posted
Google is evil people. It talks directly to me through the subliminal advertising at the left of the page you are looking at - I'll explain what I mean.
I am the worlds worst procrastinator - if it can be put off until tomorrow, you can guarantee I'll get it done by next thursday week. It's like I am still moving house, even though the physical distance between appartments is just a few feet, yet after a days work I'll just sit for 5 minutes, have a cup of tea then before you know it, it is 11pm and time for bed, and the old flat is still sitting there awaiting me to get on and get it finished. It's a trait I really need to get sorted, especially seeing I want to keep my new house all lovely and not cluttered, and just improve some parts of my life which I have only myself to blame for them not being as good as they could be.
So imagine my surprise/disbelief/horror when after just thinking to myself how I need to get stuff cleared tonight before my father visits tomorrow, when I click on life and see not one, but four adverts offering to 'End procrastination NOW!'. Out of morbid curiosity and $0.03 for Darryn I clicked one, where a rather attractive older lady called Wendi promised that for 79 bucks she would have me doing everything yesterday and proudly, almost to the point of making me believe I would be neurotically cleaning and unable to sit still if things needed to be done.
But on to my true point of this thread - Hypnosis - has anyone had tried it? I certainly believe there is something in it - yes we've all seen the entertainers who make people think their penis has vanished whilst others devour onions like apples, but it does seem to hold something in that many people rely on it for help with more commonly, giving up the fags and the like.
I did read a book once not a million miles from this on self help through meditation which I did find helpful - it was more aimed at health issues and it is something I use occasionally - the last example was when I awoke early one Saturday morning feeling positively crappy due to bad sleep, and I used it with success to get another couple of hours of sound sleep and woke up feeling a lot more chipper.
The thing is, I know if I am to improve certain aspects of my life I have to change the way I live a little, but its teaching this old dog some new tricks, and with my state of mind, I honestly think that I need a bit of external support to get it sorted.
So my question is, have you tried anything external like hypnosis to change aspects of your life? Or did you rely on something else to get yourself up off your backside to change? Or am I just a lazy bastard with little self motivation and self discipline who needs to go back in the Army or prison for a spell to sort his life out? TMO be the judge!
posted
I've never been hypnotised and I don't think I'd much like to be. I'd have to be pretty desparate and have a lot of trust in the hypnotist before I'd resort to that. Especially after seeing this Google ad on this very page:
quote: Secretly Hypnotize Anyone And Make Them Do What You Want Without Getting Caught. Guaranteed.
Oh and on the subject of procrastination, don't smoke weed. You live in Holland and therefore you must be a stoner.
quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: Oh and on the subject of procrastination, don't smoke weed.
How's that working out for you BTW?
Well I'm actually doing things for a change. Little things, which a few months ago I might have put off, no longer seem so daunting. I'm reading more. I'm happier. I feel more confident. I recently started smoking an occasional joint (once a week) when recording music but I'm happy to report that I'm not slipping back into the pattern of smoking all the time, or feeling like I need a spliff to get me through the day. It's working out pretty well, thanks.
quote:Originally posted by Waynster: Actually Misc I don't smoke weed as it only makes me lust after the filthy fags which I gave up last year, so it ain't that.
I was just playfully stereotyping, Waynster. Well done for ditching the fags though.
posted
once, when I was trapped in the ravages of depression, rather than giving up the cocktail of dangerous designer street drugs that I was spliffed up on, I when to a hypnotherapist for a 'free session'. I didn't really like it. She had water features in her front room, and I sat in this easy chair, and we just talked about things, and she explained the processes, and I was kind of warming to it. Then she started going on about how often people cry and punch cushions to get rid of their angst, and I thought that there was no fucking way I'm going to pay to cry and punch cushions, basically humiliating myself to the point of no return. So, I went off, but on the journey home I got paranoid that she had tried to hypnotise me to be gay, for some reason. And that lead to me thinking, maybe she has used mind control already to somehow expose the fact that I'm gay. And, it wasn't that I was feeling horny for men, but just fearful that actually, my 'true nature' or real self was so far removed from my perceived nature, that to discover it would probably cause me to have a breakdown. And about two weeks later, I had a breakdown. Amazing. But I'm not gay, as far as I know. And, I doubt that it was anything to do with her. Perhaps, the lesson is that you shouldn't go to somebody who can do mind control if you are suffering from severe paranoid delusions.
