SLIMMER AND HEALTHIER CREATING A SLIM, HEALTHY BODY FOR LIFE

Slimming with Hypnosis continued … What will it feel like to be hypnotised? When I first signed up for my hypnotherapy training with the Institute of Clinical Hypnosis in 1999, I’ll admit to being fascinated about the mystery of hypnosis. In the first ever class, Nicola Martin (Principal), stood up and clapped her hands and said something like this, “Hypnosis is a practical subject. Can I have a volunteer to demonstrate on?” There was silence. We all sat on our hands. Then someone’s files fell on the floor. It was a sign. They duly volunteered to be hypnotised. So is hypnosis mysterious or is it normal and natural? And what does it feel like? The first thing to know is that everyone is an individual and experiences will vary. Be confident that what you experience is right for you. When you first begin working with hypnosis you close your eyes and, as you shut off the outside world, you begin to hear your mind chatter. Your thoughts. You will also be listening to the sounds of the hypnotic words and any background music. Your mind is still chattering away, telling you trivial things or questioning if you are doing it right or asking what you should be feeling. You are in conscious awareness. I know that because mind chatter only happens when your conscious mind is active and thinking. And that’s OK. It takes a while to get that mind to quieten down and for it to relax and switch off. As the owner of a very active mind, I’m familiar with how chatty and distracting it can be. Therefore, this beginning stage is characterised by being awake and aware and lying with your eyes closed. Now it’s time to focus on the hypnotic instructions you are hearing. It’s time to be aware of your thoughts but to lead them back to the instructions. Even if you keep getting distracted by intrusive thoughts, if you have to fidget a bit to get comfy or there is some outside noise, simply keep coming back and following the instructions. When you do this, you are using your innate mental power to disipline your mind. This is a great skill to learn. It’s the opposite of having a short attention span. You are teaching your mind to concentrate for longer than a few seconds. So keep it up. You will probably hear instructions about breathing deeper or focusing on your breathing. The simple reason we use breathing as a starting point is that deep breathing is the foundation of physical relaxation. It also gives your mind something physical to focus on. Breathing is truly fascinating and it has many stages, many feelings and many elements to focus on. Therefore, the feeling of deep breathing can draw your attention deeper inside yourself. It can be compelling, it can make your mind stop chattering away so actively. And as you focus on your breathing, you will hear suggestions to feel as if you are sinking deeper or drifting or letting go of tension. These simple suggestions help you to notice what naturally happens when you quieten your mind and breathe deeply. It does feel as if you are sinking down deeper into the comfortable bed or relaxing chair. That is because when you exhale, you naturally experience a physical sensation of muscle relaxation. It’s something you don’t notice when you are going about your daily life, but once you really notice your breathing, it’s amazing how many sensations are involved. As you continue to do this, your mind will be very engaged in the process and you’ll become more aware of how relaxed and comfortable you feel. It’s not a trick, but a natural by-product of this process. The skill of the hypnotherapist is in the words, the quality of the voice, the pace, the pauses and the suggestions to feel certain things. The aim is for you to feel physical relaxation. I say this because people like to feel relaxed in their body when they are doing this work. Hypnosis doesn’t require physical relaxation but it is nicer for the person who is experiencing it. Now for some of the magic! As you relax more, you may notice some other sensations. Like you are not so aware of your body. Body dissociation is one of the hypnotic phenomena which occur in hypnosis. Some of the other hypnotic phenomena include: time distortion where your sense of time is altered, amnesia where you forget what is being said to you, anaesthesia where you lose the sense of your body and hallucination which is another way of describing the enhanced visual, auditory or kinaesthetic experiences that may happen. You can also regress easily into past memories as if you are reliving them, and progress into an imaginary future that is bright and real. I think it’s amazing that the body and mind can do these things. One of the techniques that help you to move deeper into hypnosis is to engage your imagination. Using the simple mind model of the conscious mind and subconscious mind, I believe that the imagination ‘lives’ in the subconscious mind. It doesn’t seem to me that imagination is a conscious function. When you imagine something, it encourages you to visit inside your subconcsious mind. As you continue imagining, using the hypnotic words to inspire you, you will naturally move into a more enhanced state of focus and leave conscious thought behind. The more you immerse yourself in imagining things (a scene, a landscape, colours, lights, moving around, a memory from the past … whatever the instrutions tell you to do) you will go deeper into that state of awareness we call hypnosis. This stage has certain brain wave frequencies that can be measured. You can find out more about the science of this by visiting the Hemi-Sync^®  ‘Learn’ page. So what does this feel like? How do you know it’s hypnosis? In simple terms, it feels as if you are on the borders of sleep but you are awake and aware of what is happening. Your body feels warm and not quite your own and you will probably be enjoying exceptional feelings of comfort and relaxation. Your chattering mind will be quiet but you’ll be following the action inside. You may notice the action has a dream-like quality. You may find you drift in and out of awareness. It may feel like you’ve had a quick nap and you’ve missed some of the instructions. This is called somnambulism. A true state of hypnosis on the very borders of sleep. Your subconscious mind will remain fully aware when you have drifted off and it will have heard and absorbed every word. Towards the middle of the track, you’ll notice hypnotic instructions that are designed to make you think and feel a certain way. The suggestions or positive messages are deliberately designed to work on transforming your thinking. Sometimes this stage is designed like a metaphorical learning journey. There are explanations in the Slimmer and Healthier book which go into more detail. What if you can’t relax and you can’t slow your mind down and get into deep physical and mental relaxation? Does that mean you can’t be hypnotised? And how will that affect the success of this weight loss program? Next time, I’ll explore how you can work constructively on this and learn how to easily slip into hypnosis. I assure you that YOU CAN DO IT!  I know this because you are able to fall asleep at night and you can also wake up in the morning. You automatically pass through the mind state of somnambulism when you do so. It follows that you are already practising hypnosis. Now you need to find out how to do this when you want to, not just at bedtime or in the morning or when you have a cheeky daytime nap. Back to Blog menu