Psychologists have long known that there are two distinct parts to the human mind: the “Conscious” thinking, analyzing part, and the “Subconscious” which handles everything else. That everything else is quite a bit, too. Think for a moment about all that is happening in your body right this second. Your eyes are scanning these words, but how do they do it? By the subconscious mind sending tiny electrical impulses down nerves to the muscles that move your eyes and other separate impulses to the iris and cornea focusing the lenses of your eyes on the computer monitor. All without you having to give it a single thought. Pretty amazing, but that is only the beginning.
Without consciously thinking about it you breathe regularly and at the exact rate required to provide your body with the oxygen it needs at that precise moment… speeding up as you exercise and slowing down when less oxygen is required. The same thing is happening with your heart. Your subconscious sends electrical stimuli to it instructing it to beat regularly, at the exact speed necessary to pump that freshly oxygenated blood throughout your body. But let’s go deeper still.
Our bodily functions are regulated by hormones secreted by numerous glands in both our brain and body. But how? Without conscious thought or direction our subconscious constantly monitors and measures the blood levels of all those different hormones and, as necessary, secretes more or less of them to keep our bodies in balance. On a larger scale simple standing still and keeping our balance requires thousands of measurements and muscle adjustments every second; and if the wind is blowing, even more. Yet not once, do we ever even think about it.
A professional basketball player may represent the pinnacle of all this unconscious computation and muscle control. When he is “in the zone,” he moves effortlessly through the other players, keeping track of them all and making instant changes of direction and speed as he eyes the hoop. At just the right moment he leaps into the air and making thousands of computations in an eye blink determines the optimal instant to release the ball, calculates within inches the distance to the hoop, and determines the amount of muscular thrust necessary to project the ball at the perfect angle so that its trajectory will bring it down perfectly into the center of the hoop. SWISH… nothing but net. Yes, the subconscious is amazingly powerful, but it is not limited to simply controlling our bodily functions. Its greatest impact on us is its control of how we think about and value ourselves.
The subconscious mind is very literal and has no ability whatsoever to critically examine the truth or error of statements it receives. It accepts everything at face value and locks in the statements and judgments by others. Children are especially vulnerable to negative, judgmental comments and will hold onto them throughout their entire lives. And once a belief, positive or negative, is implanted into the subconscious it will trump every other conscious statement every time. If a boy is told by a parent or teacher that he is stupid he will believe it and his grades will reflect that belief. If a young girl is told she is ugly or fat any number of positive compliments later on will not change her concept of herself The subconscious has been successfully programmed and the only way to change it for the better is to reprogram it. That’s where hypnosis comes in.
When a person is in a “hypnotic state” (I don’t like the word “trance” because of the false ideas about hypnosis it brings with it) his or her body and mind are deeply relaxed. At that point, the conscious mind basically “moves to the side” and the subconscious is able to be accessed directly without conscious interference. In hypnosis the client’s subconscious is open to receiving “suggestions” from the hypnotherapist about different ways of thinking and looking at themselves. Those suggestions can actually “reprogram” the subconscious and turn one’s weaknesses into strengths.
Ethical hypnotherapists DO NOT view hypnosis as a substitute for proper medical care and if a client presents with a medical condition we will counsel them to contact their physician before we will work with them. That being said, after proper medical attention is provided and a doctor’s referral is given there is no medical condition which cannot be improved using hypnosis as an adjunct therapy. The well established placebo effect is actually the subconscious at work and when the power of the subconscious to heal is activated by post-hypnotic suggestions the results can be astounding. When one considers it a little more it does make sense. The subconscious is already handling the health of your body… it knows how to do it. After medical attention is given all that needs to happen is for the subconscious to be given the suggestion to fix the problem and the full power of the subconscious goes to work on it. And as I mentioned above the results can be truly amazing.
I invite you to give me a call and find out more about how to put the power of your subconscious mind to work for you.
