Hypnosis – What is it? How does it work? Is it real? These are the questions I answer every day in my practice at Intuitive Hypnosis, and in casual conversation with friends and acquaintances. I am fascinated with the process of hypnosis and how it can be utilized to create change in our lives, and I welcome the opportunity to talk about it every chance I get.

Let’s start with a brief definition of hypnosis. I define hypnosis as “a deep state of relaxation with a targeted focus.” The reason for using hypnosis is to bring about desired changes in our thought patterns, behavior, and experience.

One Mind or Two?

To begin the explanation of how hypnosis works, it helps to take a generalized, simplistic, look at our mind and how it works. As hypnotherapists, we talk about our mind as if it was divided into two parts, the conscious mind and the sub-conscious mind. Of course it’s not really divided into two parts, and so it’s more accurate to speak about our mind as having different processes; conscious processes, and unconscious or sub-conscious processes.

Our conscious processes include all those things we do with complete awareness, the things we do on purpose at any given moment, for example, having a conversation, calculating the balance in our checking account, making a decision to place a phone call. Believe it or not, neurologists tell us that we only pay conscious attention to 1-5% of what we do all day. I was alarmed when I read this statistic. That means that anywhere from 95-99% of what we do all day is a sub-conscious process! It’s as if we are walking around in a trance all day, and that being hypnotized is actually snapping you “out” of that trance and giving you back the ability to consciously choose the behaviors you want.

Sub-conscious processes are things we do automatically, without consciously thinking about them while we’re doing them. It’s kind of like being on autopilot all day. Examples include things like getting dressed, making the bed, showering, eating, and driving to work! Almost everyone has had the experience of “highway hypnosis.” You know, you’re driving along and all of a sudden you arrive at your destination and you honestly don’t remember paying attention to the drive. Luckily, our sub-conscious mind does a pretty good job at following the rules of the road while we’re lost in thought, or chatting with a passenger.

A Groove in the Record

So how did all these sub-conscious behaviors become sub-conscious? It’s all about the building of neural pathways in our brain. These are microscopic hair-like structures that actually grow and branch out and hook up with other neural pathways as we learn and practice new behaviors.

Let’s look at an example. Imagine a child learning to tie his shoes. In the beginning, he has no neural pathways for shoe tying. He has to pay very close attention to the act of tying those laces. With practice, and repetition, he begins to develop the neural pathways for shoe tying. It’s as if he’s creating a “groove” in the record in his brain specifically for shoe tying. Eventually, the neural pathways are so firmly established and embedded, that he can tie his shoes without such a concentrated effort. In other words, the behavior of shoe tying has now evolved from a “conscious” process to a “sub-conscious” process. As an adult, anytime this person goes to tie his shoe, it’s as if his brain says “shoe tying” and plugs in the program for shoe tying, as if the needle finds the groove in the record for shoe tying and it just happens automatically. Make sense? Another name for all these sub-conscious behaviors is “habit.”

Just imagine all the automatic behaviors we engage in daily, some that benefit us, and some that don’t. How about your sleep habits, your eating habits, your activity levels? Even your patterns of thought are nothing more than habits. Do you ever get tired of the repetitive thoughts in your head? It’s like getting a song stuck in your head, only there’s no music to go along with it.

Sub-conscious Doesn’t Differentiate

Another interesting fact about the sub-conscious mind that helps us in our understanding of hypnosis is the fact that our sub-conscious mind does not differentiate between “really” doing something and just “pretending,” or “thinking” about, doing something.

For example, if I could monitor your brain activity while you’re riding a bike down the street I could show you all the parts of your brain that light up while riding the bike. Then, if I hypnotized you, and guided you through pretending to ride a bike, guess what? The same parts of your brain light up!

This means that we have the ability to create the neural pathways (habits) that we want to develop simply by “pretending” to engage in a particular activity, thereby creating and/or reinforcing the neural pathways allowing the desired behavior to become part of our sub-conscious norm. As hypnotherapists, we take advantage of this attribute using a technique called “future pacing.”

This is a valuable technique used with clients who have test anxiety, fear of public speaking, fear of flying, and more. By guiding clients through practicing the desired situation in a state of relaxation and comfort, they are able to create the neural pathways for the desired behaviors and responses. Through repetition of this guided visualization while in a relaxed state, those neural pathways become firmly established, and the desired behavior becomes the new norm. I record all client sessions and clients are given a copy of their hypnosis session to listen to daily until the new behavior is well established, or firmly embedded in their sub-conscious mind.

The fact that the sub-conscious mind does not differentiate between really riding a bike and pretending to ride a bike is great since pretending to ride a bike allows you to improve your skill as a bike rider. All you have to do is listen to your recorded hypnosis session and mentally practice riding your bike just the way you like.

But what about the many thoughts you practice in your mind all day that are in opposition to what you want? Remember, thought patterns are habits too. If your repetitive thoughts include thoughts like, “I’ll never be able to lose weight,” or, “it’s impossible to give up smoking,” guess what kind of neural pathways you are strengthening? You got it, the very ones you’d like to get rid of!

It’s important to know that there is no part of your conscious awareness residing in your sub-conscious mind monitoring your thoughts; no part of you in there making sure that the thought patterns you engage in are in your best interest. The sub-conscious mind is often compared to a computer program, and that’s a pretty good analogy. Your habits, your routines, and your rituals are very much like computer programs; very impersonal, very automatic, with no attention paid to whether or not a specific program is helping you or hurting you.

