From Doubt to Empowerment: The Role of Hypnotherapy in Cultivating Self-Confidence

Hypnotherapy is a unique type of therapy which utilizes trance, a state of deep relaxation and heightened awareness which allows an individual to have access to their subconscious. Trance allows an individual to gain new insight and information regarding the issue they brought into therapy. Self-confidence is a person’s belief in their ability to navigate the unique challenges they face in life. Hypnotherapy can positively impact self confidence by increasing emotional processing ability, addressing limiting beliefs and old decisions, building a sense of self-worth and inner knowing, and improving communication skills. 

Understanding Self-Confidence

While it is a popular and widely discussed topic, the nuance of self-confidence may not be fully understood by many people. At the same time, humans continually co-create meaning around concepts, meaning that what we understand about self-confidence is ever-evolving. Self-confidence is a fortified belief in one’s own abilities and skills to navigate life. 

Self confidence can have a profound impact on one’s life experience. It can impact an individual’s willingness and ability to enter into loving relationships, pursue fulfilling career paths, and grow as an individual. Self confidence is a complex issue impacted by early conditioning and experiences. 

Additionally, Dr. Joan Rosenberg, an expert on emotions and self confidence, found surprising evidence in her research that self-confidence is not necessarily about our belief in the ability to accomplish anything as much as a belief that we are able to navigate the emotions that come up regardless of the outcome of a situation. Access to self confidence varies widely depending on an individual’s early childhood experiences and the way emotions were modeled to them by the adults in their life.

Understanding Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy utilizes trance to help an individual access the subconscious mind. The subconscious exists underneath our conscious mind and holds feelings, beliefs, thoughts, long-term memory, and desires. At the same time, the individual remains in complete control of themselves and their bodies. 

Accessing the subconscious mind creates access to the root of the issue brought into therapy. Often, this goes back to a memory where a specific belief was anchored into the subconscious as a way to deal with the problem the person was facing at the time. This belief leads to decisions about how to behave that can persist into the unforeseeable future. By accessing these memories, beliefs, and decisions in a supportive environment, the individual can process memories differently and become aware of new, more complete beliefs and determine if they want to make new decisions. 

During hypnotherapy, you will often experience an array of emotion. Sometimes this emotion is quite intense. It is important to process this emotion in order to heal the wounding that occurred. With ongoing hypnotherapy practice, individuals often find they are better able to attend to their emotions in their everyday life.  

Hypnotherapy can help improve self-confidence in several ways:

Limiting Beliefs

Hypnotherapy, by accessing memories, aids in understanding limiting beliefs and the roots of those beliefs. With this greater self awareness, compassion and love towards ourselves is often more accessible. This can also create an opportunity to see new beliefs that are now available. 

New Decisions

Once the limiting beliefs and reasons behind them are better understood, we can often become aware of the decisions we made about how to behave as a result of these beliefs. Hypnotherapy offers an opportunity to view these decisions from a place of support which can help us to make new decisions. Because hypnotherapy works with the subconscious mind, we are more available to receive this new information. 

Processing Emotions

Hypnotherapy often brings up emotions. Sometimes these can be quite intense. By processing these emotions with the support of a hypnotherapist and our own inner resources, we begin to practice and strengthen our ability to process and regulate emotions. This can lead to greater self-confidence that, whatever the outcome in life, we are able to attend to ourselves. 

Building self-worth

While self-worth and self-confidence are not the same, they are related and can bolster each other. Self-worth is the belief in our inherent worth as a human. It is very common for old beliefs accessed in hypnotherapy to be, at their core, about self worth. By working through these beliefs, we can begin to see ourselves more clearly as inherently deserving of love and kindness. When we feel a sense of self-worth, it is often easier to experience self-confidence as well. 

Enhancing Communication and Inner Knowing

By accessing our subconscious mind, hypnotherapy helps us to become more in touch with our own inner truth. This knowing assists us in speaking with greater confidence and clarity. During a hypnotherapy session, the therapist may even give you the opportunity to role play communication while in trance. This helps us to deepen our sense of knowing and confidence. 

Working through Anxiety and Fear

While we already touched on emotional processing, two emotions are worth mentioning in particular. Often, when working around confidence, anxiety and fear come up, especially performance anxiety. Hypnotherapy can help us process these emotions so that they do not continue to carry the same charge in our day to day life. Keep in mind that it can take more than one session to work through deeply held emotions. 

Hypnotherapy is a powerful therapeutic technique that addresses issues that impact confidence from many different angles. It is important to seek out hypnotherapy from a trained practitioner whom you trust. A positive therapeutic relationship with your therapist will help you feel more supported as you enter trance, experience emotions, and make positive changes through hypnotherapy.