What has cheese got to do with your mind? Well, it turns out a fair bit and I only discovered this by accident the other week. Last year and on a whim, which all of my best life decisions are initially, I signed up to Paul McKenna’s hypnotherapy course. I’m glad I did because it was brilliant fun and, as in my case, it helps you start to understand the fascinating way in which your brain is wired up.
Anyhow, before I explain about the cheese, let’s clear some things up about hypnotherapy. Milton Erickson once described it as being the “loss of the multiplicity of the foci of attention”. In other words, the person zones in and concentrates on just one thing, to the detriment of noticing everything else that’s going on. I bet you do this frequently? I certainly do when scrolling through social media posts, watching a film, when captivated by a beautiful rainbow, or after a loooong day of solo “babysitting” my kids.
I know when mentioning it to some people they recoil in horror at the mere idea of hypnotherapy just in case I will put them to sleep, take over their brain and make them bark like a dog. Whilst others recount joyful stories of how hypnosis cured them of x, y and z. Quite different reactions…and I thought acupuncture prompted wide ranging views! From my own personal experience, hypnotherapy is relaxing, enjoyable and remarkably quick and effective at re-programming the subconscious brain and the associated “background” behaviours and thinking. You are in control the entire time.
Sometimes you need a few sessions to reinforce the desired change, and other times just one session is all that’s needed. Of course, it does depend on you actually wanting to change, the “style” of hypnosis and more importantly if you’re willing to follow my instructions.
In hindsight I’ve been doing this for most of my life and didn’t even realise. I’ve always seen it as a glorious, satisfying challenge to help a person see that there is always another route or even routes to take in life, especially when they’re stuck in their “story”. It’s only until now that I have the nice bit of paper from Paul McKenna to give what I do a title.
Some hypnotherapists read from a script and others, like myself, prefer to improvise in a structured way so that the session is reactive and perfectly suited to you when you’re sat in front of me. We’re all individuals and process things at different speeds, so it makes more sense to me anyhow, to be able to be flexible and not constrained by reading from a script. Indeed, hypnotic suggestions can be made just in normal conversation, and so a session really starts as soon as you and I first make contact.
I also find this on the acupuncture side – the healing starts as soon as the person makes the appointment with me. I’ve lost count of the times a new patient has said, “well it’s really funny and I feel like a fraud now, but my agonising back pain of xx years suddenly got better as soon as I booked in with you”. Yes! A great example of quantum physics in action. Booking the appointment triggers the change within you and your energy is instantly connected to mine. Perhaps that’s the subject of another blog? Back to cheese…
…and I’m going to be pedantic, I’m referring to Manchego cheese specifically. What on earth has it got to do with self-improvement and hypnosis? Well for some very bizarre reason I find the word Manchego funny. You’ve only got to say “Manchego” and I will laugh, or chuckle, or giggle, or collapse in hysterics depending on my general mood at that moment. Try it out next time you meet me, although don’t everyone over do it because it may well wear off, and I quite like this odd reaction that I have. It was on Paul’s hypnotherapy course that I worked out why I find Manchego so funny. I have trouble hearing song lyrics correctly. If you know the classic song “Golden Brown” by The Stranglers…“Golden brown, texture like sun, lays me down, with my mind she runs”? I actually hear… “Golden brown, texture like sun, lays me down, with my MANCHEGO!!”. Try it…. It does work. Sorry about the ear worm.
So, over the years I’ve gone from laughing at getting the lyrics wrong whenever the song comes on the radio, to just laughing whenever Manchego cheese is mentioned. I’ve now joined the ranks of Pavlov’s dogs. Instead of dribbling at the sound of a bell, I laugh at the mention of Manchego cheese. In hypnosis terms I have anchored the feeling of laughing to the word Manchego. So that demonstrates one hypnotic principle and that’s of anchoring. I don’t even know if I’ve ever eaten Manchego cheese.
The next important hypnotic principle was the fact that I was shopping in my local supermarket. I was heading off to buy toilet roll. I wasn’t thinking about cheese, I didn’t need cheese. In fact, most of my household is dairy free. I just headed down the end of the aisle, in my own “la-la land” as my wife calls it, swept the trolley around the aisle end and I was stopped in my tracks by having the word “Manchego” jump out at me and of course, I then laughed. I thought that’s weird because, and no disrespect to this particular supermarket, but it’s the last place I expected to see Manchego cheese. I have subsequently corrected my view and now appreciate that this supermarket has become “posher”.
More bizarrely when I looked round, I couldn’t see any Manchego cheese. Anyhow, I have come to realise that my intuition and general oddness is not to be ignored, so I retraced my steps, and nestled amongst the Edam and mozarella was a tiny block of cheese, with an even smaller label, that said in teeny-tiny text “Manchego”. Of course, I then laughed my head off again at reading “Manchego” because it’s funny, isn’t it? Also, I’ve anchored the happy, laughing feeling to not only the sound and thought of Manchego but to the word in writing as well. It shows how easy it is for us to associate things in multiple ways. Those of you that have or rather “are doing” a phobia will understand this point. I was so expert at doing my phobia, before I learned how to shift it, that even reading the word of the thing that I was scared of would trigger me. So, there I was, walking around the supermarket thinking of toilet roll and from the very periphery of my vision, my eyes had read Manchego, my subconscious had thought it important enough to flag it up, triggering me to stop and laugh! Isn’t that incredible? It just goes to show how much information we really are taking into our brains at any one time, making associations and we mostly don’t know the half of it.
These associations can be bad ones too. I remember as a child I bizarrely and effortlessly associated the awful taste of coins with Yorkshire puddings and I went off eating Yorkshire puddings for six months. It initially caused quite a stir at home because it happened very quickly and only half an hour before the usual dishing up of the Sunday roast. I’d been reading about a cartoon pig eating dirty coins, which made me feel a bit sick and whilst I was smelling the wonders of that day’s Yorkshire puddings that were cooking away. Very rapidly I’d anchored in feeling sick with Yorkshire puddings. I couldn’t even look at them on my family’s plates! Luckily it wore off because years later I needed to woo a Yorkshire lass and so didn’t need to lie when asked the question “where do you stand on Yorkshire puddings?”.
So, it’s possible to unwittingly anchor things, and make associations between a whole range of stimuli to an infinite number of events, places, objects, people etc. It’s the way in which our brains try to rapidly make sense of the world against a background of infinite information. Just sometimes it needs to be amended.
Hypnotherapy exploits this and I can help you “collapse” any anchors you don’t want and create new ones. I’ve yet to be asked to help someone to laugh every time they hear the name of a type of cheese, so normally it’s about helping people to feel more relaxed or confident or removing addictions and cravings. Squeezing your thumb and forefinger together to fire off an increased, relaxed state is a great anchor to help someone create. Very powerful, yet simple to do. I would go so far as to say it is easy-cheesy*.
Love and Light everyone,
Emma
xXx
(* “Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy” – For anyone that is not aware of the mid-20th Century British slang term to which I’m referring!)
