So I am sat here in my training room that looks out over the sea front here in Bournemouth while the cleaner is vacuuming the room and my students are yet to arrive for the 3rd day of my intensive hypnotherapy diploma training…
No, I did not win the lottery.
I am guessing from accounts I have read about lottery winners and research surrounding them, that I would be initially incredibly happy with lottery winnings… Yet I can also say, it would be a much different sensation to the one I had following these first two days of training my latest intake of students… We had huge amounts of laughter and personal development yesterday and as a group of strangers two days ago, transformed into budding, bonding hypnotherapists over the past couple of days… I was filled with a depth of satisfaction that only comes from this kind of work… Work that I choose to do.
Let me ask you that question… If you won the lottery and had enough money to live comfortably the rest of your life, would you continue to work?
In a huge survey conducted in the US, two thirds of Americans said they’d continue to work. It is an illuminating discussion when you look at how much it has changed over time. The numbers of people stating that they would continue to work has decreased… Maybe because of a change in society and work ethic, maybe because of a wide variety of other reasons…
Some people look at today’s society, especially western cultures as being much more hedonistic and valuing other things among work… Yet for me, my work is so enjoyable it covers many of those bases too.
To be honest, I am particularly cautious about taking people’s answers to such questions at face-value. “Would you carry on working if you did not need to?” For one thing, the answers do not tell us what people would actually do, were they to win the lottery. We only know what they say they will do. The trouble is not only that people do not accurately tell us what is happening in their minds, but that very often, people do not know their own minds.
Some lottery winners may quit their jobs on the day they win; one my friends told me last night he would write his resignation letter that very minute he found out… Though he said he may well start applying for new jobs three months after they win.
There is much research to suggest that people are mistaken when they believe that winning the lottery will make them deliriously happy on a permanent basis… I tend to think having fulfilling work and other interests is one of the keys… Ok, students are arriving…
I would certainly keep working,although how much time I spend doing certain things may change.
From what I have seen in the papers, those that don’t either end up blowing the lot or ending up in terrible circles of failed relationships.
I don’t remember where I read it but I think the phrase was
“if you wouldn’t do your job without getting paid, you haven’t found what you love doing yet…”
Spot on Gareth 🙂
I have seen some amazing things happen during hypnosis sessions. As a student during my Diploma of Clinical Hypnosis there were a few incidents where fellow students (acting as subjects) displayed clairvoyance abilities.
I have a strong suspicion that the right person being hypnotized by the right practitioner could predict events much in the same way that remover viewers predict future events.
Hypnosis frees the mind and opens up portals that we know nothing about. I developed two experimental videos that place the subject in a light trance and then promotes an environment that facilitates the prediction of Saturday Lotto numbers. It is a form of self-hypnosis and it certainly does not replace hetero hypnosis. It would be wonderful to find another hypnotherapist that shares my beliefs, not just for financial gain (which would be great) but also as a discovery. I have been able to predict up to five numbers using my video, but the conscious mind keeps interfering because the trance induced is very light as it can be expected with self-hypnosis. I would be interested in your view about this one. 🙂
Alex.
Hello Alex,
I completely respect anyone else experimenting with hypnosis and self-hypnosis. I just think the application you mention here is fallacious and your comment riddled with popular misconceptions of what even constitutes hypnosis – referring to the conscious/unconscious duality of mind is something no credible academic has ever referred to – certainly the founder of modern hypnosis James Braid makes no reference to the conscious/unconscious model, Clark Hull or R White in the 1930s and 1940s, Barber and Sarbin in the 1950s and 1960s, Spanos in the 1970s, Kirsch and Lynn in the 1990s and all the modern scholars and academics – none of them refer to that notion of the conscious/subconscious. I am unsure that it is anything to do with hypnosis at all.
I know little about clairvoyance other than it is largely unproven and healthy sceptics tend to refute it. I think it has no place in the field of evidence-based hypnosis, such notions perpetuate myths about this field and serve to move it into the dark ages rather than moving it forwards.
I appreciate and value your comments here, and I hope it was sincere and not just a means of getting a backlink to your website that tells people how to predict lotto numbers.
All that said, if you absolutely nail it, and can successfully replicate results using your method over and over, get in touch with me again and I’ll yield in my stance and congratulate you sincerely.
With my very best wishes to you, A.