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What Really Happens in Hypnosis?

Did you know that you already experience hypnosis several times a day—without even realizing it?

Think about those moments when you’re so absorbed in a movie that you feel as if you’re part of the story. Or when you drive from A to B and suddenly realize you don’t remember the details of the trip. Or when you’re caught in a deep conversation with a friend, or gazing into a baby’s eyes and losing all sense of time. These are natural, everyday examples of hypnotic states.

 So, What Is Hypnosis Anyhow?

Hypnosis is a relaxed and focused state. It’s that sweet spot between being deeply calm and sharply attentive. You could think of it as a cousin to meditation or flow—but in hypnosis, we use this natural state with purpose: to solve problems, create change, and access resources that live beneath the surface of the conscious mind.

The Power Beneath the Surface

Here’s something fascinating: our conscious mind—the part of us that plans, analyzes, and makes decisions—processes only about **6–7 bits of information at a time**. Compare that to the subconscious mind, which manages countless processes all at once: regulating our heartbeat and breath, storing our memories, filtering our perceptions, and running the automatic patterns that guide much of our daily life.

Those deeper “programs,” sometimes called *meta programs*, shape how we filter the world, what we notice, and how we react. For example, one person might focus on what’s missing, while another naturally notices what’s already working. These unconscious programs influence our choices more than we realize. Hypnosis helps us access and update those programs in ways that align with who we want to be.

Changing Patterns Through the Senses

In hypnosis, change happens through the very same channels that created our memories and habits in the first place: the senses. We often describe these as **VAK—Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic** (what we see, hear, and feel). These sensory codes shape our beliefs, values, and even our identity. By re-imagining experiences through VAK, we can transform the way the mind and body respond, creating lasting shifts “from the bottom up.”

The Role of Imagination

Imagination is not “just pretend.” In hypnosis, it becomes a powerful tool. When you imagine vividly—seeing, hearing, and feeling your desired state—your subconscious responds as if it’s real.

The brain actually codes imagined experiences in the same way it codes real ones. That’s why your physiology responds too—your heart rate, breath, and even hormone levels can shift just by imagining. This process engages **neuroplasticity**, the brain’s ability to rewire itself, creating real and lasting changes in the nervous system. Those changes ripple outward—shaping not only how the body feels, but also how you think, the choices you make, and the behaviors you embody in daily life.

In this way, imagination becomes the bridge between possibility and reality.

What Hypnosis Can Help With

Because hypnosis works with the subconscious mind and the body’s natural learning systems, it can be applied in many areas of life. Hypnosis is particularly effective for:

* Reducing pain and discomfort

* Discovering what your body is really telling you

* Shifting unwanted behaviors and habits

* Enhancing performance (sports, test-taking, public speaking, creativity)

* Goal setting and achievement

* Supporting healthy weight loss

* Clearing unprocessed trauma

* Lowering stress levels and building resilience

* Improving sleep

* Deepening self-confidence and self-trust

A Collaborative Process

And here’s something important to know: no one can be hypnotized against their will. Hypnosis is always a choice, and it deepens only when you truly want it to and feel safe to allow it. When that safety and trust are present, hypnosis becomes a powerful collaboration—a creative partnership between your conscious and subconscious mind.

In that space, solutions and insights emerge that may surprise you, and patterns that once felt stuck can gently give way to something new.

 Ready to Experience It for Yourself?

When the Body Speaks Softly

About three months ago, my foot began to ache. At first, it was just a whisper—an ache under my heel when I stood up in the morning. Within a few days, the whisper grew louder until walking became uncomfortable. The familiar diagnosis was plantar fasciitis.

As a bodyworker, I’ve learned to listen when my body speaks. I no longer label these sensations as “problems.” Instead, I see them as messages. The body, after all, has its own language—one that often points toward something stirring below the surface. When pain arrives, I know that something is asking for attention: an emotion, a belief, a pattern that’s been running quietly in the background.

The mind loves to chase the why, and sometimes the why matters. But what I’ve discovered through hypnosis is that healing doesn’t always require an explanation. Sometimes, when the conscious mind steps aside, the deeper mind knows exactly what to do.

So I turned inward and used a process called Mindscape. It’s a hypnotic journey in which the unconscious mind creates a symbolic map to solve a problem. My role was simply to follow it—allowing my deeper intelligence to find the way from point A to point B.

What I found surprised me. Beneath the pain was a survival pattern: the belief that I had to keep going so that everyone would be okay. It was an old, familiar rhythm—push, strive, caretake, repeat. Once I saw it clearly, the map began to shift. I made a few gentle adjustments, and I could feel my system recalibrating, as if it had been waiting for permission to stop.

