How HYPNOSIS works: part 2:

 Let’s delve a bit deeper…………..into how hypnosis works.

As mentioned in last week’s blog post, HYPNOSIS can be used for:

-Fears and Phobias: Ie: dental, flying, driving, heights, spiders, etc.

-Habit Change: Ie: Weight loss/maintenance, smoking cessation, fingernail biting, etc.

-Mindset Habit Change: Ie: to increase confidence, self-esteem; decrease stress, anxiety, panic attacks, etc.

-Medical/Dental: Ie: Pain control, Bruxism (clenching), controlling blood flow, stress reduction, etc.

It’s challenging to define what hypnosis is and it’s also important to add what it’s not. It is:

-a concentrated, focused state of inner absorption

-a deeply relaxed state of inner focus

-it is NOT unconsciousness, meditation or sleep!

-Meditation is NOT the same as being in a trance state

-Meditation: you focus on yourself with no particular goal and enter an altered state (of mind)

-Trance state: you focus on something outside yourself; you do have a goal and you enter this altered state and receive positive suggestions (post-hypnotic suggestions).

To understand HYPNOSIS or MINDSET COACHING, for that matter, you must know a bit about the conscious and subconscious minds:

CONSCIOUS MIND:

-communication center

-creates your short and long-term goals

-your everyday thoughts and ideas are here

It is a very BUSY place!

SUBCONSCIOUS MIND:

-your mind’s ‘storage center’

-stores: life experiences, belief system, values

-‘gut’ or intuition; creativity

I often hear this question: Is Everybody Hypnotizable?

The short answer is YES. You can be in a light, moderate or deep trance. A light or moderate trance is quite enough for non-therapy hypnosis.

We spend much of our lives in ‘trances.’ Here’s an example: you’re driving home from work, a route you’ve traveled hundreds of times before. You know the route, so you start to ‘daydream’ or drive on ‘automatic pilot.’ You, literally, get out of your conscious mind’s brain wave state and go into the subconscious mind’s brainwave state (theta). Then, there’s a traffic light or a stop sign, and your conscious mind comes right back into action.

Your subconscious mind is deeper and stronger than your conscious mind. This is why willpower alone rarely works, for the long haul. Your subconscious mind, holding the beliefs and thought patterns you absorbed (0-7 years) from your family, community and society, tends to rule your life, until you can connect it to your conscious awareness. This is part of the healing work that most of us have to do.

A little more about TRANCE:

-it’s relaxing and empowering

-it teaches you about yourself

-it can change certain habits and ideas

-you get a diminution of the GR0 (general reality orientation), where your external world becomes less important and your inner world comes into sharper focus

-you’re mentally alert

-You can’t always tell when/if you’ve been in a trance. It may only be a change in your perceived environment or an increase to receptivity of

suggestions.

Let’s demystify some MYTHS and MISCONCEPTIONS about hypnosis:

-you are not unconscious or asleep

-you can’t be made to violate your own values or behavior

-you can terminate a trace state at any time (just move and shake your body a bit)

-you can speak while in the trance state (this is usually with a hypnotist who is also a therapist)

The HYPNOSIS session:

-All sessions and information are confidential

-the guide (hypnotist, hypnotherapist) should do a detailed history: mental, physical, emotional and social. If your client has a questionable medical/psychological history, the hypnotist should check with the client’s MD or therapist.

-Hypnosis is an adjunct process. Typically, I combine hypnosis with mindset coaching (both conscious and subconscious work).

Both Hypnosis and Mindset Coaching require doing the ‘inner’ work!

Hypnosis STAGES:

-(Pre-Induction)

-Induction

-Deepening (the trance)

-Coming up (or out) of trance

In next week’s blog post, I will go into more detail about the hypnosis session’s stages and hypnosis styles.

For now, I’d like to answer some very good questions that a follower asked me on Instagram (thanks for that; you know who you are)…..:)

1)Can hypnosis be done online, safely and effectively? Yes; is the short answer, as long as the hypnotist can see all of you and you are both open to it.

2)Is it necessary to have multiple sessions, or can one session be enough? It depends what your goal is. One session may be enough for increasing confidence. For weight loss, smoking cessation and anxiety attacks, several sessions would be recommended (along with some coaching sessions, in my practice). It depends on you, your subconscious mind and your openness to using your imagination and creativity. It also has to do with your level of comfort with  hypnosis and your guide (hypnotist or yourself, with self-hypnosis).

3)Do the changes last? Again, it depends on you, your subconscious mind and what you’re doing. For example, if you’ve had anxiety for decades, it will, most likely, take more than one session to feel the positive effects of hypnosis. I often recommend ‘touch-ups’ for my clients; it’s like a ‘kickstart’ for your subconscious mind….

With smiles and love,

Dr Gigi

PS: I love discussing hypnosis and mindset coaching and welcome any more questions you may have. You can DM me at Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn @ Dr Gigi Arnaud and contact me @ www.gigiarnaud.com to

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