CAN YOU BE DE-HYPNOTISED?

Henk Boshoff, The Garuda Centre, Pretoria, South Africa

Have you been hypnotised?

The truth is that WE HAVE ALL BEEN HYPNOTISED - correct.

So the REAL question becomes:
“Can we change our hypnotic programming?”

Our unconscious reactions

A major issue for critics of hypnosis as a method of change is that hypnosis “bypasses the critical faculty of the reasoning mind” (conscious mind). While this statement is often interpreted wrongly, there is truth in as much as hypnosis deals directly with the unconscious mind.
Most of our actions (including emotional and mental actions and habits) ARE unconscious. That means we have little if any practical choice in our mental emotional responses.
To put this plainly: We AUTOMATICALLY react as we were unconsciously programmed, which ACTUALLY 'bypasses the critical faculty of the reasoning mind'.

- 'The Four Agreements' by Don Miguel Ruiz offers a clear and simple exposition of our early programmin, which he terms our 'domestication'.

Our unconscious programming

Most of how adults respond emotionally is unconsciously programmed into us by the age of 6, and the majority of this programming occurs by the age of 3. Because our "conscious, logical, analytical mind" is not mature at these early ages, our 'critical faculty is bypassed'.
To put this plainly: Your learnings in early years occurs in a hypnotic fashion. It does not matter that people were not trying to hypnotize you -you were in a state of hypnotic suggestibility most of the time.

Our lack of conscious choices

Enters adulthood. Now, programmed with responses we did not consciously choose with critical reason, we encounter all sorts of problems at worst, and ineffective ways of responding at best.
Thankfully we do also learn/receive 'good' or 'useful' programming as children...
Where responses are unconscious, WE DO NOT CHOOSE them, they happen automatically. We do not realize this BECAUSE they were hypnotically installed.
Effectively this means we do not even know (consciously) how many problem responses originate.

Unconscious power

Plainly stated, unconscious programs/directives usually over-ride opposing conscious efforts. Habits are good examples of unconscious directives. However, one will be aware that smoking is a habit, and seek ways to deal with it -and many succeed with sheer conscious will-power. But, where a habit exists that is unconscious, conscious will does not even know what to over-ride or change -even if it could.
The unconscious follows directives/programs, and to change behaviours resulting from those directives requires that they be changed (or deleted). This is a matter of deliberate effort.

Make a conscious choice

Hypnosis offers an effective way to re-program the unconscious.
It is not always necessary to first find the old problematic program. Usually 'analysis' serves to define a clear new program. One knows how one wants to behave or react. With this clearly defined, it is 'installed' into the unconscious BY CONSCIOUS CHOICE, and based on conscious design. The exact opposite of what took place during childhood programming.

Example:

A simple way to understand the effectiveness of unconscious childhood programming lies in religious persuasion. People who grow up in religion X, usually stay with Religion X -unless they experience a 'problem' with it. Only then -and because people are conscious of religious choice, will they begin to search for alternatives. Where people are not-conscious of unconscious mental/emotional programs, they do not seek to change them at that level. Which means they fail to change the way they behave and experience themselves -their life experience.

The good news is that if there are ways that you react, feel or think that you don't like, you can change it successfully. Several methods exist, most of which takes a lot of time. Well applied hypnosis offers an effective and comparatively rapid way to do it. With minimal training one can also use self-hypnosis properly.

So, using hypnosis, you CAN CHANGE your programming. In many ways, personal development is about doing just that. Hypnosis is one tool that can be used to support such an endeavour.

Copyright (c) 2006, Henk Boshoff

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