Surviving the Teen Years

Teen years are times for hormones, growth & change, so it's not uncommon to find many disorderly eaters still locked in the emotions & behaviors found in this area of their memory bank. One doesn't have to look far to find these. Check the picture box on the left & see if you recognize any part of your self that has been carried over to your current adult!... Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht

The workshop I presented last night was quite interesting in this regard. I asked Jennifer to attend because she has been working so diligently with interactive self-hypnosis & automatic journaling to uncover her earlier childhood patterns. I wanted to give her progress a boost by helping her explore some of her teen experiences. As I've come to know more of her childhood drama, I felt fairly certain that she would uncover the source of her rebellious nature in her teen years. This would be very important for her because it is that very rebellion that is getting in her way to better manage her compulsive & emotional eating issues.

MIND EXERCISE

I'd like you to relax deeply into the moment. You are all familiar with this exercise, but this time I'd like you to deepen your relaxation a bit further. Close your eyes lightly at the lids & move your eyes to the right..... to the left.....up slightly.....& now down slightly.....& back to the slightly up position. Leave them in this comfortable slightly up position, as you sense magnets pulling you down gently into the chair. Locate your mind screen & place a golden frame around it.

Notice you are in the library of your mind. Your subconscious mind librarian is over there & you are visiting the pre-teen & teen areas of your library shelves. Notice that there are many books & video programs here, all available to you for past-editing & future-pacing. Notice how relaxed you are about working in this particular area.

Now take your teen health book off the library shelf & open to the early teen pages. Begin reviewing your history as in your childhood book. Revisit your body through mental biofeedback. Notice you stay in your adult mature Self while visiting your teen body & mind. Look at the complete you. Without judging, choose to pay close attention to the details of the complete you. If you find this difficult, you might like to encircle the complete you with compassion for your Self. Lots of self-image & self-esteem issues can live here, in fact many originating here. Keep in mind that you are the non-judging, adult-mature visitor who's sole purpose is to nurture & assist this part of yourSelf to heal beliefs or behaviors that are getting in your way.

You might like to open these files & relax into them before editing.. I suggest you take a few moments to re-introduce yourself to the teen Self on the screen. No need to rush.. Remember, it's been a long time since your last visit. Your teen Self has much to share with you & will be willing to do so as long as you are non-judgmental. Indicate that you care deeply about helping & making things better. While you are on a fact-finding mission, if you feel that the time is right, gently point out what your mature-adult Self would like to change & why. Invite your subconscious librarian to gift you with further information. You can work with your automatic writing journal or self-speak your interview.

JENNIFER'S INPUT

I can understand that my behaviors could be carried forward, but what about my food choices during those years. Are they responsible in any way for my out of control desire to eat sugar & junk foods?

Whenever we eat something our body responds to it. Food preferences definitely have emotionalized memories attached. Even the way something is prepared can change our inner programming & either desire or dislike. Think about hot dogs at a baseball game, hot chocolate after ice skating, milk shakes at the corner hangout, etc. These memories are not just about the food. In fact, you might not even like those foods anymore or perhaps you didn't like them then, but it was the whole experience.

In stress-eating, we are often trying to get back those feelings & to feel those times again. When doing your assessment work, observe that you can revisit your “memory feelings”. Your memories have chemical codes on them & when you recall a memory, you also recall the chemical code. Later on you will learn about how these codes connect to your perception, & how you can change them to benefit yourself. So, you will be able to dissect the chemical code for the milkshake experience without the calories. As you master interactive self-hypnosis, you can even attach that chemical code to a healthier choice.

GETTING TO KNOW YOUR INNER-TEEN SELF

Take some time to go over these questions, preferably through automatic writing. Allow you pen just to flow on the page as you get out of your own judgemental way.

What was your perception of yourself when you were a teen? Did it remain the same through your teen years, or was there a change somewhere?
Looking at it from where you stand now, was your perception based on true facts or was it a false image?
What messages or beliefs were fed to you by others?
Were you involved in any addictions such as smoking or drinking?

