Be the Change in 2020![]() The New Year is upon us and many are looking at the possibility of creating yet another resolution. My suggestion is to forget it! It didn't work last year so why submit yourself to the pain of failing yet again. The reason we fail and fail again is simply because we are using the wrong tools for the job and then blaming ourselves because it didn't work. So throw out the resolution and create a Process Pledge. What is that you ask? Learn more.
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![]() When you woke up this morning were you excited to be alive? Did you wake up to a bright eyed beautiful being that whispered, "I love you and caressed your cheek?" Are you thankful for your home and your transportation? Are you looking forward to another day of productivity and creativity either with an employer or on your own. If you are saying yes, then I want to celebrate the clarity, purpose and abundance that surrounds you. Or if you woke up feeling miserable, lonely and feeling like the life, your life, the one that you had planned on living has been stolen from you then it's time to get over it. Let that old one go and buy a new one. Learn How ![]() I used to live in Dallas TX and I would often miss the turning of the seasons. Summer it seemed would hang on until quite suddenly winter appeared. I enjoy the much more subtle shift that occurs here in the Pacific Northwest. What I am enjoying the most is the feeling of abundance that comes with the time of harvest. It is a time to gather with friends and break bread and share time and stories together. Most of all for me it's a time of gratitude and being thankful for all that the year has presented to me so far. ![]() I have been rereading, " The Most Important Thing" by spiritual teacher Adyashanti, and it was on the second reading that this statement really resonated with me. This is a very difficult concept to embrace especially for a spiritual guy like me. Someone who knows that he is spending his life helping people solve some pretty difficult problems. I of course am in service to good, so I thought. This is not something that I would speak out loud yet it was definitely a part of my internal narrative. What I have found recently is that it is possible to do good work without being entirely clear about why I do it. There is a certain "ideology of the good" that is fairly easy to slip into and the assumption that because you help people, how you do it is not as important. ![]() Looking for the best self-confidence hypnosis to find that elusive trait that others seem to manifest so easily? It can certainly burden your everyday life to suffer from a crisis of confidence, perhaps feeling you are the only one with this issue. Having low self-confidence can make you feel uncomfortable in social situations, stop you from going for the promotion you want, or advancing in your professional and romantic life the way you deserve. That is no way to live and you don't deserve to silently suffer from false beliefs about yourself. Self-confidence hypnosis can help boost your inner-morale and set you on a better course to enjoy life as you want to. Let's go over how many people try to boost their self-confidence through outward appearance, how self-confidence is expressed, and why self-confidence hypnosis can get to the core problem. Summer Solstice- Gratitude for an Open Heart![]() I returned from eastern Oregon early this morning and I am committed to allowing the beauty that I feel in my heart to continue. Returning to our seemingly busy lives after spending the better part of a week in ceremony is a opportunity to begin to assess what is truly important. When we step outside of our routine we have a chance to look at not only what we do but how we do it. If the expansive open hearted feeling that I returned with is important to me, then I will allow it to continue. Doing so begins with trusting that it is not only possible, it is our natural state of being. The purpose of the ceremony was to invite a new way of interacting with the world. We were invited to become co-creators, to be active participants in this change process. Life Hack Number 7-Begin with Strong Intention![]() I always say that change begins with a strong intention, so why is it last in this series? It is last because without having a strategy and a method of tracking the behavior change, it will be of little use. Let's be honest we all want a magic bullet a pill or a diet or even a hypnosis session to cause some rapid change. We essentially want years of non-productive behaviors to go away and never come back and the marketers who sell you stuff, want you to buy into that billion dollar fairy tale. We look at the sexy bodies and fill up our garages with dust gathering exercise equipment. Did it occur to us, that the sexy fit body took time to get that way, not really because we bought the fantasy. Life Hack Number 6- Celebrate the Milestones![]() ou have made a choice to change a behavior and you are really frustrated because you just did the very thing that you did not want to do. You may even be feeling some shame or self-loathing around what just happened. Crazy as it sounds I want you to celebrate the milestone that has just been crossed. Our behaviors operate on a mostly unconscious level and we may not feel good as a result of doing them, yet we seldom associate that feeling directly with what we just did. In this case bringing conscious awareness to a behavior we are not proud of may cause us to feel poorly. Yet it is this conscious awareness that will begin to pull us out of our ditch of unconscious programming. Life Hack Number 5- Mastering Convenience![]() Humans will almost always choose convenience. In fact most everything in our modern world is designed to have us do so. Let's start with the obvious choices. Fast food is seemingly convenient and even if you are stuck in a slow moving line of cars, perhaps not so fast, yet quicker than making a healthy meal from scratch, especially if you have to buy the food first. Remember nothing has to be as advertised, just close enough to support a rationalization for making that choice. The lure of convenience