Words Can Hurt

          Did anyone ever recite that little ditty when someone had called you a name or said something unpleasant about you?  Do you recall that it was NOT very comforting?  Not only is it not comforting but it is also NOT TRUE.

          The Truth is that bones almost always heal but words can leave a lifelong psychic scar. Why? Because the message to the victim is this: we, your peers, see you as worthless, pathetic, stupid, ugly, an idiot, a fool, a lesser being than the rest of us. The intention of the perpetrator is to humiliate, dominate, and bring the victim to despair and powerless rage.  Pretty mean. It makes me think of “The Lord of the Flies.”

          Words ARE just words though, aren’t they?  In fact, we can often say the same words in light-hearted teasing and the recipient will perceive then as being “not really meant, no threat, just kidding.” So then, what is the difference?

           The difference is in the ‘perceived intent of the speaker’ by the recipient. As receivers, we are always subconsciously assessing messages for intent. When someone says something unkind to another (and means it), the intention carries with it a menacing and distancing message. The message: “you are no longer an acceptable member and are, therefore, ousted from our group.”

          An extreme example of this hurtful distancing behavior is a practice known as “shunning.” “Shunning” is a practice used by some societal groups for punishment and control.  If a member of the group is cast out, he is considered to be “dead” to the rest of the group, including family members. Contact is often forbidden for the duration of the shunned person’s life.

          Studies of “shunning” suggest that the practice is said to cause grave and devastating effects on those involved. It is considered to be a form of psychological torture. The same might be said of the practice of “solitary confinement.”

          The question becomes: why should it matter what others think? The answer lies in the fact that we humans have evolved into “herd” creatures. The humans who banded together and survived,  propagated. The quotation “No man is an island” speaks to that idea.

          This “herd animal” factor is hard-wired into us: any threat to our connection with our “herd,” “tribe” or “society,” sets off a limbic-system driven “fight-flight-or-freeze” response.

           It is easy to see how hurtful words can have monumental impact on the receiver. If you have any doubt, however, please read the letter posted below, taken from the relevant and timely book entitled “The Bully, The Bullied, and The Bystander” by Barbara Coloroso.

BREAKING THE CYCLE

“I shall remember forever and will never forget

Monday: my money was taken

Tuesday: names were called

Wednesday: my uniform was torn

Thursday: my body pouring with blood

Friday: it’s ended

Saturday: freedom”

This is the final diary page of thirteen-year-old Vijay Singh.  He was found hanging from the banister rail at home on Sunday.

From the book “Bullycide, Death at Playtime: An Expose’ of Child Suicide Caused by Bullying,” by Neil Marr and Tim Field.

“Words can never hurt me?” Maybe it’s time to rethink that idea. If words from the past still taunt you, hypnosis can help.

Here’s to your success…

Susan French

888-333-3688

http://www.hypno4success.com

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.

Benjamin Disraeli (1804 – 1881)

________________

"Oh No--Not Again!

I see this “it’s-not-about-the-socks-on-the-floor” dynamic all the time: in my clients, with my friends, with my family, and even with myself. When an argument doesn’t quite make sense and there seems to be zero chance of getting the other person to see your side of it, the chances are very likely that you’re dealing with an issue that is “not about the socks on the floor.”

The event or issue, on its face, standing alone without context, is often fairly neutral. But somehow each person sees the other person’s actions as being a sign that he is being hard-headed, stubborn, unyielding, unsympathetic, disrespectful, unloving, selfish, and mean. That he has no clue how it makes you feel and there’s no way you can explain it to him (or her). And he (or she) feels that by not accepting his behavior, getting angry and upset, that you are being hard-headed, stubborn, unyielding, unsympathetic, uncaring, selfish, unloving and mean.

And there you both stand, squared off, arms crossed, jaws set and one thousand percent certain that each one is totally and completely right and justified. You both become emotionally hijacked (which is another concept for another time). The Berlin wall has just been resurrected.

For the life of you, neither of you really wants to fight or have unpleasantness. Each simply wants to be understood, heard, acknowledged, accepted for who they are, and loved.

Where is the disconnect and why is it so very hard to bridge? Because we forget that 90 percent of all communication is nonverbal. It is the tones of voice, facial expressions, body postures, fumphing, slamming doors, stomping and growling that are all communicating loud and clear.

No wonder you keep arguing about the socks on the floor. At that moment in time, both are totally clueless as to how the other person feels, what they think, or how the interchange has impacted him. Half the time, neither of you really knows how YOU feel or what you’re upset about. All each of you is aware of is that life has become temporarily unbearable...AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!

The dynamic is really about “if you loved me the way I want to be loved,” “if you cared enough to listen and hear,” “you never understand,” “you are being a total jerk” and you are completely and totally wrong and unreasonable AND YOU will never change.

