Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:58 — 14.6MB)
Ever dealt with an overbearing, negative and unappreciative boss. Here’s some advice on how to retain your sanity and stand up for your rights.
May 29 2014
What Could A Healthy fashion Doll Do For Our Young Girls’ Sense of Self-Esteem?
Lammily healthy body image doll next to a Barbie
What Could A Healthy fashion Doll Do For Our Young Girls’ Sense of Self-Esteem? -Vol.259, May 29, 2014
A very interesting article was written by Michaeleen Doucleff in Shots Health New From NPR on April 4, 2014 called Could A ‘Barbie’ Get Real? What A Healthy Fashion Doll Looks Like. Though there aren’t many studies that point to “Barbie’ as a negative influence on the body image of young girls, it is well known that the proportions of the doll are of inhumane dimensions. For a real person to have Barbie’s body she would have to grow about 5 inches and trim 17 inches from her waist and slim her neck by 6 inches.
Artist Nicolay Lamm has decided it was about time something was done to correct this problem of unrealistic physical expectations being placed in young girls minds. He has decided to create a doll that would represent what an average sized person would look like. According to the article Lamm said that he was inspired to create such a doll as one of his young female cousins was afraid to put on a bathing suit thinking she was fat. In his opinion she is not fat at all. When Lamm went to the toy store to see the physical forms of the dolls that were being sold, he realized where this unrealistic expectation was coming from and decided to create his own more realistic rendition.
A small study was done by psychologist Aurora Sherman at Oregon State Unversity on the impact of the Barbie Doll on girls’s career ambitions. The findings are rather interesting. Given a Barbie doll she found that the 37 girls ages 4-7 thought that boys could do 2.5 more jobs than girls after five minutes of playing with Barbie. Compare that to 5 minutes of play with Mr. Potato Head and the same 37 girls didn’t distinguish differences between the jobs that girls and boys could do.
One other interesting bit of information regarding the design of the Barbie Doll is that it was designed after a German sex toy with a few “nicks and tucks” as stated in the article over the past five decades.
I am glad that someone has finally decided to add a bit of reality back to the dolls girls play with, though it is sad to realize it took five decades to get the deed done.
Parents can instill a good sense of self-esteem into their girls by:
1. Letting them know that they are beautiful, whole and complete just as they are.
2. Spend much more time giving positive feed back then negative.
3.Never tell your child to eat everything on the plate.
4. Give your child compliments on how she looks especially if she has taken the time to make herself look nice.
It cost nothing to do these things and can make a huge difference in how your young girl grows to appreciate herself as she grows up.
May 26 2014
Hypnosis: A Complimentary Healing Art – Vol. 121, October 6, 2011
There are many times in this space when we speak to the great applications of the work of the unconscious mind using hypnotic technique. However, there are also cases when one needs to know when a specialist of the mental health system is required. Recently, I met with an old client of mine who fits into this category. His is a special case given the complexity of what we were dealing with, something that became more clear as we continued our work together.
I received a phone call from this very forthcoming individual about his fears of being prosecuted for his “flashing behavior,” something he had done for many years, feeling that the woman that he flashed “got off on it as much as he.” His thinking was if this one person in particular who he was flashing in the apartment across from his didn’t enjoy it, why would she be looking at him as he did this behavior?
He was also very concerned at the time, that as a self-employed person, he was one morning sitting at his desk in his office, where there was a French door. He thought his secretary may have seen him as he masturbated in front of the computer there at the office at this early hour. It gave him pause to recognize how out of his control his behavior had gotten. He explained that he would spend up to seven hours a day in this activity, unable to keep up with the work that his clients had entrusted him to complete in a timely manner.
Interestingly enough his wife of a couple years knew of this sexual issue of his and accepted him for who he was. She was a professional in corporate America doing fine financially for herself. Her main issue at the time was that she wanted to start a family and my client was not at all interested in that idea. He said that he wanted to concentrate his energy on his business which was his own baby. He was just not ready to have a family and yet they were in their early 30’s with his wife feeling the biological clock running down.
We did the work that was necessary to help with the sexual compulsions. About six months after the main work was done, I received a call from this client stating that he was in a mental hospital, as he was speaking of government officials tapping his office because some information he had that they wanted. It was a bizarre story of paranoia that came across. I spoke to his wife briefly who was with him in the mental hospital, she being very clear headed and grounded as she was dealing with this situation with her husband. He was being treated for manic depression with a mood stabilizer and a anti -psychotic to calm the paranoid thoughts. This treatment worked well for him.
