Achieve goals with Self Hypnosis

Achieve goals with Self Hypnosis

By Luis S. R. Vas

Self-Hypnosis is indeed a powerful tool if it is used understanding what it can do. By learning and using it, one can achieve amazing results. We must know this has helped many people and it can of course, help us too.

Towards the end of the 18^th century, Reverend Dr. José Custodia de Faria, a Goan priest in his mid-twenties, had earned his doctorate in theology from the College of Propaganda Fide, Rome and had preached on the Advent of the Holy Spirit in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican with Pope Pius VI in attendance.

Now he climbed the pulpit of the Royal Chapel of the queen of Portugal, D. Maria I who had sponsored his education. As he surveyed his august audience, he was struck dumb with stage fright. He gazed miserably at his father who sat in the front row. The father silently mouthed the Konkani words ‘Hi sogle baji. Kator re baji. (These are all vegetables. Chop off the vegetables.) The son lip-read him and a sudden wave of confidence surged through him and he spoke eloquently.

He would later wonder how these words from his father could have such a transforming effect on him. He kept wondering when he emigrated to France for better prospects. Paris was in the throes of the France Revolution and here Faria met the marquis of Puysegur, a disciple of  Dr. Mesmer who cured his patients by mesmerizing them with the help of what he thought was animal magnetism. But Faria knew better . He knew it was the power of suggestion appropriately applied that did the trick.

He hired a hall in a local school and proceeded to give demonstrations of how hypnosis (he termed it lucid sleep) worked. He worked on some 5,000 subjects and cured many of  them of their ailments. He charged the participants 3 francs each. He thus became the first stage hypnotism but he did it not for the audience’s entertainment but to heal them.

He discovered that hypnosis worked best if the subject was either very relaxed or very nervous,  as he had been on the pulpit. His subjects were now mostly in awe of him. So, he simply approached them and yelled: ‘Sleep’. And they fell into lucid sleep and promptly obeyed his commands to be healed.

Some subjects without being approached by Abbe Faria, as he was now known in France, went into a spontaneous trance  and prescribed medication for themselves which worked. This was self-hypnosis.

Soon, however critics surfaced, some celebrities like Chateaubriand, who ridiculed him or charged him with witchcraft. Before long his audience dwindled to nothing and Abbe Faria retired as chaplain at a religious institution to write a book defending his thesis.

As soon as the first volume of De La Cause Du Sommeil Lucide (On the cause of Lucid Sleep) was published, Abbe Faria died of a stroke at age 64 on September 20, 1819.

He went into oblivion until a Goan scientist D.G. Dalgado reprinted his work and published it along with his biography of the author in 1906. Ever since, his reputation has enjoyed a resurgence.

What is the technique?

The first few times that you use somnambulism, it is best to find a place where you can be undisturbed for a while. Sit or lie down, eliminate any distractions, and relax. This puts you in the best possible condition for using the technique – however as you get more practice you will find that you can use the technique almost anywhere.

1. The first step is to relax yourself: close your eyes, and try using imagery of waves of relaxation running down your body from your scalp downwards, washing out stress. Let the waves run in time with your breathing, first washing down over your head, then your neck, then your torso, then arms, and finally your legs. Feel the muscles in your body relaxing as the waves of relaxation wash over them. Alternative techniques can involve fixing your eyes on a spot on the wall, or imagining sliding  down in a tunnel from the top of a tall mountain, slowly dropping down into relaxation and drowsiness. The method you choose to induce somnambulism is up to you. The next step is to use suggestion to deepen the state. This is as simple as saying to yourself something like ‘I am feeling relaxed and comfortable. With every breath I am becoming more relaxed and more comfortable.’

2. Now look at a small object on the opposite wall, quite above the level of your eyes. If no such object is there, draw it on a paper sheet and paste it in the wall. A round black ink blot will do.

