The Six Key Steps of Self-Hypnosis

Hypnosis is a state of mind in which suggestions are acted upon much more reliably than what’s possible in a more fully conscious state of mind. Even though you're given suggestions, you’re still in control. In fact, all hypnosis is self-hypnosis, because without your active intention and consent, these suggestions wouldn’t be effective at all.

You can experience a hypnotic state all on your own, whenever you need to restore balance and harmony in your life. As a daily practice, it can help you assess and sustain your emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual health.

Self-Hypnosis: What Is it?
Self-Hypnosis is the process of inducing a relaxed, trance-like and meditative state in order to gain self-awareness, promote healing, and revitalize your personal power. With self-hypnosis, you’re essentially replicating the process of a hypnotherapy session without your hypnotherapist. And because all healing is self-healing, self-hypnosis is one of fastest and most direct ways of achieving and maintaining your emotional, mental, physical and spiritual health.

Self-Hypnosis: How do you do it? 

1. The easiest way to do self-hypnosis is to have your hypnotherapist give you a post-hypnotic suggestion during your first session. This will reinforce your belief that you can hypnotize yourself (because you can, your subconscious just needs a reminder). 
2. Your hypnotherapist can create a recording for you to use on your own that use these suggestions. Or you can also record yourself, following a script that you cater to your particular interests.
3. You can also just find a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted, and follow the five key steps of the hypnotic process, without using any verbal prompts.
4. Stay open, and release your inhibitions as well as your expectations. Take time afterwards to journal about your experience, capturing key images, insights, and feelings.

It’s important to point out that like with any skill, practice will reap many benefits... you’ll have an easier time achieving a hypnotic state and you’ll have richer and more profound experiences each time you practice.

What are the steps in a self-hypnosis session?
Step 1 - Preparation - Before entering self-hypnosis, write down your goals. What do you want to achieve? What’s your area of focus? What questions do you have?

When you’re ready, take a deep cleansing breath and focus inwardly on your breath. 

Focusing your breath begins your Induction - Step 2 of the process. You can use several methods here, like fixed gaze and progressive relaxation. With fixed gaze, you focus on an object across the room, with your eyes relaxed, and continue to focus on your breath. As your eyelids begin to feel heavy, you let yourself close your eyes, and move on to deepening the relaxation process. 

Deepening is Step 3 - where your goal is to enhance your relaxation and further quiet your conscious mind. Progressive relaxation is a good deepening technique (as well as an induction method). With progressive body relaxation, you scan each part of your body, focusing your intention on releasing tension in each area, and allowing your conscious thoughts to drift by like leaves on the top of a stream. 

Another deepening technique is to imagine yourself walking down a path, or skiing down a mountain, or floating down a river, on your way to a special or Sacred Place (which you guessed it, is Step 4).

Inner journeying to our Sacred Place provides a safe place to reconnect with our higher self, our inner guide, or the wise version of ourselves. Your Sacred Place could be a golden sunlit meadow in the middle of a magical forest or it could be a white sandy beach on a deserted island, or it could even be a castle that only exists in your wildest dreams. 

Once there, you’ll return to the goals and questions you had before you entered self hypnosis. You might imagine meeting your higher self there in this sacred place, and ask him or her for guidance, direction, and clarity. You might find the answers come to you visually, in images, or you might hear them be spoken, or you might just have these insights immediately occur to you as if in an “aha” moment.  You may also experience profound emotional and physical sensations during this process.

In Step 5, you’ll give yourself the Post-Hypnotic Suggestion of remembering all that you experience, and once you are ready, you can open your eyes, stretch, and take a few revitalizing breaths, and get acclimated to the “real world”. Step 6 is about Waking Up. When you’re fully awake and alert, it’s a great idea to write down your impressions, insights, and experiences in a journal for greater self-awareness.

Why You’d Want To
There are so many benefits to self-hypnosis, that it’s not possible to include them here. That said, here are some of the most common:

• Clarity and Confidence
• Renewed Life Purpose
• Deeper Self-Awareness
• Stronger Sense of Self
• Controlled Pain and Discomfort
• Reduced Anxiety
• Faster Healing and Recovery
• Improved Sleep
• Increased Energy

​Try it sometime. It will help you stay tuned.