Notice if there are any meaningful doctor visits or surgery & if so, spend some time relaxing into those files to see if any messages come forward from your subconscious mind. If you are a woman, look at the information concerning your menses. Did you have any difficulties such as PMS or irregular periods?

Now, go to visit the nutritional areas including regular meals, school eating, social eating & family preferences, as well as behaviors at meal times. Spend some time studying the details of the pictures, one by one.

Were you over-weight or did you believe you were?
Were you involved in bingeing or any other compulsive or emotional disorderly eating?
Any secret eating?
What were your favorite foods?
What about beverages? Have a look at sweetened drinks such as soda, also keeping your eyes out for artificial sweeteners.
Did you participate in meal planning or cooking?
Did your family eat together at a table, or did you eat alone or in front of the television?
Were mealtimes happy or stressed?
Did you use food as a stress-releaser?
Were there any rituals around this such as hidden or middle of the night eating?

KNOWLEDGE HOOK

As you self-explore different areas on your time-line, you will find specific knowledge to take forward into your current & future life. Here's a few of these....

Aside from emotional programming, there is the physiological responses. We get immediate feed-back to foods & beverages that can be positive or negative. Then there is habit building & the related outcomes. If you ate poorly for months at a time, of course the body will have specific outcomes related to that. This is seen clearly in yo-yo weight gain. You may not gain the weight over-night, but you do gain it. There are also other changes besides this that are happening. Chronic diseases do not happen over night. This is another example of long-term outcomes, so important to understand that your daily actions do matter.

This blog is the workshop for thoughtWARE Books. The series includes Help.....My Life is Killing Me - Lifestyle Change Made Easy, Beyond Disorderly Eating & Bingeing, Holistic Weight Loss , Sugar....the Hidden Addiction, Nail Biting & Skin Picking & Small Change - The Power of Interactive Self-Hypnosis. At the present time I am seeking an agent and/or publisher.

The Library of the Mind

All lifestyle change begins inside the subconscious mind library. It is here that all review & decision for change takes place. So let's not spend another moment just talking about it, for what is talk without action.....Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht

I'm going to present this material to you in Interactive Self-Hypnotic Imagery. It's easy to this. Simply decide to relax deeply into the chair where you are sitting. Pretend that magnets are gently pulling you down. Now image a big golden egg around you & your chair. You are now separate from anything & everything else. You are in your own private place on the face of the earth & it is from this place that you will begin to explore & change what calls to be changed. Now go ahead & continue reading.........taking your time.

The library of your mind is vast. You began collecting subconscious experiences & corresponding belief coats in the beginning of your life, even though you cannot consciously remember these. All coats & experiences, old or new, big or small can hold important information & keys to your success, as well as reasons for past failures.

You may have a desire or tendency to rush through this kind of self-detective work. Perhaps you even recognize this as a past behavioral trait of yours. This is a good example of Heightened Awareness. You may have uncovered an unhealthy source that leads to procrastinating or self-blocking. When you spot these tendencies, pretend that they are colored child-blocks, labeled with their name. Place them in a pile over there.

While it's just fine to scan through the thoughtWARE Book material to become familiar, don't fall into the trap of hurrying & not doing the detailed detective work. You will be cheating yourself & taking away from the quality of what you are capable of doing & perhaps even taking you down past roads of failure.

There is no easy road when looking to achieve high level health & optimum performance. If it were, more people would be experiencing it. This program offers you the opportunity to see & address your short & long falls, as well as your potential. As you build your commitment to this self-development work, you probably will want to review this area more than once so as to build on the already presented memories.

