You Use Hypnosis Everyday
You can notice it as daydreaming, a wandering mind or being hyper-focused. Hypnosis is around you every day. It is used when you communicate, both verbally and non-verbally.
Please forget what you may have seen about hypnosis being used to manipulate people’s decisions. If that were true, company’s would pay millions of dollars to do exactly that during a Super Bowl halftime show. Oh, wait, they do. Well, at least they attempt to, and it obviously works enough of the time to make it a good business decision. But, you know it doesn’t work every time or even most of the time.
Hypnosis is used on most of us very effectively by politicians, and advertising executives. And used poorly by most “pre-owned” car salesman. And yes, it’s used on you by friends and family. And yes, you use it on them too.
Using hypnosis is about bypassing the analytical mind and stimulating a learned behavior response. A behavior response will tend to be more predictable. Like my wife gets mad at me for staying up late to write this article. I don’t want her to be mad because that makes me feel guilty. She unintentionally creates an emotional response in me that motivates me to do what she wants. Sounds complicated until you start seeing how common it is.
The popular cola drink advertisement shows video that stimulates feelings of happiness, satisfaction, and companionship. People want to feel good and this ad’s emotion combined with repetitive exposure to the images will tend to make you think of that brand with good feelings. When you next see that brand of cola in the store, how do you immediately feel? Below the surface of your thinking? It may only be a subtle feeling, but it’s there. That’s emotional association at work.
Things like this are constantly happening around you, and everyone else. Many so minor you don’t even notice. Unnoticed until you try to change them. You might experience that as fighting a craving or urge. You’re likely aware that habits are formed in this way, but may not understand how powerful this can be and what a large influence on your life it can have.
The stronger the emotion is, the stronger the association. The stronger the association is, the more vivid the memory. The more vivid the memory, the more real it is to your mind and more influence it has on your behavior. Your mind does not have a real concept of time passing. What it sees in your imagination, or memory, it believes. At least, most of the time.
So, take this concept and apply it to someone with PTSD, or depression. Apply it to that person you know that can’t quite quit smoking or has a favorite comfort food. Apply it to your driving habits, your eating habits, and your stress level. At the risk of being boring, I’ll stop the examples and assume you get it.
Seeing this process in action and understanding the concept can give you a big step forward in changing your habits. Sometimes you can do it on your own. Sometimes it’s easier to use help. Find a professional hypnotist you can trust and use them. That’s their job.