We continued our work together until it was complete. About 6 months or so later he had me come down to his office, about an hour ride away on a Saturday. This was an opportunity that I relished because I wanted to see the set up of the office and hear what he had on his mind. He told me of an idea he had to do something in the area of economics using his vast engineering skills. His general demeanor was one of great enthusiasm for his idea, though the exact idea isn’t one that I can recollect at this time, it was of grandiose proportions, and yet I felt given his great intellect, he may be able to pursue it or something like it, though also realizing that I was dealing with a person who was in a hypomanic state of mind. This meeting happened in the spring of that year.
During the summer of that year I got another call from this gentleman. He was feeling very down, very unhappy with the way his life was going. The business wasn’t doing that well, and though he and his wife decided to divorce for the reason sited above, their relationship was one of friendship. His ex was there for him.
He presented in my office speaking of being very depressed, not wanting to live any more not having anything to live for. I was taken aback at the time, allowing him to tell me what was going on. I contracted with him for safety and checked in with him weekly for about 6 months to keep a check on his emotions. He was doing fine on his medication and under the care of his long time psychologist who knew that he was seeing me for the sexual issues that she couldn’t help him with according to him.
About a year later we met again, this before I left for my three month sabbatical, he wanting to see me before I left on my great adventure abroad. At that time we had a cordial conversation, enjoyable enough, and nothing of any consequence relative to his mental health status came up. He was very glad to have been able to see me before I left for I didn’t know if I were coming back here to the States to live given my own physical health issues back then. I was working on making sense of my own life.
Recently this gentleman sent me a linkedin message saying that he “had an idea that was running around in his brain” that he wanted to speak to me about. He explained that he knew that I was a person who was interested in the mental health of others given my business of hypnosis. He emailed me the basic premise of how he thought we could integrate computer technology in the administration of mental health especially to poor kids who couldn’t afford the steep cost of decent mental health observation and care. It was an interesting concept so I invited him to come and talk to me about it. I was in no way prepared for what became before me.
First he was emotionally detached from me in a way that never was before. Before there was always an emotional warmth that he generated. This time there was zero affect in this area. Second, as he was telling me of the ways in which he wanted to be able to discern fear as it was felt and observed through an EEG application, he felt we could help kids, who like him were suffering in fear. You see as a kid, he told me he had to hear his mother scream at the top of her lungs in Italian that she wished to be dead. He was about 12 years old when this began, she herself a manic depressive. All through our conversation whenever he tried to speak of her tears would try to come out and he would be very upset with this physical response to his emotional pain. He would lightly bite his knuckles as a way to ground himself back to the present no longer in the emotional pain as he worked to tell me more about his idea. He had told me during our conversation that he needed to ground himself with me as we were talking by looking in my eyes. It felt weird to allow this, though I knew him well enough to take him at his word for he never played any games with me, ever. He told me that he was hearing voices in his head, for the past 2 ½ years, it beginning around the last time I saw him and was getting worse as the illness progressed. He didn’t want to be reliant on medication for the rest of his life, and wasn’t taking any presently, though he was thinking about it based on what his psychologist recommended. I did tell him that there were certain cases when this was indeed the correct path to take. He had told me the medication did quiet the voices but slowed down his mind. I told him that going on the medication was probably a good idea and to just be careful that he used the psychologist as his advocate if needed to use the least amount of medication to do the job, so that he wouldn’t have to feel “slowed down”. He replied that he didn’t trust the doctor to listen to him, however he would give my idea some thought.
Durning this last meeting he shared with me that though his sexual behavior was much better than previous to our work together he felt there was space for improvement. I asked him what was going on in that area. He told me that he was looking at the internet for ½ hour to an hour a day. He was no longer seeking out other women, he was no longer flashing – the only thing that was a bit bothersome was that he was attracted to younger girls and he knew that this was not okay – working diligently to not look at these sorts of photos. When I heard this I was overjoyed because he had not only improved to what is within the “normal” behavior patterns for a male, he had done so with all these complicating factors involved. He didn’t see it quite this way, though he was happy with the overall progress he was making and still working on himself. Nothing wrong with that as he continued to tell me that there would always be aspects of himself that he would need to work on. I replied that we all have areas that continue to need work as we go through life.
