Healing Through Hypnotherapy: 5 Tactics to Start Feeling Better NOW

People have always looked for relief in whatever forms they could find it. From the beginnings of civilization, early healers knew about the power of thought.

Early healers understood that how the mind thinks could change:

• how the body reacts
• feels, and
• heals itself.

Early healers pursued multiple avenues to alter thoughts. Some early healers used naturally occurring psychedelics...but not all healers looked to fix the body through application of mind altering substances.

For example, in China, Egypt, and other civilizations, healers worked in what were called "sleep temples". In a Sleep Temple, healers would use chanting, breathing, and relaxation exercises to induce a trance like state.

It is from these temples that hypnosis as a healing practice was born.

Hypnosis as a Healing Practice

Hypnosis has been used as a healing practice for generations.

Hypnosis has persisted as a healing practice throughout the ages because of HOW IT WORKS.

And how does hypnosis work?

For hypnosis to be effective the hypnotist must induce a state of trance in the person being hypnotized who is called the subject.

The hypnotist can employ multiple methods to induce a state of trance. Trance can be achieved with chanting, deep rhythmic breathing exercises, guided meditation or following the beat of a metronome.

Inducing a trance requires the conscious mind to release its hold on the waking state to let the subconscious come through. Later, we will discuss trance practices you can use to tap into the benefits of the healing power of hypnosis.

Once trance is achieved, two things happen:

The hypnotized person relaxes.

In fact the relaxation aspect of hypnosis is so powerful trance is commonly induced to help alleviate anxiety, stress, or PTSD for soldiers.

And once it is relaxed, the body automatically begins to heal. It is common for subjects to wake up from a trance and report that their headache is gone or that their muscles no longer ache. Achieving a state of relaxation is the first thing that happens to hypnotized subjects.

Next, the subconscious mind asserts control.

This is how the hypnotist can affect change in the subject. The subconscious mind controls the programming for the body. Having access to communicate with the subconscious mind gives the hypnotist the ability to use post-hypnotic suggestions in the form of visualization, metaphor, or narrative story to affect change.

The role of hypnosis in healing is a simple one. Hypnosis heals how the mind thinks of the body which, in turn, heals the body.

The easiest thing hypnosis can heal is physical pain.

Hypnosis for Pain Relief

Hypnosis is often used for pain relief and is especially effective for those experiencing muscle aches, chronic pains, or tension headaches.

Here's how it works:

Pain is relieved through the relaxation the subject feels in the trance state. While in trance, the body releases the tension and anxiety stored up in the muscles. This has been shown to reduce inflammation, relieve stress, and promote healing.

The second way hypnosis relieves pain is through visualization work. This is great for people suffering from chronic pain. While in trance state, the subject visualizes healing or relief through images related to their pain.

The third way hypnosis relieves pain is through breath work. Hypnotic breath work is so powerful that top performers seek out hypnotists to teach them how to do it.

Even without hypnosis, breath work is incredibly effective for clearing the mind and bringing you to an optimal state of peak performance. Here's how you can start using this key part of hypnosis to alleviate anxiety, stress, and to reset your mind.

Breath Work Exercise:

This breath work exercise is easy to do and requires little practice. There are three steps. (Read through all steps before trying.)

First, inhale deeply through your nose four times. Make each inhalation strong, like you are trying to breath in the entire scent of something.

Exhale forcefully through your mouth four times. Each time you breath out do so like you are trying to blow out all the candles on a cake.

Repeat this ten times in a row without stopping.

This practice resets your mind, induces a trance state through breathing, and resets the oxygen in your lungs. Breath work is also great for dealing with stress. I cover this in-depth in this article here as well.

Hypnosis for Stress Relief

I mentioned that hypnosis is effective for relieving stress. Using hypnosis for stress relief is one of the most powerful ways to benefit from trance state.

Stress is the compound interest of suffering. The power stress has over your life comes from its appearance..and being consistently stressed every day has massive negative effects on the body.

Imagine holding a tennis ball with a straight arm. At first, it is easy. After twenty minutes, your arm may become tremendously sore!

