Hypnotherapy Auckland

How can poor kids in Africa be happy when I’m not.
How is it that people with a whole lot less, can be happier than people with a whole lot more. When it comes to satisfaction there are some needs that have to be met. Once met, new needs become apparent and want to be satisfied. Having a lot of one need like money, or food, doesn’t satisfy all human needs.

Think of a time you really needed to pee. When you had a really full bladder. Swollen, like it was wanting to burst out. While that bladder remained full  nothing else in the world matters, not work, not your friend, not money, only that big bladder about to burst is on your mind. Only once you have  satisfied the need of relieving yourself do you feel okay and went back to talking, work, socializing, or whatever else you were doing.

As a human, you have many, many needs that want to be satisfied. And just like peeing, some take precendance over others.You may have heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Simple put everybody has needs, and to feel good about life these needs have to be satisfied.  There are priorities to these needs. Only once  the first needs are met, do we notice there are further needs to be satisfied.

So the first needs are physiological needs. You need oxygen. If you have no oxygen you will care about nothing else. Once you have oxygen you move onto to the next need, which is fresh water. If you have no water and are very, very thirsty, nothing else will matter until your thirst is satisfied. Once you have oxygen  and water, then you need to have sleep and after sleep, food etc These needs are Physiological needs. And they are pretty easy to identify.

Once our physiological needs are met we worry about our safety. You need to feel healthy, secure, a roof over your head ,non threatened, either employed or have the means to look after yourself. If you have these aspects in your life sorted, then we move onto love and belonging.

Generally what happens when people come in for hypnotherapy the first two levels are satisfied.  So we work with the following two levels Love/belonging and Esteem.  Now the process as a hypnotherapist is to help the client discover what is necessary to fill the needs of Love belonging and self acceptance and self worth. As hypnotherapy amplifies feelings, and because feelings point away from the discomfort we can identify what areas the client needs to address and also have tools and techniques to help resolve these needs and in doing so help our clients move further up the pyramid.

Lets look at an example, like why a very rich person could be very unhappy. Imagine she has heaps of money and can buy anything she wants, a big luxury house, swimming pool,  pink  porsche etc. And people think “why is she unhappy she has everything”. Wrong. If she had everything she wouldn’t be unhappy. She has her physiological needs satisfied, she has her safety need met, good health and a whole lot of money which provides safety, far in excess of what she requires to full this part of her life.  Heaps and heaps of orange(graph), but perhaps little of anything else. A person with a whole lot less money,  but still enough to fulfill their needs of security and who also has  love, high self esteem, and creative hobbies, and challenges in their life will have a much  higher level of satisfaction in life, than the rich person stuck in the safety level.

As you satisfy your needs you move up the pyramid. But until you get to the top there is another need just waiting and will pop up once the lower one is fulfilled.  When you get to the top life is good. And it is really where we all want to be.

Hypnotherapy is a great tool in helping you to reach the top. The changes can be quite rapid, and a lot of the process comes down to clarifying, knowing and understanding where you are and what needs to change to allow you to move further up towards fulfillment. Maslow’s needs are just one model of helping people with their lives. So be sure to read the other approaches here.