The herpes virus is very common, with millions of people experiencing either oral or genital herpes. Even after medical treatment, the virus can remain dormant in the body, with symptoms breaking out intermittently – often during times of stress (when the immune system is weakened).

But there is good news.

Some people, even though herpes is dormant in their bodies, never have outbreaks. Some people never experience any symptoms whatsoever after a while.

Many herpes sufferers notice that they only experience an actual cold sore when they’re under stress or exhausted. A German study carried out in 2005 found that regular self-hypnosis over a six month period not only helped people feel calmer, but also measurably reduced their herpes symptoms.

I worked with a man over a two month period for multiple trauma. Not only did his post traumatic stress disorder disappear, but when I spoke to him two years after treatment (he phoned to ask me to help a friend), he told me that he had not had a single outbreak of the herpes virus that used to plague him.

The symptoms of herpes can make us feel self conscious and, of course, less attractive, which is why the new hypnosisdownloads.com session Herpes treatment aims to greatly lessen and even stop the outbreak of herpes.

All the best

Mark

Some people just hate having their photo taken. Whether it’s because they believe they don’t look ‘nice’, or because they just can’t stand having to pose, or to be under the spotlight of attention, the heart can sink (or suddenly accelerate with anxiety) whenever someone whips a camera out.

Reluctance to have our image captured on film may be about not wanting to be seen (by who knows who?) looking ‘awful’, or even about a sense of loss of control. But I also think that the way celebrity images are pored over in the media, and any signs of natural aging or imperfection jumped upon, has influenced many – it’s really no wonder some people don’t feel comfortable with their image being ‘out there’.

But of course in years to come, when today’s enjoyments have become tomorrow’s dimly recalled and distant past, not being included in photos to show that you, too, partook of those experiences could be a source of deep regret.

I remember being astonished to discover that I had a great aunt I had never known about. She never allowed herself to be photographed, and nearly succeeded in erasing herself entirely from future family awareness and memory.

The new overcome fear of being photographed session for hypnosisdownloads.com is for people who really hate and/or fear the camera being pointed at them. And when you get to feel comfortable and confident about a very specific situation like that, the more generally confident you become as a person.

Mark

Downloads Unwrapped

Having a sense of control in one’s own life is one of the basic human emotional needs that we must seek to satisfy if we want to lead a healthy, balanced life. But it can happen that the pursuit of this need can itself get out of kilter, and then a whole new set of problems can arise.

Control freaks – is it possible to stop being one?

Control freaks seek to empower themselves at the expense of other people’s sense of autonomy. Irritating, intimidating and disempowering others might not be the control freak’s conscious aim but this is often the effect of controlling behavior. Control freaks might not be intentional bullies and are often very successful in certain areas. Where they tend to be less successful is in interpersonal relationships. Personal and work relationships are often areas of disappointment for the control freak – for two reasons:

• other people’s foibles, weakness and differences are not easily tolerated, so the control freak feels continually let down and disappointed
• other people eventually find it too hard to be in (any kind of) relationship with the control freak.

Control freaks seek see reality in very black and white, ‘all-or-nothing’ ways. For them “It’s my way or the highway!”. They’ll often find it hard to be spontaneous and may often experience a ‘sense of humor failure’ when things don’t go their way. They are perhaps more prone to experiencing depression when reality doesn’t exactly live up to their expectations. It’s great, of course, to have high standards, but excessive perfectionism indicates a serious lack of flexibility and adaptability. It’s such an imperfect way to go through life!

This month’s Stop being a control freak aims to help those (who are big enough) to see their own behavior as others might, and begin to ‘soften the edges’ of their ways of going about things so that more fun can be had and they can rub along much better with other people, for the good of all.

When you stop always being right you end up being more ‘alright’

And that sits nicely with another new session: Stop always having to be right – which, of course, is another common feature of ‘control freakery’. Someone once said: “No man knows less than the man who knows everything” and it’s a real sign of a closed mind when someone cannot even entertain the possibility that they might be a) mistaken about something or b) ignorant and uninformed about something. People who always have to have the ‘right’ take on something – even if, in reality, they know very little about it – are in a more risky position than they realize. This is because this attitude effectively blocks the intake of any fresh knowledge. The ‘know-it-all’ essentially feels they already know all there is to know. But there’s another consideration.

