How to Use Self Hypnosis Part II On the Move

Make going places fun using self-hypnosis!

If you are on the move hypnosis is a really great way to optimise and amplify your experience, especially if you are about to do something important. The fact is a lot of the time before a big occasion, people automatically use hypnosis in a negative way. This includes negative visualisation and self talk, amplified sensory perceptions (before going on stage or doing a talk many may remember “jumping” when someone talked to them or disturbed them) going into a negative trance (maybe some people call this freezing) and other non constructive, purely mental reactions.

Imagine this situation, an event is coming up. It could be a performance, a sports event or an exam. Everything you recognise on the way becomes a negative indicator this experience is going to happen soon! Maybe you’re walking from a bathroom into a sports hall and each door you pass, you get more nervous as you get closer. This kind of thing is very understandable, but is purely psychological. In hypnosis, something that increases an experience is called a deepener. In this case, the indicators you are getting closer are deepening your anxiety. What if you could have the opposite effect?

The good news is this is more than possible. You simply need a change of perspective, and you have this ability already.

The only difference in using hypnosis to these natural processes is that they aren’t guided. If you design your own bedroom, why not design your own mind? Most people spend more time working on their Facebook page than they do on their brain. I know which one I think is more important!

So here are some really simple tips on how to use hypnosis whilst on the go.

An Array of Anchors

Pressure and stress makes people forget. So the first thing you need is an anchor that reduces your stress, this will help you remember things in a really delightful way. What you need to do is build a frame of reference that you can mentally go back to each time you are feeling stressed or pressured! You may actually have to build this frame of reference from your environment! For me, making a private space as nice as possible, lighting candles and being surrounded by a multi sensory experience was my solution. It is important this is a space you can use without worry it can be made negative by other experiences for at least a portion of time. It is also important it is not a space that has negative memories that distort the positive feel you are after.

Find some smells, tastes, sounds, objects and visual triggers that make you feel good. For example, I carry a pebble around with me, and every time I have a nice experience I’ll take the pebble out and just hold it. This has an effect where when I simply holding it, I feel quite good! It’s very much Pavlovian conditioning. Lavender and rosemary essential oils are another great way to help you relax and remember. In a relaxed state, before an upcoming event, expose yourself to these smells and enjoy them. Before the event is about to start, put them on your cuff or on your clavicle so the smell is there to calm you.

Before you are about to take part in the event, taste something you like (in moderation, especially if you’re about to do a sport) and then listen to some music that makes you feel happy. All of these things are anchors that tie you to a place in time. You need to make these things real enough in your memory to recall at will.

These anchors later will help drown out the previous negative triggers!

Harnessing Physical Processes

Harnessing things you will do day to day can really help you build a sense of confidence. Think of things you always do. For me I usually harness the following things. Walking, shaking hands, looking at people in the eye, smiling and breathing.

When you are walking, all you have to do is say to yourself “With every step I feel better and better, and I don’t even know why…” I am not saying these are magic words or will make your event go better. However, they do replace negative self talk such as “For fucks sake I am going to fail this exam! I hate it I hate it, I need this to be over! If I don’t pass I won’t get a job and I won’t have any money, and I’ll be homeless and begging on the streets!” Believe it or not, some people are saying this type of thing to themselves in the run up to some really important events! I think we can agree it doesn’t help. It’s not even true, but they make it so real, it becomes so.

When you shake someone’s hands (such as in an interview or presentation) tell yourself “I’m making a connection with a new person, and even if this doesn’t work out right now, who knows what opportunities could come in the future from this meeting.”

When you look at someone in the eyes, imagine a golden bridge between your heart and theirs. Allow this to be filled with good and warm emotions, and imagine them feeling great because they met you. I don’t believe this golden bridge is magical, though it is just as real as the negative self talk that makes people give up. 

Visualising this does make you come across as nicer and warmer for thinking it! Experiment with this with a friend and see if they can guess when you are feeling kinder towards them.

When you are walking on the way to your event, imagine you are “fishing” for smiles. Try and make a game of smiling at as many people as possible. You’re rehearsing and reliving all the times you smiled before! This will help you feel good and relaxed before the big moment.

