Rita Black: Have you ever tried self-hypnosis? It’s pretty cool to be able to focus your mind on the specific changes that you wanna make in a relaxed state, and yet so many people shy away from it because they feel like it’s too complicated or hard to do. So in this session of Thin Thinking, I am gonna walk you through an easy self-hypnosis structure that you can use to focus on your weight goals or other life goals as well. Stay tuned.

Rita Black: Did you know that our struggle with weight doesn’t start with the food on your plate or get fixed in the gym? 80% of our weight struggle is mental. That’s right. The key to unlocking long-term weight release and management begins in your mind. Hi there, I’m Rita Black. I’m a clinical hypnotherapist weight loss expert, bestselling author, and the creator of the Shift Weight Mastery Process. And not only have I helped thousands of people over the past 20 years achieve long-term weight mastery. I am also a former weight struggler, carb addict and binge eater. And after two decades of failed diets and fad weight loss programs, I lost 40 pounds with the help of hypnosis. Not only did I release all that weight, I have kept it off for 25 years. Enter the Thin Thinking Podcast where you too will learn how to remove the mental roadblocks that keep you struggling. I’ll give you the thin thinking tools, skills, and insights to help you develop the mindset you need, not only to achieve your ideal weight, but to stay there long-term and live your best life. Sound good? Let’s get started.

Rita Black: Hello, everybody. Come on in. Sit on down. I am finally settling into the summer, you know what I mean? I’ve been traveling around daughter’s graduation, then we went to Tennessee, see my friend, and then came home and, ugh, scrambling to catch up with everything. It seems like every time I go away, there’s just a zillion things to catch up on. And then there’s my garden. So I’ve been really enjoying my garden now that I’ve all caught up. And even today, my daughter and I spent some time out there. It’s nice to have her home and she, I was teaching her how to fertilize things, and it was just really fun.

Rita Black: I remember back in the day, back when I was a youngin, I mean really young, and we used to drive down from Seattle to Southern California where my grandparents both set. So my grandparents lived because they settled in Southern California In the early twenties or, or the mid Well, yeah, the, the late twenties, the late 1920s. And were here during the depression. But I remember traveling down in the sixties and seventies to my, my mom’s parents’ house. My, my father, my grandfather was such a great gardener, and I would, I remember waking up in their house. They have like a ranch style house down in San Diego. And back in the day when San Diego was just, you know, open fields and they had a pretty large lot that, you know, like stretched all the way back. And I just remember as a child that magical sort of, you know, when you grow up in a cold environment like Seattle and waking up on a warm morning and going out into the garden with my grandfather.

Rita Black: And he, you know, had the zucchinis and he had berries and he had cucumbers and he had all the, they had an orange tree and they made fresh orange juice and they had a lemon tree, and they would make lemonade, and my grandmother would pick up the dandelions and feed them to her birds. And she had all these canaries that she had. So it was just such a magical time. And that imprinted so deeply on my subconscious mind. I think I’ve recreated my or trying to recreate my grandfather’s garden. But anyway, I find every day I just wake up and I’m just so joyful to go out, you know, in the early morning when the sun is just rising, and to go out and check and see what has happened overnight. And the summer is such a magical time because it gets light so much earlier and I can check things out so much earlier and I’m, I’m like literally looking at my dahlias for when the buds are gonna, you know, appear and, and be ready to pop.

Rita Black: So, and I’m very grateful sitting here in the summer for you dear listeners as well. We just keep growing. Our podcast just keeps growing and I love it and I really love when you tell me things you would like to discuss. So today’s episode is dedicated to Kate Gonzalez who asked me to walk through how to use self-hypnosis to stay focused on her weight goals as well as her study goals as she’s studying for her MBA. Go Kate. And is also working part-time. So she’s a real go-getter. So thanks for this idea.

Rita Black: Self-Hypnosis is such a great mind tool. Many people I find shy away from it because they think it’s gonna be so hard or complicated, but it is really once you kinda wrap your mind around it, really easy once you get the hang of it. So I am going to share a workshop that I did a while back on self-hypnosis with you all today. And I hope you get some tools from that to start doing some self-hypnosis yourself. I think you’re going to love it. And while you’re at it, please subscribe to the Thin Thinking Podcast so that you never miss an episode and share it, share it people, share it with your friends, share the love. If you’re getting any value from this, please share it. I hope you share it with all those you love. Let’s make the world a healthier place, shall we?

