What is Hypnosis?
Hypnosis is a natural, powerful, and absolutely amazing tool that can bring rapid, compelling, and lasting positive changes to your life and overall well being.
The word Hypnosis was created by James Braid, a Scottish physician who became known as the “father of hypnosis”. He decided to name the state of hypnosis after the Greek God of sleep, Hypnos. This was before he discovered that hypnosis is not sleep! It is a natural, deep state of relaxation. In fact, hypnosis is a heightened awake state in which you have the ultimate control. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis; you are the only one that can control your behaviours, thoughts and decisions and all of the successes that go along with them. A hypnotherapist simply guides you through wonderful visualizations and relaxation techniques to allow you to access your powerful inner mind.
Simply put, hypnosis is that wonderful state we enter right before we fall asleep, and re-enter right before we wake up. It’s simply drifting easily and naturally into a state of calm and relaxation where imagination and creation are abundantly possible!
It was in 1958 that hypnosis was finally accepted by the American Medical Association as a therapy and has become conventional ever since.
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What is Hypnotherapy?
Hypnotherapy is the actual process of using hypnosis to modify thoughts and behaviours. It is a method of accessing the unconscious mind in order to make lasting, positive changes and eliminate patterns and beliefs which are not serving our highest good.
Hypnotherapy is one of the most powerful means of creating positive change in one’s life. In order to make these changes, we need to create them on the unconscious level. Our conscious mind controls only 10% of our mind– the unconscious mind controls 90%! So when we want to make substantial, meaningful changes in our lives, we must make them on the level that has the most impact on the mind and our lives – the unconscious level. We must bypass the interference and filter of the conscious mind, and the best and easiest way to do this is through hypnotherapy.
A survey of psychotherapy literature by Alfred A. Barrios, Ph.D. revealed the following recovery rates:
Psychoanalysis: 38% recovery after 600 sessions
Behaviour Therapy: 72% recovery after 22 sessions
Hypnotherapy: 93% recovery after 6 sessions
Source: American Health Magazine
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Can Anyone Be Hypnotized?
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Simply stated – YES.As mentioned earlier, all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. The most important thing is intention. You must have intention and be open minded with respect to suggestions. You are in control. The only other requirements are intelligence and imagination!
We always have the ability to make a decision to change our minds, and our lives. Inner freedom is the end result!
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When Does Hypnotherapy Work Best?
Hypnotherapy works best when the person being hypnotized is driven with a strong intention to create positive changes in their life.
When we alter our behaviour in positive ways, our brain patterns are reworked. Because behaviour is a choice, which we always have, we can always choose differently than we have in the past. We can choose to see ourselves and the outside world differently. The power to change is already within. It just has to be activated.
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The Conscious Mind vs. The Unconscious Mind
So, what exactly is the difference between the conscious and unconscious mind? As stated earlier, the conscious mind controls only 10% of the entire mind– the unconscious mind controls 90%!
Your conscious mind is your objective mind. The part of the mind that thinks. It does not have a memory and it only has capacity for a single thought at any given time. It perceives information that is coming in via one of the six senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, feeling) and processes that information. It analyzes information and makes decisions.
The unconscious mind has four prime directives:
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The first and most important directive is to preserve the body. It keeps you alive and it can change your inner programing.
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It follows orders. The unconscious mind is a serving mechanism. It does not think for itself, it will accept suggestions, it stores all memories.
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The unconscious mind is symbolic. It thinks in symbols and translates them into words. Ever wonder why your dreams are always so strange and abstract? It’s because the unconscious mind is talking to you in the way it knows how.
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The inability to process negatives. Words such as don’t, can’t, never, etc. The unconscious mind doesn’t recognize them. So when such words are used, it’s almost as if the unconscious mind skips them. It doesn’t hear them. That brings a whole new meaning to saying “don’t do that!” doesn’t it?
The unconscious mind stores anything that has happened to you in this lifetime or any other – all of those memories are in there. Impressions from past experiences, whether positive or negative, are stored. These stored impressions create our limiting beliefs about ourselves and the outside world, the limiting decisions we’ve created for ourselves. They drive our behaviours and our actions.
Using hypnosis, we are able to access the impressions we’ve created which are not serving our highest good, and we have the power to change them. When this change happens, we experience inner freedom.
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Consider these analogies:
The Mind is Like a Garden
The unconscious mind can be represented by a garden or soil, and the conscious mind represented by a gardener planting seeds that will eventually grow in the garden. Depending on what type of thoughts and beliefs you plant into your garden (unconscious mind), you’ll get either flowers or weeds. What grows in your garden will be a reflection of the thoughts and beliefs that are living in your unconscious mind. In order to create a beautiful garden inside our unconscious minds, we must plant seeds that promote healthy and happy thoughts and beliefs – those that serve our highest good! Hypnosis is the best tool to do this with!
The Mind is Like a Computer
Think of the mind as a computer. The hard drive represents the unconscious mind. Vast, limitless, it stores and retrieves information and runs the programs installed on it. The computer programs/software would represent the conscious mind.
Occasionally a computer may acquire a virus – we’ll call these the limiting beliefs and decisions we have “installed” into our unconscious minds. At some point in life, everyone will experience a “virus”. The unconscious mind stores all thoughts, feelings and beliefs that we have formed about ourselves, be it personally or from exterior sources (parents, teachers, media etc.).
The mind (computer hard drive) runs the programs (conscious thoughts) that are installed. So in order to ensure a healthy mind, we must install programs that serve our highest good! Hypnosis is the best tool to do this with.
Remember, the mind will act on the programs, thought patterns and beliefs that have been installed in it. By ensuring that non-supportive beliefs, limiting decisions and thoughts are deleted and replaced with supportive, positive and powerful ones, our attitudes, beliefs and feelings will become just that – supportive, positive and powerful!
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