Drink Green Tea for a Smaller Waist

"They" say that green tea is a waist-whittler. I'm all for anything that will do that!

I make my own green iced tea by mixing many different kinds of green tea bags and adding one other kind that has a distinct flavor, like spice or ginger. Interestingly, I had imagined that the tea would turn out to be green in color, but mine wasn't. It is, however, positively delicious! Lately I've been drinking it throughout the day.

Has it helped my waistline, you ask? In the past month I've dropped two inches, but part of that, I'm sure, is due to increased movement/exercise, and watching what I'm eating.

Just Relax!

I love how, when I quit worrying over a thing, it leaves room for opportunity. When the worry stops, it is replaced with what needs to happen. Nice.
It's just another great reminder to relax and allow.

I'm Thinking Positively, So Where is It?

Why is it that, when you hold a thought in your mind of what you want to see in your life, it doesn't happen? Don't they say that positive thinking gets you what you want?

Your conscious mind knows about your life and how it runs. This part of the mind is about 5-10% of your functioning. Your subconscious mind takes care of the other 90-95%. Keep in mind, though, that this part of your mind is like a tape recorder running in the background, playing the tapes of all the things you were told to believe during your entire young life. This is an automatic process; you face a situation, your tape recorder starts feeding you conditioned responses from long ago.

So here's how it works: You have a conscious, positive thought, like, say, "I am drawing to me a great relationship." And then you wait for it to materialize. And you wait, and wait, and nothing happens. And then you get frustrated and start talking to yourself - maybe, to that subconscious part of you - in scolding words - about why your great relationship hasn't appeared yet. Still nothing. Then you decide that you really have no control over what you get in life; maybe you really are just a victim of circumstance.

Here's what was really happening: You say, "I am drawing to me a great relationship." So, while your conscious mind is distracted with the stuff of life, it is not paying attention to the tapes being played about relationships. It doesn't even hear the tapes! And these are the tapes that are playing about your relationship: "I've always failed at relationships." "I'm not a good partner." "No one would want me."

So, even though you are consciously thinking positively about a great relationship, your tapes are telling you that you can't have one/don't deserve one. The result is that the intention for a great relationship is canceled out by the old beliefs that you've had about relationships.

What you need to do in order for positive thought to work, is to change those old tapes. The subconscious mind needs to be updated and given information about who you are right now. And, the conscious mind needs to pay attention to what you do, say, and feel in this moment that will help you - or keep you from - getting what you want.

Once you have the conscious and the subconscious minds working together - for your benefit - then positive intentions will manifest in your life.

Baby as Teacher

I've discovered that being around my grandbaby is a wonderful way to stay in the present moment. When I'm with her, I'm not thinking about past or future, I'm just enjoying every moment of holding her and interacting with her. She is a great teacher!

Skype - Yet Another Resource

Skype is a great resource to use for communicating with others. It can also be used as a way to connect with each other when you have questions about your hypnosis sessions, or something else that is going on that relates to your goal.

Skype can be used not only for clients who are close and able to come in to the office, but also by people who would be clients if they had the capability of using hypnosis long-distance. Wouldn't that be an ideal situation!

It would be better, of course, if both parties had a webcam connection, so that we could actually see each other. This would be very beneficial for me, so that I could tell the degree to which you are able to relax and access internally. I can't see why we couldn't proceed with a hypnosis session using this method. All you would need is a quiet place where you won't be disturbed, a webcam on your computer, a good sound card or even headphones, and away we would go.

Sounds like a lovely idea to me.

Technorati Claim Token

I am hoping to be listed in Technorati. Here is my claim token: YZSZ8WVZNRX7

It's Time to Practice What I Preach!

I've been on an awareness crusade this past week.

A week ago I got on the scale and - to my shock - I saw that I'd gained 5 pounds since the last time I was on it (maybe a month or so). After I got over being mad at myself, I thought back to the way I'd eaten during December. Then I remembered those two pound cakes I made, and how much of them I'd personally eaten. As the mind gave my memories free rein, I began to uncover the reasons why I gained so much weight.

I was very surprised that I'd mindlessly eaten enough to gain that much. I looked at the fat my body had accumulated and thought, I need to do something about this NOW.

So I immediately went online and hooked up with some websites that help you to monitor what you eat and how much you move every day. I decided to stick with one of the sites, entered my basic information, including my goal weight, and I've been faithfully following it every day since then.

I am proud to have faced one of my basic - though previously unconscious - fears: That if I disciplined my eating habits, I would suffer deprivation, loss, and noticeable discomfort.

None of that has happened! In the past six days I have written down everything I've eaten, as well as renewed my determination to exercise/move a certain amount of time every week, and written down the amount of movement daily. Although I am eating differently - in most cases, smaller amounts and more consciously - I don't feel the least bit deprived; as a matter of fact, I'm not feeling hungry during the day at all.

It's also interesting for me to see that I don't feel like I have to snack at night. That is such an automatic, unconscious habit to fall into, but once I got serious about being more aware of my food intake, it doesn't bother me to not eat in the evenings.

I will admit, though, that last night I was feeling like I wanted to nibble or munch on something. Several food choices popped into my head; I consciously thought of one thing after another, discarding each thought after imagining that I was eating this or that. One of the things that helped me to resist was that I'd already brushed my teeth. For me, this is a big deterrent to eating again; last night I brushed my teeth earlier in the evening, just in case this situation popped up for me.

Tomorrow I'll step on the scale for the first time in a week. I'll see if there has been any weight change, but even if there hasn't, the point of all this is not to let go of weight as much as it is to like the way I look again, and to enjoy feeling good in my clothes. Once that goal is reached and sustained for a few months, I will feel as if I've reached my goal.

Feature Article in The Chronicle

The Chronicle newspaper will profile Awareness Hypnosis in a feature article on Monday, January 10th, 2011. The article will talk about my business, as well as my colleague, Loretta Rippee and her Weight Mastery group. I'm looking forward to reading it!