It's amazing the transformation a few minutes of quiet time can have in kids...

Interesting article about how meditation is transforming some of the roughest schools in San Francisco.

Have I mentioned in here how meditation and prayer show the same brainwave pattern? :)

New guided imagery MP3s & 10 tips to help you keep those New Year's resolutions

Before we get to the tips, here's the plug for my new MP3s that are available on Amazon to help you lose weight, stop smoking, reduce your stress levels, and just the meditation music without any voice so you can ride the wave alone if you want. :)

At this time of the year, if you're like most folks you've made a few New Year's Resolutions whether or not you've let anyone else know about them. The most common ones are losing weight, stopping smoking (especially if you're a closet smoker), reducing stress, and meditating more. So we thought we'd give you 10 ways to help you keep those resolutions, starting off the New Year right. 

Guided imagery is a big tool to help you keep all those resolutions --- and using MP3s can help you with your guided imagery, stress reduction, and self hypnosis program. (If hypnosis is new to you, you're probably wondering why folks see a hypnotist. The "big three" are to stop smoking, lose weight, and reduce their stress levels --- why I made those MP3s. ;>) What most people don't realize about the sub/unconscious is that it's very child-like and much like a child it likes having boundaries set and being told what to do. The catch is that you have to tell it what do it in just the right way otherwise it won't listen to you! 

So, buzz on over to Amazon to download one or all of the MP3s (they're very cheap!) then keep in mind the following 10 tips to help you keep you on track. 

1. Listen to the MP3s daily for at least 21 to 30 days.
   There are many ways to ensure access to the subconscious, but one of the simplest is repetition, repetition, repetition. That repetition ensures the suggestions make it into the sub/unconscious. If you use the ones in the link, they have some technological techniques embedded to ensure that you reach the trance state while listening. For best results, use headphones but you can also use speakers (lay in between them, lol :D). While working on these recordings, the sound engineer reached the point where he had to leave the room when I was listening to the playbacks because they simply made him too spacey! (Just because common sense isn't as common as we think, do not listen to these MP3s while driving!)


2. Start a routine and keep at it for at least 21 to 30 days.
   This applies to whatever your resolution is, but especially for any new habit you're trying to establish or for any old habit you're trying to break. See #1 above about repetition and why the 21 to 30 days is important.


3. Replace an old "bad" habit with a new good habit.
   The easiest way to break an old bad habit is to replace it with a new good habit. For example, take smoking. I smoked for years and quit more times than I care to count. I tried everything, including cold turkey, regular gum, nicotine gum, and "happy" pills that made me fuzzy headed, so I quit taking them after a week. What finally made it stick was using self hypnosis and an MP3 --- that was 8 years ago exactly one week before Christmas, and I don't even have a craving to smoke now. Replace the smoke with a glass of water, carrot, or some other thing that's good for you and that goes in your mouth, then keep at it for at least 21 to 30 days (see #2 above).


4. Baby steps count.
   Depending on how big of a change you're trying to make, baby steps do indeed count. The bigger the change you're trying to make the more important those baby steps are. Celebrate each baby step forward, and not with food or a smoke! Remember, "the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. "


5. If you're having trouble doing something every day (like working out), start out doing it every other day, Monday through Friday.
   Then after 21 to 30 days once that becomes a habit, add another day each week for the next 21 to 30 days, then another until you're doing it every day 5 days a week if that's your ultimate goal. This is a practical way of doing the baby steps in #4.


6. Share with your friends but address any sabotaging behavior.
   This is important for moral support especially if there's another person living in your house besides you. The best intentions can go to hell if your roommate, spouse, or significant other is still bringing home sugar, cakes, brownies, smokes, or whatever it is that you're trying to stop and replace with something better. Sabotage can be sub/unconscious on their part and if you notice it, you really need to discuss it with them. They are probably not aware they're doing it.
   
