Before anyone experiences hypnosis and starts
using it to make wonderful, beneficial changes in their life, this article is
designed to perhaps to answer a few questions you may have and also to dispel a
few myths and misconceptions about Hypnosis.
You know, I still meet people that believe
that experiencing hypnosis is like being unconscious. I always reply, “What
would be the point of that? Spending money and time to be unconscious in
someone else’s company?? If I wanted you to be unconscious we would simply bash
you over the head!” So it is important that you also know that hypnosis is not
about being unconscious and that you have the correct expectations about the
hypnotic experience that you are going to have, should you choose to invest in
one of our products or experience hypnosis for yourself with a hypnotist.
In order to understand hypnosis, it is
important to understand and differentiate between our minds. By that I am
referring to our conscious mind, where we are now and just below that level of
awareness is our unconscious mind (also known as the subconscious mind, for the
purpose of easy understanding they are the same thing).
The conscious mind is where we usually spend
most of our waking time, you know that internal dialogue we have that thinks
“hmmm, what shoes shall I wear today” that is your conscious mind. Your
conscious mind basically does four things;
Firstly, your conscious mind analyses. What is
that? Well that is the part of us that looks at problems, analyses them and tries
to create solutions to those problems. It is that part of us that makes
decisions all day every day “shall I open the door?”, “Shall I have something
to eat”, even though they are automatic behaviours, we make a conscious
decision about whether or not to do these things.
The second part of our conscious mind is our
rationale, the part of us that, especially in western cultures, always has to
know “Why” things happen and “Why” we behave in particular ways. This can cause
us so many problems as we give any problems more and more credence and power.
More conventional and traditional methods of counselling or psychotherapy are
often very much concerned with looking at causes of our problems and it is my
opinion that all this does is teaches us “why” they happen as opposed to giving
us the skills required to changing unwanted habits and behaviours. The more we
think about “why” we do things the more we seem to embed the unwanted behaviour
into our psyches!
The third part of our conscious mind is will
power, that teeth-gritted determination that so many of us are proud to
demonstrate. How many times have we used our will power alone to make changes
and found that our will power weakens and that change is temporary or
non-existent.
The final part of our conscious mind is your
short-term memory. By that I am referring to the things that you need to
remember to function on a day-to-day basis, so that when your phone rings you
know to answer it rather than stare at it wondering it is, or ensuring that you
cross the road without being run over.
That is the conscious part of your mind, it is
logical, rational and analytical, a bit like Mr Spock from the Start Trek
series and as much as it pains me to say it, our conscious mind is frequently
wrong about things.
Your conscious mind is wherever you happen to
be pointing it at any given time. I am sure you have been in a busy, noisy
environment, such as a restaurant or a bar and have been engaged in a
conversation with another individual, and all the sounds going on around you
just seem to blend into the background. Then someone else ten metres away can
punctuate their sentence with your name and you pick it out as if it was being
spoken to you. This illustrates that unconsciously, you are aware of many, many
pieces of information every second of your life, sounds, colours, thoughts etc,
yet your conscious mind allows you to focus upon what is pertinent or relevant
to you at that moment.
If you take that conscious awareness and point
it inside of yourself instead of outside into the world, you begin to become
aware of your inner self, your unconscious self, which is the part of you that
we work with in hypnosis.
Your unconscious mind is tremendously powerful
and automates as much behaviour as it possibly can so that we do not have to
think about it. For example, there was a time in your life when you had to be
shown how to tie your shoelaces, and you concentrated on doing this. I suspect
that by this stage in your life you know how tie your shoelaces very well and
you don’t even think about doing it, you just do it. I have a lonely Auntie who
as a boy, my mother would ask me to phone on a weekly basis as she thought this
would make her happy and I vividly remember hearing her lighting up a cigarette
and heavily exhaling the smoke while on the phone, she didn’t even think about
what she was doing, she just associated smoking with being on the phone.
We are amazing learning machines and we learn
behaviours and habits and then our unconscious mind automates them and does them
on auto pilot so that we do not have to think about doing them.
Your unconscious mind has within it all your
long-term memory. Just about every blade of grass that you have seen in your
entire lifetime is stored away in your long-term memory that serves as an
amazing storage centre. These memories affect us in varying ways, some more
than others. Sometimes our ability to remember them is not as fluid as we need,
as it is often not necessary to have all our memory in the forefront of our
minds. For example, right now you are unlikely to be thinking about everything
that happened to you on your last birthday, however, me just mentioning it, you
can dig into your unconscious, long-term memory and remember.
Another example is if you have ever seen a
live stand up comedy show. You watch the comedian and laugh (or not as the case
may be!) heartily as you listen to lots and lots of jokes. Then when you leave
the venue, you can remember none of them, or one or two at best! Then, a week
later, a friend that you were with can say to you “do you remember such and
such a joke from last weeks comedian” and you think “oh yeeeaaah!” as you bring
that information out from your long-term memory. You know that you know the
joke, it was just not at the forefront of your conscious mind, it was tucked
away in the deeper unconscious.
Your unconscious mind knows more about you
than you consciously that you know. Sound confusing? Well, just think, you are
currently breathing, your heart is beating (I do hope!) you are digesting, your
body is regulating its body temperature, it is doing a range of wonderful
things without you having to consciously think about it. You are not sat around
thinking “I really must remember to breathe”. We are not machines, there is an
intelligence within us that knows how to do these things, and it is that
intelligence that we tap into with hypnosis.