Now....imagine that you are holding that tennis ball for an hour or two a day. Eventually, what was really easy becomes incredibly painful. Stress works the same way.

Hypnosis relieves stress by interrupting the pattern of being stressed.

The first method hypnotists use to relieve stress is to do a guided deep relaxation meditation.

The hypnotist induces a trance state then proceeds to have the subject tense and relax each muscle in their body. This is effective for people who carry a lot of physical stress say from a labor related job or someone who stands all day.

The second way hypnotists relieve stress is to alter how the person thinks about the stressful situation.

The hypnotist ALTERS the subject's mind to alleviate the stress and promote healing by having them visualize solutions to their stress.

For example, if the subject is stressed from a big project at work the hypnotist could help by having the subject visualize their problem as a giant puzzle.

The hypnotist would then have the subject imagine themselves seeing where each puzzle piece fits, getting excited to put the puzzle pieces in place, and then visualizing the enjoyment of having overcome the challenge and completing the puzzle.

(Completing the puzzle is just one part of solving stress. You should also find out if you have an imbalance in your Chakras that is causing your stress in the first place so you can treat that imbalance directly... otherwise, your stress may come back.

Do you think you may have an energy imbalance in your Chakras? Find out in 5 minutes or less with this free guide.)

A Visualization Exercise to Relieve Stress

The root of stress comes from the suffering of the self. Using a simple three-step visualization exercise you can remove the suffering the sense of self causes and relieve your stress.

First, close your eyes and imagine yourself standing on planet earth. See yourself up close in third-person.

Then, take a step back in your mind. See yourself in your town. See all the people in the town, the buildings, the landscape, see how it all connects. Notice how your sense of self washes out as you take in the bigger picture.

Finally, step back one more time and see yourself from space. See all the towns, the countries, and millions of people around you. Notice not only your smallness, but the smallness of the people around you.

Take a moment and let this sink in. Understand now that our problems are not our purpose and our purpose is part of a greater whole that wants us to succeed. See that and then slowly step back into your body with this knowledge.

So does hypnosis work for stress and anxiety? Well, as we'll soon find out, stress is similar, but wildly different from anxiety. You need to understand the barriers anxiety creates first in order to move past it and heal.

Hypnosis for Healing Anxiety

If stress is the compound interest of our suffering then anxiety is the practice of self-participation in the paralysis of our happiness.

Anxiety keeps us from being happy, doing our best, and healing quickly. Anxiety is like an itch that, once scratched, only gets worse!

Hypnosis helps with anxiety by alleviating first the physical response to it and then the mental one.

Anxiety both produces and is caused by physical tension. Anxiety has an ability to feed itself by getting the body to produce the triggers that make it stronger. Because of its physical and mental functions, anxiety is particularly responsive to hypnosis and trance work.

Under hypnosis the trance state induces a deep state of relaxation. Once relaxed, the body STOPS SENDING signals to the brain that communicate that your body is tense, inflamed, or in pain.

Stopping the physical triggers to anxiety makes it easy to assess and heal the mental issues that induce anxiety.

Become Mindful of Your Anxiety

Most people don't know what makes them anxious. Identify what is causing your anxiety.

It could be something simple, like too much caffeine or expectations of a coming event (work meeting, performance review, etc).

Once you know what is causing you to be anxious, release your expectations.

Release Expectations

Anxiety grows quickly. It feeds itself. Once you identify what is making you anxious, close your eyes and imagine mentally releasing your expectations around it.

Example: Are you worried about a meeting where you are expected to present? See yourself there and imagine everything you worry that people will think about you or that can happen. Take a breath and then imagine releasing all of those worries.

Now that you've released your expectations...

Change How You See Anxiety

Part of having anxiety is choosing to recognize anxious situations as negative. By thinking of anxiety-inducing situations as an interesting puzzle or exciting challenge, you can retrain your brain to see difficult situations as exciting opportunities.

Doing so helps both your physical and spiritual wellness.

Hypnosis For Spiritual Wellness

Spiritual wellness is important. Without it, we lose focus of our purpose here on earth.

