Land of Oz Workshops Blog: How and Why Self-Hypnosis Works!

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: How and Why Self-Hypnosis Works!: I was reading an article the other day on a medical website highlighting the best approaches for pain management. Among those listed was se...

How and Why Self-Hypnosis Works!

I was reading an article the other day on a medical website highlighting the best approaches for pain management. Among those listed was self-hypnosis. The writer went on to say that even though it oftentimes successfully works, how it works is not understood. I disagree. Once you understand the dynamics of self-hypnosis, it is easy to comprehend how and why it works.

Self-hypnosis assists a person in moving their attention away from the pain to another place in time: a relaxing scene in nature, a pleasant past memory, an enjoyable future image, or by simply distracting yourself by doing something else. The greater your focus and concentration on the imagined or actual task at hand, the more success you’ll have with managing physical and psychological pain. As you do these things, you are altering your brain chemistry with hormones and neurotransmitters that stimulate, support, and bring about positive feelings. Once these chemicals enter the bloodstream, the entire body healthily and harmoniously responds.

Hundreds of medical research studies using placebo medicine or sugar pills report that the placebo oftentimes works as well as the actual medication.  This confirms one very important principle of medical self-hypnosis and that is the power of suggestion should not be overlooked or underrated as a healing agent. If you believe that the pill, whether it is filled with medication or sugar, is going to ameliorate your pain, it most likely will. If you believe that the power of your mind and imagination can help you manage pain and that these powers will rid you of it, then that can happen. Another interesting discovery about placebo medicine is the pill’s color. Research has shown that people tend to view dark red pills as sedatives and white pills as painkillers. The power of belief put into action is an amazing force that can achieve things that some regard as miracles.

In dozens of double-blind studies comparing placebos to aspirin, placebos proved to be 50% as effective meaning that 50% of those who used placebos had the same positive effect as aspirin for pain. Taking this a step further, how about not even giving the patient an aspirin or pain killer or placebo pill at all and just giving him/her a hypnotic suggestion that they will not have any pain? All hypnosis is self-hypnosis meaning that if I give you a suggestion for pain and you accept the suggestion and believe the suggestion will work, then it becomes self-hypnosis.

Self-hypnosis works upon the principle of reframing. Reframing is taking an image of something you perceive as uncomfortable or painful and changing it into images that are pleasant. When you picture something from your past, present, or anticipate something in your future that is bothersome,  you can alter that image or thought so that it doesn’t affect you negatively anymore through the power of your own creative imagination. Since how you see and experience your past determines how you see and experience the future, clearing away those old memories is important to your health and well-being and to effectively addressing both emotional and physical pain.

Mark Twain

Sam Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist who wrote many classic novels including: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Prince and the Pauper.

Twain became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River and it was this venture that resulted in his pen name Mark Twain which refers to a measured river depth of two fathoms. His first claim to fame came from a humorous story he wrote about the jumping frog contest held in Angels Camp, California. His story was published in a New York weekly, The Saturday Press, and it won international attention and inspired him to continue to write more. Twain not only became a hugely successful writer, but he was also in high demand as a speaker. Over the years his writings and presentations brought him fame.  People of all stations of life, from farmers to American Presidents, knew and appreciated his wit and his creative skill with words.

President William Howard Taft said, "Mark Twain gave pleasure – real intellectual enjoyment – to millions, and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come ... His humor was American, but he was nearly as much appreciated by Englishmen and people of other countries as by his own countrymen. He is an enduring part of American literature."

One of my favorite Mark Twain quotes is, “I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”

One of the things Twain is saying is that oftentimes we get too caught up worrying about what could happen, what might happen, and the what ifs that lead to desolation row. Within our own lives, let imagination be used to envision what is possible and ultimately fulfilling. Imagination can take us to the heights of heaven or the depths of Hades, depending upon how we use it. Life is challenging enough without writing stories in our head of future misfortunes that may never come to pass. We could probably all recall tales of woe that never turned out quite as bad as we had envisioned and a few that did!

Mark Twain’s brother Henry was killed in 1858 when the steamboat he was working on, the Pennsylvania, exploded. Twain had witnessed his death in a dream a month earlier and held himself responsible for the rest of his life. He experienced other devastating personal losses including his wife’s death and the early deaths of his two daughters.

Mark Twain was born in 1835, shortly after Halley’s Comet made its closest approach to earth. In 1909 he wrote, "I came in with Halley's Comet. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, “Now here are two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together."

His prediction was accurate. Mark Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, one day after the comets closest approach to earth.

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Dear Theo

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Dear Theo: Around 1978, I read an extraordinary book titled Dear Theo. Dear Theo is a collection of hundreds of letters Vincent Van Gogh wrote to his b...

