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lose weight

You Don’t Really Want to Lose Weight, Do You?

By Michael Harris, PhD


https://drmichaelharris.com/wp-content/uploads/lose_wieght_article.mp4

You Don’t Really Want to Lose Weight, Do You? 

No one does. Americans are the worst when it comes to losing. We hate it when our favorite team loses or if we lose a card game; we prefer To WIN!!!

Here’s a question.
If you HAD to drop 15 pounds before Christmas, would you want to know WHAT TO DO and more importantly, HOW TO DO IT? 

Here’s a list of 7 things to do and if you follow them, your success is guaranteed.

1. Get an Accountability Person (not your spouse or partner)

lose weight

In almost any endeavor, having someone that you report your progress to; can be the difference between yet another failure, or a ROARING SUCCESS. How does this work? It seems that having an accountability partner can increase the possibility of your success by as much as 95%, according to this article by Thomas Oppong.

Goals are achieved by two things, Incentives, and Accountability. The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) did a study on accountability. They found that you have a 65% chance of completing your goal if you commit to someone, who agree to hold you accountable. And, if you have a specific, weekly accountability appointment with that person you’ve committed to, your chance of success goes up to 95%. So, contact your accountability person and set an appointment for weekly updates until you succeed. You can choose co-worker, a reliable friend or friends and tell them what your goal is and why it is essential for you to achieve this goal.

Then set up a weekly meeting or accountability call. I prefer a face-to-face meeting for accountability, but this may not be an option for you or your accountability person. You also CAN use a spouse or partner, but I don’t recommend it. Our partners, although well-intended, may be apt to “let-you-off-the-hook” more often than a neutral friend or colleague. Remember this is your goal…STICK TO IT!

2. 7 hours of Sleep

lose weight

If you really wanted to give yourself a great way to easily lose weight this year; GO TO BED.

We, Americans are the least rested, most over-worked and under-vacationed group of people in the world today. The average American gets 5.5 hours of regular sleep. And, you may have heard, as I have, that we humans need 8 or 9 hours of sleep… and recently, studies have shown that the groups of people with the lowest mortality rate are those who consistently get 6.4 hours to 7.2 hours of sleep.

So what’s the right answer?

The “gold standard for recommended sleep is going to be 7 to 9 hours. Some of you are going to need more than 7, some of you are going to need less. What works best for me is 7.5 hours. More than 8 hours makes me feel sluggish and less than 7 hours shows up immediately in my thinking and on the yoga mat.

Try a week of 7 hours of sleep. The next week get 8 hours. If you feel you need still need more increase it by 30 minutes until it feels right to you. Setting boundaries about going to bed when it’s time and allowing others to “go on without you”, is really where the rubber meets the road.

If you want this program to work for you, this will be your first required modification… making time for YOU and your goal. 

Need more information? Here’s a 2-year sleep study from The National Sleep Foundation and a published paper on the research. 

3. Drink 2- 4 Liters of Water DAILY

lose weight

This is a generalization. The actual amount of water that you will need on a daily basis is approximately ½ ounce to 1 ounce of water per pound of body weight. I say approximately because I do not know how much water you are drinking now. My personal requirements for water are about 3 liters and if I increase my outdoor or activity levels; it goes to 4 liters. So, makes sense that you raise your activity level or spend more time out of doors; your water requirements will increase, as well.

This is one of those things you’re going to have to discover for yourself. In this article from WebMD, you can learn the “why’s and how-to’s,” but the balance between proper hydration and your weight loss goal is connected; and worth the effort.

The short explanation here is, everything your body does require(s) water for the chemical reaction. The more, clean, freshwater you put into your system, the easier it will be for your body to replenish and remove toxins and waste products from the system.

 4. Walk 30-60 Minutes Daily

lose weight
The benefits of walking have long been known but for some reason doesn’t make it onto most people’s “to-do list.” The best reason I could give for daily walking is this. We have two circulatory systems, and only one has a pump. Obviously, we have the heart to pump the blood through our system. It seems that most are unaware that our Lymphatic system also needs circulation and the only way to do that, is through breathing and walking. One of my long-time fitness idols, Clarence Bass, wrote an article on the benefits of walking daily and interestingly enough; he only weight trains on day per week at age 79.

In addition to the physical benefits of walking, you may also consider that walking is good for your emotions and that mind/body/spirit thing you may have heard mentioned from time to time. Here’s a great article, by Beverly Golden, on the benefits of walking that are outside the physical. And here’s another article you might like on the 19 physical and mental benefits of being outside.

5. Strength Train Twice Weekly

lose weight

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s talk for a moment about Strength Training. Strength training may possibly be the least understood type of weight or bodyweight training. It is far and beyond from the bodybuilding protocols or aerobic routines that we used to abuse ourselves with; in our youth. Strength training helps you lose weight (and body fat) in a few different ways. First, it helps you retain the muscle you have while eating a calorie deficit and losing weight. Second, strength training has a much greater level of excess post-exercise oxygen consumption than aerobic exercise. (source: www.nerdfitness.com/blog/strength-training-101) 

Additionally (if done correctly), it takes far less time to do strength training that you may realize. And there are lots of apps and websites available, so you don’t have to “figure out” what to, that have been planned for you, frequently for free.

Depending on your age, fitness level, and weight, the standard (substandard) expert advice was to “hit the gym” and pound your body with weights 3-6 times per week. This “sage advice” has been proven wrong so many times, and I used to be one of those who dispensed it, regularly.  Think of this as a guideline, if you really want to succeed at your goal of losing weight you may need a paradigm shift.

Something as simple as 1-2 days per week may be all you need. Remember the goal is weight loss, not the cover of Flex magazine. Just make sure you are working all of the Six Fundamental Human Movements; the days of “body part” workouts are so 1980’s, just saying.

