What is Hypnotherapy ?   
 
 Hypnotherapy is a form of guided meditation that allows individuals to access the very thoughts and beliefs that interfere with their desire to have happiness and love. Have you ever given yourself a list of "must dos" only to lose track of time and forget to follow through with them. Much of modern day scientific research has shown that we only actively use a very tiny portion of our minds. We
call the active part of the mind the conscious mind. The rest of the mind, which is significantly larger, is called the unconscious mind. The ratio is thought to be approximately 5-10% to 90-95%. The unconscious mind runs a major part of our everyday lives and it contains the memories that form our habits; childhood beliefs, thoughts, fears, dreams, creative passions, and so on.

Can anybody get Hypnotized?

Research estimates that approximately 85 percent of the population can get hypnotized. It is said that it is more difficult to get hypnotized for those on heavy medication, going through mania, psychosis or heavily influenced by drugs.

How do we sabotage our goals?

When we are stressed or tired it is very easy to become less aware and slip into our unconscious mind. During this process our
fears and doubts can interfere with our intentions. Ever find "inappropriate words" slip out of your mouth when under duress? This
is because your unconscious mind simply takes over and voices fears and anxieties coming from the past.

What does the process look like?

The client is awake for the entire process. If the client does fall asleep, it’s the hypnotherapist's responsibility to nudge (with the
prior permission) the client on the shoulder or a safe body part. The actual process of hypnotherapy invites the individual into a meditative or relaxed state allowing body functions e.g. heart rate, blood pressure, breath to slow down thereby inviting the mind's chatter to slow down and allow a deeper access to the unconscious mind. Each individual has a different relationship with
their six senses (sense of sight, touch, smell, hearing, feeling, intuition), so it’s the hypnotherapist's job to learn how to personalize
the hypnotherapy session. Considering that we spend almost one third of our lives asleep, it is quite a natural process to be able to
tap into some of our dreams and / or unconscious thoughts and feelings. Hypnotherapy allows the client to access this deeper unconscious state which can be very empowering for the client’s rediscovery of wisdom and intuition.

During this relaxed state the client is alert and awake, yet more open to suggestions and can receive more validating affirmations and visualizations. This state could be compared to the way children are so open and accepting of ideas. This process acts like a bridge channeling information from the dream or unconscious state to the awake state. This process can allow access to some of the rich inspiration and dreams that are often forgotten immediately upon waking. It is no surprise that most clients report a more active dream life once they start this hypnotherapy. These dreams quite often empower clients to access their own personal power and understand their unconscious patterns. Hypnotherapy can essentially help us unlock our passions and dreams and allow them to flow more easily into the conscious state.

"Intuition is the ability to know without words, to sense the truth without explanations.

Intuition ;operates beyond time and space; it is a link to your higher self." 

-Sanya Roman.

How is it different from regular psychotherapy?

Hypnotherapy can be really helpful with shifting habits, phobias, obsessive behaviors; the very thought patterns that get us locked into
a bind.It's successful with these areas because a lot of our thought patterns are known to form crystalline structures that become rigid over time because of the chemicals they produce.Indeed Neuroscience explicitly explains more in detail how this crystalline process occurs.It demonstrates how neural peptides, hormones and neurotransmitters are all affected by our thoughts. Dr Joe DIspenza a hypnotherapist, chiropractor and neuroscientist has dedicated his life work to providing detailed research explaining this very process.Feel free to consult his book " Changing the habit of being yourself " for further information.

With such crystalline structures embedded in out brains,  the deepening process of hypnotherapy can really help to open the unconscious channels in a safe and intuitive way. We are after all creatures of habit, and some people really need to hold on to their habits to feel safe. By loosening the thought process with invited ease and meditation, an allowance for creative exploration can occur. There is an art in the way the hypnotherapist helps the client tap into their strengths be they visual, somatic, sensing, smelling, and or auditory. There is also a way in which the hypnotherapist asks open ended questions that help guide the client accessing more 
feelings and thoughts related to the presenting issue.

Present Life Regression:

The client is first guided into a well resourced place, which feels safe. The client is then guided via personalized meditation to a place back in their current lifetime to a trauma or event that is still affecting them. The client can at any point return to their safe place and a direct communication channel is available throughout the process with the hypnotherapist. This allows the client to really feel safe and relaxed while actively revisiting the event that caused the pain. This relaxed state is much like the state we feel when we just wake up in the morning, still sleepy yet awake. In this similar type of state the client has more distance from the pain. This distance helps the client to monitor their tolerance for the pain, and over time the goal is to create a corrective experience. This process also allows for the unconscious to open up and sometimes a message or insight helps to redirect the client's healing. This process often enhances the client's dream state, and dreams following sessions can also inform the path of healing. Clients quite often report feeling empowered when their dreams or insights are the very thing that is helping them.

Past life Regression:

One doesn't have to believe that we have had past lives in order to do this process. Quite often when we watch movies, we don't
know the actors, never have been to the location and never experienced the plot, yet we cry, laugh, feel and emote. Sometimes in life we experience a Déjà vu like experience where we can’t pinpoint why the experience or relationship is so familiar. This can be related to a past life experience. We can have blocks in relationship with current people in our lives and not understand what is getting in the
way of the relationship. Sometimes, there can be contracts that we made in previous lifetimes that to this day are still in effect. Clients can find this work to be very powerful and the learnings to be transformative. The process involves guiding the client around an issue that is stressing them, or a dream that puzzles them. 

 Applications: 
 Hypnotherapy can be helpful for a number of issues such as:

*  Anxiety  (including performance anxiety and test anxiety).
*  Depression and grief.
*  Relationship and career blocks.
*  Panic attacks and phobias (e.g. fear of flying, spiders etc.).
*  Low self-esteem and critical self-judgment.
*  Insomnia and rumination (obsessive looping thoughts).
*  Trauma (physical, emotional and spiritual)
*  Hyperactivity and loss of impulse control and / or concentration.