Rita Black: Alright, so let’s hop into self-hypnosis 101. And Kate, this is for you. Okay, so what is self-hypnosis? So why I really think that at a certain point in your weight, man, those of you who are just starting and hypnosis is all new to you, you know, I would just say probably your best bet using the meditation in the morning, using the cell, the hypnosis sessions that you get. That’s great. You can go far. I think that there comes a certain point on your journey to weight mastery where it can be helpful to start to bring in some self-hypnosis so that you can get a little more specific with yourself on things that are holding you back in your journey. And, you know, because the more you work your inner coach and the more you get to know yourself, because this is a self-knowledge journey, right? This isn’t just a weight journey, but this is a journey of learning, a new way of communicating with yourself.

Rita Black: I feel like self-hypnosis adds to that because basically self-hypnosis is communicating with yourself, but on a deeper level. And really you know, as you guys have all been going through this journey of, of weight mastery, we’re, we’re learning that it’s not about being good, but it’s about learning to use your brain in the best way. And self-hypnosis can be just such a great tool to use your brain in the best way. So to, so, so what the definition of self-hypnosis or hypnosis a a procedure, which suggestions are given during a state of focused awareness. I think a lot of people think, well, how can I do self hypnosis? Because hypnosis is such a relaxed state. But the state of self hypnosis as you’ll see, because we’re gonna approach it two ways today, we’re gonna approach it from just doing the the structure of our morning meditation, but yourself and focusing on a specific maybe trouble area for yourself.

Rita Black: But we’re also gonna look at recording your own self hypnosis. You know, like and, and the, some of you, your, the hairs maybe raising up on the back of your neck. ’cause they’re like, I don’t wanna record my own voice, I hate it, but I assure you it will, it will actually be fun for you. If you decide to do this, you don’t have to do anything we’re suggesting today, but I just wanna open up your eyes to this is a powerful tool. So you are in a state of relaxed but focused awareness when you’re in a state of self hypnosis or when you are doing self-hypnosis. And think, did somebody ask a question for here? Hold on just a minute, I’m just gonna check.

Rita Black: No. Okay, so why self-hypnosis? So we don’t have to just use self-hypnosis for weight management. And believe me in the last year, I’ve used self-hypnosis for a lot of things for motherhood. And, you know, managing, you know, like how I’m reacting or being active in my, you know, relationships with my children in my marriage. I use self-hypnosis for my business and, you know, goals that I’m setting for myself. I use self-hypnosis you know, with my home and you know, you guys, I, you know, those of you who know me from the group I like to garden. I’ve gotten into garden gardening even more during covid. I have had some epic failures this year. I, but, you know, I’ve had some successes. So, but you know, like, I like to challenge myself in my mind with the things it, it, because I feel like self hypnosis is a great way to change your belief about yourself.

Rita Black: And, and, you know, we can’t just like hope to wake up one day and be completely changed in our opinion of ourselves. And we can’t hope to always just wake up and have those things that are holding us back in our lives, just, you know, magically change some of them do, you know, and hypnosis is a very powerful tool for change. But your being able to do that yourself and to notice like, oh, you know, this is a little area I could focus on in self hypnosis. It just gives you that power. And like I said, the more you can manage your mind, the more you are managing your mind rather than your mind managing you, Hey, all the better, right? So you can use self hypnosis to focus on a vision or a result. Like, you know, I had a vision of my drought tolerant English country garden in the front of my house, and it looks more like a drought has hit it an English country garden, but it’s getting there.

Rita Black: There’s, but I’m giving it some more love. But it’s getting there other than the, the, my epic failure with my hydrangeas, which, you know, if we can talk about hydrangeas later, or you can change a habit, right? Like you know, a lot of us are all have different specific like eating habits or exercising habits. You know, that’s something that you can use self-hypnosis for. You can use it just for relaxation. You can use it to work through problems. And that’s, you know, a lot of times when with my motherhood,I use self-hypnosis to work through challenges. When, when is the best time to use self-hypnosis? Well, gosh, it can be anytime. I like the morning the best. Why? Well, I think you guys all know that in the morning our brain is fresh and we’ve already been in a sleep state, so it’s, we’re already sort of in a relaxed trance state in the morning as we’re laying in bed.

