Who Are You When the Usual Noise Gets Quiet?

HypnosisPersonal Growth

Sep 1

Written By nic natale

Most of us try to change ourselves within the same state of mind we inhabit every day.

We analyze. We question. We replay conversations. We make promises about what we will do differently tomorrow.

Sometimes that works. But sometimes the thinking itself becomes part of the noise.

What if self-exploration occasionally requires changing not only what we are thinking about, but also the state from which we experience ourselves?

A Different State, A Different Perspective

Our ordinary waking consciousness is filled with familiar patterns.

We carry assumptions about who we are, what we want, what we fear, and what we believe is possible.

I have always been anxious. I am not confident. I cannot let go.

This is simply who I am.

Over time, these statements can stop feeling like interpretations and begin feeling like facts.

This is one reason I find hypnosis so compelling.

Clinical hypnosis uses focused attention and imagination to create a different psychological environment, altered state, if you will. As attention becomes more concentrated, some of our ordinary internal commentary can become less dominant.

And that shift can create room for exploration.

What would confidence actually feel like?

What happens when you imagine responding differently to something that has frightened you?

What do you notice when you temporarily loosen your grip on an old story about yourself?

Hypnosis allows us to move beyond simply talking about change and begin exploring what change might feel like as an experience. You experience the change in order to become the change.

There Is More Than One Door

Hypnosis is certainly not the only way human beings alter their ordinary state of consciousness.

Meditation can change our relationship with thought and attention.

Breathwork can create shifts in bodily awareness, emotion, and subjective experience.

Psychedelic states, now the subject of significant scientific investigation, can produce profound changes in perception, emotion, meaning, and one's experience of self. They also carry distinct medical, psychological, and legal considerations and should not simply be treated as interchangeable with hypnosis.

These experiences are different from one another.

But they share an intriguing possibility.

Sometimes changing our state changes our perspective. And a different perspective may allow us to encounter ourselves differently.