Staying close to yourself with mental techniques

Dare to be yourself and stand up for who you are. You would say that everyone does this, but unfortunately that is not always the case. Staying close to yourself means behaving according to the beliefs you have and the values you care about. You might say this makes sense. After all, everyone behaves according to the beliefs they have, but if these do not match the things you find important, you often find it difficult to stay close to yourself. Would you like to behave more according to what you find important? Then read this blog

The Market Trader

During the “Break Free” seminar, I experience all sorts of things and hear many stories from participants about the little things in their lives that secretly bother them a lot. Buying something at the market, for example, can go completely wrong.

One participant wanted to buy a gift for a family member and went to the market for this purpose. There, she struck up a conversation with the market vendor, who touted all sorts of items for her to choose from, but none of them were quite what she wanted. Still, it felt strange to her to keep saying no. She felt like a whiner. So she agreed to buy something for her family member that she really didn’t want to buy at all. As a result, she went to the party feeling tense. All in all, not a fun way to find a gift.

Because of little irritations like these, she went to the Break Free seminar to learn how to deal with them.

Now when she goes to the market she says no until she has something that suits her completely. This makes her happy, the market vendor is happy that he was able to really help someone, and it is much more fun to go to a party because you are less stressed about the quality of the gift.

So she was able to stay closer to herself by being more assertive and by not tying into values she actually cared about.

Which technique?

Do these kinds of problems of saying yes too quickly in a store because you don't want to come across as a nag seem familiar to you? Or saying yes too quickly to anything? Then hypnotic suggestions about what is normal and why you can just say no until the Yes is really earned can help you.

One way to do this is through self-hypnosis. In self-hypnosis, you repeat suggestions that, in this case, ensure that you stay close to yourself.

For self-hypnosis, you first sit or lie down in a comfortable place, such as your favorite chair or couch or just snuggled up on your bed. You first focus on your breathing and make sure your breaths are the same length. For example, you breathe in for 3 counts and then you blow out for 3 counts.

You relax your muscles. You can do this with a quick mindfulness body scan to completely relax your body. Then you close your eyes and repeat the hypnotic suggestions. These might include:

"I don't have to adapt to belong to a group."

"I get to go for my own choices."

"I get to say no, as many as 100 times."

"I don't have to explain myself."

Gossip is worthless

Gossips, they are terrible and have social control as their goal, only in our society that is no longer necessary at all. Acquaintances of mine who live in a close-knit community could always live there quite anonymously anyway. Because they applied for a logging permit, that was suddenly over. The neighbor told them about all kinds of gossip circulating about them.

They found these very difficult because they didn't make sense anywhere. This made them go to the community center anyway to talk to their neighbors, something they never normally did.

Eventually, they came to the conclusion that they didn't care about it all either and didn't want their behavior influenced by their neighbors. As a result, they had previously tidied up their front yard and so now they were also going to the community center when they had better things to do.

By choosing for themselves, they also chose peace of mind, because that was and is how they actually were.

With every new rumor, they felt the tension in their bodies rise. Outright lies. Do you also struggle with tension that makes you angry and makes it hard to stay true to yourself? If so, try relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing and muscle relaxation.

You can also confront people who are gossiping about you. If you find this difficult, there’s a little trick you can use to boost your self-confidence before this conversation: stand in a powerful posture for 2 minutes—legs slightly apart, back straight, chest out. Your physical posture actually influences your mood and sense of self-confidence.

If addressing gossip doesn't help, it's best to ignore it. For ignoring gossip, you can again use hypnotic suggestions, such as:

"What strange people think of me says more about them than it does about me."

"What family and friends think of me is important, the rest I can ignore."

"I don't have to modify my behavior because of gossiping people."

Surround yourself with nice people

Staying close to yourself means accepting yourself and those around you accept you as you are. Do you often get criticized for how you are when you are yourself for once? Then it's time to take a critical look at your circle of friends. True friends accept you as you are and encourage your self-confidence and development.

You probably know it, you've achieved some success and share it with your friends. The normal reaction is compliments and "well done man!"-type responses. Maybe they even want to celebrate with you with an outing or dinner.

A very subtle condescending reaction is when people then start talking about other people who have also achieved something similar to your success. "Yeah, my brother/neighbor/cousin/friend of a friend just bought a house too." That kind of reaction does not make you feel like you are doing good and that what you have done is special.

If you find it difficult to surround yourself with nice people, you can first imagine it with a visualization or with the help of a guided visualization from a hypnotherapist.

For a visualization, you first take the same steps as self-hypnosis. Then you visualize the environment in which something is taking place including how it physically feels and what you smell and hear. Then you play back in a positive way how you meet new people, such as after yoga class or at the third half of a soccer game with the club you just joined.

A guided visualization can go the following way:

"You've just finished exercising and join the other athletes for a drink in the cafeteria. You are nice and relaxed after the hour of exercise and already feel a lot better as a result. You walk with the rest and ask how their sports experience was. You talk about yours and that you really notice that you enjoyed it and that it makes you feel better. A number of people think this is great for you, talk about their own experience and encourage you to develop yourself. Now you know who can support you in being yourself."

This is just an example of a guided visualization. A hypnotherapist can help you with a visualization that better fits your beliefs about who you are and how you connect with positive people.

Be kind to yourself

To come back to the market vendor for a moment: The woman who participated in the seminar also had all sorts of negative thoughts before she broke free from them. For example, she thought of herself as weird or a whiner. In fact, she was very hard on herself, and after the seminar, she actually became kinder to herself. She’s allowed to be a whiner—and in fact, she isn’t a whiner at all.

Self-compassion and talking positively to yourself is very important to stay close to yourself. The last person you should listen to when changing yourself when you secretly don't want to is yourself. It is precisely you who should go for yourself and thus be loving.

You have to imagine that a friend or loved one is facing the same problem as you, how would you react? Respond similarly to yourself.

So to stay close to yourself, it is especially important to make your own choices and not let external factors influence you. Not by the market vendor who wants to sell something quickly and not by gossip from your surroundings. In doing so, it is important to deal with people who encourage you to be yourself. This also makes it easier for you to have self-compassion.

Would you like to learn more about the techniques you can use for this? Then check out the book *Break Free* or come to a hypnosis workshop.