As a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Strategic Psychotherapist, I am often asked by clients:
‘Is it too much to ask-all I want is to be happy?’
or they may say
“Is it too much to ask, all I want is to be successful.’
I inevitability ask the next question -what would happiness look like? Or what would success look like?
90% of the time they are unable to answer this question, or they might say something very global such as ‘having lots of friends’ would be happiness or ‘Having lots of money” would mean success.
One of the most influential authors that have impacted my life is Victor Frankl. He was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist and also a concertation camp victim during the second world war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl
He went on to write the book ‘Mans Search for Meaning’
This little book is packed with wisdom and has positively affected millions of people’s lives.
Below is an extract that I often quote to clients:
Don’t aim at success.
The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.
For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the
by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.
Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success.
People have become confused because of influences from media, and particularly social media, what is classed as a happy life or a successful life has been distorted.
In turn, our perception of happiness and success has also become distorted. We have forgotten that we have what we need to generate our happiness- whatever that may look like for you!
There have been many movies, distorting our perceptions even further. One that springs to mind is the Will Smith movie ‘Pursuit of Happiness,’ the title implies that happiness is something tangible that can be held in the hand.
When we use words such as happiness or success, they are what is termed nominalisations. They are concepts, they are not real, because unlike a table or a chair, they don’t exist and mean different things to different people.
I am sure that you know of someone who appears to have very little, for example, and yet appear happy, upbeat, and positive, and conversely, you may know someone that has much in life may be in terms of wealth or family and friends and yet is miserable.
How does this happen? How can this be?
Learning to understand your mind, the false stories that we can start to tell ourselves is how I work with clients. Using hypnosis and clinical hypnosis, we explore and change the underlying beliefs and unconscious strategies that have caused a person to get caught in a loop.
Hypnosis works with your unconscious patterns, habits, and beliefs. We work together, change the practiced habit that has caused the idea that happiness is an event rather than a process, and that happiness is a consequence of a way of living.
We work and shift from victimhood and blame belief to one where they take back control of their own life and happiness.
Using hypnosis, they learn that persuing happiness from some external event, always looking for the next big thing, or THE relationship where that perfect person will make you feel happy is a flawed strategy if what you are looking for is happiness.
So how do hypnosis and strategic psychotherapy teach you something new?
A much better strategy and approach is to design your own life.
How do you do this?-this This you do by the choices that you make today.
Over time the choices and the results of those choices will provide happiness.
Happiness like a flower starts as a seed planted in the infertile ground, but over time the ground absorbs nutrients, and the seedling sprouts until it blooms. This happens over time.
Happiness emerges from your choices and is not something that is chased.