Mindfulness Hypnosis A Way To Live A More Peaceful Life
“Thoughts become things, so we may as well choose good ones”
Alison Heather Sutton 2014
There are literally thousands of peer reviewed scientific papers which prove that Mindfulness based practices enhance wellbeing in so many areas of our lives.
In fact regular practitioners are happier, more contented and far less likely to suffer from psychological distress. Indeed, regular practice of Mindfulness based techniques has shown too: Improve the quality of your life Encourage good health Upgrade your emotional intelligence Increase your self control Help your immune system Decrease your risk of heart attacks ‌..and can even reduce ageing at a cellular level.
Huge benefits for something that takes as little as twenty minutes to do, can be done anywhere and is free!
Do you suffer with a monkey mind?
Are you your own negative spin doctor?
Can a situation or event happen and, before you know it, you have given it a negative meaning, perhaps taken it personally and begun catastrophizing?
Do you find yourself having irrational thoughts and believing that something is far worse than it actually is?
If any of the above sound like you then read on
Currently it might go like thisImagine you’re a salesperson and haven’t made a sale for a while, you may believe you are a complete and utter failure. You start to worry about making enough money or that you will lose your job. Your thinking begins to make you feel tense and irritable and then when you do meet a potential customer you do not perform at your best and therefore prove yourself right- You are a failure! In reality, it may only be a temporary situation, and there are things that you can do to change it but you have got yourself into such a mind-stew that you now can’t see a way out. You may then look to the future and anticipate all the things that are going to go wrong because you have decided you are failing. You then create a reality around those thoughts (e.g. “It’s bound to all go wrong for me…”) And because you believe something will go wrong, you make it go wrong. You have become a self fulfilling prophecy, because
where thought goes energy flows This inevitably leads to self-pity, irrational, negative belief about the situation, and to a feeling of hopelessness about your future prospects and in this moment you cannot see any other possibility.
See how the negative thought train works? It has been estimated that our brains produce between about 12- 60 thousand thoughts per day. Many of us are familiar with experiencing the monkey mind. It is the name that has been given to the phenomenon in which the mind is observed to be an out of control thought generating machine and a lot of what it serves us and we hear in the stories we tell ourselves with our thinking is pure fantasy and fiction; in other words we make an awful lot of un helpful stuff up! In fact it is estimated that upwards of 70-80% of some people’s thinking is negative. This in turn creates unpleasant feelings of stress, anxiety and tension in the body, because in this thinking~feeling loop we live in,
we live in the experience of our thinking It would appear a very small proportion of our thinking is actually focused on what is real, this present moment. The space where we can meet reality as it is rather than through our interpretation. We cannot entirely stop our mind from generating these thought bullets so how can we increase our awareness and gain control over which train of thought we jump on?
“ How do I just remain at the station and watch the thought trains pass me by; not even buy a ticket, not go on a bumpy thought journey and remain in a state of present moment consciousness?� Here is a useful model to practice. When I work with clients I induce Hypnosis first, so when you first try it out get yourself into as relaxed a state as possible. As with any muscle the more you work it the stronger its response will become, so that you can easily and effortlessly move yourself from a state of anxious thinking to a place of deep peace. It is best practiced daily and can also be emergency first aid for when you become aware that you have already embarked on a thought journey to destination self-sabotage. So, imagine if you will a typical situation where an un-resourceful thought is coming towards you, perhaps even hearing it in your mind. This may be accompanied by tension in your body and a change in your breathing. Take a moment to notice your breathing. The breath in and the breath out. If necessary calm your breathing by taking a deep breath in for the count of four and breathe out again for the count of six. Make your out breath longer than your in breath. Continue focusing on your breathing until you start to develop a sense of peace. Make an intention, to connect with deep relaxation and peace and a state of mindfulness. Place your hand on your body now and notice, with all of your awareness and attention, where your hand meets your body and your body meets your hand. Notice a slight pressure. Notice a warmth between your hand and your body. Notice a quietness. Moving your awareness to your sensations distracts you from you thinking.
Tell yourself to just be aware of comfort in the area between the hand and body. Slow down the voice in your mind as you give yourself instructions. Scan around your hand and find where in your hand is the most relaxed part. Begin to spread that sense of relaxation further, out from that point. See it spreading, a bit like when ink is dropped into water. Any time your mind starts to wander just go back to noticing where your hand meets your body and your body meets your hand. Notice how your breathing is still slow, how your muscles start to relax, and how your body now feels softer. Any previous tension has now relaxed. Find that your sense of peace doubles just by deeply noticing where your hand meets your body and your body meets your hand. Be aware of your thinking, use your mind to notice your mind. At anytime an unwanted thought comes into your mind simply go back to noticing where the hand meets the body and the body meets the hand. When time permits allow your mind to create images of all the situations in which you will feel calmer and calmer, more peaceful and more relaxed every day, every time you return to your inner stillness. All it takes is to return to noticing where your hand meets your body and your body meets your hand.
When we go to the gym we spend say an hour working our way around different machines, training our bodies, different muscle groups etc. Then we shower, get changed and go about the rest of our day.
The exercise we have just done becomes cumulative If we keep going and keep following the same regime, after a few weeks it becomes easier, our bodies reach a new level of fitness and we find we can do more in our session, go that little bit further. The effects of this are felt during the rest of our day too. We begin to feel lighter, more energetic, stronger as when we are in the gym we are able to lift heavier weights, run a bit further. An athlete, who knows they have an event coming up, will have a carefully planned training schedule. They may even change their diet or socializing patterns in order to prepare themselves for their event, to reach the right level of fitness and skill required so that they know they are in peak fitness for their performance.
This is no different to training our mind When we spend time every day training ourselves to have an empty peaceful mind it gets easier, the effects become cumulative. We find that in situations during the day where we used to feel challenged and go into story, we suddenly feel calmer and have a new perspective. And when we are really put to the test and have what used to feel like an extreme challenge to our peace of mind we find we have a new level of mind fitness and find we are in peak mental state and able to hold our centre more easily.
Peace It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart ♼
Jon Kabat Zinn says
“A diminished awareness of the present moment inevitably creates other problems for us as well through our unconscious and automatic actions and behaviours, often driven by deep seated fears and insecurities These problems tend to build over time if they are not attended to and can eventually leave us feeling stuck and out of touch� I am not suggesting that we should attempt through this practice to avoid life or not deal with situations that arise. That can leave us in denial. What I am suggesting is that by cultivating a more peaceful state of mind we are more easily able to act rather than react to situations when they arise, from a peaceful place.
Practicing the art of being present with what is, rather than what is in our imagination is where we find our peaceful place. And when we allow events to unfold without pre-supposition and over thinking we may find that our daily life is actually a much more peaceful place, more of the time.
Alison Heather Sutton 2014 www.alisonheathersutton.co.uk