What is Hypnosis?
The Subconscious Mind
Program and Record
Most of our mental activity is done in the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is awesomely powerful. It is very much like a computer only it is much more powerful. We program our computer every day of our lives through our life experiences. Everyday we add programming to our internal computer, some useful, some not so useful.
The subconscious mind records everything that has ever happened to you. Everything that you have heard, seen, smelled or tasted is locked permanently into the memory banks of your subconscious mind. You can hear a song and it will unlock long lost memories of a holiday perhaps. A smell can take you to a long forgotten memory. All your mind needs is a trigger or a stepping stone to recall anything that you have experienced. Of course hypnosis is very good at this.
Habits
The second programming we have in the subconscious mind, is habits. Now, you have three kinds of habits. Some good habits and some bad habits. But really most of our habits aren’t good or bad, most of our habits really are utilitarian habits. We automatically respond in a certain fashion when something else happens. When the telephone rings, for example, we don’t look at it and wonder what it is, we automatically pick it up. We walk up to a door we haven’t seen before and know what to do. Much of our day to day thinking is habit driven.
The more we practice behaving in a certain way the easier it becomes, the same with thinking in particular ways. Someone who thinks pessimistically is practicing those thoughts and it becomes easier and easier to think in those negative ways. The same goes for an optimistic person. They spend much of their time looking at the positives in life and creating the neural connections in their brains of positivity. The more this happens the neural pathway becomes stronger and reinforced.
Where attention goes energy flows.
Protective Mind
Now, the next thing in the subconscious mind, and probably the most important part of it is our protective mind. It must protect us against danger real or imagined. Something imagined by the subconscious mind is just as if it was actually happening, it can’t tell the difference.
Although the subconscious is so powerful, it is also the laziest part of us. It doesn’t like to do the work that is required to accept positive suggestions to give us change in areas where we would like to have change. It likes to keep things the way they are, it takes too much work to make change in a positive way. And positive suggestions are one of the most difficult things to get into our subconscious minds. We tend to be able to respond to negative suggestions with no problem. We take on board criticism much easier than we take praise on board. Negative suggestions go into this inner part of us like a hot knife through butter, because it doesn’t take any work to accept a negative suggestion for some reason.
Critical Factor
There’s one more part of the conscious mind is called the critical factor of the conscious mind. The critical factor acts like a bouncer on the door to your subconscious mind. It decides who gets in. This is very useful to us on a day to day basis because we don’t want to be accepting every suggestion thrown at us.
Hypnosis
Our minds learn most effectively when we use symbols, imagery, metaphors and imagination. We can’t make our heart quicken just by commanding it to. But if you imagine a scary scene like walking down a dark alley alone, late at night hearing footsteps behind you, your breathing can quicken and your heartbeat goes faster. We can learn easily using our imaginations.
Now to get suggestion into your subconscious mind we use hypnosis. Hypnosis bypasses the critical factor, that is the blocking part of our conscious mind through relaxation. The instant this critical factor of our conscious mind is bypassed, we can accept suggestions we want and that are useful to us.
Now, when we are in the state of hypnosis, our bodies are very relaxed but the conscious mind can be quite alert. In the deeper levels of hypnosis, your conscious mind can be more alert than you are at this very moment. When you receive a suggestion in hypnosis, you hear it loud and clear.
When you hear that suggestion with your conscious mind you make a decision about that suggestion. Which decision you make determines whether that suggestion is allowed to enter your subconscious mind or whether it is rejected. If it is allowed to enter, you will have the change that you are here to achieve, if it is rejected, there will be no change.
The decisions are “I like that suggestion, I know it’s going to work!” Now, that mental attitude at the conscious level allows that suggestion to go into your computer, the subconscious mind, and change begins. Or it can be rejected if you don’t like the suggestion.
Eliminate the words hope and try. The only time a suggestion is allowed to go into your computer is if you take the mental attitude when you hear that suggestion, “I like that suggestion, I know it’s going to work.” And that is how easy it is!
ALL hypnosis is self-hypnosis. A hypnotist can’t force a suggestion into your mind. Only you can allow it to happen.
Misconceptions
The only thing that keeps a person from going hypnosis is if they have a fear or a misconception about what hypnosis really is and I would like to talk briefly about some of the more common fears and misconceptions of hypnosis.
Some people feel that when you are in hypnosis, that you are asleep. In trance your mind can be more alert than you are at this very moment. Hypnosis has nothing to do with sleep although you can be very relaxed.
Some people are afraid they won’t “wake up” from hypnosis. Some people can fall into a natural sleep if they are tired but will wake up normally.
I want you to know that you and you alone are responsible for your success. What mental attitude you take when you hear a suggestion determines your level of success.
You are fully in control at all times and can reject any suggestion you don’t like the sound of.
Some people have the misconception that they will tell me all their deep dark secrets when they are in hypnosis. If you don’t want to tell me something, then you won’t.
Some people expect to experience amnesia. While you may drift a little, amnesia is rare or partial. Some people feel the hypnosis session was much longer or much shorter than it actually was. This time distortion is normal.
Hypnotherapy is nothing like stage hypnosis. A small group of people are selected from a large audience and then the stage hypnotist selects a smaller group from the people on stage. These people are wanting to perform and are willing to go along with the suggestions of the stage hypnotist. The act is for comedy value usually and has nothing to do with the positive benefits of hypnotherapy.
Hypnosis is up to you. If you accept the suggestions with the correct mental attitude, I like it, I know it will work, you’ll have 100% success.
Hypnosis is a great tool for change and a very pleasant experience.
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