Part 5 Hypnosis

Hello

In Lesson 5:

• How to use Hypnosis to achieve a specific goal
• Audio Lesson

Welcome to the final installment of How to Use Hypnosis to Help Yourself and Others!

Today I'm going to show you how to use self hypnosis to achieve a specific goal. Many so-called hypnosis 'masters' will tell you that all you have to do is repeat positive ideas to yourself for things to improve.

That is such nonsense I wrote an article about it: The Pitfalls of Positive Thinking

Skilled sculpting, not sledgehammering!

Achieving the best (or any) results with hypnosis is a subtle blend of solution-focused psychology and carefully crafted communication.

If you have listened to any of the downloads listed on the left, you will probably have noticed the many ways in which the goal of the download is reinforced. Some you may not have noticed at all. Sometimes more subtle is better!

Now there are many threads to interweave when creating a powerful and effective goal-focused script, but I can give you a few of the central techniques right here.

Fundamental hypnotic techniques

It is vital that you get a good understanding of these, so I have included as much information as possible on this lesson's support page.

There you will find descriptions of the '3 pillars' of hypnosis:

• Rehearsal
• Anchoring
• Pattern interruption

How to use these techniques to achieve your goals

OK, so let's take a look at some of the things you might want to do using hypnosis, and how you would set about achieving them using the techniques above.

• Self confidence
  There is much you can do with self confidence (which is why we developed our free self confidence courseand the Self Confidence Trainer CD pack), but let's look at the basics.
  Using hypnosis, you can decrease anxiety by using rehearsal, and improve confidence at the same time. You can use anchoring to powerfully remind yourself how it feels to be confident, and to remember times when you did feel confident.
  These feelings can be 'applied' to the new situation using rehearsal.
• Anxiety
  There are varying degrees of anxiety from mild worry through to panic attacks. (For more on this, see ourpanic attacks site.)
  However, the enemy of anxiety is calmness, and there is no better way to get seriously calm and relaxed than hypnosis.
  Relaxing every day will bring down your average anxiety 'set point', allowing you to be calmer generally. You can also use anchoring to remind yourself of a time you felt really relaxed.
  Rehearsal can be used to help prepare for an event that is making you anxious, and if you tend to worry in a repetitive way, pattern interruption will help a lot.
  You can also think more constructively by relaxing yourself in hypnosis first, then thinking calmly and slowly about whatever it is that is bugging you.
• Public speaking
  This is an incredibly common problem, which is why we developed the public speaking confidencedownload.
  There are two main things you need to do to help yourself be more relaxed. Firstly, take care of any conditioning effects of previous unpleasant speaking experiences. For that, you can use the dissociation technique outlined in the section on rehearsal.
  For any previous experiences that were unpleasant, relax yourself nice and deeply, then watch the old experiences on a screen in your mind until you can do it and remain calm.
  Then, rehearse the way you want things to happen - how you want to feel, how you will look and sound, the way the audience will be responding, that sort of thing.
  Although simple, if done properly, this can make a huge difference.

And that brings us to the end of our course. Although it may seem brief, there is a vast amount of information contained in these lessons, handouts and audio files. As with any skill, hypnosis takes time to master, but the great thing is that you can begin getting results right away, which is great motivation to continue your study.

Hypnosis is the most useful life skill you can have. It is at the core of all self help techniques and, dare I say it, all effective therapy.

Once you understand it and can use it, the limits are only that of your imagination - and even that improves when you use hypnosis!

It's been a pleasure telling you about hypnosis and I hope I have inspired you to learn more!

My best wishes