Wanting to have a valuable life does not come naturally to everyone. Perhaps you even feel worthless and it hasn't occurred to you at all that you can influence this and make your life valuable. Do you feel worthless and do you want to feel valuable? Then this is a blog you should read.
You might think that a valuable life is a life with lots of monetary value, but that is not so. Major international research shows that life satisfaction and being happy is much more important to almost everyone around the world than having money[1]. So money is not what makes life valuable, but then what is?
Ultimately, you decide what gives your life value and what makes it valuable. To do this, you only need to answer one question: What is important to you?
Top 3 of what people care about
You can search for the top 3 things people consider important for inspiration, but of course this is only an average. An important ingredient for a valuable life is that you are autonomous. That you can make decisions without being influenced in this by others[2]. Therefore, I'm not going to give you a top 3 of what people think is important.
Unconscious Drives
What you care about, if you are autonomous, is determined by your unconscious drives. In the video, I explain what my unconscious drives are. My main drive is freedom, you might not have expected that. Above all, I want to show you that your unconscious drive is really one of your own.
If you find it difficult to identify your unconscious drive, a hypnosis expert can help you with this. For example, with a Socratic conversation. In this type of conversation, the why question is repeated several times to get to the core of your beliefs or to the core of your drives.
Assignment: Write down what matters to you
You can also start at home with a fun assignment to determine your unconscious drives that make your life valuable. To do this, write down 10 things or issues that are important to you.
To really get to the core of what you care about, then make this a top 10, with what is most important at the top and what is least important (of the important) at the bottom.
For example:
- Health
- Freedom
- Love
- Adventure
- Family
- Friends
- Companionship
- Knowledge
- Money
- Predictability
From these 10 drives, you can then make a top 10, such as:
- Love
- Family
- Adventure
- Companionship
- Freedom
- Health
- Friends
- Knowledge
- Predictability
- Money
Note! Depending on the context in which you live, what you consider important may change. At work, the order of what I consider important sometimes becomes slightly different than when I am at home. Therefore, you can also adjust the top 10 to the places where you live the most or what you are doing, such as your work, home situation, friends/relationships.
Accept and Realize
An important key to happiness is to accept what you cannot change, but then also focus on what you value[3]. You cannot change the weather, you cannot change other people, you cannot change the traffic jam you are in.
Do realize what you value in your life and then focus on that. If you look at the example top 10 and what you can't change you might think, for example:
You can't change the weather, but going out can be well prepared and then you have a real adventure. For example, think of a road trip in winter, you really shouldn't think about car trouble.
You can't change people. If you value family, it is important to accept your family as they are and find a solution you can both work with. If not, find friends who are a better fit for you.
You can't magic away the traffic jam, but if you look at finding knowledge valuable, you can listen to audiobooks in that traffic jam so you build on your knowledge (something I like to do myself). You can carpool to have a pleasant ride or you still go by public transportation because that predictability is greater.
Hypnosis to Accept
When you cannot accept a certain situation it often has to do with your mindset. You then find it difficult to focus on the positive of a bad situation. Accepting a bad situation also does not mean staying in that situation. It is mainly accepting the starting point with which you must begin to make your life valuable.
Hypnosis can help you accept what you cannot change in several ways. One such way is repeating hypnotic suggestions during self-hypnosis. You can repeat these out loud yourself, but usually you get them along on an mp3 from your hypnosis expert. Then there is often also an induction on there to get into hypnosis and after the hypnotic suggestions a moment to wake up from hypnosis.
Before you engage in self-hypnosis at home, you practice this with the hypnosis expert. Then you can practice self-hypnosis at home in a quiet place without distractions.
You'll get suggestions like this one, for example:
"You accept that the situation is a starting point."
"What you can't change, you don't have to worry about."
"There's always something I can influence to improve the situation," he says.
"An umbrella keeps you dry. Find the umbrella in a situation you find difficult to accept."
These are just examples of hypnotic suggestions. Depending on your mindset and beliefs that cause you to find certain things but difficult to accept, hypnotic suggestions may be different from these examples.
Changing behavior
Looking for the umbrella in the rain is something that has to do with behavior. Your circle of influence, that which you do have control over in a situation with many factors beyond your control, is something you can take advantage of.
Changing behavior is something you have to put effort into, though. For example, being able to imagine changing something, doing something, before you do it is a prerequisite.
Making the connection between your drives and making choices to work with those drives for this is something that can be tricky, because what does that look like.
Let's take the example family. Perhaps you are barely in touch with your family right now, so close to the holidays, but would like to connect more, but don't know how.
In this case, a guided visualization can help you take the steps you need to take to get a valuable life. In this example, that could be:
"You're at home and want to invite your family over for dinner. You have written down in advance, in keywords or in full, what you want to say. That it would be cozy, that you would make some good food yourself and that you would buy the best wine or beers. Maybe you could even do a board game afterward. To make it personal, you grab your phone and search your contact list to see who you should have. You take a slow breath and consciously relax your muscles. You have the intention of being nice before you click the call button. You ask how things are going and when you get the question back you start talking about dinner. You repeat the points that make it nice to come to your place for dinner, then you wait for the answer. The date can be adjusted, of course; it's the contact that matters to you. Afterwards, you still managed to invite some of your family. Just stating the invitation makes for better contact and you feel good that you took this step."
This is just an example of a guided visualization. Depending on your beliefs and what you want to change, the visualization may go differently.
So having a valuable life depends on several factors. In any case, someone else cannot tell you what a valuable life is. Therefore, ask yourself what you think is important and what your motivations are. Then focus on what you care about and how you can reinforce what you care about in your life so that your life feels more valuable.
Hypnosis can help you find what you care about and change your behavior so that what you care about plays a larger role in your life.
Want to learn more about hypnosis, how it works and how you can help other people with it? Then come to a hypnosis playshop or follow a training at the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands. This is possible both online and offline.
[1] http://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2000-13324-004.html
