When people find out that I am a hypnotist they’ll often ask me if hypnosis really works. To me this is kind of like asking Neil Armstrong, “Did Apollo 11 really take you to the moon and did you really land there?” For all you conspiracy theorists out there I believe that on July 20, 1969 Commander Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr. landed Eagle in the Sea of Tranquility and spent 21 hours and 31 minutes there. I celebrated that event again this year because it was a moment of history that has helped to define my life. But what do you think the crew of Apollo 11 would tell you if you asked them that question? I think they would say something like, “Of course we did and we brought back evidence to prove it!”

So when people ask me if hypnosis really works my first instinct is to blurt out, “Of course hypnosis works and I’ve got evidence to prove it!”, but I don’t because I don’t really think these people are asking me if hypnosis works. I really think that these people are asking me, “Is hypnosis the magic bullet I need to quit smoking, or lose weight, or gain more confidence, or (fill in the blank for whatever the issue is this person is experiencing).” When I frame their question from that perspective my answer is “Yes, if you want it to be.”

The first thing to understand is that hypnosis isn’t magic. No matter what stage hypnotists would have you believe you can’t be made to do anything you don’t want to do while in hypnosis. If they could, we would see powerful hypnotists like Spider-Man’s nemesis Mysterio, (after all I am attending Comic-Con 2010 while writing this article) roaming the streets using hypnosis to make people do whatever he wanted them to. The fact is that hypnosis just doesn’t work that way!

This isn’t to say that people in hypnosis stage shows aren’t really hypnotized. They are. They’re just not doing things they don’t really want to do. The hypnotist gets their subjects to relax and then gives them suggestions to do funny things but not harmful or immoral things. The facts are that I’ve actually seen stage hypnotists try to make people do things that they feel are morally wrong, like taking off their clothes, and watched the subject wake up and slap the hypnotist. The hypnotist is always working with the permission of their subjects.

The hypnosis can’t make anybody do anything they don’t already want to do. So the real question is, “How does hypnosis help me lose weight, or gain more confidence, or (fill in the blank).” The answer to this question is it does it by helping to align your conscious goals with your subconscious mind’s image and its habitual actions. It does this by helping you change your subconscious mind’s self perception from a disempowering one, like a person who can’t control their eating or smoking habits, into a more empowering one, a person who CAN.

From the time we are born our self perception is being formed by the events and people around us. Sometimes this is done in a positive manner and sometimes it’s done in a negative manner. For example, a man with amazing mechanical ability has a son. As the son grows he wants to be around his father so he goes into the garage where his father is working to be with him. Seeing his father working on a motor he asks to help. His father hands the boy a wrench and explains how to tighten the nut. He starts to tighten it, but not having used a wrench before he drops it into a place where it takes a couple of minutes for his father to fish it out. After retrieving the wrench the man sighs, gives the boy a stern look and says, “I’m going to do this.” He finishes tightening the nut and sends the boy inside.

Later that evening the boys hears his father say to his mother “He sure is a klutz! He dropped that wrench and it took me an extra half hour to finish that job.” The boy hears this and thinks to himself, “I sure am a klutz! It took my dad 10 minutes to fish that wrench out and I could sure tell he was mad.” He grows up shying away from doing anything mechanical. He won’t even try to work in the garage with his dad. His habitual way of thinking describes himself as a mechanical klutz, so he becomes one and unless something comes about to change his mind he will hold this image of himself for the rest of his life.
 
Throughout our lives people hypnotize us. There are many stories of boys or girls that were told by their parents or teachers, “You keep it up and you’re going to end up in prison.” These young people hear these predictions over and over again and, sure enough, at fourteen they are in juvenile detention and at 17 they are in prison. 

A girl hears a messages like, “Oh our family never has had enough money” and just like the rest of her family she grows up never having enough money, always wondering how she’s going to “make ends meet.”

In your lifetime your subconscious mind receives thousands of “hypnotic” suggestions that tells you that you are not good enough, not strong enough, and not smart enough or not deserving enough and therefore have no right to expect much out of life. Although these images have nothing to do with your present reality they can block your ability to see your true self, your real self, and cause you to think poorly of yourself.

So the real question is, “Am I regulated by my past to failure and mediocrity or is there subconscious mind training that can help me change the way I habitually think?” The answer is yes, you can change your thinking with the right kind of subconscious mind training.
 
Some people want to know if they can make these changes using “willpower” alone. The answer is yes, many people have changed their habitual thinking through willpower alone. Some people decide to quit biting their fingernails and they do it. Some people decide to quit smoking and they do it. Some people decide to rise above poverty and through what seems to be only willpower go on to become millionaires. There are many people that make significant changes in their lives using “willpower” alone.

But for many people willpower isn’t enough and they struggle change. For example a woman is 40 pounds overweight and decides to “lose weight.” She uses willpower to start a “crash” diet and begins going to the gym three times a week. She starts to lose weight. In fact she quickly loses 30 pounds. She is accomplishing her desired result through willpower alone, or so it seems.

