How to use hypnosis

to build your condence

(so you can rise to any challenge)
by Mark Tyrrell
Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint N
o
4
U n c o mmo n
H y p n o s i s
BLUE PRI NT
How to use hypnosis to build your confdence
Table of Contents
How to use hypnosis to build your confdence 4
How hypnosis will help you increase your confdence 15
Hypnotc Exercise Feel more confdent 16
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Hypnosis Blueprint No 4
How to use hypnosis to build your confdence

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How to use hypnosis
to build your confdence
(so you can rise to any challenge)
This Blueprint gives you background informaton and step-by-step instructons on how
to use your hypnotc skills to develop your confdence in yourself and your abilites so
you can shine in your life.
CONFIDENCE is a matter of HABIT.
Its amazing
how quickly you lose it...
if you dont
WORK IT OUT
regularly!
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YOU
could probably use
a litle more
self confdence
in your life
couldnt you?
Most people, when asked, say they could.
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You have surely heard some version of the ancient Suf story of the thirsty lion. Suf
stories are said to have many diferent meanings, depending on who is listening, but
one possible interpretaton of this story is that it has something to tell us about the
nature of self confdence.
Heres my version.
The guardian of the waters
There was once a young orphan
lion (who had no idea he was a lion)
wandering about in a dry wilderness,
getng ever more thirsty. Having been
separated from the pride when he was
a cub, he had never set eyes on another
lion.
Sometmes he wondered if he might
be a sheep, or a goat, but when he
encountered these creatures in his
wanderings he knew he was diferent
from them in some mysterious way.
I must fnd water somewhere or Ill die of thirst, he thought to himself.
At last he found a cave and went inside, simply to get some shade from the noonday
heat. To his surprise, there was a pool of water inside the cave and he immediately
went to take his fll and drink.
But what was this? As he bent his head to drink from the pool he was shocked and
horrifed to see a magnifcent yet fearsome creature looking right back at him. A
powerful looking beast, with teeth to match. Not someone to be trifed with!
The young lion withdrew hastly.
This must be the guardian of the pool. How am I to drink with that beast guarding the
supply? he asked himself.
He padded around the cave for a while, getng more and more thirsty and desperate.
At last he could stand it no more. Ill have to fght him! he said to himself. And in an
instant he leapt at the creature in the pool, determined to fght it for the water.
Of course, there was no creature there but himself, in refecton.
In this way he both learned what and who he was and found that facing fear could get
him what he so desperately needed.
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One of the greatest benefts of having strong self confdence is that you retain and
build the energy you need to pursue your goals.
What do I mean by this?
Energy sapping doubts
It takes huge mental efort to stay anxious, doubt yourself all the tme, be self
conscious, try too much to please others, or constantly dread letng people down. Or
yourself down. Its exhaustng. Keep it up for long enough and all your mental energy
will leak away.
On the other hand, true self confdence isnt about going around thinking how fantastc
you are, because even that takes energy.
No. Real self confdence is not self love, nor anything to do with being self absorbed.
Looking beyond
A real dead end in self help thinking has been the idea that, in order to increase their
self confdence, people should focus more on themselves.
But notce our lion.
When he focussed too much on his
own image, he lost perspectve. His
analysis of the situaton made him
freeze into inacton, and caused him
more fear.
When he gazed too long at himself, he
was just as paralyzed as when he had
had no self awareness at all.
But when he focussed purely on his objectve to get water he fnally found the
confdence to act. His confdence came when he looked beyond himself.
Self forgetng as a way to confdence
When I am self confdently public speaking to a hundred strangers, I am not focussing
on me and how confdent and fantastc I feel (or feel that I am).
When I present confdently, I have disappeared. Or should I say, I has disappeared.
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Situatons in which I feel supremely confdent are not about me at all.
This is a profound point, and I want you to ponder it very carefully.
Great self confdence is not the opposite of low self confdence.
People who doubt themselves too much actually tend to focus on themselves much
more than people who are confdent. When you have confdence, you dont need
to keep telling yourself how wonderful you are, because you are too busy focussing
outward on what you are doing.
Think about this: Confdence isnt about bigging yourself up. Its more to do with actng
with optmism, calm, energy and focus.
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SELF CONFIDENCE
is a general feeling
that YOU CAN LEARN
what needs to be done
in specific situations.
Lets look at this in more detail.
Relaxing with uncertaintes
Another popular myth is that self confdent people know or have to believe that
everything will work out and be awesome.
Its true that self confdence makes you more positve and optmistc, but self
confdence isnt about having to know something will work.
