Someone once told me that we do not choose our friends but that the universe chooses them for us. I found this statement to be very intriguing and the more that I thought about it the more that I realized that this is only the case on the surface but that there is far more going on in a spiritual level. I think that while the universe does indeed seem to choose our friends, we are actually the ones that choose them. We choose them by how we relate to the universe; this is done through our beliefs, thoughts, and actions.

My amendment indicates my belief that we are not living powerless lives, but that we actually choose and then wait to receive from the world at large. Since I do believe that we have the power to choose our reality, I also believe that we have the power to choose our friends.

Friends can be our greatest resource or they can be our greatest hindrance. If we are surrounded by supposed friends that treat us terribly and bring down our energy, then our lives suffer. On the other hand if we are surrounded by friends that uplift our spirits, encourage us, and give us energy; we are bound to do very well in everything that we do. I believe therefore that it is very important that we choose the correct friends because it is through their help that we shall either fail or succeed in most of our endeavors.

I suggest that you take the time to examine all your friendships. You should look at all the relations that you have and examine how they make you feel. A good way to do this is to find a quiet environment and to imaginatively visualize your friend in question before you. As you imagine your friend before you, how do you feel? Do you have sudden visions of past interactions? Were these good or bad times?

You should do this with all the friends that you have and deeply examine your feelings. If you do have friends in your life that make you feel drained or upset, then you must honestly question this relationship. It can be a very difficult thing but there are times when you need to distance yourself from people that bring you down. Truthful examination of your relationships will let you know, through your feelings, what these relationships are doing to you and your life. Any individual that is taking away more than he’s getting back, must be sent packing. This might sound harsh but this is your life and if you only get one chance around, it is better spent with those that truly care about you.

This exercise might really cut down on the amount of friends that you do have, but the benefits of letting go of the negative people in your life is well worth the effort. Now by negative I do not mean strictly negative, and that you should get rid of friends just because they speak negative things all the time. Some of the best friends that I have had have been these great negative types that have made me laugh for hours at a time. Comedy after all is negativity with a twist. The kind of negative friendships that I am talking about are those that are actually causing destruction in your life. You can identify these negative friendships because they do not make you happy or tell you great jokes but because they make you feel drained and powerless. You must look within yourself and question the feelings that you are having in those relationships because you are the only person that can make those very important subjective decisions.

Learn to be strong and let go of bad friendships. Being alone is not a bad thing as it is a wonderful time to grow as an individual and to discover your inner life. Be strong enough to only maintain those relationships that bring you joy and happiness, those relationships that uplift your spirit and make you feel like you could do anything. We have all had friends that make us feel this way and they are worth their weight in gold.

We are all told in one way or another, from the beginning of our lives, that life is competition. Whenever you look around it seems that we have to compete and fight for everything that we want. Science tells us that evolution, which is the fundamental law of life, is competition. But is this true? Or perhaps a better question is; is competition the best way to win in life?

As a child growing up you were most likely put in competitive situations early on. Whether you were fighting for crayons with a sibling or whether you were engaged in some kind of little league sport, you were seemingly competing from the cradle. This early competition is usually a type of head-on frontal assault where we engage our rivals in a face-to-face confrontation. While this might be great strategy as a child, simple and straightforward and seemingly quite natural, as you grow up it become obvious that this strategy can sometimes be quite self-defeating. The reason for this is that as we grow we find that head-on competition is too simplistic to win many battles. Indeed it could be said that if you’re openly competing with anyone, you most likely have a fifty-fifty chance of winning at best. The reason for this is that advanced strategy always tells us that subterfuge and disguise are what truly win battles. Open engagement means that you failed to position yourself properly in the field and now you are facing head to head battle. This happens because you were not smart enough to get what you wanted through advanced thinking. Seen in this way, competition can be seen as poor choice of action.

