CLINICAL HYPNOTHERAPY
Discover Yourself & Unlock Your Potential
Before we dive in I want you to ask yourself two quick questions
1. Do you want to feel the anxiety (depression, fear, panic, grief insert any compulsive emotion and behaviours that follow here _ ) and then have to willpower your way out of it or attempt to distract yourself until it passes, or do you want to just not feel it in the first place?
2. If I showed you how you could access that part of your brain that allowed your mind, body and soul to work in harmony going forward in your life now would you take it?
What were your very first answers and feelings that came up when you read those questions?
Maybe a big yes to both and a feeling of excitement and possibility? How long was it before your critical mind set in with scepticism and the old “it’s too good to be true” thinking?
The reason they resonated with you initially is because that was the response of your unconscious mind, it knows both these questions are very real choices you can make and it lights up at the thought of it.
I would like you to keep your answers and those feelings you first felt as you asked yourself these two questions in mind because we will come back to them later. For now, there is a third question I would like you to ask yourself and which will serve as a base from which we can now explore clinical hypnotherapy, neuroplasticity or modern hypnosis (or as I like to think about it simply learning how to use your brain).
Have you ever had something you wanted to change yet couldn’t no matter how much you tried to reason, analyse, explore, willpower, scare or force yourself out of doing or feeling it and into doing or feeling something else?
This could range from a persistent thought you wish you didn’t have, fear of public speaking, avoiding social situations, getting angry or frustrated with a loved one consistently over things you know you shouldn’t, struggling to get out of bed in the morning, guiltily overeating that certain food you both love and hate or knowing that you should eat yet feeling terrified when the food is in front of you, wanting to stop smoking yet years later still doing it, feeling depressed despite how grateful you are for the life you live, feeling unable to move forward from past trauma, unable to shake the grief over the loss of a loved one, needing to forgive and free yourself or others, self-sabotaging each time you get close to a promotion or other goal, sabotaging relationships, gaining the weight back each time you lose it, a plateau you just can’t break through in your sporting career…
Add to this list anything you like because we all have or have had things we desperately (or even just a little) want to change yet no matter what we try, no matter how many books we read, no matter how many different opinions, no matter how much science, evidence or proof we accumulate, no matter how much well meaning advice we receive or therapy sessions we endure when it comes to the situation in which we feel that feeling or do that behaviour all rationalisation goes out the window.
Before you even get a chance to think you find yourself having had the feeling or having done the behaviour which means the choice to think or act otherwise was never a choice at all.
Yet, what most of us do is continue this cycle believing we do have a choice and beating ourselves up every time we do the ‘wrong’ thing because all that information and therapy has granted us easy access to a limitless supply of self-judgement and shame because we ‘know better’ therefore we must be utterly crazy for not being capable of simply doing better because after all we want to do it!
Getting closer to your problem, gaining more insight, more knowledge, more understanding does not always lead to a cure.
Oftentimes this can do more to keep you stuck or spiral further into the problem because it reinforces the hopelessness, helplessness or shame you’re already feeling and from such a state there is no movement and therefore, no safe space in which to generate newness.
The real reason you can’t change is simple, certainly nothing to be ashamed of and not a reflection of a problem with your level of willpower, care, motivation, intelligence or even self-worth.
It is simply the way your brain as the brain of a human being, as the brain of a mammal works and there’s very little that’s personal about it.
Since the 1800’s we’ve known that the majority of our thoughts, feelings and behaviours operate at an unconscious. That is level long before we become consciously aware of them.
Clinical hypnotherapy offers a means by which you can access this part of your mind and stop wasting time dealing in superficial level stuff that’s not going to lead to any lasting change.
You are not the problem, in fact the only real problem is that no one has taught you (yet) how to use all your mind to get it to actually do what you want but with hypnosis that’s all about to change.
If you could have made the better choice using information, insight, motivation, threats and willpower you would have done so by now, wouldn’t you?
Would you be willing to try something new?
When?
May I suggest this something new be learning how to connect all parts of your body, mind and soul to function in synergism instead of having parts in conflict and wanting to conquer or remove them?
I work every day to not just teach but to give people an experience of what they are capable of doing, feeling, thinking, achieving and being when the power of their unconscious and conscious minds work in together.
Hypnosis serves to empower you.
Hypnosis serves to reconnect you to your inner knowing, your inner authority and to gain proof that you can trust in your abilities.
It is essentially the opposite of the instrument of mind control it is often understood to be by those who are uninformed (I myself was once firmly in this boat so don’t worry if you are too!)
Hypnosis allows you to make drastic and rapid change by focusing your undivided attention on what matters and mobilising and developing the necessary skills and resources to effectively address a specific or general situation.
What this means is that you can go forward into your life with the ability to direct your thoughts and feelings rather than react to and be at the mercy of the outside world.
It allows you to move from trying to manipulate your outside environment to give you greater support to developing an authentic and unshakeable reliance on and trust in your own internal sense of self. Which to me is the hallmark of a phenomenal life.
