By Sally Stone
Today I was talking to my hair stylist, who laid out a large plastic sheet on my kitchen floor, then set up a stool for me
to sit on. I wrapped my big brown towel over my shoulders and closed my eyes. Getting a haircut, like hypnosis, is so 
relaxing.
My hairdresser is curious about my hypnosis practice, and while I can’t talk about individual
clients, I love talking about hypnosis in general and what I learn from various cases about human nature.
“I’m too scared to be hypnotized!” she exclaimed.
I surveyed her facial expression and allowed her nervous tension to wash across me.
“What scares you?” I wondered, knowing how well the movies, news, and entertainment industry have cherry-picked images for mass shock value instead of sharing thoughtful stories about the healing applications and self-empowerment value of hypnosis.
“It’s the way I’ve seen hypnosis in movies and television,” she said. “I don’t understand how you’d even use it. Isn’t it mostly for quitting smoking?”
Yes, she’d been informed about hypnosis from media images. She thought of hypnosis in terms of magic shows and stage entertainment. And stop smoking programs, which can be very effective. Why, otherwise, would anyone want to experience
hypnosis? Would she even wake up, she wondered? I could understand her fear.
Hypnosis Is Natural
I like to explain to anyone who’s afraid of hypnosis that hypnosis is a natural state. Whenever you stare off into space, your eyeballs locked open, you’re setting the stage for self-hypnosis. Driving for long periods of time induces a state called highway hypnosis, staring at the television or a computer screen induces hypnosis, experiencing a slow rhythmic physical activity like swinging, swimming, or rocking may induce hypnosis.
The rhythmic breathing of swimming adds to the power of inducing a hypnotic state. The moments between sleep and waking resemble hypnosis. Even the meditative state, known as yoga nidra (translated as yogic sleep), bears similarity to the hypnotic state. Finally, staring into someone’s eyes that lock onto yours can induce hypnosis if you let it. Think of the phrase: “He hypnotized me with his eyes.”
In contrast to fear, however, each of these naturally hypnotic states is relaxing. We feel comfortable and at peace.
In my experience, what scares people most about hypnosis is that someone else will be hypnotizing them. They wonder if they will be under the control of the hypnotist and therefore out of control.
Choosing A Hypnotist
This is why choosing the right hypnotist is so important. There must be rapport and trust for the person being hypnotized to let go into that relaxed, suggestible state. For not only is the physical guard let down as the person sinks deeper and deeper into relaxation, but the subconscious becomes available for the hypnotist to make suggestions. The suggestions a hypnotist makes are of a helpful nature, desired by the client. Furthermore, even in a state of hypnosis, you are free to reject a suggestion. There is nothing you will do that you would not do otherwise.
How We Hypnotize Ourselves Daily
Ironically, we are used to hypnotizing ourselves, so that’s comfortable. But to what end? When we sit in front of the television in a hypnotic state, we allow all the advertising and media suggestions to enter our minds. No wonder we (and our children) desire food, materials goods, and activities that otherwise have no real meaning or sustenance for our minds and bodies. We stare into the eyes of salespeople and drift into a hypnotic state only to wonder later why we’re walking out with an expensive electronic toy or other purchase.
We enter a hypnotic state while swimming, driving and lying in bed, (which in my value system have more inherent value than watching TV), yet without understanding the true power of hypnosis, opportunities for transforming our minds and our lives are lost.
The beauty of hypnosis is knowing how to use that state to give ourselves positive suggestions, which opens the door to desired change.
Try this process as an example and a way to understand the positive power of hypnosis.
Imagine your conscious mind is standing in front of a door. That door leads to your subconscious mind, where you’ve
stored all the memories, feelings, and sensations from your lifetime. Some people would say that other lifetimes as well as the collective unconscious (Jung) are stored there as well, but that will have to be discussed in a future article.
Like my hairdresser, the conscious mind stands guard and thinks it holds all the keys. The conscious mind is the critical, skeptical factor. The conscious mind, including the ego, wants to be the one who knows. The conscious mind is an important filter that helps us through life safely. We need our conscious mind to aid us in making decisions. However, in hypnosis, we ask the conscious mind to step aside so we can gain access to the material stored in
our subconscious and obtain additional, valuable information for problem-solving and pattern-breaking. Hypnosis is the key that allows us to gain access.
When we understand that hypnosis is a natural process, and trust our hypnotist, we allow our conscious mind to step 
aside, open the door to our subconscious, and find riches beyond compare. Riches to use as tools in our own lives to find unexpected, clever, subtle, and meaningful solutions to our problems: riches in the form of images, songs, conversations, relationships, and memories still stored in our muscles.
For example, a small group of us hypnotized a woman who wanted to enter a triathlon, but she had a near-drowning experience so every time she swam, she “hit a wall” and couldn’t finish the race. She had a dolphin tattoo that I asked her about when we talked before putting her in a trance. We talked about how dolphins save lives in the water.
During her hypnosis session, a dolphin came to swim with her. They swam together in a hypnotic rhythm, and she felt completely safe, guarded by the dolphin. Other guides and protectors, important resources we’d discussed prior to inducing a trance, came to be with her as well. We also gave her many positive suggestions for success, all of which she asked for and we clarified, before inducing a state of hypnosis. She was able to visualize, feel, and complete her swim. When we emerged her from hypnosis, she felt her block was gone. She felt confident about moving forward and swimming through the wall. She felt in her body that she’d already done it successfully. Now it was just a matter of living it.
This brings up another key to a positive hypnosis session. The hypnotist interviews the client and learns the goals and resources of the client. It is those goals, phrased in the client’s language, that are suggested to the client in hypnosis. Don’t you wish your TV would do that?
Using Autosuggestions In Self-Hypnosis
You can also do this for yourself at night when you go to sleep and in the morning when you wake up. Émile Coué, a French psychologist and pharmacist who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and researched hypnosis, coined this familiar autosuggestion: “Every day in every way I’m getting better and better.”1
Try that autosuggestion when you go to bed and when you wake up. Let those words slow down and expand in your mind. Let all the ways you’re getting better rise to the surface of your mind. Hypnotize yourself with slow rhythmic breathing and give yourself this positive suggestion. Or make up another one. See for yourself how positive suggestions in a state of self-hypnosis improve how you feel and experience yourself. Note your experiences and watch as subtle and obvious changes take place.
Then imagine working with a trustworthy hypnotist, one who listens to your concerns and mirrors back positive tools and suggestions from your rich subconscious. This kind of work is a gift to yourself, a tune-up for the mind and spirit, that does not inspire fear, but rather awe at the possibilities for empowering us to reach our goals while experiencing deep relaxation along the way. Now that seems like real magic.
1 http://www.mind-your-reality.com/support-files/self_mastery_autosuggestion_coue.pdf
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