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What Can Hypnosis Do For Me?
What is hypnosis and how can it help you? Let’s start with a brief explanation of where our problems begin. We basically have two minds that affect our behavior – our conscious mind, the one that we are aware of, that we think with and that we believe determines our actions. The other is our sub-conscious mind, the one that quietly influences our behaviors without our awareness. This is why it can be difficult to make positive changes that we desire to make and consciously decide to make, yet struggle to achieve or fail altogether.
Past experience, especially before the age of seven, is anchored in our subconscious mind and creates a framework that can predetermine our choices and thoughts without our realizing it. Other experiences build upon that and add to the subconscious record, building beliefs, expectations and biases. So, when we consciously decide we want to make a change we are up against all of our history, and all of the messages we have received in our lifetimes. That’s a lot to get past.
This is where hypnosis can give us a needed boost by helping to eliminate those old stories that hold us back from achieving the level of happiness and success we deserve to experience.
How does hypnosis work to do that? Through hypnosis your mind comes to a relaxed, yet focused state that allows the conscious mind to “get out of the way” and opens access to the subconscious mind, allowing the therapist and client to explore and adjust beliefs and thoughts that are getting in the way of success, or to add positive suggestions that will help us toward our goals.
Some misconceptions exists around hypnosis. It’s not some “woo woo” magical thing. The state of hypnosis is a natural state that we experience everyday. Our brains are electrical in nature, and our brainwaves are active in a range of frequencies. The brainwaves are on a continuum, from high to low frequency. Beta waves are experienced when we are alert and active, they are the “fastest” frequency, Delta waves are experienced during deep sleep and are the “slowest”. A stage in between these is Theta waves, experienced when in deep concentration, such as immersed in a book or movie, or when just waking or falling asleep.
You’ve probably experienced knowing your dreams as you wake, but forgetting them when fully awake. That’s theta wave state, and that’s the state that hypnosis works in, while the subconscious mind is open we can access information we were unaware of and create more beneficial thoughts.
Hypnosis is a quick and effective therapy that can immediately help us make the changes we are wanting, sometimes in only one session.