The Sub-conscious Thinks in Terms of Images

This is important in our understanding of how we can unwittingly program ourselves to reinforce the very behaviors we’re trying to extinguish. Our sub-conscious minds process our words, our thoughts, and our phrases in terms of images, and whatever is imaged is reinforced. Many of the words we use, such as “quit, stop, don’t, won’t, etc.” do not have images to go along with them, and so they are disregarded, booted out so to speak, and we can be left with an image reflecting the exact opposite of what we want. Compare the two different images that come to mind when you hear, “Don’t run into the street!” or “Stay in the yard” – same message, different words, and very different images. There are a lot of frustrated parents out there who have mistakenly programmed their children to do the exact opposite of what they really wanted them to do!

Another example, let’s say you dislike exercise and you repeat to yourself “I know I should exercise, but I hate going to the gym. I want to tone my muscles, but I dislike lifting weights” and so on. By repeating what you dislike, you are in fact reinforcing your dislike for exercising and making it more difficult to change your behavior.

By using hypnosis, you can train yourself to think and talk about what you want with the words and phrases that create the image of the desired behavior. Using the exercise example above, you would be better off saying “It feels good spending time at the gym several times a week, and I enjoy the process of increasing the weights I lift as I see the improvement in my muscle tone over time.”

The point here is to be aware of the images being reinforced by the sub-conscious mind, and to realize that you have the ability to guide your thoughts and behaviors to achieve the desired results.

Brain Wave Activity is the Key

It would be nice if, once we realize how this all works, and we have identified the changes we want to make, that we would just “self correct.” That’s where the frustration kicks in when we want to lose weight, quit smoking, or quit biting our nails. We know what to do, we know we should do it, we want to do it, so why is it so difficult to make the change!?!?

There is a separation between our conscious mind and our sub-conscious mind called the critical faculty. It’s like an invisible barrier that somehow prevents our conscious intentions from getting into our sub-conscious mind. This is where hypnosis comes in. During a hypnosis session, you are guided through a process of physical and mental relaxation that actually slows down your brainwave activity. It is this slowing down of brainwave activity that “softens” that critical faculty making the sub-conscious mind receptive to suggestion. It is the repetition of these suggestions while in a relaxed state that results in the desired changes.

Using hypnosis to facilitate personal change is, in fact, nothing more than re-programming your mind. It is in this state of relaxation where you have all the control. In this state of relaxation, you are able to bring your conscious awareness, your conscious desires, and your conscious intentions into alignment with your sub-conscious mind and deliberately create the habits, routines, and rituals that make up your daily life experience, on your terms! And that is why I say that being in a state of hypnosis is being in complete control. You are in control of which habits become the norm for you in any given situation.

Myth Busting

Thanks to the Hollywood portrayal of hypnosis, stage hypnosis shows, and a general unawareness of how our minds work, there are a lot of misconceptions regarding hypnosis. Some facts to remember include the following:

• Hypnosis is simply a way working with naturally occurring states of mind. It is not mystical, occult, supernatural, or even abnormal
• You can never be hypnotized against your will
• You can never be made to do anything against your nature while in hypnosis
• You cannot get stuck in hypnosis
• You do not lose control while in hypnosis, in fact, the opposite is true
• In line with the above, hypnosis is not a “truth serum.” You will not inadvertently reveal your deepest, darkest secrets
• Hypnosis is not mind control or manipulation, the hypnotist simply serves as a facilitator. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis
• You are not actually asleep during hypnosis and will most likely remember everything that occurs during a session
• Almost everyone can benefit from hypnosis. The ability to concentrate and having a creative imagination help, but aren’t the determining factors; willingness and commitment to the desired outcome are
• There are no dangerous side effects from using hypnosis

In Conclusion

Hypnosis is a safe and effective means of changing habits, whether your desire is to eliminate a disempowering habit or create an empowering one. Your sub-conscious mind does not care, or even evaluate, the benefit or detriment of your personal habits. It is simply a warehouse of programmed, conditioned behaviors. Hypnosis gives you access to that warehouse. It’s simple, it’s easy, and it’s fun to discover how effectively it can be used to program your sub-conscious mind to behave the way you want it to.

School has started and Halloween is just around the corner. The Holiday Season is upon us. It seems like this is the time of year when we are most vulnerable to excess food availability and increased social gatherings.  This is the perfect time to plan a strategy that will allow you to enjoy the holiday season without gaining a pound! It’s all about planning; pre-paving the road that will take you into and out of the holiday season in style. It’s great if you can actually lose weight during the holidays, but don’t put too much pressure on yourself. If you can focus on maintaining your current weight into the New Year, you’ll be ahead of the curve and will have created a strong foundation of health and fitness for 2013!

Hypnosis is all about habit change, and/or habit reinforcement. The idea is to make a plan and decide ahead of time how you want to handle specific circumstances in regard to holiday eating. Once you have a plan you can reinforce that desired behavior using hypnosis.  Using hypnosis is a great way to maintain your focus on healthy eating in all situations by remaining mindful and focused on your long-term priorities. The key is to make that plan now for future success!

Begin with self-reflection. Identify the major reasons you find it difficult to maintain your current weight during the holiday season.  Some of the more common mind-sets that contribute to holiday weight gain include the following. How many of these apply to you?