We lay hypnotists, have to be very careful in how we address the issues of our clients. It is very common for a person to present with more than one issue, especially if they are coming in with mental health issues. In this case this particular client had not one but developed a second chronic mental health issue that requires the expertise of a licensed mental health worker. I didn’t know of his major mental health issues upon his starting of his work with me, however over time with the various communications it became obvious that I had a much more serious and complex situation here than what was originally presented. I would also like to note that the only thing I treated this gentleman for was the sexual compulsion and the issue of allowing his wife the option of being in a relationship with someone who wanted to give her kids instead of ignoring that part of his life as he was pursuing his own dreams. This was not fair to her and he needed to address it directly with her which he finally did leading to the divorce.
This case points to the deeper understanding that we have our areas where we can help people, even very ill people allowing for them to do the work that they need to with that of the licensed professionals, as we do the other work that perhaps the licensed professionals are not as capable doing. Do realize that as long as we respect the work of one another, miracles can happen. I consider the release of the sexually inappropriate behavior despite the complex underlying mental health issues of this case to be a miracle. This especially given the excuses given to me of men who haven’t got all these other mental health issues telling me why it is that they can’t afford to make the time or monetary investment in their own healing. To them I say, they lack the fearlessness of this particular client who was willing to address everything that he needed to, to no longer be at risk legally with his behavior of the past even with the complications of his underlying mental health issues. I totally respect this gentleman’s determination to deal with what his life as put forth while I would like those of you who know that your own situations are much simpler, to do what you can to take care of yourselves. This client did it, so there is no reason that you can’t do so as well with the proper professional to help you.
May 26 2014
044:E-Cigarettes: Wishful Thinking At Best
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:02 — 11.9MB)
Do you think e-cigarettes really help you quit smoking? Find out the facts.
May 22 2014
E-Cigarettes Are More Harmful Then Helpful
E-Cigarettes Are More Harmful Then Helpful – Vol. 258, May 22, 2014
Many people who are supposedly trying to quit smoking cigarettes are looking to electronic cigarettes to help them break the habit. In a previous article (link April 3, 2014 article – The Myth Behind E-Cigarettes) I highlighted the dangers involved in using e-cigarettes given the lack of FDA oversight regarding the amount of nicotine that is in them and the flavors and colors used to draw younger people to their use.
According to an article reported by Newsy, April 10, 2014, Study:E-Cig Vapor Affects Cells Similar to Tobacco smoke by Briana Altergott, a study published in the journal Nature shows that people exposed to e-cigarette smoke are suffering from very similar negative side-effects of gene mutation as those from tobacco smoke. These gene mutations may be a precursor to cancer.
There is another point of view that I would like to share with you, one that came from Sam, my webmaster that I thought was most insightful.
Today in the USA we have about 20% of the population still smoking cigarettes. Many have quit because of the societal pressure to do so. Here in the USA people are no longer allowed to smoke in businesses and are forced out in the cold and rain to have their cigarettes. This was mainly due to the negative health ramifications to non-smokers to minimize both the discomfort of many who prefer not to be in a fog of smoke, and to minimize health care cost due to the many medical problems associated with the intake of second hand smoke.
Given the fact that society looks down on smokers, smokers who don’t wish to really give up their “best friend” as cigarettes are known to be by their users, can pretend to be giving up their habit with the use of electronic cigarettes. Given that electronic cigarettes still allow the user to get their “high” off of the nicotine vapors that these devises make, they are replacing one method of ingesting their nicotine with another. It is for this reason that the research doesn’t demonstrate that over the long haul that users of e-cigarettes become or remain non-smokers.
If you are somebody you love really was invested in giving up the habit, the idea of ingesting nicotine in any manner would be tossed aside realizing that the problem isn’t just the smoke, but the damage that the nicotine is doing to their body.
My suggestion is to save your money on these harmful e-cigarette devices and find a better way of stopping your smoking habit. Many can do it cold turkey and for those of you who can’t, hypnosis is a method that relies on your mind’s ability alone – no side-effects will be experienced with its use, so why not give it a try?
May 19 2014
Alternative Medicine: Why Holistic Healing and Emotional Healing works better than pills – Vol. 148, May 10, 2012
I often wonder why people tend to take medication as their first choice when they have a symptom or illness. I recently had acid reflux so bad that I was scared the acid I was feeling in my throat was going to permanently scar my throat and esophagus, I couldn’t sleep and sometimes found it hard to even talk it got so bad.
I googled the problem and came up with several alternative methods to the usual proton pump inhibitors such as Prilosec and Nexium that it seems half the world is taking currently. In less than 2 weeks I was symptom free by just eating apples and drinking an apple cider vinegar drink, that I actually enjoyed.
