Coffee With Hilary and Les from State of Mind Hypnosis and Training Centre
An almost-daily podcast for the State of Mind Community.
Offering ideas and answering questions on how to use your mind for growth, happiness and ultimately peace.
Send us your questions: info@somhypnosis.com
Coffee With Hilary and Les from State of Mind Hypnosis and Training Centre
What is Hypnosis? Beyond Mind Control Myths to Personal Transformation and Relaxation
Ask us a Question or Leave a Comment!
Have you ever wondered if hypnosis is more than just a party trick or stage performance? Prepare to change your perspective as we unravel the truth behind hypnosis, revealing its true nature as a powerful tool for relaxation and self-improvement, rather than the mind-control myth it's often portrayed to be. This episode promises to transform your understanding of hypnosis by exploring its broad definition, experiential aspects, and induction methods, all while highlighting its endorsement by reputable organizations. By examining how hypnosis can shift from a feared concept to a life-enhancing experience, we focus on bringing choice and ethical practices to the forefront, emphasizing the collaborative and supportive nature of therapeutic hypnosis.
Throughout our conversation, we dispel common misconceptions and draw clear distinctions between stage and therapeutic hypnosis. Stage hypnosis relies on enthusiastic volunteers who seek the limelight, often misconstrued as mind control antics, whereas therapeutic hypnosis is about fostering positive personal change in a tranquil environment. We aim to redefine "suggestibility" and explore how hypnosis offers a natural state of relaxation that is increasingly rare in our fast-paced lives. From promoting personal choice without imposing lifestyles to creating intentional relaxation habits, our discussion invites you to see hypnosis as an opportunity for transformation, collaboration, and achieving personal goals.
We hope this helps a little as you go through your day.
We would love to hear your feedback or questions.
We will respond to both in future episodes.
Check us out at
www.somhypnosis.com
Email us at
info@somhypnosis.com
Thank you. This is our almost daily community podcast about the mind and how you might change it in the most simple and helpful ways. Every day we sit staring at the lake and sipping our coffee, having a chat about hypnosis and how to make those meaningful adjustments to our state of mind. Because nothing is more important than your state of mind.
Speaker 2:Holy smokes, that was fast. Gotta get going. Gotta get going. The weather report says cloudy day by the lake, but lots of geese and ducks. It's a shockingly warm day, isn't it?
Speaker 1:I outside, I know I got a jacket on us, just dandy, just dandy, just dandy. So today we're talking about this, this idea of what exactly is hypnosis. It seems like a very broad idea. We tried to do one yesterday and we just thought, oh my gosh, this is gonna be longer than we think turn out to be another trilogy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's. Uh, it's a question that's vague and broad enough to make it invite in all kinds of concepts, everything from how is hypnosis defined by various organizations to really like how do you experience it, what goes on and how do we induce it? How do we create it and how do we induce it, how do we create it and why is it so darned effective? Out of everything that, it's endorsed by the American Medical Association and there's a whole division dedicated to the American Psychiatric Association American Psychiatric Association. It is this thing that I think is often misunderstood, misperceived, full of confusion. Even the experts you know, I'll watch YouTube videos and I'll watch information videos and I'll listen to some of the quote unquote experts talk and I think you know, have you ever been hypnotized? Because you're not talking in the terms that I would expect you would. So I just think there's just tons of misinformation out there, well-intentioned, I'm not judging anybody, but that's worth. It's worth considering. We came to this because we were trying to put stuff on the website, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're thinking about making. Well, we're not thinking about it, we're actually doing it making little explainer videos for the website so people don't have to read and read and read yeah. I think in this day and age, videos are good as long as they're not too long.
Speaker 2:And there's enough hypnotists out there with websites that say all the same things that, like we said, like what is hypnosis? That's such an enormous question. So, yeah, this is our attempt to try to explain it. We'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1:Where do you want to start?
Speaker 2:Well, let's talk about what it's not. I think that's a particular bugaboo for you. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I try not to let it be a bugaboo, but it I don't know, just things I see out there online, even from some hypnotists. Yeah, I just think what, oh God, like, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't make my life harder, but every day, I mean, you know it we're trying to help people go from Am I gonna clock like a chicken? To wow, this is wonderful, this is life-changing. I'm actually awake during this and I'm deeply relaxed and I've wow, I've never felt this type of relaxation before. This is great. So we're trying to always bring that awareness to everyone we encounter. And these some people out there, including some hypnotists, unfortunately make it market, it to be a mind control thing and persuasion be able to control people with your persuasion and I just think that is, I don't know, to me. It's kind of unethical. I don't know that's just me, though, I just think that's unethical well, you know me, I that's exactly.