Rita Black: So it’s a great time to practice self-hypnosis. But, you know, sometimes I’ll advise clients back in the day where everybody went to work and, you know, we had cubicles or offices, you know, I said, you know, shut your eyes and, and tune out for five minutes and think about how you want your afternoon to go with regards to your self-care. And, you know, if you don’t wanna end up snacking on chocolate, you know, like create that in your mind in, in a self-hypnosis session. Or think about when you wanna come home that night, how you want things to roll out. If you’ve been in a habit of coming home and, you know, going into the kitchen and snacking and then going, ugh, why did I do that again? You know? So the nighttime is also great before you go to bed. I like the nighttime for setting things that you wanna do in the morning.

Rita Black: Like if you wanna wake up and exercise in the morning, I think it’s great to do a self-hypnosis at night, you know, like, and visualize yourself getting up and getting out of bed and going and fulfilling your exercise and seeing you’re finishing the exercise and how that feels and oh, that’s gonna feel great and getting your clothes out and, you know, really using self-hypnosis to motivate and inspire yourself before you go to bed. Then your subconscious mind can kind of work on that at night before you go to bed. And so I have this little book by my bed and it kind of prompts me on all these kind of visions and goals. And I read a little paragraph every night before I go to bed, and so that I let that work and then I wake up in the morning and I listen to some self hypnosis.

Rita Black: So definitely I like to use my brain, you know, the best I can. So I, I, I really do encourage you, and, and like I said, I encourage you not just for weight management, because really life management is weight management, right? So if we’re, if it’s tax time and we’re stressed out about our taxes, or if it’s, like I said, like managing the relationships in my life is I see is weight management because when I’m stressed out about my kids or I’m, you know, if I’m not feeling like aligned with my husband, or if we just had a fight, how much easier is it for me to go and stress eat than it is, you know, when things are running smoothly and I’m feeling connected to my kids and connected to my husband? Well, you know it’s a lot easier and it’s a lot easier to manage your weight when your life is managed.

Rita Black: So, you know, really starting to, especially those of you who are reaching maintenance, because there’s a number of you guys in our group now that are reaching maintenance I think part of your weight maintenance is life maintenance, right? So starting to work, because as we start to solve those weight challenges, as that stops being so much what our focus is, then, you know, we’re expanding our vision broader to, because, because those things start to present themselves a little more too, because we aren’t so focused on weight. Those other things start to come up. And the the wonderful thing I think about a weight manage mastery journey is that then you start to master those things too, right? So it’s not just about weight, but it becomes this, this life mastery, especially because in your weight mastery journey, you have learned to manage your mind.

Rita Black: So there’s two parts to our workshop. There is the basic morning self hypnosis, which I’m gonna go through with you. Those of you who are listening in my group, you guys know this basic structure because you’ve been listening to the morning meditations in the monthly mastery program. But I wanna walk you through it so that you can focus or, you know, kind of do it for yourself and but add in a little change of things. Then the other thing, like I said, is to record your own self hypnosis session. And again, this could be for weight management, this could be for, you know getting your dog to, you know, not get up on the couch. Okay, so here’s the first part of your self-hypnosis and the morning self-hypnosis. And those of you who are not familiar with the morning self-hypnosis, because you’re just listening to the podcast why I believe the morning self-hypnosis can be very powerful is, like I said, one, you are already in a relaxed state, but most of us end up in those situations in our life, like the afternoon snacking or the night snacking or not exercising.

Rita Black: We are, if we are doing those things again and again and again, our brain is already in an automated pattern with that. Why hypnosis or self hypnosis in the morning or morning meditation is powerful, is that it gets your brain, it’s an interrupter, it interrupts your brain. It says, Hey we’re not gonna do that this today. We’re gonna do this other way today. So you’re giving your brain an alternative route because by the time you show up to the vending machine, it’s almost, or by the time it’s one o’clock and you’re thinking about that afternoon snack, the train has left the station, it’s gonna be almost impossible for you not to follow through with going to the vending machine or, you know, grabbing a snack out of the, the kitchen. Those, but making those pattern changes can happen in the morning because you are thinking those situations through, and you’re giving your brain like, instead of, you know, today when at one o’clock getting up and going to the vending machine I’m gonna sit at my desk, I’m gonna take a breath, you know, I’m going to take that apple outta my bag that I brought instead, and I see myself eating it and I’m loving it and enjoying it, and it’s juicy and it’s sweet.