6. Eliminate Cardboard Carbohydrates

lose weight

 

 

 

 

 

There is a reason that nutritional experts tell you to avoid the interior aisles of your favorite grocery store and just shop in the outside circles. “Cardboard” or processed carbohydrates may be the reason you are reading this article, right now.

Fill your diet with lean meats, fruits, and veggies and if you must have complex carbohydrates (potatoes, rice, and the occasional pasta) keep your servings to the exact amount and have one serving per day. It may take a day or so for your body to adjust to less sugar and that immediate emotional lift you get from those carbs. But you will notice that your body responds well to less calorie-dense foods and can maintain your energy levels more easily.

For the truly hardcore, I have a men’s and women’s 6-week eating program here for FREE. I got this from a former mentor of mine who used to coach bodybuilders during their contest diet regimens. It works really fast, but I have had people complain about its rigidness. You’ve been warned.

7. Listen to This Hypnosis Audio

lose weight

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes, people are doing all of the right things, in the correct order and still, the weight can be reluctant to come off promptly. In cases like these, maybe the issues aren’t physical, it may be mental or emotional. Hypnosis has been proven to help in these situations. I’ve included a favorite WEIGHT LOSS HYPNOSIS AUDIO that has helped hundreds of listeners.

The instructions are simple. Turn on the audio just before bed and let the audio do “it’s magic” while you are sleeping. I wrote this audio based on a sleep hypnosis study that was conducted in the 1950s. It was so exciting to me I created my own audio; so enjoy!

I wish you the best in your new adventure of losing weight before the Holidays. Remember that if you ever need anything, or you just want to ask a couple of questions… I’m a phone call away.
(phone) 214-702-3774|
(email) [email protected]

Additional resources:

21 Science-Backed Benefits Of Spending Time In Nature

single channel flirting

Single Channel Flirting

By Michael Harris, PhD

Single Channel Flirting

(this is an A.I translation)

Today’s conversation is going to be something fun. I was talking to a friend of mine and got this great idea about how we can become better at communication.

And also to discover if we are missing anything when we are doing what we do. This lockdown is giving us an opportunity to really learn something new if you are willing to come out and play.

So okay, so we’re working here on the idea of single channel flirting. So, I want you to try this and I’m going to give you an example.

One activity

I’d like you to pick one activity.

one activity could be you know making a cup of coffee or taking a shower. And I want you to think about it and I’ll just kind of go through my day because when I get up in the morning. I don’t necessarily turn any lights on, I have a grow light that goes on my bonsai. So there’s a little bit of light, so I don’t need a whole lot of light to, you know, get up and make a cup of coffee but it kind of goes like this.

My alarm goes off and you know in a perfect world I don’t hit snooze but let’s say it’s a perfect world and I get up and I walk out of my bedroom and into the bathroom and do what I normally do when I come out of there. I’m going to turn right and I’m going to walk down the hall to my kitchen.

And then I’m going to walk over to my coffee pot, or to my Keurig and I’m going to turn it on, and I’ll hear the Keurig began to heat up, and I reach into the upper cabinet pull out a K cup and put it in there and close the lid. And as the coffee is brewing. I’ll reach over to my left, And, you know, bring over my super mega organic granulated sugar thing and put one teaspoon of sugar in my coffee, and then while that’s happening.

About that time the Keurig is beginning to output coffee into the coffee cup and I’d go to the refrigerator and get some almond milk, shake it up, take the lid off pour in two ounces of almond milk, and then stir that up and then let the coffee.

Now the coffee is finished brewing and I walk back and I walk into my living room to my favorite chair, and I sit down and I set my coffee cup, you know, down to my left on a table. I’ll turn on the light. And you can tell that thought about this. And I’ll sit and drink a cup of coffee and go through my email in the morning. Okay. And so, I want you to pick something that you do on a regular basis, and just kind of think about what the steps are that you would normally do in order to perform that and the thing is it’s generally so automated that we don’t even pay attention.

BlindFolded

So here’s the fun part. I want you to try this, but imagine this time that you’re blindfolded. Okay. And so I keep my bedroom really really dark it’s completely blacked out I have blackout curtains there’s no available light whatsoever. you know, so I kind of know where everything is in my bedroom. Okay, but if I were blindfolded once I leave my bedroom, everything starts getting dicey my bathroom is across the hall from my bedroom. So now I have to navigate to the bathroom, and find the potty, and make sure that nothing unfortunate happens… while I’m blindfolded.

And then I have to exit the bathroom work my way down the hall to my coffee pot. And while I was thinking about this, you know one of the things that that I used to because I’m sleepy, is when I close the lid, you know, three blue lights slide up which tell me which size brew that I’m going to get it going to be small, medium or large.

So if I were blindfolded, I would have to literally feel my way down to the bottom button and then work my way back up. In order to press the right button. Sure, it would be no problem maybe, you know. And then I have to turn around and walk blindly or blindfolded Lee, to the refrigerator, open the refrigerator door. Find out almond milk, go back to the thing in one of the things I want you to like pay attention to is what other senses would be activated. If you couldn’t see your sense of smell your sense of touch proprioception which is a kinesthetic thing of you moving through the air, your feet on the floor.

Okay. And so once you’ve done that, and you’ve noticed what you’ve done with that. Imagine that in addition to being blindfolded, that you have like noise-canceling headphones on. Okay, so I’m not going to be able to hear the coffee pot, as it begins to brew. I’m going to have to like put my hand on top of the, of the thing to hit to literally feel the coffee pot, make it makes a complete cycle until it stops. Then close the lid, then find the buttons, then push the button.

Yeah, you don’t have to, you know, what have you don’t drink coffee. Okay, imagine doing the same thing of taking a shower or getting dressed for work or whatever. Pick one activity that you would normally do and go through this process. And just think about all of the experiences that we aren’t noticing that, you know, because we have a had this one channel art. Our eyes that we have all of these other things that are muted, or not pay attention to, at all. Okay.