Speaker 2:You know. Some days I feel like it's my purpose in life to just talk about how life is lived by choice. Time may time it for you it may. You may be able to say how long it took you to make a choice, but the act of living is the act of making choices and doing things about those choices, and so when we're out there trying to control the choices other people make, I think we've missed. We've lost the script, we've missed the boat. We're not understanding the nature of our lives.
Speaker 2:There's very, very little in the world that I know of you know that can't be accomplished with somebody being creative and curious and making a choice to pursue something and then inviting others to participate in it with them, so that the people who feel interested and connected to those activities or accomplishments or goals or aspirations they find themselves quickly and easily joining in and then, as a team, as a cooperative, as a collective, the collaboration that's possible to accomplish enormous wonderful things. The collaboration that's possible to accomplish enormous wonderful things. And you never have to make somebody right, you never have to force somebody and forcing other people to live the way you live, because that makes you feel safer, that makes you feel more comfortable. These are, these are the my, my, my issues, my bugaboos, my reasons to get a little bit worked up. And so for me, everything is about promoting choice.
Speaker 2:And promoting choice really comes, I believe, when you examine what is in your mind that's interfering with your choices. So all the way back to the beginning, now choices. So all the way back to the beginning now. No, I think it's completely unethical to use hypnosis to control people, though it happens all the time and most people don't realize they're doing it, because hypnotic state is a natural one. I want to go at this word suggestibility.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not a huge advocate for that word, but you know, in training it's a word used.
Speaker 2:In almost every definition of hypnosis. They talk about suggestibility. I'm not sure that suggestibility. So let's take that Hypnosis seems to be defined in terms of what the hypnotist does and what sometimes happens for the subject. So it is an induced altered state, and these are classic definitions, and in those altered states there's increased suggestibility. How would you rephrase that in your experience? In your experience, what really happens?
Speaker 1:I would say that it's a deeply relaxed state. I might you know, the only reason I would change the words for a client or in marketing, you know, things like that is because altered I mean altered scared me when I heard about it years ago. Altered, what does that mean? Like I'm on drugs, on drugs or you know it's those kind of flashes go through your mind of well, what is altered?
Speaker 1:I don't like altered, I mean some people do, I suppose but, you know, for the vast majority of us, altered state means maybe not conscious, not in our right mind.
Speaker 2:Not normal, not normal yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I like to say because it's the truth of it is people go into a deeply relaxed state.
Speaker 2:Which is very unusual for most people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, think about life. We're constantly in go go go mode about life. We're constantly in go-go-go mode, sometimes relaxed if we choose to be, but normally relaxation is not the the our normal state going through life. I know clients will say they'll come into the office or they'll meet me online and they'll say, oh, I love this, or they'll jump in the chair and get their blanket and put the chair back before I even get in the room. It's hilarious sometimes and it's a time that they look forward to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in as much as your, general emotional, mental state changes when you go into hypnosis. I suppose it's altered, but it's also a very natural state. I mean, for me, what's important to understand is not only is it so natural that it happens all the time, but it's so natural that you can do it to yourself, and it's really just about understanding sort of a switch that takes place. And I'm going to use, you know, just really plain language.
Speaker 2:When you are safe when you feel safe when you are not engaged in anything, when your mind doesn't have to be busy processing, doing, guiding your body into whatever activity you're in. So I think of the classic person at work where they have a task in front of them. They're operating machinery, maybe they're operating a computer, maybe they're very, very externally focused. And in a workplace, since there's other people around, we're very drawn to be externally aware. Right, we, we go to work, we often have to watch what we wear and watch how we present ourselves, and we have to be very, very social in some circumstances. All of this is external awareness, right. But then we come home and some of us have the opportunity to come home to sometimes quiet places. You know, some people come home to more external chaos, right, more external tasks, more things to do, more things that drive them out of their mind and out into the world with a focus on things happening. But you know, eventually we're all going to hopefully go to bed and when we get to bed, once we're in bed and comfortable, the focus of the external world just starts to fade away. We don't need it now and that's just really natural If you do, if you're lucky enough to come home after work and you happen to live alone, your focus on the external world naturally dissipates. Now you're in a position to just be focused on your internal world and then, in those moments, you become a little more aware of your self-talk. In those moments you become a little bit aware of the things you worry about, the things you think about, of the things you worry about, the things you think about, the things that you're concerned with, the goals you might have pop up.