Your unconscious mind is where you get your
gut feelings, your instincts and intuition that communicates with you
sporadically from time to time. Like when sometimes, someone can be saying all
the right words to you, but you get a different feeling about them.
Your unconscious mind is a bit like a
computer. Throughout your entire lifetime it has been programmed with all your
experiences, relationships, interpretations of the world, influences and all
this has culminated in your computer functioning with that programming.
Hypnosis is simply a way of accessing that computer and updating that
programming so that it becomes instinctive and intuitive for you to make the
changes that please you.
Your unconscious mind is the seat of your
emotions and where your behaviours exist and it is the part of you that we work
with in hypnosis. Hypnosis is a way of us stepping over your conscious mind and
accessing the unconscious mind to make powerful and profound changes.
Now, I am sure that you have experienced
natural trance states many times before, in fact I know it. For example, when
you have been driving in a car and thought to yourself “ooh, how did I get
here?” or when you have been reading a book and you’ve turned the page and
thought “I have no idea what I have just read, I am going to have to read it
all again”. I can remember being at school watching my history teacher teach
me, yet my mind was a million miles away wishing I was doing something else.
All common experiences, daydream like states that we all experience, many times
a day. The only difference between these naturally occurring states and those
that we use in therapeutic hypnosis, is that with the hypnosis, you intend to
enter the state, you are in control of it and it is just like a slightly
amplified, deeper version of the state. That is it. Sometimes it is simply like
sitting in a chair with your eyes closed, not the magical mystical or unusual
experience that some people are led to believe it is.
It is important here to know that you cannot
be made to do anything that you don’t want to do. Very important. I had a guy
that a doctor referred to me, came to see me and said to me “my doctor told me
come and see you as I have emphysema and am going to die of it unless I stop
smoking”. I said to him, well I presume you want to stop, he said “oh, no, I
love smoking, it is one of few remaining pleasures.” I had to send him away as
I cannot make him do something that he does not want to. Can you imagine if I
could do that!! Wow. I could go and see my bank manager and make him give me
million pounds without returning it! You never read about “Baddy hypnotists”
making people rob banks or anything else absurd, because it cannot be done.
People usually then say to me “ok Adam, I hear
and understand what you are saying and it all makes sense”. However, I have
seen stage hypnosis and seen people dancing like chickens, are you telling me
that they want to do that?” I am saying that these people are not being made to
do things that they don’t want to do.
When someone buys tickets to a stage hypnosis
show, they are being permissive to the notion that they are going to see
hypnosis for entertainment; they expect certain things to happen. Secondly,
when the stage hypnotist asks the audience “who wants to come on stage” the
people that agree to do so or put their hands up are saying “yes, I want to be
hypnotised”, they are not being made to do anything they don’t want to do. The
stage hypnotist ensures that the individuals on the show are receptive and
follow a large number of compliance exercises and it begins to create the
illusion that these people are doing things that they don’t want to do, when
they are not. The hypnosis can step over the inhibitions of the conscious mind,
so that the individuals behave with more openness, they just cannot be made to
do things they don’t want to do.
Anyone can be hypnotised. I work with
insomniacs, heroin addicts, schizophrenics, people experiencing chemotherapy,
these are all people that are often convinced that they cannot relax or cannot
be hypnotised, and as long as they want to, they all can and they all do.
All that is required is that you have an open
mind, that you expect it to work and have progressive, motivated thoughts about
the processes, follow the sessions and allow them to help you help yourself to
make the changes you want and deserve.
Finally, at the beginning of the recorded Hypnosis sessions and/or
individual NLP or hypnosis sessions with me (I cannot speak for other
therapists, we all do things differently) individually, you may be asked to do
a number of different things with your mind and you can be forgiven for
thinking, “well, he asked me to do this, and now something else, and now
another thing, what exactly am I supposed to be listening to?” The simple
answer is that you listen and follow as much or as little as you want to,
remember that is your conscious mind thinking those thoughts and that is not
the part of you that we are working with and making the change with. I am sure
that there will also be times when you’ll be thinking “hmmm… am I in hypnosis,
what am I supposed to be thinking or feeling.” Again that is your conscious mind
thinking that thought and does not matter what it is thinking. It can be
attempting to follow everything that I am saying or just wandering off and
thinking about whatever you like, just trust that your unconscious mind is
absorbing all that you want it to.
There will be times in the sessions when you
may be asked to imagine things. Imagining things does not have to mean
visualising. If I ask you to think of a favourite place, you can imagine what
it would be like, you don’t have to be seeing a picture perfect cinema version
of it in your mind. You can imagine, sense, think, or just know it without
seeing it or picturing it in every detail. If I asked you to imagine the sound
your feet make when you walk across gravel, you know the sound I am talking
about and you can imagine it, but you are not necessarily hearing it in your
ears, you can imagine it. That is all you’ll need.
So, hypnosis is not like being unconscious, it
is almost like having heightened awareness, it requires you to want the change,
have an open, positive mind, as best as you can, and allow whatever happens to
happen, without trying to grasp at what you think should happen, just letting
it happen.
I wish you all the very best with whichever
hypnosis product, or with any consultative sessions you are considering having
with any qualified therapist or any training you plan to attend and I just know
that having come this far, you really can do it, and make the changes that you
want to make with hypnosis.
Self Hypnosis – An Overview When a person believes in something very strongly, there is quite a possibility of things taking a positive or negative turn
More Information :- http://www.mindrelease.ca
