26/03/2019
Anxiety? Why use hypnosis?
I would say that about 70% of people that come to see me have never experienced hypnosis (or at least they think they haven't). And funnily enough, 100% of these people have the idea that hypnosis involves loss of self-control, doing things you wouldn't normally do otherwise, telling the therapist your deepest secrets. If it only worked like that, I would've hypnotised my husband to do the dishes, the children to stop crying when I want them to, and most importantly, I would've hypnotised myself to be perfect in every way. No, hypnosis is far from the concept the movies show us.
I once had a client who, during the session and in deep trance, said "Wow, this is better than taking drugs". Now, no judgement on anyone's preference. And please, this is not the aim of hypnotherapy (to get someone high as if they were on drugs). During a deep state of trance one can experience feelings that they are not used to experiencing during their waking hours, and have those feelings heightened. You will indeed feel more connected to parts of yourself that are dormant most the time.
And this is where the therapy can take place. Once we help the conscious part of yourself "go to the side", we can then let the real you do the healing and work on the things that bother you.
Hypnosis for therapeutic purposes, especially for anxiety (in my experience) can work really well. The issue is not so much making it work, the issue is letting it work. The "make it work", yes, this one is up to me, and I surely can do it. However, the "let it work", this part is with the client. And, believe it or not, most clients, although they come to a hypnosis session with a problem and expect to find a solution to this problem, they don't know what exactly they want. So when I ask, "what do you want for you?" the client will usually tell me things such as "I don't want to be anxious anymore". Well, I know that much already. But what do you really want? And this is the hard part: to focus on what we want, instead of focusing on the things we don't want.
My daughter woke up crying everyday and it just went on and on, and I kept telling her I didn't want her to cry anymore, and of course it had no effect on her. But when I started telling her what I would love to happen instead of crying every morning, then she understood what she could do instead, and... BOOM.... the mornings are filled with a totally different feel now.
And we do the same in life. Don't we?
So I Know you don't want to have anxiety anymore, but maybe think what do you want instead of that? This is not me helping you. This is you and I working together. As I say to my clients "we are a team, so lets win this game, shall we"!
Yes, hypnosis does work.
The power of you!