Stop beating yourself up –or why willpower alone is never enough…. by Saleema Davies

My first guest blogger!!

I received a message from the lovely Saleema, asking to write for Mumforc, she then sent me this amazing piece and how could I resist. Go check out this amazing woman and the amazing things she does.

Saleema Davies

Bio

Saleema Davies is a clinical hypnotherapist with a thriving practice in St Albans. She is also the founder of Papalona – a revolutionary and unique company that creates audio downloads for parents to play to their children to help lay foundations for their lifelong emotional wellbeing. www.papalona.com; www.sdavieshypno.com

We all think we know our own minds don’t we? Most of us know what we want from life – we may not know exactly what we want, but we know most of it. We want to be happy, healthy, with good friends and family, loving relationships, perhaps with enough money to easily keep a roof over our heads and splurge on the occasional treat and nice holiday. Or at the very least, we know what we don’t want…

So why is that so many of the things we do on a daily basis sabotage our basic goals and desires?

need more than willpower

Have you ever decided that this week you’re really going to eat healthily, and perhaps lay off the booze for a bit– and yet found yourself with your head in the cupboard at 7pm, glass of Sauvignon in your hand, munching crisps, without even being aware of it… Perhaps you’re determined to complete a couch to 5k or take your running to the next level, but find that your trainers are still stuffed under the couch when you’re ready for bed. Maybe you really want to join a class or take up a hobby but fail to sign up before the deadline.

And I can pretty much guarantee that like everyone else on this planet, you then berate yourself. Tell yourself you’re weak willed? If only you had more willpower, everything would be easier… right??

Wrong.

You see, willpower is only a small part of the story. It’s a small part of our mind….

Willpower lives in conscious mind which is the place where we actively set intentions and goals, where we make decisions – to eat healthily, to lay off the wine, to go for a jog, or to not lose our temper when little Johnny pushes our buttons.

But imagine that your mind is like an iceberg. Our conscious mind is that bit above the water; the top 10%. The rest, that large hulking 90% under the water, is our subconscious mind – and that’s the bit that really runs the show.

Our subconscious mind is awesome. Truly. It keeps us alive. It keeps our hearts pumping blood round your bodies and oour lungs filling with air. Once it’s learnt a technique, it does it automatically. Tying shoelaces or a tie was difficult when we were tiny; now we don’t even think about it. The skill has become automatic. The subconscious mind has it covered.

And the subconscious mind is the place where we store our beliefs – about ourselves and the world around us. Beliefs that we accumulate throughout our lives and particularly in childhood.

The subconscious works really, really hard for us. It is constantly bombarded with information and it remembers everything: the good and the not so good.

And like a parent that loves us and wants us to be happy, it puts in place strategies and behaviours to protect us from pain. Sometimes however, parental protection can be overbearing and counterproductive.

So perhaps, when you’ve got your head in the fridge, it’s not that you’re weak-willed but rather that you had a parent who used sweets to comfort and cheer you; so your subconscious propels you to feed yourself to soothe your emotions after a hard day. Perhaps you don’t like speaking in public because your subconscious remembers a time when you were ridiculed in class for speaking up. You may not consciously recall the memory – but your subconscious does.

So if we want to change our behaviours, we need to change the beliefs stored in our subconscious mind. Unfortunately, we can’t access the subconscious mind in normal waking state – giving ourselves a talking to, is rarely going to work.

The subconscious mind is however readily accessible when the brain is deeply relaxed in the theta brainwave state. This is the trance state, and a good hypnotherapist can guide their clients there and help them replace some of the old outmoded beliefs running in the background of their mind. We also slip through this state several times a day, particularly when we are falling asleep or waking up – so affirmative recordings played in states of deep relaxation can also help.

If hypnosis doesn’t appeal, then simply slowing down and observing yourself can be enormously powerful. Notice your actions. Don’t judge or criticize, just observe. Look at what has triggered you to act in this way. Pause. There is power in the pause. At that point you give yourself the opportunity to make a decision – to continue acting in one way, or to act in another which supports your goal. You won’t always choose the best option, but every time you do, the neural pathways in your brain that wire you to respond in a certain way lose their pull and new pathways towards the positive outcomes you desire are formed ad strengthened – so that in time, the positive reaction becomes instinctive.

Either way – stop beating yourself up. If your 10% conscious mind is pulling one way and 90% is pulling the other – you know who is likely to win. It doesn’t matter how much effort you put into it or tell yourself to try harder. The key is to get the 90% to work with you - because the full 100% moving in the same direction it becomes an unstoppable force for transformation.

The Mind