Just Stop. Uh-huh.

I was watching some videos on YouTube.

It is an incredible odyssey doing that.

You never know quite where you will wind up.

One video of note was one by a woman
who approaches the "psychology" of fetish.

In her video and approach she said that
if something you are getting off to bothers
you, stop doing it.

It sounds simple enough.

But let me ask you, how many times do
you do something, and know it's not "good"
for you (like smoking) and know that you
should stop, and don't? How many people
know how to lose weight, but don't, or
lose it and can't keep it off?

Apparently something is missing. The "thing"
that is missing (in my opinion) is what is
unconsciously occurring - the waves below
the surface.

If you still do something, and you know
it's something you'd rather not be doing,
it doesn't mean that all of you agrees.

In actuality, there is a part of you that
believes that that way IS the "right" way
to go because you get something
you are unaware of out of it, and it
will sabotage your conscious efforts every
time because if you "give up" that thing,
then you give up the benefits it believes
you get from it.

For instance, let's say you smoke. As a
smoker, you get to leave work periodically
to smoke and, in essence, take a break.
You NEED those breaks, and unconsciously
your mind might think it needs smoking as
an excuse to take those breaks. You give
up smoking, and your mind thinks it'll be
giving up the breaks too.

Your mind might do everything to sabotage
your efforts, but from an unconscious place
(remember what I said earlier about the
unconscious parts of us - it has a lot to say
about who we are and what we do, and it is why
when willpower meets the unconscious self,
and they're at odds, it often loses).
If you don't realize this is happening,
you would be unable to give yourself the
break without smoking and feel good about it,
getting what you need.

Once upon a time you made a pleasurable association.
Then you went back to it again because it
brought you pleasure the first time. It became
something "known" that could bring you pleasure.

Did you have to consciously say you wanted to
reinforce it? No. However, you didn't have to.
The very fact that you kept going back to it did
it for you.

Interestingly I sometimes find people who have
interests saying, "This is the way I am," or
"This is who I am" while at the same time I hear
something in their voice that is somewhat resigned
or unhappy.

What they don't realize is that it may be at the
moment who they are because of the conditioning
they've had, but that it doesn't have to remain
them, and that other pleasurable behavior can
replace it.

How threatened do you feel when something you
think is a part of you might be taken away? It
may not even be something you'd consider positive.
That can be your unconscious mind at work. You
get something from it that you think you understand,
but don't really, and you don't want to give it up.
If you truly understood it, you would be much
more able to "control" it than to have it control you.

However, just like the cigarette example above,
the essence and purpose can remain, but just
have a different reason for happening, if you
are willing to allow it. You can get your
conscious and unconscious selves to agree to the
essence of what takes care of you, instead of it
having the essence and the thing collapsed into one.

At the point of awareness is where change can occur.
Sometimes you can do it on your own, and sometimes
you can use hypnosis, and an ethical hypnotist, to help.

I find in the erotic world, most people will
use hypnosis to strengthen the connections,
even when it doesn't necessarily work. In some ways,
it makes perfect sense, as these things are tied
to the sexuality of the person, a very primal part
of who we are.

However, I bring this up to show how it is possible to
use hypnosis to change behavior that you
previously were resigned to, and/or victimized by.

One last thing. Sometimes I get calls from
people who essentially want to be victimized
by me. For the record, they don't say they want
to be "victim" per se. Rather, they tell me they
want me to blackmail them, and control them. They
want me to control everything in their lives, even
to their detriment.

It is never anything that I want to be a part of,
because the hypnosis I would do could only make
the association stronger, and whether or not the
person continued with me, it could be transferred
to another (among many other reasons, not specific
to this conversation).

Incidentally, when someone "indulges"
in this type of "relationship" with another, it
can be hypnotic, even without "official" hypnosis
because of the power of association.

I mention this because I would suggest that there
is a strong possibility that victimization (especially
of the "erotic" type), came from an association
made somewhere along the line, and was reinforced
over and over even before a person even sought someone
like me out.

It could explain why people seek out problems, and
bury themselves further, even though what they do
winds up hurting themselves and those in their lives.

Stopping doing something will certainly help.
However, alone, it is questionable how effective
it can be. In addition, there is an expression
that "what you resist, persists." Resist something,
without replacing it with something else, and you
are only likely making that thing you want to stop
stronger.

As usual...just something to think about.

Have a great weekend!
Isis