Through The Open Door: Secrets of Self Hypnosis is a book about self hypnosis written by Kevin Hogan and Mary Lee Labay.
through the open door
Most of us aren’t aware how much our subconscious runs our lives. We have repetitive defeating thoughts that control us. That’s why I believe in hypnosis and that is why I checked this book out.
Chapters are as follows
Chapter 1 – Understanding Hypnosis
Chapter 2 – Accessing the Unconscious Mind
Chapter 3 – Overcoming Procrastination
Chapter 4 – Fear No More
Chapter 5 – High Self Esteem and Unshakable Confidence
Chapter 6 – Making Better Decision…Faster
Chapter 7 – Attracting Special People Into Your Life
Chapter 8 – Look Attractive Longer and Feel Better Forever!
Chapter 9 – Ten Steps to Weight Loss through Hypnosis
Chapter 10 – Putting Out The Cigarette
Chapter 11 – Pain Relief through Self-Hypnosis
Chapter 12 – Birthing Your Child Using Hypnosis
Chapter 13 – Prosperity Consciousness
Chapter 14 – Accelerated Learning and Memory Enhancement
Chapter 15 – Interpreting Your Dreams
Chapter 16 – Remarkable Stories about the Power of Self-Hypnosis
Chapter 1 – Understanding Hypnosis
Having you ever been driving a car and somehow you get to where you going without you even realizing it? This is because you were in a trance which is basically the same as self-hypnosis according to authors. A trance is a narrowing state of attention.
This called a dissociated trance. Dissociated trance – two distinct tracks going on in your mind at the same time
Also recall a time when you were talking to someone but thinking about something else. This is called divided consciousness. Divided consciousness is the ideal trance for healing pain and reducing the effects of symptoms.
Hypnosis is the ability to access specific every day trance states. The unconscious mind tends to find ways to manifest its imagery. Self hypnosis involves shifting your mind from one state to the other.
When should you do self hypnosis?
According to studies, we all need a 20 minute break every 90 minutes. You can also see this in my review of stretch. We need mindless time in addition to mindful time. If you work through breaks, you are actually creating stress for yourself. Milton Erickson used to wait for these breaks to put people into hypnosis. How do you know when this state occurs? When you yawn or you go back to re-read something. This should be 20 minutes of healing and meditation.
Chapter 2 – Accessing the Unconscious Mind
This chapter is the map of how to hypnotize yourself. You have to access your unconscious mind.
All hypnosis attempts will come face-to-face with the anti-suggestive barrier of the mind. This protects the unconscious mind. It repels what it thinks is dangerous. The conscious mind is only a tiny portion of the whole mind according to the authors.
There are different mediators of our unconscious mind
1. Set up – our unconscious readiness for a certain type of activity
2. Attitude – conception of value of a given phenomenon
3. Motivation – the desire to achieve.
4. Expectancy – something is about to be achieved or lived through
5. Interests – Form the direction of the personality’s search for self-realization
6. Needs – the things that are vitally important to you as an individual
There are also three key anti-suggestive barriers in our minds.
3 key anti-suggestive barriers
1. Logical barrier – allows the mind to protect itself by not doing anything logically well-motivated
2. Emotional barrier – allows the mind to not do anythign which betrays the security or the self confidence of the self
3. Ethical barrier – not betray the morals of the individual
The goal of self hypnosis is to bypass these barriers. Your mind might not act as quickly to your own words as it might to someone else’s.
Autosuggestion has 3 components
1. Language
2. Faith
3. Ritual
In other words you have to say something to yourself to know that it will become a reality and you have to do a physical activity during the suggestion.
When using autosuggesiton you must remember that doubt creates fear. Fear creates mental emotional and spiritual paralysis. Don’t have doubt.
3 ways to successful autosuggestion
1. Use statements of faith. Certainty or knowledge that something is.
2. Use statements of goal-directed language. This helps your mind understand that you have a desire for a goal to become reality
3. Use statements in the present or near future. The mind will not accept things too far in the future.
Some autosuggestions:
1. I learn more about my life purpose every day
2. Each day I live more purposefully
3. Today I realize I am becoming in love with life.
4. I now consciously decide what I will think about
Words like “now” and “because” can also be used to get past the castle walls.
