Humans are notorious for arguing for their limitations. I learned early in my career that how we are when we’re young, we tend to become more so as we grow older…. unless we consciously change. Most of us know that changing some aspects of ourselves would be a good thing, but we just don’t know how or even what to do. Often, the harder we try to change, the more we feel like a failure. Sometimes, there’s like a block inside and we don’t even know what is holding us back.

The common denominator in our life is our mind, albeit conscious and subconscious.

In comes a 57 year old businessman who had cancer and was in the process of retiring on disability. He felt angry inside a lot of the time. He was very surprised at discovering from his unconscious, as reported in hypnosis regression: “I’m three years old. I’m in the living room with Mama and Daddy, and my older brother. I’m scared. My parents are arguing, yelling, and I’m afraid. I hate my father.” Stressful! At that very early age, my client’s environment had already colored his perception with fear and anger.

Even though the client had long ago learned to curb his destructive behavior around others from court ordered anger management classes and the medication he’d been on for years, he still felt angry and toxic inside. He originally came to see me because he’d heard that hypnosis might help a person with cancer.

He’s since learned new ways of thinking and believing, instead of blaming those around him, or the circumstances of life. He’s also had a great deal of stress relief by letting go of old hurts and unconscious fears. Perhaps more importantly, he’s learning to see life more clearly and to make more mature choices. He’s also learning to access new options that allow him to experience a variety of emotions that are more balanced and appropriate. He can now feel fear, anger, confusion, joy, curiosity, love, and more. He’s getting healthier in all kinds of ways.

So you might ask what does your childhood have to do with your life now? Here’s the answer: How most people act emotionally as an adult was programmed into them by age six, and most of that by age three. Researchers tell us that early childhood and, recently discovered, that pre-teen years are when most of our unconscious patterns become ingrained in our psyche and will continue throughout our lifetime…if we don’t do something about our old programming.

Another client, a 42 year old teacher with an uncontrollable eating habit reports in hypnosis regression: “I’m twelve years old. I’m in the den on the couch eating a bag of potato chips. My parents and sister and brother are also watching TV. I’m feeling really bad about myself. I’m on the cheerleading squad. I’m overweight. I feel really self conscious. Dad keeps telling me to ‘eat whatever I want, just don’t get fat.’ I wish I could do something, but I just don’t know what to do.” Stressful!

In the big picture of her life it turned out that her Dad’s comment closely resembled her own internal conflict of going on one diet after another, but in the end eating uncontrollably. In fact, this woman had always been shocked to see herself in the mirror nearly 100 pounds overweight.

Only when she was able to visit the source of the unconscious pattern through hypnosis was she able to make and hold on to a more mature perspective. Twenty five years of self criticism and dieting over. She has control now, makes appropriate choices, and is succeeding. Stress Relief!

We’ve all heard the notion that people consciously sabotage themselves because they must like to suffer. I don’t buy this shallow perspective. Truth is, it’s not enough to want to change.

Change is stressful because it goes against our programming, whether we accomplish our goal or not, or because we don’t change. Early subconscious conditioning is typically stronger than our conscious mind alone can easily overcome. The conscious mind is only ten percent of our brain. The subconscious mind is the other ninety percent of the brain.

Stress is what your mind and body experience in reaction to life. Starting from birth, or even while still in the womb as when our parents are fearful, smoke, drink, or get angry, stress can build. Reflecting to the other end of life, stress is often experienced in anticipation of the unknown aspects of death, some 50 years or more beyond our current age.

But stress can be found everywhere in between as well. Stress is born of a mind filled with beliefs, perceptions, and experiences that are frequently unhelpful, inaccurate, or offer quite limited interpretations of humanity and our own options for living.

It’s good to question our beliefs, perceptions, and behaviors. What beliefs and attitudes are blocking you? Are you anxious when meeting people, afraid to fly or speak in public? What stops you? Your mind!

For all of us who struggle to make changes in our lives, or want to give up, take heart. Just as the problem is in the mind, so is the answer. All behavior comes from learned responses. If we are being driven by something that no longer serves us, we can certainly learn something else. It may take work, but hypnosis make it much easier. Overall learning it’s really much different than when we were children. We just stopped thinking it was ok to keep trying something new.

Hypnosis with a trained expert in the field offers a new, faster option for learning new ways of seeing the world. Find ways to create new choices that are more easily integrated. Whether you want to loose weight, release fears, stop smoking, stop anxiety in its tracks, free yourself from criticism and negative self talk. For these and all other issues, remember the mind is the common denominator.
How are you using this powerful tool you have? To help you expand in life, or to keep you on a path that leads you into a rut! Don’t get the rut mixed up with your path.

Feeding your mind new ideas, new challenges, new options can help create the life that is wanted! Read more, listen to educational programs, helpful tapes and CD’s, go to lectures. Continuing to learn will help keep you younger long and make you more interesting to those around you, and to yourself.

WAKE Up and smell the options!

There are many misconceptions as to what hypnosis and hypnotherapy really are. A good working definition for me is: Being in hypnosis is being in a heightened state of suggestibility and/or accessibility of information. The purpose of hypnotherapy is to either input helpful suggestions or to access the source of unconscious patterns that reveal the origin and nature of undesirable, self-defeating or unwanted patterns, supporting a fresh mature view and increased opportunity for health and well-being.

A common misperception is that someone will control our mind with hypnosis. The truth is that we are already hypnotized from the beginning of life because we are all programmed by our families, ourselves, society, and culture. As young children we are told and we see many things that aren't even questioned until we are much older, and sometimes never. This isn't anyone's fault, it's the nature of our mind and learning. Consequently we are vulnerable to our history and our limited perceptions.

