This is probably on a lot of people’s minds – “Is hypnosis real?”
Is it a form of black magic? Is it just a con job?
Now before you jump to conclusions, or even attempt to form a judgement regarding hypnosis, you need to first know and understand what is hypnotism all about
It’s just like there are people in America who jump into the idea that Singapore is in China or even part of India, when they didn’t attempt to study or learn about geography
Before you also say there are no studies that support the idea of hypnosis, there are
Just that, with so many new studies about all sorts of topics, would anyone have the time to keep up to date with all of them?
Nope
If you are interested in technology, you will know the latest updates in technology
And someone who isn’t interested in technology wouldn’t know those updates, would they?
Yet it isn’t their fault for not knowing because they lack an interest or knowledge or understanding of it
So put on your learning cap, and let’s take a look at the science and non-science of hypnosis!
Is hypnosis fake to begin with?
No it is not and like I said earlier, there is research to prove it
An article by Time.com illustrated the usefulness of hypnosis in modern psychotherapy and compiled a few notable mentions
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is backed by evidence and research and proven effective for depression, weight loss, anxiety and more, and yet, when people go through CBT and hypnosis together, they lost nearly twice the weight within the same period of time
Kirsch’s research has also found that the weight was kept down whereas those that took CBT only tend to regain some weight
It was also noted in the same study that those having depression found relief from their mental health issues as well
Back in 1956, Pope Pius XII saw hypnosis as a way to alleviate the pain of childbirth and thus, it was permissible
In a more recent study, hypnosis was found to reduce the pain for children undergoing surgery or other medical treatments, and of course, proven again to assist in labour pain
So in fact, you can search and find evidence of hypnosis being real, valid and useful for several things, such as mental health, or even physical health
Gruzelier did a study on using hypnosis to boost the immune system and found that it can reduce viral infection and improve general health and well-being
But how can hypnosis be so powerful?
Not only can it boost and help in mental health, it can also work wonders with the physical health?
It sounds like magic!
Precisely!
Imagine couple hundred years ago where science and research and psychology was still opening and because they didn’t know much or were just developing ideas, they couldn’t fully explain what is happening to someone under hypnosis
So it was easier to call it magic or even black magic
I personally found that when people don’t know about something, they tend to fear it due to it being unknown
Fun fact: Fran Mesmer was an Austrain physician who started researching into “mesmerism” in 1770 while psychology started in the 19th century
Fun fact 2: Ibn Sina (or Avicenna) was a Persian psychologist and physician who published a book “The Book of Healing” in 1027 and he defined the differences between sleep and hypnosis
In fact, I personally think that hypnosis in some form have been around for thousands of years!
It’s just that we didn’t know how to put it into words, or form a structure to better use this powerful understanding
Of course, we have a better understanding of the mind and thus a better understanding of hypnosis now and if you too can have a good grasp of this, you will learn how to power up your mind
So, what is hypnosis all about?
Truthfully I have a bunch of articles in my blog which you can read in depth all the different elements and aspects of hypnosis from parents and family, to relationship, from self-hypnosis, to words and language and so on
So go read those articles if you are really interested and want to learn more about yourself
Just the brief for now
There is a conscious mind and an unconscious mind
Imagine the conscious mind is like a logical gatekeeper, you choose what information to go in and what to reject
Like you can logically choose to keep reading or not, right now
If you do continue to read, the information to go through what I call a secondary filter, before it enters the unconscious mind
I won’t touch on the secondary filter for now as it is more to explain certain things like relationships, career choices, etc so search this in my blog and read up on my other articles
The unconscious mind is like an emotional sponge, it just absorbs everything and integrates into its system, of mind, body and heart
Everything from your belief system, to your emotions, to your memories, etc are all in your unconscious mind
Hypnosis or trance is to connect the conscious mind to the unconscious mind
The connection between the logic and the emotion
Wait a minute… don’t we do that every day??
Exactly!!
Every day we are already connecting our logic and emotions for various tasks throughout the day
Sometimes we use more logic for this task, sometimes we use more emotions for that task
Oftentimes, it is a combination of both
If you have to cook dinner for a special date, you might imagine how the date will go, what ingredients to get, the emotions you might feel, as well as logically what you need to prepare
And that, my friends, is a very simple and mild state of hypnosis within
Now we are not talking about hypnotherapy yet!
Hypnosis with the intent for therapy is a different ball game compared to general hypnosis for fun or daily living
This is because when it comes with the intent for therapy, then more questions will pop up
Are you ready to face the issue?
Especially if it is something from the past, potentially dark and scary
Whether it be an abusive parent, or a trauma of a car accident
To the child, that was freaking scary!
The unconscious mind might attempt something to safeguard the self – like causing childhood memory loss – if it is really bad
And so when I get clients coming to me to resolve this issue or that issue, I will want to preempt the client to ensure they are ready to face whatever happen in the past
If it was nothing that will be great!
But I rather err on the side of caution to ensure my clients remain safe
When they are not ready to face it but open it anyway, it might potentially retraumatize them, which is what I want to avoid
And when they are ready, and we face it and we resolve or release it, they are healed from their trauma effectively
Now what about the physical health?
Going back to the conscious mind and unconscious mind, I want you to think about the last couple of minutes
What did you consciously do in the last couple of minutes?
Play with me for a bit ok?
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I assume you have a few ideas of what you consciously did in the last couple of minutes
And this is you choosing it so it came from your conscious mind
Now what did your unconscious mind do then in the last couple of minutes?
Your unconscious mind handles all the other background processes without you knowing, hence unconsciously doing
Such as your blinking, heart rate, digestion, temperature control, breathing and many many more!
Your unconscious mind handles all those automatic processes so you can focus on what needs to be done
When they say we are only using 10% of the mind, this is refering to the conscious mind
The 90% of the mind we are not actively using is the unconscious mind, which is handling automatic background processes
You can attempt an experiment
Control your breathing
Now I don’t know about you but when I initially controlled my breath, I found myself getting tired easily at first
Not only that, I was not able to focus on my other tasks at hand!
However, the more I practice controlling my breath, the better I get at it
Until it becomes an automatic process for the unconscious mind to handle
Just like when you first learn how to ride a bike, you need to learn so many things
From the right muscles to control, the right strength to push, the angle of the feet etc
But once you got it, it becomes automatic!
As if, it is so easy and you’ve been doing it your whole life!
How can you help yourself now?
In one of the above articles, the researchers used guided imagery to improve their health
That is another way which taps into the unconscious mind as well – imagination
So if you imagine bad things happening, what might happen in your mind and to your emotions?
Inversely, if you imagine good things happening, how does it feel now?
Depending on what you want to achieve, you can use the power of imagination (which taps into the power of your unconscious mind) to either solve issues, find solutions and achieve success in life!
So yes, be aware of your thoughts, but be aware of your imagination more!
Now of course, if you have attempted a few times and yet nothing seems to be happening
Fret not
One possibility is that you are relatively new to this and thus, need some time to practise and grow
The other possibility is that there are deeper rooted issues which are holding you back
For example a limiting belief is a belief you believe to be true, but it limits you
So usually it has a negative association
If you have tried and found that you cannot release this limiting belief, feel free to drop me a message
Because yes, you might need a session if you want to resolve it fully and cleanly
Until then I hope you have fun and achieve great results with this newfound understanding!
PS. Share with your friends so they can learn and grow too~
