(Disclaimer: This transcript was made using AI technology. Please excuse any errors.)

Music 0:00
Welcome to the Atheists in Recovery podcast, where we talk about finding hope in recovery. And now your host, Dr. Adina Silvestri

Adina Silvestri 0:11
Hello Guys, and Welcome to Episode 81 of the Atheists in Recovery podcast. And today is a solo episode, I'm trying to sprinkle some of these episodes in at least once a month that talk about hypnotherapy because you guys seem to like them. So thanks again for the feedback. And before we get started on talking about five ways, hypnotherapy can help you find unexpected meaning in recovery, I want to I want to share a quote that I think really sums up this podcast episode. I've been doing this a lot with my men's group, and I'm not sure if they like it or not, but I think it's really fun. They seem interested. They are i'm not i'm not exactly sure. But today's quote is He who has a why to live can bear almost any how Frederick Nietzsche. And I really think that that quote, speaks to this episode, for sure. Because we're meaning making individual and we're constantly making meaning in our heads. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, but especially when we are in a troubled place in our lives, and figuring out ways to respond to these troubled events. We tend to have a lot of resilience, when there's purpose in our life, just like in recovery are our lives that are sober have to be so much better than the ones that we left behind. Or else we'll find our way back. Yeah, so we have to find the essentials to increase our resilience, and I definitely feel like a deeper meaning is one of them. Okay, let's go to the podcast. Let's go to the five ways that hypnotherapy can help you find unexpected meaning. So hypnotherapy, I want to just quickly state what it's not and what it is. For those of you that haven't listened to the to the prior episodes, hypnotherapy is not woo woo, stage mutism, where at the end, you're going to quack like a doc, or I don't, I don't know is quite like a duck is what's coming to mind. or do something that you would normally never do. Instead, clinical hypnotherapy is extremely, it's extremely physical relaxation, coupled with an elevated state of mental awareness. And a lot of cool things can happen when you combine those two things together. So number one, take all things as granted. So take all things as granted as gifts, not for granted as entitlement. I think this is a good one. Because a lot of times I'll hear the people in my practice, I say, okay, you know, I'm doing this gratitude list. It's great, it helps. But I could only keep writing the same things over and over again for so long. And so I've come up with a little bite, that maybe can help us move to what we can appreciate. And it doesn't always have to be big things, it can be really small things. You don't have to come down with COVID to appreciate every breath that keeps you alive. So maybe we just focus on three capacities that we have, walking, touching your knees or toes, swallowing. And then you focus on those experiences of walking and touching your toes and swallowing three to five times a day. Focus on the awareness of the gratitude for being able to each day add three additional capacity is to focus on maybe the next day. It's a friend's voice. Maybe it's the smell of your mother's cooking or blinking your eyes. And when we do this, with hypnotherapy, we're creating that's intentional space to increase our awareness and did you spend more time each day focusing your attention on the felt sense of these gifts, your training your awareness and gratitude on your experiences in the present moment. Eventually you come to realize that you are taking nothing for granted anymore at all. Everything is a gift. So that's number one, taking all things as granted as gifts and not for granted as entitlement number two is connection. So I put connection and then in parentheses with your past and future selves. And so I wish that my therapy can transport us in time.

Maybe, you know, like little time machine, like back to the futures, sort of what I have envisioned in my mind. And in some ways, you know, it can, it can't change things in our past, but it could certainly change how we respond and perceive things in our past, every time we go into a memory where we're changing it just a little bit anyway. And so, what I've been doing with especially now, during COVID, there's a lot of sense of loss, loss of family, just grief, a lot of grief, and people are coming in, and they want to talk about their family, they want to sort of bring some of that to light on Earth, some of those relationships. And so I've had them bring in pictures of what these people dead or alive mean to them. You know, it could be pictures of the person itself, it could be something symbolic, and then really just kind of take that symbol or take that picture and just hold it and be very curious about it. What do you know, what are you feeling when you look at this? What's coming up for you? You know, if you have to say something to the deceased, maybe that you wish you said, but you never did? Well, hypnotherapy gives you that chance. And it's so much easier to do that. When you're in a safe environment, when you're resourced meaning you're calm when thinking about this triggering event. And, you know, you're with a trained professional, and it really helps to guide you towards that healing process with the people that we cared about the most, for good or for bad. You know, just because someone in our family did us wrong, doesn't mean we still don't love them in some capacity. Okay, three, safety. This is a big one. So as you know, and I've talked about with with guests before, that our nervous system responds to Well, almost too well to threats of danger. And we talked a little bit about that with Elizabeth Kush in Episode 80, and I'll link to it below. So with this point, I want to highlight that we need to teach our central nervous system that it's okay, in this moment, that whatever's coming up for us in this moment, difficult feelings, feelings that normally lead us to a drink or drug, these feelings and these thoughts are not always facts. And so when your central nervous system gets the signal that's processed unconsciously, of course, that we are in a safe moment. It stays in equilibrium, even if there are real dangers in the outside environment. And so, really being able to send the nervous system that signal that we are seeing, it's so important. It's so important, and it takes practice to be able to do this. But I do believe that hypnotherapy and other meditation apps can really help widen the lens, widen, how we perceive our environment, and how activating we become. And so for this one, identify three of your own cues of safety in the present moment. Maybe it's petting your dog hugging your child, cool sip of water on a sultry day or a sip of warm tea. I'm a fan of black tea on a chilly day, curling up on the couch with a good book at the end of a long day. And maybe it's listening to your very own hypnotherapy script or your favorite meditation app. So number three is safety. Four. Core Values, another big one. So hypnotherapy helps you to find meaning that in the form of prayer answering Gods although it can if that's what you believe in you can certainly use that in a script. A therapy helps your subconscious to answer the question Who is my spiritual connection my higher power my future self. And if you're not

