Hypnotherapy for Pain

The transcript is a guided relaxation and hypnosis exercise. It begins by instructing the listener to close their eyes, take deep breaths, and relax their body. The exercise then focuses on visualizing energy flowing through the body and the activation of genes for healing. The listener is guided to feel lightness, numbness, and relaxation, as well as to imagine a time when they felt well and healthy. The exercise then progresses to addressing pain, teaching the listener techniques to manage and alleviate pain through visualization and turning off the pain signals. The exercise concludes by bringing the listener back to the present moment, feeling awake and alert. Close your eyes and take a deep breath in, allowing your body to relax with each exhale, sinking more deeply into your body, and your body sinking more deeply into the surface you are resting on. As you continue to slow your breath, imagine your mind as a vast network of neurons, each firing and connecting in perfect harmony. With each breath in, feel the sensation of energy flowing through your body, moving from the tips of your toes, up your legs, through the pelvis, up the spine, through the neck, and tingling through the head and the scalp. Focus on the sensation of relaxing now, spreading calm through your body like warm golden light, centering the top of the head, through the crown, warm like honey flowing down the head, through the neck, soothing and relaxing every muscle in the shoulders, flowing down the spine, through the pelvis, down the legs, and down and out the feet. And then just like if you had tiny little faucets on every finger and at the end of every toe, allow relaxation and warm golden light to pour out of your fingertips and pour out of the toes, releasing all tension, soothing every muscle and fiber. As you relax deeper and deeper, imagine your genes activating, unlocking their potential for healing. Imagine your body lighting up with all the neural pathways in your brain rewire themselves for greater clarity and focus. Your brain is lighting up with the brilliance of a thousand stars. And now I want you to imagine a feeling of lightness and numbness and a general feeling of a relaxed letting go as you feel your body become somewhat numb, aware but numb. It's that feeling of tingling and lightness spreads like twinkling silver light starting at the top of your scalp and then almost as if hypnoanesthesia was moving through your body and causing it to feel lighter, more weightless, and giving you the sensation of floating and sinking into your chair at the same time. Sinking deeper into rest, even as your body begins to feel lighter and lighter like a feather, with that numbness spreading from the top of the head all the way down to the tips of your toes, feeling that letting go feeling as you float and sink at the same time. Moving from 10, counting backwards, 9, 8, 7, 6, feeling lighter, 5, 4, feeling easy and loose, 3, 2, and 1. Deep relaxation. Each and every time I say the words deep relaxation for the purpose of hypnosis and only with your consent, you will sink deeper and deeper into the surface you are resting on and into the recesses of your mind. And once again I want you to give yourself a signal to relax even deeper, to let yourself go all over, feel yourself becoming light and free, taking the time you need to bring the most comfortable feeling of quietness within your body, the freeing up within yourself of muscle tension or inner tension. And when you feel like you have reached that point, raise your right index finger. And so we can all think of a time in our life when we felt well, physically well, emotionally well, and every other way when you knew what it was meant to feel glad to be alive. And when your body functioned easily and freely and smoothly. So let's check with the inner part of your mind and see if it would be okay to go back and revisit that time to let the awareness of what it felt like to feel well return to you. With the inner part of the mind, use the finger signal in the way that it has in the past by lifting your right index finger. And then with that agreement, drift yourself back through time to before pain was a part of your life, before pain was in the picture. Let part of you continue to remain here with me in the here and now, while the other part of you goes back in time, going back, going back, going back. And when you are at that good time, let me know by your right index finger. Thinking of what you look like, felt like, how it feels to feel good, enjoying every minute of this feeling of well-being once again. Let every cell of the body restore to the awareness of this capacity to feel well, which is part of that cell, but which has been submerged by stress. This feeling of wellness is still a part of you. Let yourself feel very comfortable. Counting from one to five slowly, let all the time take place that will revive these feelings of well-being in your mind. One, two, three feelings of well-being strongly, four and five, allowing the inner part of your mind to become ready to move up in time to the beginning of a typical pain episode. And when you feel ready, go ahead and raise your right finger. Take a deep breath. Knowing that no matter how intense the pain may become, this time you will be able to manage it. So observe any images that might be in your mind as the pain begins, telling me what you are thinking of, what you are feeling with your mind. Let it become stronger and more intense, feeling it in all the typical ways it presents. Let the part that is with me here and now describe it in your mind, while the part that is going through the pain feels it in its usual intensity. And if you wish, you can make that even more stressful than it usually is. This is a bad episode, right? When you have the full awareness of pain, let's start the turn-off. Let's replace this pain with a feeling of well-being. Remembering, back in time, that inner well-being, letting it flow into your body and flush out all pain sensations. Quietness, calmness, tension, release. Muscles letting go, turning off the pain, leaving it in the past. Images of relief filling you. The conscious part of your mind and the inner part of your mind will remember the importance of what has just taken place. Not only are you able to choose to allow the pain to flow into your body in its typical way, but you are also powerfully capable of clearing the pain, to have relief replace it. The feeling of well-being coming back. This is an exercise that you will practice in between pain episodes. Your skill at shutting off the pain increases, and you will find yourself shutting off the pain right in the early stages of your pain. You will bring the pain into limbo. You will let go of the pain. You will bring the pain into limits of feasibility that permit you to go on with your life, and you can turn it off more and more as you gain confidence, allowing your life to expand once again. But for now, let's bring our awareness back into this room, in this space. That feeling of letting go, release, and numb, silvery light flowing through the body, allowing your body to feel weightless, and then settling back into the chair, back into your feet, back into your seat, aware of your surroundings, pulling back up into vibrant awareness, moving from one to five. One, two, three, four, five. Awake and alert. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. Awake and alert. One, two, three, four, five. Awake and alert. Shaking out your hands, shaking out your hands, shaking your feet. Very good. Awake and ready for the rest of your day.