You know when you see a juicy sock and can’t help but bury your nose in it? Well that’s not hypnosis. Hypnosis is intentionally eliciting a nonconscious response. A nonconscious response is any experience you feel like you didn’t deliberately (consciously) put together. Someone holds out a flyer (that you definitely don’t want) and you automatically grab it. Can’t help yourself when you’re around sweets? Your friend talks about their childhood pet and you spontaneously remember yours? All of those are examples of nonconscious responses that were elicited from you. We’re constantly being bombarded with suggestions to do things, most of which are not in our best interests. We’ve got a BS filter which is why we don’t believe most of the ads we see. This same filter is active during hypnosis as well which is why a hypnotist can’t make you do anything you wouldn’t want to do. Enough education, let’s go to today’s tip.
Take a moment to remember a time you felt really confident. That time you just achieved something and were feeling proud. As you feel those good emotions, notice where in your body you feel them. In your stomach? Your solar plexus? Your chest? Your throat? Your head? Maybe even somewhere else, wherever you feel them is unique to you. Breathe slowly and deeply into that area, noticing what effect that may have. Throughout the day, as you experience memories and feelings of being confident, practice taking just a few moments to breathe into the area you’re feeling them in. Some people can learn to access helpful feelings whenever they need them just by remembering a time in their past they felt it and breathing into that. It’d be nice to have honed that skill, wouldn’t it?