Try this

So, I want you to, you know, try that thing and you’re going to listen to this again. And the short instructions are imagined or go through the steps.

And then imagine, or go through the steps with a blindfold. Because I’ve recommended that people like to eat dinner blindfolded you know so that they can actually taste their food. And then imagine, or actually go through the process of being blindfolded and having noise-canceling ear muffs on your head as you do a simple task.

Level Expert

Your expert level process for this I thought it would be fun is you know we’re kind of at home, and we got our partners or a partner and or you might have a somebody that you’re interested in or you might have somebody that you were interested in and now you aren’t.

But, explore the fantasy with that partner. It could be holding hands it could be dancing in your kitchen. It could be making love. How do you normally do, that sort of thing. The lights on lights off. Where do you begin. Are you the initiator or are you the receiver. And then think about that. Or actually try this with a blindfold. It could be just here. It could be just them. It could be both of you. And, you know, obviously Amazon’s gonna make money off of me with those noise-canceling your must but wouldn’t it be interesting for you to have the experience

of having your eyes or having your ears, or both, completely shut down so that you are now forced to pay attention to your sensations to that feeling of touch.

What does their skin feel like? What does your skin feel like? What, smells, or tastes do are you now aware of that you aren’t normally aware of, you know, it’s like, Did you just have a big dinner with garlic bread, you know it’s gonna show up when you close those other channels.

So I wanted you to think about this, and kind of think about it is, like, we don’t know how long we’re gonna be shut down. Okay, it’s gonna come it’s gonna go it’s gonna be on it’s gonna be off. But if we get better at communicating. If we get better at communicating with ourselves. If we get better at communicating with people that we care about, maybe we’ll get better with communicating and connecting with other people that we don’t know. One of the things that you might want to consider is, you know, we do a lot of texting. Nowadays instead of talking or, you know, meeting people face to face.

How would you let someone know that you were interested in how would you let them know that you wanted to talk, or to kiss, or to make love or to interact with them in some kind of way? And, anyway. That’s today’s video.

Tomorrow (or Monday)

Tomorrow’s video is going to be a step up, but I really want you to practice these skills, at least once, you know with yourself, go ahead and, you know, prepare to be surprised of somebody I know that says, if you don’t feel foolish while you’re doing this you’re probably doing it wrong. I’m planning on doing a meditation blindfolded. I’m planning on doing a yoga session blindfolded. Because I want to see our Nazi, I want to experience what this is going to be alive because I’m extremely visual and I’m very reliant on my eyes and my ears.

 

And I’m really interested to know what this could be like so. Please, you know, put your comments in the comments section. This will be on YouTube, as well as on my website, but I’m really interested in knowing your feedback when you try this. And, and what your experience was, I think that this is a great way to experience being playful and getting really really curious about how we do what we do not why, just how do we do it when do we do that, where do we do that for how long. And most importantly, starting to pay attention to how you respond? how you do you know this feels good?

And tomorrow we’re going to take it. The next level up and say and say, Does your partner or does your friend, enjoy whatever it is that you’re doing because if it doesn’t feel good to you, my guess is that it’s not feeling good to other people. And what may feel good to you may or may not feel good to somebody else? And anyway, just think about that today and we’ll talk tomorrow.

Have a great day.

3-fold

The 3-Fold Process

By Michael Harris, PhD

The 3-Fold Process

(Transcribed by https://otter.ai)

Okay. Hi everybody and welcome. Today I thought it would talk about the three-fold process.  I was talking within my men’s group last night about a Tantra process which is called the 3-fold process.

It has internal work.

And it has a writing component.

Finally, it also has an integration component.

I’ve heard it before but I think that I just heard it differently this time, and I think I’m just going to be adding this process to my coaching work, because it just, it’s so amazing to me that I think that it’s worthwhile for people to do as part of their integration and healing.

So, let’s just talk about you know the different components of that.

Step 1 Internal Work

The first component is the meditation or the internal work process now in the Tantra community they’re specifically talking about physical touch or self-pleasure, or OMing. But I don’t want to get too lost in the story about that because not everybody is interested in orgasmic meditation.

So, when I say meditation, think in terms of you could you can sit and do meditation you can go walk, or you could do Chi Kung, or you could do Yin style yoga.

One of the things about meditation is any repetitive activity is going to entrain the conscious mind and give the unconscious mind an opportunity to really do some interesting stuff.

Now you’re home with kids or you’ve got grandkids, you might want to consider meditation can be coloring or puzzles, or even gardening. It can be a way to slow the kids down and slow you down, and just really give you an opportunity to be.

Each one of these processes that I’m talking about is like 10-15 minutes in duration. What I’m really interested in is that we have this opportunity; if you want to call it that. To create a different way of being in we’ve all been at home and, and we’ve been trying to figure out what it is you know that we’re going to be doing next. And what it is that we’re going to be taking with us into this new world so step one is going to be, meditation, and after that 15 minute or 10 minute period, then you move on to this step two.

Step 2 Writing Part A

Step two is going to be writing. And for some people writing is really hard, you know, they don’t want anybody to know what they’re thinking or feeling. Um, so, you might want to consider, like journaling on something like LiveJournal, you can set all of the permissions to zero, you can have ultimate privacy.

But it gives you an opportunity to write. Now if you’re a little more comfortable with writing. I think that when I recommend to my clients that they write that they physically write on a piece of paper and there and there’s a little bit to this to spend 10 minutes, you know, just doing freeform what it is you’re experiencing how you’re feeling what you were thinking about while you’re gardening, or meditating, or doing intimate touch with your partner whatever it is that you may be doing.

Step 2 Part B

The second part of this writing process is that you contact some trusted friends or your partner or whatever. And you actually read it aloud.

Now, if your journal is about your partner, you might want to hold off, reading it to them, just go somewhere and read it aloud yourself, and once it’s been read and once you said the words. I want you to take that journal entry and tear it out. Or, if you’re doing electronically, delete it.