As you breathe, say to yourself “I am breathing in happiness and breathing out worry.” It’s easy to look at something like this and say “That won’t work.” Try it first, it is a very different thing when you experience something to reading about it. It has a physiological effect, and for me it has even resulted in my bones popping from the relaxation. I didn’t even know I had been stressed!

The Big Drop

In hypnosis, often rapid trance inductions or deepeners take the form of lifting a hand of the subject up, and dropping it to show the subject is completely relaxed and offers no resistance.

You can do this yourself, in a parked car, in a private space or wherever suits you, raise your hand up high, and tell yourself “all my stress is going into my fist” and clench your fist. Then say “When I drop my hand, all my worries will disappear into the air.” Completely let go and allow your hand to flop relaxed and heavy. It’s often good if it lands on your thigh so you really appreciate how relaxed you are. The contact from your hand hitting your thigh is also another deepener showing you, not telling you, that you can be relaxed.

Travelling to the site of the event

Sharing Our Problems

Often we get into a position of learned helplessness when we come up to a big event. We get to the point where we feel strained and remember all the things we can’t do, but not the things no one said we couldn’t do! No one said we had to be miserable before an exam, but it seems to be the default state. Some queues to an exam look like a death row or a Roman slave auction. Why not have a laugh or feel a sense of mischief?

When walking or making your way to an event, if you hear a plane flying over, a car driving or a person walking past, imagine throwing your worries into the plane, the boot of the car or the back pocket of the person walking past you. When we walk around with our problems and stresses, it’s like having our hands full! Feel the sense of relaxation as for the first time in a while you walk around “empty handed” and unbridled.

Changing Perspective

When playing computer games you can often choose the vantage point you use to observe your character. Why not do this for yourself? Imagine seeing yourself from different angles. Perhaps from the car that passed, the plane that flew over or the person who walked past. Looking at yourself from these perspectives often detaches you from your negative emotions. Detached states aren’t always positive, but they do have their uses. Harness them for constructive purposes.

After you have done this, intensify your positive emotions. You want to really amplify everything that makes you feel good! Hearing, seeing and feeling. Allow yourself to see things as if for the first time, to get that curiosity of a child and feel liberated. There is nothing wrong with allowing yourself to enjoy the process up to an important event, and no one is about to give you the permission to. So do it for yourself!

Evan Burgess is a qualified hypnotherapist. Contact him to book an appointment to help you find your own solutions for issues affecting your life. Whether it be improving upon what is already working, coping with a tough situation, or making constructive changes to your habits. If Evan can’t help your particular issue, he will know another therapist who can! Get in touch on Evan@Cirencester-Scene.co.uk, or ring 07901 634 748.

For a list of things that hypnosis can help with, check out this link!

How to Use Self Hypnosis Day to Day Part 1

Looking up is one of the best ways to make yourself drowsy!
This will help your feeling of relaxation in self-hypnosis.

For this Part I about self-hypnosis we will look at a really simple technique if you can sit down for 5 to 15 minutes!

How to Use Self Hypnosis

Self hypnosis is a rather easy way to achieve all sorts of positive things. The most straight forward is relaxation! Throughout a day I will use some techniques that I think most people would find easy and enjoyable. These techniques don't require equipment beyond what you would find in a house.

Induction
You will need to bring yourself into a state of relaxation using an induction. As you progress in self-hypnosis the time this takes can be reduced with faster techniques. To do this the first step is to pick a point of focus with your eyes. This could be a candle light, or it could be a point on a wall a bit higher than your natural eye level. This allows your eyes to start to feel like closing. Once you do this, imagine seeing something in the flame, or wall, like you were watching your favourite place. Enjoy this for a while, and then start to count down from ten. First breathe in, then count on the out breath. Tell yourself with each count, your eyes will become more and more tired, but they cannot yet close. When you get to one, you will be allowed to close your eyes. Inbetween counting, say in your mind “As I breathe out, I breathe out tension, and as I breathe in, I breathe in joy”.

