It's Your Choice!

Take responsibility and your will have the power to change.

Before you can start the “change work” let’s look at who or what is preventing you from achieving your desired outcome. Who or what caused you to have the problem which holds you back? Who or what gave it to you? Who or what is responsible for this “change work” you are now having to do? Is it your parents? Is it your boss? Perhaps your colleagues? Partner? Friends? Who? What?

How about... You?

That’s right; in order to make any change and achieve our goals we must take full responsibility for having the problem in the first place. We have chosen to have that issue! We have, consciously or unconsciously, made that decision. If a person is prevented from achieving his or her goal, he or she is engaged in a behaviour that is holding him or her back.

I know that this may seem controversial and insane at first, but stick with me at it will all make sense soon. Let’s say that Mary’s goal is that of being promoted at work and become the chief executive by the end of the year and that her lack of concentration, stamina and focus, which represent the barrier preventing her from getting there, is caused by interrupted sleep.

Now, who is keeping Mary from sleeping? Is there anyone waking her up during the night? Is there a nasty person whose time is occupied by waking Mary up every so often? Chances are that there is nobody waking Mary up. Mary is waking herself up. She is doing it, no one else is! At some point, for some reasons, Mary made the decision, perhaps unconsciously, that it is good (or necessary) to wake up during the night.

Mary (not her real name by the way) was one of my clients and it only took us 45 minutes to let go for her problem enabling Mary to sleep uninterruptedly. This however happened only after Mary was able to take responsibility and accept that, even if out of her conscious control, she had at some point decided to have the problem.

If Ralph’s goal is that of travelling the world and see 10 countries by August 2010 and his fear of flying is the factor holding him back from doing so, who is being unwarrantedly fearful? Is there anyone giving Ralph the panic attacks, the shaking, the sweating and all the other symptoms? No, there is not; Ralph is behaving is such way because he decided to do so. At some point, for some reason Ralph decided to have that fear.

If you have a goal in mind, something that you want to be, have or do but for some reasons you do not seem to be able to get it, it is clear that there is something preventing you from getting that goal. If this is the case, it is now time to look at the things that prevent you from achieving that goal. It is now time to begin the “change work”, time to lose that excess weight, let go of that fear, bad habit, negative emotion, anxiety, or whatever the problem seems to be. Now is the time to gain that confidence, time to know that you deserve to achieve that goal you have, time to gain that self esteem. It is now time to take responsibility and be at cause.


With this I am not saying that victims of violence, victims of natural calamities, victims of accidents and all people involved in unfortunate events have chosen to attract these events. Not at all! A victim of an assault who is now traumatised and cannot leave his or her hose for the fear of another assault, did not decide to attract the assaulter, however he or she did decide to never again go out of the house. He or she made that decision not to leave the house. A victim of a road accident was involved in the accident without deciding that, however if he or she decides not to drive again, he or she is responsible for the consequences of this decision. This can happen for a number of reasons. However, more often than not, this happens because the unconscious mind is trying to protect us or to achieve a certain goal by adopting that behaviour.

The unconscious mind is infinitely more powerful than the conscious mind, however, it needs to be guided; we need to learn how to communicate with our unconscious so that it knows what we really want and it can understand that the current behaviour is stopping us from getting there.

You unconscious mind loves to please you, this is its goal and therefore it will do it easily and with pleasure, if you just ask. In a nutshell, see the unconscious mind as a child who is infinitely more powerful that any grown man alive. The child is really strong but he does not know how to use that strength unless we tell him how. Not taking responsibility would mean that we give up on the power we have to change.

Taking responsibility means that as we have decided to have the problem, we can now decide to let go of it. The fact that this behaviour/problem is out of our conscious control means that it comes from the unconscious, and that’s fine because it is the unconscious that you will be working with. What do you think would happen if the victim of the assault decides to leave the house and be comfortable? What would happen if the victim of the car accident decides to drive again and actually enjoy it? What would happen if they could make these decisions with determination and generate new healthy behaviours easily, just by deciding to do so? What would happen is that the issue will disappear.

As simple as that! If we could make that firm decision to command our unconscious mind to generate new, alternative representations, thoughts, feelings and behaviours, the issue would simply disappear.

So, I am sure that by now you know that in order to make that change, we need to take full responsibility of the behaviour which, although may seem out of our control, we have decided to have, and you need to do that right now if you haven’t already done so. Be at cause, at cause of the events that you experience, at cause of the reactions that you choose to have over what “happens” to you.

By being at cause you cannot be an effect of the events you encounter, an effect of life. By being at cause, you choose to make of life a product you like, you refuse to be the product of life. How do you do that? Very simple, simply say to yourself that you have caused yourself to have this issue and now you have decided to let go of it.

You have now decided to engage in that new behaviour, state of mind, feelings, thoughts and life style. Just state this as a true statement, as true as the fact that the sun comes up every morning and goes down every night (whether you see it or not).

Believe it! Once you have done that you will soon come to realise whether you need more resources or not. You will soon come to understand whether you can change by yourself or need help.

Either way you are progressing; if you need help then you will find the help you need because now you take responsibility and therefore you have the power to change and if this involves changing with the help of a professional then be it!

Now YOU are in charge, fully in charge of making that change and live the life you know you deserve to live.

To your success.

Luca Senatore - Master Hypnotist - CPMH, CPNLP, CPTLT, NLPCH Cambridge 01223 303 904 http://www.eastangliahypnotherapy.com