So many of the clients I see come to me after having tried almost everything to resolve their anxiety and stress. Medication, various talk therapies such as Psychoanalysis, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Neurofeedback and even shamanic practices. While some of these work to varying degrees, they are often predicated on a misunderstanding how the Mind-Body system works and sometimes even make things worse for the client.
The thing that make the biggest difference for my clients is the experience of how worrying is essentially a hypnotic effect and learning how to change that with hypnosis itself. It works like this: you might be worrying about your relationship, dreading an upcoming meeting, going to a social event or even fearing wider economic or environmental collapse.
As you have conscious and unconscious thinking about a situation in the future (even the very near future), these show up as images and self-talk in the mind and feeling sensations in the body. Your conscious mind then automatically takes these experiences to be real and actual representations of reality. You project yourself into the future and actually experience yourself having anxiety in the future and not being able to deal with these situations. Because the mind-body system doesn´t know the difference between something real and imagined, it actually begins to create the panic symptoms in the present moment as if they are actually happening. It becomes powerfully hypnotic and your unconscious mind automatically creates this reality in the present moment.
The heart beats faster, breathing becomes shallow and accelerated, you start sweating and you might get that feeling in the stomach or the chest that is telling you freeze or avoid this situation. Then what most people do is resist the experience. They fight it which only makes things worse because in that moment you are actually putting more of your attention on it and where attention goes, psychological energy flows. Then it has the potential to turn into a full – blown panic attack.
Now you might say, well I know this intellectually, so what can I do about it? Apart from being just aware of the experience and the kind of thinking patterns that cause anxiety, a person must calm down the nervous system and then retrain the unconscious patterns that caused it.
Quite unlike the other types of therapies which work on changing your conscious thinking about the anxiety, hypnosis works on the level at which the problem is created and maintained. Think about it like this: if your mind was like a cinema and your conscious mind was the you sitting in the cinema seat watching and believing the images on the screen, hypnotherapy allows you to go into the editing room and change the film that plays on the screen of your mind. It allows you not only to automatically take control of the situation in your mind, but also change the feeling experience in the body the allowing you to find the solutions in the present moment.
Often people with anxiety have difficulties getting to sleep and waking rested because in REM state the mind has been trying to find solutions to meet the Primal Human Needs and has been stressing the body even more while dreaming. Because the deep therapeutic relaxation hypnotherapy provides allows a person to process those emotions on an unconscious level, deep restorative sleep returns to a person´s life and they can awaken feeling rested, focused, and so much more able to consciously take actions that will improve their life situation.
Also, hypnosis is also the most powerful learning state so a good hypnotherapist can “install” techniques, mindsets and learnings that will instinctively be brought to the conscious mind as powerful resources to be used in those situations where in the past would have caused anxiety or panic.
While a person might experience healthy concern about their life, they are no longer taken by the hypnosis of anxiety and are much more capable of moving forward with life in a powerfully creative and engaging way. Life becomes colorful again and pleasure returns.
It is one of the most satisfying aspects of my work to be able to offer powerful solutions to people with even life-long anxiety issues.
If you are experiencing anxiety or stress, how long will you wait before you feel better?
I invite you to reach out and see if we are a good fit for each other.
