Unwanted Behaviours Trial Session
Below you'll find useful background information that would be beneficial to read prior to starting. I can tell you a little about myself or if you just want to dive straight into the Negative Emotions Trial Session, then click the ‘Unwanted Behaviours Trial Session’ button below. It’ll open the interactive session and you can begin right away.
This unwanted behaviours therapy session will be more effective once you are familiar with some core concepts that will come up during the session. Become familiar with them now and you’ll get the most out the session.
The bonus is that you may find them useful beyond these sessions as they are concepts, beliefs and ideas that are useful in other areas of life.
Cause & Effect
It's hard to control or change something if you feel unable or powerless to do so. Something that many people don't realise is that a belief doesn't always have to be true, it just has to be beneficial to make a real difference. Often people may call that faith rather than belief. So, have faith that during these sessions “If you have a problem then you also have a solution”, even if the solution may seem far away, or you are not yet aware of it.
Cause and effect is such an important belief in helping you get the most from this session that it’s worth repeating. “If you have a problem then you also have a solution” because having the faith to believe “If you have a problem then you also have a solution”, you put yourself in control. You'll be at 'cause' rather than at 'effect' and in the right mindset for this journey.
Even if you are not consciously aware of them, there are probably things that you are doing, saying, and thinking that hamper your ability to let go of this problem. So, something else that will move you towards a solution, should you choose to consider it, is to ask yourself “Is there anything that I’m doing, saying, thinking that enables this behaviour to continue?” Take a moment to reflect on that, is there anything you do, say or think that might keep you stuck in that old behaviour?
If you are aware of them you are more likely to stop the behaviour before it surfaces. That's why the therapy session is structured to gently tease out answers to that and other questions, so you have the ability to change. To change attitudes, beliefs, habits, and move from a place where the behaviour is an issue which you feel unable to change, to one where you have more control, and it ceases to be a problem.
Taking responsibility
During the session we’ll ask questions, probably lots of questions and respond to your answers. We’re here to facilitate, support, and guide you based on the answers you provide. That’s what our talkingcures app is designed for.
So, we can only be as useful, helpful, and insightful as your responses allow. That’s why, in answer to the questions, we ask you to go with the first thing that pops into your head and suggest that you be as open as possible.
talkingcures is a skilled guide and the path it takes is directed by you. We’re here to help and your replies will make it work. It’s your responsibility to point us in the right direction, so that you can get everything you want from the session. All of the new insights, changes and success will be yours, so take responsibility for the outcome.
One event, many viewpoints
Many of our core beliefs, attitudes, values, and feelings are imprinted or learnt at a very early age. Often, we have no conscious knowledge of choosing them, we just pick them up through our early years and they stey with us for better or worse. This is especially trues for unwanted behaviours the catalyst for which will have been the result of an event in your past.
These beliefs, attitudes, values and feelings, are the filter through which we make sense of, and experience everything. That is why the exact same event can produce a very different reaction or experience for those involved. An event that enlightens one person, could leave another in trauma. The event is the same, the way each person filters the meaning of that event is different.
During the unwanted behaviours coaching session we’ll begin help you review these filters to check that they are consistent with the person you want to be, and if not help change, amend or replace them. So we will be looking back to events in the past that may have been the trigger for the behaviour.
Imagine talkingcures as your inner voice
During the session you are the only person contributing to the dialogue, so the session is really about you talking to yourself, with talkingcures playing the role of your inner voice. That’s why, where appropriate the session is conducted in the first person.
In a traditional coaching session, you might be asked by the coach “What is it you want to do?” and you might answer ‘believe in myself’. Then they might reply “So what you want to do is believe in yourself?”
During these sessions, talkingcures becomes that voice in your head, so would instead ask “What is it I want to do?” and you might answer ‘believe in myself’. Then that talkingcures voice in your head might then go on to say “So, what I really want to do is believe in myself. How might I do that?” or “If I did believe in myself, how would I feel?”
Do you see the difference? Apart from being a more personal dialogue, the important parts of the conversation during the session are in the first person, because it reflects the fact that you are the only person involved.