So what is it about? If I were to sum up exactly what self confdence is, I would say:
Self confdence is a calm subconscious and conscious sense that
whatever happens I will manage it successfully, and I will do everything
I can to make this happen.
Confdent people manage their expectatons successfully. Rather than telling
themselves: I am defnitely going to win this cake baking contest! they are more likely
to tell themselves: I will give this cake my best shot, but whatever happens Ill be just
fne!
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Like this:
A woman goes to a party where shell meet lots of new people. She doesnt
know everyone will like her, but she can relax enough with the uncertainty of
the situaton to feel comfortable and optmistc.
A man goes for an interview for a job hed love to have. He doesnt know hell
get the job, but he does know hell do the best he can at the interview and even
if he doesnt get the job hell stll be just fne.
A woman goes on a date with a man she is atracted to. She doesnt know for
sure it will go well, but she is relaxed enough to enjoy fnding out.
TRUE self confidence
isnt about certainty.
Its about successfully
and calmly
MANAGING lifes uncertainties.
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If you really want to be confdent, cultvate the capacity to relax with uncertaintes. So
many people, and especially those prone to anxiety and self doubts, just dont do this.
Self confdent people (which will mean you) are explorers. They dont assume they
know how something will go, but look forward with a calm open mind to fnding out. A
wonderful calm openness to life is key to being confdent.
Hypnosis will help you relax more with uncertainty, so you can give things a try in all
kinds of ways.
Hypnosis is all about actvatng the imaginaton to make changes on the programming
level of the mind. People sometmes inadvertently program themselves with lack of
confdence by misusing their imaginaton. Learning to use imaginaton constructvely
(rather than against themselves) can make all the diference.
Using and not misusing your imaginaton
Our imaginatons can trick us into seeing things that arent there like that coiled
hosepipe we mistake for a snake. Situatons can be interpreted in any number of
ways, not all of them helpful. Some interpretatons fll us with fear and dread. More
constructve interpretatons fll us with quiet antcipaton and optmism. The secret to
unshakable confdence is to ensure that our default interpretaton of any situaton is
constructve and helpful.
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To be confdent, we dont need to know that a situaton will be good. We need to know
that we will be good, no mater what the situaton.
Its that sense that gives us true, real and lastng confdence. People who, ahead of
tme, imagine things like: Oh no, what if I fall to pieces and blush when everyone is
looking at me on stage? are misusing their imaginaton to undermine their own
confdence.
When we use hypnosis to help people, we have them feeling relaxed and calm, as well
as super energised and focussed if thats appropriate.
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lr }l\r slIuIlar.
I|I situation |caOs DIFFERENT.
| V | k | | l | J k k | | Y | J ! | | 8 ! J | ! k 8 | .
Think about what Ive just said there. It really is important.
Now I want to explain how people negatvely conditon themselves to lose confdence.
Ill show you this so you can
avoid it and
do the opposite
so that you can become more self confdent.
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The horror of next Wednesday
Sally is rather prone to misusing her imaginaton for negatve self hypnosis.
She goes into work one Friday and her boss tells her the company needs her to give a
short presentaton to ffy out of town sales reps next Wednesday morning. She has
never spoken to so many people before.
Sally instantly feels terrifed.
And now, whenever her thoughts turn to next Wednesday, she feels terrifed. She is
imagining next Wednesday at the same tme as feeling scared and powerless.
She keeps doing this. All day Friday, when she goes home, on Saturday, on Sunday
feeling scared at the same tme as imagining next Wednesday. This self hypnotc self
torture begins to really work. Prety soon just the words next Wednesday bring on a
post hypnotc surge of automatc anxiety.
She has associated the feeling of fear with the imaginaton of next Wednesdays
presentaton so ofen that the two have become inextricably linked. Not in her
thinking, but in her feeling.
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People do this kind of negatve self conditoning with all kinds of things, from fying in
aeroplanes to going on dates.
Sally was so desperate that on Monday afernoon she came to see me for help (she
must have been really desperate, right? )
What happened with Sally
I suggested to Sally that she was misusing her imaginaton, and rather too efectvely.
Afer hypnotsing her, I got her to think about next Wednesday while feeling totally
calm and relaxed. I got her to imagine the talk going really well and her feeling good
about that.
I even suggested that, in the highly unlikely event that the sales reps didnt like her,
she would stll feel relaxed and just do her thing. This was partcularly powerful,
as it touched upon the uncertainty apttude I was mentoned earlier the heart of
confdence (remember: Whatever happens, Ill be okay.) I helped her re-associate
next Wednesday with calm optmism.
