Here are some amazing insights and facts from my years of practice as a hypnotherapist and meditation facilitator and guide that can help anyone looking into hypnotherapy as adjunct therapy for their happiness and well being:
- Most people think that they will be influenced by the hypnotherapist. In fact that is not true. Any influence does not last, because each person has a core set of beliefs and values and people can only change if they want to change.
- All our emotional reactions are a form of hypnosis i.e., we are not thinking clearly when we are influenced by strong emotion at the sub-conscious level. Hypnotherapy wakes us up from the sub-conscious trance of unprocessed emotion.
- People sometimes think that they cant be hypnotized, they may believe that they are in fact, in control of their mind, but most people are subconsciously under the influence of major personalities in their life, media conditioning and childhood trauma. In fact, seeing a hypnotherapist can mean getting back one’s authentic self.
- People think that what they see while in hypnotherapy could be fake and that they are making things up. Nothing is further from the truth. In actual fact our brain thinks in terms of symbols, feelings, images in addition to words and theoretical structures. What we see while in hypnotherapy is our stream of consciousness, but more than that it is also what we deep down feel like–and what we feel like inside attracts our life experience to us. So hypnotherapy can mean cleaning out the stuff that does not serve us, that in fact bogs us down and helps us move on to happier times.
- The mind is like a bucket. It needs to be emptied often for it work optimally. Hypnosis can mean relief of sub-conscious stress. People in hypnosis often cry, because their mind may still be holding trauma from 20 years ago.
- Hypnosis is natural–we go into a natural highly focused state 8-10 times a day. Some people enter this state easier than others and can stay in that state longer. High focus is like a sleepy state and the brain waves during this time are slower. This is the time the brain is learning. Children experience this state more often and our learning ability is higher when we are children.
- 80-90% of communication is non verbal and feelings oriented, regardless of gender. While in hypnosis, people can relate the emotional content of communication to a higher degree and it appears that we are more influenced by things that are not explicit or intentionally said, but believed by actors in the environment. This means that only is the source of our pain and trauma how we were treated in key developmental moments, but what others projected about us.
- Most of our mental processes are sub-conscious. In fact 95% of our mind is sub-conscious. Most of the time we are thinking and processing our environment sub-consciously. Our cause of stress is in fact, always there in our mind and for us to change the cause of stress, we need to dig deeper in our mind and find that idea or belief and if possible change it.
- Since the cause of deep rooted stress may not be current conditions, or our physical or emotional environment, but our mental environment, healing how we think, what we believe can have profound impact on the stress we feel on a daily basis.
- Even though a lot of people can find hypnotherapy online–there are phone apps, and youtube, these should be seen as adjunct tools, and getting to the root cause of a problem is usually only possible via interactive work.
- Most people I have met believe deep down in a higher power. Surprisingly enough, people who consider themselves very cynical have a concept of God, that is deeply ingrained. It could be early childhood conditioning or an aspect of our DNA memory. However, belief in a higher power is NOT necessary for hypnotherapy, but having a chat with your hypnotherapist about how your belief system ties into hypnotherapy or any fears you have is advisable.
- There are many types of hypnotherapy and hypnotherapists who can help people resolve traumas, process grief and change their life towards more positive directions.
- Hypnotherapy is like planting a seed, and the results of that seed appear over time. I have seen clients become more decisive, action oriented, less willing to be miserable, more visible and fighting harder for their values.
by Saima Shah. From time to time Saima offers 30 minute consults to decide if hypnotherapy with her is the right choice for you.