C8 -Sunday News, August 31, 1980 QUESTION: In the last year or so I have had an odd sort of fear that I don't remember being mentioned in your column or in any other reading [ve done. [m 38 years old and until last year this bother has never entered my mind. Fm afraid people will think I am shoplifting! Let me get it straight that I never shoplift or even have a thought about doing it. It’s mostly the clerks in the stores that worry me, but also other customers do. I do all sorts of things to make myself look innocent. I carry only a smal] handbag, never a big purse or bag, I leave my coat hanging open, I keep my hands in my pockets, etc. But the other day I did a thing which prompted me to write you. When I left a store where I had been doing a little purchasing, I was in a big hurry and as |! rushed toward the door 1 thought one of the clerks might think I was hurrying away with something I had stolen. So I stopped just outside the door and stood there for a few minutes as though I was waiting for someone so the clerks would think I was O.K. and not in any hurry to “escape”. When I realized what I was doing I was disgusted with myself for putting on such a phoney act and decided Id ask someone what it all meant and what could I do. Can you help me? STEWART: Perhaps you swiped something when you were a kid and are still lugging around with you the feeling that you have it in you to be a shoplifter, 30 years later! Most kids swipe something or other at some time in their growing up and most kids get over it beautifully. Right now there is a surge of shoplifting going on and we hear about it so ask hayden stewart Freelance Counsellor Hayden Stewart may be reached at 261-6242 forappointments for individual, family or group counselling. His new office in the Internauonal Plaza Hotel (Open Tuesdays only) ts for the convenience of North Shore residents How to feel guilty while going shopping often that somewhat about it. You may not be imagining that the clerks are giving you the eye. They probably are. They have been asked to be on the alert and in many instances have been trained in the procedures that their company has seen fit to adopt. So it comes back to YOU. It makes good sense for you to refrain from doing things that attract suspicion and it appears you are attending to that. So, you have decided not to shoplift and you have decided not to behave in such a way that would actually encourage _ sales- persons to be suspicious of you. That’s your side of the matter. From there on, if people are suspicious of you, that is THEIR problem, not yours. Let them worry about you, but don't YOU worry about you too! we are self- -eguscious ls Hayden helpful? QUESTION: ['m_ browned off about counselling. Do you honestly think you ever help people? STEWART: Not really. Sometimes, unfortunately. it may LOOK hke I'm some sort of HELPER. Sometimes 14Q) 1 Moorntoy Vanc ouvert my chents THINK I am and tell me I am, but that doesn't hurt so long as I don’t inhale it! The only help I consider valid is when a client finds enough of his own resources to be helpful to himself That's my aim. and the only 1a ALOE DAA Ne 2h ae ag Nae’ AMT LSA te Ts ooh ow ‘Stresest Adie PiA', reason to counselling. continue In Hooked by a habit QUESTION: I'm hooked by a habit that I consider to be harmful to me, but I can't do anything about it. I've always failed in every attempt to beat it. I mever have had much will power, but that's just the way Il am. Religion is no use to me, and I just can't fit in to group therapy. Nothing works for me. Every effort I make ends up in dismal failure. Now what | want to ask you is this. Do you think hypnosis is a valid procedure that I could try? I don't have much faith in it, but I thought fd ask you if I should try it. Everything else has failed so probably hypnosis would too. Should I give ita try? STEWART Why not? Obsiously it is Tea from QUESTION: I went into The Bay coffee shop the other day and was given a tea bag that made me curious and resentful. On the paper envelope it read, “Americans depend upon the taste sense of fewer than 40 men who control the quality of tea imports into the U.S.A. Because of this practice, Americans enjoy teas of a consistently high quality”. Then it says, “Send for Stash's Catalogue of Tea, Herbs and Spices to (such and such an address) Por- tland, Oregon”. How come a pgood old British firm like The Bay puts that sort of American promotion before us? STEWART: I don't Asks the know daniadown quilts A quilt for year round comfort! WN oii -c: [dewey hey scaerursvese Pes pal ned Noon Lorex dU yon fe iw 4 vot Jest wo Frese ap ersy Yee ate pcos CoRAY (C051 OY [routober Sizes 4 Gest Ze FE ATHIE Te ey twill + dh yerest WA tase tenhes Aes Noorths y. Vw corpoece rewatya Tetryscabt on tay aye gers sses te beet Hess wt} [oc OVN Bedapreads owinter yet nt! arid s a al cmoboe agentes COnIventy mows ope thy eapare doc segteae Noor masts fo epee flesss sib oaditees. Mate tare dt apoen sear ete er pe at ates Special Prices Cooled Tic king $195 $214 Pow Oonaly Phoow catily 50% [UC K DC OWN7 190 0% DoUIC Blue The king IN OW; $109 $152 oot aly Pio oon aly CAPILANO DRAPERIES, INC. Down Quilts Carpets (Custom mads lbrapes working for you right now and has been for some time. It looks like you are a “good subject” for hypnosis. You have tried wt for years and things are working out for you just as you train and condition and instruct your subconscious. Look al your letter. | count 11 items in your short letter in| which you are hypnousing yourself with skill and consistency. “Pm hooked”, “I can't do anything about Ww. “lve always failed” ete, etc. ete. What vou need most is to de-hypnouse yourself! Your self-hypnosis has been negative and limiting and imprisoning. But iW has worked! You are exactly as you have told yourself you are. Use your letter as a guide and decide to throw out all those negauve things Seymour's slopes manager 1] suppose ALL tea. t¢a iS imported to us from somewhere outside Canada. It vou really have a problem about it and not just picky- picky, by all means. talk Information. Annual Membership $3 00 [