Uncommon Hypnosis BLUEPRINT

How to use hypnosis to build your confidence (so you can rise to any challenge) by Mark Tyrrell

Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint No 4

How to use hypnosis to build your confidence Table of Contents How to use hypnosis to build your confidence

4

How hypnosis will help you increase your confidence

15

Hypnotic Exercise – Feel more confident

16

Hypnosis Downloads is wholly owned by Uncommon Knowledge Ltd. Uncommon Knowledge Ltd was set up in 1998 and is a well-established hypnotherapy centre specializing in psychology training and provision of hypnosis resources online and offline.

Hypnosis Blueprint No 4 How to use hypnosis to build your confidence © 2014 Uncommon Knowledge Ltd All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this publication may be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or reproduced in any way, including but not limited to digital copying and printing (except for strictly personal use), without the prior agreement and written permission of the author. You must not use any hypnosis downloads or any of the course material for any commercial purpose. Uncommon Knowledge Ltd Boswell House, Argyll Square, Oban PA34 4BD United Kingdom Blueprint Design by Kathleen Fedouloff [email protected]

How to use hypnosis to build your confidence (so you can rise to any challenge)

This Blueprint gives you background information and step-by-step instructions on how to use your hypnotic skills to develop your confidence in yourself and your abilities so you can shine in your life.

CONFIDENCE is a matter of HABIT. It’s amazing if you don’t

how quickly you lose it...

WORK IT OUT

Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint No 4

regularly!

Page 4

© 2014 Uncommon Knowledge Ltd

YOU

could probably use

a little more

self confidence

in your life

couldn’t you?

Most people, when asked, say they could.

Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint No 4

Page 5

© 2014 Uncommon Knowledge Ltd

You have surely heard some version of the ancient Sufi story of the thirsty lion. Sufi stories are said to have many different meanings, depending on who is listening, but one possible interpretation of this story is that it has something to tell us about the nature of self confidence. Here’s my version.

The guardian of the waters There was once a young orphan lion (who had no idea he was a lion) wandering about in a dry wilderness, getting ever more thirsty. Having been separated from the pride when he was a cub, he had never set eyes on another lion. Sometimes he wondered if he might be a sheep, or a goat, but when he encountered these creatures in his wanderings he knew he was different from them in some mysterious way. “I must find water somewhere or I’ll die of thirst,” he thought to himself. At last he found a cave and went inside, simply to get some shade from the noonday heat. To his surprise, there was a pool of water inside the cave and he immediately went to take his fill and drink. But what was this? As he bent his head to drink from the pool he was shocked and horrified to see a magnificent yet fearsome creature looking right back at him. A powerful looking beast, with teeth to match. Not someone to be trifled with! The young lion withdrew hastily. “This must be the guardian of the pool. How am I to drink with that beast guarding the supply?” he asked himself. He padded around the cave for a while, getting more and more thirsty and desperate. At last he could stand it no more. “I’ll have to fight him!” he said to himself. And in an instant he leapt at the creature in the pool, determined to fight it for the water. Of course, there was no ‘creature’ there but himself, in reflection. In this way he both learned what and who he was and found that facing fear could get him what he so desperately needed.

Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint No 4

Page 6

© 2014 Uncommon Knowledge Ltd

One of the greatest benefits of having strong self confidence is that you retain and build the energy you need to pursue your goals. What do I mean by this?

Energy sapping doubts It takes huge mental effort to stay anxious, doubt yourself all the time, be self conscious, try too much to please others, or constantly dread letting people down. Or yourself down. It’s exhausting. Keep it up for long enough and all your mental energy will leak away. On the other hand, true self confidence isn’t about going around thinking how fantastic you are, because even that takes energy. No. Real self confidence is not self love, nor anything to do with being self absorbed.

Looking beyond A real dead end in ‘self help’ thinking has been the idea that, in order to increase their self confidence, people should focus more on themselves. But notice our lion. When he focussed too much on his own image, he lost perspective. His analysis of the situation made him freeze into inaction, and caused him more fear. When he gazed too long at himself, he was just as paralyzed as when he had had no self awareness at all. But when he focussed purely on his objective – to get water – he finally found the confidence to act. His confidence came when he looked beyond himself.

Self forgetting as a way to confidence When I am self confidently public speaking to a hundred strangers, I am not focussing on me and how confident and fantastic I feel (or feel that I am). When I present confidently, I have disappeared. Or should I say, “‘I’ has disappeared.”

Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint No 4

Page 7

© 2014 Uncommon Knowledge Ltd

Situations in which I feel supremely confident are not about me at all. This is a profound point, and I want you to ponder it very carefully. Great self confidence is not the opposite of low self confidence. People who doubt themselves too much actually tend to focus on themselves much more than people who are confident. When you have confidence, you don’t need to keep telling yourself how wonderful you are, because you are too busy focussing outward on what you are doing.

