#144 Relax & Sleep Hypnosis Daily - YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS (Jason Newland)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland, this is Relax and Sleep Hypnosis Daily. Just to let you know I've got a new website, SleepHypnosisDaily.com. So please only listen when you can safely close your eyes and I'd like you to get yourself comfortable, ideally either lying on your bed or sitting safely in a comfortable chair that supports your body.

When I say safely, it might sound like a bit silly there, but if you were to sit in a chair that doesn't have any arm rests and fell asleep, there's a chance you could fall out your chair, which is not ideal, it's going to be dangerous, so we don't want that. I'm okay because I'd probably just bounce back because of my big belly, but not everybody's as lucky as me to have a big fat smelly belly like me.

So you can tell right from the start that this is a very professional recording.

Well, that's part of this recording is the idea of not taking yourself too seriously. Now this is something we can all be accused of at times, we all take ourselves too seriously sometimes, even the most easy go, happy go lucky, joyful person at times will take themselves a little bit too seriously. And I think it's understandable in some circumstances, but just now the arm rest of my chair just clicked under the weight of my huge hairy arm and it made a big noise, a clicky noise, and I don't want that noise when I'm making a recording.

And now I've taken it very seriously and I've never been so angry. It's okay, I'll let it go now. So how does taking ourselves seriously affect how we feel, affect our stress levels? Well, I don't think it needs to even be explained, does it? Obviously, our stress levels are going to be higher than perhaps they need to be if we're getting stressed, because taking yourself seriously in and of itself implies that you're going to be getting stressed about something, you're getting a little bit too anxious about something that maybe doesn't require that level of seriousness.

Now, you know, I'm well aware that life isn't one big joke and there's lots of things that are serious. So if you can look at the funny side of stuff, you know, it's quite a good way of relieving. Even if it's a serious situation, if you can tell a joke or say something inappropriate, providing it's not to the wrong person, because I've made that mistake many times, it can reduce the stress levels.

It almost sort of makes a little hole in that big balloon of stress and tension and anxiety, which means that that tension and anxiety and stress start to reduce. There's that little hole in the balloon, causing the balloon to shrink, maybe slowly, but it still shrinks. Just, you know, if you blow up enough balloons in an evening before going to bed, why would you? I don't know.

Maybe it's your hobby. But, you know, let's say you've got a wedding or birthday party the next day and you want to be prepared. So you don't want to use, you want to have some breath left to enjoy the party.

So maybe you use all your breath up for the day, the day before. So when you wake up, you've got some oxygen, you know, to use for yourself. So you blow up all the balloons and maybe you've got, I don't know, 100 balloons all blown up, floating on the ceiling or floating against the ceiling, sticking, like they're trying to get out, basically.

And you go to bed, but you're a little bit worried that your house will float away, but you kind of think it probably won't, but there's still that kind of, oh, maybe. You know, and then that brings up the problems. Is it going to be a good thing or a bad thing? Because you might actually wake up in a nicer neighborhood.

And guaranteed, you come downstairs the next day, maybe with your slippers on, maybe barefoot, maybe with your Wellington boots on, maybe you ski down the stairs, I don't know. And you go into the living room. There always seems to be at least one balloon that looks like a depressed fart.

Just half, half, you know, it's still got some air in it, but it's just, you know, it's like a half-hearted javelin throw, you know. It's like, oh, and you know, it doesn't get any further than your own feet. It's that kind of balloon.

You wouldn't want it to be in the Olympics and your Olympic team. You wouldn't employ it to work as a chauffeur. I'm just saying it's not a great balloon.

And it's just there, like, bleh, just all floppy. There was a point to what I was saying. Yeah, so that's, that is what I mean when making a little hole in that balloon of stress and tension.

Is, although it's a gradual process, the balloon deflates. And no matter how many times you try and pump that balloon up, it will pump up, but it'll deflate again. And I guess you could class that as a safety valve, which we all have, but we might not all be, you know, aware of it.

Because if we didn't have the safety valve, or in terms of plumbing, an overflow, you know, for the plumbing system in your kitchen and your bathroom and your home, then we would just pop, you know. Because the amount of stress and tension that we do, you know, generally have to deal with in our lives, there's a lot of it, if you added it all up. So that we already have that release happening.

So it's almost, I guess it's invisible to us, but it is happening, even when you don't realize it's happening, even when you don't think it's happening. And there's something weird, I don't know why, but once you are aware, once you wrap your mind around that idea, that actually you already have that overflow, or you have that constant release, like a release valve, but it's constantly releasing the tension and the stress from your body and your mind, constantly, but behind the scenes, almost invisibly.

But once you know that that's happening, you start to maybe feel a bit more confident, a bit more relaxed in yourself, knowing that there's less for you to do.

