“Hypnosis” Is Just A Word
Some people are just too funny. I often have to suppress a giggle. It’s not that I am inclined to laugh at them; it’s that the ideas they express in ignorance are funny. I don’t think I’m superior to anyone, and ignorance isn’t funny to me. Ignorance is simply the state of not knowing something, or inexperience. It isn’t an insult. No one knows everything.
I love it when the uninitiated think I can get control of their minds and “make” them do things such as quack and wag their tails. Why aren’t they more concerned that I can make them detail my car and paint my dining room?
Or the belief that I can find out their secrets. The secrets that I’ve already heard from conscious, earnest clients up to this point would probably disappoint most voyeurs. I’m afraid that there’s nothing there that I haven’t experienced myself, or seen someone among my family or friends go through. No, most deeply-guarded secrets are not so scandalizing, at least to me. And the imagination is not stranger than Real Life.
A lot of people tell me they can’t be hypnotized. Fair enough! If they dig in with stubborn resistance, there’s no way anyone can hypnotize them or even persuade them to sit in my office.
And among clients who willingly submit to the process, sometimes I have trouble keeping a straight face. One gentleman, who admirably came in to let me help him quit smoking, explained that he enjoys smoking a joint with his wife most nights. He’s not an addict; he uses it the way some people enjoy having a drink at the end of the day. He asked, “can you make me quit cigarettes but still let me smoke pot?” The answer is YES! Tobacco and mary jane are two totally separate things–and one was desired and the other despised by the client. The mind will have no confusion there.
But ignorance is also detrimental. If a person will hold to erroneous beliefs, I won’t be able to show them how wonderful hypnosis is, and what it can do for them. I won’t be able to share this gift with them. They will never learn that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis, and what they get from me is a new skill that they can use, on their own, for the rest of their lives for many issues that will arise. It’s like getting an Owner’s Manual for the mind!
Lastly, here’s something I like to point out at the beginning of every session: Hypnosis is just a word. It describes a very natural state of mind that everyone enters into and out of, many times every day. Whatever that state is, we can learn to use it and control it to a great degree. Once we learn to manage that state, we learn that it is the key to the most powerful parts of our minds. It is the way to align all the parts of mind and body, and the way to becoming unstoppable!
