The Wounded Child Inside of You – Episode 421

The “Inner Child” is a concept developed by CG Jung and further developed over the years by both pop psychologists and analytical psychology. It represents the childlike aspects of each of us. Ideally, we are connected with the wonder, joy and excitement of our inner child. However, if we have experienced childhood trauma, our inner child can become a wounded child, resulting in feelings in adulthood of shame, guilt, anxiety and other negative emotions. In this episode, Ted discusses signs that your inner child may be a wounded child, and more importantly, how to heal that part of you.

 

 

 

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Doing inner child work can be some of the most powerful healing that you do.  Request a complimentary consultation with Ted to explore if hypnotherapy can transform your challenges into possibility! Click here to request a consultation: https://tedmoreno.com/ready-to-get-started/

Who Are You in Relation to Challenges? – Episode 405

When you are facing a challenge, who are you? Scared? Doubtful? Angry? Or are you confident, self-assured or determined? You get to choose who you are going to be in the face of a challenge. It’s called a Can-Do Attitude. Also known as a Success Mindset. We need challenges to grow.

Listen to this podcast episode at the link below.
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Getting Free from The Hypnosis of Your Mind

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One of the most fun and common ways to get hypnotized is to go the movies. When we see a movie, we believe what we’re seeing is really happening. We get scared, feel happy, and maybe even cry.  We literally become hypnotized to the point that we forget that none of it is real. We are so caught up in the content of the movie, we forget about the context, which is the fact that we’re in a building, watching light projected onto a screen. (Hold that thought for a second…)

People that come to me really want only one thing: Liberation. Like all of us, they want to be liberated from thoughts, feelings, sensations or behaviors that don’t serve them.   I help them be aware that none of those things is who they really are. I help them see that the things they want to be free from exist as the content of the mind: the ongoing, always changing stuff of the mind. That’s what minds do: they produce content, and we are trained and conditioned to look for content. We’re attached to content.  If we can develop the awareness that as human beings we are hypnotized by the content of our minds, then we can see the truth of what’s going on, and see that we have a choice.

What’s the content of our lives? Beliefs, thoughts, feelings, everything we think we are: the past, our future goals, and the details of our life situations. So what’s the context?  Like the screen in a movie, it’s the awareness that all this content is projected onto. The content is always changing but the awareness of the content is always present, even if you are unaware that you’re aware. And most of us are unaware of our awareness.

This is where we can lose our power. Just like watching a movie, we get hypnotized by all of this content. We get involved in the drama, the story. We become attached to it. We identify with it and we say this is who I am, this is what I believe. And we can become so invested in this content, so invested in what we believe and feel, that we may be willing to die or even kill for it.

Take anger, for example. Nobody ever really makes us angry. We make ourselves angry by thinking “It/he/she/ shouldn’t be like that.” The divide between how it is and how we think it should be is what creates anger for us. But how we think it should be is not real. It doesn’t exist. But our tendency is to believe that everything we think is true. But I’ve got news for you. Most of what we think is true is simply theory, belief, opinion, generalizations and habitual patterns of thinking.

Take fear. When we say “I am afraid”, we’ve now become the fear. Then we might say “I shouldn’t be afraid. Why am I afraid? I hate being afraid. I hate that thing that makes me afraid.” This is just more content. All we’re doing now is keeping the fear alive because what you resist persists because you are putting energy into it. The truth is, “I am aware of the emotion of fear, which will soon pass or fade.” What’s even closer to the truth is “I am awareness”. This is the context out of which all this content arises.

So we can look at anger or fear or any other negative emotions from the context of awareness. We can acknowledge “I’m having the experience of fear.” As humans, we will experience fear, of course, as well as courage, hope, despair etc. But instead of saying “I should not feel afraid”, we can stop shoulding all over ourselves. We can say “OK right now, I’m feeling fear and that’s what is. It’s ok to feel fear because I’m only human. And just because I’m feeling fear doesn’t mean that it has to stop me.”

What happens when we feel fear and we keep on going? Fear changes and starts to become courage, then confidence, then competence. It’s always changing. Because content is transitory.