is strong and once the mind makes a choice to take the perceived easy route it locks the new pattern in fairly quickly. In other words it becomes another largely unconscious behavior pattern. Life Hack Number 4- Find Duty, Devotion and Purpose![]() Use these practices to create a foundation for a vital, rich and fulfilling life. Think of these as a feedback loop that reminds us of what is most important to us. In doing so we are also acknowledging that we have the skills to keep us tracking that very thing. When we do this we are learning to bring conscious awareness to our actions. If this sounds a little strange then consider that we are navigating each day with mostly unconscious behavior patterns. Actually, not an entirely negative thing as our skills need to become a mostly unconscious operation for us to achieve a level of excellence. The question to consider here is, "Are these unconscious patterns productive or non-productive in relation to my intended result?" When we view our patterns in this fashion we remove the emotional component. Then we can objectively see the source and begin to align our actions with our intention- (the intended result). Life Hack Number 3- Excellence vs Perfection![]() Perfection leaves us all lacking in some way. It seems like a picture that has been touched up and not quite real. It's also a hook that lures us into the pursuit of something outside ourselves. It is tied strongly to objectification and longing. If only I had that perfect (______) my life would be so great! I would feel so good and people would respect me, love me, envy me, if only? Most likely it's static which means once attained it is likely to degrade in value. It is often a measure that we use to denigrate ourselves. I'll never be perfect! I am not smart enough, good looking enough, rich enough, it's hopeless for me. It fosters feelings of isolation and separation and even if we achieve "perfection" or some idealized state the luster will fade. Human Life Hack Number 2- Being Inquisitive![]() Start your day with an intention to be inquisitive/curious. This action sounds simple and yet is not so easy as we are hard-wired to see familiar patterns throughout our day. This is how we have been programmed to navigate and it takes conscious effort to see, hear and experience life outside of our conditioned reality. If any of you have ever moved to a new city or traveled to a foreign country then chances are you have an idea about what I am speaking. You initially brought a lot more conscious awareness to your surroundings. In fact your environment might even have had a surreal quality to it. Brighter colors, richer sounds, connecting with people and places on a more synchronistic level. This is an open inquisitive/curious mind interacting with the world. Do this for 30 days and Change Your Reality!![]() This practice only takes a few minutes a day and yet most people fail to do it! Over the next month I will reveal 7 human life hacks and when you select 3 to do daily, the process of being fully engaged in your life will firmly take root. You will be putting in place the tools to create the life that you truly want to live. Hack Number 1-Begin your day with gratitude! This is a powerful practice that will quickly transform how you see and interact with your world. I use the term your world because you are either at the effect of everything or the one who effects change in your world. It is a shift in perspective, though much more so, it's the releasing of the story that has been used to define yourself. The Summer Gathering:
![]() Michael Hoffman LCSW, psychotherapist and writer will be coming to Spokane January 25-27 to team up with local hypnotherapist James Barfoot CHt to offer a weekend workshop on Trusting your Heart: Relying on your Intuition. The workshop will include material from Michael’s forthcoming book Natural Way of Being including how pure feeling such as intuition is a “call for action” and the most effective guide for your life. James will teach how trusting your heart is utilized in the behavior change you may be seeking to make for the new year and will guide you in qi gong exercises to help you to tune into the energy of your heart. Scientists "Clear" Alzheimer's Plaque in Mice using Only Light and Sound![]() MIKE MCRAE 15 MAR 2019 Clumps of harmful proteins that interfere with brain functions have been partially cleared in mice using nothing but light and sound. Research led by MIT has found strobe lights and a low pitched buzz can be used to recreate brain waves lost in the disease, which in turn remove plaque and improve cognitive function in mice engineered to display Alzheimer's-like behavior. It's a little like using light and sound to trigger their own brain waves to help fight the disease. ![]() Finding a good hypnotherapist can seem like a difficult task as it isn't a profession that is promoted as well as it deserves to be in the media. Some clients who go don't admit to it and there are some deceptive hypnotists who promise instant results out there. While that may be a bit disconcerting, remember that hypnosis was approved by the America Medical Association in 1958 and prior to that people had been using clinical hypnotherapy for decades and there are many qualified hypnotherapist professionals that can help you. Perhaps It's Time to Try Smoking Cessation Hypnosis![]() If the traditional meditate and talk quit smoking traditions aren't your thing, perhaps you should try smoking cessation hypnosis. Smoking cessation can be a real challenge and the many kinds of programs that aim to help you quit smoking can be another hurdle to sift through. While smoking cessation hypnosis isn't the watch swinging instant cure they present in the movies, it is a legitimate and powerful way you can kick the smoking habit. To help you make an informed and well-rounded decision as to which way to quit smoking would work best for you, let's go over some of the more traditional stop smoking treatments and compare them to smoking cessation hypnosis. ![]() Use the power of the group to multiply your intention and achieve a desired weight loss outcome. The key here is the knowledge that none of