While the above paragraph might allow many to see that competition, at least head to head competition, is bad strategy and therefore not worth the effort; you must realize that nature does not really compete. While many evolutionary biologists might think that I speak sacrilege, from a spiritualistic point of view, you realize that nature never competes, it just flows. While looking at nature from the surface it might seem that it’s all fang and claw out there, but higher metaphysical concepts take it for granted that there’s much more going on at a spiritual level. What is meant by this is that while through physical eyes we only see the final outcome, before this outcome came to fruition there were many internal choices that were made. For example, the lion did not catch and eat the zebra because in a competitive environment he was better than the zebra and other predatory competitors; that certain lion killed and ate that certain zebra because nature made a choice that involved balance and a grand cooperative venture between every single creature in the savanna, and the world. Nature balances itself by creating this incredible dynamic that feeds and grows from itself. The lion is not just one single individual fighting against the entire world, he is one small part of a great whole that works together in an infinite flow of life and death. There was no competition therefore, there was only choices, made by a greater whole. The problem for us is that our physical senses were only able to see the seemingly torturous final outcome.

While animals follow instinct and the dictates of nature perfectly, men do have the ability to consciously choose. This might sometimes make you feel like you are one individual against the world, but you must realize that you too are part of this whole and that while you do have complete freedom of choice you are also supported by an incredible natural environment that does not compete. Looked at this way, you can see that when you do compete you are actually not going about things in the right way. Conflict then is the final results of the accumulation of prior choices. If you find yourself in a face-to-face struggle with someone then, you must realize that you got there through a number of choices that you made before the situation became real physically.

A better way to go through life then is not through competition but by allowing yourself to flow just like nature. In order to do this you must learn to relax into life. Try to get over your fight or flight feelings and realize that often these feelings are there because of a belief. This belief is the one that tells you that life is struggle and that everyone is out to get what you have. Learn to feel at ease with others. Most importantly realize that it will always be better to create than to compete. You create by choosing what to believe and focusing on what you want; letting life naturally take you into the best circumstances possible. In this way, getting what you want is as easy as plucking an apple from a tree.

There are times when old memories can haunt us. This is usually the case when we can’t seem to let go of things that we have done in the past, or things that have been done to us in past. These old ghosts or skeletons can make any future progress difficult and can cause us great heartache.

Here is an interesting little technique that might allow you to get over these old skeletons. It should help you to let go of these negative memories and create some space so that you can move on with your life.

1. Take a piece of paper and on it right the old memory or ‘skeleton’ that is hard to deal with. Below this write all the reasons why this happened; specifically write down what caused the problem and the reasons why you think it happened to you personally. Always remember to explore your feelings so that you get more insightful reasons as to why this could happen. At the bottom of the page, in big letters, write “IT’S DONE.”

Take this piece of paper and rip it with a solemn emotional desire to have it be over with. If you wish to you can take this piece of paper and burn it and as you see it burn again try to experience the emotion of relief as this old skeleton is blown away. You might also want to take this piece of paper and bury it. I suggest you go to a nice quiet place that is more natural and has lots of vegetation. Bury it there and let the Earth swallow it back.

2. Now take another piece of paper and on it write,  “I wish I would have_________”. on this paper write all of the things that you wish you would have done if you would find yourself in that situation again. Now that you are removed from the situation and can look at it in a more objective manner, try to figure out new ways that you might deal with this situation so that you would not have to go through the same heart ache and pain again. You can keep this piece of paper with you and use it in the future. It is essentially a way for you to discover solutions to old and troubling situations. In this way you will feel less powerless as you discover better ways to deal with something that hurt you in the past.

3. Now take a third piece of paper and on it write, “I regret______”. on this paper write down all the things you regret not doing in this situation. Honestly write down all of the things that you feel you did not do because you were either scared or you did not think of them at the time. At the bottom of this piece of paper write, “that was then this is now!”

Take this piece of paper and rip it. Do with it the same thing that you did with the first piece of paper.

This is a great way to get over old skeletons that have been haunting in the past. It is both a cleansing ritual and a way to find out how to overcome this problem or situation if you ever face in the future. Use this method to attack any old and troubling memory that is holding you back from moving on in your life. Use this method to stop an old memory from haunting you.

We all naturally take our life for granted. It seems the most natural thing on earth to think that our lives will last forever, that we are all immortal and that we have infinite time. Contrary to what some might say this is actually a good feeling. The feeling of immortality comes about because of a joyous pleasure that we feel about our lives and our situation in the present moment. We must sometimes remind ourselves though that we are only given a certain amount of years in this life and that we should take advantage of these years in the best way possible.