How can we liberate ourselves from our mind stuff and identify more powerfully with the awareness of this content? (Which in my opinion is who we really are.) We can start by being the observer of our own process. We can notice when anger, worry or any other negative emotion, feeling or thought comes up. We can say “anger coming up” or “anxiety movie starting now”.  We can disengage from “I don’t want or like what is happening now” and just be with what is going on within us, without judgment or wishing it was something else. Now we are no longer reacting. Now we can be responsible which means “able to respond.” That’s freedom, the ability to choose a response instead of reacting.

Here’s something to try that is very simple. It will take 5 minutes and will give you the chance to see your content in all its glory.

Find 5 minutes where you won’t be disturbed, put a candle on a table, light it and set a timer for 5 minutes. Focus on the candle flame. Very quickly, you’ll notice your focus being taken off the flame and drawn towards your mind’s content. It might look like this: “I don’t have time for this…I’m tired…There was something I needed to do…This reminds me of…that candle smells good…that person is such a …”

Just observe what is happening. Watch the stuff just roll on by without getting attached to it.  This is the essence of meditation.

Let me ask you a question: what would happen if you were to do this every day for 5 minutes? I invite you to try it and see.

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Your companion on the path to Transformation,

Ted

A Simple and Effective Technique for Pain Relief.

If I showed you a simple and effective technique for pain relief, would you use it? How about if it worked for stress? Anxiety?

It’s called EFT or “tapping” and I’ve been teaching this to almost every one of my clients for years. I even posted a video demonstrating it. I use it, and it works for me.

When I was first introduced to this technique, I dismissed it. It looked weird.  But I kept hearing about it from other hypnotherapists, wellness practitioners, and thought leaders such as Joe Vitale, Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra. I decided to learn it, and the first person I taught it to came back and said “Wow, that really works.”

In fact, tapping has become so popular there is now a Tapping World Summit!  The video above was produced for the Tapping World Summit but has really good info about tapping.

Check it out, and if your curiosity is aroused, then check out the official EFT website. You can also type “tapping” or EFT into YouTube and you’ll find hundreds of videos on this very useful and effective tool.

Hope this info is helpful!

Ted

I’m not Angry, It’s Just What I’m Feeling.

Years ago I worked for a company that sold accounting software. They charged for tech support, and my job was to take the incoming calls from people needing tech support, get a credit card number, and then transfer them to the tech support guys.

Of course, some people didn’t like the idea of being charged for technical support, especially when their accounting software wasn’t working. One day a call came in, and per the script, I asked “Who am I speaking with?”

“Joe Angry!” was the curt response. Without even thinking twice, I asked, “How can I help you today Mr. Angry?” He WAS angry. I talked him down a bit, and when I called him Mr. Angry again, he said more calmly, “My name is John, it’s just that I’m feeling angry because this software of yours is not working.”  He went from being angry, to feeling angry. He was able to get one step removed from his anger.

The difference is subtle but important. We can feel anger so strongly and deeply that we start to become the anger. It becomes “who we are”. We start to identify with it and may begin to feel that if we let it go, we  give up a very real part of ourselves. For some of us, this may be the only part of us that feels powerful or that we feel can affect the world, and anger can become our only tool for getting what we want or need.

Of course, the fact is that we are not ever any single emotion, we are beings that have an emotional landscape that allows us to feel anger, as well as joy, happiness, sadness, frustration, etc.

When we continually assert and affirm “I am angry!” then we can become possessed by anger. “I am” is a very powerful affirmation. It can take control of us in ways that are ultimately dis-empowering as well as destructive when it becomes a habitual way of being.

Of course, to feel angry is to feel  human emotion. We can begin to take control and manage our anger if we fully accept and understand that we will feel angry at times, and resolving to let go of shame or guilt about having angry feelings.

One way to keep anger as a feeling and to avoid having it become who we are is to simply state, to ourselves or to others: “I feel angry”  or “When that happens (or when you say that or do that), I feel angry.” This way we keep anger where it belongs, in the realm of what we feel, as an emotion, that, like a storm, will pass. It allows us to become one step removed from the anger, giving us more choices as to how we will handle this feeling.

Then we can respond to anger ; we become responsible for our anger. It’s the difference between “This is who I am” and “This is what I’m feeling.” I may not be able to help what I am, but I can respond to what I’m feeling.

Using the metaphor of the emotional landscape, we are able to see that we are passing through anger, and that if we choose to walk through it, we will soon be out the other side. We don’t need to proclaim that who we are is anger, because then it doesn’t matter where we journey, because where ever you go, there you are: Mr. or Mrs. Angry.

