What is Hypnosis?
Hypnosis is a trance-like state of focused imagination that allows you to positively change your life by re-educating your subconscious mind. This state of awareness is reached when you bypass the analytical mind, opening a doorway into your creative mind which accepts positive suggestions.
Your conscious mind is the realm of willpower, short term memory and activities associated with left brain activities such as practical and critical thinking. Your subconscious mind is the realm of imagination, long term memory (including everything you've ever witnessed or experienced) and activities associated with the right brain such as creative thinking and imagination.
Between these two minds lies an aspect of us called the Critical Faculty. In order to access the subconscious mind to make positive changes, we need to bypass this part of us through relaxation, imagination or hypnosis.
You actually change brain wave patterns as you enter into hypnosis. Your brain’s waking state of normal activity is called “beta”. In this state you are fully in your analytical mind and resistant to suggestions. Whenever you relax throughout the day or use your imagination (watching TV or reading a book) you move into “alpha”, a frequent state of mind in which you are not only more creative, but more suggestible as well. This state lies just below the Critical Faculty and is open to hypnosis. A deeper waking state is “theta”, in which you are most creative, imaginative and suggestible. Normally we access this upon awakening and as we fall asleep. This state is excellent for affecting deeper changes through hypnosis.
Even though you can achieve profound changes using hypnosis, you remain in complete control. No one can ever make you do something you don’t want to do. Even during stage shows, the subject must be willing to be the star of the show, but would never do anything that violated their morals or values. And even though you attain a state of deep relaxation, you still hear everything. Hypnosis is the opposite of sleep, for you actually remain hyper-alert with increased sensitivity. Also, no one can remain stuck in hypnosis. Positive suggestions can go into your subconscious mind and last a lifetime, but you naturally return to beta consciousness after each session.
Hypnotism has its roots as far back as the ancient sleep temples in Greece, Egypt and throughout other cultures. More recently hypnotism was accepted by the American Medical Association in 1958 and by the British Medical Association in 1955 and continues to be used in many areas of health, accelerated healing and behavioral change. New research is continually adding to the already voluminous information now available from reputable and highly respected sources.
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Why use Hypnosis?
Use Hypnosis to improve your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual quality of life. Hypnosis is an effective method for releasing negative beliefs, transforming limiting habits and removing old patterns of behavior.
Imagine changing the way you feel about something so that you are free from past fears. Imagine remaining calm and focused even in the most difficult situation or around difficult people. Imagine reaching and remaining at your ideal weight – or becoming a non-smoker. If your mind can believe it, your body can achieve it.
We don’t get what we intend in life, we get what we practice. If you focus upon negative thoughts, undesirable outcomes and unpleasant memories, you will perpetuate those behaviors. Whatever you focus upon you put energy toward, and the more likely you are to bring it into your life. Hypnosis allows you to focus upon what you do want, upon what outcomes you desire, upon the life you yearn to live.
When you focus your incredibly powerful mind through hypnosis upon achieving your goals, you create it as a possibility and begin to achieve them. It’s not a matter of believing it when you see it. It actually becomes real when you first believe it possible. Few things are accomplished with a belief of impossibility. Instead, confidently move in the direction of your goals and discover that you truly have the power to positively change your life.
You even have the power to affect your body down to the cellular level. Your immune system, nervous system, muscles, and other bodily functions can be positively affected through hypnosis. Your body’s ability through hypnosis to anesthetize yourself is well documented, and is a useful technique in alleviating chronic pain.
Weight loss, smoking cessation, stress relief, reducing pain, improving relationships, increasing self confidence, releasing past blockages and childhood traumas and other issues can all be effectively addressed using hypnosis.
Self hypnosis is a powerful way to improve how you feel. The self-talk we use has a profound affect upon us, so learning how to overcome negative beliefs that surface as negative thoughts is essential for releasing old patterns of behavior. Two of the most powerful words to overcome negativity are, “Until now.” For “until now”, the negative statement might have been true, but now things are different. These two words allow you to accurately validate that they might have once been true, but also essentially caps off their influence and allows for a new experience.
When you allow for the possibility of a new, positive life or result, you actually have created in your subconscious mind a new behavior. One that you simply need to follow in order to be successful.
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Who Benefits from Hypnosis?
Any person of normal intelligence can be hypnotized to achieve positive, long lasting benefits. It requires no effort, simply the willingness to follow directions. In truth nearly everyone can be hypnotized.
Only three types of people can’t be hypnotized:
1. Those with a low IQ (inability to follow directions)
2. Those on drugs and alcohol (inability to follow directions)
3. And those that don’t want to be (unwillingness to follow directions)
In reality, it is only fear that prevents anyone from being hypnotized - fear of losing control, fear of divulging secrets, fear of the unknown and fear of not succeeding at hypnosis. No one loses control under hypnosis and no one divulges any secrets unless they want to uncover something hidden in their own subconscious mind. And a good pre-talk will eliminate any of the other fears.
Anyone with the desire to make a positive, lasting change will benefit from hypnosis.
