Hypnotherapy and NLP training your brain for happiness and health.
As soon as I mention hypnotherapy and hypnosis people often immediately imagine scenarios of people acting like a chicken or dancing like Elvis as a result of having seen a stage hypnosis show Hollywood movie.
However hypnosis and hypnotherapy are not at all like its rogue cousin stage hypnosis. While that dysfunctional relative seems to focus on controlling others, hypnosis and hypnotherapy instead focus on how to help you regain control and choice in your life.
When you think about it, so many of the times when we might seek professional help or coaching, such as being fearful interviews, getting over angry about things, failing to communicate clearly in presentations or meetings are times when we are not very well in control of our selves, thoughts or choices - if we were, we'd probably chose very different ways of managing those situations!
Modern hypnotherapists address theses kinds of issues, and many more, by teaching you the skills of self hypnosis to get back in charge of your mind yourself and your life.
NLP and hypnotherapy are also distant cousins, in that they share an interest in the importance of language in helping people to make change and how they can get into difference 'states of mind' the meet the needs of any situation better.
This weekend, as part of my NLP practitioners and hypnotherapists training programme, we looked at the advanced language patterns used in hypnotherapy and we were able to create some amazing experiences. One of the most profound was creating hypnotic anesthesia - that is creating complete numbness and lack of sensation just by using words. There is a fascinating video of me helping someone to do this here.
It was particularly interesting from me to demonstrate this to my students, as two days later I was due to go into hospital to have some wisdom teeth removed.
When I was younger I had a long-standing fear of dentists, teeth extraction, injections, operations and above all general anesthetic, but over the years I'd done some work to resolve this using my NLP and hypnotherapy skills, although I had never had an opportunity to put this change to the test.
From my long clinical experience I know how powerful these skills are, but there's nothing quite like direct experience of using on yourself, is there!
A few days before the operation I made a short hypnosis audio track that I listened to a few times. It encouraged me to feel excited, incredibly relaxed and comfortable about the operation, it suggested the blood flow in my mouth would reduce and the teeth would be removed easily.
I was particularly struck by how in the days leading up to the operation I barely thought about it, and going in that morning I was incredibly calm and relaxed - I would've expected to have a few negative thoughts about it, but I simply didn't. And that for me was the most transformational thing, not having to work hard at being calm, it just naturally being there.
When I came round from the operation I was a bit groggy but I was really pleased to find that I didn't need painkillers even though there was extensive bruising.
One of the side-effects I wasn't prepared for was the difficulty in 'passing water' - that apparently about 70% of people have after general anesthetic. This is caused by the anesthetic interfering with the balance between the parasympathetic (the letting go part of the) nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system (which holds everything in) - so people often get the bizarre experience to feel the feeling of needing to 'go' and yet not being able to control their body to relax everything enough to let the 'water' out.
Once again some simple NLP processes and self-hypnosis came to the rescue, helping me to get the balance back in those nervous systems so I could get everything back to normal - which I can tell it was a very pleasant relief...
After this interesting set of experiences, helped by hypnosis and NLP, I thought it might be nice to share this audio program with others, so, if you'd like to get a free copy of my dental extraction support programme then please go to http://www.philparker.org/nlp-training-programme-dental-operations/