Usually each person has some vague idea that it’s not really about the “socks on the floor,” but neither can they figure out not what the issue really is. One or both might be a “right fighter,” where it is more important to them to be “RIGHT” than it is to solve the problem. Usually neither of them really recognizes the real issues of feeling that the partner doesn’t love them, care about them, bother to see their side, and so forth.

In time, they get tired of being mad and they sort of make-up. What that usually means is that they never quite resolve the real issues of not feeling loved, respected, acknowledged and heard. They simply agree to stop fighting and let it all be swept under the rug.

At some level, both people usually recognize deep down that the surface issue is really not that important when you look at it out of context but neither can figure out what’s really wrong.

How in the world can you stop this painful and destructive cycle?  How in the world can you move to a way of communicating that bypasses this difficulty?

Check back for part 3 of 3.

Here’s to your success…

Susan French

http://www.hypno4success.com

888-333-3688

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

[Addiction's] not about placating the bad dog – it’s about feeding the good dog.

You still have to feed the bad dog, but only enough so that the ASPCA doesn’t bring you up on charges.

Robert Downey Jr.,  Entertainment Weekly, 11-21-08

Addicted? Can't stop? Try Hypnotherapy. It Work!

Clients come to me all the time for help in ending an addiction that they can’t shake on their own. Hypnotherapy helps in a number of specific ways to ease the discomfort of breaking an addiction as well as preventing relapse. We’ll look at those in a moment but first let’s take a look at the definition of the word “addiction.”

MERRIAM-WEBSTER

Ad.dic.tion (noun)

1. Quality or state of being addicted.

2. Compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal;broadly : persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful

Examples of ADDICTION

He has a drug addiction.

His life has been ruined by heroin addiction.

He devotes his summers to his surfing addiction.

Let me paraphrase. An addiction is a behavior characterized by the inability to stop the behavior without discomfort.

My first question to a person who seeks to be free of an “addiction” is: “What do you fear the most about quitting?” The reason I ask this first is because most people who are “addicted” to anything want to stop. Whether the “drug of choice” is nicotine, heroin, cocaine, crack, meth, overeating, sugar addiction, gambling the one constant is the fact that withholding of the substance causes discomfort.

The biggest obstacle to ending any addiction is dealing with the initial discomfort that follows interrupting the habit.

In fact, the biggest obstacle to ending any addiction is in FACING THE FEAR OF THE DISCOMFORT that follows any attempt to withhold or restrict the behavior.

Why pick these points? A habit is not an addiction. It’s a habit. What’s the difference? When you begin to change a habit you don’t have a gut-wrenching drive to continue it because the result of changing it doesn’t cause pain.

Try wearing your watch on the opposite hand than you usually use. It might be a little annoying but you won’t experience “withdrawal.” Therefore, wearing your watch on a different wrist is not an addiction; it’s a habit. Both physical and emotional withdrawal from an “addiction” are experienced as painful and, more importantly, intolerable.

A little off-topic but relevant is what I ask of clients who are in pain and accused (often unfairly) of being “addicted” to painkillers. My question to them: “Are you addicted to painkillers or are you addicted to being free of pain?” “Judge not lest you be judged” or something like that. Relief often floods their faces when I ask that. “Yes, you’re right. I’m ‘addicted’ to being painfree.”

Herein lies the real issue people deal with when attempting to end an addiction. By its very nature, when you withhold or withdraw the use of the substance, whatever it might be, the individual experiences mental, emotional and/or physical pain.

It is essential to helping an addict out of bondage is to help him to recognize, acknowledge and ease or eliminate this “pain” as well as eliminating his “anticipatory fear of the pain.”

Hypnosis is an accepted technique for relieving pain. When someone comes to me for help in relieving their addiction, the first thing I do is to eliminate both the actual “pain” as well as the fear of the perceived or anticipated “pain” that this person believes will follow his being separated from his “drug of choice.”

Certainly there many other issues involved in ending addiction, such as discovering the unsatisfied emotional need that drives the need to escape, relieve stress, learn coping techiniques, find joy and peace in one’s life without the substance.

However, I find that the very first thing that I need to do is give the client relief from that pain, whether the “pain” is experienced as physical or emotional. And to give them relief from their “anticipatory fear of the pain.”

Hypnosis itself provides easy relief from both pain and the fear of pain. We know that as a proven fact. Once the “pain” is addressed, the addict is then free to explore and discover the driving forces that made him seek out his addiction in the first place.

If you are struggling with an addiction or compulsion and finding that you cannot stop on your own, please consider using hypnosis to ease the pain, discomfort, and fear that stands in your way.