Speaker 2:You know, in those quiet times when we're not driven to be externally focused, we can become internally focused, and because of the nature of our world and because of the nature of our lives, we don't do it very often. But if we were to pick up a book, that's what we'd be doing. When we pick up our phone and start to scroll through reels, that's what you're doing. When you are watching something on the television, right, that's what you're doing. You're shifting to a quieted, focused state.
Speaker 2:Now the focus might still be something external, but it's a singular thing that's external and you're focused on it because it brings you pleasure, it brings you comfort, it brings you calmness, and so you know that you're capable of relaxing. You just aren't in the habit of it. And so, in as much as that's the world we live in and we naturally fall into these quieted, relaxed states, this thing we call hypnosis is just the creation, the deliberate creation, of that state, of the state where there's nothing to be concerned with except that which comes up in our mind. So you come to our office, we try to get you there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we use techniques right. I mean, we begin in in the training room, the meeting room really, and, whether you're online or in our office, basically we chat for a little bit. Some people on their first session are normally a little nervous. They've never done this before, they think they've never done it before, and so there's definitely a time to be had to release any anxieties, help you feel okay with what you've chosen to do, right and and that it's, it's a good choice. And by the end of the session you're gonna go wow, I didn't think that was what hypnosis was. Or some people wonder was I hypnotized? I, I didn't feel like I was hypnotized.
Speaker 1:That's a big one, which is always, um, makes me smile because I think people feel like they they're going to be conked out or something you know like not aware of anything, um, which is which is really not it at all. So there's time to relax before the session, there's time to chat, there's time to just feel at ease, and then you get even more comfortable, whether you know that's online or in the chair in our office, and then we go through techniques of relaxation. Those techniques are lots of different things, usually using the power of your imagination and focus. Whether you know you're, you can visualize in your imagination or not, we use the power of the senses, focus, imagination to help you go into relaxation. So, whether that's counting down a flight of steps, or going to a beautiful place and getting a sense of details there, painting numbers in your mind, just anything metaphorically that tells your mind that, okay, it's time to relax. You know, think about counting sheep. You're using numbers, right, it's meant to relax the body.
Speaker 2:So there you are and this is. I think this is the pleasure of it all. You know it's a pleasurable experience. A lot of people believe that it's. You know that it's not pleasurable experience. A lot of people believe that it's not pleasurable. But you come in and we use these great big recliner chairs and we got blankets and the lights are dimmed. Sometimes we even have soft hypnotic music playing, if that helps, helps and it's really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's quite a shift from, you know, being in your car, running from work, get to your appointment, try to get there on time. Which where? Where do I park? Oh, there's not many parking space, all that stuff, which is all external. And then you come in and you begin that process of relaxing and and then you get guided. I mean you don't have to do anything, just listen along. And some people you know their mind has some difficulty shutting down. Some people are a little less willing to acknowledge when they're safe. They need a little more convincing that everything is going to be fine and that they're allowed to let go of their thoughts that they're better off to just follow along.
Speaker 2:You know I get clients that will take a while in the chair to allow themselves to go into that relaxed mental state. They're watching what's he doing? Why is he saying that? What does that mean? Does that mean? Does that, does that mean something? And so much of this is a result of sort of the goofy stuff that people say about hypnosis that gets into people's minds. Um, it's an old, old saying all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. The idea is, if you don't want to be hypnotized, it's hard to hypnotize you. There are ways to hypnotize people that don't want to be hypnotized. It's hard to hypnotize you. There are ways to hypnotize people that don't want to be hypnotized and there are things in life that hypnotize us that when we don't want to be hypnotized.
Speaker 2:That's true and we can't pretend that that doesn't exist out there, but what we can do is tell you that we are so completely focused on your goals. I mean, that's one of our primary purposes when we talk in our little consultation, our free consultation, is to try to get as specific as we can with the client's goals, because that's how you're ethical right, that's how you are being honest and collaborative with your client, that's how you're truly serving your client is to hear what they want to accomplish. What is it that they want, whether it's something broad, like I just want to walk around happier or something very specific I want to stop biting my nails whatever it is, it's defined and led by the client, and so this is such a natural state, is such a natural state, such a kind and caring process, that sometimes we're really surprised at some of the ideas people bring in and what they expect to happen.