Feeling like an immortal is usually brought about by pleasure. To feel happiness and joy means that you do not experience lack, and as such you are not thinking about a termination to your joy or to your life experience. If this is the case then there is no reason why you should feel bad about this sense of abundance. A feeling of immortality can also come about though through a lack of perspective. This type of feeling of immortality is created when a person is focused too much on the wrong aspects of his or her life and does not take the time to enjoy and feel life as it is happening to him or her. Usually these type of people are lost in the drudgery of life, perhaps work or some kind of other responsibility, and forget to take the time to explore their own lives and their own freedoms.

The second type of immortal feeling can be quite dangerous. This feeling of immortality is not brought about through happiness or joy but through the loss in the focus needed to experience life properly. When this is the case you must stop for a minute and reevaluate what you are doing with your life. A person lost in this drudgery must takes learn to wake up to his life.

A great way to get yourself thinking in a different way is to:

1. First imagine that you have been told that you have six months to live; what do you do? Take a piece of paper and on it write exactly what you would do if you only had six months to live. On this paper also write down what you would say to others, especially your relatives and all the most important people in your life. Write down where you would go, whether you might take a trip or what you would like to see before you die. Also write down on the piece of paper what you would get done, what in your life is actually important enough that you would dedicate your next six months to it.

2. Imagine what it would be like if you won the lottery. Just as above perhaps, on the other side of this piece of paper, write down what you would do if you won the lottery. Again write down what you would do, what you would say to others, where you would go, and what would be really important for you to get done.

3. Do the same thing as above but this time imagining that you could not fail. What would you do if you could not fail at whatever you attempted. Again write down on a piece of paper exactly what you would do, say, and get done.

This is a wonderful way to create new perspective in the way that you have been thinking. Using this method you are able to imaginatively considered new possibilities, and in this way start to give attention to your life in a different way.

While life should be seen as a wonderful challenge in an infinite universe, you must always balance out these feelings with a touch of sobriety. This sobriety comes about through the realization that your physical existence is not infinite, and that you have only a certain amount of time here. Enjoy your time as best you can but learn to devote this time properly so that when you do reach the end of it, you will feel that you have accomplished all of the things that you wanted to do.

To complain is natural. Complaining just means that you are at odds with whatever is happening at the moment. Complaining then really is a form of self empowerment where you express your feelings in order to motivate yourself and others to change a situation.

Complaints though can have a negative side, where too much complaining and very little doing becomes the norm. When this is the case a complaint is just really away to drain your energy and the energy of others. Besides being very draining, too much complaining can stifle creativity and stop you from looking beyond the problem in order to see the solutions. Too much complaint without action can also block good advice, where you do not allow others to give you assistance of any kind because you are too busy going on and on about your problems.

One of the best ways to stop your complaining and the complaining of others is to turn every complaint into a question. Unlike typical complaints, questions always stimulate instead of stifle. A good question will allow you to focus on solutions to your problems and in this way stimulate you to take on whatever problem in an energetic manner. Turning a complaint into a question is therefore a wonderful way to turn a negative and draining experience into a challenge. Seeing life and obstacles as a challenge allows you to overcome all emotional difficulties by focusing all your resources into fixing the problem and seeing outside the box.

Next time that you find yourself complaining about something, try to see if you can turn the complaint into a question. Instead of saying, “the neighbors next door are so loud”. Ask yourself instead, “what can I do to find rest in my home?” In this way you will be inspired to look for answers and to attack this problem as a challenge. Instead of complaining and just feeling negative, with this question you can motivate yourself to take action so that you do not need to experience these kinds of problems again.

Next time that you find yourself in front of a person who is complaining, instead of just joining in or getting affected by their negative energy, turn their complaint into a question. By doing this you will very quickly defuse any negative energy that they are creating through their continual complaint. Others will see you as self-confident and a natural leader.

Complaints without action, that are repeated over and over again, are just big wastes of energy. This kind of action will never solve any problems because in reality it is no action at all. It is easy to identify the kind of complaint that I am talking about, because this complaint is usually done by yourself in your own head or in situations where the complaint has no power at all. A good complaint is a complaint made to those that can affect change, while a negative complaint is made for no apparent reason other than to just begin a cycle of negative energy.

