Who would you choose to be if you could rewrite your life story? Do you ever feel like you have a choice in the events of your life? Or is everything already written and we can’t influence the stories we tell ourselves? Or can hypnosis change your life story? Can you live free from old narratives?
To answer this question, we need to go back between 30,000 and 70,000. This is a period of great cognitive evolution: Homo sapiens developed language. This gave us the opportunity to share our subjective thoughts directly with the rest of the tribe. We began to codify thoughts and feelings and develop a common language so that we could communicate with our fellow tribesmen. Perhaps most fundamentally, for the first time, Homo sapiens now had the tools to ask the biggest question of all: “What is the meaning of life?”
Worlds Within The Word
These new ways of communicating and expressing ourselves sparked our imaginations, and we began to weave myths and stories that challenged us to imagine what there was beyond the cloudless skies of the savannah. With primitive grunts, growls, and growls, Homo sapiens began to express their very souls; the development of language gave us the gift of creating our own reality.
Personal Mythologizing
Buried beneath the collective belief system we call culture, we hold ideas and stories about our individual selves. Psychiatrist Eric Berne calls these self-imposed superstitions, myths, and tales “life scripts”. For the first seven years of our lives, we live in a mild hypnotic state called theta. Like a sponge, our brain absorbs everything it can, hoping to somehow make sense of the various information it absorbs.
Based on this data, we produced our own biopic of the unconscious. This is the Life Script that determines our future, no matter how fatalistic or fanciful we allow it to be. At the age of seven, we have already decided on our role in life. That’s probably why a Jesuit priest would say, “Show me that seven-year-old boy, and I’ll show you that man.” As Berne points out, “A playbook is a life plan based on decisions made at each developmental stage that inhibit spontaneity and limit problem-solving flexibility.”
Do You Live In Love Or Fear?
A life Life Script is a blueprint that you subconsciously developed as a child based on the available evidence around you. If you felt loved and supported as a child, you are likely to benefit from that sense of security in adulthood. The experience of trauma or pain, however, will negatively shape your life.
“Imagination and the real world are one and the same for youngsters.”
– Bruce Lipton
Our understanding of the world shapes the Life Script. Given our limited development in childhood, these were the best stories we could write at the time.
A Belief You Formed In Childhood Could Have A Life-Limiting Impact On Adulthood.
Like the myths of our ancestors, the stories we believe about ourselves are subjective. They form the cornerstone of what psychologist Timothy Leary calls the “reality tunnel.” The term reality tunnel is used to encapsulate that our experience of the world is regulated by our beliefs, senses, life experiences, and social conditions. As Robert Anton Wilson wrote while delving into the topic: “Every ignorance in the world is caused by not realizing what we think is a gamble”. He continued: “We believe what we see, and then we believe our interpretation of it, and we don’t even know we’re interpreting it most of the time. We believe this is the reality.”
It is important to remember that our Life Script is just a projection, a story: an imagined possibility based on the expectations of a child. It is not destiny!
“We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.”
– Anaïs Nin (novelist and writer)
If Hypnosis Created The Story, Will Hypnosis Change The Script?
The simple answer is, yes! Can hypnosis change your life story overnight? Possibly not. Change is gradual. Unrushed, the deeper the roots will grow. Our Life Script is like a silent voice whispering to us on an unconscious level. We are seldom aware of its effects. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed and unconsciously sabotage ourselves to reinforce our protective beliefs.
Because hypnotherapy deals with the unconscious, it can provide us with a great opportunity to update our own history with new learning. The Life Script was written while our brains were operating at theta level. This is the same level as hypnosis or meditation. Theta is the bridge between the parts of the brain that write the script. Thankfully, our stories and our traumatic memories often show signs of plasticity. That means they can be shaped into meaningful narratives that go beyond the stories we tell ourselves.
Change Your Story, Change Your Life!
So, can hypnosis change your life story? Everything that has been learned can be relearned. It is always possible to wake up from one myth and live a happier one.
You can read a longer version of this article at my Hypnotherapy Directory listing here: Can Hypnotherapy Change My Life Script?
If you would like to chat about how hypnotherapy may help you change some of the unconscious stories you have been living, please feel welcome to call me at 0208 789 0992, or contact me HERE.
– Adrian