Rita Black: And so you can see that you can give yourself that alternative route, and your brain now has somewhere else to go so that when you get there, your chances of following through on a new behavior are stacked far higher than they are had you just like fallen into your afternoon. So the thing about self-hypnosis is to practice self-hypnosis, right? So you are not gonna be perfect at self hypnosis at the beginning. And please put the perfectionist that self, the critic in the closet. And, and before you begin your self hypnosis, don’t just like kind of go into self hypnosis and like, I’m gonna do self, self-hypnosis, but have a purpose for your self hypnosis. Oh, I want to have a healthy day today. I wanna break that afternoon, snacking today. I want to you know, focus on my relationship with my daughter today.

Rita Black: You know, like whatever that thing is, you are going in with that purpose for that. And then you’re gonna take a deep breath and then you are gonna relax yourself. Now, like I said in the morning I am, when I do my self-hypnosis, I’m gonna be honest with you I take a deep breath and then I gain, I, I dive into my self-hypnosis. I usually have a recording that I made that I listened to, but I mean, it’s literally take a breath and then I begin because I’m so relaxed already and I wake up early and do it. It’s fine. Like, I’m relaxed enough to be in that state. So you might not need to super relax if you’re doing this in the morning, but if you’re doing this in the afternoon or the evening, you probably will need to relax yourself a little bit, right?

Rita Black: So here are three different choices that you could do to relax yourself. One, I really love ’cause it’s so easy, and, and we’ll practice this one ’cause we’ll practice a little self hypnosis session at the very end of this, but you’re just like tensing up your muscles really tight all the muscles in your body, and you’re gonna do this. You’re gonna tense, tense, tense, tense, tense, tense, and then you’re gonna let it go. And you’re gonna do that three times or more until you feel relaxed. You get relaxed pretty quickly doing that, especially if you’re lying in bed. So that is one of my favorite, like super easy, doesn’t require much thinking. Just tense your muscles up and relax ’em, tense your muscles up and relax ’em. If any of you guys have questions about what I’m talking about, please feel free to throw them in chat.

Rita Black: The next one is progressive body relaxation. Most of you guys probably are fairly familiar with progressive body relaxation. Again, that is just starting to focus your mind on different parts of your body, either starting with your scalp and moving down to your feet or, or starting with your feet and moving up to the scalp. And all you’re doing is closing your eyes and just focusing on your feet and thinking about your feet and just imagining the muscles in the feet relaxing. And they might not be totally relaxed, that’s fine, but just focus on, it’s really the focus that you’re putting on the different body part that’s beginning to relax your mind. So just then focus on your calves, then focus on your thighs, and you’re gonna move up a little bit at a time until you get to the head, right? And then you can move on into your self hypnosis, or you can go down the five steps, which in the recorded morning meditation that we have in my group the Wonderful Monthly Mastery People, that’s what we do.

Rita Black: We go down five steps and with each step you are going, the idea is you go twice as deep as the step before and don’t get caught up in semantics. You know, like, just go with it. Just going, I’m going down my staircase of relaxation. And I, I swear to you, the more you do it, the more relaxed you get. You know, you may not relax twice as deeply as the step before, really, but just act as if you are and then you’ll start doing it. The more hung up on that stuff, the less you get relaxed. So just go with it. Just say, yep, I’m relaxing twice as deep as the step before. And you can say stuff to yourself like, I’m opening myself to my day. I can’t wait to get started with this new powerful step forward in my life.

Rita Black: You know, like, you can, you can say whatever you like to say, or you can just go, I’m going five down to four, four down to three, three down to two. Yeah. So you can choose. And then I like to add that little door at the bottom of the stairs, or, you know, when you finish your progressive relaxation or finish tightening up, tightening up your body. I, as you guys know, who’ve done hypnosis and meditation with me, I like to have that little door to shift place. And I think of the shift place as a place of like it’s kind of like a ceremonial or ritualistic opening of the door to your subconscious mind, right? So we’re opening that door to your subconscious mind, to that place of possibility and stepping inside. So just imagine any kind of door you want, open the door and you step through.