If you complain often enough to yourself, but take no action at all to correct the situation, you will end up feeling very powerless. What you are doing here is basically making a complaint to the wrong person; you. In order to feel powerful again, you need to be able to take action on these complaints. The best way to do this is to turn any complaint that you have into a question. By turning a complaint into a question you increase your sense of power as you tackle and overcome the challenge, and therefore increase your happiness.

In life we all make mistakes. It is essentially impossible to avoid not making a mistake. We are all human after all and as such it is really impossible for us to do anything without making some kind of mistake. The reason for this is that we are designed to learn from our mistakes, a mistake then is sort of like a correctional system the tells us how to do things better by showing us the wrong way to do it. Never get yourself down because you made a mistake as this is just a correctional system that we all use to better our final results.

There are times when we are performing certain tasks that do not allow us the freedom to make many mistakes. In these instances it counts that we make sure that we eliminate as many mistakes as possible. When this is the case, it is good to have a procedure at hand. This procedure can show you how you most often make mistakes and therefore can give you a heads up on how to curtail these errors before they happen.

The top five reasons why we usually make mistakes are:

1. Inexperience; any time that we lack experience, we are bound to make mistakes. When we attempt new things, things that we have never done before, it becomes very difficult to predict future actions and results. In order to avoid this most common mistake, make sure that you familiarize yourself as much as possible with your intended future task. Try to create simulations for yourself so that you are able to practice ahead of time and in this way anticipate any problems that might develop.

2. Forgetfulness; if there are people out there with perfect memories, then they must be very few indeed. Most of us tend to forget, and as a result we forget past experience. No one can remember everything, and keeping everything in mind before attempting any new task is also impossible. You can lower the mistakes that you make from forgetfulness by keeping a journal of certain key tasks that you do or might do in the future. In this way you can minimize some of the problem that comes from forgetfulness, but you must always remember as well to review this journal on a regular basis.

3. We deny problems; because of personal desire or fear, we sometimes deny the fact that we had made a mistake in the past. Even the fear of failure itself can cause us to forget, either consciously or unconsciously, that we had failed before doing a related task. In order to overcome this problem you must always try and stay as objective as possible. Realize that a mistake can be made by anyone and that any emotional attachment is really a fundamental waste of energy. Be objective and look at your successes and your failures objectively, and in this way discover better strategies and better attitudes while engaging in future tasks. Denial of the problem will only create more problems in the future.

4. We have no alternative; we often make mistakes because we believe that we have no alternatives. The feeling that we don’t have any other way to deal with a problem stems from a lack of experience, ability, and skill. This particular reason for mistakes is very much linked to our first reason for typical mistakes, which is lack of experience. It is always imperative that you try to develop new skill with every mistake you make. As you identify your mistake, try to find solutions for the future and through the development of the solutions try to develop also the skills required for future accomplishment.

5. Habit; as I have mentioned in other articles, routine can be a big killer of the imagination. Habits make us feel safe in that by following a particular routine there is no need to think or to put ourselves outside of our comfort zone. If you expect something to be a certain way out of habit, then you will be blinded to unexpected circumstances which you could not foresee because of your dogmatic attitude. Always therefore try to see things from different perspectives, try new approaches, and push yourself to think outside the box. The animal the follows his habits and routines blindly is easily trapped.

By reviewing the five reasons above, you should be able to greatly reduce the amount of mistakes that you make while attempting any future task. The idea here is to try to be well prepared and create alternatives and solutions for any future mistakes by examining the most probable reasons why mistakes are made in the first place. We all make mistakes and we must realize the mistakes are there to show us a better way to do things in the future. Learn from these mistakes and also practice the above five; in this way you should be able to either profit from any mistake that you make or avoid making mistakes in the future when you are engaged in a highly competitive game.

You must realize that you are psychic. Many people have a natural internal feeling that tells them that they should be able to perceive more. Many also have a sense that there is more to life than they are allowing themselves to perceive.. These are natural feelings that hint at our desire as a human species to expand consciously and spiritually.

