Step
One: Induce hypnosis.
You can do so by any means you desire or know of. You can use the process in my self-hypnosis book, use the free audio at this website to practice or have a look at the following articles as and when you need them; they are basic processes to help you simply open the door
of your mind:
Once you have induced hypnosis, move on to the next step:
Step Two: Tune into yourself. Be mindful. Spend a bit of time just observing your breathing rate, noticing the thoughts that are going through your mind and noticing your feelings. Become aware of the pain you
are experiencing, while also becoming aware of the details of that pain. Just watch it, observe it without interfering with it for the time being.
Relax your body as much as you possibly can with your thoughts. Methodically relax your body with your intention and focus and tell yourself that being mindful and
relaxing is taking you deeper into hypnosis.
Then move on to step three.
Step Three: Imagine you have two wires carrying all the information from your body to your brain. From the area where the pain was in your body, imagine two thick, coloured wires or cables going from that area of your body to the brain.
The first one carries all the nerve messages regarding pain from the area to the brain. This cable is a particular colour.
The second wire is a different colour, and it carries all other impulses between that area and your brain. However, it cannot carry pain signals at all. It is
incapable of carrying pain signals, they are all carried exclusively by the other wire.
Notice the details of the wire, notice if you can sense the messages moving within them and really tune in to them. Just know that the more you believe in these wires, the more effective this process is going to be for you.
As you look at them, trust that you can use them to change the way you experience the old pain response.
Once you have convinced yourself of this, move on to the next step.
Step Four: Using your imagination, follow the first wire with your awareness all the way to where it plugs into your brain. Follow it and go to the end of the wire and pull out the wire that used to carry the pain messages. Unplug it. For a while, just pull it out, the same way you’d pull out a telephone
cable.
As it does that, notice how the pain signals can no longer reach your brain and it is as if the pain has been switched off. Perhaps you notice the responses happening immediately, or it might take a small amount of time for the response to fully drain away and not be recognised by your
brain.
Trust that over the course of the next 4 hours, it will gradually find it’s way back to the socket, but you remain pain-free while it is unplugged as none of the pain messages can reach your brain.
Step Five: With the wire unplugged focus exclusively on a completely different part of your body and spend some time relaxing your body once again. Really take your time doing this now. Engage in some progressive relaxation while you have the wire
unplugged. You can do this in a number of ways…
1. You can imagine tensing and relaxing the muscles of your body one by one.
2. You can simply breathe and say the word ‘soften’ to yourself as
you think of the muscles of your body.
3. You can spread a colour through your body, one muscle at a time.
4. Imagine light spreading through you, relaxing you deeply.
5.
Imagine that you are a rag doll and that your muscles are loose, limp and dormant.
There are many, many other ways to use progressive relaxation. Just use whatever process you know of to deeply relax and allow your body to be more and more relaxed as you let the pain signals just
dissipate.
Once you have done that for a good period of time, move on to the next step.
Step Six: If you wished to now, you can go and spend some time developing and building some numbness and anaesthesia in the area in addition. You can do so by following the steps in my next article on numbness and anaesthesia that I am going to post here also.
Step Seven: Once you have spent enough time developing and building the anaesthesia, now convince yourself that you have switched off the old pain messages, gently assure yourself and convince yourself using your imagination.
Use your cognitions and affirm it to yourself. Say it to yourself, let yourself gently believe in it.
Step
Eight: Exit hypnosis. Take a couple of deep breaths, count yourself up and out of hypnosis, wiggle your fingers and toes. Bring the changes and the pain relief with you into your real-life.
As with so many self-hypnosis techniques, this one requires practice
and repetition, I recommend practicing once a day at least, for 2 weeks to really get good at this process. When you practice it though, I think you’ll amaze yourself at how easy it is to do and how effective it can be when applied diligently.
