This Is Why Your Mind Is Your Most Powerful Tool
Illustration by Witchy
“If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.” — Anonymous
This afternoon, I had just got back from a walk when Witchy fairly burst into my cottage.
“Liberty! Liberty! Are you here?” she called, bordering on frantic as she appeared in the kitchen.
“Yes, I just came in from a walk and was going to have some cinnamon tea. Shall I make you a cup and you can tell me what’s happened?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know if it’s okay!”
“You don’t know if what’s okay? Telling me what’s happened?”
“No! Having cinnamon tea!”
“What’s wrong with cinnamon tea? I thought you loved it!”
“I do!”
“So what’s the problem?”
“I’m not sure!”
“You don’t know what the problem is?”
“Yes. No. I mean, there is a problem but I don’t know if it’s cinnamon tea.”
I’d like to think I’ll get better at figuring out the way her mind works; heaven knows we have enough of these convoluted conversations. Somehow, I’m not sure I’ll ever get there…
“I’ll make extra, just in case you decide you want it,” I replied, filling the pot and covering it with the tea cosy. “Come, let’s sit down and you can tell me what’s going on.”
Placing the pot and two cups on the table, I pulled out two chairs. As she sat down, I said, “Oh, I have something for you!”
Turning my back to the table, I retrieved a small plate from the cupboard. I reached into the cookie jar and fished out a few double chocolate chip delights.
As I turned toward Witchy and put the plate on the table, she screeched and recoiled at the sight of the treat.
“Witchy! What’s wrong?”
“Oh, no! Those are worse than the tea!”
“But — these are your favourite! Vegan double chocolate chip — with peanuts. I just made them this morning!”
“I can’t eat them anymore! I’m scared of them!”
I confess. I was working on exasperated, although I wasn’t quite there yet. Remembering that my little friend has many fears, I asked gently, “Why? What happened?”
I sat down and gazed at my little blue friend. She stared at the cookies like they were radioactive.
Reaching across the table, I took one of her blue hands and asked softly, “Will you please tell me what’s got you so frightened? You know you can tell me anything.”
A clear, blue tear rolled down her cheek. After a moment, she drew in a deep breath and replied, “I don’t think I can eat anything ever again.”
“Can you tell me why not?”
“My friend went to the dentist.”
I waited for several long seconds, hoping for more but as usual with my little friend, nothing was forthcoming.
“And…what has this got to do with you never eating again?”
“In all my hundreds of years, I had never even heard of a dentist! We didn’t have them in the Transylvania Forest!”
“Why is this a problem now?”
Suddenly, words tumbled out of her like children spilling from a school onto a playground at recess. “My friend told me the dentist pulled out one of his teeth! He was explaining why but I didn’t really know what he was talking about. All I heard was something about eating and drinking and it makes you lose your teeth! And he said everyone has to go to the dentist twice a year! I don’t want to go! I don’t want all my teeth pulled out! Please don’t make me go!”
“Okay, first, calm down, Witchy. There’s no reason to think you’ll lose any teeth. After all your centuries, your teeth seem perfect.”
“They do? Are you a dentist?”
“No, but you’ve never had any trouble with them, right?”
“Right.”
“Plus you’re a witch. Your skin is blue. There are lots of things about you that are different from humans. I’m sure the need for a dentist is one of them.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Otherwise, there would be dentists in the Forest.”
“But if I’ve never gone, and I go now, what if the dentist wants to make up for lost time and yank out all of my teeth?”
“I can promise you, that won’t happen. You just have to get them checked and cleaned a couple of times a year. The point of going is to prevent them being pulled.”
“Oh, good! Because…well…it would be bad enough to have my teeth pulled out. But my friend did it without the — without the — the anna — the annath — oh, what did he call that stuff that makes it so you can’t feel anything?”
“Anaesthetic.”
“Yes! He said he wouldn’t need it! He was going to change his mind so it wouldn’t hurt.”
“Um, change his mind?”
“Something like that. I think my brain froze after I heard the part about not using the stuff that stops the pain. There was something about his mind and…I don’t remember. I might have fainted.”
“If you fainted, you’d know about it.”
“I would?”
“Yes. You’d wake up on the ground and feel like you’d been asleep.”
“You can’t faint standing up?”
“No. Anyway, I think I know what your friend means. He was probably talking about using the power of the mind to stop pain.”
Witchy stared blankly at me for several seconds, blinking. “That’s dumb.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Okay, I get that it sounds dumb, but it works.”
“It does?” Her eyebrows shot up and her mouth fell open.
“Yes. I’m a hypnotist. I’ve seen it work lots of times in my clients.”
“What? You pull out people’s teeth with no anna — annas — that stuff?” Pressing her back into her chair, she pulled away from me.
“Oh, my heaven, no!” I laughed. “I don’t pull out teeth, Witchy. I leave that to the dentists. Hypnosis harnesses the incredible power of the mind and people can use it for all sorts of things, including having medical or dental procedures done without any anaesthetic. Even surgeries.”
“Surgeries? Surgeries? Okay, now I think I really am going to faint!”
