[Adapted from Dr Knight's Health and Happiness with Hypnosis]

You Can Enjoy Saving and Spending

Many habits are either taught to us or are such an integral part of our social landscape that we adopt them without thinking. Culture determines, for example, what we will, and will not, habitually eat, e.g. earthworms vs. escargots, cows vs. dogs, flesh vs. vegetables.

Some habits (e.g., picking your nose) may be widespread but are acceptable only when done in private.

Other habits (e.g., the ritual “hello, how are you?” greeting) are designed to smooth interaction among people.

Such habits are also culturally conditioned. Which, for instance, is why men have dropped the habit of opening doors for women.

Consciously or subconsciously, we choose our habits.

All habits are reinforced by self-talk, repetitive thinking and doing, and acceptance of their “rightness”, in other words, by self-hypnosis.

Habits which interfere with your health and happiness, or that of other people, can and should be changed. Hypnotherapy is an effective avenue for such change.

Married three months, Nathan and Charlotte had radically different money habits. Nathan was a spendthrift and Charlotte was a penny pincher. This difference put a tremendous strain on their otherwise excellent relationship. Each was convinced of the rightness of his or her behavior with money. Heated arguments only served to entrench their opposing viewpoints.

Individual hypnotherapy enabled Nathan and Charlotte to understand the origins of their money behaviors. Then they were freed to discuss how, instead of slavishly following what each had come to believe was the right way to handle money, they could together work out a solution.

Nathan became aware that he lavished money on others as a way of persuading them to like him. His main problem was low self-esteem. Even his grand purchases for himself were attempts to bolster his self-worth. The habit of spending every dollar that came in was so entrenched in Nathan that he had not noticed how fleeting were the benefits.

Charlotte came from a rich family. She absorbed the family's preoccupation with holding onto their fortune, their fear of destitution.

Through hypnotherapy Charlotte came to understand how she received no joy from being wealthy; how, indeed, her money habits brought her anxiety and tension.

Their new understandings led them to practice new behaviors. Charlotte made a point of spending some money each week on something frivolous.

Also every week she would give some cash directly to a person or charitable cause. And she spent money (not necessarily a lot) every week on a surprise for Nathan. Charlotte soon realized she was enjoying her wealth.

For his part, Nathan arranged with the brokerage firm which employed him to pay his salary directly into a new bank account. He withdrew a limited amount each two weeks and left the balance to gain interest. He quickly found pleasure in watching the balance grow.

The “friends” Nathan used to cultivate with his generosity soon fell away but after a while Nathan made new friends, people who liked him for himself, not his monetary gifts.

As Charlotte had more fun and Nathan strengthened his self-esteem; they developed new habits, such as dining out regularly. Each understood the other better, and their marriage flourished.