Hypnotherapy: Regulating Your Nervous System From the Top Down

For decades, people have misunderstood hypnosis and hypnotherapy. Stage shows portraying people being “put under” into some kind of deep, hypnotic “trance” for entertainment value have given people the impression that hypnosis is some kind of trickery or a joke. But the truth is that hypnotherapy and hypnosis are healing therapies that allow us to access our hidden, subconscious beliefs and thoughts that inform and run our lives. Once made conscious, these beliefs can be changed and people heal not only their minds, but their nervous systems and lives as well.

What Are Hypnotherapy and Hypnosis?

What is the difference between hypnotherapy and hypnosis? Hypnotherapy is the regression part of the therapy. In my practice, I induce my clients into hypnosis (which is really a very relaxed state, much like being in a deep meditation) and then I take them back to three scenes from their early childhood that may have caused their trauma and current life issues or struggles. Once the client sees these events, they are able to connect the dots from back then to today in order to make them conscious. Once conscious, they are able to release them from the grasp the events or beliefs have had on them for decades. Hypnosis is where I induce my client into a hypnotic state and I make them a transformational recording that they listen to daily for several weeks in order to change their limiting beliefs, patterns of behavior, or habits. The mind works on repetition, so my recording changes the neural pathways and creates new ones that become my client’s new normal.

Making the Unfamiliar Familiar

Your mind has been traveling the same neural pathways for decades and it is like a computer. It uses the same software (programming) it has been using since you were young because it is familiar and, because you have not died from doing it (i.e., believing that you are not enough, eating junk food on repeat, gambling your life savings away, fighting with your partner, etc.), your mind continues doing it. The subconscious mind thinks in black and white and literally and its job is to keep you alive. If you have not died, even though you smoke two packs of cigarettes a day and have for many years, it will allow you to keep doing it and it might even sabotage your best efforts at quitting simply because you are not dead…yet. But because the primal part of your mind thinks in the present moment and absolutes—and, again, since you have not died—it will not only allow you but will even EXPECT and REINFORCE your habits.

This is why we want to change your neural pathways. Your neural pathways are plastic and can be changed and once the brain realizes you won’t die from eating more greens, it gives you the go-ahead. This is why hypnotherapy helps with losing weight, quitting addictions, helping to ease anxiety, stopping abusive patterns, creating healthy boundaries, loving your body, stopping intrusive or looping thinking, enhancing sports or sales performance, and so many other present-day problems. Once we literally “change” the mind (mindset), there is nothing we can’t do. Sabotage becomes a thing of the past. So, we want to make what was once unfamiliar (being healthy and happy) familiar so that your mind gets on board. The mind tells the body everything it needs to believe and once the body believes it, the world bends to make that your reality. So, my guess is that you probably want to make your body believe the good thing—being fit, healthy, rich, happy, in love and so on. Right?

Will Power Alone Does Not Change Patterns of Behavior

So many people blame themselves for not losing weight or quitting smoking when the truth is that your mind is in charge, not your will. Your brain has specific areas that are triggered into behaviors simply because of primal needs or survival instincts. For example, you might have started comfort or emotional eating at a young age so that you would feel safe in a hostile or abusive home or to add weight in order to be invisible to possible sexual predators. This is not something your conscious mind “decided.” Your subconscious did this in order to protect you. So, you and I go in and we start the process of rewiring your subconscious mind and helping areas of your nervous system gain regulation and safety so that you are then able to change behaviors that you could never change before.

Saying you “self-sabotage” is actually self-judgment and is not even true. Sure, your own mind sabotages your “self,” but it’s not like you have conscious control over it. If you go on a diet and eat way less than your brain is used to you eating, it WILL sabotage you, but that’s only because it truly believes it is saving your life from famine and death. Once we recognize this, we can work with the mind to help it help you lose excess weight.

Calming the Nervous System and Finding Inner Peace

The most wonderful part of hypnotherapy and trauma recovery coaching is the impact it has on the nervous system. We work with the cognitive, somatic, and imaginal realms of the mind and body and this helps your entire being heal. Healing the nervous system helps to heal the body because when the nervous system is activated, it cannot easily do its job of helping to calm down enough to heal. Once limiting beliefs such as “I don’t matter” or “I am unworthy” are resolved and stopped, they are not triggering the nervous system anymore and a feeling of regulation and peace come over your mind and body. Once we rewire your neural pathways, your nervous system being downregulated becomes your new normal, which is life-changing in terms of your healing—mentally, emotionally, and physically.

Hypnotherapy and hypnosis are not stage show acts. They are healing modalities that can change the very course of your life for the better. While induced into hypnosis, my clients have reported not even feeling like they were “out of it.” This is because you are actually MORE alert and aware than you are in your normal, waking life. I simply could never ask you to do anything against your will (like have you give me your bank account information or cluck like a chicken) because you would just tell me “no.” Please consider doing some hypnotherapy or hypnosis with me. I know you will love it!