CLEAR SKIN at last!! Thanks to hypnotherapy.

I already posted this on the 'absoluteacne' forum and there is a long thread with much more info to read. Search on the web for it. For those of you that didn't read that, read on...

What you are about to read may seem a little unbelievable to some of you. It's

the truth.

I've been through alot of anguish with my skin. No longer. And along the way

I've transformed myself and my life. Everything has improved.

I'm not making money here, I'm even looking for new work now, so it's

completely sincere.

I don't know you guys, and everyone is different. I hope that some of you who

have been similarly frustrated might learn from this. If a few of you gain,

then that's great. I'm not claiming any miracles, or universal 'cures'. But I'm

a changed man.

I'm 25 and live in the UK. I guess I've had spots since about 13 and puberty,

like most people. But they shouldn't have gone on this long! OK, after about 18

or so, loads of people get a few, many adults get a few small ones, some have

temporary outbreaks, including Hollywood stars like Cameron Diaz. Permanently

perfect skin is a bit of a myth, and we've all be conditioned by the media,

stars who spend thousands on beauty treatments, computer-edited images in

magazines and advertisements, to believe that this is natural. Well, guess

what, we're not all perfectly healthy and free from stress all the time. People

get zits. And yet...

I was a bit confused why at 20 yrs old, I was in a minority still getting big

spots on my face. I had phases, it went up and down, sometimes almost clear,

while I was studying at University, but I got pretty bad self-esteem when I had

a few, and with the left-over blemishes too.

As a teenager, I'd had Antibiotic pills briefly, and Antibiotic lotion, but

this is treating the symptom, especially once I hit my 20s. So I started to

look at diet...

I drank shitloads of water. At one point I thought it might be working. I know

now it was coincidence.

I started to think certain foods or supplements had an effect. Vitamins, MSM

sulphur pills etc.

At the same time, I also suffered from eczema on my hands and face. Spots from

oily skin, and eczema seems like the opposite, dry skin. Bizarre.

I kept searching for what triggered my outbreaks. It was so frustrating. I read

stuff on the net, clinging to whatever seemed to fit at the time. Too much sun?

Hot weather? Diet? But none of it really worked. And I had so many lotions to

put on my face too. Washes, astringent creams, antiseptic.

But it was all attacking the symptom not the cause.

So I went through 4 years of Uni, where everyone is meant to have a great

social time. Well, I did drink plenty, but my sex life was non-existent. And

this hurt my confidence too. Everyone else seemed to at least 'get lucky' now

and again, fall into relationships. Why couldn't I? OK, I got great degrees,

made plenty of friends, but I still was stuck. I was still getting loads of

spots.

I tried the B5 approach, popping tonnes of expensive vits. It seemed to work,

but inconsistently. I know now it had little effect.

I started a job. I used to feel awkward getting on the subway/tube with

everyone around, with my skin peeling cos I'd slapped some new cream on, which

I thought would be the answer.

After my 24th birthday, I found this e-book which focussed totally on the

dietary approach, to 'cure' acne. I was so upset with a new outbreak, I thought

, @#%$ it, and went for it. This book had every dietary fad under the sun

shoved together. Essential Fatty Acids, detox 'cleansing' diets, taking

truckloads of vitamins. Detoxing the liver, kidneys etc. I spent so much on

supplements. And I did wonder WHY most other people didn't have spots, and

their diets were relatively poor. Yet their skin was ok. Still, I gave it a go.

To cut a long story short, this didn't work. It took a while for me realize,

cos detoxing is quite a business.

I tried taking more EFAs (Omega 3 and 6) to balance hormones. Maybe this would

be more benefit to females, where things go up and down more! For a short

while, I thought Omega 3, in flax oil, was clearing everything. I even posted

really enthusiastically on this board a year ago shouting its wonders. But then

I got more spots...I'd learnt so much from the net about nutrition. I was

NOTconvinced by Wai's diet (?) from this board or the old one.

I'm sure some of this might benefit general health, but it was nothing to do

with my spots!

So I turned to the source which has, 11 months later, allowed me to transform

myself. I'd been reading the book Skin Deep: A Mind/ Body Program for Healthy

Skin by Ted A Grossbart, Carl Sherman. OK, so some people say 'stress' can

cause spots, and that's true. But 'stress' is such an overused and

over-generalized word. Their book went into the psychological and emotional

roots of skin-problems. Remember, your mind controls your body.

I had been into NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), which is the study of how

our minds work, and how we can improve the way we use ours by copying the way

top achievers in any sphere use theirs. It's related to hypnosis.

This book was excellent. They recommended exploring psychotherapy as an

approach, alongside direct skin treatments, if what they said made any sense to

your case. The authors are experienced doctors, they know what they're on

about.

So I found a hypnotherapist, since I was aware that hypnosis can be a powerful

way of changing and replacing undesirable behaviours with helpful ones.

