Imagine Imagine walking on a beach.  The sand warm between your toes.  Walk towards the water.  As you near it, the sand feels cool and wet.  Take several more steps and feel the water gently lapping around your ankles.  The water feels warm and inviting.  Walk further until the water is up to your knees.   Look up at  the blue sky and see the puffy clouds float by.  One of the clouds even looks like a bird.   A gentle breeze blows and cools your face.   Look towards the distance and see three sailboats lazily moving  across the lake.    What a glorious summer day.    Now take a deep breath and slowly exhale.   Walk around in the water and feel the waves against your legs.   When you are ready, head back towards the beach.   Sit down on your lounge chair, towel off, and reach for your cooler.  Select a cold beverage.  Open the can and take a sip.   The beverage is cool and refreshing.  Next, reach into your bag and pull out that novel that you purchased yesterday.   Turn to the first page.   No need to hurry - you have the whole afternoon to read and enjoy the beach. Now, for a least a couple of minutes, did you feel as if you were on the beach?  Were you able to suspend your current reality and visualize the sensation of the sand, the water, and the cool beverage?   Were you able to "see" the sailboats? The mind is a powerful instrument.  It helps to shape your reality (both positively and negatively).   Now, if you were successful in visualizing the scene above, imagine what else you can do.   You have the power within you to change those elements in your life that no longer serve you.    However, willpower and desire may not strong enough to overcome the existing negative thought patterns already in place. In these cases, hypnosis may provides a means of helping overcome the negativity and allow the positive change to take hold. What is hypnosis? Hypnosis is a change in our mental awareness in which our critical "conscious" mind becomes distracted.  This allows our subconscious mind to be directly receptive to suggestions.  These suggestions can change the stored patterns which cause our behavior and our physical responses.   These are changes that we find so difficult or even impossible to achieve in our ordinary state of consciousness. The benefits of hypnosis are no longer disputed.  Today hypnosis is joined to modern usage and practice, producing increasing acceptance in every part of personal, professional, and business life. Recognize the benefits you can obtain by releasing the power of the mind to bring about important changes.  These changes can be for health improvement, increased motivation, personal improvement, changing lifestyle patterns, releasing hidden personal potentials or helping an individual function more effectively in today's high-stress society. Make better use of the greatest untapped power in the world today - the human mind. Is Hypnosis for You? Take this quiz 1. Do you have many vivid memories from your early childhood? 2. Do you tend to lose yourself in movies, books, or TV shows? 3. Do you tend to know what people are going to say before they say it? 4. Do powerful visual images ever trigger a physical sensation in you? Example: Do you feel thirsty during the desrt scenes of "Lawrence of Arabia"? 5. Have you ever zoned out while going somewhere and wondered how  you had gotten there? 6. Do you sometimes think in images rather than words? 7. Do you ever sense when someone has entered a room, even before seeing him? 8. Do you like to look at cloud shapes? 9. Do smells evoke powerful memories in you? 10. Have you ever been deeply moved by a sunset? ONE POINT FOR EACH YES 0-2 Hypnosis may not be for you. It may be difficult to enter a trance. 3-7 You are in the middle.  You may be hypnotized, but may not be susceptible to every suggestion. 8-10 You will have no problem going under and you should respond well to most hypnotic suggestions. Source: Good Housekeeping, Mar. 2003, .p84