• The end of the year is here! This is a throwback from our years in school. It’s winter break, the end of the year. We’ve worked hard and want to reward ourselves with too much rest, too many parties, good food, and alcohol! We justify taking a break from the gym, resolving to “get back to normal” after the New Year.

The good news is that you are correct, you have worked hard and you do deserve a reward. At Intuitive Hypnosis in Portland, Oregon, I help my clients identify other beneficial means of rewarding themselves, including reinforcing the progress they’ve made throughout the entire year. For example, reward yourself now by going out and purchasing a new exercise outfit or perhaps something to wear for New Year’s Eve.

• Giving and receiving food as presents.  In this day and age, everyone has about everything they could possibly need or want. That leaves consumables as a favorite category for gift giving; consumables in the form of hams, pastries, homemade cookies, fudge, popcorn balls, wine, gift certificates to fancy restaurants, you name it.

First of all, don’t be guilty of adding to the weight of your loved ones by giving them these guilty pleasures for the holidays. Instead, consider other non-edible consumables such as movie tickets, gift certificates for book stores, music, electronics, magazine subscriptions, and so on. Decide right now, what you’ll do with any food items that come to you as gifts and use hypnosis to help you keep your resolve. Put them in the freezer, give them to someone who is not concerned with the consequences of gaining weight, throw them away if need be, take them to a party and let someone else eat them! Better yet, let your loved ones know that you are very committed to maintaining your healthy life style during the holiday season and year round.

• Too dependent on going to the gym or “having” to stick to a specific routine. I speak from experience when I say that I am addicted to my particular routine. I love going to the gym at the same time every day, and I love doing the same weekly routine repeatedly. During the holidays, you may have company, or you may be out-of-town and don’t have access to your “usual” exercise environment or regimen. That doesn’t mean you can’t exercise!

During the holidays, be flexible, allow yourself to do something out of the ordinary. Focus on exercises you can do away from home, away from your typical routine. Starting right now, create some back-up resources that you can use anytime, anywhere and use hypnosis to help you stay on track. Take a look at YouTube for something new to do in a pinch. Purchase some exercise bands and have a pre-planned routine ready for those spontaneous moments. There are many exercises you can do on your own, and did you know that 3 sessions of 10 minutes each is just as effective as a full 30-minute workout! And remember, if all else fails, take a brisk walk!

• Failure to anticipate, lack of planning and keeping an eye on the goal. Even with the best of intentions, the healthiest and most fit people have a hard time during the holidays. By starting now, planning ahead, anticipating the situations that challenge you most, you can have a great time during the holidays and not gain weight.

With hypnosis, I am able to help my clients identify potential pitfalls and reinforce the desired behaviors long before that first holiday party invitation arrives. Planning and preparing is essential. Set your goals and get them strongly embedded in your subconscious mind with the use of hypnosis. Create a strategy that works for you! Make sure you have healthy nutritious foods on hand, remember to eat before attending social gatherings, and enjoy the holiday season one day at a time!

Other helpful strategies for the holidays and year ’round

1. Never go to a party on an empty stomach. Eat a filling snack with plenty of protein before you leave the house, and carry some string cheese with you for later.
2. Be accountable to yourself for what you eat. Journal, journal, journal. Give yourself the opportunity to be truly impressed with how well you can do!
3. If you are serving desserts or cookies, take them out only for a short designated time, and then put them (or throw them) away. Or, wrap them up and send them out the door with your guests!
4. For every beer or glass of wine you have, enjoy a class of water or sparkling soda. Alcohol lowers your inhibitions along with your standards.
5. Refrain from using your successful exercise routine as an excuse to overeat. Most of us over-estimate how many calories we actually burn while working out.
6. Remember, it’s never too late to start your day over. Don’t give up if you happen to over indulge momentarily. Go listen to your hypnosis recording and get back on track!
7. Maintain a healthy regimen of three meals and two snacks each day, with plenty of protein in each of those.
8. Drink plenty of water all throughout the day.
9. Remember, the focus on getting together with friends and loved ones is about the human interaction, telling stories, sharing good times. The focus is not about the food.
10. Eat consciously. Remain mindful of where you are, what your goals are, and enjoy eating slowly, deliberately, and with pleasure.

Wherever you go for the holidays keep your long-term goals in mind. By planning now and using hypnosis to stay on track, you’ll find it easy to maintain your resolve and stay conscious and focused on the fun of the holiday season, guilt free!

Test anxiety shares the same origin, and nearly the same cure, as public speaking anxiety, performance anxiety, and anxiety in general. It all stems from a perceived threat, usually a conditioned response, often completely unfounded, and the onset of the fight or flight response. As discussed in a previous article, How Stress Affects Our Health, and How Hypnosis Can Help when the fight or flight response gets triggered, our bodies are flooded with stress hormones and there is an allocation of energy away from our viscera to our arms and legs, and away from our fore-brain to the reflexive part of our brains. In other words, the part of our brain that we need to access in a testing situation, is undergoing a depletion of energy, blood circulation, as a result of the fight or flight response.

