He originally started by doing stage shows, always with an improvement angle although he did often go for amusement too. I remember when Nigel Benn fought Chris Eubank several years ago and apparently McKenna was in his corner, or at least this was claimed.

Anyway, McKenna has since moved on to pastures new and appears to have conquered America and, although he no longer does the entertaining style of hypnosis, he has a new forte – self development. I have since learned that he is big into NLP too.

I came across this and wanted to know if there was more to it than simply his name – and the reviews I found on Amazon looked very good indeed.

I have a number of self improvement books and a huge list to get through, so I am very keen on audio and video and think that they can be more effective in specific applications, so I’ve only listed to the audio that comes with this program.

It’s a 30 second audio, best listened to with headphones – this is because you often hear 2 McKennas! One in each ear.

It sounds much like a hypnosis script – you go into a deepened and relaxed state and Paul gets you to visualise the better “you” in situations. If you have a particular goal in mind e.g. to find a woman or make lots of money, then I think you are best off by visualising specific rather than general situations.

I was quite surprised at how “active” it was. I felt myself early on thinking – woah, what am I letting myself in for! But I just let myself get deeper and deeper. You don’t fall asleep or into a trance and you are fully aware, but like someone told me about hypnosis generally, you feel more “focussed” on the task at hand – increasing your confidence and really feeling it.

Anyway, upon waking I definitely felt invigorated. I noticed just wandering around the house and doing the cooking I was much more extrovert than normal!

The reviews I have read say that you should listen every few days for a few weeks to get the best effect, so this is what I think I will do – listen twice a week for a few weeks. In the meantime, I am going to look into EFT tapping techniques as a way of increasing confidence and removing anxieties in social situations. Interestingly, Paul is into this too and apparently he demonstrated it on the Ellen show, a tapping technique to lose weight.

Perhaps in a month’s time, I will try one of Paul’s other programs on weight loss. We don’t see it here but I understand that he has a TV show in the US about this. However, I’ll be looking for audio again instead.

Instant Confidence

Paul McKenna

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What Is Hypnosis?

Hypnosis is when a person is put into a trance and given suggestions.

A trance is not the same as being asleep. A trance is a state of relaxation where the mind becomes incredible receptive.

During this trance, the hypnotist can give the subject a series of suggestions and then awakens them. These suggestions can have profound and long lasting effects.

So How Can We Use Hypnosis For Self Improvement?

OK, so we know that hypnosis can be used for amusement or to cure irrational fears (e.g. a fear of flying) but what else?

Let’s start with major problems:

If you are overweight and need to lose fat then hypnosis can help.

It is also said to help with addictions although I personally believe that it has only limited effect in most cases (I’ll save my argument for another time).

Anxiety and anxiety related problems (e.g. premature ejaculation) can be cured with hypnosis.

OK, enough of the problems, how can a regular, “normal” person be helped by hypnosis?

Self confidence – you cannot get enough of this!

Success – Most people do not achieve anywhere near the potential because of their own self-imposed limitations e.g. lack of belief in their potential. Hypnosis can help with this.

Motivation – Similarly, many people lack the motivation to achieve their potential. In this modern day and age, many of us have grown lazy. For instance, watching too much TV (a HUGE topic that I am going to write more about soon!).

How To Get Hypnotised

There are many hypnotists (or “hypnotherapists” as they like to call themselves) so where do you start?

The ideal way is based on recommendation, but how many of your friends have had hypnosis? Failing that you might look further afield by searching on the internet for recommendations.

Ultimately, your best bet is to phone up a few hypnotists in your nearest large city and interrogate them about their methods. Tell them what your expectations are and ask them how they intend to help you. Eventually, you should just go with whoever you have the most confidence in.

An Alternative: Self-Hypnosis

Of course, you can try self-hypnosis, also known as autosuggestion. Of course, you cannot put yourself into a deep trance but you can still use this method to great effect.

You start off by entering a state of deep relaxation. You can even replicate the hypnotist’s reverse count from 10 down to 1 to help you.

Then you start to repeat a series of phrases that you prepared beforehand. Mostly, they are you talking in the present tense about what you want or wish for. These are also called affirmations.

The idea is that by repeating this each day, these phrases become a part of you. What you desire almost becomes a part of you. Your belief is continually reinforced in those statements. Here is a good wikiHow article that goes into greater depth: How to Perform Self Hypnosis.

You don’t even need to follow this process if you don’t want to. For instance, I have several short term goals that are important to me so I created a picture in Microsoft Paint that shows me in amongst all my achieved goals (e.g. wads of cash). By looking at this every day, it has helped me to believe that I can achieve these goals, no matter what the obstacles.

If you’re cringing right now at what you think is a load of BS, all I can say is that I used to think like you but you need to try it for yourself before you knock it. There are many rich and successful people out there who use their own variation of self-hypnosis.

Many people also find that using audio programs can really help them to enter a deep state of relaxation. There is a method called binaural beats, which is a type of brainwave entrainment that uses a series of specific frequencies to safely put the brain into a receptive state.

There are also other general self-hypnosis MP3s that contain narrated affirmations and save you having to make your own.

Final Comment

I hope the above has at least given you food for thought and some pointers for futher investigation. Personally speaking, I’m going to use self hypnosis to help me lose weight and to increase my confidence and I’ll be sharing my results over the next few weeks so please stay tuned!

Click here for a FREE 10 minute binaural beats sample.