Excerpt from "Why People Don't Heal"

Nations Need to Heal--Not Just People

There is such a thing as a crime against the soul of a nation. A person or a political party can deliberately incite actions that diminish the strength, the integrity, and the overall well-being of a nation's inner core. America's soul is in a fragile state. It has suffered severe violations over the course of this past decade and to lesser degrees, in previous decades. Through the years, the essential integrity of America has been eroded for various reasons but never was it so violated as during the Bush administration. The endless lies, the deceitful years of propaganda that flowed from the West Wing that fed the media, the bogus reasons for setting the Middle East on fire, and converting this country into a corporate state for personal gain are crimes that shattered the soul of this nation more deeply than we have even begun to realize -- if we ever will. Read More.

Caroline Myss is one of the world’s leading voices in the fields of human consciousness, spirituality and mysticism, health, energy medicine, and the science of medical intuition. She is the author of several New York Times bestselling books (Anatomy of the Spirit, Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can, Sacred Contracts, Invisible Acts of Power, and Entering the Castle) and maintains a rigorous international workshop and lecture schedule. Read More.

IEOIE

A Beautiful Person and a Gifted Artist. You can see his work on YouTube. It looks computer generated, but it's not. He lives in the woods in the Netherlands and does everything by hand.

Why Hypnosis Works (Part 1 of 3)

Theory of Mind/Why Imagery Works

This is the way I was taught the brain works – in a simplified way.

There is the primitive part of the brain – where we find the fight/flight instinct. Since, we no longer live in a world where we have to fight or flee, most of the time anyway. So instead fight has become anxiety and flight is now transformed into depression. We live in a world where it’s not socially acceptable to fight or run away so when our bodies are flooded with adrenaline with no way to dissipate it we become anxious; and when we want to run away from our problems but can’t, and don’t see a solution, we get depressed.

Now, between birth and about 8 years old a child is busy forming associations, good and bad, and they write, what I like to call, their life script. These associations go into the subconscious part of the brain where they form our patterns and habits. For example, when your mother told you not to touch the big white thing in the kitchen because it was hot, you either listened to her and learned that mom knows best, or you got too close or even touched it and got burned and learned that mom knows best. Either way, positive or negative, it became something you "knew" and your subconscious stored it away for future reference.

The subconscious makes no judgments, it accepts everything as true and everything from early life becomes a known. It doesn’t have a concept of time either, past, present and future, are all the same as far as the subconscious is concerned. It also cannot discern the difference between fact and fantasy. When you learned to crawl and walk and later on to drive you first had to focus on each step necessary to move forward, but after practice it became automatic, a habit, stored in your subconscious. You don’t have to think to stand up, balance yourself, pick one foot up, move it out in front of you then put it down; rebalance then repeat the process, alternating feet. All of our autonomic processes, like breathing and our heart beating, are controlled by your subconscious as well. All of this is stored in about 88-90% of your brain.

So. Important point #1. The Subconscious remembers everything and accepts everthing as true.

Why Hypnosis Works (Part 2 of 3)

Somewhere between 8 and 9 we develop a filtering system, called the critical mind. This part of the brain handles up to 3 million pieces of information a second according to researchers. It works kind of like a search engine in a computer. It can hold info for up to 24 hours…after that the info is either rejected or accepted.

This part of the brain searches through the subconscious for any information that matches the incoming bit. If it finds that the new info relates to any of the "knowns" in your subconscious it adds the new information to what the subconscious already holds; if not, then the new information is rejected.

The conscious part of your brain, the part where your ability to learn, to analyze, to reason, to determine, and of course your will-power to help us through life is 10-12% of your brain’s capacity.

So this is Important Point # 2. We develop a "Conscious" Brain that can distinguish the difference between fiction and fact, truth and untruth.

Why Hypnosis Works (Part 3 of 3)

The prime objective of the subconscious is to protect you, to give you what you want. It strives to keep everything the same, homeostasis. It is slow to change because if it thinks something has worked for you up to now then you should go on doing the same thing.

This is why it can be so difficult to change a longtime habit or belief. Even when you have made a conscious decision to change with the 10-12% of your brain, the 88-90% does it’s best to override that decision.

As a hypnotherapist my client works with the 10-12% and I work with the 88-90%. Between us we work with 100% of the brain and have a much greater chance of success of getting both parts of the brain moving toward to same goal.

And that's why it works!

These are statistics from a comparison study done by the American Health Magazine:
Psychoanalysis: 38% success after 600 sessions
Behavior Therapy: 72% success after 22 sessions
Hypnotherapy: 93% success after 6 sessions

If you'd like to read more, see http://cuncecuncecunce.blogspot.com/2007/02/does-hypnosis-work-comparison-study.html