Both Hypnotherapy and Neuro-linguistic Processing (NLP) utilize focused states to bypass the conscious mind, thus creating a relaxed willingness for inner exploration to occur. It is an organic approach to affect internal and external change. They can help you to be in touch with your mental beliefs and thoughts, emotions, to delve into deeper states of being, recover parts of the self that lie hidden beneath the surface, access past and present history, and open up to metaphorical reality. When we develop a fertile, respectful relationship with our imagination, we can tap into the many truths that lie within and without, allowing significant levels of healing, help, and direction to become available.
The circumstances and conditions of our lives are an out-picturing of the imagery and contents stored in our psyche. It is here, below the level of intellect or ego, where truth resides and real change occurs. Our history, as well as answers to our questions, large and small, can be found in deciphering the psyche’s contents that are usually presented in code.
Most of our waking life is spent in natural, self-induced focused states. This may be through daydreams, when we space out or are lost in thought, or when we are doing one thing while thinking about another. Have you ever noticed how time flies when you are doing something that has great meaning for you? In those situations, we enter a focused state where we become open to universal knowledge and the knowledge of our own psyche. Focused states are the fertile soil of our most inspired creativity.
There are different levels and types of focused states. Without realizing it, we can be living out negative scripts where we unconsciously reenact and repeat painful parts of our histories, remembered or not, in order to master the original wound. What you haven’t worked out, you act out. Owning and emotionally expressing these experiences in a safe, organic, non-intrusive way to create room for new healthy beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and behavior to emerge.
The Inner Child, Other Self Parts, And The Shaman’s Journey
Through focused states, you can access the wounded child within that has been frozen in time and place. Each time we have been hurt as children, a part of us goes into the Unconscious mind to hold the hurt. These parts keep us stuck in reenacting childhood roles we were forced to play for survival. Some of these may have been patterns of defensiveness, aggression, passivity, helplessness, neediness, fear, anger, worry rigidity, or rationalization. As a result, we are compelled to recreate dysfunctional patterns, attractions, and lifestyle choices, leaving us at the mercy of problematic forces, disempowered, and out of balance.
To process these defenses may require reparenting the child within. When the inner child is finally safe and cared for, the adult can step out of survival mode and be open to their real source of power, authenticity, love, and self-mastery. Whether you are 10 or 96, it is never too late to give birth to yourself and feel fully alive.
Another critical point of access is via the negative internalized parental or societal voices that have become embedded in our psyche. These critical voices overshadow the voice of truth we were born with and restrict us from moving forward. Learning how to set needed boundaries with these parts creates space for your own natural resources to come forward and lead the way, helping create a successful functional internal system.
On another level, through focused states, you can enter a shamanic journey; work with your power animal (which holds the power you have not yet owned), meet your future self, inner soul mate, multidimensional aspects of your self, your high self or guides, or you can begin making friends with your shadow self. By beginning the journey into your inner landscape, you can transform mundane reality into an empowering visionary journey.