Author: admin

Posted on by

Why is Self-Love Important

In the last 6 years, working with clients for a number of issues from quit smoking, anxiety, weight-loss and others, I have found there is an underlying issue, a thread of commonality in all and that is self-love or the lack thereof. This one tiny thing isn’t so tiny at all.  It is the foundation to creating lasting change in many if not all areas of our lives.

Let me ask you, do you really love yourself? If I asked you that, you might quickly answer, “of course I do” But do you really?  Do you treat yourself and talk to yourself with love and respect?

My upbringing 

I was born into a family with English and German heritage. My home life, love was rarely shown and acceptance was quickly removed when I wasn’t behaving according to my parent’s standard.  I learned quickly to keep my awareness on what others thought of me.  To not upset the applecart, so to speak, because, then they would not love me anymore or so I feared. This insecurity was easily carried over to all my relationships and my boundaries became pretty thin.

I was afraid to say no. I was always thinking, What if I said no?  Would they still like me?  What if my opinion up set them, what would they tell others about me. Would my Mom still love me? So I grew up learning that my self-love was second or even last to others.

Self-Love is the foundation to accepting yourself, respecting yourself and taking responsibility for yourself

In my work with clients I began to recognize the power of self love to create lasting change and I began working with my clients to increase their self-love. At the Hypno-Thoughts Live 2021 Conference, I attended Martin Caster post conference, 3 day practitioner certification training for Addiction Behavioral Modification.   one of the techniques is developing self love. This ‘self love exercise’ was powerful for me for two reasons: One, my own observation of the importance of self love was confirmed and validated and second, Martin created a very effective way to connect and reinforce self-love, respect and responsibility. When we practiced the technique on each other, it had a profound and life changing effect on me.  I no longer look at food the same anymore, which was my intention during the exercise, and it made changes in many ways throughout my daily life.

Are you ready for a quick exercise? Ok! Here is the quick exercise:

Close your eyes and take a deep relaxing breath and let your whole body relax.  Now imagine, picture or pretend that you are looking at yourself in the mirror as you are getting ready for the day.  Look yourself in the eye in the mirror and say I Love Myself.  I love myself…….

Now take a deep breath in and open your eyes

How did you do? Did you find it uncomfortable? Yes?  I did as well. It is much more comfortable now than before the conference.  Self love is connected in so many ways in our lives.  Our appearance to others is huge, isn’t it? When we see our bodies in the mirror, is our thoughts loving or hateful?  Mine used to be hateful.

Many believe, as I did, that hating our bodies would be motivational to improve their body image.  Wrong!!!

If you do not like yourself then you have no respect for yourself and will continue to regularly disrespect yourself with wrong foods and life choices.    

Who can relate to these thoughts: I don’t like me so who cares.  I want it now because it will make me feel better.  And on and on and on

Actually, when we love our selves, we will experience that self-love leads to self-acceptance and self-respect.  When you are in this state of self love and self respect, you will find yourself saying, “I love myself where I am now and I take responsibility to change it moving forward!”  Now that is power to change, wouldn’t you agree?

No longer seeking the approval of others

WOW when you love and respect yourself in your own uniqueness and value, it has power.  You can find the courage to stand firm with yourself and say This is who I am, love me or move on!  Imagine the power in that!

We talked about boundaries and saying NO.  Self-love is huge here.

Imagine how strong your boundaries are now.

The power in self-love and respect could be referred to as a super power couldn’t?

When you have self-love and respect, you have the power to take action for yourself and build stronger boundaries. I wonder what other super powers will begin to emerge.

 Perhaps: Open, caring and honest communication with others would come forward or how about putting you first or this one, Self Forgiveness.  Let us have that superpower as well.  It is okay to forgive yourself from the past, present and the future.  We are going to make mistakes. That is the path to growth.  It happens; so let it go.

Are there’s more? I wonder how many other super powers you will you find when you begin to love yourself for who you are.

Super Powers I want some!

Self-love, self-respect, superpowers, I want them all!  How do I get some of that?  One way is to see me for a session and there are lots of other ways to build self love into your daily routine.

Take a walk anywhere or in your favorite nature spot. Take that nap you need.  Treat yourself to healthy foods and snacks. Drink plenty of water

Meditate, yoga, mindfulness, journaling, arts or crafts and practice gratitude.

Allow yourself to be you – Respect & love your uniqueness

Want to experience a personal Self Love Journey? I created an audio recording that will release your self love blockages and empower your love for yourself. As a special gift attached to this blog, use the link below and receive $10 dollars off the regular audio price. The audios normally sell for $25 dollars but you can have it for $15. click the link below for the audio and use the discount code SLJ-10-off at check out to receive your discount.

