Hypnosis, it’s simple!

How does hypnosis work?

Why can’t I just decide and its done?

What’s the difference between my conscious and unconscious mind?

Here’s the thing, consciously you pay attention to about 7 things at a time. Maybe less if you are focused intently on something, like reading a book, watching tv or talking with a friend.

But unconsciously? Your brain is processing 40 million data inputs every second. Amazing, right?

The temperature of the room you’re in, the minute facial and body movements of the person talking to you, the feel of the paper as you turn a page, the way your clothes feel on your skin, the rate of your breathing, your heart rate, whether you are hungry, thirsty, feelings that arise and sensations in the body, maybe your leg feels numb, or you’re excited and bouncing with energy. 

You don’t notice all of that consciously, but there’s a part of you, beneath your awareness, that records all of it. This is your unconscious mind.

It records everything you see, hear, feel, smell, taste, and touch all the time, from the start of your life until its end.

Your unconscious remembers every experience you’ve ever had, every book you’ve ever read, and every word you’ve ever heard. All of these experiences have been absorbed and helped to make you the person you are.

Mike Mandel uses a great analogy to explain the differences between the conscious and unconscious minds.

Imagine a giant museum that stretches out for miles and is many stories high. This museum is full of artifacts and books of knowledge. The museum is dark. A security guard inside has a flashlight that can only illuminate 7 things at a time.

You can see from the larger than life torch image I used in my photo to illustrate this point that a torch inside a museum doesn’t in fact show us very much at all!

During hypnosis, the security guard relaxes enough to allow you to shine light on the resources you need to solve your problem. The answer comes from inside your own personal museum, filled with your stuff, so it’s custom tailored to you.

Why talking to the unconscious works faster than traditional therapy work

When we try to solve our problems by talking about them and trying to figure them out consciously, we can often, inadvertently reinforce the problem, and retraumatise ourselves by re-enacting the problem in our minds. The problem can start to feel bigger, scarier and and even harder to get over.

And we think we know why we have the problem but here’s the thing, we’re almost always wrong.

There’s a simple, effective way to get to what’s really going on and deal with the root of it and that is to access your unconscious mind.

Your unconscious mind is literal and works in absolutes

Your unconscious mind wants to give you what you want and it determines what you want by noticing what you focus on.

If you focus on what you don’t want, which is what most of us do, your unconscious mind tries to give you that thing, whatever it is, even though you don’t want it. Because that’s what you’ve been thinking about. So if you’ve been going over and over in your mind what’s wrong with you and your life, guess what? You get more of that.

That’s why focusing on the right things is so important.

Imagine you’re little again, and you go to take the milk out of the fridge. Your Mum tells you, “Don’t spill that milk.”

Your brain must first form an idea of what it means to spill milk. Then you have to apply “don’t” to the statement.

Under the stress, of trying not to spill the milk, most likely that childhood version of you is going to spill the milk before processing the “don’t” part.

It would be more helpful for your Mum to say, “Be careful with the milk.” You can instantly see how this creates an image of being careful, of slowly, steadily lifting the milk out of the fridge and bringing it to the table. instead of an image of spills and disaster.

When you think, “I really wish I could stop overeating”, your brain creates an image of overeating. Your unconscious mind thinks “overeating” is what you want and makes it happen. Instead you must tell your brain what you DO want, because what we resist, tends to persist.

If you say, “I want to be thin and fit.” Your brain creates an image of thin and fit and works to make it happen.

If you say I want to be rich and successful so I can use the money I make to help other people, then your brilliant subconscious mind gets to work making it happen.