Give yourself permission to feel the rocky path of anger, and keep walking. Trust that a different emotion, maybe even joy, awaits around the corner.

If you liked this post, please leave a comment and/or share it with your social networks.  

Your companion on the journey to transformation,

Ted A. Moreno

Success Performance Coach
Certified Hypnotherapist

Photo by Skye Moorehead.

 

Is Your Self Expression Waiting to Get Out?

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One Sunday when I was about 6 or 7 years old, I was sitting with my dad in church. As a kid I always had a stuffy nose and my nose was kind of running while I was sitting there. I didn’t have a kleenex  and I didn’t know what to do.

I know this is kinda of gross, but I was a little kid, so I wiped my nose with the inside of my hand and wiped it on my pants. Then I became really uncomfortable and my nose was still running. I started to get more and more miserable  by the second as I wiped my nose again with my hand and wiped it on my pants. I was beside myself with shame and embarrassment and I wanted to cry. I guess I spoke up or my dad noticed and he offered my a hanky, which I accepted with relief and gratitude. “Why didn’t you say something?” he asked me. I didn’t answer because I really didn’t know why.

Now I know. Read more

How to Release Negative Emotions Quickly and Easily

In an hour hypnosis session, the hypnosis part is only about 20 minutes. The remainder of the time I’m talking with my client, getting information, setting goals, and teaching them various techniques to add to their transformation toolbox.

One of the most valuable tools that I teach almost every client is EFT, which stands for Emotional Freedom Technique. EFT is in my experience  quite effective for quickly letting go of negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, anger, and sadness. It can also be used for physical problems as well.

In this short video I teach how to do EFT. It’s simple, easy and effective. To learn more about EFT go to www.emofree.com.

 

The Inner Critic: Listen Up

Today’s post is by guest author Greg Angriella, who writes about why your inner critic may have something valuable to tell you. In the process of personal transformation, we seek to be open to what our minds, as well as our bodies, are telling us, even if we don’t want to hear.

The inner critic gets a bad rap ever time. “Silence your inner critic!”, “Avoid the inner critic, it will sabotage your best efforts,” or “Your inner critic is your worst enemy”, are common wisdom we often hear about this negative voice inside. However instead of running from this negative voice inside, perhaps we might slow down and take a good look at it. We might be very surprised at what we discover.

Facing our Demons Head On

This is like facing our demons in our dreams. If you are having a recurring nightmare where something big, bad and ugly is chasing you, the advice is to turn around and face it, head on, eye to eye. Suddenly the demon stops being a demon, you realize that it’s simply something that has been trying to get your attention. You have been so dedicated to avoiding it that it grew and and got stronger and eventually took the form of a demon hunting you down.

It’s the same with any negative energy in our life. If we take the approach of simply shutting it off and avoiding it, we may set ourselves up for trouble later on.

What is your inner critic trying to tell you? If you stop and listen you can find out. There is a message buried beneath the negativity. It’s not all bad, there is something wise coming from the depths. You just need to see through the blindness of the negativity to see the jewel of wisdom shining beneath.

The Wisdom You are Missing

For example let’s say you want to start a blog, but whenever you begin you run into the self sabotaging thought, “I can’t write, nobody will read my blog posts…” When this happens, you hate yourself for having the negative thought, so you react with, “Darn, why am I so negative!!!” You blame yourself for your negative thinking, but you never really get down to the heart of the matter, which is to listen to the negative thought and see why it is there.

Perhaps you are right, perhaps writing is not your thing at all, and it would be wise to move on and find what it is you really want to do. Or perhaps you are a great writer but you’ve settled on a topic you don’t really know anything about, and you simply need to look more carefully at your choice of topic. Or maybe you are a brilliant writer after all, and this blog idea has been your way of avoiding the challenge of writing that best seller.

But meanwhile, you have been so dedicated to silencing your inner critic that you didn’t take the time to discover what is actually going on inside of you. So the next time you hear a voice inside screaming, “You can’t do that!!!”, slow down and listen to why that voice is there. You might be amazed at what you will learn.

If you liked this post, please leave a comment and/or share it with your social networks.  

Your companion on the journey to transformation,

Ted  Moreno