Self Hypnosis - Avoid Self Sabotage

Self hypnosis can be a powerful tool when used correctly. Unfortunately, many people fall into a deadly trap that sabotages their success and prevents them from achieving the results they want. If you've tried self hypnosis and have not achieved the results you want, this article will explain why.

This article is one in a series on how to write your own self hypnosis script. The insights you'll gain from this article will be equally valuable for uncovering and avoiding self sabotage whether you use self hypnosis or other tools for your personal transformation.

The number one source of self sabotage is subconscious internal conflicts. If you have internal conflicts, no matter how hard you try, or how effective the self hypnosis tools you use are, you will end up sabotaging your own success or creating unintended and unwanted consequences in the process. So, before attempting to make any personal transformation change in your life, it is essential to check whether you have any subconscious internal conflicts to achieving your goal.

What Is a Subconscious Internal Conflict?

We usually think that we know exactly what we want to change. However, there are often hidden, subconscious conflicts that prevent us from being truly successful in achieving our personal transformation goals.

For example, I have had many clients who have told me they want to lose weight. They know consciously how to lose weight, and yet they don't do the things they need to do to actually lose weight. From the outside, this looks like self sabotage, but, in fact, it's a form of self preservation. As I was talking with one client about assisting her with weight loss, I asked her to imagine being successful at losing weight and having a slimmer, more attractive body (which is what she said she wanted). As she imagined this, a look of fear suddenly crossed her face. When I asked her what the fear was about, she burst out crying. She realized that she was afraid that if she lost the weight she wanted to lose, she would get unwanted sexual attention from men and would feel unsafe being out in public.

This is an example of a subconscious internal conflict: her desire to lose weight was in conflict with her subconscious fear of getting more sexual attention from men.

For her to lose weight successfully, it was essential to address her fear of unwanted male sexual attention before doing anything to address her eating habits. In fact, once she'd shifted her fears about male sexual attention, the weight loss itself was fairly easy to accomplish.

How Can You Identify Subconscious Internal Conflicts?

Here is a process to check whether you have any internal conflicts to achieving any desired personal transformation goal.

Imagine that you have achieved your goal fully and completely. Take some time to visualize yourself living your life some time in the future with this goal completely accomplished. Now, with that sense of having fully achieved your goal in your imagination, answer the following questions:

• How do you feel?
• Are you completely happy or are there any other feelings present such as fear, guilt or sadness? If there are other feelings present, pay attention to them and allow yourself to discover what they are about.
• Are there any negative consequences from achieving this goal that you now have to deal with?
• How does achieving this goal affect other aspects of your life?
• How do other people respond to you differently?

Remember that any internal conflicts are probably subconscious and hidden from your conscious mind, so take the time to really think about the questions above and allow some time for answers to percolate up from your subconscious before writing down any answers.

If you are patient in exploring the answers you get to these questions, they will lead you to uncover any subconscious internal conflicts.

What Do You Do Once You Have Uncovered a Subconscious Internal Conflict?

If you discover that you do have a subconscious internal conflict to achieving a goal, then it's essential to re-frame your goal before proceeding with your self hypnosis program or any other means of personal transformation.

The best way to do this is to go back and re-design your goal to include addressing the internal conflict as part of your goal. I cover how to set clear and useful goals in another article in this series. Self hypnosis can be highly effective, but it's essential to deal with self-sabotaging subconscious internal conflicts in order to be successful.