Fake it till you make it

One of the most special parts of our subconscious mind is our imagination.  Our imagination allows us to create scenarios of events and things that will happen and have happened in our lives.

Sadly many of us use our imagination to create the worst possible scenario.  We create images of what might go wrong, scenes of chaos and disaster.  We seem to be able to imagine failing far easier than success.  If we have to do something like public speaking or an interview we imagine every possible thing that can go wrong.

We are always being told to think positive thoughts but in a world surrounded by bad news and the gloom and doom mongers on social media it can seem hard to do this.

We can, however, imagine good things if we try.  Close your eyes now and imagine you are on a warm sandy beach relaxing listening to the ocean. It really isn’t that hard to do.  People think they actually have to visualise things to imagine them but we don’t.  When we read a book we can be transported to the scene of the action without pictures that is our imagination at work.

When I was in a school one day a young girl was sitting on the floor refusing to go into the exam room.  I sat down next to her on the floor and asked what was wrong.

“I don’t want to go into that room and take my exam, I hate that room I hate exams,” she said.

“Where would you like to be?” I asked.

“Playing in my garden with my new puppy,” she said.

I told her to close her eyes and imagine that she was playing with the puppy. A smile soon came to her face.  

“Let’s stand up and keep that image of your puppy with you while we go in that room,” I said.

Telling her to keep imagining the puppy with her, she went into the exam room and sat down still smiling.  I am pleased to say the school reported that she did her exam and passed.  She told me herself later she imagined having the puppy with her before every exam after that.

So you can try, imagine yourself being more confident, imagine your presentation going well.  Create an image in your mind’s eye and make it as strong as possible of you feeling confident and at ease with yourself.  

You can do this with practice, and it can become second nature to you, so that all those things that used to upset and worry you, you can handle with calm confidence, all the things that used to be difficult for you to deal with come easy from now on.

Your subconscious knows exactly what is needed and knows how to help you.  So by letting yourself use that powerful imagination of yours, by seeing yourself in that special way that you know says confidence, you can begin to enjoy the things that you do.

I have worked as a hypnotherapist in Leatherhead and London and I also teach hypnotherapy and train new hypnotherapists. I offer a full range of services including anxiety coping mechanisms, stress relief, weight loss, stop smoking and treatment for phobias online via Zoom. Please get in touch to find out more.