Regression? It feels like I'm making it up!

Almost everyone who experiences past life regression (exploring past lives) or regression hypnotherapy (working within their current life) starts worrying that they’re 'making it all up'. When this happens, and if they haven’t been warned about it in advance by their practitioner, the client is likely to start holding back information, and everything slows down or even grinds to a halt.

In order to help you understand why you might do this, I’m going to offer you a very simple explanation about the difference between the conscious and subconscious mind. Don’t worry – this won’t be in the least bit scientific, just my take on how those two parts of our mind function.

The difference between the mind and brain

Let’s look at the conscious mind. Actually, we can’t 'look' at it as it isn’t an organ, which is why scientists and medics mostly talk about the brain rather than the mind, because in science, information is gathered through an often-extensive process of research. The Science Council’s definition of science is as follows:

'Science is the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence.'

I’m not a scientist, in fact, I flunked every science exam I took when I was at school, so I have found ways to describe the difference between the brain and the mind that work for me, and, thankfully, my clients!

I see the brain as an important piece of hardware, like a computer. That hardware is useless until it has an operating system installed, i.e. software. That’s the mind. But, like all software, there are going to be a number of programmes that can be selected. In this case, the conscious and the subconscious.

The conscious mind is an important piece of 'software' but relatively limited in its capacity. It has a small, temporary memory; it is logical, linear, mathematical and organisational. When we sleep at night, that part of the mind sleeps also.

The subconscious mind is, seemingly, infinite in its capacity to store and process information, and, unlike the conscious mind, it has no delete function, which means that everything – and I do mean everything – that has happened in your life is stored there, so this is your permanent memory. It works tirelessly day and night and never stops or sleeps.

If you are a believer in reincarnation, then you may be able to understand that the subconscious mind carries all the information from your past lives, in addition to storing information in your current life. It could therefore also be called your soul mind.

Using hypnosis to access the subconscious

When we do hypnosis together, whether working within your current or past lives, our aim is to gain access to your subconscious, in order to find and change misinformation there. Even though that part of the mind doesn’t have a delete function, it has a strong protective function and is always open to the suggestion that, by changing some of the information it has stored, you will become a happier, and more contented person. The changes it accepts and stores are permanent!

Let’s return to the very small conscious mind. I reckon if you could see it, it would be about the size of a walnut. It may be small but it is very, very bossy! It’s the part of your mind that acts like your chauffeur and drives you through each day relentlessly, and the reason why it’s bossy is because you’ve spent your life conditioning it to be that way. It also has a strong protective factor, and isn’t keen on you doing anything that may cause you pain, either emotional or physical.

For this reason, when you do hypnosis with the intention of exploring the root causes of your problems, the conscious mind tends to interfere, in order to protect you from pain. Also, given that it only has a very small memory and doesn’t 'do' habits, beliefs or imagination, it is totally confused by the exploration process in hypnosis, and is quite likely to tell you that you aren’t really hypnotised, and argues that any information that comes up is because you’re 'making it up'.

When this happens, as I said at the start of this article, the whole process slows down, and even sometimes grinds to a halt, and that’s frustrating (and expensive) for you, the client, in the chair. 

Simple hacks to bypass the conscious mind

Let me offer you a different perspective….

Now you have a better understanding of the conscious mind and the reason why it interferes; you can adopt simple strategies to keep it in the background while you’re in hypnosis. After all, if you are the one who trained it to be bossy, then surely you can train it to stand down when you want it to?

Why not bore it into backing off?

Given that it doesn’t understand creativity or imagination, and only wants action; just supposing you tell it that you’re very happy to go along with the hypnosis suggestions, and also give yourself permission to 'make it up'... How will it react?

Simple! It will shrug its shoulders (figuratively speaking!) and decide that what you’re doing is really boring, so best to back off and remain quietly in the background. You then carry on relaxing into hypnosis and 'making it up', and that’s when you start to have the experience that is going to help you to achieve your goals.

By the way, your conscious mind will quickly return as soon as the regression therapist emerges you from hypnosis. Because changes have been made in your subconscious mind, you will start retraining your conscious mind to chauffeur you more gently and considerately, slowing down to avoid the bumps in the road, being kinder to you and everyone you associate with, and encouraging you to enjoy the ride so much more than previously, whilst looking forward to whatever lies ahead on the road in front of you.

And that’s what you’ve always wanted, right?