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Ceal Anderson

My name is Ceal Anderson and I live in Portland, OR. I am in purchasing. My goal for using hypnosis was to ease my stress and anxiety when flying. I wanted to make it a more positive experience for myself. I chose Positive Changes because I had seen several ads on television and it was something that I had been thinking about for quite awhile. I had tried some other things and had not made much head way. On my last fight last summer, I'm sitting on the tarmac and we were getting ready to taxi out and I had so much anxiety that I just knew that it wasn't good for me or anyone around me. I knew I wanted to change that behavior.

My success had been that I took a flight on April 23rd and had to fly by myself on that flight. It was a short flight to Ontario, CA and we were already in the air before I had a chance to prepare. I really had no anxiety as far as sitting on the plane or taxiing out. Previously I would sweat a lot and my hands would shake. I experienced none of that. It was a very smooth flight up until we were getting ready to come into Ontario. I knew that and even knowing it before, I would still feel a lot of anxiety when the turbulence would start to happen. This time when we hit the turbulence, there was this calm that came over me because I knew it was going to happen and I was ok. I didn't stress at any point. I thought it was a huge success. Plus I flew by myself, which is not something I did well at all, but I did not have any second thoughts about stepping on that plane so it was very successful.

I started to notice the changes a couple weeks into the program. I could feel that my confidence level was getting higher. There were different stages throughout the program where I could see different changes occurring.

When I came back from my fight to Ontario, it was really bumpy. It took awhile before we got out of any kind of turbulence. My partner was kind of worried and I actually had to comfort her and told her on the way over it was also pretty bad. She said look at you, little miss flight attendant. It was really good to experience those role reversals of me trying to help her kind of settle down a little bit.

I have tried to make changes to this behavior with other methods in the past. I was in sales in a previous position and had to travel. I had gone to a therapist and she was a pilot and that was interesting. She gave me some insight into what some of the noises are and what certain things do. It did help a little but it wasn't enough to get me over the fear. There was no confidence booster like I have received from the Positive Changes program.

I do believe that these results will be permanent. I still listen to my sessions and when I go to bed I listen to one of my sessions. I continue to expand on that. I've got a good foundation and I just want to build on it.

I noticed in the first couple weeks that I'm just more confident in my life. I feel like I can make plans at any point and I don't feel like I have anything holding me back. In the past my first thought would be oooh, we have to fly to Denver and it's kind of bumpy. Now I don't even think about those kinds of things. I can think about the trip and just enjoy going somewhere. I think that's great.

One of the things that I think has come out of this was that I had struggled to get active again, just to walk or play a sport and now I feel like I have been able to do that and I've actually lost a little weight. Whenever someone says let's do something, now I say let's go.

The most important benefit that I've received is the boost in the confidence, not just the flying. I think that's huge but I think it's the confidence and everything that I'm doing in my life. I think it opened my eyes to how I got into that rut and it gave me the opportunity to examine it and get myself over that. Now I'm ready for new experiences. I've received the confidence to move on and leave the past behind.

I would recommend Positive Changes to others. You have to be ready to follow the program and to stick to it.