Rita Black: And that is once you’re inside, then you can, you know, those of you who’ve worked with me know, you can like, create a very relaxing space for yourself. And this space could be out in nature, it could be a wooded area, it could be a meadow, it could be a beach, or it could be a room that you love that actually exists. Or it can be something that you create in your own mind, sci-fi just, but it needs to be relaxing. It doesn’t, you don’t want it too stimulating. Okay, next. So once we’re in there oh, I forgot I I put on this other thing here. Let me go back up. Well, no, I’m not gonna go back up. But once you are in your wonderful relaxing space, I, another easy, easy, easy thing to do is, as you guys know, in our morning meditation, we have a movie screen, right? And a movie screen is just really a great sort of, what would be the word that you would use?

Rita Black: I’m drawing a blank. My brain is so fried. But a great vision, a great a great conduit for your creating something, right? Because a movie screen, we all know we can sit in a chair in our wonderful, relaxing place, a nice relaxing chair, and look up at our movie screen, and we’re gonna watch some stuff on the screen. And that’s our, our palette of creation, okay? Right? That’s our palette that we are gonna create on. And, and again, we get that choice. We can create our life, or our life can live us. We get to choose that, right? So that’s another reason why I love self-hypnosis is so creative. So start with a big vision. You know, what is that vision? If it’s weight release, you know, imagine yourself up on that screen at your ideal weight, and in the beginning you want it to be you watching you, right?

Rita Black: So, and get really specific about what you are gonna look like at your ideal weight and what you’re gonna be doing, and make it, you know, make it appealing and sexy and seductive and, and realistic too. You know, you don’t, if, if it’s, or if it’s too overwhelming for you to see yourself at your ideal weight, if that’s too far away, like you can’t even imagine that, that’s okay too. Really, just imagine yourself up on the screen being healthy and maybe 10 pounds or 20 pounds down the scale, but just, you know, create a vision that inspires you that you wanna move towards, you know, your evolutionary point, right? Put that up in front of you, and then you’re gonna work backwards from that vision. So you’re gonna have that vision, and then you’re, you’re gonna bring yourself, at least for weight management you’re gonna bring yourself to the end of your day.

Rita Black: So you’re gonna work backwards to a reverse engineer. And you can reverse engineer in increments that you want, like your ideal weight. And then you could see yourself at the end of the month, and then you can see yourself at the end of the week, and you can see yourself at the end of the day. But I just like to start with the big vision and go to how do I wanna feel by the end of today? Like, how is today gonna contribute to that vision up on the screen, right? Like, I do stuff for my, my like business, you know, I set business goals, I set goals that I want, like putting my weight mastery program online. Like that has been a big goal of mine for the last year. And there’s been a lot of fear around it.

Rita Black: A lot of like, oh, I can’t, a lot of negative self speak and, you know, all that stuff that goes along with, you know, putting, putting yourself at risk and having to do something you don’t know really how to do. And, you know, getting a team member that you don’t, you know, like you haven’t met, you’re not comfortable with bringing them on. Like, so there’s been a lot of like, discomfort points I’ve had to work through in order to do this next step, including today was a very uncomfortable day. I was having to do a lot of stuff I was not comfortable with. And sometimes I’m big, big baby about that stuff. So self-hypnosis helps me. Like, I can vision everybody going through the program and doing, you know, like having it really be a great the, the program itself being like this great medium for them to be on their powerful journey of weight mastery.

Rita Black: And and then I can think about the fears and I can think about like, what am I, like, what are my fears about today? And where am I going today? And I see myself coming out to the end of today and I’ve accomplished these few things that I really wanted to accomplish. And then I can, and then I can start at the beginning of my day and work through and say, well, how am I gonna do that? Who am I gonna have to connect with? What am I gonna do Now with weight mastery, you see yourself going to bed at the end of the day and you see yourself getting into bed and feeling light like you exercise, like you ate healthfully. Like you are stabilized and aren’t, you know, too full or off kilter or imbalance that you really, you know that feeling when you go to bed and you’re like, wow, I really took care of myself today.

