Bowers Hypnosis

Instead of contractions, they’re called surges. And don’t call it labor, it’s birthing. When the discomfort of childbirth kicks in, it’s pressure — not pain.

The philosophy behind HypnoBirthing is to remove the fear of giving birth, its practitioners say. They believe that by training themselves to calm their body and mind to a state of self-hypnosis, they can reduce pain and discomfort.

It’s another trend in birthing that gives women the opportunity to prepare for childbirth such as Lamaze classes, yoga and the Bradley method.

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Hypnosis, once the stuff of parlor tricks, is being taken seriously by a growing number of medical experts. Not only can clinical hypnosis help to treat some diseases and health conditions, but it’s also being used at a growing number of hospitals in place of anesthesia. Doctors are finding that using hypnosis in combination with local anesthesia can eliminate the need for general anesthesia for some surgeries, reducing costs and speeding recovery times. And procedures normally performed with local anesthesia can be done with hypnosis and less pain medicine. Here, a brief guide:

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Hypnosis is not just about changing behaviors, sometimes it is used to gain insight.  Recently I’ve had a number of clients who have come to me seeking help with a variety of challenges.  In each of these cases there was not a behavior that required changing, all the client needed was some insight into why these issues kept popping up in their lives.

Here’s an example.  A client comes to my office seeking help to cope with stress.  The quick solution is to teach the person how to relax whenever they are feeling stressed.  However, that’s not the best option because they still feel stressed.  All I’ve done in this case is to give them a band-aid that they can apply to the stress.

What if instead we found out what was causing the stress?  Then the client would be able to address the root cause of the stress in a manner that prevents the stress from reoccurring.  That would be a better solution wouldn’t it?

This is where the use of hypnosis to gain insight comes into play.  The goal is not to use hypnosis to change a behavior, rather it is to use hypnosis to allow an individual to gain the insight necessary to help them understand a situation and then make the appropriate adjustments in their life.

Another example might be that the client is unhappy in their job but doesn’t know what to do.  Just like in the first example there is no behavior that needs to be changed.  What the client needs to know is why , at a deep level, the job is making them unhappy and then to gain an understanding of what they need to do to change the situation.

When you use hypnosis to gain insight the goal is to allow the client to gain enough information so that the client can make the necessary changes to their life.  They are not changing a behavior, they are changing the way they live their life.

When I work with a client for the purposes of gaining understanding or self-knowledge the process is driven by the client.  My role as the hypnotist is to help them get to an empowered state of mind in which they can then discover the root cause of their issue.

Over the years I’ve worked with a number of clients who have used this process to discover the cause and solutions to their stress, their anxiety and a variety of other issues.  I’ve also worked with clients who just had “questions”.  Questions about their life or about the direction they need to go in.

I find clients with “questions” to be fascinating to work with.  Here’s what I tell them before they come into see me.  Write down your questions.  Read them over to yourself prior to coming into the office.  I then put them into an empowered state of mind, give them some simple instructions and then turn it over to them.  I don’t need to know what the questions are and because many of the questions are of a highly personal nature, the clients find this reassuring.  When the client is finished then I emerge them from hypnosis and send them on their way.  They’ve gained the knowledge and understanding to resolve whatever issues were related to the questions.

So, if you’re looking to gain some insight into your life try hypnosis.  You just may find the answers you’ve been looking for.

Till next time…

Leslie Mason was facing a £400 bill for the procedure to be performed privately as his local surgery in Colchester, Essex, had exhausted its NHS budget.

Mr Mason, 54, instead chose to play the role of guinea pig to a Hertfordshire dentist’s unorthodox form of treatment, using hypnosis as the only painkiller.

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Several days ago someone asked me what I did.  I answered that I was a hypnotist.  I explained what hypnosis was and what a hypnotist did.  I thought I did a pretty good job of it.  However, this person was still somewhat confused and wanted to know of some job that was analogous to that of a hypnotist.  Off the top of my head I didn’t have an answer but it got me to thinking.  After several days here’s what I’ve come up with.

A hypnotist is like a sports coach.

The purpose of a sports coach is to improve the performance of each athlete they work with.  They can give an athlete instructions and suggestions.  They can shout encouragement.  They can make subtle refinements in the athlete’s techniques.  But, what a coach cannot do is make the athlete improve.  The coach cannot force his will upon the athlete.

The athlete is the one who creates the change.  If the athlete follows the instructions and suggestions of the coach, if he does the work, then his performance improves.  However, if the athlete decides to ignore the coach then the athlete will fail to improve. No matter how great the coach is, the athlete is the one who must to the work and change.

In a nutshell, coaches suggest changes; the athlete decides whether or not to implement the change.

So why is a hypnotist analogous to a coach?  Here’s why.

The coach improves the performance of an athlete.  The hypnotist improves the lives of their clients.  We do this by bringing all of our training, experience and skill to each client.  We give them instructions and suggestions.  We give them encouragement.  Session to session we refine the process so that the client gets the maximum benefit.  But, just like the coach, we cannot make the client change.  Only you can do that.

There’s no lid on top of your head into which the consulting hypnotist pours in the good stuff.   People think that all they have to do is relax in a chair, listen to the suggestions and magic happens.  They believe that the power to change lies with the hypnotist.  Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.  The client is just like the athlete and the power to change comes from within.

You have to accept the instructions and suggestions.  You are the one who must do the work.  You are the one who creates the change.  And, like the athlete, if you choose to ignore our instructions and suggestions then you won’t change.  There is nothing I can do about that.  I’m just the coach.

If you come to me to quit smoking I’ll give you instructions and suggestions.  Follow them and you’ll become a non-smoker.  But you have to follow the instructions.  I can’t tap you on the head and make you a non-smoker.  I am just the coach.