At the point you have counted down to one, tell yourself that your feet are heavy, like they are lead and the floor is a magnet. Let yourself relax, and feel yourself being in a very nice calm place. Tell yourself you are surrounded by a warm comfortable blanket.

Deepener

As an example, I will give you some ideas to help you relax any aches and pains. Tell yourself that you can feel your right hand as if it has someone lifting it for you. Raise your hand up and feel as if it is being lifted for you. Then, tell yourself when you drop your hand and it hits your thigh, it will be a symbol that you are ten times more relaxed. Now you can just droop. Sink into yourself and enjoy the comfort of your own relaxation for a moment.

Intervention

If you are feeling any negativity, tension or pain, tell yourself your body is being scanned by a healing light, from your feet to your head. As you breathe in, tell yourself the body part you want to work on. As you breathe out, tell yourself the body part is healing and relaxing. Give yourself a few breaths before you move onto the next body part. If you are in a rush do both legs at a time, if not, try the right side then left side. Tell yourself from time to time it is ok to adjust if your muscles relax to the point you need to extend your body. If you hear a crack or two, well done you’re making progress!

Now, here is some fun. Tell yourself after you have gotten all the way through your body that there is a part of your body that is very warm, as if it was on fire with a healing flame. It is often good if you focus on one hand or foot. Let this flame and warmth spread through your body. You can imagine the flame in many colours, or whatever suits you. It has been shown that using the imagination can really increase the body heat of a person, and some subjects have even been able to produce blisters from hypnotic trances, so why not enjoy a little warmth? This is a really good way to help headaches because it pulls blood flow from a constricted area. What raises the temperature is the blood circulating in the "warmed" area. This reduces the flow to the head, where the small capillaries can't cope. Pressure off!

Awake and Aware

Once you feel sufficiently refreshed and relaxed, maybe doze a few moments. Then allow yourself to wake up calmly and without rush. Once you’re up, sit up straight, breathe in, look around and get up. Self hypnosis is fun, free and with practice can be highly rewarding! Just try it yourself and do not be afraid to experiment. What do you have not to gain?

You may experience a slight distortion in your perception of time. This is very normal and in fact can be quite fun, but if you need to, set an alarm.

Evan Burgess is a qualified hypnotherapist. Contact him to book an appointment to help you find your own solutions for issues affecting your life. Whether it be improving upon what is already working, coping with a tough situation, or making constructive changes to your habits. If Evan can’t help your particular issue, he will know another therapist who can! Get in touch on Evan@Cirencester-Scene.co.uk, or ring 07901 634 748.

For a list of things that hypnosis can help with, check out this link here!

How We Are Hypnotised by Life Part I Not Hearing, Seeing or Feeling Something

We're often overstimulated and get hypnotised by day to day
life!

In part one of this series, Evan Burgess will take you through how some of the natural phenomena under the umbrella of hypnosis work on us in day to day life. Once we understand them, we can then start to use these processes to our advantage. Hypnosis is shrouded in mystery but here are some day to day examples of what it is, later we will look at how these can be used in a beneficial way.

Hypnosis is a group of natural phenomena under one umbrella term. In reality, almost everyone in the world experiences at least one of these phenomena every day. They happen anyway, but at random. If you have day-dreamed, you have been in a condition the same as a hypnotic trance. It just wasn’t directed. Hypnosis at it's simplest is guided day dreaming.

When a daydream is undirected, it is left to chance if this is a constructive or negative occurrence. The default setting of life is negative, therefore if you are daydreaming with the radio on, it could be influencing you subconsciously. The news is a perfect example, you switch on and hear about war and crime. Imagine BBC Breakfast covering a story like this “Steve Harlow has been working hard for a year and just bought a new BMW in cash. He’s really happy about that.” The look on most of the audience’s faces would not be congratulatory or happy, they’d probably think “Why is this on the TV?” But why not? Technically it is news, it did just happen! Yet in the western world, our “News” format actually means “bad things that have just happened”. This constant barrage can give our day an undercurrent that doesn’t boost us. It takes up space in our minds and actually works to overwhelm and confuse us.

