Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to The Hypnotist, the show that gives you inside access to cutting-edge hypnosis with real clients facing genuine issues. Brought to you by the hypnotherapist demanded by celebrities, CEOs, and even royalty, Adam Cox. These recordings took place live from Evans Glen in London's world-famous Harley Street. So, get yourself comfortable and enjoy today's episode of The Hypnotist.
Hi, it's Adam here, and you're about to listen to a hypnosis session about hypervigilance and not feeling safe. And I was working with a client that when they were a child, they weren't safe. They had parents that would humiliate, shame, criticize, and lull them into a false sense of security and then exploit that.
So what they learned very young is that it's not safe to trust other people that have power or influence over them. And I would say that was an excellent belief to form when they were young because they didn't have the ability to quit their family and just live somewhere else. They were kind of stuck. So it was a very healthy belief system to have Back then it was armour that kept them safe.
The problem is that their body, their neurology, kept hold of that belief even as an adult so that if they were in certain situations that felt competitive or that there was a hierarchy, or that there was criticism or people that were condescending or patronizing, that would trigger them into a very similar state they had as a child where they didn't feel safe at all.
So the overall theme of this hypnosis session is laying down the armor and recalibrating the threat detection system. because the hypervigilance was a suit of armor. It was designed to keep them safe, but actually they weren't in any real physical danger. So it's exhausting to carry that armor.
And what was clear is that the very threat detection system that was optimized for them being a child was suboptimal for them being an adult. So recalibrating that so it has the right level of sensitivity is quite useful. Now, if you're listening to this, you might be able to connect to certain situations that are relevant to you.
Maybe there's certain situations that you don't feel safe because there was a time when you weren't safe, in which case this very metaphorical hypnosis session could be very useful for you and your situation.
And if you like the idea of something a bit more bespoke and calibrated, I would encourage you to look in the description of this session because I've got a suitability test and a free webinar that explains whether or not you would be suitable for hypnosis and whether hypnosis would be suitable for you and your situation. So check those out.
For now, though, find a quiet, comfortable place where you won't be distracted or disturbed. Relax and enjoy the session. Take a deep breath in. And as you breathe in, breathe in that resourceful feeling of calm and relaxation. And as you exhale, give permission to release, to relax, to calm. Feel your eyelids getting heavier, your jaw getting looser.
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Chapter 2: How can childhood experiences influence adult hypervigilance?
position of your body, and it sounds distant in the room, and I want you to feel safe, exactly where you are, with nothing to do and nothing to defend. take an even deeper breath in through your nose... and exhale... each breath, every exhale, a signal to your body that you can let go just a little more...
And just give permission for any tension remaining in shoulders, in your neck, in your arms or your legs to be released. Not forcing, just giving permission. Allowing your body to do whatever your body feels is safe to do. That's it. The deeper you breathe, the more relaxed you feel. And the more relaxed you feel, the deeper you breathe. Each breath takes you deeper and deeper relaxed.
And as your body relaxes, your imagination awakens. And I wonder if you can imagine a room a private room a room that belongs entirely to you and it may be a room you know or one that your mind creates right now and the only thing that matters is that this room is your room and it's quiet
the right kind of quiet not empty, not lonely, just still and that kind of stillness that feels like a held breath that's finally let go and I want you to imagine a comfortable place to sit or lie in this room
and just settle into that position within your imagination now and you can feel the room around you like a presence like some thing deep within the room knows you, holds you and yet asks nothing of you in this room There are no questions waiting to be answered, no one watching, no one who needs anything from you.
Here in this room, you're not a professional, not a colleague, and certainly not a target. Just you. and it's the version of you that exists before the armor goes on so allow that feeling to settle into your body the lightness of it, the relief of it in this room, your nervous system is allowed to tell the truth And the truth it tells, when nothing is threatening it, is that you are safe.
Let's say those words again, but allow you to feel them there in your chest, in your gut, in your arms, in your legs. You are safe. Genuinely safe. and I want you to imagine somewhere in the room is a suit of armor old heavy armor medieval armor the kind that was forged for a very real brutal kind of battle and you can see the marks on it the dents, the scratches
evidence of everything that this armor has protected you from. But notice the size. This armor was made for a child. For a small, young, vulnerable child who lived in a place where questions were weapons.
where the child's own feelings were told to be wrong, and where the people with power over that child used the power unpredictably, unkindly, where trusting, trusting perceptions, reality, led to trouble, or even got used against them. Perhaps you could imagine yourself as a child wearing that armor and see how good that child got at detecting danger. You knew the early warning signs.
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Chapter 3: What metaphor does Adam use to explain hypervigilance?
those powerful archetypes within get to flourish get to use all of those cognitive bandwidth and resources to do what they want to do not fight battles that don't exist and I want you to think honestly How frequently are you actually in danger? Not that you feel in danger, but that are actually in danger. How often are you actually forced? How often is someone actually coercing you?
Actually harming you? maybe you get the sense that very rarely if ever that happens but if in the future it does happen your radar will still catch it your radar is too good too powerful to miss something real But it doesn't need to exhaust and deplete itself, responding to false alarms that merely echo the past.
So let's install new firmware, a new iOS, a new operating system with a new default. And this new default setting is not naive, not reckless, it's wise. The old default setting was, I am in danger unless I can prove otherwise. And that made sense when you were young. It was the right setting for that environment. A time when you couldn't afford to be wrong.
But the new default is this, I am safe unless I have actual irrefutable evidence. Not a feeling that echoes an old feeling, but real, present moment evidence that I'm in genuine danger. And given how infrequently that occurs, You can form a new belief. I am safe. This is my natural state as an adult. I move through a world that is most of the time not trying to harm me.
Most of the time, the world is ambivalent to you. and when someone is unkind you can notice it without it meaning that you're under attack and when someone doubts your reality you can feel the sting of it without dissolving because your reality doesn't need their permission to be true
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Chapter 4: How does recalibrating the threat detection system work?
allow these seeds to be planted deep in your subconscious mind your reality doesn't require external confirmation to be real what you perceive is real and what you feel is real and what you experienced and what happened no one could reach inside your history and unmake it And no one can reach into your present experiences and tell you what is or isn't there.
You are the authority on your own experiences. You always have been. And that gaslighting from childhood was a lie taught to a child who had no way to verify it. but you are not that child anymore and you have never needed their permission I want you to imagine hugging that child, the one with the armor telling them they are safe they can stand down they can finally rest and relax
your radar system will take it from here, that recalibrated radar system and I want you to imagine a future now, one year from now a year of living with the default that you are safe unless you have evidence to the contrary imagine seeing that version of you
in a meeting and being criticized and looking unfazed being in a relationship and not being believed and just seeing it as a feedback loop of communication someone being patronizing and you
you have sympathy, empathy for that insecure person but you're not triggered by it that future version of you has the same intelligence you have the same capability, the same history but more energized because that future version of you has not been spending their energy on battles that aren't happening
that version of you is energized and not depleted and that version of you is not fictional and they aren't far away and when you've been under the influence of certain medications or substances you've met that future version of you already because that's how you are
when feeling safe is your default that version of you doesn't need medication to exist that version of you is calibrated, protected and fundamentally safe unless you have evidence that you are unsafe those old echoes
they're just data that doesn't connect anymore it's time to leave this place this room within a room within your mind within your imagination but you leave with that old armor left behind but keeping that radar that early detection system but calibrated to a higher threshold
those false alarms get ignored on this system and only genuine threats alert your nervous system and if your unconscious agrees let me know by nodding your head so it's time to return as you take a deep breath in through your nose and out through your nose
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