Hi, we're Cinthia Varkevisser And Michelle Walters, co-hosts of Mind Power Meets Mystic. Our weekly show is here to expand your mind to what's possible to uplift your spirits to move forward with confidence and joy, and to create a space for your collaboration with the invisible. Welcome to Mind Power Meets Mystic. Welcome to Mind Power Meets Mystic today you get me Michelle Walters, I'm the mind power. My partner Cinthia Varkevisser has the day off. Here we go. Today I'm going to talk to you about behavior change. And what are some of the things that I've worked on with my clients to really change from a negative behavior that the client didn't like to something that is much more positive and moving people in the right direction. I'm going to talk today about four different types of behavior change. First, we're going to talk about hair pulling, which is something you might not know that much about. Second, we're going to talk about nailbiting. Third, I'm going to talk about addiction to sugar. Yes, it can be an addiction. And fourth, I'm going to talk about changing behavior when it comes to drinking alcohol. So with no further ado, here we go. Trichotillomania. Yeah, big name is the problem when somebody is pulling their hair too much. And while this may not sound like that big a deal, it can be anything from pretty minor to pretty major for people, sometimes. And I think this happens more with women, you know, people just kind of have a habit of sort of stroking their hair. But that can go all the way to a very bad habit, where sometimes people for their own unique reasons, pull their hair out to the point of going bald in certain places. And it's extremely unpleasant. And if this is something that you or someone you know, suffer from, they may even have to wear their hair in a certain way in order to try and camouflage the problem. It's very unpleasant. And it's not something that if it's something you've been doing for a long time, it's very easy to overcome on your own. So it's pretty rare. Only something like 4% of people in America have it. And I do believe it's more prevalent with women, although I don't know that for sure about many of the people who come up with this problem, find that this problem surfaces when they're only 10 or 13 years old. And if the problem isn't changed and corrected at a at a younger age, people can carry this problem into adulthood. And it's just not a very nice problem to have. I've had multiple clients that have come to see me for this problem, and had excellent success with hypnotherapy. Interestingly, what worked for one client didn't work for the other. And I think this is one of the benefits to working with a personal hypnotherapist is that you get the custom treatment that you need in order to overcome the issue. So both clients came to see me for a matter of a month or two. And as the results have alleviated their hair pulling habits, allowing them to be much more confident and not need to pull their hair anymore. The second problem I wanted to talk about today is that of nail biting. And this is a pretty common problem. Something like 20% of the population is estimated to have a problem with nail biting or cuticle biting. And often this comes up for people when they're particularly stressed that it just appeared. We sort of even see it in the movies. He's this sort of this classic like or what do I do when I'm stressed? And hypnosis has been very positive in terms of helping people to overcome this behavior as well. In hypnosis, we're able to get somebody so relaxed, that they can imagine a different future. And because in hypnosis suggestions are particularly strong. It's a great way of encouraging somebody to do the right thing and not bite or pick at their nails. So I've had at least one client with this come to me and we were very successful. In her case, we discovered that there was a experience that she had had in her in her young childhood, which had caused this or or was was part of what in hypnosis we call the initiating event as to how this bad habit formed, and able now to not pick out her fingers not do this, this highly successful woman is able to have much prettier hands, be proud of her hands, and not partake of this bad little habits. The third thing I want to talk to you about today, in terms of things that hypnosis can help with for behavior change is sugar. Eating too much sugar is an enormous problem. Many, many Americans grow up with a lot of sugar. The curiosity and fascination with sugar has been said to start even in infancy or early, early childhood. And when we eat a diet that has too much sugar in it, it becomes something that you just want more and more and more of, as I was researching this topic, I've seen that there are now even people who are recognizing that there are reasons why we might like in the addiction to sugar to an addiction to cocaine, it can be that strong of an addiction for people. It is made even more difficult by the fact that sugar is all around us. Sugar is at events, sugar is added to foods, sugar is added to all kinds of things that you might not even realize that somebody had added a little bit of sugar to it or a lot. If you don't know what I'm talking about. Take a look at your yogurt. Almost all yogurts today come with enormous amounts of sugar added to them. This human body was not created to eat the amount of sugar that we have in our present day diets. The human body was desired designed to eat sugar as part of the natural sugars that come with fruits and vegetables. And in that form, it comes with fiber and water and all sorts of other feeling elements that make