Ever wonder what makes you think, say and do what you think, say and do? What creates your behavior? It’s your biochemical/energetic self who decides what you notice or not.

To the mindful hypnotist, the conclusion is clear: your body IS your mind and your mind/body recognizes, processes, remembers and learns. 

• Someone pats you on the back and you feel a rush of pride. 
• You need to give a speech and break into a cold sweat. 
• Someone you find attractive wafts by and you flush with excitement. 
• You hear beautiful music and drift away in ecstatic rhapsody.
• You stop to think and forget to start again.

How Does This Happen? 

Sensory receptors take and give “in-formation” that determines how you feel, act and react. Then, how you feel, act and react determines the structure and function of your receptors. How your senses take and give “in-formation” also determines what remains conscious or is tucked away. 

Your Amazing Brain. You were born instinctively knowing how to lift your head, roll over and walk. It’s hard-wired into your thoughts and neurology. So is your ability to speak. Your ear canals filled with sound amplifing amniotic fluid so finely tuned that, from birth to four months, you could distinguish over 150 sounds that make up human speech. 

These miracles came with you as pre-programmed behavioral instructions. As you evolved and grew, you learned and honed additional behaviors that dramatically sculpted your molecules, neurons and structural development. Each biological adjustment in turn affected who you are and what you feel, think, say and do.

Your awesome brain is primarily made of water, fat and protein. No two brains are the same, and your brain is not the same moment to moment. Your brain hemispheres differ in size, gray and white matter, chemistry and structure. The very structure of your brain is influenced by how you use it.

Everything you create begins as a conscious or subconscious thought manifested in your neurology.

Every instant, your brain’s electrochemicals alter neurons and their countless links. Puberty, pregnancy, aging, past events and memory cause structure/function brain changes. Your internal and external environment sends a message to your cells. The cells’ receptors and their ligands then modify according to the information received and every modification affects your emotions and physiology. A cell and its modifications influence other cells.

The Mind/Body Love Connection. Ever notice how your heart beats rapidly and your breathing changes when you are excited, angry or in love? Have you observed how thoughts turn you on or off sexually? Consider now how depression makes you feel physically rotten, super sensitive or numb and how happiness makes you feel free, easy and more vital. 

Emotion is “e-motion” or “energy in motion.” Each emotion, whether conscious or subconscious, results from an intricate biochemical action inside you that then inspires the next thing you feel. What you think emanates from your personal bio-computer. YOU at IT. The buck stops here with YOU. YOU choose what you do. In other words, what you do and how you feel is biologically or energetically based upon decisions you make on all levels. To master this notion is what we call “free will.”

How You Percieve. In a millisecond, your neurology and your senses energetically decide what you notice and the spin you put on it. What you see, hear, smell, taste, feel and intuit is interpreted, colored and influenced by your knowledge, wisdom, biases, experience, imagination, what you eat, drink and think. A part of you determines if you will enhance or distort what you take into your cells and memory. You decide what it means. You decide how something affects your decisions and feelings. Everything you percieve is energy that colors what you next perceive, say and do. 

Body/Mind As One. Your environment affects your energy. Breathing stale air can make you mentally sluggish. Physical discomfort can cause depression and depression can cause illness which can then cause more depression and discomfort. 

Arthritis-like symptoms, digestive problems (gastric ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, colitis, constipation, diarrhea, sinus problems), headaches (migraines), difficult breathing (upper respiratory infections asthma), heart palpitations, dizziness, arthritis, fibromyalgia, shingles and chronic fatigue result from, contribute to, and activate depressing brain changes. 

“The first symptoms of poor blood circulation,” says Dr. H.A. Parkyn, “appear in your head” as poor memory, difficulty concentrating, sleeplessness, nervousness and headaches and result in your mental computer further reducing circulation.

Wisdom Weighs Heavy On The Mind. The average brain weighs approximately three pounds or 51 ounces. You can figure out the weight of your brain by multiplying your weight by .01. Most lose about 4% of brain weight per decade. However, the smarter you are, the more elaborate the network between cells and the more your brain weighs. In a University of California study of 11 gifted peoples’ brains, Albert Einstein had four times more oligodendroglia (glial or brain cells) than any other and some “childlike” smoothness not usually seen in adults! The visual cortex in the brain of someone with a photographic mind is twice the thickness of a “regular” brain. 

Mindful-Hypno Spinal Tap Exercise. Think of your spinal cord as a skinny continuation of the brain in your head. Don’t you love it when a chill or thrill goes up your spine? Millions (or perhaps billions) of receptors and neuropeptides in the rows of nerve ganglia line your spinal cord and instantly receive and return your brain messages. 

1. Physical: Stand up and gently tap another’s spine up and down and down and up. 
2. Mental: “Stand up, close your eyes and imagine someone is gently tapping your spine up and down and down and up. What did that feel like for you?” (Pause to give time to process this thought.) 
3. Explain: “Focusing on a receptive nodal point activates your body’s intricate neural network influencing all parts of self. You used the power of suggestion to activate receptors and ligands that make you healthy, happy and full of pep. A powerful mind/body suggestion changes you emotionally and can stop discomfort and heal ailments.”

Shelley Stockwell-Nicholas, PhD is the President of the International Hypnosis Federation and the author of 23 books including “WIN: Coaching Guide For Yourself and Others” and “Thrive: Medical Hypnosis For Yourself and Others” she invites you to join her Facebook page “free hypnosis- IHF.” This article includes excerpts from Stockwell-Nicholas’s book “Hypnosis; Smile On Your Face and Money In Your Pocket” and “THRIVE” Medical Hypnosis For Yourself and Others.