We are slaves to fortune when it comes to our unconscious mind, the storehouse of all our experiences and memories; home to our thoughts, feelings, emotions even our habits.

 

Unbeknown to most of us every day we go into battle, a battle where the odds are stacked against our desires.A battle between will and imagination.  Will is our conscious and imagination our unconscious. The rules of engagement are such that without adequate armament the unconscious mind will always win.  Let me show you. 

​

Have you ever gone on a diet and failed? The first week's a sinch, the second week not so, the third well catastrophe strikes as your will power crumbles. Maybe you catch sight of one of those deliciously naughty cupcakes (the kind you see in big stations). You know you shouldn't have it, but it looks so good, it tastes so yummy. Your lips start to smack at the thought of iit.  Your resolve dissolves.  Just one won't hurt, you've been very good after all. 

 

Before you know it you've gobbled the sugary temptation down in one bite without even  tasting it. For a moment you bask in that delicious feeling of tasty euphoria. It doesn't last long though before it's replaced by the bitter feeling of regret and the horror of empty calories. Your will lost to your imagination.

​

How can hypnotherapy help?

 

Your imagination doesn't know the difference between real or imagined, this is it's weakness (well from the prospective of making an important change and getting imagination on side).

​​

​Once the imagination started thinking about the cupcake your willpower's resistance was futile. Your imagination evoked the taste of the cupcake, how it would feel to eat the cupcake, it created desire to consume that was stronger than willpower's desire to restrain. 

 

So how can hypnotherapy help? All our minds want to do is keep us safe and give us pleasure, you can change the hard wiring  of the brain and thinking. By changing how the imagination sees the cake to something negative you can create a feeling of revulsion which changes your emotional  response to the cake. It wont't seem so temping if you imagined the cake falling into a sewer, covered in steaming heavy gunk that will be toxic for you if you eat it. Your imagination will know that eating such a cake will be bad for you so will refrain better than that every time you see your cake your mind will send a signal to your body to refrain.

​

In short hypnosis when applied therapeutically, hypnotherapy can alter the imaginations perception, changing long held beliefs rapidly. It gets your imagination working for you rather than against you.

 

I have used weight loss here as an example but there are many situations it can be engaged. Just imagine if change, didn't feel so daunting, it felt achievable, see yourself on that beach proud of how you look, feeling good. Picture yourself as that non smoker, enjoying a smoke free healthy life, Imagine feeling calm, relaxed and in control during a driving test where once you felt shaky and panicked.  

​

What would you do if you felt you couldn't fail? 

​​