Habits

The above means, that it doesn't really matter that much to your brain what your thoughts are, of course, it may matter a great deal to you!. So, if your thoughts are, or are perceived as being, negative or positive, they will both influence the way your brain processes novel sensory stimuli or stored sensory memories, or combinations, of that stimuli. In the context of therapy and what people aim to achieve from it, the quality and intensity of our thoughts determine the outcome of what we know as emotions, feelings or certain types of behaviour. The more often these stimuli are present increases the potential for the behaviour to become a habit. Under the right circumstances, this can lead to forms of neural conditioning (classical/Pavlovian conditioning). 

Some, if not most, behaviours are conditioned from birth and others throughout your lifetime, For example, the things you are told or observe by parents, teachers, peers, authority figures, and even friends! This conditioning ultimately forms your belief system and the more attached or connected you are to your beliefs serves only to enhance them! This plays out through what is known as confirmation bias. Your brain looks for evidence to support its beliefs and ignores, mostly, evidence to the contrary. Essentially you see what you expect to see! From the day you are born you unwittingly join a worldwide community. A community that is predominantly influenced by the beliefs of people we respect or fear. Be they advocates of religion or the rule of law; both set out to condition your behaviour. Religion, for the most part, uses fear; if you sin you will pay for the transgression in the afterlife. The rule of law is no different; except your punishment falls within this lifetime. In some countries, the two events can occur simultaneously via the death penalty! It seems that this character or personality trait develops as we acquire language. Over time, we adopt subconscious modes of self-talk that are steeped in vague, ambiguous or negative undertones. As an experienced clinical hypnotherapist, I can't recall a client with anxiety, stress or confidence/self-esteem issues, whose self-talk was predominantly positive. It's the same here in Singapore, as it was in the UK, stress and negative self-talk is seemingly universal?

It seems that stress, anxiety and negative self-talk go together, just like strawberries and cream! Because cognition and emotion are inextricably linked, one mode of subconscious language (negative or positive) influences the other. Negative emotions create negative thoughts and feelings and vice-versa. It seems that once you’ve got stinking thinking, you’ve generally got a negative perception of yourself and a life to match. - It is because of this linguistic anomaly that I pay careful attention to your everyday language, the words, tone and inflexion. This is one reason my sessions are longer than most! I gradually introduce an awareness of the negative influences of your spoken language. This then develops, holistically, into the requisite therapeutic interventions.

Having a good level of conscious awareness about your verbal and non-verbal negative self-talk is necessary. This means you now have the conscious and subconscious drivers of new ways of thinking. Ways of thinking that are naturally inclined towards creating linguistically correct neural input. From there, it goes to work deep in your subconscious, ending up stored memories within your brain. Now your brain becomes the creator of all of your mindful living! - Additionally, I teach easy to learn strategies that make life a joy. You will wake up in the morning wanting to jump out of bed, eager to get going! Because once you are up and out of bed, you are in charge! You cannot control what others say or do, but you can influence it. Your true strength lies in the way you choose to respond to experience! Life is all about choices, the better you are at managing life; the more you learn to make better choices.