Rita Black: It’s such a wonderful feeling, isn’t it? It’s so magical. So imagining yourself on the screen, getting into bed, and then imagine yourself going through your day, seeing yourself go through your day. What meals are you going to eat? Where are you going to exercise? Putting those in your mind right ahead of time. What are you going to do at one o’clock? When you typically go to the vending machine instead, like you’re really placing these ahead of yourself, sort of like slides in a carousel, you know, those old slide carousels that used to go around and around, and you would put slides in them. You’re like kind of placing these different images in front of yourself in your self hypnosis. And then, like I said, you could really focus on one specific one specific problem that you wanna work on.

Rita Black: Like I mentioned the afternoon snacking, but it could be something like evening eating or like the fact that maybe every day you come home and you say you’re gonna exercise and then you end up, you know, watching tv watching the news instead. So, you know, really visualizing, seeing yourself coming home, getting your tennis shoes on and going out for that walk. Then once you’ve kind of gone through your day visually, you wanna imagine yourself merging into that screen and then going through, actually going back to the beginning of your day and going through it as if it’s your life, right? Because you’re giving your brain a different experience of your day. You are, you know, going from two dimensional into three dimensional and really being in your body and really feeling those feelings. Feeling that feeling of, wow, I ate an apple instead of going to the Ven machine and I feel good and light coming home at night.

Rita Black: Or I came home and I exercised and it feels so good, my body going to bed. You know, like, really feel those feelings. ’cause Those feelings are going to tell your brain, yes, this is good, this is where we wanna go, and it’s gonna activate that part of your brain to help you achieve your goal. And then, thank you. I just saw somebody hey you’re doing great. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Thank you. I, I appreciate yeah, I know it’s, we’re all hard on ourselves, aren’t we? Finish with going to bed feeling good. So you’re gonna finish that and add any gratitude. Like, I am so grateful that I had a, I ate an apple and I broke my afternoon chocolate habit. I’m so grateful that I have wonderful food to eat that’s healthy. I, I’m so grateful to be able to walk and to, you know, like, really ’cause gratitude also adds powerful.

Rita Black: It’s like adding magic fairy dust all over everything. I think gratitude really engages our brain in a powerful way. So I try to add a lot of gratitude with my self hypnosis every day. Now, do you guys have any questions about this part of it? Before I get into the recording yourself any of any of you have any questions about the structure of this or the relaxation bit? Well, and then when you get to the end, sorry, that I always, I’m so used to doing this, I, I didn’t mention. So when you get to the end of your day, you can just take a nice deep breath and you can walk up the stairs and open your eyes, or you can just count up 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 eyes open. Or you can just take a nice deep breath and open your eyes and get on with your day or get on with your afternoon or head off into a nice sleep if you are sleeping.

Rita Black: If you fall asleep during your self hypnosis, that might happen. That’s okay. Obviously your self hypnosis will have ended, but don’t be hard on yourself. But maybe the next time you wanna sit up sometimes when I listen to myself in the morning, I do dose back now, but if you’ve recorded yourself, you’re, it is getting in there. But you know, you can definitely, when you finish your vision for, let’s say going to bed at night and thinking about exercise, you can definitely just allow that to help you fall and fall asleep. So I’m not seeing any questions, so I’m gonna move on. So we are gonna now talk about recording yourself and recording a self hypnosis, which I really, really think you guys should all try. It can really be a lot of fun. So what you wanna do is just start doing it really, it, it does take some courage because it, again, we’re typically, most people are a little shy of listening to their own voices, unless you’re a voice over artist or an actor or something like that.

Rita Black: So, you know, you are. But you know, or maybe you have your own podcast or maybe you have some sort of you know, thing that you, you’re used to recording, you’re a musician or you’re singer or something. So then maybe you might not be, but, but most of us are a little shy. So just start doing it and, and really take that self inner self critic and put it to the side. I was working with a very high profile artist not long ago who had come to see me for they had had a challenge with their voice. And, you know, they’re a singer. And and it was very interesting because they really felt like something had happened to their vocal cords, which, which something did. But I could see that the bigger issue, I was like, what’s happening when you’re, you know, practicing, you know, ’cause they were going and practicing with a vocal coach and they just couldn’t do it.