That no matter what happens, you will be okay. And that's where the taking ourselves too seriously can get in the way of that knowing that we have that ability to release the stress naturally through the valve, the release valve, or the overflow, whatever. To be thinking of ourselves and what's going on is really important.

And, you know, almost catastrophizing. Now that's a word I like to use, but I can't spell it, I'm afraid. I'm pretty sure it's got a P somewhere.

So learning not to take yourself too serious. Can be exactly that, learning. And some people don't need to learn, some people already can see the funny side, but it can take a while, you know, let's face it, not everything's funny.

Some things are never, are never funny. But then sometimes some things are really funny, but after the event, maybe, you know, 100 years later or something like that. There's a theory that, you know, why wait, why wait to laugh about it? Why not laugh about it now? Now, I don't think that's necessarily a relevant statement, because some things are just not laughable, are they, in life.

But it doesn't mean we need to take ourselves seriously. The situation may be serious, but how much energy do we really need to give to it? How much energy and time do we really need to devote to something that feels unpleasant? Because there's one thing, experience, you know, experiencing a horrible situation. There's another thing, reliving it.

You know, why would we choose to do that? A lot of people would say, well, they don't choose it. But we do have a lot of control over what we think about. If I say to you, think about, think about a penguin, and straight away you're thinking about a penguin.

If I say, focus on your right foot, you're going to be focusing on your right foot. I could mention your chest. What a lovely chest you have.

You know, it's very nice and hairy. Well, I don't know, that's not something I would say, but, you know, you're going to be focusing on your chest. Or, I wish I drove a Mini.

You're going to be thinking about Minis. Or you're going to be laughing, I mean, maybe, but you're still going to be thinking about Minis. So, it's quite easy for other people to sway our thoughts.

Which means it's also very easy for us also to do that. Just by mentioning something. Because when you say out loud, do you remember that, remember the last time, remember when we had that hurricane? Or, what about that, that volcano that's still erupting in Spain? And I hope everyone's well there, by the way, but, just as an example, your mind goes in a different direction.

And after saying that, I just realised that maybe, for my Spanish listeners, that wasn't a good example of distraction from stress. Because I imagine if I had a volcano in this country, it would be bubbling away continuously, that would be a cause of stress, so I apologise for that. But, just as an example, I'm just talking about, we can move our own minds by focusing on something else.

And we're not really very capable of focusing on too many things. Especially when it comes to thinking. We can do more than one thing at the same time.

See, I'm tapping my right, while I'm talking to you, I'm, OK, I'll stop. I was trying to tap my right knee while I talked to you, but I realised I can't do more than one thing. But generally, some people can do more than one thing at the same time.

And that's proven with driving, and with anyone that has children. You've got no choice but to do multiple things at the same time. So if you've got like four children, you've got to find ways to be angry with all four of them.

We do have the capability of that, but when it comes to thinking, when you're on your own, and this is your mind, when it comes to thinking, you can't really, I don't think we can really say that we can think about more than one thing at a time. Not in any given second. So, when we are multitasking, we're only really thinking about one thing at the same time.

We're just darting between those things very quickly. Now, when we're thinking, the thinking process doesn't work like that. Darting between different things continuously.

I'm sure it does happen sometimes, but generally, thinking is, we focus on one thing. And the more we focus on it, the more we focus on it. And of course, that can lead somewhere else, because the thoughts tend to take a life of their own sometimes.

Now, in order to keep the stress going, why would you want to? It's to show that, to keep that up. Sometimes you'll find you have to bring it back, bring your mind back to the source of your discomfort. Now, this might sound weird and very strange.

I'm not going to make some strange noise. But this is going to sound weird. Why would you purposely choose to think about something that causes you to feel stress and tension? And to feel uncomfortable and unhappy maybe? Why would someone choose to not only have that, those thoughts and to think about that stuff, which causes that reaction physically and emotionally, but then when their mind drifts off to something else, because everything leads to something else, thoughts never stay static, they develop and move somewhere else.

Now, in order to get back to that original feeling, you have to almost bring the feeling back, bring back the imagery or the thoughts that you were having. Which means effort. Why would anyone do that? Yet people do do that.

I've done that many times. And I can't say for sure, but I imagine maybe you have. And it's only when we observe and discuss and maybe even laugh about some of the pointless, silly things that perhaps we do, that change can occur.

Because if we can laugh at ourselves for thinking about a subject that makes us feel, it's an unpleasant feeling and it makes us feel unhappy or stressed or whatever. If we actually drift off to think about something else, if we just realize that we've gone off subject almost on a tangent inside your own brain, and we bring ourselves back to that source of pain and discomfort, that's something that kind of needs to be laughed at.

Because it is ridiculous.