   Women, if you notice sabotaging behavior in your lover / spouse it is probably their sub/unconscious trying to keep you the way you are because it's afraid that once you're all slim and sexy again you might just trade them in for a new model! Studies have been done that verify when a woman is getting ready to dump her current live-in lover or spouse, she also drops some weight before doing it, so their subconscious is not all out in left field here. A major sit down discussion is needed along with some major re-assurance that you're just trying to get healthy for YOU and not because you're looking to dump them sometime soon.


7. Drink more water.
   I don't care what habits you're breaking and replacing, most of us should be drinking more water instead of soda, caffeinated, or diet drinks. Cut out the diet sodas, regular sodas, and even the crystal light crap and drink cool, clear, clean, refreshing water. Stressed out and counting to 10 before you explode? Grab a glass of water instead of a smoke or a doughnut or [insert carb-of-choice-here] while you cool down some before hitting the "send" button on that flaming e-mail.
   
   There have been several studies now that show diet drinks don't fool the body and they actually just make it gain weight because the body is looking for the calories that should be in those drinks but isn't. So when it doesn't find them it just makes you hungrier and you end up eating more than you would have before the diet drink!
   
   Don't like the taste of plain, cool, clear, clean, refreshing water? Herbal teas without caffeine can also count as water, or how about infused water? To make infused water simply cut up one (1) lemon or one (1) lime or one (1) orange / tangerine in two (2) quarts of water and let it infuse the water with flavor. You can experiment with your own flavors now that you know how to make it.  :)


8. Imagine yourself at your goal.
   Since I'm a hypnotist, I know that not everyone can "see" or visualize things in their imagination. Some of us "hear," some "smell," some "feel," so whatever is the best way for you imagine (we all get how to imagine things in our mind) yourself at your goal, whatever that goal is, just do it. The best time to do this imagining is right before you fall asleep at night because while you're in that half-awake half-asleep state where you're really just too lazy to open your eyes, you're in a trance state and self suggestions are best received then. This imagining is a self suggestion, and one of the best things about the sub/unconscious is that it cannot tell the difference between reality and imagination so it accepts both as completely truthful (even though your conscious mind has a problem with it!). So imagine you as the you, you want to be and your sub/unconscious will help you make it happen.
   


9. Do use positive affirmations.
   There are a lot of technical reasons (hypnotic technique) for not using negatives with your subconscious, but let's just say that using positive affirmations works. Remember to use them for at least 21 to 30 days to make sure they stick in your sub/unconscious. You might even want to pick several that ring true for you and cycle through them regularly. You don't even have to work on creating affirmations for this --- grab a Louise Hay daily calendar (less than $10) for some excellent positive affirmations and just tape the ones that resonate with you to your bathroom mirror and whisper them to yourself every morning and evening, while brushing your teeth. There is something about actually saying them out loud, even it it is only a whisper to yourself, that has a bigger impact on your sub/unconscious than just reading them to yourself. Speaking them gives them more energy so they penetrate deeper into your mind.


10. Stop the overly critical self-talk; Be gentle and kind to yourself; Love yourself! (It's not a sin. Really.) 
    It's very easy in this society to be hyper-critical of yourself. Don't. Think of how you would train a puppy or a child in some new behaviors: you'd do it with love and gentleness of course and you should "train" yourself in the same way. This is one of the best ways to encourage yourself to stick to these resolutions and one of the best ways to break old habits and establish new ones. There are several reasons for this and one of the biggest is to allow the new suggestions and new habits to take root in your sub/unconscious without your sub/unconscious spitting them right back out like an angry teenager. Another reason is that the body as well as the sub/unconscious remembers things and makes things happen for you, whether you want it or not.
    
    A note here: loving yourself is not a sin. Draw a distinction between the behaviors you don't like and the essence of your being --- the spark of Light / God / Goddess inside you --- and love that part if this is an issue for you. If you can't love yourself, how can you expect anyone else to love you? You deserve the best that you have been giving to everyone else. Treat yourself with equal respect and love to what you lavish on others. 
    
    

So grab some inexpensive MP3s (like mine), follow the tips above, and be well, happy, and healthy in this year and all the ones that follow.