Hypnotherapy = Hypnosis + Therapy
The first thing you need to know about hypnosis: it’s a natural state, and everybody can reach this state. In fact everyone slips into and out of this hypnotic state throughout the day. An example of this is zoning out while driving a car or watching television. This is also called a trance state.
There are three different minds and all three function vastly different from the other.
1) Conscious Mind
2) Subconscious Mind
3) Superconscious Mind
Hypnotherapy works directly with the conscious and subconscious minds. These two minds are constantly communicating with each other. The superconscious is the mind that connects you to all things. The fabric between all things is often called the Ether or the Divine Matrix. The superconscious mind is the most powerful of all three minds, but you need to learn how use the conscious and subconscious minds effectively before you can productively tap into the superconscious. An alignment of all three minds is called the Mystical Union and this is when the Law of Attraction becomes a force of nature.
Conscious Mind Functions
- Analysis
- Logic
- Inductive & Deductive Reasoning
- Will/Volition
- Choice
- Observation through the five senses
A few things to know about the Conscious Mind
- 92% of your thoughts are recurring and these thoughts are not your conscious mind at work. They are popping up from already programmed content from an earlier time. They come from your subconscious mind.
- The conscious mind has only been around for approximately 1 million years and is associated with the Neocortex.
Subconscious Mind Functions
- Memory storage
- Stores beliefs
- Seat of emotions/feelings
- Speaks in images
- Creativity
- Moves away from pain
- Controls the Autonomic Nervous System (Fight or Flight vs. Rest and Digest)
A few things about the Subconscious Mind
- The subconscious mind cannot discern fact from fiction. It stores beliefs regardless if they are true or false.
- The subconscious mind stores all memories. A memory may become temporarily lost, either forgotten, suppressed, or repressed but the subconscious mind stores it and you can access it through hypnotherapy.
- The subconscious mind never sleeps, meaning it can be programmed while your conscious mind is asleep.
- The beliefs the subconscious mind stores are ideas that you accepted or decided as true.
- Your subconscious mind is responsible for your dreams and Carl Jung the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst believed all dreams were trying to convey a message. If you are having the same dream night after night you should get into a hypnotherapy chair and have a session to figure out what your subconscious mind is trying to tell you.
- The subconscious mind has been around during the evolutionary process for millions of years and it is a combination of the reptilian (survival) and limbic (emotions) parts of the brain. The reptilian and limbic brains don’t realize the world has evolved and act in old patterns. They demand immediate satisfaction and they do not have the ability to reason.
How the subconscious mind becomes programmed
Your subconscious mind has hundreds of already programmed beliefs developed throughout childhood and all throughout your life. Your mind encounters new information and if it fits your already programmed belief system it accepts the information. If it doesn’t fit your programmed beliefs it spits it back to the conscious mind for further analysis. You can think of it as information passing through a filter. The filter is called the Critical Faculty or Critical Factor.
During hypnotherapy the filter or Critical Faculty becomes relaxed and no longer processes new information coming in. While in a hypnotic trance your subconscious mind is more responsive to new suggestions. These positive suggestions will improve and better your life. You also can release negative emotions stored from the past, releasing you from limiting programming.
The Critical Faculty develops between the ages of 7-11. Prior to the age of 7 beliefs can be instantaneously programmed into the subconscious mind, without any critical analysis.
Here are the three ways your subconscious mind becomes programmed:
1) Repetition 2) Critical Incident 3) Hypnonotherapy
Repetition
Your parents are the most significant influence of programming of your subconscious mind. The things they repeated over and over again during your childhood developed beliefs in your young mind. Parents are authority figures and the developing child has no reason to believe the information being provided from their parents is inaccurate. The Critical Faculty develops between the ages of 7 to 11. As the child grows up and develops critical thinking skills they then either choose to accept or reject any beliefs instilled by their parents.
Another great example of how repetition works is through news, media and television. Many people watch the news trusting they are getting accurate and factual information and sometimes they get confused with opinion versus fact and the ideas they receive from their trusted news sources becomes programmed into their subconscious mind.
Repetition can also come from the individual. We all repeat ideas in our minds and over time these become stored beliefs. Overly self-critical individuals program beliefs which may not be true and stem from unhealthy self-esteem. Repeating to yourself you are not smart enough in one area or not good enough are examples of self-critical stored beliefs. Hypnotherapy can reverse limiting beliefs.
Critical Incident
A critical incident is a highly emotionalized event from your past. Highly emotionalized events normally involve two groups of individuals; 1) Authority figures, like parents & teachers but any adult figure falls into this group. 2) Peers, such as friends, classmates, and older kids. When a highly emotionalized event occurs involving embarrassment, shame, hurt, guilt, sadness, fear, or anger this creates a programmed behavior by the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind classifies these situations in the category of pain and the subconscious wants to protect you from experiencing pain. So any situation after the critical incident that is similar to the critical incident will cause the subconscious mind to do anything in its power to prevent you from reliving the painful experience from your past.
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is a natural state of mind where the Critical Faculty is relaxed and your subconscious mind is more responsive to suggestions. There are many techniques used in hypnotherapy but most of them cater to a greater understanding of past situations causing programs to be developed. Hypnosis reprograms the subconscious mind with learning, positive suggestions and imagery.
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