Well, last night I read a "how to" book on hypnosis, and everything I've been doing is an aspect of self-hypnosis. The books I read on healing were just jazzing up hypnosis methods with new age patter and selling it in a shiny new package.
Throughout the hypnosis book, the author gave examples of routines to aid in diet control (since that's such a common request of hypnotists) and the visualizations he was describing almost exactly paralleled what I'd been doing myself already while "meditating". My recent success in weight loss isn't due to calorie counting or the computer program I use- it's because I've reinforced my will with self hypnotic suggestions!
Pain control- I've been able to numb out painful spots on my body for a couple of years now. What I do when I prepare to do that is almost exactly the same procedure as going into hypnotic "trance".
Psychological cleanup- I've spent time ranging through memories, finding troubling ones and forgiving myself (while meditating) and the chapter on regression and resolving psychological trauma is pretty much the same thing I've done on my own.
It's all various facets of self hypnosis. You can hypnotize yourself to heal faster, to lose weight, to be healthier, to drop bad habits.
Apparently I've been doing that already, taking hints and tips and techniques from all sorts of sources ranging from pagan religions to martial arts to manuals on energy healing. They are all just repackaged self hypnosis techniques.
I feel .... disappointed. Sure, what I'm left with works- but it's not pretty! It's very dry and technical and functional- but there's no poetry to it.
Not that I've ever been much of a poetry fan, but there was a kind of beauty to the various religions I snagged ideas from. A feeling of wholeness to the philosophies in the martial arts. A sense of a transcendant truth that crossed boundaries and held the world together.
Now all I can think of is, "It's just self hypnosis." How dry. How mundane. How boring. How gullible I am.
![Crying or Very sad :cry:](./images/smilies/icon_cry.gif)