Call for up to a 15 min free consultation to find out if hypnosis is a fit for you.

If Stress and Anxiety are ruling your life please feel free to contact me for up to a 15 min free consultation over the phone to see if Hypnosis is the right fit for you.

Tracie Mahan
503-680-2407

About sixty percent of my practice is helping people deal with anxiety. Five percent of the population has fairly severe anxiety, and, for some inexplicable reason, women are twice as likely to suffer from anxiety than men. Anxiety varies greatly in its intensity and the debility it causes; it can range from a mild anxiety at meeting new people in a social situation to serious clinical depression.

It’s hard to categorize anxieties, but they fall basically into four categories:
o generalized anxieties,
o obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD)
o panic disorders, and
o post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Phobias fall into the first category of generalized anxieties. They can be fear of things like: needles, spiders, medical or dental procedures, bridges, freeways, etc. They can be fears rising from situations like open spaces (agoraphobia), closed spaces (claustrophobia), flying, public speaking, job interviews, bullying, inability to get to sleep, social anxiety, etc.
Because anxieties arise from individual thought patterns, the list is as vast and varied as the human condition. Phobias can be fleeting or last years, and they can be mild or severely debilitating.

Anxiety is often associated with many psychosomatic conditions such as hypertension and high blood pressure, ulcers, and colitis. Whether or not it is the cause, it certainly aggravates these conditions. Children are not immune to anxiety, and I have helped children with emetophobia, for example, where extreme anxiety leads them to vomiting in situations like having to go to school.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder involves frequent and repeated behavior patterns, or tension states that arise from ignoring or suppressing these thoughts. Common OCDs are constantly washing hands, checking locks, performing rituals before doing a specific task, and even hoarding and kleptomania. Anorexia Nervosa also falls into this category of obsessive compulsive and ritualistic behavior.

Post traumatic stress disorder is common among soldiers returning from the combat where they continually revisit terrifying experiences like watching comrades being blown up, and being injured themselves. Equally traumatic is a bad car accident, or a great loss or some other catastrophe. I recently saw a Vietnam veteran who, for forty years, relived every night in his dreams an incident where he nearly died and all his comrades were killed. Hypnosis enabled him to move on and the dreams ceased.

Panic attacks are a manifestation of extreme anxiety. These attacks happen when there are feelings of danger or fear around some event about to happen, or maybe anticipating making a fool of oneself in a particular situation. It’s all about doom and gloom, and this gives rise to feelings in the physical body, such a pain in the chest, or stomach, or in the head where it brings on a migraine.

How can hypnosis help these disorders? The first step is to take a detailed history to evaluate all the circumstances surrounding the anxiety condition. It is important to listen deeply, as the history will give clues as to the direction to take in the hypnotic state.

Next, I induce hypnosis to a deep somnambulistic level and take the client back in time in an age regression to the original cause of the anxiety. In most cases the unconscious mind in hypnosis will be able to recall the original sensitizing event, and in conversation tell me how it started, when and where it started, and why it still persists.

I then reframe the original sensitizing event. This is a process of putting the persistent anxiety and the circumstances surrounding it into a new “picture frame”. I am telling the client’s unconscious mind, which houses all his or her belief systems, to change the original imprint and now to be free of the anxiety, however long it may have persisted. Often an anxiety has its roots in childhood. My job is to help the client realize this and put it in the context of ‘now’ in the present. Once the client can see the origins of it, and how debilitating the anxiety has been over the years, then he or she is able to let go.

Let me give you an example from my practice. An engineer in his mid thirties explained to me he had to give a talk to his manager and his team every Monday morning on the progress he had made that week in designing a new product. He experienced panic attacks at the thought of the Monday morning meeting. In the regression we went back to the age of sixteen. He was falling behind in his grades in school, so his parents sent him away to a special school boot camp that had very strict discipline, and any breach of discipline was punished. He remembered being made to stand up on the dining table and apologize to his fellow students and the teachers for every misdemeanor. He had forgotten about the incident and had no idea that this was the cause. Once he realized that his hang-up was a holdover from his youth, he was able to make the necessary shift and put aside his Monday morning meeting anxiety.

I teach clients how to relax using instant hypnosis. With practice, you can put yourself in deep hypnosis in three minutes. If you’re in the car, just pull over and stop, or at work go into the bathroom for three minutes. By relaxing both physically and mentally, you can overcome the anxiety and put it aside if it flares up. I often implant a “hypnotic trigger” like pressing a set of fingers and thumb together, breathing and counting to ten, then releasing the tightened fingers and slipping into a mode of deep breathing and relaxation. The trigger sends a message to the unconscious mind to relax and this prevents the old feeling of anxiety from arising.
The simple secret to overcoming anxiety is to learn to relax. Get into a relaxed position and just breathe deeply. For deep-seated anxiety you may need more help, and hypnosis is a quick and effective way to uncover the cause and free you from it.

