Hypnosis For Sports Performance

Sports Performance Hypnotherapy Sessions

Welcome to Hypnosis Today. The nation’s first hypnosis TV talk show that explores the fascinating world of hypnotherapy. My name is Lisa Machenberg and I will be your host. We are going to explore so many ways people are using hypnosis today to achieve success, prosperity and abundance. Today I have two amazing guests.

Well, my first guest is Todd Simon, he is an honors grad of HMI College of Hypnotherapy. He is the author of one of my favorite books, it’s called “A Little Infinity” and I love that title because it’s a paradox wrapped in a conundrum. And there are pictures and inspirational sayings and I use them and I really love this book. Todd has with him his very special client and his client’s name is Dayvin.

Dayvin came in to see Todd for sports performance. Please, help me welcome my guests. Now, Dayvin, why a hypnotherapist for sports? Why not get some sort of a coach or something? Well, I was kind of a cranial sacral client of Todd’s for a while, for a couple of years and then I learned that he was studying hypnotherapy and we were talking about the benefits of it.

And I ended up having an experience on the field of second-guessing myself and experiencing fear and not playing very well. And so I talked to him about it and he suggested that this might work. Oh, you had a little bit of a crisis of confidence out there on the field. Now, I love this,

Todd and let me tell you why. We need multiple streams of income and you are a… give me the words- Cranial Sacral Therapist. And that’s a form of… osteopathy, the movement of bones in the body, specifically working with the cranium or the citrus of the skull and the sacrum at the very bottom of the spine. That was what I was going to say.

But in addition to this wonderful profession you are also a hypnotherapist and you actually combine the two. So you had this crisis of confidence, you are talking to Todd and what do you do with someone who is a client both in hypnotherapy and cranial sacral therapy? I let them know that I do combine the two and I have to indoctrinate them into hypnotherapy.

And so I do a traditional hypnotherapy session with them at first and then the next session we do actually on a cranial sacral table. So when I induce the hypnotherapy, the second time I use progressive relaxation with a white light and when I am working with an athlete I do specifically areas of the body that he needs to work on for his sport.

Sports Performance Hypnosis Sessions

What areas of the body do lacrosse players use? The full body. And so, I remember him working with me about my feet- quickness of feet- and also one of my hands because we use a stick with both hands. And so, you are moving a ball with high speed and you are running top speed. So it’s really upper body and lower body coordination and it involves.

Sure. That is the whole body. I know what someone looks like when he or she goes into hypnotic trance. When you are doing these kinds of osteopathic manipulations, people go into an alpha or a theta state? They do. A lot of people do say they go into a dream state- they see images, colors, pictures. So these things are very, very similar. Absolutely.

The eyes go into catalepsy. So you can use both inductions? That’s the beauty of it. That is amazing. So what do you do next? So with Dayvin, we figured out exactly why he was creating these stressful moments for him. We did some muscle testing with him as well in order to anchor some key words for him in order to have him be as confident as possible on the field.

I am going to back up, what was causing some of these things, the second guessing yourself? Ultimately it was fear, but it was manifesting in the form of negative self-talk and second guessing myself. so, an example of this was, I remember very clearly that someone was throwing a cross field pass to me, something that I would normally catch and move up the field, and as it was coming towards me in the air I was second guessing myself and had the thought that I wouldn’t catch it and I missed it.

And that kept happening- experiences like that- throughout the game. I noticed that it was all in my head why I was having a bad game and that’s what we talked about. Interesting. You said all in your head.

And interesting that you manipulate the bones and muscles in the head. Wow! What a coincidence! So what can you do when someone is having this kind of a crisis? So like I said, we did some muscle testing and found some key… what is muscle testing? Muscle testing is basically based on the fact that the body, the nervous system can’t lie. So it will show weakness when there is incongruences in the body. So if I ask Dayvin his name and he says Dayvin he will be able to hold his hand pretty rigidly. Can you show us some of this? Hey, after all this is TV. Sure. I will stand up.

So we will do what is called the base line where- Dayvin if you can put your arm out and just resist my pushing. So I have a baseline of his strength. Now put your arm down for a moment. I am going to ask you your name, you are going to give me your name, anything other than Dayvin. So put arm back up. What is your name?

Todd. So you will see there is a weakness in the body so the body is not able to hold a lie. And we did is we found about four key phrases and words that he felt comfortable saying to himself during a game that kind of bring him into a state. We muscle tested all four of them.

The one that tested strongest in his body was “Get the ball.” “Get the ball” so is that like a power phrase for you? It’s basically my objective when I am out there. I am a defensive player and when the other team has the ball, they are trying to score us and if I go in and get the ball, that’s like a home run for me. So that was something that anchored in for me and I was able to say it to myself during the game, before the game and also a couple of other things that he suggested I do. Being a hypnotherapist, it’s stating that intention either loud or to yourself and that’s extremely powerful.

And then we double binded him to any self-doubt that he would have. Describe it. How do you double bind someone? So, we would say anytime you have a thought that you can’t do it or you become fearful, it becomes harder to hold that thought in your body and in fact, in it’s place you have an increase of confidence.

