Center Point - Newsletter of the Center for Self-Change June 2009: "Open Up to The HIdden Within"

   Something to Think About

             "We are remarkable beings
who can do wonderful things."

"In both hypnosis and self-hypnosis
we are able to keep still and respond
to good influences that act within us."

In my private practice I have seen people use the powers of hypnosis and self-hypnosis to completely transform their lives by changing the ways in which they relate to family, work, health, and life itself.

I have learned from experience that we really are remarkable beings who can do wonderful things. People really can change almost anything they want and do it almost instantly.

That's very important these days, when everything around us seems to be changing so quickly.

In fact, change through hypnosis and self-hypnosis is so powerful there is nothing like it — and so easy it seems like nothing at all.

You might therefore be surprised to know how much difficulty that can create for some people.

That happens when the change seems to go against their primary reality orientation.

Our primary reality orientation is our fundamental view of ourselves and the world. It is usually established somewhere between the second and sixth years of normal development. It forms the unquestioned foundation of both our initial self-image and our basic worldview — and grows out of conflicts between our own wills and those of others around us, as well as our first encounters with the changeless laws of existence.

At heart, far below the level of rational consciousness, we come to believe (among other things) that the world is safe or that it is not; that most people will like us or that they won't; that we can have much of what we want or that we can't.

Once the primary reality orientation is established, it tends to perpetuate itself.

Throughout the rest of lives, it becomes a self-reinforcing system of beliefs and expectations in which every event, every experience is viewed only from that initial, habitual, and unconscious childhood perspective.

Those limits very often include perceived limitations on the power we have to choose new realities for ourselves.

We assign roles to ourselves and others in various life situations and insist on keeping to them even when they don't work very well — because that's the way we think things have to be. It's just the name of the game, so to speak.

Eric Berne, the founder of Transactional Analysis, wrote a best-selling book about that called The Games People Play.[1]

Sometimes, however, we develop life-coping games in childhood that actually don't work very well.

They are broken but we remain very attached to them. We don't know, and don't trust, any new ones. So we keep trying to play the old ones, thinking that we can fix them. If only we can get the right person to play with, or find the right time or place to play it, then our game will work.

It can never be fixed — because it was never really the right game to begin with.

Unless we get past that condition, we will live in support of our limiting self-image far more than in connection with the true essential Self that lies within us — the one we were born to have a chance to actualize and become.

The spiritual teachings of Eastern and Western religions alike emphasize the dropping of all attachment to self-image. Perhaps we have to have one, just as we may need to have a car in order to get around in the world; but we ought not to identify with either our car or our self-image. Neither is who we really are.

In fact, to see the world through the eyes of any self-image makes about as much sense as choosing to see it only through the windshield of an automobile.

We do far better to see the world by watching it from the perspective of what has long been known in India as the "Witness Self."

The Witness Self is an innate aspect of consciousness which precedes the formation of self-image and supersedes it in wisdom and understanding — for it sees (and has always seen) things just as they are.[2]

We in the West know from hypnosis research that this inner consciousness — which psychologists call the "Hidden Observer" — actually exists.

At Harvard University subjects in studies on pain control and other aspects of hypnosis reported experiencing an always-watching, all-knowing, deep aspect of themselves which was capable of protecting them from pain and acting on their behalf in other ways as well.[3]

Carl Jung also recognized this inner self as an active source of wisdom, a voice calling us to a deeper, richer, fuller life.[4]

But, due to the limitations of their primary reality orientation, some clients do not initially trust that source, that voice.

That's when the gentle principles of influence communication in hypnosis can help them open up to what I call the "Hidden Within" — a term that brings together both the Eastern and Western conceptions of that deep inner Self which knows what self-image does not, which is connected to the spirit in all of us, and which connects our lives to a powerful grasp of inner truths far beyond what any particular worldview might contain.

All they really need is to keep still and allow themselves to respond to its good influence.

It will put useful positive suggestions to work and discard old thoughts, feelings, and beliefs which obstruct their path to change. And it will provide transforming images and insights to guide them in becoming who they were always meant to be.

Over the years I have found that this approach works very well for those who are otherwise reluctant to change.

It is true that hypnosis and self-hypnosis really do open the door to rapid, successful, lasting change.

It is also true that even without hypnosis you can open up to the Hidden Within on your own.

Spend a little time with yourself (your Self) every day just watching, waiting. There are many easy ways to do this, including simple breath meditation and centering prayer, if you wish, among others.

Sometimes you won't even notice it for a while — and perhaps only because someone mentions it to you.

Your intuition will improve. Your relationships with others will benefit, as well.

Whether through hypnosis or not, it all comes from you, the real you, through openness to the Hidden Within.

Of course, if you want to proceed more directly and you like the idea of hypnosis, you can always call me — even if you live in a city far, far away.

[1] Eric Berne, The Games People Play – The Basic Handbook of Transactional
Analysis. (1964; reprint New York: Ballantine Books, 1996).

     [2] Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That (Durham, NC: Acorn Press, 1988). I must note
          here that in the absolute nondualist tradition of Advaita Vedanta Hinduism in which
          it is grounded, Maharaj's concept of the Witness Self differs from the Hidden Ob-
          server in that it is not an acting agent. It is simply a watcher. In watching it sees.
          And what it sees is that there is nothing but the Self itself. All else, even the watch-
          er, is an illusion. Qualified nondualist Vedantists think otherwise. Each is a spiritual
          understanding. From a psychological perspective, however, the two concepts have
          much in common.

[3] Ernest Hilgard, Divided Consciousness: Multiple Controls in Human Thought
and Action (New York: Wiley, 1977).

[4] Carl G. Jung, The Development of Personality, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1964).

It's easy. Every Wednesday
for a few minutes between
10:00 and Noon sit down and
turn inward - through prayer,
meditation, self-hypnosis or
any modality you choose -
and send out good thoughts
to everyone else in the circle.

J. Kingston Cowart
619.561.9012
Post Office Box 19005
San Diego CA 92159
jkcowart@self-change.com

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Keywords: Actualize, Advaita, At Home by Phone, Carl Jung, change, consciousness, Development of Personality, Divided Consciousness, Eric Berne, Ernest Hilgard, family, health, hidden observer, Hidden Within, Hinduism, hypnosis, India, influence communication, Nisargadatta Maharaj, primary reality orientation, reality, self-hypnosis, self-image, The Games People Play, Transactional Analysis, Vedanta, Witness Self, wisdom, work, worldview.