Your
teenage daughter promises to stop procrastinating in completing her homework
assignments, but “forgets” to turn in a final project on the last day of school.
A colleague at work announces that he is on a new diet to lose a few more
pounds while he nibbles a piece of pizza during a social at work. You sneak a
quick drag on your friend’s cigarette even though you officially quit smoking
eight months ago. You wonder what these behaviors are all about while that
famous line from Brokeback Mountain
reverberates in your mind: “I can’t quit
you!”
Yesterday
I shared a link on my Facebook account that illustrates the benefits of
quitting smoking. Several people indicated that “liked” the post. Seeing this
response made me think about how much hard work and dedication it takes for a
person to permanently change a behavior or give up a longtime habit. Nicotine, caffeine
and alcohol are commercially available and are fairly easy to obtain; they are
also habit-forming and addictive substances. It is also argued that some
processed foods include ingredients that manufacturers hope will trigger
consumers’ cravings to eat more and more of that product. But the adrenaline
rush or high that we get when we participate in a favorite sport or the surge
of endorphins we feel when we are in love occur naturally and these experiences
can be equally addictive.
The challenge
in trying to change or replace these behaviors is that we generally don’t want
to stop doing something that feels good, even if the sensation of “pleasure”
lasts for an even shorter duration every time we experience it. The motivation
to stop doing something we enjoy or that makes us feel good drops even more if we
associate specific ideas or outcomes with that behavior. For example, your
belief that smoking prevents overeating may trump your desire to quit smoking
in order to avoid gaining weight. Or, you may ignore your doctor’s advice to
lose weight to prevent getting diabetes because you believe that your extra
pounds will insulate you from intimacy or protect you from suffering another
broken heart if the relationship doesn’t work out.
Regardless of
your conscious motivation to change a belief or behavior, your subconscious
mind is fighting even harder to continue to follow the mental scripts that have
been directing those actions that you want to replace. Furthermore, the longer
you have been doing whatever it is you can’t or don’t want to stop doing, the harder
it is to replace that behavior with one that will help you achieve your vocational
and avocational self-improvement goals. Whether you smoke, overeat, procrastinate/miss
deadlines or constantly starting new relationships so you can re-experience the
excitement of being in love, your subconscious mind follows that familiar
mental script so you can continue to experience that familiar known (pleasure). Fortunately mental
scripts can be rewritten and behaviors can be replaced; and hypnosis and
hypnotherapy can help you make this change.
Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a
certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with
honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more
information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy®, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.
© 2014
