If you are reading this article, then you will probably have given some thoughts to the questions in the preceding paragraph. Hypnotism therapy not only can help you lose or gain weight, it can help you to achieve many other benefits such as quitting smoking, develop good health habits, develop positive thinking, develop good money habits, eliminating bad habits and many other positive benefits.



Firstly, before you read on, let's clear up some myths and unfounded fears about subjecting oneself to hypnosis therapy.

Most people have irrational fears about being a subject of hypnotism. This is understandable because of the natural fear of the unknown and besides, these irrational fears are further reinforced into people's mind by Hollywood movies and TV cartoons showing evil hypnotists putting the heroes into a zombie like state and under the full control of the evil hypnotist. This is not only nonsensical, it is also impossible.

So how does hypnotism work? You see, in our consciousness, we act through our conscious and subconscious mind. Our conscious mind make decisions based on the knowledge and past experiences stored in the huge data base in the sub-conscious or the unconscious mind.

As an example, supposing when you were very young and impressionable, some adult whom you respected told you that rich people are jerks. This information will be stored in your sub-conscious mind and although you may not be aware of it, every time when you see some rich people, your internal self chatter will most likely say that they probably accumulated their wealth by cheating others or by things that jerks do.

Since you do not want to be a jerk, your conscious mind will not think of ways to be rich. It will only think of having just enough to get by and guess what, you will have enough to get by because you are doing things to achieve that, but you will never be rich because you are not doing anything to be rich. Make sense?

Past experiences stored in the sub-conscious mind may be correct information at that time because at that time, as in the case above, that adult may only be referring to a particular rich person who was a real jerk. However, events and situations may have changed to render that bit of information irrelevant or even limiting what you can do or achieve, like losing weight or gaining weight.

Let us look at another example. If your family members and you are overweight and since young, you have heard your parents grumbled on many occasions that no matter what they do, they just can't seem to lose that extra weight and that being fat must be a genetic condition.

These comments were then embedded into your unconscious mind and today, if someone were to ask you to lose weight, your unconcious will instinctively react by telling youself that losing weight is not possible because you are genetically programed to be obese and that no matter what you do, it will be difficult for you to lose weight effectively.

Of course you will not lose weight with that mind set because you will think that your weight loss effort will be a lost cause and therefore will not even lift a finger to lose weight or after a half hearted attempt, you give up. So, your limiting belief is sabotaging your weight loss effort.

This same analogy can also be applied to people who are skinny and who want to gain weight. There are many other situations that hypnosis can help because of limiting beliefs such as "I can never be rich because I do not have a college degree" or "It is hard for me to attract a lover because I am ugly".

Most of the time, people are not even aware that they are sabotaging themselves with their own limiting beliefs. This is where hypnotism comes in.

When you are in a hypnotic state, you are actually in a very relaxed frame of mind. Unlike popular beliefs, you are still conscious of what is going on, fully in control of your self and you can get up and walk away immediately if you choose to. You will never be in controlled by your hypnotist like those depicted in cartoons and comic books.

You are put into a very relaxed state, so that your conscious mind is not so active and your hypnotist can suggest new positive messages into your subconscious mind. That means that your therapist will help you to erase those negative limiting beliefs from your sub-conscious mind and suggest new positive beliefs into it like, it is possible for you to lose or gain weight and motivate you to do something about your weight or other problems such as quitting smoking.

Now that you are convinced that hypnosis is a valuable tool to improve and enhance your life, there is still a problem. It can get pretty expensive because one session with a hypnotist is usually not enough to erase the limiting beliefs which you have thought to be true for so many years.

Furthermore, there probably are more than one such beliefs and your therapist will have to find them, eradicate them and the replace them with new positive beliefs. Now hypnotists charge their fees by the hour and this can make a big dent on your budget.

The good news is that the overwhelming costs can be offset by performing self hypnosis. No, you need not be an expert to perform self hypnotism. All you have to do is to get your hands on some hypnotism CDs or MP3s programs made to remedy your specific problem. Then just go and lie down on your bed, turn on the CDs or MP3s, close your eyes and you will have a hypno-therapist right in your bedroom.

Having armed yourself with the new positive beliefs through self hypnotism, you will naturally start taking conscious and unconscious actions to achieve your dreams such as losing or gaining weight.

So, can you lose weight or gain weight through self hypnotism? Yes, you certainly can because if you say that you can't, then it is your limiting beliefs at work again right?