Most of us weren't fortunate enough to be raised by wise role models. We have all been affected in unconscious ways and we tend to treat ourselves and others as we were treated. This being the case, it is common knowledge in the new millennium that our past affects our relationships and our future. However, we are beginning to understand more and more that we are not stuck with those old programs. Self improvement, and hypnotherapy specifically, has gained increasing acceptance. It is evident now that long-term therapy is generally less effective for most people, compared to short-term therapy and especially hypnotherapy.

Generally, hypnotherapy allows a relatively quick uncovering of the core problem(s) and allows for more appropriate and mature development. I've often had clients tell me they benefited more from a few sessions of hypnotherapy than they did from years of traditional psychotherapy.

There are many recognized styles of therapeutic hypnosis. These include auto-suggestion, self-hypnosis, authoritarian hypnosis, permissive hypnosis, neuro-linguistic-programming (NLP), holographic re-patterning, holotropic breathwork, rebirthing, Ericksonian, regression, alchemical hypnotherapy, time-line, guided imagery, and more. All of these are forms of hypnosis, including self-talk which is a form of self-hypnosis.

Interestingly enough, I am often asked whether I can hypnotize someone. I suggest the real question is, can I unhypnotize them from their own hypnosis. So, the appropriate purpose of hypnosis and hypnotherapy would never be to control a client's mind. The job of an effectively trained, qualified certified clinical hypnotherapist is first to clarify what the client wants to realistically achieve, and then goes to work using the most effective method(s) of hypnotherapy and education to facilitate maturation of the individual to a healthier, more mature level of functioning now and for the future.

Jane Ann Covington
For Ohana

People find hypnosis a fascinating subject. Most have developed a lot of assumptions and sometimes fears about what hypnosis is and how it works, and about what it can or cannot do. Historically a great deal of mystery and "magic" has been attached to "hypnosis". Lack of scientific research has left us with many misconceptions regarding this powerful phenomena.
Occasionally people suggest to me that they either cannot be hypnotized (even if they wanted to be) or they don't think they could be hypnotized because they are too strong willed and don't want anyone to control them. I get a good laugh from this perspective. Let me tell you why.

The question that one should ask is not "Can I be hypnotized?", rather the question is "Am I willing to be un-hypnotized from my own hypnosis?"

For instance, from around the 4th month in our mother's womb, our brain wave patterns become detectable, We are learning in measurable ways. Before we are born, we are quite familiar with mom's and dad's voices, as well as others that we've been exposed to. During gestation, we are also constantly being bathed in the emotional biochemistry of our mother's emotions, as well as the energetic field of the outside world. Unseen experiences are often remembered decades later, only to be acknowledged with amazement. We, in essence, are being hypnotized into a unique perspective.

Almost all of how adults respond emotionally is unconsciously programmed into us by the age of six, and the majority of the programming occurs by the age of three. Because our "conscious, logical, analytical mind" is not developmentally mature enough at these early ages to be aware of these decisions and perceptions we took on as children, we do not experience these as choices in terms of "who we are" now.

Only through awareness and exposing ourselves to new options can we create new potential and express a new reality for ourselves. Otherwise, we tend to obliviously rush through life accepting our quirks and so forth as "just who we are", as if our responses were all biologically pre-programmed. In fact, they are a result of learned behavior.

As children we were unable to see the bigger picture and had no opportunity to experience a broad range of humans expressing as healthy role models. No, most of us were pretty much in the small microcosm called "our family," and assumed that the limited point of view of our parents was the "truth" about ourselves and about life itself.

In college, studying psychology, I learned that however we are when we are young, we become more that way as we age-unless we develop awareness, give ourselves new options, and consciously (with effort) choose to change.

The latest brain/learning research indicates that more than 99% of what humans learn is learned unconsciously. We must become aware of ourselves. We must "be awake", as Jesus says, and "be mindful", as Buddha suggests. As we awaken to our expressed nature, as we begin to look within ourselves, and perhaps through the reflections of those around us, we will start to see patterns. These patterns are simply programs that seemed an appropriate response or a mirroring of those around us from some time back in our history, but they may no longer serve us.

If the brain does anything well, it creates great patterns/programs. These are a form of hypnosis. Of course, a lot of this hypnosis is positive and appropriate. Yet, we fail to realize that we are hypnotized by the many fears from our parents and society. We fear that we are not enough, and that we are "just the way we are", implying that not much can be done about it.

NOT SO! Humanity has slowly been awakening to it's higher nature, and to its unlimited God-Self within. As the phrase goes, "With God all things are possible." When we begin to awaken to the power that lives, not outside of ourselves, but within, we will also awaken to the consciousness that we have more choices to create, to evolve, and to demonstrate the greater potential of who we are.

We must begin to understand that we have all been hypnotized from the earliest times. We've even been told to fear being hypnotized. Little wonder we fear our true selves. We have been unconsciously trained, hypnotized into thinking that we are not enough and never can be.

Frankly, it's not a matter of whether one can be hypnotized or not, because we simply are. So, the question becomes not can I, but "Will I set myself free and awaken to un-hypnotize myself from my own self-hypnosis?"

We can awaken from our old, unconsciously learned hypnosis into our powerful, unlimited potential, to choose how and what we wish to become and be. The past does not have to equal the future.

Above all else, we are learning beings. We can learn to reawaken (unhypnotize) and consciously re-program our selves with a new inner vision where true control, true choice, and true fulfillment can be made manifest.

Jane Ann Covington
For Maui Ana