What is hypnosis? How does this work? What does it feel like? What is it commonly used for?
Let’s kick off this blog with some of the most common and natural questions people have when they hear I use hypnosis to help people get better sleep, lower stress, make changes in persistent patterns of thought or behavior that aren’t serving them, give their confidence a boost, or supercharge something they’re working on.
If you’re like most of us, your idea of what hypnosis is comes from books, TV, and movies. Perhaps you’ve heard of Freud using hypnosis to reveal (or possibly implant) deep lost traumas in his patients’ mind. Or maybe you’ve seen stage hypnosis shows where volunteer participants do outrageous and silly things on stage, seemingly under the complete control of the hypnotist. All of these examples have one thing in common. They all make hypnosis look like mind control. In reality, no matter how relaxed they are, a hypnotic subject is always in control. (And a well-trained Hypnotherapist with good ethics and integrity would never attempt to implant a false memory or confuse a client.)
In fact the Mayo Clinic describes hypnosis like this:
"Hypnosis is a changed state of awareness and increased relaxation that allows for improved focus and concentration. It also is called hypnotherapy. During hypnosis, most people feel calm and relaxed. Hypnosis typically makes people more open to suggestions about behavior changes. Hypnosis can help you gain control over behaviors you'd like to change. It may help you cope better with anxiety or pain. Although you're more open to suggestion during hypnosis, you don't lose control over your behavior during a hypnosis session."
So, regardless of what you may have heard or seen on TV and movies or read in novels, hypnotic trance is not unconsciousness or mind control. Even in a deep trance state, no one can be made to accept any hypnotic suggestions that they don’t like or don’t choose to accept. Hypnosis connects you to you in a way you may not have realized you could. It’s a natural state of mind that gives you a more direct and clear access to your own subconscious. Relaxing into hypnosis creates a bridge between the conscious and subconscious, allowing you to gain useful insight and make supportive changes.
Why is it important or useful to access your subconscious mind? Maybe you’ve seen a version of the “iceberg” analogy of the conscious and subconscious mind. The tip of the iceberg that’s visible above the surface represents your conscious mind, roughly 10% of the whole picture. The remaining 90% of the iceberg, hidden below the surface, represents your subconscious mind.
The 10%-90% comparison is not meant to diminish your conscious mind. Your conscious mind is amazing and vital to experiencing and navigating life in “real time”. Your conscious mind covers things like will power, critical thinking, observing/noticing, short term memory, and logic. Your conscious mind “clocks out” and rests through the night. But during your waking hours, it’s got range. You may experience times during the day where you’re “spaced out” or daydreaming, with your conscious mind still present, but dialed down. Alternately you may experience moments where your conscious mind is intensely present, focused and engaged.
Your subconscious mind is always on. It never sleeps. And that’s a good thing because it’s in charge of involuntary mechanisms like breathing, heart rate, and digestion. While your conscious mind rests and recharges during sleep, your subconscious manages wildly complex processes we don’t even completely understand that allow us to function during our waking hours. During sleep, your subconscious mind scans your brain, sorts and stores new information, and gets rid of waste. Nerve cells communicate and reorganize to support healthy brain function. The body repairs cells, restores energy, and releases molecules like hormones and proteins. While your conscious mind rests, the subconscious converts short-term memories into long-term memories. It also erases or forgets unneeded information that might otherwise clutter the nervous system. All without the need for your attention or conscious awareness. Whether you're awake or asleep, your subconscious manages your autonomic nervous system, which regulates pain perception. That’s why some people choose to use hypnosis to help control pain or even for anesthesia.
Beyond the wonders of operating your complex and amazing physical body, the subconscious also stores all of your long term memories, comparing and connecting new information to the interpretations you saved from previous experiences and learning. It also “runs the programs” of your beliefs, values, fears, habits, and protective reactions. The subconscious is the seat of your emotions, your imagination, and intuition. You can begin to see why the conscious mind is just the tip of this iceberg. Your subconscious is always on, always working on your behalf. And that’s great. Except when it’s running old programs that may be based on misconceptions or that contain limiting beliefs that are holding you back. Your subconscious may try to protect you from doing something you want to do, that you’re ready to do, and that is safe and appropriate for you to do. All because it’s operating some old programs about You and the world around you that conflict with who you are, what you want, and what you know now.