Also, you may notice that, above some of the questions there's some coding. For example, [DPH P/G] [N] that's there because the programming for the talkingcures sessions is very complex and this coding is one way that we keep track of it.
Why go with the first answer?
When answering the questions, the first answer that comes to mind, however odd, is instinctive. That’s the answer to work with, even if when you think about it, it makes no sense. In many ways that’s exactly the point, especially if it doesn’t make any sense. There is no need for the answer to make sense.
Changing an emotion or feeling isn’t about being rational, logical, or making sense. You’ve probably tried that. You've already thought about that old behaviour, perhaps too much and have probably beaten yourself up over it. You've tried to rationalise away, to stop it happening and yet it’s still there, it’s still an issue, it's still something you want to change.
That’s the reason why you are here because thinking about it, trying to analyse the behaviour to stop hasn’t worked. If you could have rationalised the behaviour away, you’d probably have done it by now and wouldn't be reading this.
Knowing this, the session will take a different approach and will operate on the level of your intuition, it puts logic and thinking (both of which are processes of your conscious mind), to one side. That means trusting your emotions and feelings and using your unconscious mind. In this sense, when we talk about your unconscious mind, it’s a reference to the part of you that you are not aware or conscious of right now.
Your unconscious mind
When your heart beats, what part of you makes that happen?
Your unconscious mind.
When you walk, are you thinking consciously about putting one foot in front of the other?
No, it happens unconsciously.
When you breathe, do you think about it?
Probably not, you trust your unconscious mind to fill your lungs with oxygen.
You rarely think about any of those things that keep you alive and mobile. You don’t need to because your unconscious mind takes care of all that. It runs your body; it keeps you alive and you never give it a moments conscious thought.
Your unconscious mind stores your memories in a timeline, so you know when they happened. It also stores them in a way that you can remember what happened by attaching thoughts, images, feelings, sounds, smells to those memories - but more on this in future sessions.
To protect you, it will repress memories that have powerful negative emotions, for you to deal with when it thinks you’re ready.
If in the past you’ve ever had a painful memory surface, apparently out-of-the-blue, and thought “I can’t deal with that right now” and you push it back down, that’s a repressed memory - again this is something will come back to later.
Because its job is to keep you healthy, your unconscious mind has a positive intent for everything it does, even if the outcome seems negative or extreme. For example, people with a phobia, even though on the surface, the phobia may have many negative side effects, it is created by the unconscious mind for a positive reason. Usually, to keep the person safe.
Sometimes the solution, the phobia is worse than the original problem it tried to solve. That’s something that needs to be reset and something well within the scope of our coaching sessions. In the example of a phobia once reset, the original phobia disappears even if it’s been an issue for decades.
Earlier we talked about the importance of going with the first answer. Often people ask the question, “how do you know the answer is coming from your unconscious”.
You'll know because it's the first answer that pops into your head.
Here are three examples of things you know but are not conscious of (not thinking about) right now. Once the question is asked notice how the answer instantly arrives in your mind, without delay or conscious thought, it just appears. That’s how quickly answers from your unconscious mind pop into your head.
- What’s the colour of your front door?
- What’s your mother’s maiden name?
- What’s does water feel like?
The answers, before they were asked, were not in your conscious mind, you weren’t thinking about them. Then pop there they were, no thinking, no analysing, no consideration, they were just there. For some people a word would appear, for others they might see the answer, some get a feeling, or hear the answer, however the answer pops up is just fine. When you answer the session questions in that way then you’ll get the most from it.
In this session, we will work on being able to reduce the frequency of an unwanted negative behaviour. Something that happens, often without you realising it or being able to control it. This unwanted behaviour will have its origins in your past, there will have been a first event that caused the behaviour to form, before that event the behaviour didn't happen, didn't exist for you.
It's likely that since that event the behaviour has become stronger and happened more often, so this session is specifically designed to reveal that first event and then help you re-evaluate it. This coaching session will give you a practical way to cut the bond so that the behaviour loses its intensity, energy and emotion. Essentially the session will help reset the behaviour so that it either becomes less frequent or disappears altogether. Does that feel right for you?
