The Self-Hypnosis Revolution method involves the process of identifying underlying or symbolic meanings of everyday tasks and formulating pertinent self-suggestions to accompany those tasks. This may sound silly, strange, or complicated, but it really isn’t once you understand it fully. Let me tell you where some of the insight came from for developing this method, as that will go a long way toward explaining its premise and concept.
Among my areas of expertise is hypnotherapy and dream interpre- tation. That is, I hypnotize others for positive behavioral change, and I analyze dreams to help people see how their dreams relate to their wak- ing lives. At first glance, you might think these two areas (hypnotherapy and dream analysis) unrelated, but in fact they are two sides of the same coin—or at least kissing cousins, because they both deal with commu- nication with the subconscious.
In hypnotherapy, an attempt is made to impart to the subconscious mind of the hypnotized person suggestions for positive change. These suggestions may be of a very direct sort such as, “You are now a non- smoker,” or they may be of a more subtle variety such as in the use of analogies and metaphors like, “You feel as calm and peaceful as a quiet mountain lake.”
In dream interpretation, the basic objective is to take dream images and match their associations to the things that are happening in real life. Often a dream will present metaphors for waking events, and will also reflect thoughts and feelings about those events. For instance, to analyze a dream about a storm, I first consider what storms can metaphorically represent. Since storms are associated with danger, violence, or trouble, I might ask the dreamer whether there is any turbulent trouble occur- ring during waking life, or whether the dreamer feels angry about some- thing. You see how it works? A dream about a storm is rarely about actual
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weather conditions. Instead, the mind manufactures moving images of a storm as a symbolic expression for the way the mind is processing daily life. It is in the learning and sorting out of these associations of various images that a dream analyst’s worth largely depends.
One day I asked myself, “If the dream images of common activities are symbolic for life issues and inner processes, could those same everyday activities be used in waking life to communicate to the subconscious effective suggestions for self-improvement?” And as a hypnotherapist who frequently uses metaphors to elicit change in my subjects, I instantly knew the answer to my question—yes, of course.
I went on and pondered that a dream about taking a shower is often symbolic for discarding unwanted thoughts and feelings. As a hypnotherapist, I have often had clients visualize this while hypno- tized to help them shed negativity, because the subconscious mind understands the language of metaphor, which is (by no coincidence) a primary language or common tongue, you might say, of dreams. So I reasoned that I could make use of the real-life activity of taking a shower as a symbolic communiqué to my subconscious mind to help me let go of negative thoughts and emotions. I loved the idea, because I wouldn’t have to put aside time to creatively visualize or hypnotize myself to receive the benefit. All I had to do was affirm the intention to release negativity while I was taking a shower. The idea intrigued me, so I decided to experiment.
I began my daily showers by giving myself the suggestion, “I cleanse myself of all negative thoughts and feelings.” As the water washed over my body, I simultaneously imagined the water purifying my mind, send- ing all fear, anger, sorrow, jealousy, and greed down the drain. I ended each shower by generating a sense of mental and emotional hygiene. And I repeated this little ritual every time I took a shower. And in all hon- esty, I still do to this day.
At first I felt no significant change, but after about three weeks I began to notice that I was less riddled with negative feelings about myself, my life, and others. I grew less prone to outbursts of anger and frustration, and my words and actions toward others became kinder. My experiment was paying off. The act of taking a shower became for me a symbolic, moving gesture to communicate to my subconscious that I wanted to release unwanted feelings and thoughts. I knew then I’d made an important discovery:
I found a way to take naturally occurring metaphors found in an everyday task and combine them with self-suggestion to produce an outstanding method of self-improvement without going into a trance.
Once the shower experiment had proven successful, I began using the basic idea with other mundane activities. Taking out the garbage became a time to throw out old and useless ways of doing things. Driving to work became a way to direct my mind to become driven to succeed with my career plans. Petting the cat became a way to nurture or stroke my natural instincts.
I began to realize that there is potential life-changing symbolism in virtually every activity of life.
This method was and remains remarkably simple. It’s just a matter of figuring out the symbolic value of an activity, matching it to an intention for self-improvement, and composing a phrase to accompany it. And because of my background in dreams and hypnosis, this was a relatively easy thing for me to do.
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