How Does Hypnosis Work?

by Kimberly Lorenz, BCHP

How does hypnosis work? Let's talk about it.

Every human being's mind has a natural firewall. This natural firewall keeps you safe. It keeps you from accepting everything you hear as absolute gospel truth, because it wouldn't be good for you to hear a McDonald's commercial and then must eat Big Macs all day long!.

 So, this firewall keeps you safe by filtering information and preventing changes in the subconscious mind. Therefore, for some people, therapy and counseling is not as effective as we wish it could be because this natural firewall prevents them from taking in the information that they hear and making subconscious change.

Hypnosis is natural and safe. You've done it hundreds, maybe thousands of times in your life. Hypnosis is just focused attention. Anytime you've focused on one thing, to the exclusion of something else, you've done hypnosis. But you also are in hypnosis anytime you really get into a great movie or read a book or scroll social media., Those are all natural ways that you enter into a light hypnotic state all the time. In my office, we just induced to a deeper healing level of hypnosis on purpose. There's no other difference in the state of mind.

So that means, congratulations, you can be hypnotized, but only if you want. And it's only if you want to because hypnosis is like ballroom dancing. It's consensual. I'm going to be leading us, and you can choose to follow my instructions. And the good news is all you must do is follow my instructions to reach a very nice, deep healing level of hypnosis.

And that also means you could stop following my instructions anytime you wanted to. You could lie to me in hypnosis. You could stop listening to me and we wouldn't have hypnosis, but you have all the power as the client. Now, why do we want to use hypnosis? Because when you're in that state of focused attention, that little firewall that filters everything, it's lowered just enough for you to accept powerful change in your subconscious mind, and it happens instantaneously. This allows you to make changes in your subconscious mind.

I like to think of it as helping you remove the viruses in your bio supercomputer, your mind. I'll get more into this later, but I don't believe you came into the world with these viruses, I think they are something that people acquire. Events shape us as we grow and they cause us to behave, act, and believe certain things. And that's a good thing because that means that we can safely and completely remove these viruses that are no longer helpful or healthy for you, in hypnosis, without doing any harm to you. That'll help you get back to who you're programmed and supposed to be.

Now it needs to be mentioned that also in this state, you are very conscious, just like you're still conscious when you watch a movie. You're not unconscious, you don't forget the movie, you don't lose control. The same is true with me. You will always be consciously aware of what I say. You'll always be in control of yourself, and that's because hypnosis isn't mind control.

In fact, some experts are not even sure if mind control really exists, but if it did exist or it does exist, that means for me to control your mind, I must lie to you. I must manipulate you. I must conceal things from you. In general, I just have to be a horrible person, and that's not going to happen with me for four very good reasons.

First, as I mentioned, you're always going to be aware, just like you would be if you were watching the movie. That means you could emerge yourself at any moment if you didn't like what I said.

Two, you have a protective part, a protective reflex, let's call it. So even though your little firewall is down, there's a part of you deep in your subconscious mind watching and keeping you safe, and it'll help you reject anything I say that isn't in your highest best interest.

Three, if I did do those things, you could report me, and I would lose my good standing with the National Guild of Hypnotists. The National Guild of Hypnotists is the oldest and the largest hypnosis organization in the United States, and when you voluntarily choose to become a member, you agree to basic standards, practices, and ethics in your professional hypnosis business. So, if I did do those things, I would lose that good standing and everybody would know.

And four, I have everything to lose by doing any of those mind control activities and everything to gain, by doing my very best to help you reach the goal that you came to me for.

You can quickly neutralize powerfully uncomfortable, excessive negative emotions, like fears, angers, inadequacies. You can change behaviors very quickly. Behaviors of too much drinking or smoking or shopping or chewing or picking. And you can powerfully change your responses to things that we call triggers so that those things no longer bother you anymore. That's how hypnosis works so well for people who want to improve their mental health, their performance, and their underlying emotional state.

Stick around for the next video. I'm going to talk about why you might consider working with me. So that's why we use hypnosis. It's very powerful. It's much quicker, it's efficient. It allows for instantaneous change deep in your subconscious. So that change becomes not something that you struggle with, but something that becomes much, much easier for you.

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