By Sally Stone
My hair stylist comes to my house to cut my hair. She spreads a large plastic sheet on my kitchen floor, and I sit on a stool, my big brown towel wrapped over my shoulders. I love getting these haircuts at home. Like hypnosis, haircuts are so relaxing. I close my eyes.
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 and thought of hypnosis in terms of magic shows and stage entertainment. Stop smoking programs can be very effective, too, but there’s so much more.
Then she wondered, “Would I even wake up?” With that, I could understand her fear.
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 self-hypnosis, experiencing a slow rhythmic physical activity like swinging, swimming, or rocking induces self-hypnosis.
The moments between sleep and waking resemble hypnosis. Even the meditative state, known as yoga nidra (translated as yogic sleep), is a cousin 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.” If you stare too long at anything, it will hypnotize you.
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.
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, and mutually agreed upon. However, even in a state of hypnosis, you are free to reject a suggestion. There is nothing you would do in hypnosis that you wouldn’t do otherwise.
Ironically, we are used to hypnotizing ourselves, but we don’t realize it. When we watch TV or movies and read books, we go into a trance and lose track of what’s real and what’s fiction. It’s called “willing suspension of disbelief.” Many people become so connected to the characters they watch and read about that they talk about them as if they’re real.
But to what end do we go under these hypnotic spells? 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, material 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. What were we thinking? Honestly, we weren’t thinking. We let ourselves get carried away by the story someone wove for us and jumped into that story without thinking.
It’s so easy to enter a hypnotic state, but without understanding the true power of hypnosis and how to use it to improve our lives, opportunities for transformation 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. I created this exercise and call it “Opening Doors.” You can use it in more depth along with 26 other guided hypnosis-meditations in my book, Golden Words: The A to Z Toolkit for Changing Your Life One Word at a Time.
Opening Doors
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 this and other lifetimes. Perhaps the akashic records, the collective unconscious, and all your spirit guides can be accessed there as well.
Like my hairdresser, the conscious mind stands guard. 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 move 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.
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 stored at the cellular and soul level.
Hypnosis Breakthrough
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 during the intake. 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 with her, before inducing a state of hypnosis. She was able to visualize, feel, and complete her swim. When she emerged from hypnosis, she felt like 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. By the way, she completed the triathlon and swam through that wall with her dolphin.
This brings up anther 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 for you?
Mantras, Affirmations, and Autosuggestions
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.”
Try that autosuggestion, which is much like a mantra or affirmation, 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 and flood your body. 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. My book, Golden Words, also has a self-hypnosis activity as well as Eight Principles for devising your own autosuggestions
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’s more like real magic.
To learn more about hypnosis and health coaching sessions, click here: Work With Me
