In hypnosis you can observe the so-called ideomotor effect: an idea is turned into movement. For example the hypnotist suggests to the trance subject that one of her hands suddenly feels very light, as if a balloon was tied to the wrist whereupon it actually starts to rise – hand levitation. But this phenomenon doesn’t only occur in hypnotic states, it happens all the time. Think of your favourite food, really visualize, smell, taste it in your mouth. Are you salivating? For the more advanced among you I’ve got something a bit more difficult (and very useful in this skin-melting heat!): Imagine it’s really cold outside, freezing cold, the streets are covered in snow, you almost slipped on the icy ground this morning. Can you give yourself goose bumps just by thinking of what it feels like to be cold? Congratulations – you’ve mastered the first step on your way to independence. Independence of what? The dictate of the physical.
I feel cold very easily (in German we say “she’s a real frost bite”), but I am determined to change that. No, I’m not going to carry a sweater whenever I leave the house or stay inside all through winter (wrong country for that, missy!) – I will use the power of my imagination. Learning how to harness mental capacities for making physical changes is like having a lock pick: It can open a lot of doors. Whether it is losing weight or alleviating pain or becoming a better pianist, you can enhance the effect of physical interventions like diets, pain killers and practising the piano by getting your unconscious involved. Unfortunately they don’t teach us at school how to get in touch with it. (Wouldn’t it be great if you could just dial a number on your cell to talk to it? “Hi, your unconscious is currently working on gathering compelling reasons for breaking up with your boyfriend who your conscious thinks you’re still in love with. Please leave a message after the beep.”) So a lot of people think it doesn’t exist or at least never really think about it, although you can see it doing its job 24/7. Or do you consciously tell yourself to breathe in and out? To digest? To come up with some awesome topics for dreams? No? Thought so.
So, the unconscious exists, we don’t need to talk about that any more. If you want to call it something else, go ahead. The question is: How can you use it for solving your problems? Well, the easiest way would be to shoot me an email to nilima@raffini.ca and book an appointment with me so that I can show you how. (Do you see how I planted an idea right there? You know what’s going to come next...) For starters you can try the following: Pick a problem that really bothers you – those 10 pounds you haven’t been able to get rid of since last Christmas maybe or always forgetting your friends’ birthdays – and simply ask your unconscious to help you solve it. Maybe in the form of a dream or a sudden insight (one of these “Eureka!” moments, though you might want to refrain from running into the streets naked as Archimedes allegedly did – it happened to him in the bath tub, poor guy) or a “this is the right thing to do” feeling that accompanies one of your approaches.
If you think this ‘dear unconscious’ exercise “isn’t your thing” because it’s too esoteric, get creative. Make it your thing. There are no hard and fast rules about how to connect with your unconscious. You can write letters to it or use Freud’s free association method, you can copy the surrealist painter Salvador Dali and try to fall asleep with a fork in your hand (he did that in order to wake himself up during hypnagogia, the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep; apparently the unconscious comes up with pretty amazing hypnagogic images) or just talk to yourself like you always do (and don’t tell me you don’t because everybody does!) only this time with a specific purpose in mind.
And if you think “Just because the thought of eating a mango makes my mouth water doesn’t mean that I can get my body to not feel pain”, you’re absolutely right. You first have to accept the idea that you can before it becomes reality.
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