Our beliefs and thoughts direct our lives. When they are in contradiction with our needs or the reality of our environment, we suffer. We can hardly access our beliefs consciously and even less change them. Our thoughts can get out of our control and we tell ourselves: “why do I think this? It ruins my relations and makes me unhappy and unsuccessful”. But, knowing it, is not sufficient to provoke a change. Many people tend to resignate themselves to their situation and think: “that’s me! What can I do?” Others want to get out of this endless circle and consult a therapist.

Hypnosis is an adequate way to access our unconscious, change our limiting thoughts and beliefs and allow us to mobilize our resources to be more at ease with ourselves and consistent in our realizations.

1. How hypnosis can help us access our unconscious mind?

Our brain functions on many different levels: the conscious mind that generates mostly our analytical and objective thinking is located in our cortex and left brain, the unconscious mind is located in our right brain and our limbic part of the brain.

The latter part of the brain is generally out of our control when we function in a conscious state. But in our daily life, we often experience situations where we do automatically many different things in an unconscious manner: we drive without thinking of all our gestures, we walk and we use many devices such as computer, mobile or cook without needing the help of our conscious mind. And sometimes we don’t remember things we did: where did I put my keys? Oh, did I smile when…? did I raise the tone of my voice? Was I inconsiderate or provoking? Was I awesome and exciting? I didn’t realize.

Going in trance isn’t different of this unconscious state, except that in hypnosis, it is provoked deliberately with a specific goal.

What helps access our unconscious is the attitude and the voice of the hypnotist, the environmental conditions (quiet, comfortable place) and our desire to attain our goal. We remain in trance as long as we agree to what is happening. When what is said or done doesn’t have our consent, we spontaneously go out of trance. Hypnosis functions very well as long as it meets with our expectancies. It loses its power when we disagree with the suggestions.

The suggestions are based on our functioning, our strengths and our goals. That’s what makes them powerful and efficient. Someone else tells us in a way we appreciate, things we often tell ourselves or no one ever told us before and that answer our needs and help us make a shift in our perceptions and beliefs. And as we know our thoughts, perceptions and beliefs direct our life.

2. How hypnosis can help us mobilize our resources?

Most people tend to ignore, over or underestimate their strengths. Significant situations reveal to us our potential. We sometime think: I can never do that. And when we are in the situation we discover how strong, how clever or how generous, etc. we can be. And we say: I didn’t know I was so strong, clever, generous, …. And we realize that this job, this trip, this relation, this training, made us discover and develop a potentiality. Our conscious mind makes us often conscious of our limits and more rarely of all our capacities.

In a trance, the hypnotist helps us looking in our previous experiences and extract all our learning and makes it available for us to attain our goals. The hypnotist is preferably a therapist and has a knowledge of the mechanisms of our mind, brain and personality. He supports the client to achieve his goal by listening to him and helping him to manage his stress as he is going further and growing. He can also guide him to optimize his rhythm of integration of his capacities and avoid hindrances he may not anticipate by himself.

3. Why hypnosis doesn’t make us dependent?

Many people immediately say: “No one can hypnotize me”. They believe they are too strong to be dominated because they imagine that getting in a trance is “submitting to the hypnotizer’s will”.

They don’t know that hypnosis is a relation between themselves and themselves and getting in a trance is “going inside and focusing on their inner state to be acquainted to it and get to change it or mobilize it to use it in their conscious life”. The hypnotist’s role is to create the conditions so that they can realize it.

Hypnosis is a way for us to be more free.

Hypnosis can help us to control habits that ruin our lives like smoking, drinking, drugs, being afraid in circumstances where most of the people aren’t: flying, being in a crowd, being in open spaces or in altitude, being afraid of small animals like spiders for instance, all uncontrolled behaviors known as phobias.

92% of people are hypnotizable according to statistics. The reason is simple: 92% of people are clever enough to cooperate with the person they choose in order to reach their goal and get better control of their lives.

4. Can we learn self- hypnosis?

Most of hypnotist tend to teach their clients how to get in trance in their daily life. There are techniques of breathing, relaxation and music or speeches that increase our capacity of getting in trance by ourselves. It is mostly the case when clients need pain management, weight management, habit control, etc.

Self hypnosis has its limits but can be very helpful and increase the client’s autonomy during the appropriation process of his new strength or capacity.

5. Can we help our significant others to be happier?

The best way to help our close relations to be happier is to be happy ourselves. When we are in a positive state of mind, we tend to contaminate our environment with our positive energy. We create a climate of relaxed and confident atmosphere that help others without paying attention to it.

The next step is to see the positive aspects of their behavior and personality and mirroring it to them. Let them know how they affect us by their attitude and behavior can help them in their own perception of themselves. We help others by looking at them positively and trusting them.

For more difficult issues, we can only orient them toward a professional.

In conclusion, hypnosis is a media that allows us to know ourselves better, to mobilize our resources in order to improve our control and growth of our capacities to enrich our lives and enlighten our environment.