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Hypnotherapy helps us change our behavior.
Why is that help necessary? It seems that when we realize that our behavior is hurting us, it should be easy to change our mind and act differently. But it’s not.
The reason is that during elementary and middle school our mind breaks into two parts: the conscious and subconscious. The subconscious is the part that controls our behavior. It’s our oldest and dearest friend, concerned only with our well-being and happiness. The challenge is that it prefers the experiences that we survive (even the frightening ones) and is anxious about the unknown. It resists the attempts of the conscious mind to create change. Because the subconscious is “seven times more powerful than you think,” it normally wins the battle.
Sometimes change is necessary, of course. To minimize danger, the subconscious considers change under the safest conditions: sleep. The body is still and the conscious mind disabled while the new behavior is imagined in dreams. If the dreams anticipate success, the subconscious may try the new behavior in waking life. If that works out, the behavior is adopted for the future.
In hypnotherapy, I facilitate a direct dialog between your conscious and subconscious minds. We begin the session by talking about your behavior and goals for change. After guiding you into hypnosis, I’ll offer your consciously accepted suggestions to your subconscious. Your conscious mind will monitor the dialog, and I’ll watch for signals in the body that tell whether the subconscious is comfortable with the suggestions.
In many cases, we also suggest that the subconscious release unwanted fears and motivations, through the venting dreams that we have just before waking up in the morning.
Between sessions, you go about your life and observe whether and how your behavior has changed. As you learn, new ideas and opportunities will come to mind. This is the where the next session starts, and the cycle continues until your goal is met.