3 Myths About Hypnosis
Despite a truly appalling and incredible effort by the CIA, hypnosis is not commonly utilized to program another person to commit heinous acts.
Hypnosis is used in many fields—advertising, medicine, sports. I have met very few psychotherapists with hanging pendulum watches and depraved spirits.
For fun, there are three myths about hypnosis:
The person being hypnotized loses control
Trance is a rare state of consciousness
One can get ‘stuck’ in hypnosis
Hopefully I can dispel all three myths with one fact: we move in and out of the brainwave state that is characterized by relaxation and focus frequently throughout the day. If you have ever seen a great commercial, you have been successfully hypnotized.
Your emotions also affect your brainwave state. We can become hypnotized by fear, lust, envy, or grief.
This doesn’t mean that all states of hypnosis are attempting to hijack you. You might also be hypnotized by the approval of others, by spiritual connection, or in the process of creation.
Hypotherapy uses states of hypnosis for the purpose of healing. Hypnos=sleep in Greek, and therapy comes from therapeia, which is a word that describes a person who takes care of another.
Like any powerful tool, hypnosis falls into the hands of a variety of people. A hypnotherapist by definition is bound to and aligned with ethical principles that prevent one from using hypnosis to control another person. In fact, I consider a client’s safety and privacy to be foundational to an environment of the solid trust required to ask for someone’s permission to guide them through vulnerable states of being.
Hypnotherapy, when applied with care, can in fact present someone with abundant tools to build that trust with their own inner guide, and help them to gain more capacity in their day to day lives (if not always control).
How am I hypnotizing myself today? How am I hypnotizing others? Am I speaking words of love, affirmation, and encouragement to myself and others? Am I hypnotized by fear, anger, shame, or self-pity?
To experience yourself gaining ground in reality, use your imagination now if you wish to visualize a tremendously beautiful waterfall. You don’t have to even close your eyes. Can you see it? Is the water dark or bright? You don’t have to see it clearly, just relax and choose something. Blue or green, or steely gray or black? Perhaps it was red, or a rainbow, or pure sparkling silver. What does it smell like? Even if you can’t conjure the smell, think about some smells that you like. Old leather, seaspray, cookies in the oven, bright citrus, jasmine, dirt. Your river can smell like anything. I can smell ancient mineral stone and the sweet musk of honeysuckle vines.
Feel free to spend some time building out your waterfall—I can’t give you permission. The next question you can ask yourself is how that felt. It might have felt terrible, or it could have been like a breath of fresh air.
If you did this exercise, you have experienced a touch of hypnotherapy. Even if you never saw a waterfall, you successfully placed another stone in the bridge between your waking will and your subconscious mind.
