How Hypnotherapy Can Help You Cultivate Positive Thinking
Here’s How Hypnotherapy Can Help You Cultivate Positive Thinking
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“Think positive.” You hear it constantly. Gurus, life loaches, and your impossibly peppy friend tells you that positive thinking leads to good things. But let’s be real: it’s much easier said than done. Controlling the mind is not a simple task. If you could just snap your fingers and turn your mind into a happier environment, you would. Maybe you’ve tried some techniques, like meditation, mantras and motivational sticky notes all over your mirror, but they’re not working.
Adjusting your thoughts towards a more positive outlook is a worthy endeavor. According to the Mayo Clinic, a more optimistic outlook can help you live longer, fight cancer, boost your immunity and even lower your pain levels. Positive thinking doesn’t only fight the bad stuff, though – it can help you unlock your best life. Oprah is famous for touting the benefits of positive thinking and has often said it’s been the single most potent tool in her success story.
If you’ve tried everything and still can’t stop the rumination and negative thinking, it could be time to try something new. Hypnotherapy has reportedly helped people adjust their mindset to a sunnier one. If you’re ready to give it a try, here’s what you should know about using hypnotherapy for positive thinking.
How Does Hypnotherapy Work?
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There is a lot of information as well as misinformation about hypnosis. So, first, it’s important to understand that, unlike what you see in movies and TV shows, you don’t lose control over your actions during hypnosis. You remain awake and in control of yourself.
To start your session, your hypnotherapist will speak in a gentle tone and describe relaxing imagery. They will do this repetitively, and simple, rhythmic music might play in the background. The point of this is to cultivate a sense of deep relaxation, well-being, and a feeling of security.
When you reach a state of hypnosis, your breathing will slow down, your heart rate and pulse will drop, and your metabolic rate will slow down. Once you’ve achieved this state, the idea is that you have bypassed the conscious mind and have tapped into the unconscious mind. From here, you are open to suggestions about changing your behaviors.
Speaking To Your Unconscious Mind
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You want to move past the conscious mind and into the unconscious one because the conscious mind is noisy and often a liar. It’s constantly analyzing, judging and projecting limiting beliefs and outdated ideas onto everything it sees. But it’s also the mind you’re usually making decisions with. Your unconscious mind holds the truth about what you think and feel. Some of those truths aren’t pretty but need to be confronted.
Many experts in hypnotherapy would tell you that your beliefs about your own identity were formed and solidified when you were a child. You had experiences, and those experiences delivered specific messages to your brain about who you are and how the world works. You were little, so you didn’t have the context or wisdom to challenge those messages. You took them in, and they sunk deep, and eventually, they became “facts” to you. But most (if not all) of your negative, limiting beliefs are not facts. You just have to talk to your unconscious mind to dislodge them, which happens during hypnosis.
This is also why it’s important that a hypnotherapist put you in a state of feeling safe. You’re talking to your inner child in many cases, and they need to feel secure enough to reveal fears and doubts. It’s common to cry (and sometimes cry a lot) during hypnosis because you’re finally releasing negativity you’ve been holding onto for decades.
Using Visualization For Long-Term Healing
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When you are in a state of hypnosis, your therapist will help you come up with a scenario you can really visualize that you will tie to the feeling or experience you want to have. Hypnotherapy relies heavily on patterns, metaphors and associations. So, your therapist might ask you what imagery, sounds and smells arise when you take yourself to a positive place. You’ll be encouraged to really go there in your mind as if it’s happening.
When you’ve reached the achieved state of mind – aka tapped into the unconscious mind – depending on what you’re working on, your therapist might encourage you to direct your thoughts one way or another. If it’s positive thinking that you’re working on, maybe you’d be encouraged to think about the silver lining of a situation instead of what’s bothering you or to think about your own attributes instead of your flaws. In this state, working from the unconscious mind, these positive thoughts can become your new truths and can replace the old, negative ones.
The idea is that you could bring yourself back to this state on your own over time. Through self-hypnosis, you could tap into your unconscious mind and your new, positive truths any time you felt negativity creeping in.
Not everyone can reach a state of hypnosis, and for it to be most effective, it’s best combined with other types of therapy like talk therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. If traditional, surface-level tools have not served you in your quest for more positive thinking, hypnotherapy might be the key to unlocking a new way of thinking.