‘Always having to be right’ can be prompted by insecurity and anxiety. Often times when people learn to relax, open up and become more genuinely confident, then they become able to relax with uncertainty and can enjoy a double bonus of becoming instantly more socially skilled and able to genuinely learn.

People with low self esteem can be totally convinced they are right in their low opinion of themselves. So learning how not to feel you have to be right about everything can help people with diverse emotional difficulties from jealousy (where people assume they are right before any real evidence appears) to hypochondria.

Getting over emotional abuse is liberating in more ways than one

Controlling people may or may not intend to abuse people around them, but either way they may end up emotionally abusing others, and their victims may carry the effects of emotional abuse for many years. The third session I want to briefly mention is Emotional abuse recovery. One symptom of emotional abuse is ‘learned helplessness’ – this is where someone continues to feel constrained and threatened even though, in reality, this is no longer the case. For example, a woman abused in an earlier marriage may still feel anxious and frightened of any man, even though her new husband is perhaps much gentler and kinder than the abuser. So, in effect, she can still feel (and act) as if the abuse is current, even though it isn’t. Another effect of emotional abuse may be self blame. This can happen, for instance, when the abuser was very accusatory and conditioned their target to feel worthless or ‘wrong’ in some unspecified way.

Lifting the emotional effects of abuse allows people to stop being conditioned by past bad experiences and release themselves from any inappropriate self blame so that they can move on positively with their lives. And that is what this new session sets out to do.

Emotional abuse affects different people in different ways, but it always has an effect. What we mean by the words ‘emotional abuse’ can range from mild but prolonged mockery to major fear inducing threats and torment. Emotional abuse can include threats of physical harm or loss of something valued.

When people have been emotionally abused in the past they may show signs of ‘learned helplessness’, whereby they feel unable to act positively in the world, or problem solve effectively; in a sense, they feel as helpless now (even though really they are not) as they did when perhaps they were more helpless. So the little boy unable to go out and play with friends may, as an adult, feel unable to go out and socialize even though, in reality, there is no reason why he can’t.

People who are caught up in an abusive relationship often doubt themselves and feel afraid to take action. They need to be able to reconnect with who they were before the abuse started, so that they can either end the relationship or build up the strength to insist on new terms of engagement.

The new Escape from emotional abuse download at hypnosisdownloads.com works to help people put a stop to emotional mistreatment from others and to ease the old associations so life in the present can be enjoyed free from of the effects of past abuse.

All the very best

Mark

The words ‘unrequited love’ conjure up an intensely romantic, even ‘poetic’ image of noble suffering. But the reality, the actual experience, can seriously interfere with the workings of people’s lives. Loving someone intensely without being loved in return (or even spared much thought at all) can lead to sleeplessness, anxiety and feelings of hopelessness and depression. Distracting thoughts of the longed-for person can prevent you from focussing on work or friendships and make life seem a lot harder – even totally joyless – without this person in your life.

The thinking style that comes out of feeling unrequited love is very ‘all-or-nothing’ – “Without this person my life is meaningless!” Putting all one’s eggs in one basket is always a dangerous strategy. “If I could only have this person with me then all my problems would disappear!”

Unrequited love seems in some ways an old-fashioned notion, but huge number of times it shows up on internet searches indicates that it is a timeless human concern. You never hear of people consulting their doctor because they’re suffering from ‘unrequited love’, but we realize that this is a very real problem for some, which is why we’ve had the Unrequited love download available on hypnosisdownloads.com for a while. It’s proved so useful to so many that this month we’ve taken it in hand and improved and added to it for even greater effect.

The relief of no longer about someone, the sheer sense of freedom that comes from no longer feeling that life without them is not worth anything, is, we think worth its weight in gold.

All the best

Mark