Every Monday, I’m going to be addressing a common myth around hypnosis and hypnotherapy…

Sometimes, when I’m working with new clients to gather information for the work we’re going to begin together, they will say something like: ‘I am worried that you won’t be able to hypnotise me because I just can’t relax.’

In other words, hypnosis and relaxation are often thought of as more or less the same thing. Well, whilst it’s true that many people experience hypnosis and self-hypnosis as a deeply calming, centring or grounding experience in which their mind and body begin to feel more relaxed, we do not need to actually feel relaxed in order to go into hypnosis.

In fact, here’s the thing: You do not even have to empty your mind of thoughts in order to go into self-hypnosis.

I remember that this was a revelation to me, when I first began my training in self-hypnosis and hypnotherapy: What, you mean I can work with my monkey mind that is always jumping about all over the place? I can actually use all this restlessness and jumpiness and my mind that is making connections and asking questions all over the place, in order to enter a hypnotic trance?

Wow!

And, in fact, you can go into trance with one arm raised in the air – not that you would generally want to do that, (unless, of course, you were entering a national ‘who can hold their arm in the air the longest? competition’). I merely use this, rhetorically-speaking, to demonstrate my argument.

You can go into hypnosis in a doctor’s waiitng room or before an exam or driving test or before giving The Most Important Presentation of Your Entire Life or in just about any situation that you might previously never have imagined that you could ever feel relaxed.

What’s more, there is a feature of the hypnotic trance state, which is often referred to in the hypnotherapy and hypnosis literature as ‘proneness;’ that is, an observable quality about the arms or legs or neck or hand or other such part of the person in the ‘trance state’ that can sometimes develop and is powerfully indicative that the person is in trance.

This ‘proneness’ is a certain quality of the way in which the person holds or adopts a position that, out of hypnosis, we might naturally experience by fidgeting or moving around. But, in hypnosios, it’s almost as if the person’s brain has said,’Oh, I’ll just leave that arm there for now. I don’t need to be thinking about it anymore. It’s just there for now but I’ve got more important things to be thinking about,’ and their mind focuses on other things.

So hypnosis can be a very effective way to retrain our minds and bodies from anxious and restless and discomfort to calm and focused and comfortable. When someone says to me, ‘I don’t think I will be able to relax,’ I think ‘Yes! Hurrah! You’ve come to the right place. Because I can help you to learn how to relax deeply if that is what you want to be able to do.’

However, it is also important to remember that we can use hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis to cultivate the state of awareness that is approrpiate for the task in hand. For example, it might not be appropriate for you to feel all floppy and heavy if you are preparing to run a marathon or compete in a game of grand-slam chess. But it might be helpful for you to feel calm and focused, with the parts of your mind and body that you need for peak perfomance all working beautifully in their optimum state, whilst the rest of your body feels comfortable.

So, for today’s Monday Myth-Bust: Hypnosis is not relaxation and hypnotherapy is not necessarily ‘relaxation therapy.’ The consistent practice of self-hypnosis will help you to train your mind and body to cultivate deeper and deeper calm – which may include a feeling of relaxation. You don’t need to feel relaxed in order to use self-hypnosis or benefit powerfully from hypnotherapy. If you are a person who has found it difficult to relax, you may be surprised to discover the changes you ntoice when you expereince hypnotherapy and learn self-hypnosis.