When you hear the word change does it excite or terrify you?
What does change mean for you?
Do you have an area in your life that you would like to make a positive change in?
Let’s look at the word change.
Verb
- make or become different.
- take or use another instead of.
Noun
- an act or process through which something becomes different.
Synonym
Transition – the process of changing from one situation, form or state to
another
When you contact the clinic for a positive change in your life with something you feel you can no longer live with, like anxiety, you are screened to make sure you want this change for yourself. No matter how hard someone in your life may want the change for you, the process will only work if YOU want the change.
Now imagine, as hypnosis is all about the power of your imagination, you are at a pivotal moment during the session. Imagine if you were holding back in some way, and the hypnotherapist will always know, that for whatever reason you are not letting go of the old you. The process seems unusually difficult. The hypnotherapist will emerge you and have a chat with you about what is holding you back. For the extremely rare number of people, it can be that they are afraid of the change that will follow. They have lived with their anxiety for however many years and it in a strange way has become their friend. It is familiar and makes them feel safe even though logically and rationally they ultimately know it is harming them.
On the very rare occasion this has happened I tell the client they have a choice, a choice to change. If they fear change, I ask them to close their eyes and imagine their life with their anxiety getting bigger, stronger, more out of control, affecting every single part of their lives. In effect, it is like a poison leaching in through them destroying every single part of their being. You wouldn’t feed poison to yourself knowingly! What did that feel like to them? Not good at all. I then ask them to imagine a life where they go about their daily business carefree and happy. How does that feel? A lot better, strange, nicer, different, good.
The very nature of life is change. We change from the instant we are conceived, from a cluster of cells changing into a foetus, then when we are born a baby our body and mind continues to grow to adulthood and still mentally, emotionally and physically changing all the way up until death. The environment we live in changes too, maybe the people in it, the colour of our walls, our beds, our friends, schools, homes, jobs. Nature changes daily. We can have 4 seasons in one hour or less in Ireland. The tide keeps on flowing, day turns into night, the clock keeps on ticking, time moves on, change is inevitable. Change is a guaranteed certainty in life.
Ask yourself, what is the worst thing that can happen if you change any area of your life that you are unhappy with? You might just like the newer person you become. Freeing yourself from a prison you had yourself trapped in for a crime you did not commit. But you will never know until YOU are ready to make that change for YOU. Tell me what do you choose? To stay the same or embrace the new you?
Andrea Dalton
Irish Hypnosis Rathfarnham – online and in-person sessions.