Repetition is the mother of learning
Repetition is the mother of skill. No one goes to the gym once and expects to be fit, no one does couch to 5k in one session, working on your mental health and wellbeing is just the same. The more you practice the better it gets. Often repetition is key. That’s why this session is designed to be used more than once. We encourage you to use it on a regular basis to work on different aspects of the same behaviour or different issues. In that way each session will be unique and provide new thoughts, learnings, and insights.
About this trial session - Unwanted Behaviours
In therapy, the relationship between coach and client is probably the single most important factor for success. If you like and trust your coach, whatever their coaching speciality or training, you’re likely to get a better result than not. This trial session is to help you decide if talkingcures will work for you. If it does maybe you’ll decide to use some of the other free resources, tell others that need help about us or perhaps even consider an in-session purchase. If not, you haven’t lost anything except some time.
This session is confidential. Like other industry professionals, unless legally required to do so we would share the content with a third party. It's protected by our terms and conditions, privacy policy and client confidentiality.
This trial session is not suitable for complex unwanted behaviours such as compulsion, addiction, self-abuse, or self-harm. These behaviours require one-on-one professional help. The Negative Emotions Trial Session may help with the feelings that arise from these behaviours.
What to expect during the Session
In this Unwanted Behaviour Trial Session, we will:
- Define the behaviour, what it is, how it makes you and other feel and why that causes you an issue.
- Discover the first event, where the behaviour began. Then evaluate that event and how it caused the behaviour.
- Reframe that event and other significant events in your past to break the chain of that behaviour. Find new strategies that will cause the old behaviour to disconnect and dissapear.
- Remove the emotional connection from the behaviour and change it so that instead a more positive behaviour replaces it.
In-session extras
If appropriate, during the session you may be offered an add-on where, for a small charge, there is an option to purchase an additional specialised intervention. For example you may want a full transcript of the session emailed to you afterwards, or perhaps you might choose to extend the session to give more in-depth guidance. Apart from being very effective at removing unwanted behaviours, the add-on helps to fund and maintain talkingcures to keep it free at the point of use. The add-on helps both you and us so please consider a purchase if appropriate.
In-session purchases can be made with a credit/debit card via Stripe the payment platform used by millions of online businesses.
Are you sitting comfortably?
It’s best to do this session in a quiet, private place that’s free from distractions. Depending on your answers expect to take between 15 - 40 minutes. It's useful to have a way to record the insights and ideas as they happen through the session. Often people stop to reflect on what's said during the session, or make notes, so take as much time as you need for it to give you the most benefit.
Let’s begin
Click the blue 'Unwanted Behaviours Trial Session', button below for the session to pop-up and begin the free interactive therapy online. Should the session not start, you may need to allow pop-ups on your browser. Once you have completed the session, please read the Post Session Notes below.
Post-Session Notes
Homework - Reflect on the learnings from that first event, and knowing what you know now, how you would react differently in those trigger situations now and in the future.
Goal Suggestions - Whatever you comitted to do today and this week, you owe it to yourself to do them. These positive acts are key to moving forward. So, take those first steps on the journey, demonstrate your commitment and take action.
When the time is right, take another session - Repeating this trial session would be a good next step or choosing another of our free online therapies would help to finally put that unwanted behaviour behind you.
Suggested Reading
Anger Management Zarmina Penner
15 Minute Phobia James Brackin
Heal Unwanted Behaviors Dane Stevens
Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? Dr Julie Smith
Overcoming Intrusive Thoughts Sally M. Winston & Martin N. Seif
Talk to others - We would always suggest consulting with a qualified therapy professional, especially if you feel you need more help than talkingcures can provide. Talking to friends or family is also a good idea, a problem shared is a problem halved, that's why it's always good to talk.
Resource Centre - There is an increasing number of resources available, including our pick of well respected books on spirituality and many classic personal development books, so perhaps it's worth looking over what's available.
Paid For Sessions - Consider our 5-10 minute Unwanted Behaviours Weekly Email Interventions coaching course. Every week for eight weeks a new 'quick results' mini session, focussed on a practical technique to help you overcome unwanted behaviours will arrive in your inbox. It's the perfect way to keep you being your best self!