Rita Black: They couldn’t reach those notes anymore. And it was just like, and, and that expectation was holding them back, right? So, and like literally we did this, this exercise where I was just like, what does that inner critic look like that’s talking to you? What do they sound like and what do they, you know, and we do this in the shift, right? We get into like, what does your inner critic look like and sound like and feel like, and very similar to what we do in the shift. And it was so helpful because she didn’t realize how critical she had, because it’s just become so the water we swim in and, you know, this is somebody who just has an amazing voice, amazing artist but so hard, so hard on themselves. You think, oh, well, you know, they’re this amazing artist who everybody loves and, you know, it should be so easy for them and no so hard.

Rita Black: So, you know, think about that and think about, it’s, it’s, don’t put the critic to the side when you’re going do your self hypnosis session so you can just love on yourself and go through this and do this. ’cause This is commute really funny, very powerful. You know, best what you can hear, I mean, like, I can do some hypnosis for you, but like I’m telling you, if you get this down, you can get really specific about what you need and you can add additional recordings. I I do this all the time. In fact, I listen to two or three recordings in the morning. I have one for, you know, being healthy and, and good immunity. I have one that I made, and they’re just short little things, but I just listen to them because they put the right messaging in my mind. It’s like we sit in front of the TV and we get all these different messages all the time, right?

Rita Black: And we’re passive and they’re just coming at us, but they’re hypnotizing us and we rarely are putting our own messaging in front of us that we want to hear for what we wanna do. So come on, we gotta make our own morning commercials or our own afternoon commercials for what we want the life we wanna live, right? So change your recording when you get bored or outdated. And it will probably be every couple of months. I try to do a new recording every quarter because that is what works well for me. So you can write out what you wanna say. You can write a script, and usually it helps just to have an outline. You can write your relaxation. You can either do one of the relaxations I just walked you guys through. And you can, again, if this is a weight one, you can see yourself at your ideal weight.

Rita Black: And you can ask yourself, what does that look like? Or you could, you could even, you know, say you’re wearing that black dress that you bought in Monaco for that special event, and you look amazing and your hair is done, and you know, ’cause you can really get more specific because this is for you. You’re standing at that in the garden of that hotel that you love in Guadalajara, and you are, and you’re there because you’re celebrating, you’re achieving your goal. You know, like, you, you can get really specific and then you can move it to the day and say, you know, like, how do you wanna feel by the end of today when we get into bed? And again, you can use the language and the questions that you want because they’re gonna be specific to you. You know, you can say, how does it feel to have you know, a avoided or, you know, to have abstain from eating in front of the TV tonight, if that’s a thing that you wanna break, how does it feel to have you know, cuddled with your kids and giving them some love and, you know, whatever it is you like, how does that feel? So that’s engaging your brain.

Rita Black: And then, then you’re gonna ask yourself, so how are you going to attain that today? And, and maybe again, you know well before dinner, I mean, before I went and watched tv, you’re going to, you know, make sure you’re done with all your meals. You’re going to brush your teeth. You’re, you know, you’re going to be food free in front of the TV that’s gonna make you feel really good. You, you know, you, you can walk yourself through specific steps that you are gonna do to attain that goal. You know, remind that the yourself of the new habits that you’re creating and walk yourself through your day and through that new habit and, and focus on what you are going to do, what you’re not, what you’re not going to do, right? Like, so I am going to walk by that cupboard where the chocolate is, and I am just gonna sit and have some water while I watch tv.

Rita Black: Not like I’m not gonna eat chocolate, because your brain isn’t really process negative. So then it’s just gonna hear, I’m going to eat chocolate. And focus on how following through makes you feel confident and fantastic. Now, there is another step you could do, and whether it’s in your morning meditation or whether it’s recorded, and this is if you’re really trying to break a habit that is really hardwired in, right? Something that, you know, maybe you do a couple of hypnosis self hypnosis and in the habits, so kind of persisting. And that is to take yourself down the path of pain before the path of gratification. Meaning if you go and get a bunch of chocolate and eat it in front front of the TV every night, the first step would be okay, so imagine yourself, you know, you, you watch yourself doing your habit that you do, as if it were up on the screen.

