Self-hypnosis—an effective alternative to meditation

We are living in unprecedented times, where we are facing countless challenges, but also opportunities for significant change. Do you feel sometimes overwhelmed and tired by everything that is going on right now? Does the uncertainty of the future of the country also make you feel stressed and exhausted?

Now more than ever, we need to find time to calm our minds and replenish our energy. More and more people find that meditating regularly improves their quality of life with an increased sense of health and well-being. Numerous scientific studies have demonstrated that meditation is very beneficial for alleviating anxiety and depression, as well as lowering blood pressure, cholesterol, and chronic pain.

Yet, there is an easy and effective alternative—or addition—to meditating, which isn’t as widely used: self-hypnosis. With self-hypnosis, you can change your thinking, stop self-limiting habits, and destress from everyday life. While there are similarities to meditation, especially when it comes to relaxing your mind and body, here are a few differences and advantages that self-hypnosis can offer you:

You directly communicate with your mind:

The goal of meditating is to calm your mind, which, especially at the beginning, can seem like hiking Mount Everest in flip-flops. You may have noticed when you started meditating, how despite your best attempts to become zen, your thoughts have a mind of their own. Like the game “Frogger”, you try to push down each thought as soon as it pops up, only to become more and more irritated at yourself. After a few minutes, you give up, convinced that meditating isn’t for you. Where do these thoughts come from, and why don’t they listen to you?

These irritating thoughts that seem to show up randomly whenever you sit down to meditate usually bubble up from the depth of your subconscious mind. The problem is that similar to a river, your subconscious mind doesn’t like its flow to be stopped, and its force gets stronger the more you try to hold it back. In contrast to meditating, with self-hypnosis you don’t attempt to halt the subconscious flow, but instead, you are guiding it into a more calm and desirable direction. So rather than wrestling with your mind, you are gently taking control of it.

You make your subconscious your ally:

Your subconscious mind has many tasks and abilities, such as creating your emotions, storing your memories, and being the source of your core beliefs and automatic patterns and habits. Some studies suggest that the subconscious controls 80% of your daily activities. However, despite its immense importance, this deeper part of your mind has one flaw—it needs conscious guidance to function well. Without the input of the conscious mind, your subconscious continues to run the same patterns that it learned a long time ago, often during your childhood. This is one of the reasons certain situations or people can make you feel small and powerless—just like a child. With self-hypnosis, you are consciously directing your subconscious mind to support you the way that you find is the most helpful and appropriate, given the situation you are in.

You become relaxed—and empowered:

While self-hypnosis is very relaxing like meditation, becoming calmer and more centered doesn’t have to be your only goal. Before you enter into a hypnotic state, you can set your intentions on what you would like your mind to change or become better at. This could be to feel more clear and at ease when facing difficult situations, to more confidently embrace change, or to break an old habit that has been holding you back. In the trance state, these intentions become instructions for your subconscious mind. Like a faithful servant, your subconscious will implement these instructions by aligning your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors with your goals. For example: You want to use self-hypnosis to become more comfortable with decision-making. In response to your instructions, your subconscious will help you to sift quickly through the information you are choosing from, to have a more confident attitude and body-posture, and to be decisive when it comes to making the call.

But how do you hypnotize yourself—and how do you know that you are doing it right?

Join me this Thursday, August 6th at Noon ET / 9AM PT, where I will share with you the dos and don’ts on self-hypnosis and meditation. After all, to make the best of these times, we need to be at our best.  You can also tune in on Facebook Live.