The word “Don’t” creates focus. If we are told don’t do something, we focus more on that which we are not supposed to do. ,
Metaphors are basically stories that hypnotists use to share ideas specifically with the unconscious mind. They help us make sense of the world.
The authors in this book use a lot of metaphors throughout the book to help you understand the concepts they explain.
Chapter 3 – Overcoming Procrastination
Procrastination is practicing for death. When you procrastinate, you are not partaking in the life that you want to live.
How to remove procrastination:
Step 1- identify the behavior you want to stop
Step 2 – decide what behavior you want to perform instead
You then switch the two. This is called the swish method. You make the activity you don’t want to do appear on a small screen while the activity you want to perform becomes bigger. The authors used watching tv as an example.
If this doesn’t work, then there is a problem with your internal dialogue. Authors have a method for fixing that as well.
Chapter 4 – Fear No More
Fear is a normal emotion meant to safeguard us and causes physical changes in the body. When you experience to much fear and stress, this causes problems for you and your body.
F.E.A.R. = False evidence appearing real
Fear is a projected negative assumption about an anticipated future that does not exist. People tend to experience reality in a way that confirms their beliefs.
Fears are different from phobias. Fear is something that is learned. It might be giving you a reason to do or not do something.
Someone who taught you fear might have just wanted to guard you from something. You might have fear from being made fun of.
Living in fear takes you out of the present moment.
Releasing your fear hypnosis. Imagine yourself in a safe place. Imagine what this place looks like and who you are with.
Oftentimes, in just naming our fears, we are able to eliminate them. Fears are not real. They are typically problems that can be solved. WE also learned about this in the book stretch. There the author said if you view your problems as threats, then your mind becomes more rigid. Rigidity reduces your ability to be creative.
If a problem has no solution, then is simply becomes a condition of life. Something that you can’t change.
How to resolve fears:
Ask yourself the following:
What is the very worst thing that you expect to happen concerning this fear?
In What ways are you contributing to this fear becoming real?
If that feared event were to become reality, what you like about that experience. Might seem weird to ask but there is something that part of you wouuld like about fear becoming a reality.
Then write a story about how to create a reality where this fear doesn’t come true. Write as many details as possible. Write a story from beginning to end. What happens after you complete this? Do you begin to relax?
The author also suggest writing the worst case scenario over and over again until you become completely desensitized to it.
Also make sure to use a higher power to overcome your fears. Many of our fears come from being uncomfortable with who we are. Turning to a higher power can change this.
You can also visualize your worst fears and then work backwards through them.
Chapter 5 High Self Esteem And Unshakable Self Confidence
You can desensitize your response to negative thoughts by replaying them back and making them smaller and funnier. Create a future in your mind that you believe you can obtain, then you create self confidence as a byproduct.
There 6 basic fears
1. The fear of poverty
2. The fear of old age
3. Fear of criticism
4. The fear of the loss of love of someone
5. The fear of ill health
6. The fear of death
Overcoming these fears will lead to self-confidence. The authors then go into details about how to get rid of these fears.
You have to know what you want in life and pursue what you want. Then you need to take action towards what you want to pursue.
You can use the circle of self confidence and confidence modeling outlined in the chapter to overcome your fears and increase confidence. Circle of confidence is exactly what it sounds like Confidence modeling is just modeling someone whose confidence you admire. Tony Robbins speaks about this a lot.
There is also this great metaphor in this chapter about a mountain. The mountain is essentially a goal you want to achieve that seems to be too out of reach. You envision yourself climbing the mountain and then wondering why it took you so long to climb it.
Chapter 6 Making Better Decisions Faster
Life is filled with decisions that change our lives. One of the basic steps of life is to have a value system. What is important to you? Who is important to you?
You need to make a list of your ideal values and then line those up next to your actual values. If they don’t match, then you have some work to do. All your decisions should be made in the context of your goals and life purpose.
Chapter 7 – Attracting Special People Into Your Life
In order to have good relationships, you need to make a few lists. First, you need to make a list of what you bring to a relationship. Then you need to make a list of your liabilities in a relationship and see if you can improve any of those liabilities. The next list you need to make is “musts” that you need in a partner.