Now you’d think because of her success she’d continue to diet and exercise, and get down to her desired weight, right? Many times this is not the case. In fact its been extensively documented that most people who lose weight quickly by crash dieting or other extreme measures usually gain back all or even more of the pounds they lost.

Why does this happen? This happens because your subconscious mind trumps your willpower every time.

In the case of the woman who lost the 30 pounds she has habitually thought of herself as 40 pounds overweight for a long time. Her subconscious “truth” tells her she’s overweight. Because of the image she’s created in her subconscious mind she begins the process of bringing her weight back to her “correct” image. Instead of continuing her healthy eating habits she starts giving herself little “treats” when she’s feeling “blue” or as a reward for working so hard. She begins finding excuses to miss workouts. Soon she finds herself only going to the gym once a week and then leaving after a very short workout because she’s “too tired.” In other words her subconscious mind works to sabotage her willpower so it can keep its “true” image.

That’s the reason willpower doesn’t work for most people most of the time. Your subconscious mind trumps your willpower every time!

This woman’s “truth” is not truth at all. It is just an image that her subconscious mind has conjured up due to a whole lot of erroneous inputs. She’s received erroneous inputs just like you and I have. Inputs like, “Clean your plate, don’t you know people are starving in (fill in the country of your choice.)” or “I’d like you to meet my daughter Ann. She’s the chubby one of the family.” It could have been, “You’ve been such a good girl have a candy” or “Oh you’re not feeling good? Have a chocolate.”

Your subconscious mind does exactly what it has been programmed to do. The problem is that it does its job relentlessly, and unless programmed correctly, it will continually inhibit your success.

How does hypnosis work? Hypnosis can help you reprogram your subconscious mind. Hypnosis can be used as a self help tool to help you program a different “true” image into your subconscious mind, an image that corresponds with an image that better fits you now.

In the case of the woman wanting to “lose weight” she could change her frame to wanting to have a healthy body image. She would then see herself attaining this image through changing her eating and exercise habits into a healthy lifestyle that would not only achieve the image she desires but also maintain it.  Once her subconscious mind has been programmed with the new image of living a healthy lifestyle it can and will do everything it can in order to help her achieve and maintain this new “correct” image.

This type of behavior is well documented. In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, 109 people were divided into two groups for a nine-week study. The first group was given a program that included changes in their diet and an exercise routine without the addition of hypnosis. The second group was given the same diet and exercise program and also given hypnosis for reinforcement. As could be expected, after nine weeks both groups lost weight.

But an interesting phenomenon occurred between the eight month and two year follow ups. The group without the subconscious mind training of hypnosis did not lose any more weight, and in most cases actually gained back most of their original weight. The group that had undergone hypnosis mind training actually continued to lose weight during both intervals and many of these subjects met their long-term weight goals. Why? Because their desired body image and an action plan to get them there had been hypnotized, or programmed into their subconscious minds. 

There are millions of people who have given up smoking over and over again. Some quit for a few days, while some quit for a few weeks. There are many instances of people who have quit for long periods of time two, three or more years, only returning to this life shortening habit. Now if you listen to the manufacturers of nicotine gum or patches, or some of the medicines on the market they’ll tell you it’s because nicotine is such a habit forming drug and a person is an addict. But this just isn’t true! Nicotine is cleansed from the body in three to five days and the rest of the 1000’s of chemicals and additives are completely gone in a couple of weeks.

So why do these people return to this deadly habit? They return because they haven’t rid themselves of the psychological habit of smoking, of bringing something to their mouth, as some would say to satisfy some infantile urge, all the while filling their mouth, throat and lungs with cancer causing chemicals.

Hypnosis works by changing the image of a smoker into being a person that is completely smoke free. Hypnosis helps the cigarette smoker lose the psychological urge by replacing it with alternative healthy habits like drinking water to detoxify and keeping carrots and celery to bring to their mouths to satisfy their oral fixation.

That is the secret to how hypnosis works. It’s the same secret you can read in the book “The Secret” or many of the other similar books you can find on bookshelves everywhere. What you see in your subconscious mind is what you get.

Hypnosis works. It works because it talks directly to your subconscious mind and helps to “reprogram” it to get into alignment with the goals of your conscious mind. Hypnosis has worked for millions, if not billions of people and it can work for you too! You’re either programming your subconscious mind for success – or failure. Why not program it for success?

Why not join the millions of who have used hypnosis to uncover the power of your subconscious mind?  Using the power of hypnosis for training your subconscious mind, you can learn to relax, sleep better, stop smoking, lose weight, increase your confidence, improve sales, and enhance your sports performance as well as many other things that can improve and enhance your life. If you’re one of those people that are struggling to achieve your goals by using willpower alone then why don’t you give hypnosis a try? Hypnosis has worked for me and millions of others and it can work for you too!

Wil Dieck is the founder of Total Mind Therapy author of two e-Courses “Reprogramming Your Subconscious Mind” and “Unlocking the Secret Advantage of Hypnosis” that you can have at no charge . You can sign up here to receive these positive thinking tips delivered by e-mail weekly.