Self Hypnosis
We are always hypnotising ourselves via the things we believe are true, and what we unconsciously tell ourselves. So, we are all victims or captives of what we believe in.
We must all at times have seen something or heard something that circumstances assured us shouldn’t be there or should not have happened. One that has occurred to me a few times is that I step into my house and see someone standing in the shadows who shouldn’t be there. My heart speeds up, and for moments I am frozen. Then with relief I see it is a coat hung on a door. All the fear drains away and my heart slows down again. Or it could be a sound of something or someone in the house when you are not expecting anyone, or can’t understand what the sound means. Whatever it is, until you understand the cause – recognising the coat on the door for instance – your whole body and emotions respond as if it is a reality. What you believe to be real is responded to completely as if it IS real.
But self-hypnotism only works when we are convinced or really believe in what we say. Émile Coué introduced a popular method of psychotherapy and self-improvement based on optimistic autosuggestion – self-hypnosis. Unfortunately, if we said to ourselves, “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better”, our belief system probably says something like, “Who are you kidding,” making the suggestion ineffective.
Coué did however evolve his system to one where an outside authority figure would give the suggestions – making it a hypnotic suggestion rather than self-hypnosis. The reason I believe it worked better with an authority figure, is due to the imple fact that many people believe that experts are superior to themselves, and the respect acts as a powerful suggestion. To make it into self hypnosis we have to get passed our critical mind, which knocks out any positive effects.
But it must be clearly said that what we sincerely believe in can also lead to illness and delusion. For many people actually believe they have deadly illnesses, that awful demons are haunting them, that they are under the influence of alien creatures, or other peoples will, and such can be deadly. This is a very potent form of self hypnosis. So, it is extremely important to be aware of your beliefs and convictions.
But the Biggest Hypnotist
If you click on this link – Programmed – and read it (it is quite short) you will realise that you have been completely hypnotised into thinking you were born to be the person you think you are. And the greatest hypnotist is the culture you were raised in. For there is an hypnotic suggestion that millions of people are in the grip of, in a way that controls them, imprisons them, and denies them their full potential. It is generally called the paradigm of the western mind. It could also be called the worldview or even the religion of most western people – religion because actually it is a belief system. However, if you asked most people in the streets of western cities about it they would not say they believed in what is being called a paradigm, they would insist it is reality. See Archetype of the Paradigm
Richard Tarnas, in his book Cosmos and Psyche, says of this paradigm of the western mind, “As with all powerful myths, we have been, and many perhaps remain, largely unconscious of this historical paradigm’s hold on our collective imagination. It animates the vast majority of contemporary books and essays, editorial columns, book reviews, science articles, research papers, and television documentaries, as well as political, social, and economic policies, It is so familiar to us, so close to our perception, that in many respects it has become our common sense, the form and foundation of our self image as modern humans.”
Just one misconception is that the fastest you can travel is the speed of light. This was proved wrong in 1900 – yet we still are locked into such views. See Huge Change Happening
How do we get passed the critical mind?
A way that is open to many people today is to read up on the latest scientific findings, i.e quantum phsyics. This because we have been raised in a culture that has taught views that are now proved entirely mistaken.
Here are statements of the old view: For instance, that there are immutable laws of nature which, once known, can be used to predict future events. i.e. the movements of the moon.
➢ The laws of nature are exterior to our own will and we cannot change them. King Canute could not stop the tide.
➢ The future is predetermined by what went before, like a wound-up clock. When our spring goes so do we.
➢ Humans are small cogs in the giant machine, and all machines wear out. From this we have been fed the conviction that we will die, and death is the end of us. That leads us as a society into tremendous personal pain when someone dies, or we see ourselves as failures or losers. It can also lead to terrible parenting and criminal behaviour.
The New View
Now it is scientifically shown that the behaviour of particles – that basics of the world and our own body – cannot be predicted. You can only estimate probabilities.