[ 06.10.2005, 06:01: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
posted
I read a book about 'auto hypnosis' years ago, when my brain-boat had been capsized by a tsunami of drug-surf. Clutching the book-flotsam was a desperate effort to remain afloat long enough to let the hit-tide carry me to the safe sands of a sanity beach.
I posted about it when London started a thread about insomnia years ago, back in the old days. I'd tell you all about it but I've just realised I tried to weave it into a mediocre piece of fiction which is sitting uselessly on my hard drive. I will save it for my TMO nightshift and post it this very evening.
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posted
I am late and I am messy, and I am so old now that I am thinking these two traits are never going to change. It's getting heartbreaking now, as I go on through life, meeting new people. Watching as the realisation slowly dawns. The first time I'm late, they accept it as an abberation, swallow my excuses wholesale. The second time I see the doubt creep in. The third time, they get it. The fourth time, the texts. 'You're half an hour late dude. I don't believe this.' The fifth time, they've arranged to meet me in a bar or a gallery. They've bought a library of books and a GameBoyAdvance to occupy themselves. They've lied about the time we are to meet, told me an hour ahead of when I need to be there. And I know this, and they know this, but there is no way around it. And I don't know what to do. Why I am so late. It's not a manifestation of disdain for the other person. I do it to people I really like. It's just. Bullshit. And I don't know how to make it stop.
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posted
Hypnotism is one of those things, like snake-charming, snake oil, spiritualism and anti-ageing cream that falls into the category of bunkum for the gullible and/or vulnerable in my book. So I've never tried it. In fact, in possibly the most humourless move by an Ents Officer ever, I recall getting a motion against allowing hypnotists at my University. There had been various allegations of assault following hypnotisms at other venues, but it was mainly a triumph for the iron-fist of rationalism. I've lightened up a bit since then.
But I digress. For real change I find you can't beat Fear.
When I gave up smoking, it was because I had suddenly woken up and realised that I was Going To Die. It took about two years to actually give up, but still, the desire to even attempt it was born of fear. I'm still going to die by the way, just not quite yet. I hope.
Quitting paid employment for a postgrad degree in my twenties? Fear of perpetual boredom and mediocrity. That one lives with me and keeps me trying, even if it keeps me miserable at times.
Taking up exercise and teaching myself to run, my current and most un-rock-and-roll pursuit to date. That's fear too. Fear of death (otherwise known as The Fear, see smoking), fear of fatness (see regaining lost youth and the narcissist's memory of having once been beautiful), probably most of all fear of being overtaken by a great rolling ball of stress. Run, run, run.
So if you want to change, I would say, you need to find something you're afraid of doing/not doing/being/ becoming etc. and set yourself some practical goals.
But I were you, I would also ask myself why I wanted to change. Is there really anything wrong with being a bit lazy? You could probably argue that your night in front of the TV was more culturally enriching than moving a load of boxes.
Extreme Makeover is running a Trailer on Living TV at the moment - generally between The Biggest Loser and Britain's Next Top Model (snort) - in which a seventeen year old lad earnestly intones "I want to change. I want to be a better person."
For crying out loud, it seems like only a couple of weeks since I was ineptly satirising the earnest narratives of transformation and self-improvement in American reality TV shows. Now even ratty looking Croydon youth can speak the language. Shouldn't he still be worrying about his PlayStation? You see my point?
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posted
Wow, there's a "Britain's Next Top Model"? Does Tyra fly from show to show? Are they going to have a Model against Model catwalk deathmatch between the two?
I dunno...these British wannabe mu-dels look much more vacant and vapid than the wholesome farmgirls I watch every Wednesday (shame).
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quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: I watched this on sunday. It was pretty degrading.
To you or the models? I prefer the wholesome farm girl look myself. I've always felt that I was in the minority when it came to what I found pleasing in a womans appearance.
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: I watched this on sunday. It was pretty degrading.