The same thing is true with someone who wants to lose weight through hypnosis.  If you accepts my coaching then you will lose weight.  It’s up to you to make that decision.

It’s that way for everyone we coach; whether it’s for eliminating a fear, overcoming anxiety, dealing with stress, improving sports performance or a hundred other topics, I’m the coach and you are the athlete.  Follow the coach’s instructions and you change your life.

So there you have it, my analogy for what a hypnotist is.  I hope it helps explain my role and yours.

Till next time.

Just last week a weight loss client asked me the question, “How do I know it’s working?”   This is not the first time I’ve heard this question and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

I asked her if she was losing weight and the answer was yes.  In fact, she’d lost 7 pounds since the last visit.  Then she was quick to add that there didn’t seem to be anything different.  I dug a little deeper and it was then that she noticed that she’d been eating healthier and with smaller portions.  Both being suggestions that I’d given her.  It was only after she consciously reflected on her behavior that she noticed the change.

This is how hypnosis works.  When it’s done right you don’t notice the change.  It seems that people expect to see fireworks or hear trumpets sounding whenever they visit a hypnotist.  In reality it’s the opposite.  The individual simply continues on about their daily life not realizing that they’ve changed.

Let me explain.  All habitual behaviors are controlled in the subconscious mind.  For example, tying your shoe.  Everyone does it but no one stops to think how.  We just do it without thinking about it.  And because we don’t think about it we don’t notice it.

The same is true with behaviors that we want to get rid of.  Let’s use eating over sized portions as the habit.  We fill our plates with a certain amount of food because it’s habit.  We don’t consciously think about it.  So what if we change the “programming” behind the habit so that an individual puts 25% less food on their plate.  The habit of putting the food on the plate is still there, we’ve just modified the amount.  If the hypnotist delivers the suggestion effectively it stands to reason that the person will put 25% less food on their plate the next time they eat and never even notice the difference.  Why, because it’s habit and we don’t consciously think about our habits.

This is why hypnosis is so effective.  You don’t have to think about your behavior.

Compare that to having to count out calories or weigh portion sizes or count points the way some diet plans require you to do.  If you have to think about it then sooner or later you’ll get tired of it and you’re off the diet again.

I’ll end this post with two other examples of people changing and not realizing it.  In the first case a wife called to set up an appointment for her husband to quite smoking with hypnosis.  Before the third and final session she called to tell me that her husband decided not to come because he didn’t feel it was working.  When I asked the wife if he was smoking she just started laughing.  “No” she said, “he hasn’t smoked since the first session”.  Yes, his behavior had changed and he had quit smoking.

Another case was with a woman coping with anxiety.  While we were working together she went out of town on business.  While she was on this trip her colleague asked her the typical morning question “How are you today?”  She answered that she felt great and then it hit her.  She hadn’t felt any of anxiety since the last session nearly two weeks before.  She had not consciously thought about it until that moment.

That’s the beauty of hypnosis.  You can change peoples behaviors and change their lives.

Do you have any behaviors you want to change?

KIRSTEN RITCHIE, 44, is no stranger to surgery — nearly 20 years ago, doctors removed four tumors from her brain. She remembers the operation and its aftermath as “horrific.” So the news that she needed brain surgery again was hardly welcome. Determined to make her second operation a better — or at least less traumatic — experience, Ms. Ritchie, an insurance marketing representative in Cleveland, turned to an unusual treatment. At the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Integrative Medicine, she had four hypnosis sessions in the month before her procedure, during which she addressed her fear of the coming surgery. She also practiced self- hypnosis every day.

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By now, you likely know David Seidler, who won an Oscar on Sunday for best original screenplay for “The King’s Speech,” was a stutterer just like King George VI, whose battle with the speech disorder is portrayed in the film.

What you might not know is that Seidler, 73, suffered from cancer, just like the king did. But unlike his majesty, Seidler survived the cancer, and he says he did so because he used the same vivid imagination he employed to write his award-winning script.

Seidler says he visualized his cancer away.

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While this article doesn’t mention hypnosis, one can use hypnosis to enhance your visualization skills.

I want to take a moment and  talk about feelings and what they are trying to tell you.  Take a moment and think about having all of the money you’d ever want in life.  Create an image in your mind of a bank statement that shows millions of dollars in your account.  As you create this image notice how you are feeling deep down at the gut level.  Is it a positive feeling or a negative feeling?  Go ahead and take a minute to do this.

If the feeling was a positive feeling it means that you believe that this is possible in your life.  If the feeling is negative it means that the image that your are creating in your mind is in conflict with your beliefs or your self-image and you won’t be getting the million dollars soon.

It really doesn’t matter what the desire is.  Whenever you are experiencing a negative feeling when you hold a thought in your mind this feeling is telling you that you’re not going to get what you want or if you do get it you’re not going to like what you receive.

So what’s this got to do with hypnosis?  Simply this.  Hypnosis is a very effective tool that allows you to change your underlying beliefs and in doing so you can change how you experience life.  Using our example earlier imagine that you hold a belief that for some reason you’re not worthy of having the million dollars.  Through hypnosis you can remove this belief and replace it with an empowering belief that allows you to feel worthy of having riches.  When you feel worthy of being rich it’s much more likely that prosperity will enter your life.

It’s the same with anything; weight loss, quitting smoking, overcoming a fear, getting more out of life or living the life of your dreams.  The process is always the same.  Remove any beliefs that conflict with your desire, create beliefs that are aligned with your desire and then watch the magic happen in your life.

Imagine how wonderful your life would be if everything you thought of made you feel good.  It can be and hypnosis can help you get there.