Click here for the audio link

For a personalized Self-Love Journey experience, contact me for a self love hypnosis session. Call or text me at (805) 242-1649 or use the CONTACT ME form below

Art Kuhns Certified Hypnotherapist and Reiki Master/Teacher

Art is a certified hypnotherapist and Reiki master teacher.  He received his hypnotherapy certification from Hypnosis Motivation Institute.

 Art’s passion is to empower others to find and unlock their own healer and personal power.  Once this power is unleashed, a life of intention and balance in mind /body/spirit can unfold.   He uses Reiki infused hypnosis during his session work to enable clients to connect intuitively and heal holistically.

He holds additional certifications in PTSD, Smoking Cessation, Inner Child Healing, Addition & Behavior Modification and Spiritual Hypnosis.

Posted on by

Anxiety the Good, the Bad, the Ugly and the Relief

3 steps to find relief from chronic anxiety

Anxiety can be a normal part of life.  In the short term, stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol can be helpful. For example, you may have felt anxiety before a deadline or in a job interview. Anxiety can help you to overcome fears and obstacles between you and your goal(s) by increasing your heart rate, focus and concentration. These stress hormones are designed to be in the body for a short time to keep us safe. Not to be in our body for a long time.

However, when anxiety become too intense, or lasts too long, persistent exposure of these stress hormones can have a devastating effect on our physical and mental health. 

Enter Anxiety the Bad. 

Below are some of the bad effects persistent anxiety has on the body:

·       Sense of doom – difficulty concentrating

·       Panic attacks

·       Depression – helplessness, loss of interest, social withdraw

·       Headaches from constant worry

·       Irritability

·       Pounding heart-

·       Breathing problems rapid shallow breathing

·       Loss of libido

·       Upset stomach nausea and diarrhea

·       Extreme fatigue – sleep issues- I love this one, being so tired from anxiety and yet cannot sleep. 

·       Increase in blood pressure

·       Muscle aches and joint pain

Anxiety the Ugly

When the body is exposed to chronic anxiety and the persistent long exposure to stress hormones, enter Anxiety the Ugly.  This persistent and chronic exposure to these stress hormones can increase the frequency of symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, and depression and lead to serious health problems with our immunity, heart, and digestive systems of your body.

Our immunity and our body’s ability to heal are reduced when there is a high and long exposure of stress hormones in the body. It behooves us to remain relaxed and calm as much as possible.  This increases our feel good hormones like serotonin and dopamine thus increasing our body’s power to heal

Heart issues and high blood pressure are serious issues with chronic anxiety as well as digestive problems and IBS.  Chronic anxiety and the stress hormones place a tremendous amount of stress on the heart and digestive systems of our body. 

Enough of the ugly already! 

Here are 3 steps I use to stop these bad and ugly states of anxiety

1st–        Develop body awareness

2nd        Take deep slow breaths Start immediately at onset of bad anxiety and continue

3rd        Walk away, talking it out, take a walk and/or use mindfulness

Allow me to explain these one by one. 

1st Step: Develop body awareness means to learn when our body is under stress.  This may take some practice and may require practicing meditation or mindfulness to learn what relaxation feels like.  How do you know your body is under persistence stress if you are always in stress?  By practicing some relaxation techniques like meditation or mindfulness you teach your body what ‘calm’ feels like. Then when it is assaulted by stress, you will know it.  So you know your body is under stress or you are experiencing some or all of the symptoms from the Anxiety the Bad above.  What to do?

Step two: Breathe.  Take a slow deep breath in and release it slowly.  Repeat a few times more if required.  You should notice an instant relief from the anxiety state after the breaths.  This is an important and extremely effective step in changing the body’s anxiety state. Now your mind and body are prepared for the next step.

Step three: You have several options based on the type of anxiety and stress you are experiencing.  Perhaps walking away and going somewhere safe and calm is the best recourse or taking a walk to clear the mind and gain perspective.  Another form of stress may require talking it out.  For example: what is the source of this anxiety? What about this is in my control? Or other questions that come to mind.  The important part of step 3 is to face the source.  Anxiety is often another side of fear and when fear is faced it often dissipates. 

Practice these steps and let me know how they work for you. 

I have other blogs with more tips. You might like:

Five Steps to Stop the ‘what if’s’ and Increase your Power and Peace

Never miss another blog – Subscribe NOW!

