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Why Hypnosis?

There are many ways to access the Zone, some of which include breathing techniques, yoga, and meditation. But we’re going to talk about another way, and that’s through hypnosis, through the reading and/or listening to the audio version of the self-hypnosis scripts in the Zone Golf Program.

Many professional athletes, including golfers use some form of hypnosis or have a personal Hypnotherapist with whom they consult regularly to improve and maintain peak performance—though most of them do not generally announce this publicly! Three of the major reasons that golfers use hypnosis to improve their performance are:

1. To relieve unnecessary stress while leaving sufficient performance "edge" for peak expression. 2. To enhance concentration and focus.  3. To practice through visualization all of the moves needed to make the desired improvements to perform at their personal best.

Hypnosis is one of the quickest, most powerful, effective, safe and healthy ways to open the doors to the Zone as well as to affect positive and long lasting change. Hypnosis addresses your subconscious mind, which is approximately eighty-eight percent of your mind’s power…as opposed to your conscious mind, which is approximately twelve percent of your mind’s power. 

You are most suggestible to positive change during the minutes bookending your sleep (For more about this, see Secret #7.)  Think of your subconscious mind as a garden that receives the seeds (thoughts, suggestions) it is given.  Each and every time you read or listen to the Zone Golf self-hypnosis scripts prior to going to sleep at night, or upon awakening in the morning, you will be adding something akin to Miracle Gro to these seeds of Zone Golfing that have been planted in your mind. 

If you do this, in a very short time you will feel the roots and see the fruit of the action you are taking and the thoughts you are thinking.  In other words, while your feelings about improving your golf game may be complicated, the process of changing your fundamental golf habits using hypnosis is simple. (For more on how hypnosis works, see Chapter 1).

Suggestibility: Is Everyone Hypnotizable?

People often ask me if everyone can be hypnotized. This is a valid question, given so many misconceptions surrounding hypnotism.  Not only do lay people question the universality of hypnosis, but there are some professional hypnotists and Hypnotherapists today who believe that only a percentage of people can be hypnotized. The bottom line, in my experience is that everyone is hypnotizable, however some are more naturally suggestible than others, and some are more resistant than others. 

Perhaps one of the reasons people believe that only some folks are hypnotizable is due to two popular hypnotizability scales put forth by Stanford University (created in 1959) and Harvard University (created in 1962.) The research of these groups concluded that, though 95% of people are hypnotizable, 5% of people cannot be hypnotized. Based on my clinical experience, I agree with this study, in that I know there are those (let’s call them the “control freaks”) who find it difficult to near impossible to release their strangle hold on life.  However, in my experience, I have seen that even the most tightly woven individual, if they dedicate themselves to unraveling their rigidity (via meditation, yoga, and/or dreamwork) can find themselves able to enjoy the opportunity that hypnosis can provide for them. So, if you fall into this category, don’t give up hope.  The fact that you are reading this book now is a physical demonstration of your willingness to expand.  Remember 50% of change is a sincere desire to do so…you are half way there! .

Let’s take a look at why.

Hypnotic Phenomena

All sorts of hypnotic phenomena occur naturally, to everyone. These include visual hallucinations, hypnotic anesthesia, time distortion, and amnesia. As you familiarize yourself with these examples, you will see how this applies to your life and your golf game.  In so doing, it may open your mind to consider the possibility that all people are hypnotizable. 

For example, every person has experienced the hypnotic phenomena known as visual hallucinations, whereby you see what you expect to see (or not see, as the case may be.)  Visual hallucinations can be “positive” or “negative”—though not in the way you would imagine.  For instance, if you have ever held a bottle of champagne but envisioned that it was the Stanley Cup—that would be an example of a “positive hallucination.”   If you have ever driven the ball into a tree that you didn’t notice was blocking your shot, not seeing the tree would be considered a “negative hallucination.”

Hypnotic anesthesia is occurring when, say, you had a terrible headache and a friend made a funny joke that distracted your mind away from the pain, or maybe you were watching Tiger Woods make one of his jaw-dropping putts- and for a while you were completely free of discomfort. During this time you were completely unaware even of any sensations in your body. (*Since eighty percent of golfers report having pains, illness or injuries, and twenty-seven percent have back problems, becoming aware of the ways in which you can use hypnotic anesthesia might prove helpful to you in your golf game as well as in your life.)

If you have experience time passing slower or faster than the actual movement of the hands on your watch, then you have experienced the hypnotic phenomena called Time Distortion. We have all had experiences when time seemed to drag or to fly. If you are waiting in line behind a duffer for your turn to tee off, it may seem that five minutes has stretched into eternity. On the other hand when you're in the Zone, playing your best, sinking putts from improbable distances, you may get to your eighteenth hole and yet it seems that you just arrived at the course a few minutes before. Where did the time go?

Hypnotic Amnesia is when your senses become overloaded and you block out what is happening around you. For example, let’s say your golf pro is giving you tips on your swing. Out of the corner of your eye you see a golfer who is older and more out of shape than you drive the ball 350 yards, and suddenly you have no recollection of what your pro just told you.  You tell him, “Would you please repeat that…my mind was somewhere else.”

After reading this, you will no doubt begin to notice the way hypnotic phenomena weaves its way naturally and often throughout your daily live, in both your mundane and peak experiences.  One thing that all these different forms of hypnotic phenomena have in common is that they all involve mental distraction.  Your body may be doing one thing, like gripping your club, but your mind is thinking of something else. If you are mentally elsewhere, you are by definition not aware of what is happening with your body at that moment, and thus you open yourself to experience all sorts of hypnotic phenomena.