living according to the core values and therapy will highlight this like no other and this is what I want to talk about jack had a hard time synthesizing jack because he wanted to say so much but in a solo episode, I try and make these short so well let me know if you want to know more about that. So let's let's talk about jack and jack would not define himself as an atheist at all. But he definitely believes in freewill. He comes to me. He comes to see me for hypnotherapy because his marriage is falling apart. He's not the men he wants to be in although he would never define himself as this. He is depressed on the outside. Everything looks great. He's a self made man. Man, he has beautiful things and beautiful family. But his motivation at work is lacking and he is angry all the time jack comes to me for hypnotherapy, not necessarily for an addiction to substances. But what I tell him, and what I believe is that the addiction is to his sense of productivity. He is only feel he only feels good about himself, when he's very productive when he's having a very productive day, maybe he's closing a big sale, you know, whatever it is. So he's hiding his depression from self and others. And so, in hypnotherapy, we uncovered many things. One being that he's holding on to events in his childhood that caused him to feel not good enough, so you can relate to that. So with hypnotherapy jack was practicing it, and his brainwaves were in theta. You know, at that point, your your subconscious is open to new programming, and new ways of thinking. And so whenever jack came into his just a situation at home or at work, this is what would happen, he would try to reach for that new way of thinking. So practicing this daily was helping his awareness to become greater for that lens to widen. Instead of those old ways of not feeling good enough. He chose to look through a different lens, he worked on it hard, this wasn't something that just happened overnight. And he started to look at a more nurturing, more kind, more loving narrative than the one he was so used to using that script, that I'm just not good enough, and all the examples that we could, that we could add to that script, he's choosing to not look at that anymore. And so jack now is in a different place is in a better place. He says, you know, even if he does get divorced, even if this does happen, he's going to be able to handle it, he knows this, he's going to be able to handle it with much less activation, and stress. And when I say activation, I mean, the stress response than he would have before things are getting to him as much as they used to. He's definitely less angry, he's more happy. And this was just over a couple of months of work. So very quick. The last point I want to make for this episode is service. And you guys know this if you're in in 12 step meetings, if you're in a service is a big component. And I too, believe in service. Right now, it's hard COVID-19 has dramatically changed how we interact with others. And for those of us who are newly sober in person meetings are not an option right now. Sharing listening to other stories can have this amazing cocktail effect, amazing neurotransmitter, cocktail effect. So they're released when we're able to express ourselves in their written form. They're released when we're sharing our stories when we're listening to other stories. They allow us to go deeper when we're writing. They allow us to go deeper spiritually, emotionally and cognitively. And for a better description of this just head over to Episode 64 with Valley haggard hentschel. She talks in depth about what writing does for our well being. Okay, so that is, that is the end of our solo Episode Five Ways Hypnotherapy can help you uncover, find unexpected meaning in recovery. And if you're not happy, remember this if you're not happy with yourself, if you're not happy with the way that life is going make a plan to change it. It's scary, of course,

but it all starts with a phone call. This takes daily attention and practice to feel better about yourself. This is not an overnight and overnight success. But if you're interested in learning more, I provided new therapy to individuals in Virginia at my office and worldwide via zoom so please just contact me and I'll leave links to all of these things in the show notes and you can find the show notes at Atheistinrecovery.com/Episode 81 Alright guys, have a good one. Bye.

Music 14:31
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