Increasing/Producing Positive Expectations and Beliefs

Many think that depth is the only proper gauge to measure if a hypnotic session was successful or

not. I know understand that expectations and beliefs play a crucial role in the hypnotic phenomena; to

the extent that proper beliefs and expectation are SOME of the deciding variable that make a hypnotic

session effective. I need some tips and advice on how to increase my own positive

expectations/beliefs for my self hypnosis sessions since I have not yet been seeing any real changes

or differences since I started using self hypnosis. I think that my expectations and beliefs may be the

problem. HELP ! Is it time to go to a real hypnotherapist; will that experience boost the effectiveness of

my own self hypnosis? P.S there are a lot of areas I want to work on via hypnosis, and my college

student budget wont allow me to go to a hypnotherisit for all of them, so I really need self hypnosis to

work. I will probably be only able to go to a real hypnotherapist once, twice at the max.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Ellner on December 22, 2011 at 6:11am

Hi M&M,

The way to increase your positive beliefs and expectations is to utilize them--

Create a resouce state that draws on any and all of your positive beliefs and experiences. When I do X - I expect to do it well and I do! When I do Y - I expect to do it well and I do.- etc. Imagine bathing in these empowering feelings generated by your memory and imagination and use those empowering feelings to launch your self-hypnosis practice

If you send me your email address (revdocnyc@aol.com) - I will send you a complimentary copy of Alan Barsky's and myE-book: How To Stay On Track To Graduate & Succeed in the spirit of the season -

Michael E.

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Permalink Reply by Kelley Woods on December 22, 2011 at 6:55am

Congratulations! With your awareness of the power of belief and expectation, you are ahead of many "certified" practitioners! A session with a qualified hypnotist will help you make a plan for utilizing self hypnosis for self improvement. It can make all the difference in changing your own beliefs through experiential learning. Be sure to find one who has strength in teaching self hypnosis, as not all do this for their clients.

Kelley

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Permalink Reply by Stephanie Conkle on December 22, 2011 at 7:34am

You could also purchase a self-hypnosis CD or DVD to help show you different methods. I'm sure there are some for sale up on the HypnoThoughts store and many of our colleagues websites. Some work better than others depending on the individual.

I find I personally do better when someone else is hypnotizing me. That does not stop me from doing self-hypnosis, but a hypnotherapist takes me completely outside of myself so I'm just relaxing and not analyzing every little thing that pops to mind, nor am I falling asleep from too much mind wandering without enough direction.

My husband uses NLP methods on himself since you don't have to be in a formal trance for it to take effect. He does it on his lunch breaks to quickly get through problems he has to face in his work day. So you may want to explore that route too.

With high respect to my colleagues who may disagree, It has been my experience that you actually do NOT have to believe that hypnosis works in order for the positive effects to occur, so long as you follow the directions of the hypnotist (or yourself), even if you have to "pretend" at first. Pretending (imagining) teaches yourself how to benefit from hypnosis until your body does it automatically. The more you practice, the easier it becomes, and the quicker you will see those results.

Trance out,

Steph

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Permalink Reply by Susan French on December 22, 2011 at 7:54am

I guess I'm the somewhat dissenting voice one more time. I tend to see that we create expectations by experiencing them, then recognizing and identifying them, so that now we can create/experience them at will.

If I slip in the rain, I come to expect that I might slip in the rain. That becomes my expectation. It is indeed an expectation based on some prior experience that is the gremlin when we have a negative expectation. I don't think you can have an "expectation" that you haven't experienced before, positive or negative.

The way we learn is to take each new experience and "file" them, so to speak: Experience A goes into the Pleasure folder, Experience B goes into the Danger folder, Experience C goes into the "I Eat Therefore I Live" folder and so on.

I think what you have to do is to find something that you've experienced previously that you can then associate to create a positive expectation for something new.

I agree, Stephanie, that you don't have to believe that hypnosis works for it to work. What you DO have to do is to find a way to believe that it will work. The best way to find that "way to believe" is to search back in your history for other positive experiences and anchor those to the new, desired response or behavior.

I think that that's the step that's missed when talking about creating expectations. You don't create them out of nothing. You create them by finding a prior experience for your brain/mind/body to model. Isn't that part of what we mean when we speak of "reframing?"

At least that's the way it seems to me.

If you can give me a specific example of what you're trying to create a positive expectation for, perhaps I can give you an idea of how to create the expectation you want.

Susan