Science has become the new religion. It has created incredible marvels and allowed many of us to live a kind of luxurious life that would have seemed impossible to our recent ancestors. That being said, it has also created an establishment that has taken away much of the magic that goes along with our reality. It is possibly not fair to blame this on science since if you know enough about the precepts of science and logic you will realize that science can be quite open to paranormal data. Science, and good logic, does not make assumptions. Assumptions are only made by human beings not following the correct precepts of proper logical thought and science. The current establish bureaucracy, through bad scientific practice, does not allow any room for the spirit or any perceptions that are outside of its skeptic rationale.

Keeping the above in mind, it is most important that you realize that you are now essentially psychic. You are basically now able to perceive things that go far beyond the five senses. Like most people that are searching for a way to become psychic and to expand their psychic awareness, you have been diluted by a bureaucratic scientific organization that says that extrasensory perceptions is impossible.

In order to develop your extrasensory perception you must first and foremost realize that the only reason why you are not aware of these perceptions if that you do not believe that they are possible. Scientists, through proper scientific research, have discovered that the subconscious mind is aware of infinite detail, most of which is filtered out by the conscious mind. The infinite perceptive resources of the subconscious mind are currently beyond measure. This might sound like a fantastic statement but it is true nonetheless. It is known for a fact for example that the subconscious mind can remember perfectly every single thing that you have ever done or thought. This essentially means that you have total recall of every single nuance of your entire life. It is also known by science that the human eye can perceive partially into the infrared and the ultraviolet spectrum. These perceptions are a biological fact but the conscious mind filters out these perceptions, most of us are not even aware that these perceptions are possible.

Why is this important? Let’s for example contemplate the idea of auric perception or the ability by some to see phantasms or ghosts. If the subconscious is able to perceive some of the ultraviolet and the infrared spectrum, then it goes without saying that human visual perception is far more powerful than is currently believed. Paranormal researchers, using cameras that can see into the ultraviolet and infrared spectrum, have discovered amazing apparitions. These apparitions are only perceivable with this special equipment, and seems to suggest that there is an energetic world just beyond our perception. Is it possible then that a psychic is just a person that has trained him or herself to perceive visual data that is usually censored by the conscious mind?

I believe that this is just the tip of the iceberg. I believe that this is just a tiny fraction of what is possible through human perception. If this is the case then it is quite possible that all of the psychic phenomenon reported throughout human history is in fact true perception by human beings. Human beings that have a natural talent or have developed the ability to control the subconscious censor.

If I am correct then the most imperative thing for anyone that wishes to develop their psychic abilities is to be able to control the subconscious censor. The most important way to begin to control the censor is to begin to first realized and truly believe that you are able to perceive far more than you currently believing you can. Changing your beliefs in this way should change the focus of your attention. This focus change should allow you to begin to become aware of sensitive energies and insights, through perceptions, that you have ignored in the past.

You must always face your problems. In order to overcome whatever obstacles are in your way, you must address the problem. Problems happen to all of us, and there is seldom a time in our lives when we can say that we are free of them.

While it is true that we must always face our problems, there is a difference between facing a problem and dwelling on it. When you are dwelling on the problem, you are basically reliving an old situation and re-creating every emotions and personal hardships you faced at that time. To dwell on the problem is really a negative thing to do because it really just creates more and more of the original problem. This is the case because while dwelling on the problem, you are not able to see the solution. Solutions can only be attained by seeing outside the problem and this cannot be done if all you’re doing is just concentrating on the problem and not allowing your mind to see things in a  ‘broadness view’; this is required in order to see beyond this problem to the solution.

To face the problem means that you are acknowledging that something went wrong but that you are aware of the fact that you will not find a solution by focusing strictly on the problem. To face the problem properly you first need to take on an objective stance, where you see the problem or whatever negative situation might have occurred, as a spectator watching a performance and not as an actor participating in that performance. The subtle difference here lies in the fact that you must remove yourself from the situation by no longer seeing yourself as being part of the situation. In this way you can look, at whatever problem or situation, from a distance and therefore not be affected emotionally by what has occurred. With this ‘objective perspective’, you should be able to see many things that led to this problem and in this way find solutions.