“Yes, it’s true. Some people are allergic to anaesthetic or they can’t have it because of other health issues. But if they’re willing to use hypnosis, it can work.”
“I don’t understand how!”
“You’re not alone, Witchy. Many people don’t understand hypnosis. Part of the problem is that they’ve seen stage shows where people do silly things in hypnosis and the audience laughs at them.”
“Oh, no! I would hate that! I was so humiliated when all the witches and vampires laughed me out of the Forest after my spells went wonky! Please don’t ever hypnotise me and make me do silly things!”
“My sweet friend, I would never make you do anything you didn’t want to do, and you don’t need to worry about hypnosis anyway.”
“Why not?”
“Because you cannot be hypnotised against your will.”
“I can’t?”
“No. You would have to accept the suggestions that are given or they have no effect.”
“Wait, I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about! Can you go to the beginning, please?”
“Sorry, Witchy, I should have explained better. I’ll keep it simple. Your mind is divided into two parts: conscious and subconscious. Your conscious mind involves thoughts and memories that you’re aware of, but you are not aware of what’s in your subconscious.”
“I’m not?”
“No, that’s what the word means — below or under consciousness. About 90–95% of your life’s experiences and beliefs are locked in the subconscious. Your conscious mind acts as a sort of gatekeeper. It’s like there’s a wall between your conscious and subconscious.”
“That sounds kind of unfriendly! Is there a war in my head?”
“No,” I chuckled. “It’s to protect you. Your subconscious is awake and aware of everything all the time but it would be overwhelming for you to remember every single thing that has ever happened to you!”
“Oh, my. Especially over several hundred years!”
“Absolutely!”
“I’m not saying how many hundreds…”
“I know. And I would never ask!” I smiled. “Anyway, the subconscious keeps all of your experiences safely stored away, leaving your conscious mind to deal with the as many as you can handle.”
“I still don’t know what any of this has to do with hypnosis!”
“Hypnosis is nothing more than a deep state of relaxation. The more relaxed you are, the more the wall between the conscious and subconscious drops. This means you’re open to suggestions being planted in the subconscious. You’re awake and aware of the whole process and if you don’t like the suggestions, they won’t work.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes! If you refuse to accept the suggestions to relax, you won’t be hypnotised. And even if you are hypnotised, if someone suggests something to you that you don’t like, it won’t have any effect. A hypnotist has no control over you whatsoever. I remember a lady who came to me once because she smoked a lot. Her family pressured her to come but she was angry and wanted no part of it. She was hostile the whole time, did not relax, and as I was offering ‘stop smoking’ suggestions, in her head she would have been dismissing every one of them.”
“Why did she come then?”
“So she could tell her family she’d done it and it hadn’t worked. I didn’t want to go through with it but she insisted.”
“What about those people who do silly things and get laughed at, and then they don’t remember doing any of it?”
“It’s because they accepted all of those suggestions in the interests of having fun. They agreed to be hypnotised. While in hypnosis, they agreed to do those silly things. And they agreed to forget about it. The people who do not agree don’t get on stage because the suggestions won’t stick.”
“How does it work to stop pain?”
“By planting suggestions that in certain conditions, they won’t feel anything. Like, when they’re being wheeled into the operating room or when a certain word is used. It takes preparation; you can’t do it in just one or two sessions and it takes time to build up that kind of trust and to learn to relax as deeply as that kind of situation requires. Other things can be done quickly, though! I’ve seen loads of people who have stopped smoking after one or two sessions. Many people only need a few for weight loss. And — oh, there was a fun one I used to do at a hospital!”
“Fun? At a hospital?”
“Yes, this was! I used to teach hypnosis classes for expectant couples to use it in childbirth. I demonstrated the power of the mind by putting them into hypnosis and saying that their right hands would go completely numb and would stay that way when they came out of hypnosis.”
“Forever?!” Witchy panicked.
“No! Just for purposes of what I wanted to show them. I told them that when they came out of hypnosis, they would be able to transfer that numbness to another part of the body. This would work great for women to rub their painful bellies in labour and make the pain go away. Or to have the suggestion that their partner’s hand would do the trick.”
“That does sound like a trick!”
“After planting those suggestions, I brought them out of hypnosis and had them rub their right hands along their jaws and transfer the numbness. In a couple of minutes, they all said the right side of their tongues, lips and jaws were numb. They couldn’t feel a thing, and the funny part was that they sounded like they’d just been to the dentist and were loaded up on novocaine.”
“Oh, my, that sounds scary!”
“It was amazing! Then I’d put them back in hypnosis and remove all the suggestions. It showed how powerful the mind is. And this is why your friend would have been able to have dentistry without anaesthetic, but only after proper preparation with someone qualified.”
“I still don’t want to get my teeth pulled.”
“I’m sure that after so many centuries without a dentist, you’ll never need to worry about that. Now, are you ready for tea and a cookie that I baked just for you?”
After a moment’s thought, she relaxed visibly and smiled. “Yes, except — ”
“Except what?”
“May I have two cookies, please?”
“You can have as many as your heart desires!” I replied, pushing the plate toward my dear little friend.