The whole process is about getting those words out of here, and getting them on a page where you can see them and feel them and have that experience, and there’s a couple of different processes that you can work with this, this first one, which is called a fear inventory is based on Shadow Work you know we all have, we have you know our face right here that we want to show everybody, aren’t we, you know, aren’t we great people. And then we also have our shadow selves where we’re angry or bitter or greedy or. We are something other than, you know, loving light. Okay, so this fear inventory has actually a very specific format. And what you do is you write down I resent blank, you know, maybe you resent staying home.

Maybe you resent your kids. Maybe you resent your dog or maybe you resent the gasoline prices going down because it’s affecting your stock. Well, whatever it is that you resent, and then you set a timer or start a timer for about 10 minutes and you write down in this format. Because I fear I, and I’ll write that in the comments so that you can you can do it. And it’s important that you keep the fear statement about you. It’s not about what somebody else is doing you know maybe it is what they’re doing, but it’s about what your personal fear is not what you think their fear is. Okay, not everybody wants to do a lot of like deep heavy. Shadow Work and stuff so one of the things that you might want to consider is in addition to this, you can also do a gratitude journal. And you can write down all of the things that you’re grateful for How about your life today. How about you have an opportunity to spend time with your family or your partner or your dog, and that you don’t normally because you’re at work. The other types of writing our gratitude journal What are you grateful for, you know, and spend about 10 minutes writing all of that down, or an abundance, a journal. I personally did an abundance thing because we have a tendency to, you know, look around you know what’s happening in our world and we don’t always appreciate what we already have.

And, I mean, when was the last time that you were at the grocery store and you saw somebody went Hey, you’re breathing up all my air. No, there’s an abundance of air there’s an abundance of life there’s an abundance of money actually on the in this, you know, in, in this particular planet is that you can make as much money as you want. And there’s plenty for everybody. Then we’ll move to the third segment.

Step 3 Movement

And this third segment is about movement, and you know if you watch any of my videos and stuff you’ll know that I do yoga and I do you know all this other stuff. But interestingly enough movement for me is kind of interesting if there’s a fixed format. I did martial arts you know when there are katas which are performed, you know, an exact manner, or, you know, if you go take down dance lessons you can learn how to Foxtrot because there’s a format.

But when it comes to things like freeform movement like freeform dance. That’s hard for me, and there is actually a Facebook group that I found called body groove, and go check that out. It’s called body groove I’ll put it in the comments, and this lady, really gives you an opportunity to learn how to dance. And one of the things I really like about what she has to say is if you don’t feel stupid, while you’re doing her dance moves, you’re not doing it right.

Another thing that you can do for movement is you can go for a walk. Or you can do Tai Chi, or you could do yoga, or you could do whatever it is that you’re doing that moves your body in this process this 3-fold process.

Summing Up

I really want you to do all three, I want you to do your internal work or your meditation. I want you to do your writing, and contact somebody, and then get out there and move your body around and get all that stuff out of your system. And I’m going to be doing this for a while, you, you can always go to my hundred days of page, and I’m going to actually start 100 days program where I’m doing this 3-fold process, you know, no guarantees that it’ll be perfect because that’s not the goal.

The goal is to really take a look at all of the things that we’re having an opportunity to learn and have an opportunity to create. And in the meantime, you know, let’s go, let go of the fears and start really creating a world that we want to live in.

So thanks for watching please like and share. If you have an opportunity.

I’ll talk to you soon.
M

gift

The Gift

By Michael Harris, PhD

The Gift

(this is an A.I. translation so I hope it’s fairly accurate)
This Gift, we’ve received, has been an interesting place to be. There are lots of options, the creation of new behaviors and opportunities. We’re also doing lots of activities that they wouldn’t normally do because they’d be living their life or going to work. And I thought I’d talk about you know some of these opportunities.

I had an opportunity last week to contact my teenage daughter and said, Hey, would you like to get together for 30 minutes and color? And, yeah, trust me. I don’t call her a whole lot, but we got together and we colored and it was calm and it was peaceful and I said hey you want to do that again. And then we did it again and again. And I have a coloring appointment with my 13-year-old today at 130 or 120. And we’re going to call her. and just hang out and visit,

and the options that we have, you know, to hang out with our kids and to talk with our kids is really kind of this gift that I’m talking about, you know, for the first time in 100, years, children have the opportunity to see what it is that their parents do for work or for a living, and how they make, you know, how they make their way. And I’m thinking about Robert Bly, who wrote a book called iron john I’ll post that in the links. It’s an interesting story about the maturation of young men into young women.

It’s an awesome book and one component, or one sentence that has always stuck out to me in that book is it when a child doesn’t see what their parents do during the day, you know like we’d go to work and we’re gone all day and we come back and we’re exhausted or we’ve had all these experiences that our kids don’t know about.

There’s a hole that develops in their heart and there’s like a level of just an unspoken mistrust of what is happening and I think that we have this huge huge chance to include our children in activities that we would normally take for granted.

When my teenager was younger I and I was living out in the country. You know I would build stuff and I always asked her if she wanted to participate and sometimes she would, and sometimes she would not.

But she had an opportunity to work with me and I actually had an opportunity to work with her so one of the things that, that, that I might encourage you to do is set some time aside and ask your kids what do you want to cook.

Have them make a list or have them look up a recipe and then go to the store with them, or go to the store and get the stuff that they have requested and let them cook and let them participate in a way, or have them built up you know there’s definitely girl activities and boy activities, you know not trying to be doing gender splicing but hanging out with my daughter and coloring and stuff like that seems a lot easier than just having a phone call, or a video call or some doing some something together. And I noticed that when my daughter and I were building stuff together, it was easier because we were equal. And they thought that I had.

While I was prepping for this is when I had a personal training business.