To you or the models? I prefer the wholesome farm girl look myself. I've always felt that I was in the minority when it came to what I found pleasing in a womans appearance.
it was degrading for everybody. The girls were often modelling their own underwear in their bedrooms for a shaky camcorder, begging to be picked. Or trying to act, or sing, or just all these things that have nothing to do with modelling. Many seemed to think it was Britain's next top glamour model, and poured themselves like quicksilver from bed to sofa to bath, with this horrible ZOO magazine Tv ad impression of sexiness. I was watching it and playing half life 2, and it was only on because Louise and I were hungover. I still felt degraded though, as if I'd personally run a fake competition, and then beat off to the submissions.
[ 06.10.2005, 08:17: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
posted
I saw BNTM last night and the girls are just far more nakedly bitchy than the American girls. Also far drunker. And most of the tasks seem designed to degrade them and whip up a fight. And one of the wannabes, Tashi, is from Leeds and sounds so exactly like Scary Spice it's quite, er, scary. So yes, pretty degrading.
Tara's not involved, there's a British supermodel I've never heard of trying to pretend to be Tara and just sounding a bit shrill. Although she did do the "How very dare you" routine on some closet case casting agent who said Scary Spice looked like a drag queen.
posted
ah, sorry, my mistake. This was a special, giving viewers a chance to laugh at all the submissions that didn't make it. The show itself isn't degrading.
posted
in order to give up smoking, it looks like im going to have to give up drinking. i have to give up smoking as every time i get drunk and smoke loads of fags my left arm hurts all day afterwards. which, yes, does sound rather like the warning signs of a heart attack doesnt it. in a 30 year old woman. so i have to give up smoking so that i dont have to face going to the doctor and saying 'please can you check my heart because i think i might be going to have a heart attack, and yes, i am only 30 and in otherwise perfect health, yes, yes' and either a) feeling like a hypochondriac cock or b) being told that i have a heart condition, and am going to die soon. being as these are the options, i think i will give up smoking. also, if i give up drinking, i will also be disavowing being late for work and getting into fights with students in bristol city centre, which cannot be at all bad.
after ive done this, i would like to give up fear. oj what is your advice for someone who wants to give up being afraid of things- failure, house burglary and rape by slavering crackheads, loneliness unto death, irreversible waning of creative ambition and such? thanks in advance for your sage advices.
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after ive done this, i would like to give up fear. oj what is your advice for someone who wants to give up being afraid of things- failure, house burglary and rape by slavering crackheads, loneliness unto death, irreversible waning of creative ambition and such? thanks in advance for your sage advices.
Well spotted discodamage. The downside to my cunning plan is that you do have to live perpetually in fear. It's really not a good thing and frankly I don't know of a cure.
Actually there are anti-depressants, they can stop you feeling afraid. But in a kevlar-coated impermeable sort of a way. One of the scariest periods of my life was spent coming off evil Seroxat _* in the days before they were admitting it's hell on earth. Since we're not "sharing" I'll skim over the hallucingoenic properties of the waking-nightmares, the electric shock sensations and the odd public collapse and just say: don't do it. But for me, all that does just go to prove that almost anything is less scary than having your mind wiped out and replaced with the personality of a heavily armoured tank.
eta: discodamage I sincerely hope that didn't sound flippantly dismissive of your fears. I have to say that the fear of loneliness unto death is probably a pretty universal one, or at least one that I share - hence the being reduced to a gibbering wreck on first hearing of Hope There's Someone.
I hope you're not feeling as bad as you sound like you're feeling.
posted
Is it the fear of losing everything that keeps us going? I was just thinking the other day, seeing a shambolic man shuffle around Walthamstow's Selbourne Walk shopping centre, that the things that keep us together, or at least distracted from the essential emptiness of existence, can so easily be taken away. Job, relationship, friends, health... all horribly fragile. And we can even lose them by our own actions, which is even more terrifying.
*stands up* I too am a procrastinator. For about the last 10 years I've been thinking 'I really must get on with my life and get a better job, time is running out', and I haven't. Fear of failure, no doubt. I now really want to open a cheese shop, but don't think just looking at a couple of business start-up websites is going to get me that far. I think for us procrastinators, it's baby steps. Do the washing up instead of watching Trisha, and give yourself a biscuit. That kind of thing. Though that way you end up enormously fat, and cannot motivate yourself to get out of the chair.
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