Hypnosis produces a natural state of mind. We go in and out of a hypnosis, or trance, many times in the course of a day.
Hypnotherapy is when we use that state to address issues such as insomnia, compulsion, phobias, addictions, eating disorders etc.
The great hypnotherapist Milton Erickson said that most people are walking around, in a trance of disempowerment and that his work was to move them to a trance of empowerment. Hypnotherapy is a powerful tool to facilitate that move.
NLP (Neural Linguistic Programming) is derived in part from the work of Erickson, as well as the work of such luminaries as Virginia Satir, Gregory Bateson and Fritz Perls.
It is a blend of hypnosis, hypnotherapy, and powerful ways to explore, understand and change how we communicate – both with others, as well internally, with ourselves – for personal change, healing, and transformation.
There are many ways, change can take place, and changing behaviors is one of the most powerful. Behaviors serve a purpose. This is true even for behaviors such as, addictions, obsessions, and compulsivities, insomnia, over-eating and food disorders.
When behaviors become extreme, they consume our energy; and the purpose they serve works against us. They separate us from our goals, dreams and relationships. We don’t even question why we are doing the things that we do.
We learn many basic patterns of behavior at an early age. We do not question the authority, or the role models, who often determine what those patterns are.
This applies to social etiquette as much as it does to emotional triggers that cause us to respond in different ways to the many things we face in life – stress, fatigue, burnout, divorce – professional, financial, and personal pressure
You may think you can’t change how you feel or act. The good news is that you can change!
If someone told you about a short cut, that would cut twenty minute off your commute time, how long would it take you to start using the new route?
Hypnotherapy and NLP coaching are your new roadmaps, full of shortcuts!
A client once came into my Los Angeles hypnotherapy office complaining of insomnia. They worried about waking up too early and not getting enough sleep.
I told them that it was a matter of mathematics. “How can you negotiate with your unconscious mind to get the necessary sleep so you don’t wake up early? Would ten seconds be acceptable tonight?”
My client said that they could do that. Then I told them about the principle of compounding numbers, every day doubling the numbers of extra sleep. When I spoke to my client again the following week they told me that for several days they had been sleeping soundly right up to the time their alarm clock woke them.
The imagination is like a child, and hypnosis accesses that childlike part of you for which almost anything can become possible.
Hypnosis and NLP coaching are based on skills that help me speak to that child-like imagination, so that behaviors and emotions that no longer serve you can be changed to positive behaviors and emotions.
Like the shortcut that takes twenty minutes off your commute time, once you have learned the new skills, why would you ever go back to the old ways of doing things?
Change is like that, leading us to more possibilities, not less; to greater happiness; to a greater sense of being at home within your own life.
