So there I am in a roomful of students all totally absorbed in a group body scan mindfulness session as a means of demonstrating mindfulness before we start learning about the therapeutic applications of it later today on my intensive hypnotherapy practitioner diploma course…
The session comes to an end, everyone opens their eyes, connects with the world around them once again and as I open the curtains in some parts of the training room, I am met with groans form some who are enjoying the way they are feeling.
Then, the lights go on, camera starts rolling and I do a round robin of the students to gauge feedback, make sure they all kept with me as much as possible and managed to achieve some deep mindfulness as per the very nature of the exercise.
One of the students stated that “that was the deepest I have been.” This student had a very deep experience indeed.
Which I found particularly interesting. Many agreed.
This was mindfulness.
This was about being hyper-aware. Noticing our own stream of consciousness and really following along with the breath.
Yet the experience was considered deeper than the direct hypnosis experiences of earlier this week.
This is marvellous as far as I am concerned. Because it shows that we do not necessarily need to encourage people to wander off and not have recall about what went on in the session.
It shows the benefit of being engaged and staying with the hypnotherapist rather than saying “you drifted off, oh don’t worry, your unconscious mind will remember everything and respond in its own way.”
When paying attention and being engaged, we can still feel totally absorbed and engaged and still have a very deep experience without wandering off and forgetting anything of use from the hypnotherapy session… An important thing as far as I am concerned.
Sometimes our experience of depth needs to be experienced. When people are just in a zombie-like, near-on asleep type of state, is that always the most awe-inspiring or usefl application of hypnosis? Is it actually hypnosis?
Having a great week training, got to get back to it… Lunchtime blog entry ends.
The reason why this can seem “deeper” than hypnosis is that mindfulness is in essence use of attention without necessarily any thought-constructs (images, words, ideas) – hypnosis is based on the use of words, images and ideas…. mindfulness is simply use of attention – and so the mental operations cease and there can be attention without any thought.
In yoga we talk about the ceasing of the “vrittis” of the “mind-field” – “vrittis” translates as vibrations or movements – so with mindfulness we calm the mind-field until all thought-constructs (and discursive thought) cease – and there is just awareness.
That will usually feel “deeper”.
Remember that Braid based his hypnotic inductions on yoga breathing and attention techniques….
Lovely explanation, thank you Mark, your contributions are always most welcome and very much appreicated.
Best wishes, A.