Every person and every situation is different, so there can be no universal, one-size-fits-all solution to life’s challenges. That said, I’ve followed a process that has been refined over 30 plus years.
Introductory call
It is critical that we communicate comfortably with each other, and that you have confidence that I have the right experience, training and temperament to help you achieve your goals. It is equally important that I know you are ready to embark on the road to achieving your goals. That is the purpose of introductory call. We each need to know enough about the other to have confidence that we should meet in person.
Ongoing sessions
Deciding how we will proceed is a process of matching your goals with my experience and training to find your path, realizing that our path together will evolve as you grow. Here are examples of representative examples of approaches to more common goals.
Smoking cessation
I have found that hypnosis is a powerful tool to help break the smoking habit but that doesn’t mean that a generic (or group) hypnosis session will be successful for you. We will discuss and bring to light why smoking was or is important to you. We’ll talk about how smoking fits into your life today, and why you want to stop smoking. Once we have clarity on these core elements behind your smoking, then we can use hypnosis to realign and reinforce your desire to stop smoking while addressing the good things it might have done for you.
Smoking is almost always a one-time session with a very high success rate. But sometimes, usually after life’s twists and turns have brought back the yearnings for the relief that smoking provides, even after years, the desire to smoke becomes overpowering. So I offer a second session to refresh and refine your commitment through hypnosis at no additional cost.
Weight loss
Although many advertisements present solutions to weight loss as a pill or an exercise or some easy-sounding solution, achieving and maintaining weight loss is a complex process. Underneath the surface are issues like stress management. At its core, it is about gaining a new and better understanding your basic relationship with food. Do you eat as a reward for something you have accomplished, or as a relief from pressure? Do you associate food with being a good person, “cleaning your plate” as you learned when you were a child? Does eating provide you with relief from life’s other challenges?
I’ve found that most often struggles with weight loss are a complex mix of psycho-social pressures and physical characteristics that are best addressed by a blend of therapies over several sessions as we peel away the onion to find the reasons that make it difficult to value, achieve and sustain losing weight, while also incorporating life style and supplemental remedies that strengthen your core.
Weight loss is about finding new ways to be satisfied and rewarded in your spiritual and physical life. We can do it together.
Stress management
Whether we are aware of it or not, stress is our body’s reaction to challenges we face, whether from issues with parents, partners, children or work, stress is the way our unconscious survival instincts respond to these pressures. Stress can manifest in all kinds of physical ways, from unhealthy sleep patterns to infrequent and irregular bowel movement. Perhaps it manifests in chronic physical conditions. In each case, we must first explore these intersecting pieces of your life before we can begin the road to taking control of how you feel.
Pain management
Dealing with chronic pain is particularly tricky, yet one of the most successful and rewarding areas for treatment. People often come to me with pain rooted in a physical injury or condition. By the time they call me, they are usually near wits end with pain medications that either have stopped working effectively or which require such frequent use that the medication itself is becoming an issue.
Once again, we go through a process to understand the interaction of all related aspects of your life and health. Then we begin down a road to test and refine a combination of therapies to optimize your life experience. Working with your physicians and other health care providers, that may involve pharmacological interventions along with other tools like supplements, hypnosis, meditation, diet or exercise. Sometimes the goal is to minimize the experience of pain, while other times the goal may be to live with the pain in a way that frees you from the abyss of the constant struggle. Together, we define what success means and together we find the way.
Personal relationships
Whether challenges with personal relationships are a contributing factor to other issues or are the central issue clearly identified, personal and family relationships are both common and challenging, yet among the most treatable and rewarding domains. Sometime, these require couples or family therapy. Fairly often, my work is done in collaboration with other therapists. As with other domains, I take a holistic approach, addressing other issues that are manifested through your personal relationships.
Work relationships
Work-place relationship challenges are distinct from but may overlap with other challenges. Challenges in work relationships can reflect the tension between your own personal and professional personas, as well as the complications of aligning your values and objectives with others with whom you work. Unlike some domains which are more heavily focused internally, work relationships often require cultivating a different set of skills, that allow you to remain strong within while finding tools to mitigate or manage the very real external challenges in the work environment.
Living with trauma
Another critical domain is living with trauma. The range of causes and the scope of implications of trauma is so broad that it is difficult, indeed foolish, to comment with generalities. Hopefully, it is sufficient to say that the goal is often to develop the tools and personal assets that allow you to live with trauma, and to manage the consequences of trauma while respecting and understanding the reality that is trauma.
Spiritual relationships
Very few of my clients seek me out because of an identified spiritual issue or concern, yet the need to address spiritual relationships is the most common barrier or enabler on the road to achieving personal goals. I neither subscribe to nor reject any specific spiritual framework. Rather, I facilitate and help cultivate your own personal spiritual belief system. This is one of the most important ways in which I complement traditional, allopathic, health services. It seems so obvious that good health must include physical, mental and spiritual health. Indeed, that is the reason many of my clients come to me with referrals from traditional healthcare providers.
Crisis management
It is in the nature of crises that they cannot be described in terms applicable to all crises. Each has its own causes and trajectory. Nonetheless, how we react to a crisis, both internally and externally, is inherently linked to our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. It is through these manifestations that I have been able to help and guide people through a crisis with a holistic approach unique to each client.
Managing chronic health challenges
This is where it all started, with the realization that managing chronic health conditions requires more than pharmaceutical and bio-mechanical solutions offered in allopathic medicine. It also requires a holistic approach to mental, emotional and spiritual health. The broad range of modalities and tools that I have developed over the years allow us to shift your energy in ways that complement the work you do with your other health providers to achieve your vision for this joyful journey.
Our sustaining relationship
Most of the challenges my clients face are not like an injury or a virus that once it’s gone from your system, you don’t have to think about until a new incident or bug comes along. Most challenges are somehow embedded deep in our life experience, so it’s only reasonable that we continue shining a bright light of awareness on them over time. That doesn’t mean that we need to meet in person every week, but most of my clients prefer to schedule “refreshers,” perhaps monthly, quarterly or even yearly. The goal is simply to not let life erode the progress you have made on this joyful journey.
To learn more about the modalities, tools, that I use, please read the Ariana’s Approach page.
Helping people achieve their unique visions of personal success for over 30 years.
Contact me. We can collaborate by phone, online or in person. Let’s see if we are a fit.
Copyright © 2020 Ariana Joy Arlen, All rights reserved