She rang me on Wednesday afernoon, afer the event, and told me that during the
presentaton she had felt, not exactly that she didnt care whether they liked her talk or
not, but that she was focused on something else, on making the company strategy very
clear to them. I found I was actually enjoying the process, she said, laughing.
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How hypnosis will help you increase your confdence
You will have understood by now that a good part of any lack of confdence you
may have felt in diferent situatons in the past may have been due to you practcing
negatve self hypnosis. Of course, you never intended to do that none of us do. And
we are ofen unaware that we are doing it.
But the training in hypnotc skills that you have undertaken will have opened your eyes
to how readily we accept negatve suggestons from others and from ourselves and
to how easily we fall into misusing our own imaginatons to frighten ourselves.
When you can spot this happening, in yourself or in others, you are fnally in a positon
to change things for the beter.
With hypnosis, you can take specifc situatons in which you were feeling under-
confdent and re-associate positve optmistc emotons with exactly those situatons.
The more you do this, the more generally self confdent you will become. And the
hypnotc exercise that follows will help you train in the art of nurturing your own
confdence.
Identfy a specifc situaton or set of circumstances in which you would like to have
more self confdence by which I mean, more of the calm, optmistc feeling that I will
do my best, and whatever happens Ill be okay. And then use this exercise.
This is a much beter way to use self hypnosis (and can be even more powerful) than
the unfortunate negatve self hypnosis most people subject themselves to when they
are antcipatng a situaton they feel under confdent about.
And heres something else.
The more you repeat this exercise, the less youll need to repeat it. Because this
approach will just become more of who you are and how you quite naturally deal with
life and its challenges.
So get practsing!
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HYPNOTI C EXERCI SE
Feel more confdent
1
Find somewhere comfortable and
peaceful to sit or lie, where you know
you wont be disturbed for a while. Close
your eyes and start to pay atenton to the
sensaton of restng deeper and deeper
with each breath.
2
As your breathing becomes slower and
gentler, visualize pure relaxaton as your
favorite color. Notce as the color, your
color, soothes its way through the muscle
fbers of your feet, perhaps warming them
a litle as you relax deeper.
Watch in your minds eye how that rest
and relaxaton spreads up the muscles of
your legs, and up through your torso, and
all over your body as you go deeper into
hypnotc trance. Take your tme.
3
Gradually become aware of calmly
watching yourself in a future tme,
looking relaxed and happy, in a tme
afer a certain kind of situaton in which
you would previously have felt less than
confdent. Maybe you can see yourself
sitng in a chair or just restng some place.
4
Notce how pleased that future you looks
in that future tme, afer that event, so
pleased that you have added yet another
thing to your list of confdent actvites or
situatons.
Give yourself tme to fully register how
calmly yet deeply happy you feel about
this.
5
Afer absorbing this for some tme,
redirect your atenton to get a sense
of calmly watching yourself, from the
outside, actually being in that tme and
place and situaton, as it is unfolding,
looking so calm and relaxed and focussed
in just the right way.
6
Notce what it is about the you there
in that unfolding situaton that lets the
you here in trance know the you there
is completely open and relaxed with
whatever the situaton brings.
You might notce how other people
around are afected by the steady
confdence and calm of the you there.
7
Now get a sense of drifing forwards in
tme and merging with that you in that
situaton, so you can discover what it
feels like from the inside to feel so calm
and focused and acceptng of everything
that happens as that situaton unfolds,
knowing that whatever occurs, you are
okay.
8
When your unconscious mind lets you
know that you have learned everything
you need from this experience, then
allow yourself to drif out of that future
situaton and foat back into the here and
now.
9
When youre ready, drif out of hypnosis
and come back to the room, feeling
rested, refreshed and inspired.
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This Uncommon Hypnosis Blueprint
is part of the Uncommon Hypnosis Course.
You can read more about the course here.
Page 17
I hope this Blueprint has given you some ideas on how to improve your self confdence
and keep it strong, and how to think about self confdence in general, not allowing
yourself to fall for the myths that are so widely peddled.
Of course, ultmately life itself is your best teacher (yes, beter than me).
Remember our young lion? He had to go through an experience and once he had done
that, then he could start to feel much more confdent about who he was.
The more you say yes to opportunites, the more you actually try things out, the more
you can replace limited imaginings with reliable knowledge of what is out there for
you.
Youll also fnd it helpful to study two other artcles Ive writen on this subject. One is
How to build self confdence, and the other is How to boost your personal power in
two minutes. Youll fnd the hints and tps there invaluable. (And yes, it does say two
minutes.)
All my best
Mark