How often do you feel as though you are being pulled in many directions at once? Do you often feel a lack of energy and motivation to accomplish your goals? Do you walk through each day wondering when others will stop expecting so much from you? Do you find yourself on an emotional roller coaster each day or each week? Do you often find yourself saying, "I should have" - "I could have" - or "If I only would have."

These are questions that are meant to make you think. They are some of the questions that can help evaluate the strength of your personal power supply. Personal power that keeps you going day-to-day, personal power of energy and motivation to do for yourself and be happy about it. The above questions can often be a good indicator of the status of your mental health.

Many times in life we freely give away the energy of our personal power without even realizing it. We experience it in the form of moodiness, feeling tired and drained, or a mild to severe depression. We may give away our energy to friends, relatives, or complete strangers. Influential people, places or situations that have small or large significance in our lives can also drain energy. All have the potential to take energy from us in our daily lives. The one factor that ultimately decides the fate of our personal power, is the particular meaning we have given these people, places, and things in our lives. We decide whether it will be negative or positive. Sometimes that which we consciously decide to be positive, can be altogether different than what our inner subconscious believes to be positive. This confusion, if left unresolved, can result in power loss as well as, in some cases, health problems.

Personal Power loss can result from a person's inability to stand up for themselves, lack of confidence, poor self-esteem, feeling intimidated, feeling a sense of guilt, and feeling confused resulting in no action. People may also be stuck in past tense thinking. You may hear some people say things like, "I have always done things this way", or "I have never done this before." Both of which are followed up with - why should I do it now? A whole list of other questions would most likely follow, particularly those of a self-defeating nature. If you're stuck dwelling on the past, how can you be productive in the Now? Hypnotherapy can assist you in overcoming many of these obstacles and help you to regain your personal power. Sessions can be specifically designed to accommodate your individual issues. You must first do your own personal inventory of your behavior and decide what areas you would like to improve.

People, places, and situations can also have a significant impact. This is especially true if you are a past tense type of thinker. You may have the tendency, intentionally or unknowingly to allow past issues to affect you negatively. It may be unknowingly if there is something in your subconscious memory from the past that needs to be discovered.

In hypnotherapy, an open-ended regression is useful in helping to uncover past memories that are blocking your personal power in the Now time frame. Regressions take you back to the source of the problem. Whether it's information from your early childhood or information coming out as a past life scenario, the result is, you release the burdens of the past that are only preventing your success in the present.

Situations in present day-to-day life can also have a great impact on attitudes, directly affecting our personal power, if we allow them to. One example might include: Road Rage - this can totally poison us with anger and hatred and affect everything and everyone around us. With road rage we are not in control, but instead are being controlled by the emotion we have allowed ourselves to become overwhelmed by. Our entire ability to make rational decisions is affected once infused by this anger and hatred. Through hypnosis, stress management suggestions can be given that will help the individual to more effectively deal with negative situations.

What about the boss at work who is a complete tyrant and wants everything done their way? Or maybe nothing you do at work is ever good enough. Maybe the boss only focuses on negative issues and situations and gets everyone else down as a direct result. In many of these types of situations you have to go with the flow and not make waves or risk being fired. This feeling not only generates a general level of negativity, but also drastically impacts the energy of your personal power if the situation does not somehow change. If the boss succeeds at making you and the other employees feel guilty and inadequate, believing that you gave less than your best effort, even if you know he's wrong -then you lose out, and will surely feel it somehow in your mind and body. Hypnotherapy can help with these types of situations by boosting the individuals' confidence and decision-making abilities. The goal with this type of person should be to be able to project confidence in themselves and their ability to make sound decisions in the presence of the specific situations of their work place.

How about something simple like going to an athletic event? How many times have you found yourself annoyed by another spectator's comments and had a hard time letting it go? It can really put a damper on your entertainment experience. Or how about listening to a coach who only seems to focus on negatives and constantly rant and rave about what should have been done. Not only do the players get angry and frustrated, the spectators get sick and tired of hearing the coach's mouth going on and on. The past tense phrasing by the coach can drag everyone down and make a game seem like it's taking way too long. Again, hypnotic stress management techniques are very useful in helping people to cope with these types of negative situations so that they will not allow themselves to be controlled by negative emotions.

Another good example of how we lose energy is to allow people to make decisions for us through manipulation, guilt and deception. This can be conscious or unconscious in its effect. We may be aware or completely unaware that an energy-draining situation is taking place. Some people may abuse their position of authority to impose their will and personal goals on others. They may get everyone doing everything for them while they sit back and collect all of the credit. They are often very clever about this because they confuse the people involved by disguising their intentions as synonymous with the goals of those who choose to follow. The end result is - they get what they want at the expense of others. Seldom are these types of people grateful for everyone else's sacrifice, but instead are concerned with how to keep their cycle of control going to serve their needs. In this scenario, you may find yourself left with the question, "whom did I really do this for?" By allowing this form of dominance to take place you are freely giving away your personal power. It is best to recognize this pattern and establish a set limit of how much energy you can spare without taking the full brunt of the loss. Hypnosis can help you to stay true to yourself and keep your focus on your own individual goals.

Negative people and negative situations always have the potential to drain us, especially if we choose to become negative, or forget to be true to ourselves first. However, we must also realize that it is important for us to be the pilot of our own life, and to use good judgment before giving away our valuable energy. It can be very easy to over-extend yourself and become overwhelmed with too much going on.

Hypnosis can help many people to regain their personal power by helping them to be more aware of realistic limits. When you think of hypnosis and/or hypnotherapy in its modern application, strategies to deal with general stress, low confidence, creating positive self-talk and living more in the present tense, are all achievable to anyone who wishes to reclaim their energy of personal power. With a strong balance of personal power, you can enjoy a higher level of mental health.

Daniel M. Clark is a Master Clinical Hypnotherapist. He has Advance Hypnotherapy Certification with the American Board of Hypnotherapy and his Master Clinical Hypnotherapy Certification with the National Board of Professional and Ethical Standards. He has Specialized Certifications in the areas of Stress Management and Past Life Regression.