Occasionally, I would get a parent, and a kid, it could be a dad and a daughter a dad son or a mom and a daughter a mom, and a son. But one of the things that I did with them, right up front, was set up the parameters of how we were going to train how to how we were going to interact and I would ask the parent I said how much you know how much exercise experience do you have and you know their answers would vary from, you know, a lot to none at all.

And I said, Okay, well, in, no matter what their answer was, I said in this particular case. Okay. I’m the expert and I’m going to be telling you what to do and I’m going to be telling your son or daughter, what to do. And my request is that you do your workout. And you let them do their thing, and I’ll be watching you and if you’re helping. I’ll tell you to cut it out.

And I’ve done the same thing. Now that you know I’m doing hypnosis is frequently, particularly when I work for USA Gymnastics but, you know, even today that I’ll get a teenager I’ll get a young adult that comes in with their parent. And I’ll ask them a question. And you know trying to turn to get to know them and figure out why they’re there, and I’ll ask them a question and they’ll immediately go and look at the parent.

The very first thing that I say to them is, what are you looking at them for, they don’t know your answer. The other thing that I find does pretty amazing is I’ll ask you know the the the teenager or the young adult a question, and their parent will respond.

And that’s what I look at them and say if you answer one more time. I’m kicking you out of the office, and it’s an opportunity, kind of like the like this cooking or building stuff opportunity where for the first time.

The young adult or the child has reached an equal status with the parent.

I also did that with all of my older kids I have, I have up like 40-year-old adult kids and stuff, but I invited them to get to know me, you know they know me I’m their dad. Okay, I’m the guy that told him what to do or what not to do, and all that stuff, but when they became adults. I said, we need to work on our adult relationship and I said the same thing, only much sooner, to my teenager, she’s you know she’s 13, and it’s like we need to begin working on our adult relationship. Because you know I’m always going to be your dad, but I’m not always going to be your parent.

So just a short video today but I want you to think about what is it that you could be doing with your kids or your grandchildren. What could you be doing with your adult kids because you’ve never taken the time to establish an adult relationship with them, you know if I’ve been going to a Saturday happy hour, you know, it’s like, what do you invite your adult kids to your happy hour or do you have one. So the last thing I want you to think about today is how are you going to be using this gift.

What are you going to take with you?

What are you going to leave behind?

What are these options and new behaviors and opportunities that, that we have now? Are you going to take it with you?

And, you know, send me an email, you can or, you know, go to the website and you can message me there you can message me on almost any social media, 

and you know if you need some ideas on stuff to do. I’m your guy.

And if you just want to talk. I’m also your guy. I’ll talk to you soon.

triggers 3

Triggers part 3

By Michael Harris, PhD

Triggers part 3

Transcription

(this is an AI transcript)

Triggers part 3

Good morning co-creators

today we’re going to do part three of triggers. And this is going to be more along the lines of, like a coaching type process.

And the real difference between coaching and hypnosis for me is that you will be doing the work, rather than me inducing trance.

And this process comes from a book

I highly recommend this book it’s called the power of TED I’ll post the link to it in the, in the, in the translation.

And it’s basically a metaphor, and a process about getting out of the victim triangle.

In general, when we have things that happen in our lives. We either perceive them as challenges, or, or growth.

But we can also see them from the perspective of being a victim.

And we’re going to go through three different diagrams.

And the first diagram that we’re going to do is called the victim triangle. And I’m going to put a picture up here,

so that you can see that there’s a triangle, and there’s three little circles. And the V down to the bottom stands for victim, the P stands for perpetrator the person who is victimizing you, but it could also be a situation. It could be an environment, it could be an illness, it can be an injury. And then the R stands for rescuer.

 

And it’s an interesting aspect that frequently, the rescuer. Tough well-intended ends up being a perpetrator.

Kind of like people who got bullied became bullies

And the reason behind that it when you read the book is you’ll discover that the rescuer is rescuing, so they don’t have to feel like a victim.

But I don’t want to spend too much time on that, you can read the book.

So as you’re looking at this triangle.

What I’d like you to do is think about a situation or a time in your life, in which that you felt bad or you felt less than, or you felt like a victim.

And when you think about that scenario, who or what was the perpetrator. We could use the analogy. Right now in this situation, let’s say that you had a job, you know, it’s just a job, you don’t really love it.

But you didn’t want to go look for another one. The money’s Okay, and now you don’t have a job or you’re working from home. Okay, so in.

In this particular case, the rescuer.

Is this shutdown that we’re having now we haven’t taken any time to identify the perpetrator maybe, maybe the perpetrator is you have a crappy boss or you have, you’re bored. Or maybe you have a co-worker and that you don’t really like okay so there’s you as the victim your perpetrator is whoever or whatever the situation is and the rescuer is our COVID shut down.

And now you’re stuck at home. And, or you’re out of a job. And you see how the rescuer can become the perpetrator.

And you can use this in any type of scenario that you want and just take a few minutes to like parse out, you know, who’s the victim, who’s the perpetrator. And who’s the rescuer and this could be a situation in which you are the perpetrator and you victimize somebody else or you are the rescuer. And now that person sees you as the perpetrator it’s really an interesting triangle, but I don’t want to stay here too terribly long.

So I’m going to put up another illustration. And this illustration is called the creator triangle and you can see that there’s a C for creator, and there’s a CH for challenger, and there’s a co for coach.

Okay, so if you put yourself back into the, into that same situation a minute ago where you had like a job that was, you know, less than ideal. What needs to happen here is, is a paradigm shift in your thinking in your mind and your heart, that you created those by accepting a job, maybe you needed a job and you had to accept it.

But, in one aspect, you created this situation. And the challenge, or the challenger is, you know, that you really don’t like your job or the pay is low or you have a tough boss or you have an interesting co-worker. But if you shift your thinking to rather than thinking of them as perpetrators, think of them as a challenger you had this goal and maybe that goal was, you know that you knew that you wanted a job so that you could make a living so that you could go on vacation, have a house, and all the same. And that’s what you really created.