eating sugar in fruits and vegetables. A very different experience from eating sugar in terms of the added sugar or the tablespoon of sugar you might add to your coffee. And I'm not saying that all of us need to stop eating sugar right away. But there are people who are extremely sensitive to sugar. We now know that increased sugar is correlated with many bad health, health incomes, including obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes as something like 40, almost 50% of Americans are struggling with obesity and high blood pressure. And a huge amount of this is due to overconsumption of sugar. Now I imagine many of the listeners to Mind Power Meets Mystic are well aware that there's a lot of sugar out there and are trying to stay on top of it when it comes down to not consuming too too much. What I want to tell you about next is how I've helped some of my clients with their sugar problems. First though, I want to give you a reminder you are listening to Mind Power Meets Mystic with me Michelle Walters and my co-host Cinthia Varkevisser. Today is my solo day and Cinthia are mystic has the day off. I also wanted to let you know at the end of this episode, I will be providing more information about an upcoming class I'm having. It's a one night online class that is all about stopping your sugar. It's called SOS stop overeating sugar. Listen till the end of the episode or check the notes to get the details. So what is it like to help a client who is consuming too much sugar to put a new thought in his or her head to not want sugar? Well, it's very doable in hypnosis. And the reason why is because hypnosis gives us an opportunity to restructure some of those emotional thinking patterns where things have gotten out of whack. And so in hypnosis when a client is brought down to this very calm, very relaxed place, it is the perfect environment to push one thought out out and push a new thought in. And so I will always work with my clients to determine what they would like to put in place of sugar. Whether some clients might want to be eating fruit instead of sugar, some clients might prefer to drink a glass of water instead of sugar. But when I have my client in that deeply relaxed state of hypnosis, their mind and brain is open to the idea of change. And so when I talk to them as they're relaxed, sometimes I need to ask questions to ascertain what's going on or to get their input, I can help them to let go of the sugar habit, and instead replace it with a new and better habit. That is one that they want to make consistent. Sugar release sugar, obsession, sugar overeating. These are things that are very addressable in an either online or an offline session of hypnotherapy. The fourth and last use of hypnotherapy that I want to talk about today for behavior change is that of alcohol consumption, something like two thirds of Americans drink and about 1/3 of Americans don't drink. What's really interesting Oh, and to add to that, about maybe 5% of Americans, according to national statistics are alcoholics. And this when I'm talking about using hypnosis for reducing alcohol consumption, I'm really talking about reducing alcohol consumption, not necessarily giving it up completely, although that would probably work to reducing alcohol consumption with hypnosis works the same way as reducing sugar consumption, I help the client get into a very, very relaxed state, and then support the changes that that particular client is looking to make. Maybe that's not drinking during the week, or maybe that's drinking one glass of wine instead of a bottle. These are both situations that I have worked with previous clients on. What I can tell you is the clients that I have worked with to reduce their alcohol consumption, they've all been very, very successful at dramatically cutting back the amount of alcohol they were drinking. And this is often in the face when that's just not something that they would have been easily able to make that change independently. It was really the hypnosis, and the support that enabled them to make dramatic cutbacks in their drinking. And think about it, there are so many good reasons to cut back. A recent online surveys suggested that most people who were cutting back on their drinking, were doing so to improve their physical health. But there are also people who are cutting back on their drinking in order to save money, or to lose weight. cutting back on drinking can be very, very helpful for numerous health outcomes. And it is something that is very achievable with the support of hypnosis, and particularly an independent personal hypnotherapist who could help you with that particular situation, and help you to drink the amount you want to drink when you want to drink it, as opposed to binge drinking or over drinking every night, which can just be too much, sometimes too much is too much. Well, that's my short little episode today on Mind Power Meets Mystic. I hope that you have learned something about how hypnotherapy can be helpful for changing behaviors. These are four behaviors that I've worked with. I'm sure there's more out there and if you have questions or can answer any questions, please get a hold of me I would love your input. As promised, I wanted to share the information about my upcoming anti sugar class. My class will be on Thursday, March 21 and 2024 at 5pm Pacific. It's an online class from five until 630. The first half will be anti sugar discussion slash education and the second half will be hypnosis. A link is in the show notes or on my webpage under classes hope you can make it you've been listening to Mind Power Meets Mystic.