By the next day, the pain had vanished. My body had received the message: You are safe. You can rest now.

For almost four months, I was pain-free. When the sensation recently returned, I recognized it not as a setback but as another invitation—to revisit the map and release another layer of that old pattern. Each time I do, the process becomes simpler, the healing more profound.

The body is wise. It doesn’t shout without reason. It asks us to listen, to pause, and to trust the intelligence that lies beneath thought.

If you’re curious about what your own body might be trying to say—or how hypnosis can help you connect with the wisdom within—I’d love to share Mindscape with you.
It’s a gentle, imaginative journey that lets your unconscious mind chart the path toward healing, understanding, and peace.

You can learn more or schedule a session at www.somatichypnosis.net or www.somamassagebellingham.com.

Leah Cotler-Grossman began her formal education in the healing arts in 1989, at The Evergreen State College studying Reiki, shamanic medicine, and bodywork.  In 1992, she graduated from the Brian Utting School of Massage in Seattle, and in 1996, studied  Body-Mind Shiatsu at the Bellevue School of Massage.  Seeking long lasting holistic structural balance, she sought out Soma Neuromuscular Integration, graduating in 2003 from the Soma Institute. Feeling the desire to deepen the Soma work further, she became a certified Aromatherapist, and created a line of essential oils especially blended for Soma Neuromuscular Integration.  Leah has also taught at the Soma Institute. Most recently, Leah has finished a one year Energy Medicine mentorship program with Marie Manuchehri, medical intuitive.  Leah’s  curiosity and her love of the power of transformation have propelled her through the world of bodywork, movement education, and energy medicine.   Currently, Leah is continuing to develop a blend of energy work and structural medicine individually designed for each client’s optimal health.  She has just set up a new private practice in Bellingham, after working on Mercer Island for the past 20 years.

“I love bodywork  because it is a work of the heart— of compassion, listening, and understanding through touch. Everyone deserves the gift of living in the present with joy, without physical and mental pain or restriction. One way to access that center of balance is through the body, which is inseparable from the mind and spirit. It is my goal to help others come home to themselves and live without pain, with self-love, compassion, and flexibility.”

“Soma is a work of genius. It is the most effective physical work I’ve come across to support, balance, and provide relief from pain and injury. It is a gift of opportunity because it re-educates the body, mind, and psyche on numerous levels so that life can be lived with more ease, less effort, and greater fluidity. Through this experience of care and self-discovery you are given the chance to tap into renewed energy and clear response to life. The Soma takes you to the core of your being.

I use a number of techniques including bodywork, Energy medicine, essential oils, sound, and other modalities that are designed to cultivate an imaginative, powerful and effective play-ground for healing.  The world of possibility emerge with deep listening, and authentic response, allowing each person’s health wisdom to shine through.”

Bodywork can be a contemplative space in which we can literally bring a thought, issue, question, or quiet mind to the table and use the session as a vehicle for healing of body/mind/spirit. It is not necessary to verbalize what you are focusing on in order for it to be processed.

Bodywork brings one home to their core, or deepest self.  Perhaps it is the quiet space in conjunction with touch, allowing one to be in a space of simply receiving rather than giving, it could be the nervous system unwinding through the assistance of someone else’s help (a message reminiscent of the unconditional loving care we may have received from a parent holding us when we were infants), or the act of being still and listening to self in a manner that we often don’t give to ourselves in a world filled with excess stimulation.

Using bodywork as a contemplative space can come in many forms.  You can have something in mind that you want to work with and keep the intention to work with it during your session.  This does not mean you have to keep your mind active and think about this issue.  Quite the opposite.  What can be done is to set the session around the issue with intention, take in the bodywork, and on an unconscious and conscious level, the issue is being examined, cooked, felt, observed, and honored simply by the act of awareness.  When truth is met, there is no thinking about it.  It simply is what is, and this conclusion is reached based on being present.

If you would like to do something concrete, you can voice what you are working with, share it aloud, or simply write it down and put it on the table with you where you are lying. Many of our answers are right in front of us, but we do not slow down to quiet the mind to get the chance to hear them.  One can also enter the session with the mindset of “empty space.”  There doesn’t have to be anything to focus on but what is being presented:  the touch and what it evokes.  That alone is a rich practice, one that can make you feel as if you are doing a round the world travel in the lush and multi-faceted landscape of your being.

I invite you to come to the table to explore.  I am honored to be there with you in this act of listening and witnessing what is living inside.