Secondly you must also let yourself feel some of the emotions that this problem has caused you. The reason for this is that these emotions are not your enemy, they are really allies that will help you to investigate your inner perceptions and will help you find out exactly why this problem manifested itself in the first place. Any emotion that is explored becomes an incredible helping force that gives you the energy needed to go deeply into your conscious awareness; you can then find the reason for the problem, and intuit solutions to overcome it.

Next time that you have a negative emotion, when you are reliving an old problem, realize that this emotion is really an ally that is here to help you. A good way to use emotions to solve problems is to slowly allow yourself to experience these emotions while you are reliving the problem from an objective  and somewhat detached point of view. In this way you can control how much emotion you feel and can then use these emotions as a type of fuel for your introspections. Like I have stated before; the simplest way to use these emotions is simply to just ask yourself “why?” as you experience them. This simple question will allow you to backtrack and to discover your personal beliefs in this situation. By understanding your beliefs you begin to become aware of a broader perspective and the reasons why this problem came to fruition in the first place. While reliving these emotions you might also find yourself experiencing certain flashes or insights that could give you great clues as to how to overcome this problem now and in the future.

There is no way to move forward until you face a problem. If you do not face the problem it will always be there, either haunting you or re-manifesting itself and creating new problems for you. The need to overcome a problem is paramount in moving forward in your life. If you are not able to do this you will not be able to move forward, and quite possibly, you will just segment yourself off from certain activities and thoughts because of your fear of experiencing these problems in the future.

Face your problems and gain personal strength. Once you realize that facing problems greatly increases your self-esteem, and when you realize also that any negative emotions that you might feel as you face these problems are just allies there to help you, you will find that facing problems is actually quite a positive thing. By facing problems you feel powerful and not powerless, as a result you become happier and have therefore cycled completely around, and in this way have turned a negative into a positive.

We all naturally seek more happiness in our lives. I suppose you could say that life and living is really a struggle for pleasure; where most organisms seem to seek pleasure and stay away from pain. We to tend to classify what we consider to be good as pleasure and what we consider to be bad as pain. It is the case then that we seek happiness because happiness usually means that we are accomplishing what we want, and getting the things that we desire from life.

In our modern consumer age most of the things that bring us happiness tend to be things that we buy. It is also the case that we qualify these material things through price, where things that are more expensive, are supposedly higher quality, and therefore tend to bring us more happiness. Basically the more expensive the thing is that happier it tends to make us. This does skew our definition of happiness, where we believe that the only way to truly be happy is to be very wealthy. To a great extent this is a delusion created by our consumer society, by a market that is interested in getting us to purchase as much as possible for the highest price.

Most of the things that we want then are expensive. We all believe that true happiness comes by being a millionaire and being able to afford giant villas and drive incredibly expensive cars. This consumer front, propagated by corporate greed, has even skewed our personal relations. It is a well-known fact, expounded by consumer propaganda, that the best way to show your love to a woman is to buy her an expensive diamond. Children and adults tend to judge their status, and therefore their happiness, by the kind of goods that they have access to. If you have the most expensive cell phone and are wearing top-of-the-line shoes then you are happy, because as we are all told, this is the epitome of status, freedom, and personal power.

It must be understood though that even the rich are not happy if they do not understand what true happiness is all about. Tabloids are full of stories about the troubles and hardships of the very rich and famous. Their money does not insulate them from relationship problems, self-esteem problems, and the desire to be truly loved. Wealth is therefore no assurance of happiness; it might relieve some problems and make some things a lot easier but it also serves to create new problems.

True happiness then cannot be bought, it must be found through other means. I am not saying that you should stop trying to become wealthy, or that you should give up on your dreams. What I’m trying to say here is that while wealthy is a good thing and can provide many of the things that you might want in your life, in order to be truly happy you must look beyond money and prestige.

