I used to write this section in our monthly Inspired Minds newsletter, but we figured it would be easier to read online, and all our blog subscribers would enjoy reading it too. At least I hope you do Read January’s Inspired Minds newsletter here.

Downloads Unwrapped – January 2012

Your life story matters

We all have a sense of narrative – a plot and characters. Some of these characters are ‘evil’, some are ‘good’, some are ‘heroic’. We can see patterns in our own lives, triumphs perhaps, and maybe the odd disaster or two. And how do you place yourself in your own life story? Hero or heroine? Victim? Villain, even? Or just a disinterested observer of life? I once asked a client to write down the story of her life as a story. She literally began with: “Once upon a time…” and then went on to describe all the ins and out of what had happened to her and what she had made happen throughout the years. I noticed that she herself featured in this story mainly as the ‘victim’ character. I asked her to write the same story out again, but this time from the point of view that she was the ‘heroine’. This exercise had an amazing effect on her.

She started to see herself and her life in a new, more positive light. She began to appreciate that there were times she had shown resilience, determination and courage, qualities she’d never seen in herself before. We are all surrounded by stories, on the news, in the gossip we hear, even TV plot lines. But the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves may be the most important of all. With this in mind, we’ve produced Your life story which should help you not only to see the narrative of your own life and the patterns of your choices and behaviour more clearly, but also to start to write a whole new plot if you choose.

Prime your mind to supercharge the placebo response

Placebo is immensely powerful. The key factor in whether, for example, an antidepressant works for someone (or not) seems to be whether they expect it to work (or not).⁽¹⁾ A placebo response is the expectation of future improvement or wellness. A placebo pill is generally an inert substance such as a sugar pill presented as an active medication so that the person taking it believes it to be a real medication and therefore expects it to work.

When someone gets better after taking a placebo, it doesn’t mean that their ailment was ‘all in the mind’. Expectations and mental and emotional processes do play an important rule in modulating things like the immune system and the pain response.⁽²⁾ However, it used to be thought that you had to believe that your medication was real in order for the placebo to get your psychological and or physiological healing systems into gear. That seemed logical. Only it isn’t true. Amazingly, it’s been found that knowing that what you are receiving is a placebo doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t work for you.⁽³⁾ The new Placebo primer download can help real medication work even better and be used to prime yourself to feel a certain way regardless of whether you are on medication or not. For example, if you want to be relaxed and comfortable at tonight’s social engagement then setting your mind to expect that is, in a way, using the placebo response. We are going to love getting the feedback for this session.

Kids who gain confidence gain all kinds of other benefits

Being an under confident child can prevent learning from being as quick or thorough as it could be. This is because anxiety and worry can crowd out reasoned thought and the acquisition of new information and skills. Add in the emotional fallout of low confidence – the way it prevents the child from feeling able to enjoy times with other children, the way it prevents children developing healthy self esteem, so making them feel not as good as others, or not able to achieve or expect the best for themselves in life – and you have a pretty sad situation. Children learn through story telling (as do adults, of course) and story telling around the camp fire is perhaps the oldest form of ‘psychotherapy’ there is. Stories are naturally hypnotic and can lay down healthy templates for the child’s development and wellbeing even when times get tough. The new Confidence for children is designed to reassure and relax but also to inspire and enable a child to increase their sense of self confidence, not just now but throughout their future life as well.

Notes

(1) See: The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth by Irving Kirsch PhD
(2) See: Psychobiology of Mind-Body Healing: New Concepts of Therapeutic Hypnosis by Ernest L. Rossi
(3) See ‘Placebos work even if you know they’re fake: But how?’