Hypnotherapy, Can It Unlock Your Subsconscious? An Expert Interview

In the past few years, just as meditation has grown mainstream and been accepted by the medical world as having positive effects, so have other mindful practices. Hypnotherapy is one of them. Apparently, under a state of hypnosis, our brain waves are such that they can make the subconscious – our usually untouchable black box that’s at the source of 95% of our actions – more accessible. And if we can alter our subconscious programs, it can help us change a lot of things in our behavior, from overcoming fears to getting rid of bad habits.

But it’s hard work. You don’t just walk into a hypnotherapy session with a problem, take a nap and magically walk away without it an hour later. You’ve got to get engaged, observe, acknowledge and untangle stuff you might or might not be ready to deal with it.

Before you do any of that though, you need to find the right hypnotherapist otherwise it ain’t gonna happen. I found mine, and she’s a gem. Sara Abdelal has a ton of experience in Hypnotherapy but also in Pranic healing, Reiki, Neuro Linguistic Programming and other healing methods. She’s been leading workshops in Dubai for years to help people improve their wellbeing. But she’s also a warm, generous ray of sunlight, which is why I like her so much. Not sure I was able to inject some of that light into written words, but here is my interview with Sara, hope you enjoy it!

WM: How does hypnotherapy work? Can you give us some theory behind it?
SA: We have the conscious and subconscious minds. There is a filter between the two that is developed by the time we are 7 or 8. The conscious mind stores everything we experience during the day – sounds, smells, emotions, etc. When we sleep – around a third of our time spent dreaming – all these experiences get filtered, labelled and pushed into the subconscious permanently. Things you experience that mark you or that occur over and over again create strong beliefs or perceptions that become a program in your subconscious mind. For example, if you’ve always seen the rain as a good thing because you grew up in the desert, then chances are you associate rain with something positive. Some people have a core belief that they are capable, some believe life is unfair, others believe you need to work very hard to make money, etc. These beliefs are important because we act in ways that are consistent with them and what we believe tends to manifest itself in our physical world. So what happens is often a mirror of the core programs we have in our mind.

In hypnotherapy, we try to find the limiting beliefs and help understand the lessons to learn to create new beliefs in the subconscious mind. When we have more positive beliefs, life can be a lot easier and smoother.

WM: What are the main reasons people come to see you for?
SA: Hypnotherapy can help with a lot of things, from ridding yourself of addictions to managing relationships better. Common issues I’ve come across are clients who want higher self-esteem, who want to make a career change but are scared, who have relationship problems, or women who are have a hard time conceiving. I’ve also seen a lot of people with histories of abuse and past trauma. Some come with “smaller” problems, but the reason they can’t resolve them is almost always because the cause is deep-rooted in their subconscious mind – and in the long run, the conscious mind just cannot win over the subconscious. Most of our behavior runs on subconscious programs. There can be a million reasons behind a bad habit for example. And deep down, the person knows what it is but has never acknowledged and said it out loud. In hypnotherapy, we help them dig a little so they can take those steps.

WM: But some people do manage to change without hypnotherapy, how do you explain this?
SA: Everyday, things appear in your space as negative patterns. For example, if you think life isn’t fair and you regularly find yourself being envious of others. These are just small slaps trying to wake you up to say that a core program is not making you happy anymore. We rarely like to acknowledge these slaps though because somewhere inside it is exposing us to a truth we don’t want to work on changing. After a while though, if you don’t listen and recognize these limiting beliefs though, you can end up getting what I call a “kick in the ass”, which are dramatic events or disease which prompt change. These events can help acknowledge negative limiting beliefs so that you can create new ones. You can’t remove negative beliefs but when the new ones become stronger than them, they take over and become part of your new reality.

WM: How do you structure your sessions?
SA: I like to do 4 separate sessions, each one about a month apart. In the first one, I explain the process and how hypnotherapy works. We spend a lot of time trying to understand what changes the person wants out of our time together. The rest of the session is all about trying to identify what their limiting beliefs are. We go through a questionnaire I send them beforehand: do they have any regrets, shame, guilt, etc? How are their relationships with mother, father, family, etc.? Some of these are very personal questions and topics that they haven’t been ready to face and put into words. But when they do, this is where healing can start. I also study their energies, aura and chakras – I do aura chakra photography to understand the person’s state better. It shows us what they vibrate to the outer world and what is happening inside.

In the second session, we do age regression therapy, trying to see when and how these limiting beliefs were created. In the third session, we look at past life and energetic cord cutting through hypnosis. Finally in the fourth session, we work on how they want their future to be and work on a life script. When talking about the future goals, we tend to focus more on how they want to feel rather than material things. This is something we can then put into the subconscious.

Clients are under hypnosis during part of each session and after each appointment, they have “homework”, which can involved things like doing affirmations, writing or creating new beliefs.

WM: That sounds like a lot of work, are some people unwilling to commit to this?
SA: Well by the time someone comes to see me they have tried a few things unsuccessfully and really want to change. When that’s the case they put in the work because the reality is that you can’t walk in with a problem you’ve had most of your life and get rid of it in a couple of hours without getting involved and having an honest chat with yourself.

WM: Can you see results after the first session?
SA: Yes you can but it depends. For some people, a big shift happens. For example, anger dies off, they become more compassionate, forgiveness happens, they understand how to create new beliefs so they do it more often, etc. Or another outcome I see for clients looking for a career change is that they resign from their job after their first session, as if all they needed was a little push. Others get awareness of their limiting beliefs but aren’t ready to work on them yet. But it is a journey, I always tell people they need to take their time and enjoy the process.

WM: In what cases would hypnotherapy not work?
SA: There are people who are not ready to change. Some people just want to take a pill and have their problems go away, but it doesn’t work like that. It’s like exercising, if you don’t often work the muscles, they won’t change much. Hypnotherapy is a waste of time for individuals who want a quick fix. Like I mentioned earlier, beliefs which have been created and that we’ve been carrying around for years and years cannot go away over night.

There are also people who say they want to change, but in reality they don’t because their behavior is fulfilling a subconscious need that is more rewarding than a change in their behavior would be. For example, someone might say they want to leave their boring job but for some reason cannot find other opportunities. They send a lot of CVs, go to interviews and take all the right steps, but to no avail. Maybe this person is afraid of changing jobs deep down, maybe they are comfortable having one that doesn’t require much of them, or maybe staying at the same job is satisfying some other need they aren’t conscious of. Another example would be the person who is always unlucky and has constant drama coming into their space. Maybe they have a profound lack of self-love and deep down feel like receiving punishment is ok, as if they deserved it. Or perhaps having drama means they are getting sympathy and interest from their environment and this fulfills a deep-rooted need they have for attention and love. There are so many different scenarios but in the end, you really need to want for change to happen.

WM: What about those who don’t just believe in hypnotherapy?
SA: Being under hypnosis is not like being under a spell. It is just a relaxed state where our brain waves can allow us to tap into our subconscious. In fact, when you get a massage and are super relaxed and your mind wanders, your brain waves can be at a the same frequency as they would be under hypnosis, so it is very accessible for everyone. But, like everything, if you don’t believe in it, the mind is powerful – you won’t make the effort and put in the energy required to make it work. If someone does not believe in hypnotherapy then I think it is a waste of time for them.