Now, go ahead and try the harder you try the less able you are able to have that thought and there will still be energy that might seep in and will actually turn into confidence as opposed to going into the body as a doubt. You know, when I was talking to you Todd, you asked us to bring in a little bit of our sports equipment. Can you show us how we use it in hypnosis? Sure. What specifically would you like to work with?

First, I want to see you do something with Dayvin because I want to make sure that I don’t run around the room and start quaking like a chicken. What we did with Dayvin actually, with his gloves have really given him a textural feel in his body because when we lace up our [not clear] and put on our gloves, a lot of the time we just do it unconsciously, we are thinking of other things. I really wanted him to bring in all the senses. So I had him put on his gloves… so, is this in hypnosis?

This is before hypnosis, I had him really feel what it’s like to put the gloves on, and then he left them on. We went into hypnosis and he was still in the way of feeling his gloves and I brought a lot of anchoring into his actual hands, seeing the white light become his gloves. If he has a night game, tying the lights of the court into the light of his gloves so that anytime he saw the light he would be reminded of the strength in his hands.

So we anchored like every aspect of his environment. Show me how to anchor in a lacrosse. Is that called a lacrosse racket or a lacrosse bat? Stick. Basically, he just have me put the gloves on. Show me how to do it, Todd.

So as you are putting the gloves and you are feeling the texture of the gloves in your hand, becoming more and more aware of your fingertips in each place and you are feeling the white light of confidence all around your glove so that your glove is actually made up of fibers of white light giving you confidence and allowing you to get the ball. So we would do that both when he was just putting them on before state and then during hypnotherapy. We keep going back to remind him of getting the ball and how it’s tied to feeling of his hands in his gloves. What was that like the very next time you put on your gloves before a game?

I noticed it helped get me focused. He had me do a couple of things. He had me put the gloves on but he also had write down the saying as I was holding the stick. So I would hold this in one hand with the glove and then I would write down “Get the ball” and I would look at and then I would take it in. it just sort of… I just experienced myself getting focused. It kind of put me in that zone. The zone. I love that. That’s also a phrase that we hear in our common culture.

What does being in the zone mean for you? For me it’s being focused and able to perform at my best. So, it wasn’t like any miraculous things happened out there that I had never experienced before, but it was more like I was solidly in my own zone, I was solidly performing at my best.

So what happened to the self-doubt and “am I going to get the ball”? Yeah. It was good. What happened to that? I actually had an experience of that. I felt good most of the game- this was the first game that I played too since the treatments. I noticed that the thoughts came in, it surfaced. I started second guessing myself and as soon as I noticed that I was doing it they went away. It wasn’t like it stayed with me and affected me.

They went away and I was confident again and I was able to perform. And I think that was partly… I think you talked about that, how you… that if they still came up and showed up they didn’t manifest in the body. They were still energy but they moved more into your sense of confidence than doubt. Okay, you convinced me. Well, can you show me, I have a tournament with this racket this Friday, what can you show me?

What is it that you want to achieve more of in your game? I would like to be fearless and charged at ABC. Always be closing ABC. So you want to feel at the match specifically? So grab the racket as you would when you play the match. So you would do a one hand and your hand will be out like that? Yes. So I want you to look at your hand and I want you to feel a sense of deep confidence, I want you to feel in your hand that racket and I want you to breathe deeply as you do it. And again, I want you to feel the racket in your hand, look at your left had, look at your right hand.

Feel the grip and I want you to feel this deep sense of confidence, seeing the ball go off your racket into the other side of the court where they can’t get it. Now close your eyes and do it one more time. Open your eyes and look at both hands again. Okay. Does this come with a money back guarantee that I am going to win my tournament? Absolutely. You will feel more confident than that, I can give you that much. Let me get my partner in here too.

Always be closing, how did you know that? I was in that play. So, I have to ask you, Dayvin, what would you say to someone who is having a little bit of mental block with any sport he or she is playing? What would you recommend? I would say, why not try hypnosis? It’s another avenue, it’s a tool that they could use. It could be a really good reference for their performance. And what would you say to someone about seeing Todd?

He is pretty well-rounded as a practitioner, especially if you have anything going on in the body because a lot of times mentally or your thoughts or emotions can affect the body and then you have discomfort or disease. He is able to help you with hands-on and then also work with programming the mind and suggesting the mind.

So we have the physical hands-on, we have the verbal and the suggestibility. That sounds pretty well-rounded to me. What do you see next for you, Dayvin? I would like to keep doing this and see how it progresses. And also maybe even use it in other areas of my life. Have you used any of the tools you learned with Todd in any other area of your life besides lacrosse? I did.

Tell us. I am an actor as well. And I had something similar happen in an audition about a week ago where I was going through a process and I was getting redirection in an audition and I started to notice some self-doubt like “Oh, I am not going to be able to do this” and I actually said “Get the ball” to myself and the same thing happened.

It was like it went away and I was confident again and I was able to do whatever I needed to do and I was able to listen and take in the information that they were giving me. Do you know why I love that? Because we use sports metaphors all the time and “Get the ball” is your sports