Quitting more often comes about as an inbuilt survival reaction, a defence strategy created by the subconscious mind in response to a situation whereby the individual has become unbearably overwhelmed by emotionally stressful and painful traumatic memories along with the associated feelings of those past events experienced as a child, life changing events like childhood trauma, physical, sexual or emotional abuse, a sustained and prolonged exposure to the abuse.
It’s when the child later becomes the adult, who later in life find themselves being constantly triggered either by those specific painful unresolved traumatic memories of their past, or who is presently thrust into an overwhelming stressful situation that they find their PTSD acquired, fires off the cycle of relived trauma over and over again bringing their emotional pain to a critical level, Its precisely at times like this when a survivor of trauma becomes a high risk of becoming addicted, moreover, a time when quitting comes along to save that individual, yes, you heard correctly, when quitting becomes the coping method of choice offered by the subconscious mind in which to escape the pain – physical or emotional, any quitting seems better to the individual than attempting to cope with the pain.
By delving a little deeper into quitting, we must be prepared to consider the advantages of the quitting itself. What is positive about the particular quitting gained by the individual, we must be prepared completely to suspend our critical judgment in order to consider what is positive about the quitting in question. Whether its an quitting to a certain type of negative behaviour or to a particular substance. And to really dig deeper into what we think of as being negative in respect to all quittings.
In my experience as a clinical Hypnotherapist, people that have a real honest and emotive reason in which to overcome their quitting are far more successful in the long term, they have an uncanny ability to turn their adversity and hardship into a strength.
Speaking from my own experience, having worked with many clients over the years who have been affected by quittings, each individual must be completely committed to their vision of success, each client, has had their very own unique set of life experiences, family and environmental conditioning, circumstances and personality traits, dealing with the fallout from the negative impact of those experiences in their lives means that they have usually become both emotionally and physically exhausted. As a clinical Hypnotherapist, it’s important to remain focused, in order to help successfully navigate a path through these oftentimes very complex feelings and emotions, they act very much like emotional drivers of the quitting itself. As a hypnotherapist working within the field of quitting recovery, it sometimes exacts a physical toll on myself too, working passionately through these mind fields of feelings in order to dismantle the quitting can be quite challenging at times.
Those that become addicted can completely obsess about stuff, become totally overwhelmed, fuelled with both anger and fear, they can get so caught up stressing about things such as the injustice they have experienced in their lives, the loss of connection, disconnected from friends and family, especially caught up from their childhoods, as adults their seemingly constant failing relationships and friendships, distorting their way of thinking, undermining their health with a total lack of self-care, constantly attempting to fill a painful void within themselves, which they have filled with either drugs, alcohol or some other behavioural quitting.
When someone has successfully escaped the stronghold of their quitting, their life immediately changes. They become far more grateful and appreciative for things and the people that used to seem so irrelevant. More than anything, they are more grateful for life itself. Realizing how precious and fragile of a gift life actually is, and how quickly it can all be taken away. As a clinical Hypnotherapist I use all my skills and intentions to guide each client through their complex feelings and arrive at resolution. I use this gratitude to constantly support and motivate my clients, because each and every second wasted to an quitting is a second, that in this life, they will never get back. Time is in fact, priceless. It can’t be bought; Quitting only has one purpose and that is to, steal it.
Hypnotherapists have a very particular way of thinking. There is more truth to that idea, that there is always more than one way to solve a problem. I believe that to understand how to successfully assist any client to overcome their quitting, the hypnotherapist must first understand the very nature of quittings and how important it is to accept that more often than not, the quitting has come about to somewhat act in a way to save the individual addict, a way of escaping from the pain they are experiencing. Understand this. We as humans are very creative thinkers.
Our subconscious mind looks for the solution, so if there is a far more pleasurable way of coping with the hurt and pain, then rather than dealing with the pain, our subconscious mind decides that this [The Quitting] must be good for us, because it takes away the pain. With very little logic, in fact no logic will stand in the way of that decision. The problem is the elevation from the pain, this then develops into a habit. Once I accepted [as a clinical hypnotherapist] that quittings become established only as an attempt by the subconscious to save us [from feeling the pain] I learned then to better understand how and why the quitting takes hold in the first place, as a clinical Hypnotherapist this became the very corner stone in my approach when helping people overcome quitting.
I found myself being able to assist far more people to break completely free from their quittings utilising deep trance Hypnosis/Hypnotherapy enabling them to finally achieve emotional resolution, and to go on to not just solve, but to completely emotionally recover from the very complex life experiences and situations that they have been so greatly affected by in their lives. The biggest difference is, that their emotional energy returns to good energy. They become far better able to deal with the everyday demands of life, as well as playing an active role in life, they begin influencing the lives of those around them. This positive energy is contagious, work life and relationships become stronger, to wake up feeling happy. And never looked back.
With this gift of quitting recovery comes a change in perspective, which becomes the foundation of recovery, bringing an unprecedented and untapped determination and strength that the individual never even knew they possessed, because in the past their lives had been so consumed with pain and quitting.
My advice to you is, before you judge the addict, open your mind and look at quitting differently. Look at all the emotional drivers that lead and seem to support quittings, the pain, the heartache, the regret, the loss, the family circumstances and issues, the mistakes we make in life, the injustice, anger, hurt, shame, guilt and abuse. In society, we have already spent so much of our time looking at what is negative about quitting, instead, challenge your way of thinking on this issue and shift your thinking to consider not what is negative but rather, what’s positive. Recovery is a self-fulfilling blessing for the good of everyone. As a clinical hypnotherapist I am a huge believer that we can literally accomplish anything when it comes to helping anyone to overcome any quitting.
The addicted individual deserves to recover and get sober, they are some mother’s daughter, some mother’s son, as therapists we can achieve anything when it comes to matters of the mind. I firmly believe that by firstly identifying then addressing the emotional drivers of any quitting we can navigate the individual through their mind field of complex feelings and emotions. This has to be the top priority when setting out to resolve quitting. Dismantle those emotional drivers successfully and the quittings has no more foundation and therefore collapses.
In closing. Remember, if you are affected by quitting, you are not alone. If you are currently struggling to cope from issues relating to your past or present, you are strong and powerful. You can literally do anything, if you set your mind to it. In recovery your only limitations are those insecurities. Push through all the fear. To recover from quitting you will feel like a total legend, remember you are beautiful. Believe it, because it’s true.
Challenge your view on Quitting.
Senior Clinical Hypnotherapist.
Director of Advance Hypnosis National Clinics Network.