Think about this: Confidence isn’t about bigging yourself up. It’s more to do with acting with optimism, calm, energy and focus.

Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint No 4

Page 8

© 2014 Uncommon Knowledge Ltd

SELF CONFIDENCE is a general feeling

that YOU CAN LEARN what needs to be done in specific situations.

Let’s look at this in more detail.

Relaxing with uncertainties Another popular myth is that self confident people know or have to believe that everything will work out and be awesome. It’s true that self confidence makes you more positive and optimistic, but self confidence isn’t about having to know something will work. So what is it about? If I were to sum up exactly what self confidence is, I would say: “Self confidence is a calm subconscious and conscious sense that … whatever happens … I will manage it successfully, and I will do everything I can to make this happen.” Confident people manage their expectations successfully. Rather than telling themselves: “I am definitely going to win this cake baking contest!” they are more likely to tell themselves: “I will give this cake my best shot, but whatever happens I’ll be just fine!”

Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint No 4

Page 9

© 2014 Uncommon Knowledge Ltd

Like this: • A woman goes to a party where she’ll meet lots of new people. She doesn’t know everyone will like her, but she can relax enough with the uncertainty of the situation to feel comfortable and optimistic. • A man goes for an interview for a job he’d love to have. He doesn’t know he’ll get the job, but he does know he’ll do the best he can at the interview and even if he doesn’t get the job he’ll still be just fine. • A woman goes on a date with a man she is attracted to. She doesn’t know for sure it will go well, but she is relaxed enough to enjoy finding out.

TRUE self confidence isn’t about certainty. It’s about successfully and calmly

MANAGING life’s uncertainties.

Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint No 4

Page 10

© 2014 Uncommon Knowledge Ltd

If you really want to be confident, cultivate the capacity to relax with uncertainties. So many people, and especially those prone to anxiety and self doubts, just don’t do this. Self confident people (which will mean you) are explorers. They don’t assume they know how something will go, but look forward with a calm open mind to finding out. A wonderful calm openness to life is key to being confident. Hypnosis will help you relax more with uncertainty, so you can give things a try in all kinds of ways. Hypnosis is all about activating the imagination to make changes on the ‘programming level’ of the mind. People sometimes inadvertently program themselves with lack of confidence by misusing their imagination. Learning to use imagination constructively (rather than against themselves) can make all the difference.

Using and not misusing your imagination Our imaginations can trick us into seeing things that aren’t there – like that coiled hosepipe we mistake for a snake. Situations can be interpreted in any number of ways, not all of them helpful. Some interpretations fill us with fear and dread. More constructive interpretations fill us with quiet anticipation and optimism. The secret to unshakable confidence is to ensure that our default interpretation of any situation is constructive and helpful.

Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint No 4

Page 11

© 2014 Uncommon Knowledge Ltd

To be confident, we don’t need to know that a situation will be good. We need to know that we will be good, no matter what the situation. It’s that sense that gives us true, real and lasting confidence. People who, ahead of time, imagine things like: “Oh no, what if I fall to pieces and blush when everyone is looking at me on stage…?” are misusing their imagination to undermine their own confidence. When we use hypnosis to help people, we have them feeling relaxed and calm, as well as super energised and focussed if that’s appropriate.

WHEN YOU are different in a given situation, that situation becomes DIFFERENT, even if outwardly it seems the same.

Think about what I’ve just said there. It really is important. Now I want to explain how people negatively condition themselves to lose confidence. I’ll show you this so you can • avoid it and • do the opposite so that you can become more self confident.

Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint No 4

Page 12

© 2014 Uncommon Knowledge Ltd

The horror of next Wednesday Sally is rather prone to misusing her imagination for negative self hypnosis. She goes into work one Friday and her boss tells her the company needs her to give a short presentation to fifty out of town sales reps next Wednesday morning. She has never spoken to so many people before. Sally instantly feels terrified. And now, whenever her thoughts turn to next Wednesday, she feels terrified. She is imagining next Wednesday at the same time as feeling scared and powerless.

She keeps doing this. All day Friday, when she goes home, on Saturday, on Sunday – feeling scared at the same time as imagining ‘next Wednesday’. This self hypnotic self torture begins to really work. Pretty soon just the words ‘next Wednesday’ bring on a post hypnotic surge of automatic anxiety. She has associated the feeling of fear with the imagination of next Wednesday’s presentation so often that the two have become inextricably linked. Not in her thinking, but in her feeling.

Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint No 4

Page 13

© 2014 Uncommon Knowledge Ltd

People do this kind of negative self conditioning with all kinds of things, from flying in aeroplanes to going on dates. Sally was so desperate that on Monday afternoon she came to see me for help (she must have been really desperate, right? )

What happened with Sally I suggested to Sally that she was misusing her imagination, and rather too effectively. After hypnotising her, I got her to think about next Wednesday while feeling totally calm and relaxed. I got her to imagine the talk going really well and her feeling good about that. I even suggested that, in the highly unlikely event that the sales reps didn’t like her, she would still feel relaxed and just do her thing. This was particularly powerful, as it touched upon the uncertainty aptitude I was mentioned earlier – the heart of confidence (remember: “Whatever happens, I’ll be okay.”) I helped her re-associate ‘next Wednesday’ with ‘calm optimism’. She rang me on Wednesday afternoon, after the event, and told me that during the presentation she had felt, not exactly that she didn’t care whether they liked her talk or not, but that she was focused on something else, on making the company strategy very clear to them. “I found I was actually enjoying the process,” she said, laughing.

Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint No 4

Page 14

© 2014 Uncommon Knowledge Ltd

How hypnosis will help you increase your confidence

You will have understood by now that a good part of any lack of confidence you may have felt in different situations in the past may have been due to you practicing negative self hypnosis. Of course, you never intended to do that – none of us do. And we are often unaware that we are doing it. But the training in hypnotic skills that you have undertaken will have opened your eyes to how readily we accept negative suggestions – from others and from ourselves – and to how easily we fall into misusing our own imaginations to frighten ourselves. When you can spot this happening, in yourself or in others, you are finally in a position to change things for the better. With hypnosis, you can take specific situations in which you were feeling underconfident and re-associate positive optimistic emotions with exactly those situations. The more you do this, the more generally self confident you will become. And the hypnotic exercise that follows will help you train in the art of nurturing your own confidence. Identify a specific situation or set of circumstances in which you would like to have more self confidence – by which I mean, more of the calm, optimistic feeling that “I will do my best, and whatever happens I’ll be okay.” And then use this exercise. This is a much better way to use self hypnosis (and can be even more powerful) than the unfortunate negative self hypnosis most people subject themselves to when they are anticipating a situation they feel under confident about. And here’s something else. The more you repeat this exercise, the less you’ll need to repeat it. Because this approach will just become more of who you are and how you quite naturally deal with life and its challenges. So get practising! Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint No 4

Page 15

© 2014 Uncommon Knowledge Ltd

 HYPNOTIC EXERCISE 

Feel more confident

1

Find somewhere comfortable and peaceful to sit or lie, where you know you won’t be disturbed for a while. Close your eyes and start to pay attention to the sensation of resting deeper and deeper with each breath.

2

As your breathing becomes slower and gentler, visualize pure relaxation as your favorite color. Notice as the color, your color, soothes its way through the muscle fibers of your feet, perhaps warming them a little as you relax deeper.

5

After absorbing this for some time, redirect your attention to get a sense of calmly watching yourself, from the outside, actually being in that time and place and situation, as it is unfolding, looking so calm and relaxed and focussed in just the right way.

6

Notice what it is about the you there in that unfolding situation that lets the you here in trance know the you there is completely open and relaxed with whatever the situation brings.

Watch in your mind’s eye how that rest and relaxation spreads up the muscles of your legs, and up through your torso, and all over your body as you go deeper into hypnotic trance. Take your time.

3

Gradually become aware of calmly watching yourself in a future time, looking relaxed and happy, in a time after a certain kind of situation in which you would previously have felt less than confident. Maybe you can see yourself sitting in a chair or just resting some place.

4

Notice how pleased that future you looks in that future time, after that event, so pleased that you have added yet another thing to your list of confident activities or situations.

You might notice how other people around are affected by the steady confidence and calm of the you there.

Give yourself time to fully register how calmly yet deeply happy you feel about this.

Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint No 4

Page 16

7

Now get a sense of drifting forwards in time and merging with that you in that situation, so you can discover what it feels like from the inside to feel so calm and focused and accepting of everything that happens as that situation unfolds, knowing that whatever occurs, you are okay.

8

When your unconscious mind lets you know that you have learned everything you need from this experience, then allow yourself to drift out of that future situation and float back into the here and now.

9

When you’re ready, drift out of hypnosis and come back to the room, feeling rested, refreshed and inspired.

© 2014 Uncommon Knowledge Ltd

I hope this Blueprint has given you some ideas on how to improve your self confidence and keep it strong, and how to think about self confidence in general, not allowing yourself to fall for the myths that are so widely peddled. Of course, ultimately life itself is your best teacher (yes, better than me). Remember our young lion? He had to go through an experience and once he had done that, then he could start to feel much more confident about who he was. The more you say ‘yes’ to opportunities, the more you actually try things out, the more you can replace limited imaginings with reliable knowledge of what is out there for you. You’ll also find it helpful to study two other articles I’ve written on this subject. One is ‘How to build self confidence’, and the other is ‘How to boost your personal power in two minutes’. You’ll find the hints and tips there invaluable. (And yes, it does say two minutes.) All my best Mark

This Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint is part of the Uncommon Hypnosis Course. You can read more about the course here. Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint No 4

Page 17

© 2014 Uncommon Knowledge Ltd