This is page 2 of a detailed tutorial. I recommend you start with page 1. Every page contains tons of practical information & no fluff. It’s thoroughly linked: You can master one tiny piece at a time—easy peasy—even though it’s almost book length. Every time you master a tiny piece, you’ll be more effective in life. I promise.
I Recommend That You Plan Your Trances in Writing —Especially at First
One important principle for being your own hypnotist is to plan your trances in writing—especially while learning the fourteen kinds of trance described here. Writing your question on paper or in a computer file creates a greater sense of commitment in your subconscious mind. Sometimes you won’t be able to do this, but make it a habit to write about your intentions before starting whenever possible.
I don’t follow this suggestion all of the time, and neither will you. Nonetheless, I feel that I must stress the importance of planning in writing for building your skills. It’s possible that some of you may find that this strategy is more important while you are learning these skills, but the more I use trance, the more often I try to make my plans in writing anyway.
However—and this is very important to understand—no matter how much you plan, you won’t stick to your plan perfectly—and sometimes, not at all. This is totally appropriate, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t plan. Planning focuses your mind on your goals and questions in a way that helps you persuade your subconscious mind to be your ally. After you’ve done this, you give your subconscious mind a free hand to do anything it wants. The plans no longer matter.
One good reason for planning in writing is that it gives you an opportunity to deal with emotional reactions to your plans. As a self-hypnotist, emotional triggers are the factor that are most likely to dump you out of trance or even to prevent you from going into trance. Once you’re good at using trance, you’ll have tools to deal with these triggers, but while you’re learning, you may find it very useful to also use other tools, such as EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique).
In the future, we will have an EFT app to help you with this, but for the moment, use Gary Craig’s official “Gold Standard EFT Tapping Tutorial” to learn the technique. While preparing for your trance, watch for any inner impulse to turn away or avoid doing the trance you’re planning because of an emotional reaction. Immediately, turn back to the task and do two rounds of EFT.
Start with a setup phrase that might be similar to the following: “Even though I’m feeling triggered by _____ and I want to turn away, I choose not to turn away, and I deeply love and accept myself.” I do not believe in canned scripts for EFT, and I suggest that you create your own, more customized setup phrase, though the sample script I supplied may be perfectly acceptable in many cases. It’s just better to be intuitive about your own responses, if you can, rather than following a script.
If you encounter emotional trigger that you cannot resolve yourself, consult me as your EFT therapist. Find my coaching profile at Cougar Brenneman Coaching. Contact me directly on the contacts page of this site. (This boring 😐 paragraph appears throughout this document to accommodate people who use our links exactly as they were intended to be used.)
(Go to Beginning, to Trance Recipe Overview.)
Go Ahead.
Break That Rule.
Don’t Plan Your Trances in Writing.
Here’s How.
I sometimes plan my trances in my mind. They’re still helpful. You’ll do this regularly as you master the necessary skills. I still don’t recommend doing this until you have lots of practice. Plan on paper as much as you can. I promise that you’ll notice the difference.
When you’re really good at using trance, you’ll often decide spontaneously to go into trance at unpredictable times. You’ll still need a plan such as those in Main Step 2. But you’ll have the experience to create a good plan mentally.
Here’s one way to plan your trance mentally. When you become skilled enough to begin using trance without having planned it in writing first, divide your trance into two parts.
Planning Step 1: Go into a very light trance for greater focus.
A light trance will help you eliminate distractions. But if you go too deep, your plans will be less creative and complete. In addition, images and subconscious input may overpower your rational mind. If you use a trance meter as one of your tools (which I recommend), go only half as deep as you want to go for most of your trances.
(Learn to use a trance meter from the medium-length trance induction “Swing Chair_Trance Writing & Meter Induction8_22.mp3” and from the short trance induction “Deepen Trance Invoking Depth You Seek5_18.mp3,” both at the download site Joyful Wisdom Journey Free Trance Downloads.)
You may also want to ask a mental guide to help you plan. At this stage, limit your guide’s input. For their most brilliant insights, plan the questions you want to ask, go deeper, and then ask the questions you’ve prepared.
Planning Step 2: Ask the planning questions you’d use in your journal.
- What do I want this trance to solve, answer, or do?
- How do I want to do that? What type of trance do I want?
- What are some details?
- Anything else? (Ask this question more than once.)
Planning Step 3: Now go deeper into trance to do what you planned.
Thank the guide that was helping you. Then go to the trance depth you want to use. If you’re almost deep enough, turn the knob on the front of the trance meter to see if you can take yourself deeper by doing so.
But don’t expect to follow your plans, whether you were planning in your head or in a journal.
(Go to Beginning, to Trance Recipe Overview.)
Tips for Using the Tracking Checklist
The purpose of the Trance Type Checklist is to help you become comfortable with all of the types of trance available to you. But it is too rigid a format for some purposes.
Suppose you’re really committed to learning Kung Fu or some other physical art. Besides going to the local Kung Fu Academy regularly, you use the Skills Practice Trance to practice the new skills you’re learning and the old skills that you need to review.
You learn that the Skills Practice Trance and the Rehearsal Trance are variations of the same thing, so you begin using both the Rehearsal Trance at work, as well as the Review Trance, which is linked to it.
Then you discover the Trance Type Checklist and decide you want to learn all fourteen trance types. Unfortunately, you discover, there’s only one place to record the three types of trance you do often and well. The Checklist doesn’t work for you.
Except that it does. You don’t need to use the checklist for skills you already have. You don’t need to record the types of trances that you’ve already mastered. So here’s what to do: Either just ignore the Skills Practice Trance, and work on the trance types you haven’t learned to use yet, or repurpose that line on your Checklist to learn an entirely new skill, such as studying a foreign language. If you repurpose it, then you only record when you do that repurposed application of the trance—the foreign language.
Similarly, you might want to teach yourself to use the Rehearsal Trance and the Review Trance in different types of situations. You can either ignore those lines on the Checklist or use the Checklist to expand your skills into other areas. You could just use those empty lines to make notes. Or to track a specialized form of trance that you invented.
The point is that this piece of paper you’re going to fill out is just a tool. Use it creatively, just like you’d use any tool.
(Go to Beginning, to Trance Recipe Overview.)
Main Step 1: Identify a Question that Matters
Think about topics or questions that you have about your life, and write one or more in your journal. Choose one of these topics to resolve or to enhance today. They might be:
- Things that you value.
- Resistance that you feel.
- Relationships that you treasure.
- Protests from your physical body.
- Things you’re excited about today.
- Discomfort about any issue.
- Things that you anticipate with glee.
- Goals that aren’t properly planned.
- Goals that are thoroughly and strategically planned.
- Anything else that you think belongs on this list.
Writing your question is the most important part of planning in your journal. Even if you write nothing else, clarifying your intent as accurately as possible goes a long way to ensuring successful results. Clarifying your important intent is part of being intentional about learning trance—and it’s therefore crucial to becoming a master.
In reviewing the questions that you might wish to resolve in trance, you may feel the need for professional help. Find my coaching profile at Cougar Brenneman Coaching. Contact me directly on the contacts page of this site. (This boring 😐 paragraph appears throughout this document to accommodate people who use our links exactly as they were intended to be used.)
(Go to Beginning, to Trance Recipe Overview, to Main Step 2: Choose the Best Type of Trance for Your Question (next page).)
Cougar
deltadoster
The Joyful Wisdom Community 