Now I talk about this stuff because I know that I've done it many times myself. I'm also aware that it's kind of ridiculous to do it. It's painful for no reason.

It doesn't have to be. We don't have to think about anything that we don't want to. I understand there's a degree of sometimes wanting to feel a certain way because that's what we expect of ourselves.

Well that thing happened and it was unpleasant, so when I get home I should think about it and increase their pain. Because experiencing that emotional pain at the time of the incident, let's say, why is that not enough? Why do we then need to sit down or lie down and re-experience that event in our mind, making the pain and the suffering stronger? For what reason? Instead of letting it go.

I do think that experiencing the discomfort of a sticky situation, an unpleasant situation, why isn't once enough? That's all I'm asking.

Isn't experiencing that discomfort once enough? If you've been through it, why put yourself through it again when you're in the safety of your own home? Perhaps at the time it was out of your control what was happening. It might have just been a very unpleasant experience socially, a conversation that didn't go very well. Someone said something that caused something, or maybe you just didn't feel very well.

What benefit is there in re-experiencing that stuff? But what it does show you is how powerful your thoughts are. Because you've chosen to focus, well not now but maybe in the past, you've chosen to focus on a negative experience. And what does it do? It gives you back negative feelings.

It gives you emotional pain. Without doubt, every time. And that's a really great skill if you use it differently.

When you realise that actually you're only getting those feelings because you're focusing on that. You're getting more of what you're focusing on. You get what you think about.

You experience more of what you focus on. And I've spoken about this many times in the past. Blah blah blah blah, yeah yeah yeah yeah.

But sometimes when things do get a bit tedious, and you've heard this so many times, sometimes, eventually, it sticks in your mind. Almost like they used to say a thorn in your side, or a splinter in your toe. That's what this is.

Except it's not painful. It's a pleasant feeling because you, for some reason, and it may bug you, but for some reason, some of the things I've said in this recording will stick with you. And you'll remember that what you focus on, you get more of.

You basically get what you ask for. The mind is like the best restaurant in the world, you know. Whatever you fancy eating, you just request it.

All you've got to do is go into a restaurant and just imagine the food. It could be any food. You might be well-travelled and been all around the world, and know about food that I've never even heard of.

And you might just imagine that, and the food arrives. And it's placed down on your table, and you can eat it. I guess it's like food, you eat it, don't you? Anything that you can imagine arrives and appears.

That's what the mind is like for thoughts and feelings. Whatever you decide to imagine and think about, stimulates thoughts and then feelings. And then, depending upon what's going on in your life, could lead even to action, which may not be positive.

Or maybe positive, depending on what you're thinking about. Thoughts lead to feelings. The analogy of being able to just sit down at a table in a restaurant, regardless of what kind of restaurant it is.

So you could sit down in a Cambodian restaurant, where they sell Cambodian food, whatever that is. And you decide you want a hot dog that you had when you visited New York. You want that exact hot dog, with the mustard, and you got it on a hot dog stall, and maybe connected to that hot dog was the emotions and the feelings, and the pleasure of being there, maybe with a loved one or some friends, and you had a brilliant time.

So you decide, I want a hot dog, I want that hot dog. Obviously not that exact one, because you pooed it out years ago. But you want a hot dog like that.

And you just imagine it. And it's there. Because we get what we think about, as far as our thoughts.

So that's an analogy, I'm not saying that you can actually do that, and think that you want a hot dog and it's going to appear. This is an analogy, an idea to explain. I'm going to explain what an analogy is now.

But just imagine you close your eyes. Whatever you think about now is your choice. Whatever you think about is your choice.

You can think about feeling relaxed. You can think about feeling calm and loose. You can think about how great tomorrow is going to be.

Maybe you think about a movie, or a theatre, or some event that you're looking forward to doing at the weekend. Maybe you're just thinking about getting home, or the next time you see someone that you care about. And then those feelings will come up connected to those things.

Because you've chosen what you think about. And we do choose what we think about. It may not be as like we do.

It might feel like we don't actually choose. But we do. And if you're thinking about something, and you realise that you don't like what you're thinking about, change it.

Think about something different. Think about something different. And keep thinking about something different.

Remembering that whatever energy is in, whatever negative energy is there, it is being released constantly. You've got the overflow, you've got the little blue, with a little hole in it, that's releasing that energy constantly. All the time.

And this all helps us to realise that we don't need, don't really need to take things too seriously. And even serious things can be just put away when you decide to relax. That stuff's not important in this moment.

You can just let go. And choose for yourself what you decide to think about. Now.

So that brings the end of this recording. So I'm going to count from ten down to one. And I'd like you to really let go of any remaining stress or tension.

Just let it out. Let it release out of you. Ten.

Nine. Eight. Seven.

Six. Five. Four.

Three. Two. One.