Rita Black: Are you walking yourself through it? See yourself opening the cupboard, getting the chocolate out, standing there, eating it, you know, eating it mindlessly eating those five pieces that you always eat now putting the chocolate away or throwing the patch, pinch away. And now how does it feel in your stomach? Like, how does it feel to have all that chocolate in your system? How does your blood sugar feel right now? How does it feel because you ate more than you wanted to? How does it feel? You know, like, ask yourself those questions. And what you’re doing is asking yourself those questions that are gonna make you feel negative, right? You’re gonna make you feel a negative emotion, and that’s gonna trigger your brain. The brain’s like, oh, you know, I don’t really want that. Because what we’re doing is overpowering the dopamine center in our brain that wants reward, right?

Rita Black: And our brain is wired to think that chocolate is reward. But if we can start to show the brain ahead of time in the self-hypnosis, no, no, this isn’t a reward, it actually makes me feel like crap. The brain will start to get it. The brain will start to go, oh yeah, we don’t want that. It’s aversion therapy. Oh, we don’t want that. And then you offer it what you do want walking by. Oh, isn’t it gonna be wonderful to sit and watch television and drink a cool cold glass of water, or a nice cup of hot tea on a cold winter night, all cuddled up in your blanket or whatever. Really paint that picture and how light and wonderful you’ll feel going to bed that night having done that, right? So you can use the aversion first and then bring in the, the, the good ending, the happy ending.

Rita Black: And and, and always go back to that vision of getting into the bed that night, feeling good. And you can go through your day a couple of times. One, maybe imagining yourself like you’re on the screen, and then two, going through your day in your body and seeing yourself actually living through that, that habit change that you wanna make. Or, or, you know, pushing the plate away when you’ve had enough instead of eating the entire plate, you know, whatever it is, you’re, you’re visualizing it and you’re also emotionally connecting to it with your feelings.

Rita Black: And then add some gratitude. And imagine yourself already at your ideal weight. You can go back to that and say, well, what am I grateful for? You know, how, what am I grateful for at my ideal weight? So it’s not just about like, I want this thing, but what, what is it? You know, like, I’m grateful that I can feel healthy. I’m grateful I can run up a flight of stairs. Because you’re acting as if you’re already there and you’re telling your brain what you’re grateful for. It’s a very powerful thing. It helps open up your mind, it helps engage your reticular activation system, which is a filtering system for your brain. ’cause the brain is like, oh, we want that. Yeah, we’re willing to go without those things because this seems way better. Write a list of what you’re grateful for at your ideal weight as if you’ve already attained your ideal weight.

Rita Black: And if you are maintaining, imagine what it’s gonna feel like to have maintained your weight for a year. You know, imagine yourself a year from now, how are you gonna feel? How grateful are you gonna feel that you’ve maintained your ideal weight? That will be stunning, right? And then, you know, add in, you know, I’m grateful I can move so much easier. I’m grateful that I feel safe and comfortable in my own skin. I feel grateful that I’ve learned to exercise consistently five days a week, that I feel energetic in a life. I mean, anything you’re going to, these are ideas I’m throwing at you, but you are the master. And you can see that self-hypnosis is a structure of sorts, but it’s an art form. It’s just like learning to paint something. Here’s the canvas, here’s the paintbrush, here’s some colors. But now use your mind, use your imagination to start to create. And guess what? Painters don’t start out being awesome painters in the beginning. Pardon the parking alarm guy. Oh gosh, somebody moved to our neighborhood and they have this alarm that keeps going off. There it goes, it’s off now. But you know, you’re the painter, you are the creator, but you’ve gotta just keep doing it. You’ll get better and better, more confident, and, and it’ll become much more fun.

Rita Black: So there you go. I hope you are able to use this simple structure to help focus your mind on your goals in the morning and just get started. It’s all about just getting started and getting going. Don’t worry about being good. Don’t worry about it being perfect. Just try it out and see how it works for you. I think you’re really gonna like it. And have a wonderful week. And remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the door of the weight struggle is inside you. So keep listening and find it. Thanks for listening.

Rita Black: You wanna dive deeper into the mindset of long-term weight release. Head on over to www.shiftweightmastery.com. That’s www.shiftweightmastery.com, where you’ll find numerous tools and resources to help you unlock your mind for permanent weight release tips, strategies, and more. And be sure to check the show notes to learn more about my book From Fat to Thin Thinking. Unlock Your Mind for Permanent Weight Loss.