped doing what worked. Or Notice what Never worked in the past and see if you just kept doing it anyway.

And as always be GENTLE with yourself.

Today’s Transformation Tune
is one I’ve shared a few times recently. It bears repeated listens as it is quite literally a Weight Loss/Fitness hypnosis Session in the form of a song…

Song #330 “Eyes On The Horizon”

have an awesome day!

– Mark

p.s. I’m off to CT to do an African Drumming and Storytelling program for some awesome 7th Graders… Speaking of things that “Take Too Long” remind me to tell you the story sometime of how long it took me to actually get my first paying school gig after I decided to “go for it” and do assembly programs for kids…

The really important thing is just to be fully aware that you can realize the change you’re looking for…

And here’s how

Click the link below to:

Or just leave a comment below 🙂

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

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Spring?

It’s been warm all week here in the Albany NY area… Definitely SPRING like.

And yet today, on the official “first day of Spring”

It was 20 degrees F.  Chilly.

And that prompts me to reflect on the differences between our expectations and what actually IS.

The rest of creation from squirrels to redwing blackbirds basically take things as they are. No complaining. No whining. They just deal with the cards they’ve been dealt and go about the business of adapting and surviving.

You never hear a Redwing Blackbird complaining about how cold it is in March. You never hear them say, “Well It’s just MY luck! I migrated all this way from Florida to find a mate and start a family and it’s just too cold up here. This ALWAYS happens to me. Bah humbug!” NOPE! They just keep singing. [Here’s your daily Transformation Tune BTW]

We humans tend to INTERPRET the world and events and make things MEAN something.

In other words we immediately begin to tell stories about what is happening OUTSIDE ourselves to explain what is going on INSIDE.

I’ve found it helpful in my own life to ask myself, “Hey Mark, What are you MAKING THIS MEAN?”

In other words much of our pain and “suffering” comes from how we INTERPRET events.

In the process of interpreting, we necessarily have to DELETE, DISTORT and GENERALIZE what we perceive in order to make sense of it and make it fit our “BOX” or “Label” or “story” of “reality”.

And none of it is actually “true”… because we are the ones who are explaining things according to our level of perception.

For example: I used to have a difficult time performing because if someone got up and left in the middle of one of my songs, I would tell myself that, “They hated my music.” or “I must of said something that offended them” or this really, really self defeating one: “See? Nobody wants to hear MY music. They just want to hear songs they’ve heard on the radio.”

The truth is I had no idea why that person left. I could have told a different story or two…

Like, “They had to go to the bathroom…” or, “They just got a text from the baby sitter because she can’t figure out how to work the remote control of the TV…”, or “that person must be a doctor on call…”

So that’s the “mind read” thing we all do to some extent, where we delete the positive interpretations and instead focus only on the negative ones that make us feel bad.

And then we often generalize that “Nobody wants to….” or it “Always works out against me…” or “This ALWAYS happens to me…”  so whenever you hear yourself using Always, or Never, it’s time to challenge your generalizations.

So today. Your Assignment. Should you choose to accept it.

Tell yourself better stories.
Turn the “villains” or “bad luck” in your life into your “Beloved Teachers” who are playing a required role in the exciting adventure plot of the movie of your life.

And while we’re at it, let’s tell the story of the warm weather to come…

Let’s generalize that SPRING ALWAYS COMES!
Even though we mays still have some cold weather, IT ALWAYS TURNS WARMER!

I noticed the other day that the Redwing Black birds are back.

And things are DEFINITELY thawing (look at all this delightful MUD!)
and I even heard the Spring Peepers…

so Let’s tell stories of our OWN Spring. Our OWN renewal! Our Own times of growth and expansion! Remember, we get what we focus on. (and BTW I ain’t just reminding YOU! We AWL need to hear this. Even Moi.)

COW-A-BUNG-AH!

Here’s your Transformation Tune for the day to support your Daily Mind Mastery Message or play it up above with the handy player (and you can download it for free too):

Song #415 Blackbirds Are Back!

Peace out,

Mark

The really important thing is just to be fully aware that you can realize the change you’re looking for…

And here’s how

Click the link below to:

Or just leave a comment below 🙂

Moment of Truth

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45706221_mThe Moment of Truth.

We’ve all experienced it at some time or another…

When it’s make it or break it.

Now or never.

Do or “die”.

Play ball or go home.

Shit or get off the pot.

Put the pedal to the metal.

Burn  your boats.

Burn your Bridges.

“Shatter the patterns and leave the past behind”

It’s time  my friend…

To get SERIOUS.

About what?

Oh YOU know what… Don’t you?

That thing that you think you would like to change…

You know what you want to change. Many people want to change. But most people can never seem to make changes “stick”.

There may be many reasons why people don’t change. But there is definitely one thing that stops a lot of transformation from happening…

It’s all about the “Moment of Truth”.

You see, until you convince your unconscious mind that there is no more wiggle room, no more weaseling out of the change you want to make, you will be like MOST of the people who want to lose weight, stop smoking, get fit, get relief from anxiety and stress, make more money, succeed at dating and relationships, and generally “nail it” on the big stages or playing fields of their lives…

A wanna be.

(Been there. Done that. None of us are immune from it at any level.)

And I know you don’t want to be a wanna be.

You want to be somebody who can take charge of every area of your life and master it.