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean it's understandable. I mean it's understandable, you know, over the years, many years really, there's this built up fascination with it, based on old shows or stage hypnosis that make it look like it's something it's not. And so, yeah, I mean I was there years ago. I thought that I was going to be put to sleep and wake up a different person, and what would happen while I was asleep. Oh my gosh, so many ideas about it. Just from my prior knowledge, what I thought it was what I had seen on TV. I hadn't been to a stage show, so I just had heard through the grapevine of society that this is what happens and how scary it was.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it's. It's so not when it, when it's used in a helpful, you know, way to help you feel better in life, to help you move through habits, past habits. It's just not that way. It's just not that way. And a lot of people ask well, what about stage hypnosis? I mean, I've gone to a stage show. Tell me the difference, because I don't understand the difference. What would you say about that?
Speaker 2:so you know I think we've talked about this and this is important to realize you go to a theater that's holding a hypnosis show and there'll be hundreds of people in the audience and the first thing that happens is the hypnotist comes out and invites those people who want to be subjects to come forward. Nobody gets picked, nobody is assigned, there are no plants, right. You just simply invite. Now of that, you know it. I think it's fair to say. If you have 500 people Last show I went to had like 1,500 people in the audience and 200 of them wanted to be on the stage and probably another 50 wished they had the guts to go get up on the stage, right. And so what happens is, you know, once they get like 100 people up on the stage, they say sorry, that's it. Now, remember that the first ones up there are the most eager, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so important, right? That's right. Number one you have to want. You got to want this.
Speaker 2:So what happens is that the audience self-selects to the most excited, most eager, most willing, and all they have to be is willing to follow along. They've shown up there because they're expecting to laugh, and if they're willing to be on the stage, they're willing to be laughed at. Yeah, right, so this is all very self-selection, and then you know, what happens is you know, maybe a hundred people get up on the stage and maybe 20 of them go. Holy crap, I'm up on a stage, what am I doing here? Everybody's staring at me.
Speaker 1:Now.
Speaker 2:I'm scared, and so they don't tend to follow along with the induction, because they're now in that heightened state of the external world. Who's looking at me? What's happening? Are people watching me? They're not willing to just ignore everything and go internal, so that's when the hypnotist sends a bunch of people off the stage so you go from a hundred to like 20 well, you might go from a hundred to fifty, and then you might go from fifty down to a dozen, because that's all you need for the show.
Speaker 2:And so now the hypnotist has actually chosen the 12 most willing, already hypnotized people, because the hypnotist will just take them through a series of steps taking them deeper, taking them deeper, getting them completely willing to ignore the external world and ignore everything except that hypnotist's voice. That hypnotist's voice becomes the center of their life. And there's things that help, right. First of all, they're up on a stage, and when you're, people don't realize. When you're up on the stage, it's hard to hear the audience. And if you can't hear the audience and the lights are shining in your eyes because you're up on a stage, you can't see the audience, it's hard to see anybody out in the audience. So all of this is using light and sound. The same way we use it in the office, where we dim the lights and make it harder for them to see anything. So their eyes will naturally close. We close the door, we muffle the sounds, and that makes it easier for them to concentrate on what's being said to them.
Speaker 2:The hypnotist always has a microphone with a very, very loud microphone that sort of dominates any sounds in the room. These are all the conditions that lead to good hypnosis. And now what you have is, you know, anywhere from 10 to 20 really happy people, happily in trance, willing and hoping that they get the chance to quack like a duck. Yeah Right. So when it's suggested to them that they're going to move around the stage like a duck and they're going to make sounds like a duck, then they're willing to do that. And they're having to make sounds like a duck, then they're willing to do that and they're having a good time.
Speaker 1:So it's really, it's not magic what you're seeing, right, it's not control in the idea of controlling somebody in a negative way or any kind of control negative way or or any kind of control it. Um, but the biggest thing and I think stage hypnotists are incredible hypnotists. I mean god they're. They're so on the ball with, they're reading every little move you're making, especially when they're selecting who goes back to their chair and who's a willing participant that wants to just be silly and fun on stage.
Speaker 1:But when you come into a setting, hypnosis for helping setting there. We are not there to clapack like ducks or chickens. Um, you know, your mind, uh, is open to making positive changes in your life and that's what you're there to do. And so if that's what you're there to do, then, just like the person that gets up on stage and wants to be silly, you're open to being in a relaxed position in a lazy boy chair wherever online, and you're open to making those changes in your life. If I were to say randomly through a session okay, now you're going to quack like a chicken or quack like a duck, I keep getting those mixed up you would completely come out of hypnosis because that's not what you're there to do, you're not there to be silly.
Speaker 1:We're not being silly in the office. Yes, we have a few laughs about hypnosis, you know, along the way, especially in the beginning. But yeah, we're not there to be silly, we're there to make those changes that you want to make and that's it.