In other news:

Leave behind 2020’s junk, beliefs, habits and other garbage.

Start your new year clean.

When you are ready, contact me for a free 20 min consultation to determine if hypnosis is right for you.  Call me at (805) 242-1649 or use the contact form below.

As a reminder, Hypnotherapy and Reiki sessions can be performed in person, phone and online Zoom.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Who is Art?

Art is a certified hypnotherapist and Reiki master teacher.  He received his hypnotherapy certification from Hypnosis Motivational Institute, an accredited hypnotherapy college
 Art’s passion is to empower others to find and unlock their own healer and personal power.  Once this power is unleashed, a life of intention and balance in mind /body/spirit can unfold.   He uses Reiki infused hypnosis during his session work to enable clients to connect intuitively and heal holistically.

He holds additional certifications in PTSD, Smoking Cessation, Inner Child Healing and Spiritual Hypnosis and Counseling.

Posted on by

Five Steps to STOP the “What Ifs” and Increase your Power and Peace

Would you like to remain calm and empowered most of the time?  If you could stop stress, anxiety and the ‘what if’s’ with a few simple steps, would that be something you would be interested in?  Yes?  Then read on as I share my simple 5 steps to stop the ‘what if’s’.

Quickly, If you would like tips, blogs, special promotions and free stuff, then subscribe to my VIP Text Club with the form below. Thanks I promise not to send out more then 3 a month.

This technique, I am offering today, I use all the time.  It is a quick and easy method to reduce stress and anxiety and stop the ‘what ifs ‘anywhere and anytime. When you feel stress and anxiety regarding anything, it is basically a fear of some future event not turning out as you would like.  The ‘what if’ this happens and ‘what if’ that happens and so on.  (FEAR by the way is an acronym for ‘False Evidence Appearing Real’.  That is all fear really is.  When fear is faced, it is often exposed for what it really is, False Evidence Appearing Real)

The first step is to stop this feeling with a few deep abdominal breaths; breathing into the core or abdomen, filling it with air first.  Then, continue to slowly breath in, allowing the chest to rise as you continue to fill the lungs with air.  This is important.  This is the type of breathing that completely fills the lungs with air.  Repeat these deep abdomen breaths three to five times.  This type of deep abdomen breathing, signals the subconscious to turn off the ‘stress’ response and to turn on the ‘I am safe and happy’ response. 

Step two: Now that I have stopped the ‘stress’ state with my breaths, I ask myself, what is causing this feeling?  Is it real? What is the worst case scenario?  What is the likelihood of this really happening?  What is out of my control and what is in my control?  What can I do now?  These questions usually will cause the fear to dissipate.

Step three: Then ask yourself, what do you really want instead?  You have thought of the negative scenarios that you don’t want.  So, what do you want?  What is the desired outcome?  What does it look like, feel like, taste like, sound like.  Envision what you want. Like it is a picture or video with full color and sound, see what you see, hear what you hear and feel what you feel.   Now, how does that picture or video make you feel? Good, Right? Absorb that feeling into your body, wrap up in it.  Experience the outcome with your whole body. 

Step four: Now that you have your desired outcome with picture and sound, apply emotion to it.  The two strongest emotions are Love and Gratitude.  Fall in love with it and be grateful for your outcome as if you already have it.  Here is a little secret….your subconscious mind that controls habits, emotions, and behavior cannot tell the difference between reality and what is imagined.  Case in point, you feel stress when you imagine something bad happening don’t you?  It isn’t really happening right now, is it? Yet, your subconscious mind has set up your body ‘now’ in preparation for an imagined event.   So, when you are grateful for your outcome, before you actually receive it, your subconscious mind makes it happen for you. Why?  Because, when you are grateful for something, it must have already happened.   Be in LOVE with your new outcome.  Be Grateful for it.  Pretend it is your life NOW!

Step five: Now, play this new outcome every time the nasty past arises in your head.  When it arises, Say “STOP!  That isn’t me anymore.  This is me!” Then play your new life outcome and be sure to include all the emotions and BE GRATEFUL. 

Retrain your brain for success, for being empowered, calm and peaceful with the 5 Steps to Stop the What If’s

If you are interested in a FaceBook group specifically designed to help you stay empowered and calm, let me know by responding to me with the form below and stating your interest in the comment section. Thanks

Never miss a blog post – Subscribe NOW!

When you are ready, contact me for a free 20 min consultation to determine if hypnosis is right for you.  Call me at (805) 242-1649 or use the contact form below.