Hypnosis works with stuff in your mind which often we are not aware of,

especially if it's traumatic. Our brains contain everything we've ever

experienced in our lives and how we PERCEIVE the memory which, above DNA

perhaps, governs everything we experience in the present. Above all, your brain

wants to help and protect you, but it can get confused about the best way to do

this. An example might be a person who is so scared of rejection with the

opposite sex, that their unconscious finds a way to avoid this bad feeling by

making them eat alot, or have bad skin. See where this is going? Not exactly my

experience, but anyway. So the person might feel bad about their appearance,

but, hey, their body is avoiding the imagined stress of rejection. Since this

is 'subconscious', the person rationalizes reasons why they look bad. They

search for 'reasons': my metabolism isn't right, it's genetic, it's poor diet

etc.

This book 'Skin Deep' goes alot into exploring your past, which is ok, and what

many counsellors and traditional therapists and psychiatrists do. But NLP and

hypnosis, since they work with the subconscious, don't care so much how you got

the problem, just on working out how you want to be in the future (eg. clear

skin, give-up smoking) and removing the blocks in the way.

I started my hypnotherapy. Strange at first, you don't go to sleep, you're

aware of everything, and the therapist is your guide, he's not telling you

where to go. I'm not going to detail all the sessions, but here's an example.

It's a bit like having a dream. Strange images, and symbols pop up, and you use

them to resolve your challenge. From the FIRST session, when he asked me to

focus on the part of me making spots, images of a baby came up, it seems that

the baby wanted love, and things moved from there. Another person would have a

different image, or situation.

I began to follow the book and analyze what the situations were when I had more

spots, to find a pattern. It seemed to be social situations, maybe with sexual

potential, but it wasn't clear (literally!!). Delving into the past consciously

is often not that helpful. It is better, as when you're driving a car, to focus

on where you want to GO, not where you've been. After a bit, maybe alot of

conscious effort your mind will be convinced. NLP and hypnosis can speed things

up bigtime.

Well, it's 11 months later, and maybe 20 sessions later. At first, it seemed to

go well , then there was a bit of a plateau.

Finally in November, after alot of work exploring hypnosis-related fields and

NLP, I had an intuition, a physical feeling in my body, and an image related to

my spots. One hypno-session later I had changed it. 2 months on, I get

virtually no spots, in any situation. And I'm changing my whole life.

The key change seemed to involve something perceived as a trauma from when I

was 2-3 years old. Since you're born with an empty and rapidly growing brain,

absorbing everything around it, stuff that happens then can affect alot of

behaviours. The younger the child, the more this kind of trauma can affect the

physical body. Your brain records stuff, and continues to run it like a

program, until something communicates to it, that this is no longer useful.

To give you an idea, since this change:

my spots cleared dramatically
I have no eczema
I get no more nosebleeds
I walk taller, my posture has improved
I am more confident, more comfortable in my body, I take up more 'space'
I am more motivated to grow and improve
My sex life has taken off (not cos of clear skin, more cos I have no emotional

blocks any more, I have more positive emotion, which is more attract-ive)
my coordination has improved, I'm stronger
I sleep better
sugar cravings have disappeared
I am not emotionally 'needy' any more. I don't have to follow people around to

feel good. I can lead and make others feel good.

To help this board, I can briefly 'explain' what 'caused' my spots:

This trauma my brain was running for 20 yrs basically told my body to tense up

strongly in particular situations, opportunities for literally 'growing up',

going for goals, personal growth, achievement etc. I used to feel this strong

tension in my stomach area, sometimes on my face as a flushing heat. 2 days

later, spots would be the result! OK we all feel positive and negative

emotions, but these were much stronger, affecting my whole body, until now!

This ties in with the dietary fad people who talk about cleansing etc. With my

stomach/gut etc. under such tension, my digestion was probably weakened,

causing spots. So they were 'right', but for me, simply treating the symptom

again.

I no longer get this tension.

I've learned so much about personal growth on my journey, that now I believe

almost anything is possible.

If you want some idea about the brain and development, and an amazing read,

check out 'Prometheus Rising' by Robert Anton Wilson. Some of his ideas have

helped me change too. It explains how very early negative traumas CAN produce

physical symptoms. Very liberating book anyway. Don't take my or his word for

it. Decide for yourself.

'Skin Deep' by Grossbart and Sherman opens your mind to the mind-body link in

disease. Your mind controls your body. So sort out your mind, do some

spring-cleaning and your body can change.

It wasn't a magic bullet, it's taken effort, and a committment to improve. I've

been inspired in this area by Tony Robbins 'Awaken the Giant Within', a

brilliant, and inspiring self-improvement read if you READ IT ALL, and TAKE

ACTION, rather than the common act of leaving it on the coffee table, reading a

few pages, or reading it all, and simply intellectualizing and TAKEing no

ACTION.

It's all been worth it. I've had a @#%$ time, I know many of you have. If any

of this makes sense to you, explore it all. I hope you can conquer your

challenges too.

I'm now eating what I like. Protein, junk food, vitamins have no effect. I DO

eat quite healthily now, but this is a separate issue. In fact, eating

healthily may now make a difference since my body is working healthily,

strongly and efficiently.

If you aren't convinced, and you're following a dietary approach, which seems

like an expensive hassle that you might have to follow for years, with sporadic

results, ask yourself this: why do so many people NOT bother with this, yet

they have clear skin. Why?


All my best wishes.

N