June Thoughts

We’re Not at the Mercy of Our Emotions. We’re the Ones Creating Them

We sometimes feel as though our emotions 'just happen' to us or even ‘highjack’ us.

Science suggests otherwise.

According to modern neuroscience, emotions aren’t automatic reactions; they are constructed by the brain. This theory (according to neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett) suggests that the brain creates emotions by interpreting what’s going on inside and around us, based on past our experiences and beliefs. So we create our emotions based on our interpretations of events. That doesn’t mean they aren’t real and valid, they are. What it does mean is that we can find a way to control our emotions when we feel this would be helpful to us.

Anxiety, is an emotion, but it’s also a complex experience involving our thoughts, the physical sensations we feel and the way we react to those thoughts and feelings.

In psychology, it’s sometimes called an affective state, which captures the idea that it blends emotion with other mental processes.

Anxiety is the brain using its prediction system to imagine something, or maybe lots of somethings, going wrong. Intellectually we know we can’t predict the future, but in the right circumstances we give it a go anyway and often imagine a scary future of worst case scenarios based more on fear than fact.

Luckily, because these predictions are created by our own brain, we can influence them.

That’s where Solution Focused Hypnotherapy comes in.

Instead of focusing on what’s wrong, in SFH we shift our focus on what’s right, what is working well for us and on what we want instead of what we fear.

In the trance part of the session we "use hypnosis not as a cure but as a means of establishing a favourable climate in which to learn.” As Milton Erickson said.

Hypnosis is where the brain gets to relax and gets a chance to learn new patterns and ways to make healthier and more useful predictions. Over time and with repetition these new patterns become more familiar and natural.

Just like learning any new skill, the more we practise thinking in this way, the easier it gets. We train our brains to predict hope instead of fear. Confidence instead of worry. Calm instead of panic.

We’re not stuck with our emotions. We’re shaping them, and we can shape them differently.

#SolutionFocused

#solutionfocusedhypnotherapy

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