There are many more hypnotic phenomena, but the point that I am making is that hypnosis is not a foreign experience to be feared and resisted.  It is a natural and normal part of your life that, with awareness, can be of great benefit as you endeavor to make positive changes to your lives and golf game.

The term "hypnosis" is simply a state of mind in which the drawbridge to your subconscious is down long enough that ideas from the outside may enter the castle of your mind.  

Your Imagic-nation

You know already that hypnosis occurs naturally, but now we’re going to talk about how you can harness it to work for you.

Hypnosis comes from you imagination, and your imagination creates magic…that is why it is actually your imagic-nation. You can accomplish great things with your own mind.

For example, when you took your first golf lesson, while your instructor was showing you how to grip your 9-iron, you may have been imagining what it would be like to swing like Arnold Palmer. This process may seem simple, but it actually serves many purposes.  It opens your mind to an experience of learning that will hasten the road to mastery. It stimulates you and activates a greater degree of your brain function, and it entertains you, which increases endorphins, giving you an overall sense of health and well-being.

If you pretend to be Jack Nicklaus while you are whacking a bucket of balls, or are acting as if you are Anika Sorenstam while sizing up your next shot, you are in effect practicing self-hypnosis. What you put your attention on and imagine with detail, must reveal results in your golf game.

Can you recall a time when you were reading a great book, watching a dramatic scene in a movie, or engaging in a deep conversation, and the external world faded from your awareness?  All it truly takes to use self-hypnosis is to engage your Imagic-nation through a layering of your senses:  visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. The bottom line is that we human beings are all suggestible.  We all are affected by the stimuli around us.  The name of the game is to have mastery over our awareness so that we can be deeply suggestible when it serves us to be, and not suggestible when it does not serve us to be.

Some people pride themselves on how unhypnotizable they are, as if to say they are not gullible.  This is a fantastic skill if someone is trying to sell you a pet rock as a golf good-luck charm.  It is great to be discerning. Think of your suggestibility like a light switch.  You want to be able to turn it on and off at will.

The Gods Must Be Crazy

**Hypnosis comes from the Greek word “Sleep”.  More accurately "Hypnosis," comes from a name in Greek mythology, and interestingly from the same story that also gives us the word "morphine." In Greek mythology Hypnos was the god of sleep, who lived in perpetual darkness and mist in an underground cavern.  His water supply was the river of Lethe (forgetfulness), of course, that flowed through his underground lair.  Hypnos is depicted as spending his days either lounging on a couch surrounded by his many sons, the Dreams, or intervening in the lives of mortals through their dreams and visions.

In 1843, Scottish surgeon James Braid was inspired by Hypnos when he coined what was then called “hypnotism.” In his dissertation, “Neuryphology,” Braid described hypnotism as the science of inducing trance.  Based on Braid’s introduction, hypnosis is now known as an altered state of awareness. And, as mentioned previously, contrary to popular understanding, hypnosis or trance is a naturally occurring state. In fact, we all enter this state several times every single day of our lives, such as when we are watching TV, reading books, newspapers, or magazines, driving home from work, taking a shower, brushing our teeth, or lining up our putter. Hypnosis is a perfectly safe and natural state of mind where we are in deeper communion with our subconscious mind than we are when we are in a more linear, cerebral state of being.  

Hypnotherapy vs. Conscious-level Therapy

Hypnosis works with your imagination at the level of the subconscious mind where your core beliefs, values, emotions, and memories of past events reside. Traditional cognitive therapies work with your will power at the level of the conscious mind (12% of your mind’s power), whereas hypnosis works with you on the level of your subconscious mind (88% of your mind’s power) that can assist you to accelerate your ability to imprint new mental images of yourself as a great golfer that can help you to see results in days, weeks, or months rather than the years that conscious-mind based change would take. 

Hypnosis is a relaxing therapeutic experience, which can be used to treat and improve issues such as:

• Weight Control
• Smoking Cessation
• Anxiety, Phobias, and Panic Attacks
• Relationship Issues
• Depression
• Pain Management
• Sleeping Disorders
• Bereavement Counseling
• Confidence
• Dentistry
• Gambling
• Alcohol Dependency
• Nail Biting
• Sports…(i.e. GOLF!)

Think of what it would be like to be the golfer you always knew you could be?  Of course the perfect recipe for change is plenty of physical level practice combined with the mental conditioning of self-hypnosis, and like clay you will literally mold yourself into the best golfer you are capable of becoming.

A Meeting of the Minds

The only way to create radical change and transformation is to have both the conscious and subconscious mind align in agreement to do things differently. Until our conscious desire is recognized and received by the subconscious mind, our two minds will remain in conflict and our progress will be slow and tedious. But when the conscious and subconscious minds agree, the conscious desire becomes subconscious action.  At this point there is a ceasing of the inner tug-of-war, and what we think we want to do becomes what we actually do automatically, naturally, and easily.

This is why using traditional talk therapy alone to address sports performance rarely works. While talk therapy is extremely valuable, helping the client to consciously understand why he has a habit and why that habit is getting in the way of the perfect straight swing shot, it does not speak to or change the subconscious mind in a rapid way.

The key, therefore, to changing any unwanted habit or to transforming your golf game—from getting rid of the yips on the green to straightening out your slice at your tee off—is to rewire the subconscious mind to agree with the conscious mind’s desire. Both sides of your mind have to agree to create a truly winning formula