This translates into an all-out assault on our physiology and on our ability to access the information we need to answer those test questions. Common reactions for people experiencing test anxiety include sweaty palms, rapid breathing, increased heart rate, and the most debilitating of all, “fog brain!” As mentioned above, when we are under the influence of the fight or flight response, energy is allocated from our fore-brain to our hind-brain. This is what we often call fog-brain, and is the cause of our inability to recall the information we need to answer test questions. We truly are less intelligent when are under stress!

You may recognize this in your own life. For example, after a heated discussion when you have “settled down” you find it easy to think of what you should have said. Or after taking a difficult test where you were unable to “come up with” the correct answer, you remember it easily! It can be very frustrating to say the least. However, there is hope!

At Intuitive Hypnosis in Portland, Oregon, I teach my clients how reach a deep state of peaceful relaxation, how to anchor that relaxation, and then how to trigger that state of relaxation in a testing situation. Many clients have mentioned that this skill alone has been an invaluable tool allowing them to remain calm, focused, and clear-headed in a variety of situations including heavy traffic, meetings at work, heated discussions with loved ones, and of course, testing situations. Using hypnosis to achieve and maintain a state of relaxation during a testing situation prevents the onset of the fight or flight response. This in turn prevents the release of the stress hormones, which result in the allocation of energy, which in turn cause the dreaded sensation of “fog brain.” With the use of hypnosis, you can train yourself to remain calm, focused, and clear-headed in any situation.

I like to use a simple technique called “future pacing” with my clients. Future pacing means that you go through an imaginary testing situation, while in hypnosis, training yourself to remain confident, relaxed, and focused as you pass your test easily. You may recall from previous articles that your subconscious mind does not differentiate between doing something for real, and pretending to do it. This means that while in hypnosis, you can practice taking a test feeling completely relaxed, and that by doing so, you are creating the neural pathways necessary to do the same in an actual testing situation.

If you or someone you know suffers with test anxiety, help is available. Give hypnosis a try; you have nothing to lose, except your test anxiety!

For those who have made the decision to give up the smoking habit, hypnosis is an excellent way to make that journey easier, quicker, and permanent. Recent studies find that hypnosis is an effective smoking-cessation technique. (e.g. Can Hypnosis Snuff Out a Smoker’s Cigarette Habit?)

If you or anyone you know is addicted to smoking, you know that quitting is not easy. Smokers have a variety of resources available to help them make the transition to life as a non-smoker easier. There are nicotine patches, gum, electronic cigarettes, and prescription medications. Of course there’s also the good ole’ “cold turkey” method that has actually worked for many.

The good news is that it’s easier to give up the smoking habit now that it has ever been. Smoking is just plain out of style. It’s not cool anymore, it’s not cheap anymore, and smokers have literally been kicked to the curb when it comes to engaging in this once very sociable habit.

I grew up in a house where both parents smoked. I remember my father smoking in the grocery store where it was common to see smashed cigarette butts on the floor. And how about airplanes and restaurants? Gone are the days where you were given the choice of the “smoking” or “non-smoking” sections, as if the stench of the burning tobacco stayed on its side of the plane or restaurant. I never thought I’d see the day when smoking was prohibited in bars. I was sure they’d all go out of business. I’m glad I was wrong!

Unfortunately, by the time they’re old enough to know better than to smoke, it’s often too late for my smoking clients at Intuitive Hypnosis in Portland, Oregon; they’re hooked. My smoking clients tend to be middle aged to “late” middle aged, but they all have one thing in common – they are sick of smoking and need help quitting. For many of them, hypnosis is a last resort after having tried unsuccessfully to quit using patches, gum, prescriptions, acupuncture, and the cold turkey method.

As a former smoker myself, I’m always happy to work with those who have made the decision to give up the smoking habit. I know exactly how they feel and what they are faced with, and I know how happy they are going to be when they realize they are indeed non-smokers!

There is no question that smoking kills.  “A billion people will die from tobacco use and exposure in this century.  That’s according to a new study by the World Lung Foundation, that says tobacco-related deaths have almost tripled in the past decade.”  (Tobacco-related deaths triple in a decade)

However, “knowing about” and being able to act upon this knowledge easily are two different things. My smoking cessation program includes a thorough review of all the toxic chemicals in cigarette tobacco, a focus on all the personal benefits of kicking the habit, and a pre-paving of life without smoking.

Hypnosis can make smoking cessation much easier than one might imagine. Used alone, or in conjunction with patches, gums, prescriptions or acupuncture, hypnosis gets to the root of the problem, our subconscious programming. If you or anyone you know is ready to kick the habit, once and for all, give me a call. I can help.

The Law of Attraction says, “that which is like unto itself is drawn,” and that our life experiences are the reflection of our thoughts and emotions. Our thoughts and emotions emit certain frequencies. According to the Law of Attraction, the frequencies we send out match up with like frequencies and come back to us as experiences, opportunities, and interactions with others. Many people believe that by learning to fine-tune our thoughts and emotions we can be the deliberate creators of our reality and have anything we want.

If this is true, then we should simply be able to focus our attention on the things we want in life and, like magic, they should appear, right? Yes and no. In theory, it really is that simple, but in reality, we often think we are focusing on what we want, when in fact, we are really focused on the lack of what we want, as evidenced by negative or unpleasant emotions.

Many people mistakenly believe that if they have this job or that relationship, then they will find happiness. Law of Attraction says it is the other way around. You have to find that state of happiness and contentment first, creating that as your point of attraction, and then that great job or that wonderful relationship will find its way to you.