Because you need to think about what it was that you originally wanted to create. And now I want you to shift over to the challenger okay and frequently challenges, the way that they work is they’re kind of deconstructing or trying to deconstruct your goal. But if you start thinking in terms of okay what is it that they are challenging you to do, or they challenge you, challenging you to think about whether this job is worth having or no not or not, you know, having a great life and having a home to live in and being able to take care of your family, that’s a great goal, but it doesn’t have to be at this particular job that could be the challenge and challenges, maybe you need a better job. The challenge could be that you need to learn how to communicate more effectively and or stand up for yourself, you know to mark your territory and say, you know, I won’t move forward from this point.

That’s how a challenger functions in the coach. If you think about your challenger let’s say that your tough boss or your interesting coworker, and you shift them over into the coaching segment. What is it, they’re trying to teach you. And what is it they’re trying to make you aware of because the purpose of a coach is to empower you.

So that you can achieve your goals.

The purpose of a coach is to point out your blind spots. And if you think about this, this interesting coworker or this challenging boss. Maybe they know you can do better. Maybe they know that you can do a better job, or maybe they know that this job that you have that you really don’t like isn’t a good fit.

Because the dream or the goal that you created is big. And maybe this job that you have, or had was small. So the next illustration that I’m going to show you is kind of like a star pattern.

And you know, I’ll put it up on the screen, so that when you think about that situation. Again, that made you feel bad because you had a job or you had a challenging situation where you’re in the victim status, I want you to imagine that you can move, literally shift yourself from victim to creator. Think about what it is that on a larger scale that you are trying to create, I mean we all need to work.

But do we just work to work, or do we work to create a life? And take a moment or two and think about what you’re attempting to create.

Okay and then think about your challenges.

Okay, what challenges are they work-related challenges are their health-related challenges are they stress-related challenges, even this COVID virus can be viewed as a challenger, how do we become better people. because of our challenges because of our challengers. And then you, you take your perpetrator. And you move them to challenger space.

And then the last aspect of this is your coach. Okay, the rescuer in that other triangle, you know somebody who’s trying to rescue you so they don’t fall into that victim trap okay if you started viewing that person or that situation or that environment As a coach.

What is it that this coach is attempting to empower you to do, you know, maybe you do need another job. Or maybe you need to take your job more seriously maybe you need to take a leadership role and you just been coasting along. And today’s that day. And today’s that day that you decide that from this point forward that you’re not going to coast anymore you’re in or you’re not going to remain silent when it’s time for you to speak up that you’re going to claim your space and your territory.

And I just want you to kind of like go through this I highly recommend reading the book it has an interesting metaphor and takes you through a process that you’ll when you get to the end you’ll go Oh, now I know understand what he’s talking about. But if you’re one of those people like me I mean just, I want to know what the steps are.

And that way I can figure out, figure out the steps for myself.

And when you’re doing this process.

As with the other two processes pick something that is a little, you know, low priority, you know whether you know if you fix it great. Or if you change it, great and do this a couple of times, so that you know how this process works. So that when you tackle that big, you know, number one thing that you’ve got like in the wings and you’ve always wanted to change the outcome of that one thing that happened.

You’ll have the skill sets to do it.

And I hope that you guys have a great weekend.

I think I’m going to mow my yard. And as always, you know I’m going to be around the house, so if you want to message, message me just message me on Facebook, or you can message me on YouTube, or you can go to my website, Dr. Michael Harris, calm and sign up for a free 15-minute consultation. And I’ll talk to you on Monday. And remember, you are a co-creator.

triggers

Triggers Part 2

By Michael Harris, PhD

Triggers Part 2

Transcript
(this is AI  transcription so I hope it’s accurate)

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Good morning co-creators today we’re going to talk about triggers Again. we’re going to talk about triggers part two. And we’re going to use a technique that’s called timelines.

So I’d like you to think about something that doesn’t have to be the worst thing ever, but something that when it shows up in your life or when you think about it, it just doesn’t make you feel very good.

And I just want you to like pick out something and make a movie of it.

Now, once you’ve made the movie.

I want you to imagine that you can make that movie, black and white, you know, like those old movies, you know, black and white movies that you know the Keystone cops or whatever. Three Stooges. And we’re going to do some interesting stuff because I think the most important therapeutic tool that you can have on your desk is post-it notes.

So get out some post-it notes and I want you to get four post-it notes.

And on the first post-it note, I want you to write feel good.

And on the last post-it note. I want you to write feel good because everybody needs to feel good, right?

And then the other two one of them says start.

And the other one says end.

And I want you to spread them out on the floor, where they feel good at the start, are about a foot apart, and then whatever length of time that your movie is. And then you put your post-it note that says and down on the floor. And then right past that is feel good.

And what I wanted to do is to emphasize how important it is, when you’re doing change your work or you need to make a decision, or you decided to alter your life in some way. Generally, the way that people do that is, they get stressed out or they put themselves into a bad mood or whatever it is that they’re feeling. But you know, we make better decisions when we feel good.

So, I want you to try this, I want you to just take a breath in, hold it in relax your body and just allow your eyes to close and feel really good feel really relaxed, you know, think about something like really pleasant playing, you know, with your children or petting your dog or you’ve just completed a project of some sort, you feel good.

Maybe you just woke up from a nap.

And I want you to take that feeling, and step on to that posted note that says feel good because we’re going to come back to this over and over, then I want you to take a breath, relax your body, and feel good.

And then I want you to go all the way down to the end where that other feel good, post-it note is. And I want you to stand on top of or with your feet on either side of that other note, and take a breath and feel good.

So for the next part of this experiment, what I want you to do you remember that old black and white movie. All right, so we’re going to stand on that feel good, post-it note.

And then we’re going to walk through this black and white movie, and you’re just going to walk walk walk walk fairly quickly. And then all the way to feel good.

And when you get to the field good post it now.