Hypnosis is not a relaxation or a stress relief technique that has to be continuously topped up.
Hypnosis is not a process for you to go to a practitioner and ‘get’ then go out into your life, deplete it and come back to be refilled again and again.
Instead when used effectively hypnosis creates lasting change because the work undertaken in trance continues to not only operate but also grow stronger after and into your daily life. What makes hypnosis magic in my eyes is that this occurs at an unconscious level. That is it occurs without your need to consciously remind yourself to do or not to do, think or feel something it happens naturally. The power of this cannot be underestimated because it takes those things which were once hard and makes them easy, effortless and as if it has always been so.
Hypnosis serves to reconnect you to your inner knowing, your inner authority and to gain proof that you can trust in your abilities.
It is essentially the opposite of the instrument of mind control it is often understood to be by those who are uninformed (I myself was once firmly in this boat so don’t worry if you are too!)
Hypnosis allows you to make drastic and rapid change by focusing your undivided attention on what matters and mobilising and developing the necessary skills and resources to effectively address a specific or general situation.
What this means is that you can go forward into your life with the ability to direct your thoughts and feelings rather than react to and be at the mercy of the outside world.
It allows you to move from trying to manipulate your outside environment to give you greater support to developing an authentic and unshakeable reliance on and trust in your own internal sense of self. Which to me is the hallmark of a phenomenal life.
Hypnosis is not a relaxation or a stress relief technique that has to be continuously topped up.
Hypnosis is not a process for you to go to a practitioner and ‘get’ then go out into your life, deplete it and come back to be refilled again and again.
Instead when used effectively hypnosis creates lasting change because the work undertaken in trance continues to not only operate but also grow stronger after and into your daily life. What makes hypnosis magic in my eyes is that this occurs at an unconscious level. That is it occurs without your need to consciously remind yourself to do or not to do, think or feel something it happens naturally. The power of this cannot be underestimated because it takes those things which were once hard and makes them easy, effortless and as if it has always been so.
It is the difference between thinking "I know what I should do", "I believe this" or "I want to do this" and "Wow, it’s just not even a problem is it?" or "of course".
In and of itself hypnosis is just a tool and it is what happens during hypnosis which create the change.
There are numerous schools of theory and many more techniques which offer ways for you to change a behaviour but if it still feels wrong, bad, uncomfortable or just not quite right to do the new behaviour or not do the old one such a change in my eyes is of far less value than making a change where the new behaviour is your preferred, fun or default. To the point where the old one simply doesn’t come up for you (it’s still there as a choice because the intention of any good hypnosis is to increase, not restrict your choice yet there will likely be nothing alluring about it because your needs are being met in a far better way with a behaviour that is congruent at all levels of what you value and the outcomes and experiences you want in life).
This is why I more often than not work at the higher levels of identity, beliefs and values rather than purely in helping you to change a behaviour. That is I help you “become” the chicken not “act like” a chicken.
Hypnosis facilitates an insurmountable expansion of choice in what you think, feel, do and therefore who you are and what you can accomplish.
What is true is that all the theory, principals, learnings and understandings in the world of what hypnosis is will not give you the experience of what it feels like to easily and effortlessly do the things that have maybe even for as long as you can remember been hard for you or you believe are impossible.
Experience comes only through experience.
Hypnosis certainly can help you if you have not been able to change a troubling thought or behaviour by rationalisation, but its power goes much further than this because when your conscious and unconscious mind work together you are capable of extraordinary things.
You might now be focused on overcoming a challenge but once you are free of that your choices will expand beyond comprehension.
The overcoming, the freedom may be your greatest goal now but it is truly just the beginning.
Willpower, hustle and grit can get you far but only so far and always at the expense of the 3 pillars of a successful life; your health, happiness and fulfilment.
In my eyes what makes hypnosis stand out from other forms of ‘therapy’ is that it eliminates the inner turmoil and struggle.
When it comes to the fundamentals such as maintaining your health you really needn’t be forcing yourself or feeling at war within yourself to do so, it truly should come naturally.
Imagine for a moment if you were to be free of those every day struggles how much time and energy you would have to focus on those things which truly matter to you, which truly enrich your one precious life.
Get that sorted and you’ll be living at a much higher level than most.
A great neuroplastician (clinical hypnotherapist) can help you change your thought patters, beliefs, values and identity in line with returning to who you know you were always meant to be, to who you want to be.
So that you can stop searching forever, so that you can go forward wholeheartedly, confidently and capably connecting and contributing in a meaningful way.
So, we now come back to those first 2 questions
So, we now come back to those first 2 questions
Do you want to feel the anxiety, (depression, fear, panic, grief, insert any compulsive emotion and behaviours that follow here _ ) and then have to willpower your way out of it or attempt to distract yourself until it passes, or do you want to just not feel it in the first place?
If I showed you how you could access that part of your brain that allowed your mind, body and soul to work in harmony going forward in your life now would you take it?
How you answer these questions and crucially what you choose to do with this information will alter the course of the rest of your life.
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.