Why does it seem harder to stay happy than to stay suffering?

This is a question that comes up very often for people in all sorts of situations in life.

To really understand why many of us experience happiness and suffering in this way, a neuroscientific understanding of how the brain works is very useful.

Extremely simply put we could say we have three brains (neocortex, limbic system & reptilian brain). Two of these are relevant for the purposes of this discussion, one is a part of the neocortex, the left prefrontal cortex and the other a part of the limbic system which we sometimes refer to as the primitive brain. The left prefrontal cortex is where you could say happiness lives. That is where our solutions are, where we are creative and inventive and positive. Then there is the limbic system, within which is the amygdala, our fight-flight centre. When any insecurity/threat/stress is perceived this primitive brain takes over and stays in control until it perceives the external world to be a safe place again. Although this is effective, there are two problems with this for us modern humans in our overloaded lives.

1. By nature, this part of the brain is negative and not an intellect. This means your actions that come from here are not designed to feel good or make you happy. They are designed to stop you dying. That is it. Suffering (your own or those of others around you) is not an issue for this part of the brain so it will easily allow you to go into suffering for as long as it deems necessary.
2. Given our stressful lives, most people are living mostly with their primitive brain in the driver's seat.

The end result is that people experience suffering and they can remain suffering for what seems almost permanent, except for little glimpses of happiness. What's more, it seems difficult to come out of it, whilst it seems very easy to fall out of happiness into suffering.

The good news is, it does not have to be this way. Like most things in life, maintaining happiness can also be learnt. Happiness, interestingly, has a great deal to do with awareness and a degree of self-discipline as shown by a number of studies of Buddhist monks, which found that Buddhist monks had significantly larger left-prefrontal cortexes compared to the average population. (Look up Matthieu Ricard/Dr Richard Davidson for more info).

Now you could feel disheartened, and say, 'well, I am not a Buddhist monk, so what use is it to me'. But if you look at it from another perspective, you see that this is very good news indeed, because it means that the physical brain can actually changed based on your behaviour, your activities, your choices... Another words, the plasticity of the brain means you can change your physical brain, patterns habits and personality tendencies.

So, in the end, thankfully, the supposition in the question may not be true. Happiness can be very robust if you know how to work on yourself to develop your happiness 'muscle'. And that's exactly what I facilitate at Clarity Flow Hypnotherapy.

Why? because we all deserve to be well!

And thankfully, we can always find small ways to be better than where we are at right now, right?


TO BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION FOR CLINICAL HYPNOTHERAPY CLICK HERE

Maral Kojayan MA HPD
Clinical Hypnotherapist
www.clarityflowhypnotherapy.com

More and more people all around the world are enjoying the benefits of Hypnotherapy, more specifically Solution Focused Hypnotherapy, the method practiced at Clarity Flow Hypnotherapy.

However, when you're new to anything, its perfectly reasonable to wonder about safety and you'd be especially forgiven when it comes to wondering about Hypnotherapy.

After all, Hypnotherapy is one of those things we don't get taught about at school and perhaps only catch very small snippets of confusing information about it. Sometimes this can be in the context of stage hypnosis, which has a very different purpose to Hypnotherapy. Sometimes it can be strange images of swinging pocket watches or of someone clicking their fingers and saying 'sleep!'. Naturally, a rational person would have questions—I certainly did and at the top of that list is the question of safety.

So let's get straight to answering at least one of these important questions. The first one at hand for today is, “Is Solution Focused Hypnotherapy safe?”

The short answer is, Yes! Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is very safe.

But that doesn't tell you much, after all, everyone has a different idea of safety. So let me explain why I'd say it's very safe and you can draw your own conclusion.

First of all, trance is safe because it's really a natural process. The trance state—which we go into during Hypnotherapy—is as natural as daydreaming and as safe as falling asleep or reading a good book.

People also feel extra safe with Clarity Flow Hypnotherapy, because we do sessions via Skype. It's always really nice to be in the safety and comfort of your own space, you can be completely yourself and more relaxed because you don't need to commute, dress-to-impress or go into any unknown places. You can just focus on what's important, your well-being.

And the final badge of safety is that at Clarity Flow Hypnotherapy, Clinical Hypnotherapists are fully certified with the British Government recognised qualifications, the HPD—a gold standard in Hypnotherapy diplomas.

So for all the reasons mentioned above, I think we can safely say that Solution Focused Hypnotherapy session, especially as provided by Clarity Flow Hypnotherapy are very safe, comfortable and convenient for helping people to take steps towards making many of the changes they want to make.

Remember, we all deserve to be well.
www.clarityflowhypnotherapy.com