If you live in Norther New Mexico and you have allergies, whether you;re allergic to juniper, ragweed, some other pollen, or even have a dust allergy, you may have already begun to deal with allergy symptoms. In Santa Fe, there are lots of runny noses, itchy red eyes and sneezes!

There are also lots of allergy medications with long lists of side effects and even many alternative allergy treatments.

But did you know that these type of seasonal allergies can actually be controlled very quickly and easily by your own mind? You see, it has long been known that such allergies have perceptual/mental triggers (as in the famous case of a woman with severe rose allergy responding to fake roses…) and so if it is ultimately the mind deciding to fire the allergic response that it has learned, it can unlearn it.

Here something to begin working with that’s quick and easy:

When you sense symptoms beginning, start with a few deep breaths, telling yourself (internally or out loud) to be calm… relax your body more and more with each out-breath… then notice how you are feeling around the symptoms from a mental or emotional standpoint (“this feeling is like… it feels as if…”). Notice if the feeling reminds you of a particular emotion. Does it feel scared? Angry? Frustrated? Nervous?

Once you have identified the emotion that it most closely resembles, then ask yourself “I have felt this way the strongest when…” and see what comes to you. Then use your breath to release that feeling on the exhale, telling yourself whatever is the opposite of what you identified (so for a fearful feeling “I am safe”, for a nervous feeling “I am calm” etc.). Then make it even more specific to the area where you feel the symptom — i.e. “My nasal passages are now safe and calm with all pollen and dust, the tissues of my mucous membranes are relaxed and dry and at ease” and imagine this strongly. Also, if you notice any negative self-statements (such as “I am bad” “I am guilty” “I am unlovable”) then repeat to yourself the reverse of these.

Try it for 10-15 minutes and notice the result!

Many people are aware of the mechanism known as “projection” in which our minds filter our perceptions to match a pre-existing belief. In hypnotherapy, this can be a major issue, since often the limiting beliefs that clients are seeking to dismantle will be causing projections that seem to reinforce the belief, and so new opportunities for experience outside the projection need to be opened.

One famous experiment on projection involved modifying a deck of cards to have, say, a red 4 of spades. The researchers would then show people cards from the deck, giving them a brief moment to identify the card and moving on. When given only a very brief time to see the modified cards, people would give an answer for what the card is based on a regular deck (i.e. “4 of hearts” or “4 of spades”) but upon having more time to see the modified card, people began to realize a problem, but could not accurately state what they were seeing. They would say things like “it’s a 4 of spades, but there’s a red line around it” showing that they could start to see the color red, but still basically “saw” a black spade image because they so strongly expected that shape on a card to be black. Many people tested, even after having extensive time to examine the modified cards, still couldn’t say what the card was and many experienced real anxiety about this.

So we know that a conceptual expectation can modify our sense recognition. But what about emotions? Is it possible that emotional states cause a shift in what/how we perceive at the sense level, just as beliefs do? We know that there are neurochemical changes in the body when certain emotions are experienced. And there are lots of anecdotes and sayings relating to emotion-induced sense shifts (i.e. “seeing red” or “tunnel vision”.) The relatively modern field of behavioral optometry is looking at how vision is learned, and we know that learning is influenced by emotional states.

So this blog is meant more as a question and a teaser, because I have been unable to locate any specific research to support or refute the idea. But also I hope for this to be a “chicken or the egg” idea to expand how we look at the link between our perceptions and our feelings. I have found a lot in the self-help world about adjusting your emotions by adjusting your perceptions, but perhaps we have to look at it the other way around as well. If anyone feels like they have experienced a modulation of the senses as a result of emotional state, please comment me!

So, this post is perhaps in a slightly different mood and spirit than some of my others.

I want to talk about allergies, because lately in Santa Fe, NM (and I imagine in other places as well) seems lots of people are talking about their allergies and how much they are suffering with them, as if it is some rite of passage — “Oh!  This is a BAD allergy year…”  But doesn’t it seem like people are ALWAYS saying that?

I just found this article when searching allergies in Santa Fe on the home page for our local paper here, The Santa Fe New Mexican:

“Allergy sufferers: prepare for a month of pain”

Sue Vorenberg | The New Mexican

3/27/2008 – 3/28/08″

So First off, as a hypnotherapist I was horrified by this glaring negative suggestion (basically instructing people to suffer… it must be so because the paper says so!)

Early Spring, like late Summer, is a time of frequent seasonal allergy problems here in Northern New Mexico.  And I am guessing from the date in the by-line that this is an older article that it just found for me, but it could just as well be current from the buzz around town.

The thing about these season allergies that a lot of sufferers seem unaware of is that they are operated predominantly by the mind, not the body.

This may sound like a rather sweeping claim, and if you are curious about my statement I encourage you to ask your doctor about it.  Ask your doctor why people with an allergy to a certain pollen can look at a PICTURE of that plant, and start to show a histamine response.  Ask how it is that our bodies can be fooled into a physiological response by the IDEA of an allergen.