The benefit of hypnosis is in harnessing these phenomena and choosing what goal they will be used towards.

Some people will say something like “I can’t be hypnotised” without really understanding what hypnosis is. It is in a way creating an adversarial challenge when most hypnosis is cooperative. This is not always their fault, as hypnosis is considered to be something “done” to a person. This is not quite true. Hypnosis relies on the individual’s internal processes. Therefore, a person can certainly make the processes work easier or resist them. When there is resistance to a hypnotist, it is a bit like resisting a dentist. The phenomena within hypnosis are as real as a dentist’s drill, but whether they can be used on a resisting person effectively is a very different story. A dentist would not want to clean up the plaque of someone who says “Come on then, let’s see if you can do it to me.”

Having said that, whenever a person has more than about 7 processes running in their brain at the same time, they can often “crash” like a computer. The person is sent into a default mode where their subconscious puts them on autopilot. It is no surprise that life alone can produce these overwhelming conditions. Because it is impossible to “resist” life effectively, people are often victims of circumstance. So once we know this is the case, we can try and avoid any negative circumstances.

Here are some examples of how a person can be hypnotised by life alone.

Types of Negative Hallucination Including Not Hearing, Seeing or Feeling Something

A negative hallucination is when something that happens is not perceived. Here are some examples.

Not Hearing Something When Concentrating
You are deep in a book, you are reading a story that requires you to hear words in your mind, see pictures, and create the world on the page. Someone says to you “You want a cup of tea?” you don’t here them. They come up to you again and tap you on the shoulder, you jump. “I didn’t see you there!” “But I just talked to you!”, “No, I didn’t hear you?” You were already running so many processes you couldn’t hear what was being said. Try in a crowded café to hear every conversation, you can’t, you have to choose one or two to follow.

Not Seeing Something When Stressed or Overloaded
Picture this, you are searching for something you need before you leave the house. You are in a rush. You needed your car keys five minutes ago but they’re missing. You’re not quite sure if you want to go to the place anyway because it is not going to be enjoyable. Hopefully this will have triggered memories of a doctor’s appointment, a boring get together or a commitment like getting to a garage.

Someone walks into the room and says “What are you looking for?” you say “My car keys!” like it is their fault. They calmly walk over to a mantelpiece you have already checked, pick up the keys and say “Here they are.” This “not seeing” is produced by having too many processes running. One way of avoiding this situation is to have a specific place for your keys, this way you have one less thing to think about. It reduces the tasks your mind must complete and improves clarity.

Here is another example of when you do not see something. You are going about your business, and someone asks you to look for something. They assume you are doing nothing, but you are in fact in deep thought. “Get me the salt please!” they say. It is the one extra thing that makes you overloaded. You look for the salt but can’t see it. “I can’t find the salt!” they walk in, “Here it is!” and the salt is right in front of you. This happens when your processes are already in motion and something else is added. 

If this happens to you often, you have to try and stop running so many processes at the same time. This means if your phone is on, the radio is on, the TV is on and the cat is meowing at you... maybe turn off a few things and put the cat outside! I had a girlfriend who couldn't leave her phone alone for five minutes. When you talked to her she would start texting, put on a film, start leafing through a book and roll a cigarette all at the same time. She was always in a state of confusion and stress, but no one had done this to her. It led her to doing things such as forgetting appointments, being late to work and always tired because she never relaxed. 

Another symptom of running too many processes is if you are talking to someone but use the name of a person you have just thought about. This happens a lot when parents talk to their children, many parents list the names of their various children until they get to the one in front of them! Maybe this has happened to you?

Not Feeling Something
You are daydreaming as well as performing a task like cleaning. Maybe you’re listening to headphones to fight the boredom and also wondering what to have for dinner. You walk into a table, it doesn’t feel painful. A few days later you have a bruise and you can’t remember where it came from. You never felt any pain. This is an example of how we can reduce sensation when we are focused on other things.

In part II we will look at how Momentary Amnesia is triggered and how Confusion can put us into a trance like state!

