What are you doing “under” there?

by Irene Conlan — 

Hypnosis is one way to work with this powerful part of the mind that has infinite memory and works with habits, emotions, creativity, intuition and the autonomic nervous system to control all the automatic functions of the body.

“I didn’t go under.” “They said I couldn’t go under.” “I don’t think I went under.” These strange and interesting statements are often heard in relation to hypnosis, and they conjure an image of someone struggling to get up and out from under a bed or desk. Many people are frightened by the thought of “going under” and ignore this wonderful treatment modality; a few come to the therapist in white-knuckled fear.

The truth is, when you’re in hypnosis you aren’t “under” anything. You are simply working with that powerful part of your mind that is the subconscious. Paul Scheele, co-founder of The Learning Strategies Corp., calls this part of the mind the “other than conscious” and declares that it is one billion times more powerful than the conscious part of the mind.

Most of us know very little about this part of our minds, and we certainly were not taught in school how to use it. Doesn’t it stand to reason that, if it is this powerful, we should find ways to work with this part of our mind? It is estimated that the average person utilizes approximately eight percent of his/her mental ability and that geniuses like Einstein used as much as 15 percent. What would happen if we were able to use more? What could we discover? What could we accomplish for the good of ourselves and humanity?

Hypnosis is one way to work with this powerful part of the mind that has infinite memory and works with habits, emotions, creativity, intuition and the autonomic nervous system to control all the automatic functions of the body.

Hypnosis is not just a play-toy for entertainment or the macabre, as depicted in movies. It is a legitimate and marvelous tool approved by the American Medical Association in 1958 as a treatment modality. It has, for the most part, been sitting on the shelf unused or vastly underutilized.

Hypnotherapy can be used in place of anesthesia to control pain, to change or stop unwanted habits, to end fears and phobias, to improve your game, and to increase self-esteem and self-confidence. It can be used to explore and create new ideas, to fathom the depths of the unknown … and much, much more. It is far safer than drugs, which can cause side effects and increase mortality rates.

The real question about hypnosis is not how you will feel when “you get very, very sleepy” as commonly portrayed, but who you will be and what you will be able to do when you awaken the rest of your mind.

Irene Conlan has a masters degree in nursing, is a certified hypnotherapist and a certified past life regression therapist in Scottsdale, Ariz. iconlan@cox.net.

Reprinted from AzNetNews, Volume 24, Number 3, June/July 2005.