Dear Theo

Around 1978, I read an extraordinary book titled Dear Theo. Dear Theo is a collection of hundreds of letters Vincent Van Gogh wrote to his brother and closest friend Theo, an art dealer in Amsterdam.  In these letters, Van Gogh told amazing stories of his discoveries of the beauty and wonder of nature and the people that captured his attention, all of which became the subjects for over 900 paintings he made between 1880 and 1890. In 1878 he wrote, “Great art feeds the inner life, as do the works of those who apply themselves with heart, mind, and soul. If one can only remember what one has seen, one is never idle or lonely, and never alone.”

When Van Gogh moved to Paris, his art began to take on a unique style. His daring approach to painting was to fervently apply the colorful paint with thick and bold brushstrokes. He mostly painted outdoors no matter what the weather conditions were to fully capture the emotion and natural state of his subjects.  But, fame would not come to him for many decades following his early death at age 37 in 1890. The tragedy of Van Gogh is that he only sold one painting and this one sale came 4 months before his death. His bouts with depression and rage are well documented but make sense for what he perceived as total rejection by the general public and his Impressionistic colleagues of his artistry.

After Vincent’s death, Theo died just 6 months later and is buried next to his brother. Theo’s wife Johanna inherited all of Vincent’s paintings and dedicated her life to arranging public showings all over the world of his work, thus bringing his remarkable art to the attention of millions. 100 years after his death, 7 of Van Gogh’s paintings sold at auction for a total of 700 million dollars. Today those same paintings are worth over one billion dollars.

People’s perceptions of Van Gogh are that he was a mentally unstable artist, but if you look beyond what you’ve heard and read some of the letters that he wrote to this brother, you will discover that he was a passionate and compassionate artist, a gifted writer, and a profound thinker. At age 25 he wrote, “The best way to know God is to love many things. Love a friend, a wife, whatever you like, but love with a lofty and intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence, and always try to know deeper, better, and more.”

Vincent Van Gogh was ridiculed in his time for his paintings which were regarded as too bold and too unusual. The fact is he was excited by all the beauty he saw around him and enthusiastically painted what he saw on canvas. In a letter to Theo he wrote, “Try to walk as much as you can and keep your love for nature, for that is the true way to learn to understand art more and more. Painters understand nature and love her and teach us to see her.  If one really loves nature, one can find beauty everywhere.”

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Dance, dance, dance

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Dance, dance, dance: Your response to potentially stressful day to day experiences has a major impact on your health and well being. Many medical journals report...

Dance, dance, dance

Your response to potentially stressful day to day experiences has a major impact on your health and well being. Many medical journals report that chronic stress puts us at greater risk for illnesses including cancer, heart disease, infectious diseases, and digestive disorders.

Prolonged negative thinking, depression, anger, resentment, and worry are high stress states and are all potentially harmful to the essential mind/body balance. Constantly seeing the glass half empty puts the emotions and body under stress. High stressed individuals produce more of the neurochemicals that impair the immune system: heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, muscles tense, breathing quickens, and stomach acids escalate. If poor sleep is one of your challenges, keep in mind that stress produces more of the hormones that keep you awake and less of the hormones that help you to relax. In addition to poor food choices, stress causes weight gain due to an over production of the adrenal hormone cortisol, resulting in too much belly fat.

Stressors can be minor hassles, major lifestyle changes, or life events that overwhelm us. Being able to identify stressors in your life and releasing the tension they cause are the keys to successfully managing stress. Stressors may include: the death of a friend or loved one; challenges at home with children or your intimate relationship; work overload; ending or starting a new job; being unemployed; money issues and financial concerns; legal problems; uncertainty about the future; and unresolved grief. Loss and grief follow us throughout our life time. When loss is not addressed and worked through, the anticipation of future losses can loom over us distorting our vision for a positive future.

What can we do? Use your creative imagination to play with options and possibilities for changing the stressful situation you find yourself in. Participate in an ongoing meditation group or spiritual group to help move your mind and emotions in more positive and life-enhancing directions. Hike in the red rocks, taking notice of and appreciating the amazing beauty of nature. Learn more about healthy eating from local markets and discover for yourself the relationship between food and stress. Join a grief support group to help heal the anguish of a significant loss. Listen to music at local clubs, watching and feeling the passion of the musicians who play.  Take an art class from a talented local or visiting artist or join an enjoyable singing group. Use self-hypnosis relaxation techniques, including calming breathing processes to help you fall asleep more naturally. Read books that are uplifting and that help you to feel more hopeful. Watch birds soar through the air, seemingly defying time and space.  Work in the garden, planting beautiful flowers and delectable vegetables. Laugh often, smile at others when you make eye contact and dance, dance, dance.