Cognitive Hypnotherapy for confidence and self esteem
In our lives we have all had experiences that have impacted on us negatively e.g. being bullied at school, feeling not good enough in the eyes of our parents or someone else, getting things wrong at a job, abuse, or both single and continuous incidents that have had a BIG impact on us. These thing impact our self esteem and confidence.
Particularly, as children or when we are feeling vulnerable, our minds can behave a bit like a sponge, soaking in everything rather than filtering.
Sometimes we are aware and sometimes we are not aware as our deeper mind or unconscious mind soaks in something believing it, though it is not true it e.g. “you are ugly”, “you will never amount to anything” and sadly many more such beliefs.
The way our brains work is to signal that something happening in the present reminds it of a feeling of being threatened from the past – though the threat may have similarities it does not need to be identical:
- Feeling bullied at work – might remind you of being bullied at school, just something that reminds us consciously or perhaps without our awareness e.g
- People laughing at you – might remind you of of a time you felt ashamed to be yourself
- Anger at people – might be a residue from anger held from younger years
For everyone it will be different as we all have our own specific experiences and what affects one person is often dealt with completely differently from another person
The brain stores information about perceived threats and how to respond in order to keep you safe.
NOW in your present life, those negative responses are often outdated, though they were set up to protect you. However confidence and self esteem have been impacted.
For example if a teacher told you were useless in front of your whole class, depending on what meaning you gave to that event your mind might, when challenged by figures of authority, develop the same response e.g. anxiety, feelings of self loathing, not feeling good enough, an inferiority complex with particular individuals.
Imagine a line representing all your memories, one day something occurs, that consciously or unconsciously, “reminds” you of an event or person from the past. This ignites the same response as you had in the past – in this diagram anxiety and panic you felt in the past invades your present, though it has no relevance in the hear and now.
Using cognitive hypnotherapy we can go back to the“trigger” events and in effect clean them up so they are not impacting on your present.
How past events affect our present responses:
Past events held in our memories and which we have given a particular meaning to, decide that this new event is similar and trigger a response, intense memories can lie dormant like a volcano waiting to erupt.
Sometimes the response is so strong and immediate it can leave us reeling and wondering why an earth we reacted like that!
The result: a feeling of unworthiness or low self esteem, physical manifestations such as panic attacks, intense fear. We might not even understand the origin of what we are feeling in the present until we explore our memories.
Through cognitive hypnotherapy we can give that memory a new meaning so you stop receiving unwanted calls from the past when that happens we can live in the present with confidence and self esteem.
Please feel free to contact me for an informal chat and to ask any questions it would be useful for you to ask.
I work from offices in Central London, Brixton, South London and Heston, I am conveniently located near Ealing, Hounslow, Osterley and Isleworth.