True happiness, as Nietzsche said, comes from power. To be more precise happiness comes from a feeling of personal power, it comes from a feeling of freedom, and from not feeling powerlessness. The best way to attain this kind of happiness is to become more yourself; by paying attention to your own needs and by always trying to grow as much as possible as an individual. The world in general does not like individuals; the world loves to impress upon you the need for you to conform to the herd and the safety that can be found in just being one of the crowd. Personal power then is developed through the personal awareness needed to identify your own needs and desires, and through the courage needed to implement whatever is required in order to do what you want. When you’re being truly yourself, you will feel happy; this kind happiness cannot be bought, and while you can gain some confidence through wealth, this kind of internal power can only be attained through personal growth and personal perseverance.

Once you have the personal power spoken of above, you will be free. Free to experience fully all the love, laughter, and passions in your life. Freedom from external influence and strong enough to pursue your ideals. You can then create the freedom that you need in order to truly begin to experience your life. You can’t buy happiness, but you can develop it through personal growth.

Hypnosis is defined as; an artificially induced trance state resembling sleep, characterized by a heightened susceptibility to suggestion.

Hypnosis then is one way to go into trance. It is good to be clear on the fact that hypnosis is not trance but just one way to attain trance. Why this is important is because, in personal change, trance is very important while hypnosis is just one method of attaining this most important state.

Hypnosis essentially requires a hypnotist. The hypnotist basically becomes a guiding force for the patient and becomes an authoritative figure that leads to patient’s consciousness into a desired state. This is a very powerful way to achieve a trance state but it does have some flaws.

First of all, hypnosis takes it for granted that in order to hypnotize someone you need to have them go into a lethargic sleep like state. Now if the ultimate outcome of  hypnosis is attaining a trance state, then you must realize that you do not need to going to a sleep like state to get there. a trance state can also be achieved through great excitation, this can be seen when you witness an athlete performing a difficult physical task or when you see people achieve ecstatic states while dancing.

Hypnosis also tends to function much better with a hypnotist. It is possible to get yourself into a self hypnosis state, but these states are usually weaker than anything that can be achieved with the hypnotist. Now this is the case because you are following hypnotic procedure in order to try and achieve a trance. You can though achieve a trance by yourself that is far stronger than anything that you can achieve through self hypnosis. Trance states therefore are far easier to achieve than self hypnosis.

There is great contention as to who can be hypnotized. Many experts believe that only highly suggestible people can become hypnotized, that there is a large number of people out there that cannot be hypnotized or that some people cannot be put into a hypnotic trance that is very strong. While this might or might not be true, it is fact that anyone can go into a trance state. A trance state can best be defined as a complete focus of the consciousness on one object or subject. So any time that you are completely focused on one thing, and you are ignoring or not aware of everything else around you, you are any trance state.

Why are trance states so important? They are important because they are the best way possible to implant a belief into your subconscious. In order to do this you focus your mind completely on your desired belief or thought. The trance is achieved when you are able to focus your mind completely on this thought or belief to the exclusion of everything else. Another way to say this is that any thought or belief that you are able to maintain in your mind while in a state of complete mental silence, becomes a command to your subconscious. In this way you are able to consciously program yourself by correctly affecting your subconscious beliefs and actions.

There are two major ways to achieve trance. The first that we have mentioned is the one taken by the hypnotist; this is achieved by getting yourself into a very relaxed, almost sleep like state, where through complete body relaxation you are able to focus your conscious mind on a single goal. The other method which I briefly mentioned is through excitation; this trance state is achieved by getting yourself in an incredibly excited state. A trance state achieved through excitation can be achieved through great physical stress for example. Native people of the world can be seen attaining these types of trances through drumming, dancing, and wild agitation.

The fact of the matter is though that there is no need to go into either extremes to create a trance like state that is most useful. You can for example create the perfect trance state while being completely awake and not gyrating to the drumbeats of jungle rhythms. In order to do this all you have to do is train yourself to focus completely on one thought or desire. In order to develop the kind of concentration that you need, I suggest you read the article Learn The Power of Concentration.

By knowing that the active ingredient of hypnosis is trance, and by knowing that a trance can be achieved through many varied methods, which do not need to involve hypnosis, you can begin to create your own methods to achieve trance states that are far simpler and far more powerful. Remember that a trance state is your full and complete mental concentration on one object or idea. As such then you are constantly in different states of trance as you go about your day. Personal trance states are natural to all of us and they can be used by us at any time to help us achieve our goals.