For example, we’ve all heard stories about couples trying to conceive, without any luck. Once they accept the fact that they cannot conceive and they adopt a new baby, voilà, they find out they’re pregnant.  Law of Attraction would say they were able to conceive because they were no longer focused on the lack of what they wanted, and that because they were emitting the positive, happy, excited emotions that accompany the news of their successful adoption, they brought into their lives what they wanted – a baby.

You may have heard that it is easier to find a job when you already have one. Again, Law of Attraction would say it’s because you are not sabotaging yourself by focusing on the lack of what you want. Because you already have a job, you are not emitting frequencies of stress, or worry. It’s all about your emotions. You can say all the happy, positive words you want, but if your emotions are focused on the negative, or the lack of what you want, than that’s what you get.

How about dating? Ever know someone who had the hardest time getting a date, and then when they finally meet someone they really care about, all of a sudden, everyone seems to be attracted to them? Again, Law of Attraction would explain that you get what you are thinking, or feeling, whether you want it or not.

What is your point of attraction? Do you want more money in your life? If you are worried about not having enough money, you are in fact maintaining your financial status by worrying about it. How about relationships? Do you believe that all men, or all women, are alike? Actually, they’re not. However, if you find yourself unable to let go of negative thoughts and feelings about previous relationships, you’ll very likely draw into your life a carbon copy of what you’re dwelling on.

How is this relevant to hypnosis? Hypnosis is an excellent way to discipline your mind to stay focused on what you want in life, and to help you recognize when you are habitually running negative thoughts. Negative thinking is just a habit and can be changed. Hypnosis can help you train your mind to think about what you want, and to notice the evidence in your life pointing out opportunities instead of obstacles.

We all look at life through filters. You can spend years in therapy finding out what your filters are, how they got there, and how they are affecting your life. Alternatively, you can simply discipline yourself to see life through the filters of your choice. Hypnosis can help you create that discipline, and teach you to wake up each day looking only for that which you want to see, to listen only for that which you want to hear.

Whether you believe in the Law of Attraction or not, learning to truly accept the “what is” in your life, as well as consciously assigning the meanings you give to life and to your experiences, will improve your quality of life.  Be a conscious, deliberate participant in your life. Life is what you make of it. You are in control. Let hypnosis help you develop the discipline to keep your thoughts and emotions focused on what makes you feel good about your life!

For those who suffer with the fear of public speaking, “glossophobia,” the results can be devastating. According to the Speech Topics Help, Advice and Ideas website, the fear of public speaking can have severe negative effects on careers. Workplace public speaking starts with the job interview, and for some, experiencing extreme anxiety symptoms during an interview can result in an inaccurate assessment of their ability to perform on the job.

Women and men are equally affected by glossophobia, although more men than women seek treatment to cure fear of public speaking. According to a variety of sources, (http://www.theegglestongroup.com/writing/fearspk1.php, http://www.no-fear-public-speaking.com/fearofpublicspeakingstatistics.html) public speaking is the number one fear in America and can manifest in a variety of symptoms, all of which can be treated successfully with hypnosis. The anxiety symptoms experienced by those suffering from glossophobia can be grouped into both physical and verbal categories.

The physical symptoms are the result of the “fight or flight” reaction which is an all or nothing adrenaline secretion resulting in all or most of the following symptoms simultaneously. Symptoms include an increased heart rate, dilated pupils, increased perspiration, dry mouth, increased blood pressure, increased oxygen intake, and stiffening of the upper back and/or neck muscles. Being nervous about speaking is bad enough as it is. Add to the mix these seemingly “involuntary” physical reactions, and your stress levels go off the charts! To make matters worse, the fight or flight reaction leads to what is commonly known as “brain-fog.” This is due to the allocation of energy (blood flow) from your forebrain to the part of your brain where your reflexes are. This is why it can be difficult to remember what you want to say even though you may have practiced and practiced and practiced. This only increases your stress, which then reinforces the physical symptoms, and on it goes.

Verbal symptoms can include a shaky quivering voice which can embarrass the speaker and add fuel to the fire of the entire anxiety response.

It is estimated that 75% of all speakers experience some degree of anxiety/nervousness when public speaking. That’s three out of every four people. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossophobia)

The degree of discomfort about public speaking generally falls into two categories. Those who are nervous before they start speaking but then begin to relax once they’re into it, and those who actually get more nervous as their presentation continues. Rather than feeling relieved when they have finished, this latter group actually feels more anxious even though they are done.

Those who are able to relax into the situation once they have started are referred to as habituaters. They find it easy to get used to the idea of public speaking and focus on the comfort of it. Those who feel an increased sense of anxiety as they proceed with their talk, are referred to as sensitizers, and typically focus on the unpleasant aspects of the experience. At Intuitive Hypnosis of Portland, Oregon, both habituaters and sensitizers have successfully improved their ability to speak comfortably in front of an audience. With the use of hypnosis, clients can learn and practice successful public speaking skills and rid themselves of the unpleasant physical and verbal reactions that plague those with glossophobia.

For those who suffer from glossophobia and do not seek help, they run the risk of reinforcing their anxiety symptoms by reliving their negative unpleasant speaking experiences repeatedly in their minds. Help is available. Hypnosis is a very effective means of treating and eliminating the physical and verbal reactions to the fear of public speaking. It’s never too late to rid yourself of the fear of public speaking.

