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To whom it concernsIn the early 1990's I was suffering terribly with Stress and all the positive thinking in the world couldn't help me come to terms with the panic attacks I was suffering from. To start with I went to see my local GP, but visit after visit didn't seem to make any difference. He did eventually send me to see a Counsellor, but after one session I decided to seek out private help.
To start with I went to see a Psycho analyst. She used to ask me to lie down on a bed and look at a spiral on the ceiling. She would then relax me into a trance and at the same time play music to help me relax deeper.
Once she had got me into a deep state of relaxation, she would then ask me what I was thinking. Basically she kept asking me what I was thinking next, so that I would keep repeating it out loud. The idea is that if I externalise each thought, I would eventually get to the thought I was repressing and my panic attacks would disappear.
The only problem I had, was that I felt better during the session, but lost everything once the session finished. After a number of sessions, the thought I had repressed started to surface and I couldn't come to terms with it at the time. I decided not to continue the sessions, as it was starting to make me feel very uncomfortable.
Six months later I was still suffering with stress and panic attacks, so I contacted a local Hypnotherapist. I felt much more comfortable with the Hypnotherapist, than I had with the Psycho analyst. But after a number of sessions, the source of my repression started to surface again, which made me feel uncomfortable. However this time, rather than repressing this uncomfortable thought, I could talk to the Hypnotherapist about it and I didn't feel so uncomfortable. Eventually I could even talk to my dad about the source of my repression and I felt much better.
After each Hypnotherapy session, I was given a tape of the Hypnotherapy session I had just gone through. I then used to play the tape daily and when I felt really stressed, twice a day. I seemed to feel more uncomfortable while I was on my own, than when I was with other people. I went for a weeks holiday in Germany and stayed at my sisters there, when she went out to work in the day time, my fear started to build up and I used to have to use the Hypnotherapy tape to calm me down.
Rather than me talking to myself in my own head, the self talk was being provided by the Hypnotherapist, when I was listening to his Hypnotherapy tape. The repeated listening to the Hypnotherapy recording was calming my mind. The Hypnotherapist kept listening to what was wrong in my life and then saying the reverse to put me back on track.
After having ten sessions with the Hypnotherapist, I started to feel more positive about myself.
About the same time I came across a Positive thinking course, called "The Realization System", produced by R&W Heap publishing. The Author of the course was Daniel A. Simmons. I now more fully understood how the mind worked and that talking positively to myself in the right way was so important.
The course seemed to have based a lot of work on that of Emile Coue.
Émile Coué de Châtaigneraie (February 26, 1857 – July 2, 1926) was a French psychologist and pharmacist who introduced a method of psychotherapy and self improvement based on optimistic autosuggestion.
His most famous suggestion was "Every day in every way, I am getting better and better".
Emile suggested that you kept repeating this formulae over and over again in your own mind. Because it is so gradual, your conscious mind cannot object to it and eventually the formula would go so deep into your subconscious mind, that you would become healed.
The Realisation system talked about your subjective mind, that was between the Objective and Sub conscious mind and this was the barrier to your realising your goal.
While I had been seeing a Hypnotherapist, he had been saying positive things to me, that I had been unable to say internally. But the repeated use of the Hypnotherapy tape he had given, had installed the new beliefs deep into my subconscious mind.
After I had purchased "The realization system, I started to be more focused on what I said to myself and ensured that what I said to myself, was what I wanted to happen in reality.
Years later I came across an interesting book by Shad Helmstetter, called "What to Say When you Talk To Yourself". I think this is one of the best books I have read on this subject and for less than £10 (approx $15), it should be on every bodies book shelf.
Shad talked about creating a list of affirmations, recording them onto a tape recorder and then repeatedly playing it to yourself. Affirmations should be in the present tense and positive. "I am a healthy non smoker", rather than "I don't smoke". What happens if you say to yourself "Don't think about pink elephants". Rather than parents saying to their children "Close the door", they say "Don't leave the door open", so they only have themselves to blame when their children leave the door open. But the same mindset will have been passed onto them by their parents.
Whether the state of Hypnosis really exists or not doesn't matter, but if it is a bridge to you being in control of your own thoughts, then it is a stepping stone in the right direction. Like learning to drive a car, you have to learn to drive your own mind in the right direction and the Hypnotherapist is there, until you no longer need them.