You feel good, and you’re relaxed. Now here’s the fun part. Now, we’re going to go from feeling good and we’re going to walk back through this movie, and this, and we’re going to do it fairly quickly. But there are movies in college, you’re going to walk backward, backward, backward, backward, backward, backward, backward, all the way to the field good.

and I want you when you’re walking I want you to tilt your head slightly, you know, like we’re kind of like looking at the upper portion of the wall may be the ceiling.

Okay. And we’re going to do that again. So we’re going to take a breath. We’re going to feel good. And we’re going to walk through this black and white movie fairly quickly walking, walking, walking, walking, walking. Okay, we’re back and feel good.

Take a breath and walk backward.

All the way to feel good. once again. Okay, step off the timeline.

And this time. Step back on the field good you know what to do take a breath. You relax you feel good, and this time when you walk the timeline. I want you to walk through the movie. Looking at the ceiling. You can’t really see what’s going on in the movie because you’re walking through the timeline ceiling and now you’re feeling good.

And then you walk back through the timeline.

Now, we’re going to turn facing the line of the timeline, you’re going to turn to the right. So now the timeline is on your left. And you’re going to take a breath. And you’re going to feel good. And you’re going to walk to the left, to the left, to the left all the way to feel good. And then you’re going to walk back to the right, to the right, to the right, all the way back to feel good, and then step off your timeline.

Now, what we’re doing is we’re jumbling your mind’s memory of this experience. And then the last thing that we’re going to do is step back, step back on your timeline step back when you feel good. Take a breath.

And this time, I want you to skip all the way down to feel good. And then, if you can do it. I want you to skip back all the way back to the beginning all the way back to feeling good. Now By now, you should feel like kind of abused or you know, yeah we’re being silly, but when you think about that event. Has it changed?

And when you think about that event.

How would you like to remember it? Would you like to remember it as a non-event?

Would you like to remember it as a learning experience?

You know, maybe there’s some aspect that you hadn’t noticed before that you’re noticing now.

That was, you know, it was unfortunate, it was, or it was stupid, or it never really needed to happen. Or maybe you just don’t need to spend any time thinking about this.

I had an experience like this. Way back you know like in my 20’s it was something that had really bothered me. And this was before timeline techniques were. And so we just did it, we just did it visually.

so, if you don’t have time to walk on your timeline and stuff. Here’s another way to do this is you know you think of something that, you know, is bothersome or troubling to you.

And you make a movie about it.

And I want you to take that movie with you and go, you know, to the movie theater. And we’ve done this technique before I want you to sit in the front row. And then I want you to float. Take your movie with you and go to the back row. So that you can see you sitting down front by the big movie screen. And then I want you to float up into the projection booth, as we did before, and take your movie with you. So that when you’re loading your movie into the movie projector, you can see that year that’s sitting in the back row.

And you can see that you that’s sitting in the front row.

And then what I want you to do is to adjust the projector so that when you turn it on, not yet. But when you turn it on, it plays that movie in black and white. And I want you to set it up, a certain way because we went to all the trouble of you feeling good. So, the beginning of the movie there’s you feeling good.

And then the movie goes black and wide and it goes through whatever it was that you were experiencing until the movie ends and then it turns back into full-color of you feeling good. And when the movie comes to an end, I want you to reverse the projector and run it backwards as quickly as you can all the way to the point where you’re feeling good.

And then what I want you to do is to run this movie forward and black and white, and backward in color forward and black and white back in color, just as many times as you can. And what you’re going to notice just like those old films, they, they started to wear out and every time you run it forward and run it backwards. It starts wearing down and it’s wearing out and it’s wearing thin, to the point where, you know, the film is beginning to break apart. Until finally, finally, the film breaks.

And there’s just those two pictures of you feeling good at the beginning.

And you feeling good at the end.

And the question that I have for you is, what kind of movie do you want to put in the middle. You know our reality is completely made up. You know you have a certain name and a certain career, and you live in a certain part of the world. And this reality that we have is completely manufacturer. So one of the things that I’d love for you to take away from watching this video today, is you can manufacturer. A new reality.

So if I could wave my magic pen and you could create a brand new reality.

And you could make a movie of it.

What would that movie look like? what would it feel like ? what would it sound like?

And if you want to put smell and taste in there you can do that too. But we literally have the ability to create any experience that we want.

And that’s called change.

So think about this.

Listen to the video a couple of times. If you need any help with this you can always message me but try this out today. Put your memory down on the floor On post-it notes,

and make sure that you have two places that you get to feel really good. And you can run through this and run through this and go forward and backward and skip through it and seeing or sound like Mickey Mouse or do whatever it is that you want to change the outcome of this experience.

And tomorrow I’m going to do. The third part of this, which is going to be a different technique, but I want you to give this a try. Have some fun with that.

triggers

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triggers

Triggers Part 1

By Michael Harris, PhD

Triggers Part 1

TRANSCRIPT:
(it’s an AI transcript some there may be some typos and double words)

Triggers

Today’s video is going to be about triggers. And it seems to be a really popular word. In the ’80s. When I was learning NLP, triggers were called anchors really are really all they are is conditioned emotional responses that we have to certain sounds, certain things that we see or certain things that we feel

And what I wanted to talk about today is how we manage those emotions, we’re in really close proximity with other people. And I’m hoping that your desire is the same as mine, which that our closeness with other people are in close proximity with other people,

Or brings us to a deeper level of communication, rather than further away. So over the next couple of days, I’m going to talk about several ways to manage the way that these triggers work.

I had an experience last night I was talking to someone on zoom. And I noticed that they said something, and then I saw a facial expression and then I heard them laugh.  

My reaction was, that I no longer talking to that person I kind of like flashed back to several experiences that I had when I was a kid. And this is the perfect textbook explanation for what triggers are, it’s something happens or somebody says something or you hear a song, or you look at a picture, and you’re immediately teleported back to where you were when that event happened.

