How Does It Feel?
During a hypnotherapy session, you will experience a mild trance state. Contrary to popular belief, you will be awake, fully conscious of what you are choosing to say, and in control of your experience much like you would be while playing a video game. It is not like talking in your sleep. Unlike a video game, there is the opportunity to have visceral sensations within your experience using internal versions of the five senses. Real memories, perhaps forgotten, can not only come alive but expand with new insights and perspectives. Imaginary or symbolically rich metaphorical landscapes can creatively and playfully inspire connection to hard-to-grasp emotional states or ideas.
How Low Can You Go?
Hypnotherapy offers the opportunity to experience different levels of depth and sensory engagement. This depends on several factors, including the comfort level of the client, familiarity with subconscious exploration, and the nature of the session’s intention. There’s no need to go pearl diving if you just feel like getting your feet wet, and you need not fear swimming in the deep end when this is not your intention. One benefit of working with a skilled mystical practitioner is for the assistance provided to intuitively hone your focus in a way that adjusts your hypnotherapy session to illuminate the most relevant content and deliver the ideal depth of experience for you.
Is It Like a Guided Visualization or a Medicine Trip?
Pre-recorded hypnotic music or guided meditations can theoretically induce similar, though usually not as deep, states of feeling. Both music and language have a guiding function within influencing navigation of one’s subconscious. Recordings, however, will never provide the same level of personalization as a live session.
Medicine ceremonies are filtered both through the biochemical agenda of a, usually poisonous, plant (including its own growth process and history) and the facilitator’s intentions. Depth is pre-determined by a dosage that is quite difficult to adjust once you’ve gotten going; and it’s unfortunately quite common for excessive weight to be given to the visioning phases rather than preparation or, more importantly, post-experience integration.
All methods of subconscious exploration have their respective benefits and drawbacks at different moments. In all cases, an individual’s comfort and rapport with their practitioner are of utmost importance. When you are working with a genuine mystic, empowerment, transformation, and deepening one’s connection and comfort within oneself and one’s reality are inevitably part of the program.
Tell Me What I Want to Hear
During the waking state, the conscious mind tends to run the show, and the voice and feeling of the subconscious (including, but not limited to one’s “intuition”) is usually quite stifled. Hypnotherapy allows you to adjust the ratio of conscious versus subconscious prominence within your field of experience. If I were to ask you a question while you were awake, alert, primarily using your conscious mind, your answer would most likely be logical, reasonable, and heavily filtered by the superficial requirements of day-to-day living. It wouldn’t exactly be a lie, but it wouldn’t likely be the whole truth either. This is primarily because people are conditioned and encouraged to edit themselves.
Speaking from the Soul
If I were to ask you the same question within the hypnotherapy space, you might find your answer to be less conflicted by your perceived limitations, easier to articulate, inclusive of not only (perhaps) more honest feelings regarding the subject but more expansive points of view. In both cases, you would have complete control over what you choose to share; the hypnotherapy space, however, makes it far more effortless to connect to or recognize what one might call one’s “deeper truth”. But, is this fanciful, soulful perspective practical?
Why Does $h!t Happen?
It is my belief that decisions made consistently for purely superficial reasons inevitably lead to “unforeseen” moments of crisis or confusion. These seem to happen when neglected deeper emotions and feelings build to the point of eruption, threatening (or, let’s say, strangely coinciding with) unexpected changes to one’s health or external reality. At first, it might seem like something shocking is necessary to goad a person into eventually acknowledging their deeper feelings, whether they openly admit it or not. And it is often connecting to these forsaken emotions of the subconscious “heart mind” or “soul mind” that become necessary to overcome the “external” jolt.
“I Knew That Would Happen!”
“Why didn’t I listen to my intuition?!” or “I could feel it coming!” Well, no one told you not to value or learn to better understand or work with your subconscious. Though, you’re not really to blame. Without a cultural upbringing that honors the more subtle realms or the combination of luxury and discipline to explore it in a meaningful way, why would you pay any attention to this ambiguous lint trap? And, with so many convincingly confident others chomping at the bit to “read” your subconscious for you, why would you assume the ability was even accessible to you?
Can I Trust My Subconscious?
There’s a lot of fluidity within the subconscious realm of unmanifest or only partially manifest floating thoughts and feelings. The best use of a hypnotherapy session might be to simply observe and feel without immediate analysis. Sessions are recorded for a reason. You might connect to ideas, feelings, and visions that have a sensation of truth or personal alignment far more profound than the limited options you were considering before. Every session also provides practice for developing more familiarity with the positive role showing attention to your subconscious can have in personal development or goal attainment.
It’s important to remember that the new, undervalued, or unfamiliar needs time to breathe and integrate (i.e., for you to figure out what to do with it) before it can fully ground or comfortably settle into your waking reality. This is another reason having support from a live facilitator during subconscious navigation can be very helpful. If you see or hear something you like in your subconscious (or in a tarot reading, for that matter), it is its inspiration and your dedication to bring it to life or course correct that makes it a “true,” “trustworthy,” “realistic,” or “accurate” vision.
So, What Do I Do in There?
Depending on your intended goal or area of curiosity, a custom journey or series will be tailored and co-created especially for you. All sessions begin with somatic (body) relaxation and light visualization. From there, you will find yourself naturally guided to different spaces, inspired by relevant verbal suggestion, and created by your subconscious. These “imaginary” backdrops, actual moments from your current lifetime, or even past/parallel lifetimes (if that’s your intent) afford the opportunity to connect to rare observations and sensations or more expansive versions of the narratives you’ve been telling yourself.
You will have the ability to slow down and more consciously adjust your intentionality and identification with what you experience, and this affects your surface reality. When the process feels complete, you gently emerge, alert and with full recollection, back to conscious reality. Layers of meaning and inspiration will continue to unfold after your session.
How Can Hypnotherapy Benefit Me?
The hypnotherapy process might unlock some deeper understanding about yourself, who you are, why you do what you do, like what you like, choose what you choose; it can show you additional layers to your past or complex relationship dynamics with others. When you feel into your chosen area of focus with your complete, unedited self, you might discover solutions, new approaches, or access to emotions or abilities you didn’t realize you had. This can be wonderfully transformative for bringing balance, empowerment, and confidence to your relationship to yourself and others, decision-making, and sense of wellbeing, among other things.