Unhappy? Maybe it’s too much small talk
Posted: 11:27 AM ET
By Elizabeth Landau
CNNHealth.com Writer-Producer

No talk? Small talk? Real talk is necessary for happiness and feelings of connection.

Small talk is part of everyday life, but it’s the substantial, meaningful conversations that may make you happy. That’s one possibility suggested in a new study examining how conversation connects to happiness.

Researchers, led by Matthias Mehl at the University of Arizona, looked at the different types of conversation that happy and unhappy people participate in. The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, was somewhat small, involving 79 undergraduates, but meshes well with established ideas that happiness and social life are intertwined.

Experts found that the happiest people in the study engaged in only one-third as much small talk as the unhappiest participants. Happy people tended to have twice as many substantive conversations, and spent 25 percent less time alone, than the unhappiest participants.

These insights fit with what psychologists have seen previously: that loneliness predicts depression, and that feelings of social connectedness are important for happiness, said Susan Turk Charles, psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, who was not involved in the study.

Substantive conversations create a feeling of belonging that leads to happiness, she said. Conversely, people who suffer from depression tend to withdraw from others.

The method that the researchers used was creative, Charles said. Instead of bringing people into a lab, as traditionally done in these sorts of studies, they had participants wear a recording device for four days, picking up conversations that they had.

The Electronically Activated Recorder sampled 30 seconds of sound every 12.5 minutes, giving researchers a broad range of conversations to examine in terms of “small talk” vs. “deep conversation.”

The bottom line is that maintaining friendships can help with emotional well-being. Friends buffer negative events and provide support, Charles said. Don’t be too busy to have a meaningful conversation, she said.

“It really is important in your life. It should be something that you prioritize just as much as you prioritize, maybe, working on your career or getting that project finished,” she said.

Editor’s Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.

Posted by: Elizabeth Landau – CNN.com Health Writer/Producer
Filed under: Psychology

The human need for feelings of meaningful connection are recognized by Abraham Mazlow in his “Hierarchy of Needs,” Joe Griffin and Ian Tyrrell in the work on the “Human Givens,” and probably throughout history.

I’ve always noticed how nervous I get when I’m stuck in a situation where people are going to talk about “kids and crabgrass” or “Dancing With The Stars” and the latest “Survivor” series.

How about you? Do you ever feel lonliest in a crowd? It sounds like it is a natural human response. On the other hand, if social phobia holds you back, hypnotherapy can help.

Here’s to your success….

Susan French
www.hypno4success.com/blog
hypno4success@socal.rr.com
877-583-2026

Please remember: your comments are valued.  Please make them.  SKF

A man lost in thought.

Anyone who knows me knows that I use the phrase “Today is the first day of the rest of your life” a lot. I like it because it reminds me (so I remind my friends, family and clients), that every day you get a do-over, you can start fresh.

Anyone who know me knows that I also use the phrase “There is no reality, only perception” a lot. It reminds me (so I remind my friends, family and clients) that every time I find a new perspective (therefore new perception) my entire life changes for the better…exponentially.

I have also come to realize that my life’s wisdom often presents itself in the best turn of phrase I can remember on any subject at any given moment. “One day at a time” serves me well and serves me well often. “Let me sleep on it” is another. I LOVE quotes, especially the ones that make me laugh.

In fact, I just created a new one that I really like: “if you want to know what’s wrong with your children, look in the mirror.”

It was natural that “Today is a New Yesterday” struck me. Because these little cliches, these little thought-bytes, are what rescue me in real-time. These little thought-bytes guide my day without much conscious awareness. Their real value is that they bring me smack back into the present, which is where ease of living (often called happiness) is usually found.

“Today is a New Yesterday” is like that. It seems like an advanced version of “How you live today is how you create your tomorrow’s.” Because it reminds me that everything I do in my life is woven indelibly into the tapestry of my life. It is like a blog entry or forum comment that will live forever in viral cyberspace, forever to haunt me if I make a lapse in judgement.

My tapestry is made up of many things: things I’m proud of, things I regret, things I wish I had done differently. “Today is a New Yesterday” is my new cliche reminder that my choices today, in the present, more importantly, in this present moment, matter more than I realise.

In 12-Step philosophy, a great source of many of my cliche’s, there is a saying that goes like this “…and you clean up the wreckage of your past…” That thought always leads me to my own version: “I’m a happy camper if I can manage not to be creating the wreckage of my future.”

Sometimes it’s good to peek at the future before making a choice that will live forever in your tapestry. Yes, I think “Today is a new yesterday” might be a keeper.

If you find yourself having a hard time creating satisfying yesterdays, call me and let me help.

Susan

www.hypno4success.com

877-583-2026