Hypnosis is a state where your mind is more open to suggestion. Hypnosis suspends the critical faculty, the part of your mind that will argue and dispute things, the gatekeeper if you like. Once the gatekeeper is out of the way we have access to the subconscious mind which is the part of us that controls all our automatic responses and behaviours and that’s where we do the Hypnotherapy.
97% of what we do is governed by the subconscious and if that sounds like a lot, just think about all the things we do that we are not aware of - breathing, digesting food, walking etc.
We are only actually able to process between 5 and 9 pieces of information at any time - a bit like having 5 to 9 tabs open on a computer browser. So as soon as we can consign something to automatic behaviour, we do. Think about when we learn to drive, it is complicated - all those things to remember to do in a certain order, but before we know it, we just get in the car and drive without having to think about it at all.
Once something is automatic we don’t have to think about it, in fact we find it hard to unlearn it. Could you forget how to walk or drive or read? You had to learn to do all those things, but now they are automatic.
And that’s where the problem is - once something is automatic it can be hard to get rid of. That’s why smoking is hard to quit - it’s not the nicotine addiction - it’s the automatic nature of the behaviour surrounding the smoking. For example you will automatically have a cigarette when you have a cuppa, or when you get up, or when you go to the pub, whatever. It is automatic behaviour, it’s a subconscious ritual and that’s why it can be so hard to change it using your conscious mind alone.
Hypnotherapy re-programmes those automatic subconscious behaviours and beliefs that feel outside our control. It presses the reset button, gives your hard-drive a bit of a clean-up and installs some new software, software that will work better for you, helping you to make those changes you were struggling with, helping to change the way you think, feel or behave.