You probably know plenty of people who want to change something, but simply can’t figure out how or when to get started. Somehow it never seems to be the right time. Excuses abound that keep them engaged in procrastination. Perhaps you have had this personal experience & are wondering right in this moment if you can do this. This is another colored child-block called "doubt". It usually accompanies "lack of self-confidence." Do know that this time it will be different than before, because I’m going to help you get started & find your balance. In fact, you are already in the process because you are reading this.

It’s said that when a rubber band is stretched, it never returns to it’s original position, & so with reading material such as this. The actual process of reading engages your right brain, or subconscious mind & so inner motivators are already etching. Notice if you can sense them.

Throughout this inner detective work you will be activating the different areas with a light application of Interactive Self-Hypnosis. Managing health issues, addictions or getting to the heart of any problem involves the act of beginning. You must commit & step onto the merry-go-round of life. Life does not stand still & wait for you. So reach out & grab on to the golden ring. The ring is the catalyst for moving you out of procrastination & into the action of the merry-go-round of life. That's all you have to do.

Take a moment to relax deeper than before..... & just as if you were looking in a big filing cabinet, find the folder that contains your current lifestyle patterns. As your mind scans the material, notice that some appear familiar, but others may not be quite so clear. While you think you know yourself & how you spend your time, you are about to find out that you know less about yourself than you thought. That is because a good part of your day is spent in a very limited conscious state known as low-level awareness, or automatic pilot I call this is day-sleep walking, a form of automatic self-hypnosis.

There are many areas of lifestyle behaviors that are on automatic pilot. The areas in the box represent only a few. Perhaps you never thought about your behaviors or emotions in this way, but only by doing so is it possible to examine the behavioral tangents & then to ask the subconscious mind for help in changing these.

As you follow what I suggest, allow the images to form in your mind's eye. For example, it helps to imagine that each automatic pilot area has a separate folder in your subconscious mind. As you work with your personal assessment, you will be opening these folders & researching the many aspect of the automatic pilot programming. Some aspects may need to be deleted, changed or mind-edited in some way. Other parts may appear to be fine, but it's a good idea to review these anyway. Your subconscious librarian or inner coach may have suggestions to make these even better than before.

We all tend to think within certain boundaries & unfortunately when we do so, our innate creativity can be curtailed. Practice allowing your mind to open & flow. Each time you encourage creative thinking, your subconscious mind will apply this to other areas of your life. Very soon you will find yourself doing so on automatic pilot & this is a great creative self-gift.

While automatic pilot has some benefits, it also has drawbacks. When you are not fully awake you give up your rights to observe, assess & manage your choices. Instead, you are automatic programming in relationship to the goal in your mind, for whatever is in your mind is indeed a goal. For example, brushing your teeth is an automatic mind program. Most of the time you don't pay attention to where the brush is going & how well it is doing it's job. Suppose that you have a tendency to over-brush & injure your gums. This type of continuous abrasion can lead to some serious gum problems, so it becomes important for you to be be very awake during this self-care activity.

You are currently in the process of reviewing & perhaps editing lifestyle behaviors. Some of you may be managing addictions including sugar & its nicotine & alcohol partners. You may have disorderly eating patterns or other chronic stressors. Some of your automatic programs may be blocking your goals for a healthy life now & in the future, actually locking you in failure.

You may be wearing a belief coat that no longer fits or one that you never wanted in the first place. Perhaps it was given to you by someone who truly didn't want to succeed & imposed this on you. Keep in mind the Inner Mind Screen & Brain Cloud. Each time you reinforce any failure program, your subconscious mind sees this failure as your goal & the next time you will find it even easier to fail.

This personal assessment helps you self-organize both consciously & subconsciously. You will be evaluating your needs, both present & future, as well as viewing your weaknesses with the tool of detachment, allowing you to see without self-judgment, shame, blame & guilt. Here you will be uncovering the obvious, as well as your hidden resources known as resilience. You will be learning how to utilize these as stepping-stones for health, growth & development. Through the detachment tools you will be re-examining your past successful inner motivation programs, preparing them for current use.