Speaker 2:You know, people come to the office because they want to make that change, and this is where I take issue with the word suggestibility. Somebody's written down on their form and we've had a conversation about their desire to. They want to be better in better control of what they eat, right, and so we will, in a conscious state, in an alert state, you know, make a list of what they consider to be healthy food, healthy food that they like, healthy food that they want to eat. We'll make even a list of what time of day they're going to eat that and when each kinds of food is okay and how often certain kinds of food are not okay. And we start to reframe the way we think about food consciously. And we start to reframe the way we think about things like what? One of the techniques that I use all the time it's a reframe. It works incredibly well because it's the truth. Reframes work best when they're truthful.
Speaker 2:It's that treats hurt. You give yourself a treat, I'm going to have a treat, I'm going to have a banana split. Well, let's consider what that does to the body when it spikes up your blood sugar, when it provides you a whole bunch of empty calories that have to get stored away quickly and then they end up in fat, that it turns your system acidic because sugar does that and that's hard on your joints and that's hard on your sensitive nervous system. So we talk about how treats that are meant to be good for us, that we want to have that banana split because we're being loving to ourselves, and then we realize, well, there's nothing loving about that. This is not good for me, this is not treating me nicely, this is hurting me. It's hurting me physically, it's hurting me mentally, because I fall back and later I'll regret it and I'll feel like there's something wrong with me, that I did that and what's wrong with me and why did I do that. So we come to this idea where treats hurt and that food is no longer entertainment. Food is nutrition.
Speaker 2:And when your subconscious mind wants to change the way they think about food and your subconscious mind wants to change the way they consume food, then your subconscious mind is very open to these ideas, in fact. So what happens is, when we've had this discussion, all those words that the client has given me, I know that the subconscious mind is open to, so I will quite literally use the client's words back to them, because I know the subconscious mind is open to those ideas. Just like the person who ran up on the stage mind is open to those ideas, just like the person who ran up on the stage and said make me quack like a duck. They came in and said make me think differently about food, make me behave differently about food. And I say to them I can't make you do anything, but your desire to do it is going to drive you towards understanding what is in your subconscious mind that's causing you to treat food in the way you don't want it to.
Speaker 2:So sometimes, just and these are the words we use we use the word suggestion because it's not the hypnotist telling you what to do. And when we do questions of suggestibility, what we really want is your ability to concentrate right. We want you to be able to focus on our voice, focus on our words and the meanings of the words and follow along. And so, while some people might call that suggestibility and in this, in the practice of hypnosis, it's often referred to as a suggestibility test it's really a concentration test and a willingness to follow along test. And then, because you came in with a goal, it becomes very easy because it's your subconscious mind. Now I just want to step back and say this is the critical part by turning off your attention to the external world, you have nothing left but the internal world, and then if you're with the intention of changing your internal world.
Speaker 2:Well, this is just something that's completely within your power. This is your power as a human being to make those changes, but you just need the conditions and the process to be able to do it. And that's quite literally what the hypnotist offers you a knowledge and an awareness of a methodology to get you, quite literally, in the privacy of your own mind, face to face with your own thoughts and beliefs. And it's like pruning a tree. You know what? That one doesn't serve me. I'm gonna get rid of that one and this one. This one's a better idea. I'm gonna replace it with this. And that's a process that the subject themselves, the client themselves, is willingly and intentionally engaged in. So all these ideas about what hypnosis is really comes from the inability people have to understand or let's say another, because of how compelled we are to be focused on the external world, we are not aware of the ability we have to change our internal world and what's involved in doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's important. Yeah, so it's not.
Speaker 2:So don't take the word suggestibility as some kind of weakness on your part, because I think in our world people think that you know, if I'm open to suggestion, I'm weak-minded. You know, people have a it's an incredible resistance. People have to change their mind and it's exactly how you change your life. Until you change your mind, you're not going to change your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, that's true, All right.
Speaker 2:Good start.
Speaker 1:Good start. I think that was really good. We'll see you later.
Speaker 2:We hope you enjoyed today's podcast and that maybe it helped even a little. If you have any questions, we would love you to send them along in an email to info at songhypnosiscom. Thank you for being part of the State of Mind community, psalmhypnosiscom. Thank you for being part of the State of Mind community. For more information about hypnosis and the various online or in-person services we provide, please visit our website, wwwpsalmhypnosiscom. The link is in the notes below.
Speaker 2:While you're there why don't you book a free one-hour journey meeting with Hillary or Les to learn more about what hypnosis is and how you might use it to make your life what you want it to be? Bye for now.
Speaker 1:Talk to you tomorrow, thank you.
