What do you think of Hypnosis?

Many people view self hypnosis in a sceptical light. They will be aware of Hypnotism’s many dark and sinister reputations. However dig a little deeper and you will find many beneficial and life-changing effects that you can achieve by working with your mind through self hypnosis or subliminal messaging.

Hypnosis is not magic, it is based in sound fact.

When you distill down all the science what you really need to know is that we have two parts to out minds. First we have our ‘conscious mind’. This part of our mind deals will all our day to day complex thinking and decision making. When you use your conscious mind to make decisions, it will call upon all the information it can see (what is going on, what it can read and calculate etc) and also the ‘stored view of the world’ that we have in our ‘subconscious mind’.

It is this ‘stored view of the world’ that you have in your subconcious mind that might well be leading to your self esteem problems. In many cases, your view of yourself (that you are no good and no-one would want to go out with you – for example) that you have stored in your subconcious can be so strong that it will outweigh all the other rational evidence being recieved by your concious mind (that someone is actually asking you out – for example). Hence it is often the case that you will not be able to achieve what you want to achieve until you tackle that deep seated opinion that you have of yourself in your subconscious mind.

Our Subconcious minds therefore has a massive impact on our confidence and any self esteem issues that we might have. The good news is that the Subconcious mind will just accept what it is told. Indeed if you have self esteem problems much of it will stem from you orginally being told you were ‘no good’ and you then replaying that message to yourself over the years.

Think about it, how many time have you said to your slef in your head things like, ‘No one is ever going to fancy me I am ugly’, or ‘I will never make a success of my life because I always make a mess up of things’? Plenty of time I guess.

What these ‘Silent Conversations’ are doing is rienforceing these views in your subconcious mind. The fact is then when your conscious mind is faced with a situation where you need to show confidence, it is immediately presented with strong negative messages from you subconscious mind, and you fail again, continuing the vicious circle.

How to Break the Vicious circle

This is where self hypnosis or Subliminal messages can help. However at the same time it is important that you are aware when you have having ‘Silent Conversations’ with your self that are negative. The moment you do, stop youself, have an internal chuckle and say something postive to yourself instead. Initially this might feel a little odd, but it will really help you.

The above method will start the process of changing your ‘view of the world’ in your subconcious mind from one were you have no confidence to one where you are full of confidence. You can speed up that process by using Hypnosis or subliminal messages. Both are a way of talking direct to your subconcious mind.

What is Hypnosis

Simply put, hypnosis is the state of inducing a subject to deep relaxation and heightened focus, a somewhat similar concept of altered states from the conscious to the subconscious. In this state of heightened focus the messages that your mind hears are fast tracked into your subconcious mind and will start to have a positive effect on your life.

This approach is recommended here becuase it will help you with your confidence and self esteem issues. However these techniques are also used by people wishing to address other problems, such as losing weight and giving up smoking.

How to get started.

Whilst some people like to work with a trained therapist in their local area, I personally think the self hypnotism route that is offered by the ready availability of MP3 and DVD’s is an easier and more private way to proceed.

A book that I have used before is Paul Mckenna’s ‘Instant Confidence’. It covers the topic well and comes with a CD/DVD to listen to that contains the subliminal messages that help improve your condicence and support of the other exercises he outlines in the book. I have put a link to this book and a couple of his other at the bottom of this page.

Alternatively, you can purchase subliminal message downloads straight to your computer. These messages are easy to use; download them direct to your ipod  / Mp3 player and then you can listen to specific messages that will speak direct to your subconscious mind (if you follow the instructions they come with). To address self esteem issues you might want to start with their Boosting Confidence recording.

photo credit: Shawn Allen