There are many alternative methods to medicine. With the ease of using the Internet one can google their problem and in an instant come up with many alternative methods. You don’t even have to go to the library, or read complicated medical books. There is a plethora of information at our fingertips.
I read also that honey can heal the tissues in the esophagus damaged from acid reflux. Not only does this save on doctors appointments and medication, but it can also save ones health in the long run.
There are times when pills and medication are needed. We just need to know when that is. We need to know when we need to take these medications, and when we should try something else first. Most of these pills come with many side effects short and long term, that most often are not communicated by the prescribing doctor. The first choice of doctors is usually a prescription because that is how they are trained to work.
Realize that many of these drugs that are being prescribed for issues such as simple acid reflux disease affecting millions of people, are actually harmful in the long run.
Now my first choice is anything but a prescription drugs, if I can help it, even though I too was raised on reaching for that pill. However, having found and used alternative methods many times over now, and having had serious side effects from prescription medications I can now say that reaching for a pill is my LAST choice.
I know there are times when they are needed, and I am not foolish enough to go with out if needed. It is my belief that we are an over medicated society and should at least step back and evaluate whether we really want to swallow those chemicals as we ingest that pill. I don’t understand why people feel that they need to always take a pill to alleviate their symptoms. I guess it is how we were raised.
Everywhere one looks there are advertisements for pills, and drugs to get rid of any ache, pain or symptom one might have. Even aspirin that has been around for hundreds of years has side effects. Yet there are more and more specialized aspirin formulations for everything from headaches to backaches to joint pain to sleepless nights aids.
“There are many, many aspirin side effects. Some of them are less harmful, but some of them are deadly. In fact, in the 1970’s, aspirin side effects made it one of the top ten drugs for adverse reactions! While some reactions are mild, aspirin side effects such as bleeding ulcers frequently sent people to the hospital where thousands every year DIE from aspirin side effects.”
Read more: http://www.side-effects-site.com/aspirin-side-effects.html#ixzz1ttjtzFRi
We are so conditioned to reaching for a pill that we don’t even realize or stop to think what it is doing do our bodies. We want instant relief not thinking of the long term effects that single chemical might have in our bodies.
Perhaps we are all too trusting of our pharmaceutical companies and the FDA.
We have all seen the ads for 1-800 BAD-DRUG and “…if you or a loved one have suffered from…” and the list goes on and on.
And we think it won’t happen to us, all these side effects. What are the chances I skip a dose of an SSRI medication such as Prozac that I will
get sick ending up in the hospital. Well, I can tell you the chances are slimmer than you may think of NOT having a terrible side-effect, having experienced just that not too long ago. I missed one dose, in less than 24 hours and ended up spending 2 days in the hospital, spent two weeks out of work and on disability, unable to drive or do much of anything I was so sick. I was so scared that I would never be able to work or live again the way I was used to. I never in my wildest dreams imagined I could have gone through what I did with this medication, having taken it at a much higher dose years ago with no adverse effects.
Funny thing is most of these alternative methods have been around and proven longer than these pills and drugs have been:
Yoga, and acupuncture for blood pressure and stress relief.
Hypnosis for all sorts of issues both physical and psychological.
Foods such as garlic, apples etc. to heal all sorts of inflammation in our bodies
Yet most of us find it easier to reach for that pill. My cousin who is only 54 years old is taking pills for blood pressure, cholesterol, acid reflux amongst others. All are very serious medications.
All the issues I once HAD a problem with, I have SOLVED with alternative methods.
Hypnosis has been around as we know it since the 1800’s, yet goes back to ancient India and Greece. Acupuncture is the oldest form of medical treatment being around for over 2,000 years. Massage and food have also been known for many years to help in the healing of one’s bodies.
Seems to me I would trust something that has been around for many more years then the medications that are being prescribed today. And yet, I haven’t seen an advertisement for “1-800-HYPNOSIS, if you or a loved one have suffered adverse reactions…”Go Figure…
*The Dawning Visions Hypnosis Store is ready for your business. If you liked this weblog, there are many essays of this type in the downloadable book “Learnings From My Journey: Suzannisms for the Mind and Soul”. Go to:
Also, go over to the Dawning Visions Hypnosis, Inc. Facebook page and “like” the page if you find this information to be helpful to you. That would be much appreciated.
[Opt7_Microdata_LocalBusiness_808858687]
May 19 2014
043:What Could A Healthy Fashion Doll Do For Our Young Girls’ Self-Esteem?
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:12 — 6.6MB)
Learn how unnatural body images are affecting young girls and what can be done to promote a natural healthy one.