Why All Hypnosis is Self Hypnosis?

Photos from an early blog post; I was making bierrocks and was very pregnant with Pan.

All Hypnosis is Self Hypnosis is the working title I’ve assigned to several short stories and one novel attempt. It’s a title and concept I can’t seem to write past, so I’m giving it thinking space here, twice monthly.

When I was a freshman at Northwestern University, the class of 2008 was invited to an evening with a stage hypnotist as part of the Wildcat Welcome. My first 18 years were extremely sheltered and moving to Chicago felt like the whole world opening up to me. For the first time in my life, I let Sundays go by without attending mass, I went to class in clothes that weren’t a school uniform, I stayed out and up as late as I wanted, with whoever I wanted. I was absolutely primed to end up on stage, with a group of several others, to be “mesmerized” by this performer.

I’m using quotes here because hypnosis isn’t something that gets done to you. In order to enter a hypnotic state, in which your subconscious mind is accessed and influenced, you have to be consciously willing to go there.

Hypnosis is a trancelike state of mind in which we’re vulnerable to influence.

Vulnerability can be a scary space to occupy, but it’s also one full of possibility. Some of my best ideas (or changes in mindset) have come when I’m in a hypnotic state. Think about the place your head goes when you’re driving on the freeway, in auto-mode, or scrubbing the grout in your shower for an hour… This is self-hypnosis.

The most familiar image of hypnosis is probably of a person reclining on a Freudian couch, their eyes tracking a watch on a chain as the hypnotist swings it gently, like the pendulum of a clock. They count down backwards and the patient’s eyes get heavier and heavier until they fully close. The aim here is usually to get to a place of repressed memory and pull it up from the depths of the subconscious.

Hypnosis is used a lot more broadly than this, though: it’s a therapy for stress, weight loss, addiction, anxiety. The approach varies, but it usually involves reprogramming subconscious beliefs about who you are and what you want.

My second encounter with hypnosis came when I was 22 and pregnant with my first baby. I had been nannying for a family whose shelves were stacked with a decade’s worth of issues of Mothering magazine and books about natural child birth (the mom was a doula), and was trying to find a way to make the experience of becoming a mother my own. There was a lot about that moment in my life that felt out of my control (an unplanned pregnancy, limited resources, a whole lot of uncertainty about the future), but a beautiful child birth experience felt like something I could will into being (LOL). My partner and I signed up for a HypnoBirthing class at a yoga studio and met several times with a hypnotherapist. I listened to a CD recording of affirmations in bed every night that told me that I was going to have an easy, joyful, pain-free labor. I didn’t, but I did manage two births at home without medication.

Getting hypnotized on stage in front of an audience was silly and performative and a bonding experience that kicked off some of my favorite friendships (Hi, Chris!). Learning how to access a hypnotic state on my own has opened a lot more doors (like the idea to start this newsletter).

So, is this a newsletter about hypnosis?

No.

But I’m curious about how we can tap into both our conscious and subconscious minds to expand our capacity for growth and connection. I spend a lot of my time thinking about this, and thought you might want to think about it with me.

It’s also a newsletter about motherhood.

If we’ve known each other for a while, you might know that I used to write a blog called lady i swear by all flowers. I started this blog when I was about to give birth, as a way to stay connected to the friends and family I had just moved far away from. It grew into a way to connect with other mothers interested in parenting in similar ways as me. It became the thing that kept me connected to myself when I was feeling very far away from the person I had been just a minute ago in Chicago, at university, learning and doing big things. It helped me connect with new people when we moved to New York with two babies so I could go to grad school at Columbia.

I wrote about what it felt like to be a parent. What beautiful about it, and what was really hard. I wrote about what it was like to be a parent before I was a fully functioning adult, with limited resources and an earnest want to do it right. I shared pantry lists of things I stocked on a food stamps budget, and tiny things I knitted for my babies. My aunt sent me a Nikon D200 and I learned how to see things around me (mostly within our small apartment) through a 50mm lens.

At a moment when it felt like the world had closed back in on me, like it does in the early years of parenting, making that blog felt like a connection to something bigger.

But then I finished grad school and got an actual number on how much I owed (and still owe) on my student loans and most of my energy went into figuring out a career path that could support my family. I thought I needed to let go of the type of writing I did on the blog in order to pursue a different professional self.

The thing is, the stuff of my (now defunct and unavailable) blog, lady i swear by all flowers, is still the stuff I care about most.

The most consistent through-line of my adult life has been learning how to do better by my family, my self, and the world. I often get it very wrong.

But I keep trying. And I’d like to keep sharing, here, in this space, with you.

Maybe someday All Hypnosis is Self-Hypnosis will be a story or a book. For now, it will be this practice of learning and trying to get it right.

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Open Tab Count: 76

• Look, I’ve wanted to be a family that wears matching pajamas for a really long time. My kids are now 11 & 12 (almost 13!), and this is the year we’re doing it. My husband is a person who thinks the best pajamas are no pajamas, but even he is excited to wear these.

• I needed cozy couch time this weekend, and watched all ten episodes of Maid on Netflix. This also means that I wept pretty much all weekend. (I haven’t been there, but I’ve been there.)

• Last year, we developed a routine in which the boys each made dinner one night a week (more on this soon). We lost our rhythm with this over the summer, but got back on track last night with this mac with a twist (it’s apples!), made by Pan.

• As someone who is always looking for the light, I surprised myself by totally digging Kirsten Dunst’s dark kitchen.

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One of my favorite things about writing a blog was the conversations had (and friendships formed) in the comments section.

If you’re reading this in your inbox, you can find a shareable version online here. I’m on Instagram here, and you can reach me at chelseaslaven@gmail.com.