Why is it that we cannot seem to stay motivated to do the things we want to do? We know that what we want for ourselves is better for us than what we are currently doing, or not doing. We know that we will be happier in the having of, or the doing of, what we want. So what gives? How can we successfully maintain that initial excitement and motivation we feel when we first get excited about making personal change?

Let’s use the example of exercise. Every year on January 1^st, there is an explosion in the sale of exercise equipment and gym memberships. The holidays are over, it’s a new year, and lots of us are motivated to exercise and get in shape! Most of us do well for a few weeks, some keep going for as long as a month, and a few stragglers are still plugging along after 3 months. Unfortunately, most New Year’s Resolutioners have thrown in the towel by late spring, or sooner.

One of the most common hindrances to our ability to maintain a motivated state has to do with the type of “self-talk” we engage in. Many of us sabotage ourselves with negative self-talk about our ability to successfully accomplish our exercise goals. As we rattle off our list of excuses and justifications for not exercising, we are in effect reinforcing the exact opposite of what we want, making it all the more difficult to maintain our motivation.

The skills and techniques used in hypnosis to increase our motivation to exercise are broadly the same as motivating performance for anything else you care to name. So how can hypnosis help increase and maintain our motivation to exercise? As humans, most of our behaviors are driven by the avoidance of pain, and/or the pursuit of pleasure. Hypnosis is a great way to learn to associate pleasure with exercise, and pain with the absence of exercise. Hypnosis increases your motivation by removing the obstacles, or roadblocks, that are between you and your motivation. Hypnosis increases your positive thinking and helps to develop healthy, positive, natural responses to these obstacles.

Hypnosis reinforces and creates the habit of thinking positively about our goals and desires. This allows the part of us that knows what is best for us to dominate our thought process.  By eliminating that negative, critical, judgmental voice within, and learning to visualize what we want to have happen on a regular basis, we soon find ourselves on an upward spiral. We find ourselves enjoying exercise, and looking forward to it! I spend a lot of time at the gym, and I have never heard anyone expressing any regret that they exercised that day.

How does it work? At Intuitive Hypnosis in Portland, Oregon I have been able to help my clients re-program their subconscious minds to help them actually look forward to, and enjoy, exercising! Hypnosis takes you into a wonderful state of highly focused attention. This is contrary to the misconception that hypnosis takes you into an unconscious state. Once you are comfortably relaxed and receptive to suggestion, you enter the non-critical listening stage. At this point, your hypnotherapist will offer you a visualization of sorts, or a suggestion to “think of” or to “remember” what it would look like to be standing at a fork in the road. Not all hypnotherapists offer the same visualizations of course, but you get the idea.

The main idea is to give you the opportunity, while in hypnosis, to make a choice; to continue on the path of excuses and justifications for not exercising, feeling guilty about it, and fostering continual negative self talk, or, to change directions;  review and reinforce all the health benefits of exercising, all the positive consequences of maintaining an exercise habit. In this state, you find it easy to make the right choice, the healthy alternative.

As you find it easy to make the right choice about exercise while in hypnosis, you will be guided into a vision of yourself in the future. A future you looking and feeling great because you love to exercise, and it shows! You will feel that expansion of confidence, and be completely engaged in the pleasure of exercising! You will be inspired to stay with your new level of motivation on a long-term basis.

We all have unique behaviors when it comes to motivation. Most of us find it easy to stay motivated in some areas and not others. Hypnosis can use that fact to demonstrate and reinforce that you do have what it takes to get and stay motivated to do anything and everything you want in life. Once you realize how easy it is to stay motivated in one area, it’s easy to accomplish the same thing in other areas.

Let hypnosis help you get, and stay, motivated to exercise this summer, and forever!

Anytime we learn something new, we create neural pathways in our brain. Through repetition and reinforcement, those neural pathways become stronger, more deeply entrenched in our subconscious mind. As you may remember from previous articles, our subconscious mind does not know the difference between “performing” an activity, and “pretending” or “thinking about” performing an activity. That means that if you have practiced doing something the wrong way, by reminiscing over your mistakes,  you are actually reinforcing and creating the habit of doing it wrong.

This is a really important point. If you make a mistake, for example in your golf game, and then re-live that mistake over and over in your mind, your subconscious mind responds “as if” you actually did it wrong over and over, thereby reinforcing that habit of doing it wrong. Make sense?

No wonder you do great when you are golfing all by yourself, there is no pressure, no conditioned response to “trigger” your well-rehearsed mistake while golfing in front of your friends.

It is easy to find examples of well-known athletes that have worked with highly trained hypnotherapists to create significant improvement in their personal performance, regardless of their sport.  For example:

• Phil Jackson (NBA head coach) insists that the Chicago Bulls practiced daily self-hypnosis when he coached Michael Jordan and the Bulls to their 6 NBA Championships.
• Boxer Ken Norton used hypnosis training before his famous victory over Mohammed Ali.
• Mark McGwire (baseball player/home run champ) uses hypnosis to help him relax.
• Other popular and famous athletes were major league baseball players such as Rod Carew, George Brett and Damion Easley who all used hypnosis to improve their games.
• The entire 1983 Chicago White Sox team used hypnosis to help win their division and reach the playoffs that year.
• Famous tennis player, Jimmy Connors, used hypnosis in winning the U.S. Open Championship.
• Tiger Woods’ mental coach, Jay Brunza, hypnotizes him to block out distractions and focus on the golf course.
• Jack Nicklaus claims that his success is entirely owed to practicing concentration and visualization.*

*See: http://www.angelabaileyhypnosis.com/Athletes-and-hypnosis.html

The bottom line is that hypnosis can help sports performance whether you are a weekend golfer, a marathon runner, or a professional competitor. By learning self-hypnosis techniques, you can build your confidence and enhance your athletic skills.