➢ Subatomic particles are influenced by the person observing them. In some degree, the observer actually creates what is observed.
➢ There is no such thing as objectivity. You cannot eliminate yourself from the universe. It and you are not separate. Everybody and everything has a standpoint within it, and therefore, a point of view.
➢ We are participators. The universe in some strange way may be brought into being by our participation; we are all connected and there is no such thing as death – not for our consciousness.
Remember what was said about mistaking something seen as real, only to find it was your mistake?
Can you see that being brought up to be convinced that death is the final end makes it real for you, and as such it alters all the body and mental reactions, it leads to decisions about how you lead your life, how you react to others, what you do in relationships. See Huge Change Happening
Other Ways
A way that you can us to get beyond the critical mind is described in Meditation – Lhag Thong
Or an easier one is the type of meditation used by the Beetles. It is the mental repetition of a word or sentence. The teacher does not use the word OM, but one of the other classic sentences such as Om Tat Sat, or Klim, Krishnaya, Govindaya, Gopi-jana, Vallabhaya, Swaha, or even the well known Om Mani Padme Hum can be used.
The sentence should be repeated quickly over and over for twenty minutes. Do not try to understand it, for the aim is to push the practitioner beyond thinking into another level. It can lead into a waking sleep state where you lose awareness of your body. This is where transformation can take place as the dregs of mind empty out till you reach the clearness within.
When you feel such a different state arise, then you can suggest healing, clearer insight or even that you take the next step of evolution. In doing this recognise that you have to respect your own life processes, if you tangle them, you will tangle yourself. So make suggestions that are a way of deepening your relationship and understanding of Life.
An excellent suggestion to use is – Let the powers of Life in me, clear out the blockages, hurts, and misunderstandings I hold within me. And let that be the release of the wonderful potential I hold within me.
I remember when I first used self hypnosis I struggled with the idea of how to do it, and also with the feeling that I wasn’t doing it right because I couldn’t see any results. That is why I added the section ‘How do we get passed the critical mind’. But I slowly came to the insights that there need be no struggle and I will try to explain it.
The Easy Way
If you will take a moment to look back at your life from infancy, through youth, adolescence and maturity if you have got that far. You will see that you have passed through a mass of things you did, relationships, plans with success or failure – in fact a huge mass of events. That is the way most of us look at out life, filled with events. But we often miss the huge event. It is so huge and impressive but many of us completely miss seeing that we are ALL in a massive current of energy that moves us all the time in every moment. It is the huge river of our life energy that moves us through babyhood, childhood, teenage and ever onward – it is called the ageing process.
Many of us handle it badly. We are so mixed up with how we look, how we perform, how others see us, whether can keep up with the Jones’s, how much money we can earn – Wow – what a struggle for many of us. In doing so we miss that we are making decisions with attitudes that create and an awful future. For we are constantly putting suggestion into the incredible flow of energy that is our life. Suggestion like, I keep failing; I am not as clever as the top three winners who constantly get rewards; I am just a plain looking person and can’t compete with the real lookers; I want to die; I can’t keep struggling – and so on and on. And that flow of energy and how we deal with it is how our LIFE turns out.
If you think about it you have been carried, pushed, impelled by this current as you were moved through babyhood, childhood, teenage and adulthood. It is the current if Life. This current then carries us on through old age and through gates of death. All the time we are faced by decisions, and each decision directs us on a different path, helping to create our future. And this is the force of growth and change, and often it is fought like hell by many as we are afraid of such changes, especially getting old and facing death.
But every thought, hope or imagination is directing that current. It is as easy as that. It is not a case of positive thinking, trying to fight the negatives and darkness in your life. It is more like holding the suggestion such as – Let the powers of Life in me, clear out the blockages, hurts, and misunderstandings I hold within me. And let that be the release of the wonderful potential I hold within me – and dangle it in the flow of your day, letting its great flood pass through it.
The result may be subtle or dramatic – so it might help to watch the reaction in your dreams. See Opening to Life