3. Tell yourself, as you stare at the blot, ‘3, 2, 1, my eyelids a getting heavier and heavier’. Go on repeating the phrase until your eyelids actually feel heavier and heavier and close. They will, if you persist long enough.

4. Now tell yourself, ‘my eyelids are so sticky, they are getting glued down’. Keep repeating the phrase and visualising buckets of glue sticking the eyelids, until you actually feel some stickiness.

5. Now tell yourself, ‘my eyelids are so tightly stuck that no matter how hard I try I won’t be able to open them’. Repeat this until you feel your eyes getting more and more sticky. BUT DON’T TRY TO OPEN YOUR EYES.

6. Now tell yourself, ‘I’m pouring water on my eyelids. The glue is dissolving and I am able open my eyes easily. 1, 2, 3 my eyes are opening’. Repeat this several times. Then open your eyes naturally.

7. Repeat steps 1 to 5 several times, over several days, until you feel your eyelids very sticky. Then try VERY LIGHTLY to open your eyes. At the slightest resistance, give up. The idea is to ensure that your suggestions have no chance of failing. Then go to step 5 and open your eyes.

8. After several more tries of steps 1 to 5, you can try harder to open your sticky eyes. You will find you can’t open them however hard you may try to. You’ve met your first major success.

9. Now do steps 1 to 5. Then tell yourself: ‘every time I count 3,2,1 with the intention of going into a somnambulistic trance, I shall go into it immediately.’

10. Now tell yourself ‘my hand is feeling very light and rising’. Keep repeating this phrase, while imagining ropes pulling your hand up. Visualization of  anything that aids this process of feeling lightness in your arm is helpful. Slowly your arm will start to lift, sometimes, finger by finger. Assist it by visualizing some more. Now say: ‘My hand is rising higher and higher until it touches my forehead. When it touches my fore head, it will fall down and I’ll be in deep somnambulistic trance and receptive to all suggestions I put myself’. Keep repeating this phrase until your hand touches your forehead and falls down. Say 1, 2, 3  I am waking up, to wake up from your lucid sleep.

Once you are completely relaxed and focused on your own suggestions, you are in a useful state of lucid sleep. One suggestion you can usefully embed into your mind is that when you repeat a particular trigger word – like ‘Faria’, for example – to yourself you will relax into this state.

Before you enter the lucid sleep it is useful to think about the suggestions that you want to apply in it. Suggestions can be simple affirmations that undo the damage done by negative thinking, to make psychological adjustments or reinforce confidence to help to achieve goals that you have set.

Once you have decided what you want to use in suggestions, spend a little time working out a form of words for each suggestion that is short, positive, and powerful. Repeat this to yourself when you have reached the lucid sleep state.

What are the benefits?

Effective use of suggestion can:

* Build confidence

* Reinforce goals by etching them into your mind

* Reduce tension

* Motivate and energize when you are feeling sluggish.

* Enhance your feelings of cold or heat

Suggestion : “I feel increasingly cool, calm, confident, comfortable, energetic and healthier in mind and body.”

If you don’t find the above formulation adequate and can’t think of anything better, You can use the following modeling technique:

1.Select your goals.

2. Imagine somebody who embodies your goals: Sachin Tendulkar, A.P. J. Abdul Kalam, Barack Obama, Marilyn Monroe…If you don’t know anyone who does, visualize one such person, say,  SupermodelA.

3.Select a place and a time where and when you will be undisturbed for 15 minutes.

4.Get into your self-hypnosis state described above.

5.Visualise Supermodel A . Talk to him/her. Visualize yourself as his/her double. Visualize your supermodel A congratulating you on achieving your goals. Visualize your friends and others whom you admire congratulating you for the same reason.

6. Do this for 15 minutes.

7. Get out of your self-hypnosis state.

8. Repeat one to seven,  twenty-one times, either three times a day or once a day, twenty one times. That’s how long it takes to imprint your goals in your brain.

In sum

To avail the benefits, one needs to devote time and have faith. Yes, you can become who you want to be. Visualize, self hypnotize and get there.