The components of successful sports hypnosis treatment include the following:

• Focused visualization and rehearsal of future success
• Focusing on successful execution of the correct postures, stance, and/or moves, and practicing the use of the necessary tools to get in the ‘zone’
• Overcoming mental blocks or barriers caused by negative thinking
• Reinforcing self-belief, motivation and positive thinking

By practicing successful athletic performances over and over in your mind, you create the neural pathways that make it easy to re-create that success in real life.  This, in conjunction with building self confidence and the belief that you CAN succeed, result in improved sports performance.

Hypnosis and Sports Performance

Some of the more common phobias I see in my clinical hypnotherapy practice at Intuitive Hypnosis in Portland, Oregon are:
•    Flying
•    Bridges
•    Snakes
•    Spiders
•    Public Speaking
•    Needles
•    Elevators

How do we define Phobia?
“A phobia is defined as the unrelenting fear of a situation, activity, or thing that causes one to want to avoid it. Phobias are largely under-reported, probably because many phobia sufferers find ways to avoid the situations to which they are phobic. Therefore, statistics that estimate how many people suffer from phobias vary widely, but at minimum, phobias afflict more than 6 million people in the United States. Other facts about phobias include that these illnesses have been thought to affect up to 28 out of every 100 people, and in all western countries, phobias strike 7%-13% of the population. Women tend to be twice as likely to suffer from a phobia compared to men.” (See Phobias Picture Slideshow: What Are You Afraid Of?)

Many phobias start at a young age often because young children are unable to understand that their fear, or phobia, of something is irrational. As they grow and mature, it is common for the phobia to go away. However, for many adults, that irrational fear, phobia, stays with them into adulthood despite their conscious understanding that it is irrational. Under hypnosis, it is possible to re-frame the initial sensitizing event, and learn to maintain a state of peaceful relaxation when confronted with the stimulus, resulting in the dissolution of the phobic response.

If left untreated, phobias can seriously interfere with one’s life style and/or daily routine by attempts to avoid or conceal it. Unchecked phobias can result in problems with friends and family, failure in school, job loss, sleep disorders, and other health issues. Consider living in Portland, Oregon and having a phobia of bridges. Trying to structure your activities to avoid driving over a bridge in Portland presents quite a challenge.

When treating clients with phobias, I spend a lot of time gathering information from them to gain an understanding of how their phobia started, what triggers it, how it manifests, and more. Careful listening and asking the right questions provides the opportunity to gain the insights necessary to find out what caused the phobia, or what the true nature of the phobia is.

For example, a client describing a fear of elevators, airplanes, and small cars is more than likely actually expressing a fear of enclosed spaces. With additional questioning, it is often possible to identify the initial sensitizing event, and by using specific techniques under hypnosis is able to eliminate the irrational fear and phobic reaction.

By using a variety of techniques under hypnosis, clients are able to establish new neural pathways allowing them to experience the phobic stimulus without the typical phobic response, or panic attack. Repetition and reinforcement is the key to re-training your subconscious mind when it comes to eliminating or significantly reducing the phobic response.

Decision-making is an art, and like most things in life, the more you do it the better you become at doing it effectively. Increasing the number of decisions you make also increases the risk of making a wrong decision occasionally. Nevertheless, it is clear that those who make decisions on a regular basis are those who find more success in life, due to the fact that they take more risk, make more decisions, and thereby provide more opportunities for success.

At Intuitive Hypnosis, some of the most frequently asked questions from clients are, “Will this work for me? Why does hypnosis help some people and not others? What can I do to ensure success in reaching my goals?”

After years of working with clients on a variety of issues, it is clear to me that clients who have made the decision to create change in their lives have a higher rate of success than those who remain in a wishful thinking state of mind. Hypnosis is not magic. Hypnosis is a tool, a resource, a way to help you achieve your goals once you have made up your mind that you are ready for change.

The definition of DECIDE: To arrive at a solution that ends uncertainty or dispute. From Latin decidere which means to cut off. (“Decision making process,” 2012)

Synonyms
1. Decide, resolve, determine, imply settling upon a purpose and being able to adhere to it. To decide is to make up one’s mind as to what shall be done and the way to do it: He decided to go today. To resolve is to show firmness of purpose: He resolved to ask for a promotion. To determine is to make up one’s mind and then to stick to a fixed or settled purpose: determined to maintain his position at all costs. (“Decision making process,” 2012)

Imagine the difference in the rate of success in the following two examples of clients both wanting to lose weight:

Client “A” has made up her mind that she is ready to lose weight. She informs me that she has become a member at the local gym, has consulted a nutritionist about creating an eating plan that fits in with her family and work schedule. She has purged her cupboards of all junk food and would like to know if hypnosis can help her stay focused, motivated, and on track. Her family supports her efforts at becoming healthy and fit. This client has decided to lose weight and is willing to change her eating routines and rituals in order to achieve her goal of losing weight. This client has a strong chance of success.