And the reason that this works so well is that all of our conditioning or all of our responses are actually emotionally based. And this is called state-dependent learning. So if you were in a good mood when you were in school, you know You’re happy you can remember all the things that you learned in school. And you know, if you’re like some of my friends who, you know smoked weed every day. They probably don’t remember school all that much because they were high all the time. But my guess is that every time they’re high, or if they still do that sort of thing that they can remember every single solitary experience that they had.

So today we’re going to talk about triggers from the aspect of three ways

Number one is lengthening your movie.

Which is what I’m talking about for the rest of this video

Number two is going to be a process that I learned in NLP about taking an event and literally wearing the memory out so that you can make a new choice or just get rid of it because it no longer serves you.

And then the third is going to be a technique that’s based on a book that I recently read called the power of TED.

But I’m going to start with “lengthening your movie”.

Lengthening Your Movie

And this comes from a story. Richard Bandler (co-founder of NLP) likes to tell during his seminars about an event. And you know, it doesn’t really matter if it’s true or not. It’s a great story. He’s saying that he’s staying in a hotel room and he hears a really big ruckus in the room next door or down the hall and he goes down the hall and knocks on the door and the door is cracked open this guy looks so looks out and you know he looks really freaked out and Bandler says can I come in?

and the guy lets him in, This in this hotel room is just completely wrecked. And in a real, calm voice, Bandler says, you know the police are coming.

And if you calm down and act reasonably, you’re probably or only going to go to jail for a little while. And if you don’t calm down, you’re probably going to go to prison for a long while.

So he’s talking to this guy and what he’s trying to do is to get him to think about his actions. And, you know, I’m pretty sure that this guy was on some kind of drug or whatever. But you don’t have to be on drugs to have this type of powerful response.

But he was telling him to imagine the worst possible scenario. You know, where he goes to jail, and his wife divorces him and he’s not allowed to see his kids… ever

This story just continues on and on and on, you know, he loses his job, he doesn’t have a place to live. He lives on the street. And his health begins to fail. And it just keeps on going getting worse and worse, all the way to the point of, he’s lying in the gutter.

And he’s just about to pass away.

And just at that moment, a dog comes up and pees in his face

And, you know, I know that sounds kind of crazy, but basically what he’s done and what I’ve done while you were listening, is I’ve lengthened this movie to a point where it’s a worst-case scenario.

And in general, I don’t do worst-case scenarios, but in this particular example, doing worst-case scenarios are a very effective way to go to a threshold.

Because going to a threshold is a very effective way of getting the mind to interrupt this pattern that you’re doing. Most people, when they are triggered. They have the experience of whatever it is that they’re feeling or seeing or hearing. But it kind of stays in a loop right in that space.

And by lengthening your movie.

You can see some of the possible consequences of continuing this behavior in this loop.

But people don’t think about that.

They just do whatever it is that they do without, you know, checking outside, to see what other people are doing how they’re reacting how their experience is.

So, let’s do this again, think about something that gets you all wound up, makes you sad makes you angry, whatever. And this time, I’d like you to think about this behavior. Going to its worst-case scenario,

you lose your job or your spouse files for divorce or your adult or teenage children make a decision never to speak it to again.

How would that feel? What would be your response?

And just think about that for a moment or two. And then, let’s rewind the movie

and do it again. So you have a response. And it goes to the worst-case scenario, and your spouse files for divorce or your adult children or teenagers, never speak to you again.

And if you’ll play this movie over and over a couple of times. Notice how you feel.

And hopefully your responses. No, I don’t want to do that. Okay, so let’s have you step out of the movie and rewind it and go all the way to the beginning of the movie in which it’s just one second.

Before you have this response and I want you to have a visceral response to this trigger so basically what we’re doing is we’re conditioning, a trigger to stop you from doing this other trigger. That’s one way of doing it.

Another way of doing it is where you run this movie over and over and over and over until it until, it’s so conditioned, that you know what’s going to happen. If you ever do this behavior. Again, and I’m going to stop for now.

And let you think about that, so we’ll go through the steps, one last time before I say goodbye.

And, you know, think about something that really gets you going. You know and think about what the conditions are about that somebody says something, or they have a certain expression on their face that means something to you.

And then take a few minutes to lengthen your movie.

And then go through it, you know, most people, they just need to go through it, you know, a couple of times. For me, it’s like three times, but the average is somewhere between two and five times of running this movie, in a way that reminds you that you have a choice that you can choose to be happy, you can choose to be sad. You can choose to be angry. Or you can choose to be completely neutral. I’ve used this technique, Several times, and it seems to work pretty well.

Occasionally you might get surprised by an unexpected context and stuff. But, you know, we all get angry and we all get sad and we all get surprised and everything, but I think that one of the things that you will begin to notice, if you’ll take the time to do this process is that when you find an anchor or a trigger.

The person that is, you know, unintentionally firing that trigger off.

You should thank them.

Because you didn’t know it was there and now you do.

And the really fun part about hypnosis and NLP or coaching, whichever you prefer, is that once you know about something, you can change it.

And you’ll notice that I didn’t say “fix it” because you’re not broken. You just have a strategy that’s been conditioned in a certain way to a predetermined response. And now you can choose what type of response that you’d like to have instead.

Conclusion

So, take some time with this thing, you may have to listen to this video a time or two to get the steps. I’ll post the steps in the, in the YouTube in the comments, or not comments in the description. So it’s one.

Think about a common response that you have. That’s negative, based on something somebody says, or something that they do, or something that you see.

Think about what that response is the implications of that. And then take it to the worst-case scenario. And when you’re finished making this movie. Run yourself through this movie, a couple of times and give yourself an opportunity to really feel what these consequences might feel like.

And once you’ve run yourself through these consequences several times. You can make a new choice.

So please like and share this video if you found it to be valuable, or send it to somebody who really needs to hear this.

And I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

Michael

 

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