Without giving too much thought to it, as the conversation went on I made a few unusual references to things… chatting about when we were at school together:

“I can remember my parents old house when we were first starting at secondary school, I would open the front door into a large uncongested hallway and I remember always seeing the curtains at the far end flapping and expanding from a strong breeze that was blowing in through an open window, my Mum used to love having the windows open… whenever I want to feel relaxed, I often remind myself of how I can feel less congested, more open, like a breeze flowing through me, whenever I remember how I used to feel then. Do you remember that house? …..”

The idea was that while my friend was receptive to me during our conversation, I wanted to get all kinds of imagery into her mind that was going to be a relief from the expected and anticipated negative notion that she was getting her hay fever symptoms earlier this year. When she left me, she was sniffing a lot less!

Self-hypnosis and hypnotherapy are not necessarily always an all-out cure for allergies, though I have seen some amazing things happen with their use. Of course, first of all, I recommend seeing a doctor and taking a conventional treatment route – you know I have to say that.

I have found that when dealing with an allergy of any kind, when you get your imagination working for you for the better, then you are more likely to start taking control of your symptoms.

I want to share with you a really good technique to help you with the process of using your mind to overcome allergies.

Follow these few simple steps:

Step One: First up then, be in a place where you are not going to be disturbed, get yourself relaxed and concentrate on your breathing. Use any technique that you can to get yourself relaxed and then into a receptive trance-like state. Ideally, go and get a copy of my self-hypnosis book and learn how to really get yourself into a deep state. Tune in to your breathing, engage in the moment and become aware of what you notice – by that, I mean notice the thoughts you are thinking, sense your sensations and just observe yourself in this moment. Then imagine drifting deep inside your mind.

Step Two: Having spent a good period of time to get yourself at ease and receptive of mind, imagine now that your mind is scanning through your body. Heighten your awareness of your body.

Especially become aware of areas that that are always free from allergy. Notice the qualities of those areas, how do they feel and seem to you? What are the qualities of these parts of you? Then examine parts that are or have been affected by allergies currently or in the past. Make a contrastive analysis of the two. Compare them as much as you can ands of course become as acutely aware of the differences in those parts.

Think about the tiniest of changes that used to happen when you were experiencing your allergy.

This might sound a bit crazy… Do your best to simulate or imagine in your mind the feeling or signal of your old allergy symptoms coming on. Examine the imagined feelings of those allergy symptoms beginning, then feel it recede. Capturing the sense of, or prelude to, an oncoming allergy symptom is a self-hypnosis technique that is far more useful than the kinds of things many people do when they first sense them – like acknowledging the symptoms and then expecting to have a Summer full of a stuffed up nose and watery eyes, like my friend that I mentioned earlier for example.

Use your imagination to control those oncoming sensations and move them away from you, let them abate, imagine them easing off. Like you are stopping them at the root, at their genesis.

Practice doing this for a little while… Be in control of the symptoms - Feel these precursors, senses, or signals of old allergic symptoms and then pushing them away is teaching your mind how to be in control of that old allergic reaction, isn't it? Do this step for as much time as you feel you need to really get it mastered.

Step Three: With this step, you want to use your imagination and suggestions to yourself for changing your perception of the substances or situations that used to trigger your allergic reaction. Naturally, we want to change the way you react to these triggers.

For example, you can change your perception of shaggy dogs to short haired, tidier looking dogs. Maybe you imagine dried, cut grass turning into shredded paper. Or how about dust turning into fresh water spray?

In this receptive state, you want your brain and body to respond to the old reactive thing that you used to have a allergy of - in the same way that it responds to things that you are at ease being around.

While in this receptive, relaxed state, you might imagine a particular type of flower and then see it change—just as the seasons can change—into a different plant. It may turn into a different flower or it may transform into pieces of tissue paper. Change it into anything that frees you from the old allergic response. Practice with new perceptions, new colours, calming more than tensing, and relaxing more than ever.

Spend a few minutes working on these kinds of suggestions and imagery to successfully begin the process of decoding in your mind.

What you are doing here is getting to work on preventing allergic reactions to substances by creating new triggers of your own – ones that you can use in the future when you encounter those substances. So that your brain and body react to those old things in a new way! .

Step Four: Finally, just go through everything that you have done again. Recap everything during this period of time you have spent inside your mind. Imagine that by thinking it all through again, you reinforce the changes inside your mind.

Then, once you are sure that you have absorbed all you need from this session, take a nice deep breath, open your eyes and go about your business, whatever that might be. I recommend that you go and do some different activity straight away. The content of this time inside your mind is going to be far more effective if you don't try to consciously analyse it. Allow your unconscious mind to process what it has done at the deeper level and you can simply enjoy the results.

You may notice feeling more calm and feeling more control over your old allergies in the first few weeks of daily practice. Remember to set reasonable goals for yourself. A long suffered problem often takes time to correct.

Remember that your progress will depend on your motivation to practice, the severity of your old allergic reaction and the level of belief you have in yourself.

Be patient with yourself. Nurture and encourage yourself regularly – the same way you would nurture and encourage a loved one. People that have had allergies have possibly suffered with it for a long time, they often expect it to carry on happening in the same way and so it does… just carry on happening the same way. That is a lot of programming to overcome. You are now investing in long-term relief and exploring the amazing power that you truly have when you learn to use your mind. Often, the longer someone has endured an allergic reaction, the more embedded the allergic reaction may have become. It takes time for some to erase this pattern—but it is not indelible.