Hypnotherapy for Confidence and Self Esteem
What is self esteem? A number of things define those individuals who have confidence and healthy self esteem. They trust their own judgements; they have a healthy, realistic and positive opinion of themselves and feel comfortable about how and where they fit into the world. They are confident of their own abilities and views. They are able to evaluate their own worth and to know what it is about them that makes them unique, important, of value. Those with low self esteem often put themselves down, feel unable to stand their ground, and are more likely to suffer from stress and anxiety, sometimes feeling overwhelmed and unable to cope with every day life. They have difficulty accepting compliments and feel they have not done well compared to others. Rather than feeling confident of what they have achieved and experienced in life they are more likely to be pre-occupied with their flaws and weaknesses. They often describe themselves as suffering from terrible shyness. Because of this they often feel a need for frequent, if not constant, reassurance. Low self esteem can result in individuals lacking the confidence to make changes in their lives, as they believe that they are unlikely to succeed – another feature of low self esteem is a fear of failure and of being seen to fail, and so it they often tell themselves that it is easier not to even try. They cannot face what they see as the embarrassment of failure.
If you suffer from low self esteem, have problems with confidence or suffer from shyness, you may often compare yourself with others. Inevitably they will seem happier than you, as you are so preoccupied with worry, stress and anxiety. This comparison makes you feel even worse, and your confidence and self esteem drop further. Hypnotherapy can help you to break away from this self destructive pattern by enabling you to experience deep relaxation and to switch off from the constant worry of comparing yourself with others, worrying about what you say, self criticism, anxiety about how you look and what you do, and fear of change. Specific suggestions will also be made to you to enable to help you easily recognise those negative thought patterns which currently trouble you, and to replace those thoughts with positive, helpful and realistic thoughts by allowing you to focus without distraction (something hypnosis is particularly good at) on the specific qualities and attributes which make you what you are. Hypnotherapy and hypnosis help you to break free of the pattern of negative thoughts about yourself, allowing you to improve confidence, bolster your self image and to learn to give yourself the respect and approval you deserve. Hypnotherapy teaches you to value yourself, irrespective of the views or expectations of others, to enable self development and to help you to build confidence.
Shyness
If you suffer from low self esteem you may feel unduly self-conscious, worrying that others are noticing everything you say or do, or don’t say or don’t do. You may find that you repeat to yourself conversations you have had, trying to remember whether you said, or didn’t say, a certain thing, and feeling embarrassed or anxious at what you remember. You may be very, very conscious of what you say and how you act, leaving you unable to act naturally or feel comfortable when spending time with others. This can lead to a crippling shyness and lack of confidence in socal situations, which in turn leads to stress and anxiety. Those who lack confidence and suffer from low self esteem are more likely to suffer from a variety of anxiety related conditions, such as insomnia, eating disorders, anger and irritability, relationship problems, drug and alcohol abuse and even phobias – individuals who experience anxiety and stress are far more likely to develop a phobia than those people who are not anxious.
Anger and Irritability
Because many of those who suffer with self esteem issues and lack of confidence feel unable to express their opinions and say what they think, this can sometimes lead to expressing themself in an inappropriate way – for example, by finding fault, being overly negative, blaming others, loss of temper and irritability. Where there is a lack of confidence about expressing displeasure or rightful annoyance or anger, the feelings are bottled up and can eventually come out in an aggressive or irritable way. This then leads to further self-doubt and worrying about how their behaviour has been perceived. It is a vicious circle. If this is a problem then hypnotherapy and hypnosis for assertiveness training and anger management can help. This enables you to build confidence about social situations
Self Image
Some people with confidence and self esteem issues and who have difficulty with their self image can become overly critical of their own appearance. If this is a problem for you, hypnotherapy will help you to focus on ALL of your qualities, not just your appearance. Whilst you are in hypnosis you will be encouraged to think more broadly about human relationships and what it is about people which others really do find important; you will focus on the fact that people like other people as a package and be reminded that your looks are not the sole basis for attracting others. The interest which others show in us is not held very long by looks alone; it is other qualities which sustain long term relationships. The way you behave is more important than the way you look. Hypnotherapy enables you to internalise these thoughts, until they become second nature to you.
Build Confidence with Hypnotherapy
If you suffer from low confidence or have self esteem issues, hypnotherapy offers various ways to help you. Whilst you are in hypnosis you will be encouraged to focus on what it is about you which are unique and special; what it is about you that you value. So much feedback which we receive is negative – for the very obvious reason that many people don’t feel that they need to comment on something if it doesn’t need to be changed, and so the good things which we do can often appear to go unnoticed, as little is said about them. Many people simply think that because you appear competent and capable that you do not need positive feedback. It is therefore easy to focus just on the small number of things which we need to improve in our lives, rather than the vast majority which are perfectly ok as they are; also, we tend to take for granted the things we do well, because they are the things which to us are naturally easy or which we have spent time learning and developing. We don’t pay as much attention as we should to our skills and achievements, as after a while they simply become such an integral part of us that we no longer notice that those things are in fact special. It is easy to forget that those things which seem easy for us may seem to others to be difficult, challenging and to require skill and focus. Hypnotherapy will help to remind you of just what you have achieved and why those things are valuable.
