When to Use This
Use this before every first induction, with every client, without exception. It teaches them how the mind works, removes their fear of hypnosis, gives them a taste of trance, and — most importantly — teaches them how to communicate mentally, which is the skill the entire session depends on.
The Script
1. “I want you to picture your mind in four parts, but we are only going to talk about two of them.” (Leave them questioning.) “The first part is the conscious mind. That is like an office, and you are in your office from the second you wake up to the second you fall asleep. This is where you do your thinking, analyzing, worrying, creating, evaluating etc. Now, during the day, you have many experiences. Imagine an experience comes in and you have a thought about it. This is good, this is bad, this is right or wrong, I like this, I don’t like this.
2. Now imagine you can take those particular thoughts out and staple them to that experience. In the future, if another experience seems similar, it will trigger this memory to come back up, and you will have the exact same thought because the mind isn’t going to do the work twice. Now, not only do you have a thought about an experience, but you also have an emotion that goes along with it. This experience made me feel happy or sad, or not good enough, not lovable, abandoned. (Hint: Whatever emotions they said when they were talking are the same ones I use here.) Imagine taking that emotion out and stapling it to that experience, or shall we say file. Now, if a similar situation comes up, your mind will trigger.
3. How does it trigger? It can be triggered by a thought, a smell, a time of day, a similar situation, and even a commercial can call back this memory file, and you will have the same thought, the same feeling, and the same action. So you can see how important these files are to us living life. Driving a car, tying a shoelace, making coffee. We have millions of these files that help us navigate life without having to learn everything over and over again.
4. To prove my point, if you get into somebody’s car, you know how to drive because the driving file will come up. Conversely, if you got into the cockpit of a plane, you aren’t going too far. (N.B.: This analogy works if they are not a pilot.) But they always get the point. BUT, what happens if one of these files is corrupt? It wasn’t a good experience. It didn’t have a good thought.
5. It didn’t have a good feeling or a good action. Guess what? When something triggers it, up comes the icky file. Now everyone has icky files, but nobody wants to feel icky, so what do we do with the icky file? We push it down like a ball in the ocean.
6. What does a ball in the ocean like to do? It pops up. Just like the icky file does. So we push it down by drinking, drugging, over eating, over working, gambling, etc. We would rather do anything else other than look at the icky file. But here’s the thing.
7. When you have an icky file, your body senses it popping up, and this is what causes anxiety and stress because your body is aware a fear or icky feeling is coming. Another interesting point to mention here is that when you suppress a negative emotion, it becomes a magnet. This magnet attracts more people and situations into your life to get you to finally recognize it is there. It wants to be acknowledged, honored, and released, and until you release it, more similar situations and people will enter your life. So, what do we do in hypnosis?
8. We turn it around and look at it. And once we look at it, we honor it by feeling it, and then we release it and it floats away like a balloon. We cut the cords to it, and it is gone forever. Now there is no reason to look for a cigarette, a drink, a snack, etc. because there is nothing to push down. Nothing is popping up for you anymore.
9. Now, when you are not using the file, the files can not stay in the conscious mind. They have to go into the file cabinet room. That’s your subconscious mind, and that part of your mind holds every file you have with your thoughts, emotions, and actions attached to them. This file room holds everything since your conception. This room is very organized, and I can to prove it.
10. I want you to picture an elephant. Can you do that? Of course you can, because one time in your life you colored and elephant, learned about an elephant, saw one in the zoo or in the movies, but you can’t be walking around every day thinking of an elephant. So when you are not thinking of an elephant, he goes back into the subconscious mind’s file room. But now that you have the elephant in your mind, I want you to turn him pink.
11. Put white polka dots on him, a blue bow on his tail, and a funny hat on his head. Got that image? Good. Now your subconscious mind believes you just saw a pink elephant with white polka dots, a blue bow, and a funny hat on its head. And in ten minutes, I know you won’t be thinking of a pink elephant, but in ten hours or ten days, when you think of an elephant, guess which elephant will come up?
12. The pink one because there is no garbage can in the mind and your mind believes you just saw a pink elephant because it cannot determine what is real and what is fake. You have an image of a pink elephant, and now it believes it to be true. N.B.: The next part of my pre-talk will give them a sample of hypnosis. It will also allow me to see how well they hypnotize. Anyone who answers right away is always easier to work with than someone who is slow.
13. It also gives them a chance to understand what it is they should be experiencing.) Now I would like you to close your eyes and describe for me your pink elephant. Is the trunk up or down? Are the spots the same size or different? Is the tail curly or straight? Describe the funny hat.
14. What color is it, and does it fit properly? Now imagine the elephant is moving. What is it doing? Ask a few questions here. Now I want you to imagine you can communicate with the elephant MENTALLY.
15. This is so important because this is how they communicate with anyone once they are in a trance state. Ask the elephant if he likes being pink. What does he say mentally? Go with the first thing that comes into your mind without questioning it. Now ask if its parents and or siblings are pink.
16. Ask if other elephants make fun of it. How does that make him feel? Does he have any friends? Good. Now thank the elephant and open your eyes.
17. You were just hypnotized. That is how it feels. Hypnosis is focused concentration. You were so focused on the elephant that nothing else mattered. That’s how it will feel when I hypnotize you.”
18. “Now that you know how the mind works, how hypnosis works, and how it feels, I want to describe the process. We are going to start with a guided meditation to relax you. Then we will go to either the garden or the beach, whichever you feel you can imagine better.” If they say garden, then explain, “We will be going through a small forest and down the stairs to a beautiful garden.” If they say beach, explain, “You will start with an overlook of the beach, then walk down the stairs to the beach and, once I get you to the beach, then you can describe the beach to me just like you did your elephant.
19. Remember, this is your own inner experience, and your mind will show it to you as you relax. Use your imagination.”