us is alone and that each of us shares the same hopes, dreams and desire for change. Through joining together we increase the power of our intention many fold. A group hypnosis weight loss session begins with an educational talk, followed by a discussion that helps us identify what we want and what might be holding us back from having it. We then create a group intention that invites us to support each other for an agreed upon period of time with each of us focused on this outcome of healthy life- changing weight loss. ![]() Manny people seek help to make changes in their behavior and with habits, they want to get rid of or ease. Hypnotherapy can help with those transitions and through regular sessions with a certified professional hypnotist, you can achieve those desired adjustments and overcome what is preventing you from doing so. Living in Spokane, or the surrounding areas, you've probably heard of Positive Changes Hypnosis Centers and are seeking help from them. Unfortunately, they are no longer serving the community and closed in 2017. But, many former employees and hypnosis professionals went on to take what they've learned to continue helping people. Whether it be behavior modification, help with weight-loss, or stopping smoking. Positive Changes may be closed, but the great work they did continues. Intentional Hypnosis was founded by a former Positive Changes professional whose skills were further developed while working there and is dedicated to carrying on that torch. By Melissa Dahl ![]() Doctor Marie Elisabeth Faymonville performing hypnosis as an alternative to traditional anesthesiology. Considering its origin story, it’s not so surprising that hypnosis and serious medical science have often seemed at odds. The man typically credited with creating hypnosis, albeit in a rather primitive form, is Franz Mesmer, a doctor in 18th-century Vienna. (Mesmer, mesmerize. Get it?) Mesmer developed a general theory of disease he called “animal magnetism,” which held that every living thing carries within it an internal magnetic force, in liquid form. Illness arises when this fluid becomes blocked, and can be cured if it can be coaxed to flow again, or so Mesmer’s thinking went. To get that fluid flowing, as science journalist Jo Marchant describes in her recent book, Cure, Mesmer “simply waved his hands to direct it through his patients’ bodies” — the origin of those melodramatic hand motions that stage hypnotists use today.” ![]() Finding a good hypnotherapist can seem like a difficult task as it isn't a profession that is promoted as well as it deserves to be in the media. Some clients who go don't admit to it and there are some deceptive hypnotists who promise instant results out there. While that may be a bit disconcerting, remember that hypnosis was approved by the America Medical Association in 1958 and prior to that people had been using clinical hypnotherapy for decades and there are many qualified hypnotherapist professionals that can help you. Any kind of medical or therapeutic relationship requires you to vet the professional you're seeking help from. You wouldn't randomly stroll into the first doctor, psychologist, or dentist's office you see, right? Then you shouldn't for a hypnotherapist either. Not all professionals are made equal and even a great one may not have the background you need or be the best hypnotherapist for you. ![]() How are you choosing to start your year? Are you hoping, it will be different from last year? Most people at least want this year to be better, they want to do something to improve their lives. Some join a gym or find a diet plan and that is a good start. What I am concerned with is the finish and most people never cross that line. It's not from lack of trying and I'll bet that you will agree with me on that. You are frustrated because you have tried and tried, in fact you even crossed that line a few times. Then you slowly fell back into your old routines and felt miserable for it. Do you know what the problem is? ![]() The shortest day of the year is today and in many cultures there begins a time honored tradition of slowing down and engaging in a process of introspection. It is said that in ancient China at this time of year the emperor would order the gates to the empire to be closed for a ten day period. The people would be encourage to review the past year to look at what served and what did not and to make changes as the new year dawned. Though a large scale process like this seems far fetched from our busy cultural perspective perhaps we can apply this on a personal level. We can ask ourselves if we have been living life as an expression of our deepest intention or hearts desire. Are we doing what we came here to do or are we just too busy and distracted? ![]() I am talking about paying attention at home, work or during social activities to others who may require assistance to complete a task. This is where the paying attention piece comes in. We often want to help and even though it may come from a genuine desire to do so, it is often not required. Be aware that proceeding in this circumstance may actually cause more harm than good by taking away an individuals opportunity to learn. ![]() There are many books written about the process of envisioning. Focus on what you want then create a vision board and look at it each day. Hold that thought in your consciousness and change will surely take place. This could happen or perhaps you will simply chase after the same old thing and get the same old result. The truth is that we are a vision based culture and most of what we have been trained to envision is fantasy. The perfect home, car, job, date or mate. So many things to enhance our lives and make it all worth while. |
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About the Author
I, James Barfoot, have mentored with a spiritual teacher over 20 years. Over 30 years of Tai Qi, Qi Gong and Zen training. As a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Master NLP Practitioner with fourteen years and thousands of success stories, I have the ability to guide you to the result you desire.
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