I’ve been working with a client for alopecia. She’s done remarkably well, no longer plucking out her eyelashes and eyebrows. Whereas she used to pluck out her hairs to distract herself, now she doesn’t know what to do in times of stress. She is looking for better, more effective ways to handle stress, as well as motivation to run and work out. (Running is an activity that she has enjoyed in the past that alleviates her stress and gives her a sense of well-being. A physical training test that includes running is also a requirement of her job as a Marine recruiter.)

In the pre-hypnosis interview, I carefully listened for predicates (turned out she’s mostly visual), and mirrored back her words to her as I went through the Meta Questions. Within minutes she was very excited to start the hypnosis! I attempted to keep my predicates more in the Visual arena throughout the session.

After an instant induction and deepening (I was careful to match breathing with her; she went deep very quickly), I chose to use a Visual Squash to remove any conflict about running, as well as any conflict about responding to stress in a calm, creative, resourceful manner.

I used a stress-relieving technique I often use, but this time I used physical anchors, and kind of morphed it together with Adding A Resource. I asked her to bring up a time when she felt calm, in control, creative and resourceful, and anchored it. Then, I asked her to bring up a time of great stress and anxiety, and anchored that. Next, with my client full of stress and anxiety, I had her take a deep breath and hold it. As she exhaled I triggered the resourceful state, reinforcing it with the appropriate verbiage. After suggesting that each time she used this technique it would become more powerful, we compounded by repeating the stress/release procedure 4 times, assisted by my triggers. My sense is that the deep breath then becomes her auto-trigger that brings up the resource state when she wants it.

I moved on to that wonderful Ultimate Motivational Strategy you demonstrated in a workshop at the Convention. Fantastic! She can’t wait to run now! After emerging her I asked her what she was going to do tonight as I triggered the “feel-good-working-out” anchor. Of course she said with a big grin, she was going running. I triggered the “feel-gross” anchor and asked how it would be if she didn’t get to run tonight. Her face scrunched up and she muttered “ugghh.” Most effective exercise motivation I’ve used.