Congratulations: you’ve downloaded the hypnosis you will listen to every day for the next two weeks. The next step is to power up that hypnosis by making your personalised visualisations.
You are going to create two Mind Movies to play in your imagination when you listen to your download
Anxiety Delete Mind Movie
Relaxation Trigger Mind Movie
This Mind Movie will show moving images representing the worst anxious experience you have suffered.
Follow the steps below to create your Anxiety Delete Mind Movie.
Your download will instruct you in how to use your Mind Movie to remove excess anxiety from your brain.
Identify the worst anxious experience you have suffered.
Close your eyes.
Find somewhere comfortable to relax.
Take five deep breaths (inhale through your nose for four or five counts, exhale through your mouth at a slower pace).
Then breathe deeply in a way that is comfortable for you, taking breaths from low down in your abdomen. Place your hand on your stomach to check that it is moving up and down as you breathe.
Create a Mind Movie of imagined moving images (just like in a movie) representing this anxious experience.
Have the Mind Movie start just before the event happened when everything was fine, then move on to show the experience happening, and then finish when everything is fine again.
The moving images should be in black and white and grainy in quality as this will make it less distressing to “watch”. Your Mind Movie should last about 20-30 seconds.
Imagine you have a control board in front of you which allows you to play with your Mind Movie.
Practice pausing it, fast forwarding it, and rewinding it while you watch it.
Example:
James made a Mind Movie of his worst anxious experience.
He made a black and white Mind Movie of the incident: the movie started when he was at a restaurant with friends, moved on to him feeling overwhelming panic after a row with the waiter about the poor service and ended when he went to the bathroom and managed to recover, returned and finished his meal
Example:
Sasha made a Mind Movie of her worst anxious experience.
She made a black and white Mind Movie of the incident: the movie started when she was in a meeting at work, moved on to her feeling so nervous about contributing to the meeting she had to leave the room and ended when she calmed herself down and returned to the meeting apologising to her colleagues.
Follow the steps below to create your “Relaxation Mind Movie”.
This Mind Movie will show moving images (just like in a movie) representing a relaxing experience you have enjoyed.
We are going to use your brain’s “conditioning” function to create a trigger to bring on feelings of calm relaxation.
What is the trigger? Pressing together your finger and thumb.
Our lives contain experiences which, if repeated, trigger an automatic response in our behaviour. In the most famous example, Pavlov, the Russian scientist, rang a bell every time he fed his dogs. After a while, just hearing the bell would trigger his dogs to salivate. An otherwise neutral stimulus like a bell ringing took on a positive meaning for the dogs.
Other examples of classic conditioning might be: standing up when the school bell is rung; or feeling tearful at the sight of a needle because of past painful injections; or a song from the happy moments in the past putting you in a good mood. Put simply, two stimuli are linked together to produce a learned response.
Identify a time when you felt happy and relaxed. It might be an imagined experience in the future or a real experience from the past.
Example:
Dancing on holiday; on your wedding day; lying on a beach; walking through a forest.
Find somewhere comfortable to relax.
Close your eyes.
Take five deep breaths (inhale through your nose for four or five counts, exhale through your mouth at a slower pace).
Then breathe deeply in a way that is comfortable for you, taking breaths from low down in your abdomen. Place your hand on your stomach to check that it is moving up and down as you breathe.
Create a Mind Movie of moving images (just like in a movie) representing this positive relaxing experience.
Don’t forget to include the emotions which go with it.
Your Mind Movie should be in full colour and last about 20/30 seconds
Imagine you have a control board in front of you which allows you to play with your Mind Movie.
Practice watching yourself on the screen, as well as experiencing it through your own eyes (jump into your body in the movie).
Trigger: when you watch your Mind Movie, press together your finger and thumb.
Your brain will make the association between this finger press and the feelings of relaxation in your Mind Movie. It means that, wherever you are, you have conditioned your mind to bring on those relaxed feelings whenever you press together your finger and thumb.
Play your Relaxation Mind Movie repeatedly. Work it into your every day activities: e.g. when you brush your teeth, your hair, when you have a hot drink, or take a loo break and so on.
Remember to press your finger and thumb together whenever you play your Mind Movie.
Example:
Kai made a Mind Movie of himself lying on a beach in the sunshine with his wife and children.
Example:
Yasmin made a Mind Movie of herself skiing down a mountain with the wind in her hair.
Example:
Sam made a Mind Movie of himself in bed chatting to his partner after a night out.