Perhaps the answer to this question is related to the explanation for how so many allergy sufferers find their symptoms significantly lessening or even disappearing with no treatment besides HYPNOSIS!

Seasonal allergies have become a specialty of mine, and the success rate I have witnessed is so hard to believe I am not even going to post it here for fear I will be accused of fraud.  But the point is, this isn’t about me and what a genius I am (it’s true!) but rather the point is that OUR MINDS do this allergy thing to us.  The theory I have heard goes something like this:

At some point in time, the body is particularly stressed for some reason, which in turn diminishes the immune system and its capacity to respond to pathogens and irritants in the body.  Allergens are not toxic, not pathogenic, but they ARE irritants.  Under normal conditions, our body deals with these irritants easily, flushing them away almost unnoticed just as we do with so many other intruders in our breath, our skin, our mucus membranes.   However, if the immune system is suppressed as a result of stress (physical, psychological or emotional) AND we are simultaneously exposed to a rather large dose of an irritant, our bodies will be unable to deal with it in the normal ways and we will begin to have a more drastic reaction to the irritant.  The body then learns to associate this drastic response to the presence of the irritant (allergen) and so an allergic response is learned.  (funny, just writing about this my nose is starting to run!!!  time for some self-hypnosis…)

So the extreme responses [runny, itchy, sneezy nose, itchy, watery eyes, scrathy throat etc.] are learned on the basis of an event, or sequence of similar supporting events.  If this is the case, that program can be reset, that response unlearned.  This kind of mechanism functions at the level of the subconscious mind, not the conscious mind, so sitting around telling yourself not to sneeze seldom does any good, but with the right language and the right state of mind, your seasonal allergies can simply stop, just because you tell them to.

Interestingly, for spring-time allergies, with a lot of clients, the subconscious identifies a desire to go out and enjoy the emerging beauty of nature, and as long as these people let themselves enjoy the natural world, they don’t suffer from their allergies.  Often there is a deeper message, sometimes associated with the cause of the original stress at the time the allergy was learned.  Sometimes to truly let go of an allergy means to face that inner stress and release it or make peace with it.  It isn’t always easy, but it is rewarding, and a lot better than months of tissues and drugs!

James A. Serendip

So first o

I want to address the idea of the holiday we just finished here in the United States called Thanksgiving.

I LOVE this holiday!  And not just because it revolves around food and eating (I am a real food lover and I imagine I will be posting more about food in posts to come…) but because of the idea of thanks and being thankful.

From my perspective as a professional hypnotherapist, I see the potency of the concept of gratitude and being thankful.  I often assign to my clients the homework of making a gratitude list (one of those tried and true aids to personal growth).  We all know we feel good when in a mindset of gratitude, and I think it is wonderful to have a national holiday devoted to it (no, the holiday is NOT devoted to turkey slaughter and football!)

But what happens when this holiday is over?  Maybe we went to visit family, or just took a few days to relax and stuff ourselves and just feel good for a while.  But now it’s back to work.  Back to being productive consumers.  Back to playing our roles.  The leftovers are all gone and it’s a full work week, so what’s there to be thankful about?

As I have gone back to my emails and messages I find a lot of disagreeable things there… stuff I’d rather not deal with.  Can I stay on vacation a few more days?  And then I  remembered something… one of the famous Mind Training Slogans of Atisha.  and it says “Be Grateful to Everyone.”

For those unfamiliar with these slogans, Atisha was an Eleventh Century Tibetan Buddhist teacher who devised a list of pithy sayings to help those who want to be on a path of awakening consciousness.  I don’t want to go too into the Buddhist concepts here, as I am not qualified to do so (for a reference on this I recommend starting with one of my favorite authors, Pema Chodron… her book “Start Where You Are” is where I first encountered this slogan and the book probably saved my life! and her smaller volume “Comfortable With Uncertainty” talks about it as well… read this stuff!  It is approachable and common-sense wisdom!).  I simply want to throw this idea out there to Be Grateful To EVERYONE!

I believe this is meant to address the idea that we are here on this earth to awaken our awareness, to be present, to learn about ourselves and our world… and every other person here (because they are here doing the same thing from another perspective!) can help us with this, whether we like it or not!

The Buddhists hold this idea of clinging to what is pleasurable and seeking to avoid what is distasteful as being at the root of all suffering, and this idea of being grateful to everyone speaks to that.

It’s a simple but powerful idea.  Everyone can help us wake up!  Everyone and every interaction gives us another opportunity to see mind in action, and specifically to see our OWN mind in action.

For myself, even in writing this I start to think “what if I get criticism about this?  what if people say mean things to me?  Oh no!!!  Danger!  Don’t write anything!  It’s safer to say nothing than to say anything…” and so I get to see how my own fear of people and their reactions can almost instantly provide an impulse to shut down, to isolate, to stifle my own creativity and expression and aliveness.