These lists apply to personal and professional relationships alike.
Chapter 8 look attractive longer and feel better forever
In order to live longer you have to say certain things about your life. The author provides a list.
Some examples are included below:
I take care of my own needs before others with theirs
I feel I can influence others.
You should also have a strong support system of friends to help you out. Think young and you will stay young.
Chapter 9 Ten Step To Weight Loss Through Hypnosis
1. Understand why we gain weight and why most weight loss plans fail
2. Understand how the mind acts on suggestions and hypnotic commands
3. Discover the places, times, and emotions that are involved in your personal weight experience
4. Create specific outcomes based on your experiences in step 3 for your future
5. Link your outcomes to hypnotic language patterns that will bypass the anti-suggestive barrier of the mind.
6. Create a script using the newly created hypnotic suggestions for weight loss
7. Record them onto an audiotape so that you can listen to them daily
8. Each day, set aside a time specifically for self-hypnosis and relaxation that will allow you time for yourself.
9. Each day use the calorie charting system discussed above and record your progress daily
10. Record your weight once each week to measure your results
Most people eat because they unconsciously need to reward themselves.
Where do you eat food? We also eat other places than at our dinner table. If we only eat at our dinner table we will do a better job of keeping our calories down.
Formulate suggestions with the word because
Formulate suggestions with the word don’t. This will cause you to rebel. Think of things like – “I don’t need to lose weight now.”
Formulate suggestions using the word now.
Formulate suggestions using the word Imagine. Imagine what you will look like in six months after following your weight loss program.
Use these suggestions to formulate your self-hypnosis script related to weight loss.
I did not read the following chapters because I don’t think they apply to me.
Chapter 10 – putting the cigarrette out (Did not read)
Chapter 11 – Pain Relief Through Self Hypnosis (Did not read)
Chapter 12 – Birthing Your Child Using Hypnosis (Did not read)
Chapter 13 Prosperity Consciousness
This chapter is all about money. This chapter helps to understand what money is. Money is a belief system because it inherently has no value. It is a belief system because two people must come together to agree on the value. Therefore money is not the root of all evil.
Most people who are in prison today are in prison for something having to deal with money. Most people who live their lives by design have a great deal of money.
The authors show what the value of saving 2,000 a year is on your retirement. They show how you can save a million dollars for retirement based on reasonable rates of return. They also speak about the value of paying off your home loan early and investing in mutual funds which we’ve spoke about here before.
Chapter 14 Accelerated Learning and Memory Enhancement
According to authors IQ is not a set thing
Hypnotists used to use music to improve IQ. Utilize mind-expanding music.
IQ test given to students who listened to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos In D Major K 448. Those who listened to mozart got a 119. Those who listened to relaxing music got a 111. Those who listened to nothing got a 110. Results don’t last long after music was turned off. Researchers spent thousands of hours researching music.
The more sensory the learning the better.
We learn
20 percent of what we read
30 percent of what we hear
40 percent of what we see
50 percent of what we say
60 percent of what we do and
90 percent of what we see, hear, say and do
When learning make sure to use your full sensory systems.
Then there is a meditation in this chapter that has you recall a time when it was fun to learn. You go back into that experience and remember what it was like to be there learning. It has you touch three different fingers to your thumb to recall different learning experiences. Any time you want to recall how easy it is to learn something you can recall this by touching your fingers to your thumb.
Chapter 15 interpreting dreams
Dreams are a way for the unconscious mind to communicate with the conscious mind.
Emotions are what spark dreams.
The mediation in this chapter is to help you remember your dreams.
Another thing that you can do is pay attention to random thoughts as they might be a way your minds is trying to remember dreams. Create a ritual like touching something unique that will make your mind recall dreams.
Chapter 16 Remarkable stories about the power of self-hypnosis
I actually don’t think the stories in this chapter were that remarkable but maybe you will if you give it a read.
There are stories of:
- Story of personal journaling turning someone into an author
- Improving blurred vision with hypnosis
- Reducing headaches instead of taking pills
- Healing shame