Evan Burgess is a qualified hypnotherapist. Contact him to book an appointment to help you find your own solutions for issues affecting your life. Whether it be improving upon what is already working, coping with a tough situation, or making constructive changes to your habits. If Evan can’t help your particular issue, he will know another therapist who can! Get in touch on Evan@Cirencester-Scene.co.uk, or ring 07901 634 748.

For a list of things that hypnosis can help with, check out this link here!

Guard Alpacas: Protecting Chickens From Foxes

Terrifying: An Alpaca will keep foxes away.

Guard Alpacas: Protecting Chickens From Foxes
How do you utilise what is in your environment? Maybe you have more available to you than you are aware of.

Recently Alpacas have taken off as the go to solution from everything from wool to walking! Yes, you can now walk an alpaca and learn more about yourself from this. But as with all animals under farming conditions, no one is sure what do with the excess males. One couple decided to turn them into burgers. “We went with them on the final journey.” I remember reading in the newspaper. I am sure that was a consolation for the alpacas before the cold embrace of death!

A somewhat more humane use for the males is now guarding chickens from foxes. Simply, the alpaca is a territorial animal and not scared of foxes. Foxes are not in danger from the alpaca, but like to keep a low profile and the alpaca startles them. This does the job! On the radio, a man was talking about this innovative solution. Surely nothing was quite so clever! 

The chicken farmer asserted it was an amazingly effective way of protecting the chickens. The radio host said, “Did you ever try geese?” The farmer seemed confused. “I’ve not heard of that before.” “I always thought you could use geese.”

Sure enough, just like there are other sources of fur and burgers, geese are sufficient to protect chickens from foxes. Aggressive, loud and territorial, the bird has no fear of the fox. There may well be a great and seemingly modern solution to something going on in your life. But if it is too exotic or expensive, search for something from the past that could be equally effective, and closer to home!

Find out about protective alpacas here.

Evan Burgess is a qualified hypnotherapist, and can help with issues including weight loss and achieving targets in all areas of life. With a degree in music recording and qualifications in English teaching, Evan has lived abroad and enjoyed learning languages and exploring alternative ways of living. This means he can see things from many points of view, and realises that differences make us richer. Having written a travel writing book about being a street musician, Evan has performed on street and stage in nine countries. So if you have any problems with fear or confidence, you can be sure to get some tried and tested advice. One thing you can be sure of is that no advice will be given on subjects that Evan doesn’t understand first hand. Constantly testing himself despite being a slow learner, Evan is comfortable being uncomfortable. Not a gifted student at school, Evan had an epiphany when learning Swedish and getting the best mark in his class on a test after six months of study. He had learned what worked for him, and can help you learn yourself. To book an appointment contact: Evan@cirencester-scene.co.uk

Your Mind as a Garden

Is your mind closer to a tulip field or a
building site with japanese knotweed?

Mental Gardening
Your mind is very fertile, and thoughts are like seeds that grow into plants. However, some thoughts are like weeds and are almost impossible to get rid of. This comes to such an extent that many people put the cart before the horse. Some people seem to believe their thoughts are something that just happen to them. This isn’t really true.

Your mind is more of an echo chamber, where what is put into it reverberates. Listening to the echo, it might feel like there was never a beginning to the noise. But there was. So to stop the echoing thought, take away the cause of its existence, whilst also replacing it with something else. A better, more constructive sound will soon take over until the negative one has disappeared. As with the negative sound, there must be a seed sound.

Japanese knotweed will grow anywhere
it can.

Like with plants creating their own seeds, a new better plant will replace itself. If you have a fertile flower bed, just imagine taking out all the weeds and then leaving it empty. No greater opportunity exists for the weeds to return.

Often I have noticed that with people who feel depressed, it is because their standards are very, very high. Sometimes they can keep the plates spinning, but they cannot achieve it constantly. This has a counter intuitive effect of making them endure an incredibly low standard of life. This for me, is because if they can’t have perfection, it doesn’t even matter. With your flower bed, maybe you can’t have the prettiest flower. But surely, you can have a better one than the weed that would grow instead?