The same can be true for any interaction with anyone.  Concern over the responses of negative people can keep us from being ourselves, can keeps us locked up, alone, in the dark, in fear.
Yet, if I can hold a place of being grateful to everyone (and every circumstance, every situation) then the fear subsides a bit.

For those that know me or are familiar with hypnotherapy, we know that fear is the big enemy.

THE SUBCONSCIOUS IS ALL ABOUT FEAR!
This is because our subconscious mind is that part of our minds that is always looking to protect us, to keep us safe.  That’s why it’s subconscious… the conscious mind basically can’t be trusted (from a subconscious perspective) and is too slow and cumbersome to really safeguard us from any possible danger or hurt, so we develop this portion of mind that remembers everything and is always alert.. always comparing the present against a huge database of memories and beliefs to see if we’re safe.

So that being the case… think about it a moment… have there ever been people in your life you just wished never existed?  People who pushed your buttons?  People who “made you SO mad!”  People who “broke your heart?”  (I put some of these phrases in quotes because of the way certain ideas tend to express themselves… the messages contained in the words are dangerous to the mind, but we seldom pay attention to that… more on that another time…)
But what about these people?  Why do we have to have these situations?  A good friend of mine once pointed out, on commenting how things seem to always have a tendency to go wrong and fall into fear and chaos, that “It’s always PEOPLE, man!”  It so often seems to be people who screw things up, who disrupt our balance, our equanimity, our bliss.

Why?

Well, like I said, because they are here for the same reason we are… to awaken.  And they are playing the same games we do.  We are all so damned precious!  It’s my way or the highway!  If you don’t agree with me, you’re an idiot!

This is why we tend to gravitate toward the people who mesh well with our belief systems and our world view.  In this country we have seen this situation become very extreme in our last election.  Family members stopped speaking to one another if they were for the other political party!  Our culture has really evolved into a strong “us versus them” mentality (much to our detriment it seems!)

Here’s where this slogan of Atisha comes in.  Be Grateful to EVERYONE.
Because they are showing you your own mind.
We are all grateful for our friends, our loved ones, those special people in our lives.
But what about that awful ex-husband?  That intractable colleague?  That bombastic boss?  That horrific politician?  That guy up the street who lets his dogs crap on my lawn?

Thing is, we never GROW in our COMFORT ZONE… do we?  When everything is going our way, do we ask questions?  Do we question ourselves and our motivations and or ideas?  Do we try to see through the dialog in our own minds when that dialog is all happy and nice?  Not so much.

So be grateful to those people who get your goat!  Those awful people who don’t even SEE what they’re doing!  Those heartless so-and-sos who seem so unavoidable in our lives.
They are our teachers.  They are showing us another place where we can learn to let go if we can get clear on our subconscious responses.  Do we really need to react the way we do?  Does it protect us somehow?  Is there really a threat? (and sometimes maybe there is… but if so, do we respond best out of anger, or out of calm?)

Every single person who interacts with you, just be the act of their doing so, regardless of the nature of the interaction, is reinforcing to you that you are not alone, that we are all in this together.  No matter what you think of another person… to someone else, you ARE the other person!  Think about that!  And be grateful that in this case, you get to be YOU and not the other.  You always get to choose.

So… I offer this proposition.  Choose gratitude.  For everyone.  Let this thought trickle in over the next few days and weeks.  Just play with it… see what you get.  And always remember, YOU are part of everyone… so be gentle with yourself as you work with this thought.

A study by researchers in the field of gastroenterology found that IBS patients (i.e. those under a doctor’s care for IBS) had a statistically significantly elevated incidence of psycho-emotional disorders of one kind or another than people who HAVE IBS (or IBS symptoms) but who are NOT being treated by their doctors for IBS.

Isn’t THAT interesting?

Combining this study with the fact that IBS is a disease purely of the industrialized world raises a lot of questions about what exactly causes so many people to suffer from this often debilitating syndrome.

The medical community has long been telling us that IBS is a “stress-related illness” but unfortunately that’s about all they will say when it comes to stress-related illnesses.

The truth is, “stress” is a fairly ambiquous term, and it may be time to start identifying some more specific concepts that currently just fall beneath the umbrella of “stress.”

Going on a vacation is a source of stress! Does vacationing cause IBS??? (Well, some people DO notice gastrointestinal distress the first few days of a vacation, so…)

Let me clarify what I mean by a vacation being a stress… “Stress” most literally means any set of conditions perceived in which the mind/body complex determines some degree of possible or imminent threat that requires a response. And since we humans are “creatures of habit” actually anything that is outside our normal or expected experience is (as far as the subconscious is concerned) a stress. Even if we’re enjoying it!

So to say that “stress” is a cause or contributing factor in IBS is simply not therapeutically useful. Rather, I propose that we begin to examine what sorts of things an individual is focusing on, both consciously and subconsciously, as contributing factors to IBS. After all, this sort of internalization of “stress” is quite directly metaphorical, being all about what we hold and what we release and when.