Client “B” would love to lose weight. She is tired of being so heavy and just knows that if she could lose weight things would go better for her at work, at home, and socially. However, she is unable to accommodate time in her busy schedule to exercise daily, and insists that she does not over eat. In fact, she eats nothing all day until dinner, and then she eats continually until bedtime each night. She hates eating in the morning and is not willing to adhere to the recommendation of three meals and two snacks each day. She wants to know if hypnosis can make her want to exercise and eat right. She will “try” to eat some vegetables during the day, if she can remember to do so, but she is just so busy. This client lives in the “wishful thinking” state of mind and has a slim chance of success. No pun intended.

One of the most important assessments I make with each client is to determine where they are on the decision scale. It is possible to help a client move from the wishful thinking state to the decision making state if they are willing to change their self defeating behaviors and beliefs. If they exhibit a strong balance of resistance about changing their behavior, then I do not recommend hypnosis for them at this time.

As that old saying so aptly states, “If you keep doing what you’ve always done… you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got!”

I love that saying because it truly hits the nail right on its proverbial head. You simply cannot create a new and different life if you keep living the same old repetitive one.

Let’s take a look at decision-making. What’s it all about, and how can YOU learn to increase the likelihood of making successful decisions?

Decision-making is a distinctly human activity; it is what our great big frontal lobe is for. We all make decisions all the time, but because many of them are simple repetitions day after day, we do not regard them as decisions.

However, the fact that we are hard-wired to make decisions does not necessarily make us good decision-makers. To improve our decision-making skills and increase the likelihood of making smart decisions, it can be helpful to incorporate the following 4 steps into our decision making routine.

1. Realize when and why we need to make a decision.
2. State the decision: decide what the decision is, how will we work it, and who will be involved.
3. Work the decision: generate a complete set of alternatives, gather the information you need to understand the possibilities and probabilities, identify the resources you need, and ultimately make a choice that best fits your values.
4. Commit resources and then act.

This sounds easy, and for those who make many decisions and are comfortable making decisions, it probably describes exactly what they do. For those who struggle with decision-making, they more than likely are experiencing the fear of failure or regret if a wrong decision is made. This can be crippling. This fear can stem from previous experiences that have created a conditioned response linking decision making to negative consequences.

This is an excellent example of a situation where hypnosis can help. Using hypnosis, NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) techniques, and/or EFT (emotional freedom techniques), it is possible to re-condition your subconscious mind and free yourself from the fear of failure about decision-making.

Decision Quality is an excellent resource for learning more about making decisions and how to create change in your life. A synopsis of their manifesto follows (“Our Manifesto,” 2012):

1. Decisions come from the stories we tell ourselves and others.
2. Decisions aren’t found under a rock.
3. Intentions are not decisions.
4. Divide and conquer.
5. Process matters.
6. Make your process transparent.
7. No fictitious involvement.
8. Build commitment step by step.
9. The first problem is seldom the real problem.
10. Beware of solutions masquerading as problems.
11. Be hard on the problem, not the people.
12. Talk to somebody new.
13. Raise conflict early.
14. Focus your attention on what matters most.
15. You need at least three alternatives to make a decision.
16. Hit the guardrails.
17. It’s not what you know. It’s what you don’t know you don’t know.
18. There are no clairvoyants, but you can still ask.
19. It’s easier to be critical than creative.
20. Sometimes numbers can be used to tell a story.
21. Take personal responsibility.
22. Experiments are failures we learn from.

For some, decision-making can be a complicated process, but it doesn’t have to be. Since we make several decisions every day, we tend to forget that we really can make good decisions, and do it all the time. We decide what to get at the store, what to eat, what coat to wear, and so much more.

Decision-making occurs on many levels. Let’s look at it from a learning point of view and how hypnosis can help.

Experts in learning theory tell us that the average person must do something about 130 times before it becomes “natural.” Once it becomes natural, it is because we have generated a customized internal road map of how it is to be done. The map is generated through our experiences: through our feelings, recognized space requirements, visual clues and so on. If these experiences have been negative, and are attached to unwanted outcomes, we may have learned to be fearful of decision-making. Hypnosis can help by re-framing those experiences and creating a positive conditioned response to decision making.

As humans, we also have other limitations, which may cause us to take shortcuts when making decisions. For example, most people can keep only four items at the front of their mind when making comparisons; few can keep as many as seven in active consideration. Yet, even the simplest decision may have more than 100 components related to its success. As a result, we usually use our customized “natural” road maps to allow us to make shortcut decisions and keep functioning. If those road maps are accurate, we’re in good shape. If they are flawed or influenced by negative experiences from the past, we may learn to avoid making decisions at all costs. Hypnosis can help us identify those roadblocks and increase our comfort and ability to make appropriate decisions.

We all have individual needs, desires, preferences, and experiences. Over time, we learn and accumulate experiences and perspectives. We create a customized window by which we view the world, which becomes our personal map of life. This personal window creates biases that influence how we think and behave. Without realizing it, when things don’t fit, we tend to make them fit that personal window. It is from this point of view that we make decisions. Hypnosis can help us fine-tune our map, our perspectives, so that our decisions empower us, and lead to viewing decision making as an opportunity, and not a threat.