Hi, Seattle Area Hypnosis Friends!

Here is an article I’ve written about the power of the mind and the power of NLP to make positive changes in life.  I use these same amazingly successful techniques involving sound to guide clients to personal change in my Bellevue NLP and hypnotherapy clinic.

The topic is sound…music, speech, how the soundtrack of our lives influences our emotional states.  And how WE can enhance this and alter this influence for our own well-being.  We can do all sorts of things, for example release negative emotions, create motivation, move us forward in our desires.  By “tinkering” with sound in our minds!

Music moves us, elevates us, stirs our emotions, in the direction of any emotion you can name.  Think of a march by John Phillip Sousa, or how any stirring anthem activates our feelings of patriotism.  Think how a quiet, beautiful orchestral piece of music calms and relaxes.  Think of a horror movie soundtrack, full of tension and suspense.  Sound is a huge part of our experience of our lives and key to our memories and emotional states.  Imagine a love movie with no soundtrack–would it have the same emotional impact?  No!

By altering the sounds we play in our minds in simple ways, we can experience life differently, more positively, and here are a few easy ideas to do so:

We’ve all had arguments, with a coworker, with a spouse, with a friend, and sometimes they “eat” at us.  We play them over and over in our minds, and churn up even more negative emotions like anger and irritation.  Here’s something to do:  as you think about that argument, create a new soundtrack.  Let the voices fade and cue in the circus music.  Clown music.  Carnival music.  Play that for awhile as the argument runs in your mind, and let it transform your experience of the argument.  Done?  Great!  Now, think about it.  That argument seems kind of silly, doesn’t it?  Less power.  Less force to disturb.  And that’s a GOOD thing.

Here’s another use for improving your life with sound.  You want to get to the gym, you know you need to exercise.  You want to exercise, but somehow…you just aren’t doing it.  Here’s what gets me going, and pumps up my motivation.  The Rocky Theme.  You know the one, where he’s running up the steps in Philadelphia:  “getting strong now, gonna fly now…”  Play that music in your mind when you want a lift of success and motivation.  The resultant emotion will propel you out the door and to the gym.  Or insert any other inspirational music which speaks to you.  Movies are a great source to reference, because we all know them.  You can pump up your confidence as well with music such as Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Superman.

Here’s another wonderful use of this:  play with sound to combat what we call “negative self talk.”  That’s the little critical voice in your mind always telling you what you can’t accomplish, and spraying you with curses:  “You’re lazy!,” “You’re stupid!,” “You’ll never get it done!” and so on.  Imagine that voice to be a different voice, a silly voice, a cartoon voice.  Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Elmer Fudd, something ridiculous.  Hear the same words in that new, ridiculous, cartoon voice.  Maybe it’s a squeaky, high pitched cartoon voice.  “You’re lazy!”  The impact on you is different, isn’t it?  Now it’s absurd, and not to be taken seriously.  The voice is a joke!

The secret here, we can choose how we feel.  Play with these simple techniques above involving sound to feel good now!