Hypnosis can heal spiritual suffering, bring our purpose into focus, and help us grow. How? Hypnosis can heal spiritual suffering by tapping into the knowledge of past lives.

Past life regression is a powerful hypnotic tool. Hypnotists have been using past life regression to weed out spikes in our spiritual purpose that fix us to the past. Past life regression works for both people who have experience with living past lives and for people who want to enter the past lives of others.

By guiding the subject under trance to leave the present and return to a past life (their own or anothers) the subject can tap into the ancestral knowledge of the figure they choose.

By entering into a powerful figure from history (Cleopatra, Merlin, Churchill) you gain access to experience, purpose, and knowledge.

Getting an outsider's perspective allows you to self heal your spiritual suffering by seeing YOUR situation from a wiser perspective. The advice you gain from being Kennedy or Ghandi can help you:

• see past your own perceived limitations
• unmoor from the suffering of the past and
• help you achieve spiritual healing through growth.

Below you will find a simple practice to tap into the ancestral knowledge of past lives through trance work and break through the self-limiting barriers your spiritual suffering is causing.

The Wind Through the Willows

Of all the practices taught in this article, this one will take the most practice. You have to be able to both quiet your mind and guide your own visualization. If you have experience meditating you will find this easy.

There are three steps to this practice.

Quiet the Mind:

Sit in a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for five to ten minutes. Get comfortable and breathe deeply for one to two minutes. Once you feel yourself relax, imagine turning down the volume of your mind until everything is quiet. Once your mind is quiet, you need to build an image.

Visualize the Space:

Now that your mind has been quieted, visualize yourself at the top of a grassy hill. Imagine yourself standing in tall grass. Watch as the wind blows over the grass and bends it. Feel the wind on your body. Take a minute and let the scene deepen. Once you feel you are completely in the scene, begin to listen.

Invite Advice:

At this point you have quieted your mind and visualized yourself on a grassy hill on a beautiful windy day. Now imagine sending the question you want advice on up to the sky.

Imagine the universe reaching out and tapping into the ancestral knowledge of all humankind...

Once you've done this, imagine the wind is bringing you advice from other times. If you don't hear anything at first, imagine that you are tuning the wind like a radio until you pick up on a voice.

Quick Note: Not all the advice you receive will be for the right time in your life.

Since you are listening for advice from all ages you will get advice for all ages of your life.

If something isn't right, don't worry! Eventually you'll find a voice that guides you for your current issue. Remember, wellness is all about finding balance.

Hypnosis for Finding Balance

The root of suffering often comes from lack of balance. Balance both promotes order and makes it easier to heal. Balance promotes order by using less energy, tapping into the power of routine, and saving our energy for the things that matter.

Imbalance comes into our lives quietly. To get rid of imbalance, here is a simple trance-related practice.

My Pagoda Practice

This practice focuses on creating an inner space free, free from imbalance. Using this simple two-step method, you can create a balance inner space you can return to when you feel out of step with your day.

Pick a Place:

My space is a Pagoda I saw while in Japan. I chose it because of the calm and balance I felt when I was there. I anchored my mind to that experience.

Pick a place to anchor you to the state of balance you want. If you are an athlete, this could be the locker room. If you are a yoga student, this could be your studio. Pick a place and visualize it clearly. Once you have it clearly in your mind, build it.

Build your Inner Space:

You have your place.

Now build it.

Imagine an empty room in your mind. See it free of everything. Make it sterile. Once you have done this build your place there. See the details coming together, see the joints fitting into each other, see nails and landscape, see it all.

Once the space is built, all you have to do is retreat to this inner space to tap the anchor you felt when you first saw and experienced this place.

Hypnosis is just one GREAT method you can add to your routine for healing- and can be effectively combined with Reiki, yoga, and other meditative self-healing practices.

The power of hypnosis is derived from our unconsciousness...it's from there where we can learn what our true mission is.

If you're interested in the power of your mission, you must align yourself to the higher spiritual realm. The first step is Balancing Your Chakras. You can get my FREE plan on how to do that here.

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