The New Year Brings A New You!

Folks, 2009 is almost over. As you are sitting there pondering what 2010 will bring for you; instead, why don’t you ask yourself what will you bring  yourself in 2010. This is the perfect time to start thinking about some new goals, or even current goals that haven’t been completed. January will allow the doors to open for New Year’s resolutions. That’s why I’m so happy to be a part of the New Year New You program starting in January!

This New Year New You program will be like no other self-improvement program out there. Here is the outline of the program.

Reduced fees – You will be utilizing the most effective, natural, holistic, self- healing tool to achieve your goals. This, all at a reduced fee of up to 50%. Most Hypnotherapists and life coaches will charge you up to $150 a session, I am here to work out a payment plan that fits both our needs depending on our goal plan.

Accelerated change – We will set up appointments where instead of seeing me every other week, you will be undergoing a weekly session with me to get faster results!

Weight Loss- On top of the hypnosis you are receiving from me, you are also receiving expert fitness & diet guidance from a certified Personal Trainer. You will get free monthly body fat testing and continuous fitness guidance.

Stop Smoking- Did you know that you get up to a $300 tax credit for any smoking cessation program you enter? Don’t put off this amazing deal of eradicating your addiction at almost no cost to you! And that’s not all, I will put a guarantee on my Stop Smoking program for up to one year!

Group Sessions- I will be offering several different  group hypnosis therapy where you get the same benefits but at a lower fee. If you don’t need the personal one-on-one type therapy, then consider group hypnosis to achieve your goals. I will be offereing group weight loss, self-confidence, motivation, and stress & anxiety.

Please RSVP for group sessions.

Weight loss Group

5-6pm

Jan 20 & 27, Feb 3, 10, 17 & 24, March 3

Self Confidence Group

6-7pm

Jan 20 & 27, Feb 3, 10, 17 & 24, March 3

Please feel free to contact me at 503) 888-7309

email: bunnisek@epiphanyhypnosis.com

or you can fill out a form on my website @ www. epiphanyhypnosis.com

Happy Holidays,

Bunni Sek, CHt

(I’m sorry Portland clients, this program is only available for Richland, Kennewick and Pasco residents. If however you like what you see here and live in the Portland/Beaverton area, I have a referral who is honoring the promotion I am posting, so please contact me for more information)

My method of avoiding TV and those who dwell on the negative is a short term fix.  Reality finds me  at the gym amongst the doomsday messages on the TV.  I could close my eyes, but I would miss out on one of the best features of being single and belonging to a co-ed gym, the men who are working out along side of me.  Another perk is the various magazines available to read and counter the news. Oprah’s magazine is filled with tips and stories I find relevant. One story in her March 2009 issue, piqued my interest while climbing hills on the bike. 

It began,  “Money Anxiety Disorder…The latest American epidemic” The story by Nancy Palmer highlights a survey conducted by the American Psychological Association where it found “80% of  us are finding the financial crisis a significant cause of stress.”

She also notes, … “the pervasive sense of panic,can take a serious toll on health, putting you at higher risk for a host of ailments. Science has show that exercise and meditation  are two of the most effective ways to reduce stress but you know that and are likely to feel too pressured to try either.”  (its too bad to get stuck in feeling stressed and missing out on the positive views at the gym)

 The article also notes other well known stress reducers. Besides exercise one of my favorites is hypnosis.

Get hypnotized. For years people have turned to hypnosis for help quitting smoking and losing weight, but the technique is also becoming popular among business types desperate to overcome financial stress, according to a November report in The Wall Street Journal. Generally, in hypnosis, a therapist uses verbal cues to put clients into a deeply relaxed state, where they become absorbed in their inner thoughts, then offers suggestions to shift an attitude so they can better tackle a problem. In this case, the suggestions might be “Money is energy that comes and goes” or “Your net worth doesn’t equal your personal worth,” to deflect the paralysis and insecurity that financial panic can cause. Ideally, clients learn the process on their own.  “While it won’t make you richer, it will help you handle, and feel better. “

Reading the article and its suggestion made sense to me.  As a hypnotherapist, I have been noticing the toll the economy is taking on people and am glad to see the media is now offering positive advice for dealing well with the issues we are all contending with. It is great to hear accolades for a therapeutic modality that has  infinite applications for helping people help themselves.

Although TV Viewing can still ram my attention with distressing news I have hypnosis techniques and  exercise as the means of countering the panic the news stimulates.  My time at the gym has even more benefits for me and thats in addition to  the view.