On Should, Should Not and Not

Dear reader,

why is it easier to follow "should not" than "should"? "Should not stay up online late at night." Done. I am online late at night. "Should be in bed early." Not really. "Should eat less sweets." A pack of haribo jellybabies last a couple of days at best. "Should eat more fruits and veggies." I'm allergic to some fruits and my guinea pigs eat more veggies than I do. (Okay, we often divide into three.)

I think, part of the answer to that question is in the choice of words, the phrasing. It's similar to asking you "Do not think of a pink elephant." What are you thinking of? Smart people among you may answer with "A blue elephant." Yes, yes... it's a harmless task and everyone smiles about it. But it's less funny when something might happen. Like a mother telling the child, "Do not knock over the glass." I can guarantee you that the possibility of the child knocking over the glass is quite high.

Some say this happens, because we first have to have a positive image in our head of the thing that should not happen. To know that you shouldn't think of a pink elephant, you first have to have a pink elephant in your head. For the child to know not to knock over the glass, she has to see a glass knocked over. In case of the child this is more unconscious than the pink elephant. But still both is in the head.

In german this is relatively harmless so far. English is more complicated. Because the english "not", "knot" and "nod", if spoken the first two are the same and almost undistinguishable from the "nod". What helps is the over all context. For someone where english is a foreign language, the process of "not", "knot" and "nod" and hearing the right one may possibly be more conscious than for someone with english as a native language. In the "right" situation it may still happen that I hear or read other things in the text.

As a hypnotist you can play with that in a beautiful way. There are things called "tag questions". They're easier and more elegant to use in english, I think. In german they don't come across that beautiful. A statement is said and you tag a question to it at the end. A simple thing, isn't it? (In german they're literally called "refrain questions", but the actual refrain isn't there. It's obvious in english though.) To go back to the "knot" from earlier: "It's easy, is it not?" And how did you react to that just now? With a (unconscious) nod? Wonderful!

There's something else, which is called "yes-set" and can be played with and used to manipulate perfectly. Say I want the person sitting with me to agree to a certain thing or be positive about something. I set it up with a bunch of questions or statements, which I know the answer will be "yes" or the person will agree with it. So the person will be programmed to "yes", positive and nodding and eventually will agree to the thing or the statement I want him or her to agree to. But: if someone asks me a chain of questions and I repeatedly say "yes" all the time, I get suspicious. I don't need to be a hypnotist for that. You can vary all that by asking questions in a negative way and the negative will be confirmed. Example: "Kids should really not play with fire." You agree with that statement by shaking your head or saying "no" to confirm it. Although you say "no" or shake your head for "no", you still agree positively to my statement and I keep you in a positive mind-set.

Until next blog,

sarah