Hypnosis and the Heart

A curious thing about your body is that your brain is everywhere. I don’t mean nerve cells – that’s not surprising. I’m talking about structures that process information and analyse stimuli. A lot of thinking happens outside your skull, which means a lot of hypnosis happens there too.

I was amazed when I first learned that the heart has its own, small brain. I knew about the nerve clusters (“ganglions”) that make tiny adjustments to your muscles. Even so, it never occurred to me that organs might have something similar – or that the heart’s would be so sophisticated.

When I thought about it, though, it seemed obvious. The heart has to operate perfectly for decades, even centuries. It needs to respond instantly to dangers, then calm down soon after. The brain is too remote. Evolution decided that it needs command and control a little closer to the equipment.

A nice, tidy model of the heart-brain relationship.

It’s a little too tidy, which left me open for even more surprise. This is exactly what happened when I learned that most of the signals go from the heart-brain to the head-brain. If this were about controlling the heart better, wouldn’t most information go the other way?

Not only do our hearts think, they tell our heads all about it.

This insight explains so much of the human experience. How many emotions, from anxiety to love, feel like they come from the chest? When we tell people to go with their hearts or listen to their heart, we’re referring to emotions and instincts. And so many of our stories and experiences follow the pattern of ‘my head says no but my heart says yes.’

Is there any wonder about where inner conflict comes from? You have physically segregated brains telling you different things in different ways. You can experience conflict even with a single brain, but this surely doesn’t help.

Hypnosis is excellent at many things. Resolving inner conflicts is towards the top of that list.

When you feel conflicted, sometimes it’s an easy fix. Other times it’s more complicated. Either way, it helps if you relax your entire body. Being comfortable removes tension from your body, enhances circulation and improves the strength of nerve signals. This relaxes the heart and improves communication between these two brains.

A hypnotist can then remind you that your head-brain and heart-brain both want the same things. They both want you to be happy, healthy and energised. Sure, they may have different ways of going about it but they share the same goals. No body fights itself.

The secret to resolving conflict is to find the common ground. In this case, there’s plenty of it. You just need reminding.

If you want to bring more balance into your life, start with your heart and mind. When they pursue different things, it’s like living in a house full of dysfunctional, squabbling folk. It doesn’t have to be this way, though. You can bring a little bit of wisdom and a whole lot of calmness by resolving these conflicts at their source: your inner mind.

Peek behind the curtain and see how your thoughts run:

https://guided-thought.com/awakened-thought/