Am I right?

The moment of truth…

…When for a clear, decisive instant we stop bullshitting ourselves and admit that we alone are responsible for the challenge in front of us.

No one is going to make you make the change.

No one is going to say anything or even notice if you just kind of… stay the way you are… there is no one to be accountable to except yourself.

And it’s time. It’s time to dig deep into your own power and determination and be so bold as to fvcking go for it, isn’t it?

When people find out I’m a master practitioner and trainer of hypnosis, they almost universally ask, “Can you MAKE me stop smoking or “Can you MAKE me stop eating junk so I can lose weight?”

Nope.

I cant make you change and I can’t make the changes for you, but I sure as hell can help you to get your mind in the right place to make that powerful decision. To get to your moment of truth.

And then I can give you a massive array of tools you can use immediately to run your own mind. Faster. Easier. Better.

But there are no guarantees except YOURS. The one you set up for yourself.

And BTW “Faster” doesn’t guarantee that it’s going to be fast.

“Easier” doesn’t guarantee that it will be easy.

But it will be faster, easier, and better with the tools you’ll learn here than if you keep doing what you’ve been doing in the past.

So when you’re ready to go deeper, you’ll find some powerful tools here to help you help yourself Master Your Mind For A change…

Of course, you have to be ready. You may not be ready even if you think you are.

I set out to find my abs at least 5 years ago. To this point they have remained safely hidden behind a bit o belly fat.

I did have a moment of truth Fall of 2014 that It was a MUST to lose 20 pounds.  And I did.  And I feel great. And I’m building muscle, moving my body, healthy, happy to be wearing a size smaller pants… in other words I went as far as my “moment of truth” from last year could carry me.  And so while I’m a lot  more fit and trim than last year, I want more.

I want to see my damn abs! I DEMAND to see them.

 And now it’s MY moment of truth.

To put up or shut up. To walk my talk. To publicly declare 2016 as my “year of the abs”… To do so publicly is to “force accountability”.  But it also gives me an opportunity to invite others like you to join me for whatever your personal goal or goals are for 2016. We can do whatever we truly want to do.

This COULD be your moment of truth. Are you in? Let me know ok?

What is it you want? What is it you’ve been saying you want but haven’t actually actualized in your life or personality or behavior?

It definitely helps to know what that is… LOL

But let’s say you DO know what you want, but you’re not really sure you’re ready to actually have it.  How do you get your self to stop resisting and spewing out excuses and self pity and COMMIT to get there sooner instead of wasting all that time getting ready to get ready to change?…

It comes down to a big enough “why” that you can sustainably hold in your mind that communicates, no, relentlessly BROADCASTS to your Unconscious Mind that there is no way out except through. There is no way home except forwards. It’s creating enough leverage in your own mind so that going back is not an option. The only way out is moving forwards through all of the objections, and old standby excuses. And then there are some additional steps and mindsets that help you to KEEP the momentum going once you decide to “go all in” for your goal. And once you’ve committed to your action and started taking action, how to make it fun. How to make sure you actually notice progress that will keep you moving forwards, even one single step at a time.

Why do you want to change the thing you want to change?

And is that enough to motivate you?

or is there something else that when added to the mix will cause you to crank it up and COMMIT?

Talk to me. I’m listening. And I’ve made MY decision. Let me know if you want to join the fun.

– Mark

p.s. It’s Not Just About The Food
photo credit – Copyright: yuriz / 123RF Stock Photo

Progress

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Fullfilling an assignment from one of my mentors, I checked in with myself and looked back over the last 10 years to see if I could “get” the amount of progress I’ve made…

Here’s the Daily Mind Mastery video version:

As you may know if you’ve been following my stuff for a while, I learned all this “Modern Jedi” mind mastery stuff BECAUSE I WAS SO FREAKING MISERABLE about not being able to “get out of my own way” enough to get my music out into the world in any significant or sustainable way.

So I sat and reflected a while and then jumped up and went to Youtube.com to do a little search.

I typed in “Together We Can Change The World Song” and started sifting through all the different videos and versions of my song.

Here’s what turned up:

TWCCTW-ss2-10-19-15

 

I only had a few minutes but I added up all the views and it came to something like 750,000 views!

so I guess I HAVE made progress LOL…

Fired up by THAT.

I did another search, for my original “How To Stop Anxiety Without Harmful Drugs or Endless Therapy” series.

And when I counted up all the views for that, it came to over 300,000!

Together that’s over a million sets of Eyes and Ears… COWABUNGAH BABY!

The point is to check in with yourself from time to time to make sure you are paying attention to the right things. I could have looked back and focused on the time I was homeless or all the “failures” I experienced. But even those things were just part of the process of the personal growth and transformation adventure I’ve been on.

DS your assignment for today, (should you choose to accept it) is to take a little time to reflect on how far you’ve come from where you used to be. Focus ONLY on the progress, the positive.

I’d love to hear your story. I’d love YOU to hear your story! The stories we tell ourselves is an entirely different topic for another day, but please remember, we always have a choice on how to interpret the events of our lives. Consciously go for the good.

And I’m outa here!
– Mark

p.s. if you want to watch how bad I was on camera back in 2008 check out my original stop anxiety series…

OMG! I have sooooooooooooo come a long way… yowsah!

How To Stop Anxiety Video from 2008