How often have you woken up and thought, “Today’s the day I finally change”? While you might start your day intending to begin your weight loss journey or say goodbye to cigarettes for good, things can quickly, infuriatingly unravel. One puff here or one shortcut there, and suddenly you’re back to the beginning.
Constantly starting over is exhausting—and may be part of why you’ve struggled making long-term changes. But things don’t have to stay this way forever. If you’re ready to turn your “one day” into “day one,” then it’s time for a neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) hypnotherapy session. This therapeutic approach can help you create lasting change within yourself and quit unwanted habits or struggles for good.
Here’s what you should know about NLP, how this hypnosis technique works, and what you can expect from an NLP hypnosis session.
Understanding NLP
NLP is the study of our subjective experiences. It helps hypnotherapists analyze how we think through visuals, internal dialogue, and feelings. During the introductory portion of the session, your hypnotherapist may use NLP strategies to target specific mental imagery or internal dialogue that creates the sensations you struggle with, such as cravings. When combined with hypnosis, this technique can help you quit a habit or struggle for good.
Let’s consider how a hypnotherapist may use NLP strategies and hypnotherapy for smoking cessation:
Visual
Visual images are one of the components of craving a cigarette. This could be a thought or idea about smoking that is purely unconscious. If you are a nonsmoker, one way to think about this is to consider the color of your car. Typically, you’ll visualize your car and think, “Oh, my car is blue,” or “My car is black.”
This same thinking process applies to smoking. During a craving, you may picture an image—perhaps a cigarette in your hand, a pack of cigarettes, or an image of yourself smoking out on your back porch.
Using NLP, a hypnotherapist can help you change or eliminate that picture. For example, the hypnotist can change the color of the cigarette package. They could also shrink the image down so that it’s small instead of something big, or even make it a still image instead of a movie in your mind.
All these different changes and adjustments to the mental image can change or de-intensify the power of the imagery and therefore the craving. In short, if the picture of cigarettes or smoking isn’t there (or isn’t in its original form), you can’t have a craving for it.
Auditory
Another component of thoughts is audio, which is the internal dialogue related to sensations like cravings. When you crave a cigarette, for example, it’s the internal voice that comes to mind. This voice may say things like, “I want a cigarette. I need a cigarette. I need to smoke.”
In the same way that a hypnotherapist can help you change or eliminate the mental image of smoking, they can also change or eliminate the internal dialogue.
This NLP process involves changing the content of the words you hear. Maybe you go from “I need a cigarette” to “I have quit,” “I don’t smoke anymore,” or “I choose to be healthy”. Alternatively, the hypnotherapist can keep the words as-is but change the voice you hear. So, rather than the voice being your own—familiar and compelling—it becomes a voice you distrust. Maybe you hear the words in the voice of a villain from a movie or the voice of a politician you dislike. The right change to the message you hear in your head can dissuade you from smoking.
Hypnosis Session Breakdown
Being in hypnosis means you’re in a focused state of deep relaxation. In this state of mind, your suggestibility is heightened. It also means your subconscious mind is more capable of reconsidering deeply held beliefs. Here’s what a session looks like:
Step 1: Starting with a Conversation
A hypnosis session begins with a conversation. This open dialogue is generally structured like a question-and-answer period. It’s when you help the hypnotherapist understand any associations you have with the habits or issues you’re trying to fix. This is your opportunity to explain thoughts around your cravings, concerns about quitting habits, your history of quitting, etc.
A hypnotherapist may use NLP strategies or techniques during this portion of the session to change thoughts and feelings surrounding the habit you want to break or the behaviors or thoughts you want to improve.
Step 2: Entering Hypnosis
Once the hypnotherapist has a better understanding of your needs, they will then help you enter hypnosis, a state of deep relaxation and intense concentration. They may do this using things like:
- Focused breathing techniques
- Progressive relaxation
- Guided visualization
Whatever strategy the hypnotherapist uses, the goal is to get you into a state of deep relaxation. To begin with, the hypnotherapist may tell you to breathe in and out for a few counts while also commenting on the sensations that you feel during the breathing exercise.
Step 3: During the Trance
Once you’re hypnotized, your therapist will use the knowledge they’ve gathered about you and try a few different techniques to help you with your habit.
Returning again to the smoking example, they may try strategies like direct suggestions or regression therapy. With direct suggestions, the hypnotherapist could say things like, “You don’t need to smoke anymore. You can toss that last cigarette in the trash because you’re walking away for good.” They could help you visualize being around other smokers without feeling tempted. They could tell you to change the internal voice that is telling you to smoke into an undesirable, untrustworthy voice.
If they use regression therapy, the hypnotist may guide you to recall past memories that founded your beliefs. For instance, perhaps your younger self frequently watched your parents or trusted adults around you smoke. Once these memories are acknowledged, the hypnotherapist can then provide suggestions to help you realize that you don’t have to stick with this habit anymore.
Step 4: Emerging from Hypnosis
Many hypnotherapists use grounding techniques to help clients exit hypnosis. Here, they may find ways to describe the environment around you, such as the sounds you hear, certain smells, etc.—anything to bring you back into the present moment.
Today’s the Day for Hypnosis
Change is hard, especially when it comes to changing habits or deeply rooted fears or beliefs. Fortunately, hypnosis and NLP can help. With this powerhouse combination, you’ll be able to pave a new road to a place where you are finally changed for good.
Looking for NLP-hypnosis options in Atlanta, Georgia? Contact our Atlanta hypnotherapy clinic for more information.
