Improve Confidence - Use Hypnotherapy

January 28th, 2011 by Lifestyle Therapy - Susan Leigh

As human beings we can recognise that we are all in the process of developing and growing. Many people talk about the journey that is life, the route that we follow and where it takes us as we move through the years. Some people take a direct route, others prefer to meander, maybe getting lost for a while, taking detours. But we are all moving along the journey.

Our concept of normal is what we encounter in the first years of our life. Children often express surprise when they discover that other children have a different 'normal' to them. That realisation is often an important step in learning about individuality and separateness in human beings. Appreciating that other people do things in their own unique way can be a major concept to grasp when we first come into contact with it.

In addition to this we often follow patterns that we have developed over the years. Behaviour, reactions, attitudes, habits are all formed from learning to cope as well as we can with the experiences that we have encountered and had to deal with, the people we have met, the situations that we have witnessed. As life progresses and we encounter similar experiences and react in the same, original way those patterns become more entrenched.

Confidence is something that children naturally start out with. Children will naturally assume that others want to play with them, talk to them, share their games. Over time they learn about restraint, good manners, being quieter from feedback from their parents, teachers and experiences with other people. If a child has to cope with an embarrassing or humiliating situation it will learn quickly not to risk repeating that experience.

A child will do all it can to avoid an unpleasant encounter being repeated. So it may shout, cry, pretend to be unwell to avoid those situations, and if that fails to achieve the desired result it may learn to become quiet, shy, mute, invisible. A child is receptive to other people's moods, temperament, reactions. It is part of its innate survival strategy. Learning to be quiet to avoid being noticed in an argumentative household, or to avoid being picked on or bullied are all ingenious techniques to survive in a difficult environment, but they do not help a child become strong, vibrant and confident.

Learned behaviour patterns can stay with the child throughout its life, even if along the way many other good, successful events have occurred. Logic and common sense often struggle to override deep-rooted fears and emotions. Someone who has carried those feelings of dread and shame deep inside cannot simply shake them off. Just as someone who is terrified of spiders can know logically that they are harmless, but if one appears on the carpet they will still find themselves standing on a chair, out of reach.

In later life people can find their confidence badly shaken by events that may be out of their control. Redundancy, divorce, difficult life experiences can cause stress that over time erodes a person's ability to bounce back and recover their natural sense of confidence.

Hypnotherapy is a powerful way of working with deep-seated fears and life experiences. It works with the original experience and allows it to be healed and updated. It does not erase or amnesify what has happened. Instead it allows the experience to be remembered, but without the negative responses and reactions being triggered. It is also an effective way of recharging a person's batteries and helping them cope better with life.

Hypnosis or trance is a natural everyday experience that everyone is familiar with. Driving the car along a familiar route, being in a boring lecture or meeting, wandering around the supermarket are all trance-inductive experiences. We are miles away, on auto-pilot, listening but not really hearing what has been said, but we can return to full awareness if our name is mentioned or we recognise a familiar landmark on our journey. That is a good enough state of relaxation or trance for valuable hypnotherapy work to be undertaken. Healing old, unwanted patterns and allowing positive suggestions to improve confidence and feel better and more balanced as a result.