It isn't always necessary to update subconscious programming to make a big changes. Sometimes will power is enough to change an unwanted habit or behavior. You notice that something isn’t working for you and pivot away from it, practicing new ways that suit you better now. But if it’s something you do automatically, without having to think about it or choose it, it is likely part of your subconscious programming. It can feel like you’re failing when you try your hardest to make a change you genuinely want, only to find yourself falling back into the same old pattern. It’s not a failure at all. Will power is, well, powerful. But will power alone is no match for the subconscious. Like a computer, the subconscious faithfully executes its programming. Much of that core programming was absorbed during early childhood and adolescence. Sometimes it updates along with new information, other times it simply takes new information and relates it back to the old programming. So, it’s not always quite up to date. Thankfully using hypnosis we can find the parts that are in your way and help bring it up to now. When your conscious mind and subconscious are working together, it clears the way for you to find greater balance, ease, joy, and resonance in your life.
I’ve used the word “programming” a lot and I want to be clear that the “programming” of your subconscious is not all bad. We need it. It’s important to have memories of previous learning and experiences with which to compare and assess new information. We don’t want to occupy our conscious mind with the intricacies of all the things that make up our daily function. Walking, for instance, is an incredibly complex action. Yet because we have deep neural pathways programmed for walking, we can do it without much thought at all. We can walk while our conscious mind gives its attention to other things. But you probably don’t remember what it was like before you learned to walk (or run, or even skip). What about driving? Remember when you were first learning to drive and there were about a million things for your conscious mind to keep track of? Mirrors, lanes, pedals, signals, blind spots- and god forbid you were learning on a manual transmission and had to get a feel for the clutch while you shifted gears. It was a lot. But, over time, you developed deep programming around driving. You can get into your car and perform any number of complicated steps and maneuvers, without even thinking about it. You might be having a spirited conversation going with your passenger and still not miss a beat as you hop in, put on your seatbelt, start the car, put it in gear, check your mirrors, assess the flow of traffic, and pull out onto the road- all directed by your subconscious.
Many of us are so deeply programmed around driving that we have even experienced what they call “highway hypnosis”. That’s a phenomenon in which you arrive at a place you go to often, with no recollection of the drive. It can definitely be unnerving. Like, “Did I even stop at stop signs??” Essentially, your subconscious drove there while your conscious mind was otherwise occupied.
Most often the hypnosis we experience in our daily lives is not quite as startling. Hypnosis is a natural state of mind we achieve when our conscious mind dials down and the subconscious rises. That “twilight space” between waking and sleeping is a form of hypnosis called a hypnogogic state. Daydreaming is a form of hypnosis. If you’re pulled into a movie you’re watching or really engaged in a good book, your conscious mind knows you’re sitting in your living room but you may actually feel and experience tension, sorrow, joy, dread unfolding in the story from your subconscious. You are both here, on your couch (conscious mind), and there, experiencing the story vividly in your imagination (subconscious mind). You know you are not a character in the story, but you are brought into the experience beyond what is happening in the physical space of your living room.
In hypnotherapy sessions I guide you purposefully into that “middle place”, relaxing your body and your conscious mind into a state of hypnosis, giving you unique access to your subconscious mind. While you are relaxed in hypnotic trance, I use your own personal suggestions as well as various hypnotic techniques to help you receive powerful insight, and to make changes- updating old beliefs, habits, misconceptions, and other “programming” that no longer serves you to reflect what is in alignment with You, Now.
When we choose to use hypnosis intentionally, whether in self hypnosis or a therapeutic setting, it is a powerful and effective tool to achieve positive personal change. (As a bonus, it’s also deeply relaxing and restful. A short time in hypnosis can leave you feeling like you’ve just had a great nap.)
More to come…
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