For many of us, doing
something new or unfamiliar can be very scary. But, you know
what? After you do that thing just one time it loses that
essence of being scary. It becomes “known” to your subconscious mind and
is integrated with your repertoire of behaviors. Your subconscious mind will
file away the memory of that sensation, experience, or associated emotion for
future reference for future behaviors the rest of your life—even if you never
repeat the specific behavior. (Advanced calculus, anyone?)
John G. Kappas, Ph.D., and Alex G.
Kappas Ph.D., revolutionized the practice of hypnotherapy based on their
findings that not everyone receives hypnotic suggestions the same way
(suggestibility). Suggestibility refers to how you learn, and it influences how
you interpret every experience. In Kappasinian Hypnotherapy there are two categories
of “known” (learned) experiences:
·
Pain:
Anything
new or unfamiliar (unknown). It may also refer to a physically or
emotionally painful experience.
·
Pleasure: An experience that is known and
familiar, although it may not necessarily be pleasurable. “Pleasure” can be a positive or a negative emotional/physical experience.
When you first learned how to walk, the
first step or two was probably wobbly. You probably held onto a parent’s hand
for dear life for the first attempts; it may have taken a week before you could
make it across a room without stumbling and falling down (Pain). Fast-forward a
week, a year, 20 years to today. Now you are able to skip, jump
and run without even thinking about it (Pleasure) because these activities
are familiar and comfortable.
Just imagine all of the New Year’s
Resolutions you will achieve when your subconscious mind recognizes and accepts
that these new behaviors are now “knowns” and they are here to stay!
