If you think about it, the subconscious mind uses the same language as dreams – images and feelings. And any problem that we might deal with in the hypnosis office has its origins in the same place as the client’s night dreams.
The MIND.
Our thoughts and beliefs come out of our feelings and perceptions. So our job, as hypnosis professionals, is to help our clients change the underlying perceptions. So they can feel better. And make better choices that support health, wealth, and happiness.
In other words, so they can heal.
A Course in Miracles (ACIM) is a self-study program in psycho-spiritual healing. At the core of ACIM is the role of forgiveness in healing. And the Course states, “To heal is to make happy.”
Isn’t that all anyone really wants?
Anything we might want to change is so we can be happy. And what needs to change is the perception that’s keeping us stuck and unhappy. And that’s what hypnotherapy facilitates.
Healing hypnosis is a process. It’s a process of restoring the client to a state of happiness.
Health is a state of physical happiness.
Peace is a state of mental happiness.
Confidence and contentment is a state of emotional happiness.
In The Devil’s Therapy: from Hypnosis to Healing, I used a Grimm’s fairy tale to illustrate this process. In the opening scene, the first thing asked of the hero is, “What’s wrong? You look so unhappy.” This is not merely an observation, “Gosh, you look pretty miserable …” It’s both a question AND the answer.
What’s wrong … is how you are LOOKING. How you see. It’s a problem of perception.
And dream working, specifically projective dream working, which is what I practice and teach, is a process of transforming perceptions.
Now, dreams are not just those interesting dramas we find ourselves involved in each night when we go to sleep. They’re also our daytime imaginings, mental rehearsals, and worries about the future.
Whatever is going on in your life, right now … is your dream.
And that’s why hypnotherapy is dream work. All that you see is just your take on reality. Your perception. And it’s all based on your history.
Your past experienced formed a lens through which you now view everything. It decides what’s possible. What you deserve. How life works. And what you should expect – from yourself, others, and life.
In the Frank Baum’s book, The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy Gale arrives at the Gates of Oz she is required to put on emerald colored glasses. The Emerald City isn’t really emerald – it just looks that way. That’s what the socializing process does to us. It puts a filter on HOW we will see the world and the things in it.
We call it programming. It tells us how to see by defining what’s acceptable. And what’s not.
And this is the fundamental problem.
What’s not acceptable gets rejected, denied, suppressed, and disowned. It’s still there, mind you. You can’t just throw away Parts of yourself. They just get relegated it to the Unconscious where they can wreak havoc.
We call this repression.
All pain is a symptom of this perceived separation from Self. We can’t actually actually separate, but we can disconnect from our awareness of self. And this sets up an internal yearning within us.
Sometimes we try to fill it with substances – food, drugs, alcohol, people, work, stuff – but that never works. Not really.
The reason we feel so lost and empty is because those Parts of us that have been denied strive for life. But so long as they are denied full expression, their energy is capped off. They’re trapped. And so are we.
That energy is our life force. So the more Parts of us we have a lid on, the less energy we have to live. Can you see how physical conditions might get started much earlier in life than we think?
If convention has conditioned us for lack and limitation, then it seems reasonable that the way to freedom and fulfillment must lie with the un-conventional. But there’s the problem.
Historically, anything that runs contrary to conventional thinking has been deemed ‘the work of the devil.’ Hypnosis has shared this esteemed position. And in some parts of the world, still does.
Of course, belief has never made a thing real or true. At one time we all believed in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. So I figured, why fight it!
“The Devil’s Therapy” is at least honest.
Now, I know some in our profession will take offense. That’s okay. I understand what it’s like to fear being ostracized. Criticized. And put down for entertaining thoughts that don’t endorse those of the flock. People have been burned at the stake for far less!
But I make no apologies. I simply choose to take my counsel from more well-informed sources.
Take Benjamin Franklin, for example. He wrote a paper entitled, “Fart Proudly.” (I kid you not.)
Maybe we should take his advice and proudly admit what we do! We’re hypnotists. And we ought to be proud of it!
I’m a hypnotherapist and a dream worker. Dream working has given me a unique perspective on how therapeutic hypnosis works to take a nightmare – whether it’s a night dreams, day dream, or this dream – and transform it into a better dream, a happier dream.
It can do the same for you.
So Benjamin Franklin and Dream Working really can make you a better hypnotherapist.
My website is currently under construction. Check it out! www.devilstherapy.com
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