Your mind as a garden
Your mind is a garden. For some people, it is a chore to sort out their garden. For others they take great pride in establishing their will upon it. Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter, the garden is organised and is doing what they can within the boundaries. No, they can’t control the weather, but they can control the garden.

This doesn’t mean you can turn your garden into a 7 acre plot, but you can certainly make the most of what you do have. Imagine how long you can leave a garden before it needs something done to it. The weeds are always trying to take hold, and what stops them is actually the fact something else is there. The earth has been dug and raked, and something intended is planted and cultivated instead.

Can you begin to see the parallel between the mind? In order to stop thoughts of negativity, something else must be put in its place. Unless you believe nothing is a thing, it is quite hard to just blank something out. It is easier to replace it. All too often we forget we have the power to switch off a bad TV show, turn down the volume on the radio or change the playlist. But with our minds, a lot of the time we are even less aware the wonderful choice we have.

Something will grow in your mind if you do not put something better in. Some happy go lucky minds might get beautiful wild flowers, but a lot of the time weeds will take hold. Decide to replace it with something! If you can’t decide on the perfect thing, just decide on something that is better.

If rust never sleeps, and life is what happens when you make other plans, do you really need perfection when right now, you just need a more comfortable ride?

Evan Burgess is a qualified hypnotherapist, and can help with issues including weight loss and achieving targets in all areas of life. With a degree in music recording and qualifications in English teaching, Evan has lived abroad and enjoyed learning languages and exploring alternative ways of living. This means he can see things from many points of view, and realises that differences make us richer. Having written a travel writing book about being a street musician, Evan has performed on street and stage in nine countries. So if you have any problems with fear or confidence, you can be sure to get some tried and tested advice. One thing you can be sure of is that no advice will be given on subjects that Evan doesn’t understand first hand. Constantly testing himself despite being a slow learner, Evan is comfortable being uncomfortable. Not a gifted student at school, Evan had an epiphany when learning Swedish and getting the best mark in his class on a test after six months of study. He had learned what worked for him, and can help you learn yourself. To book an appointment contact: Evan@cirencester-scene.co.uk

A Boy With No Ears

Napoleon with his famous book.

A Boy Born With No Ears

Imagine you had a child born with no signs of having ears. 

Instead there would be a sealed area of skin where ears would be. This would be a shock, but Blair Hill was born before this could have been ascertained before birth, and before plastic surgery was viable. The son of Napoleon Hill, perhaps Blair was born to one of the few people who would not accept nature.

Napoleon Hill had met Andrew Carnegie when he was 21, and asked if he would write a book about the 500 most successful people at the time. Carnegie was so well connected and wealthy he could make this happen. Hill said yes. Hill hadn’t known, but Carnegie was timing him to 20 seconds. Afterwards it was explained to him that if he had been indecisive the opportunity would have been taken away before fully explained.

Hill decided his son would one day hear. Not only that, he would also speak, as if he had no ailment. Every night, he would talk to Blair, with his lips pressed against the skull of his son. He didn’t understand it at the time, but the resonance through the bone activated the functioning inner ear, and in fact this meant that Blair could hear. Thus he thus didn’t miss the formative years of hearing that enable someone to speak properly.

When Blair grew up, his mother was always worried about him. And she worried for his future. What would he do when he grew up? Blair didn't hesitate. As a young boy, he was fearless. He took a job as a paper seller, hawking them on a street corner. He had the skill of selling. Later in life, a company called Dictograph made a hearing aid that allowed Blair to hear. He wrote to the company expressing his gratitude for allowing him to now converse normally.

He gave them feedback on the design, which led Dictograph to invite him to meet them. Soon it became clear they would be perfect bedfellows, and Blair began working for Dictograph. Who better to help sell something than someone who uses it? Living proof sells.

An example of bilateral microtia, the condition
Blair was born with.

It would have been easy to accept things as they were and not expect anything of Blair. But Napoleon Hill believed something strongly. Every adversity brings with it the seed of an equivalent advantage.

Do you have stories of adversity and how you turned it around? I am keen to know. Contact Evan@Cirencester-scene.co.uk with your stories.

Read more about Napoleon Hill here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_Hill