American Association of Professional Hypnotherapists

An article at CCN says that, not surprisingly, Americans are stressing out now more than ever. Let's look at some of the stressors going on in our society:

• rising healthcare costs / lack of health insurance
• rising consumer costs, food costs, energy costs
• layoffs, job cuts
• now, loans for college, cars, houses are scarce
• election propaganda is confusing, disheartening, upsetting
• economy experts are now saying things will get worse before they get better
• the holiday are coming, with all the additional expenses and things to do

Life is still full of all the same stressors as before: kids, school, work, car repairs, bills, holidays, family... the list goes on and on. When you add the above cyclical stressors to the mix, you get stressed-out people.

Another adjustment is happening: people's brains are attuning to the multi-task, multi-window, multi-application, multi-media inputs and processing style of the modern computer age and Internet. While it is a great ability to be able to do ten things at once (but how many really competently? We don't know..), the cost is that we have trained ourselves to have short attention spans. This makes things like meditation, self-hypnosis and even learning about self-health practices in any depth more difficult and rare.

All this is to say that hypnotherapists are now in a time of unprecedented opportunity. People need our contribution, our skills and services now, in this economic crisis, more than ever. People need help relaxing, learning to relax and reconnect with their body and the moment, and releasing anxiety.

While some hypnotherapists may hear cash register bells at such a circumstance, I encourage a balanced and philanthropic approach. You became a hypnotherapist to help people. People need your help now. Focus on what you were built to do and how to best contribute to your community and long term rewards in many domains will flow back to you. Focus on just the money, and my bet is that you will end up being the anxious, lonely one.

I'm not saying give everything away at all. I believe in balanced exchange. I also believe that exchange and value come in many other ways than a dollar. Why not reap the best of both worlds? Income and appreciation. Dollars and community connection.

When you see the new clients coming in your door and paying full rate, why not also establish a weekly free guided meditation session for your community, church or professional group? For every new client, why not also offer an open house "Hypnosis Q&A" evening free to the community, including a 15 minute stress-reduction induction?

This kind of thing will not only deliver needed services to people that need them, it will also build your reputation in the community and build your business. Just remember that in these kinds of economically difficult times, for every client that can pay full rate, there is someone else in your community that needs the same services but can't pay in US dollars right now. Be open to barter, trade, no-interest creative financing, labor swaps, local currencies & coupons, group sessions, and open contribution of community evenings.

After all, what is most important here is that America make it through this crisis as best we can, on our feet, and with expanded awareness and savvy. We, as a nation, will benefit tremendously from better connection with each other, better understanding and respect for each other, and decisions and interactions based on calm rational understanding. Undue and excessive stress tends to bring the opposite.

Here are some ideas for more ways you can contribute your skills and services in this time of need:

• Offer to speak and do free demonstrations for local community groups (Lions, ELKS, churches, etc.)
• Offer to do an inexpensive day of relaxation workshops for a few local companies. Have separate shorter sessions for the executive team (but be sure they get a full induction of deep relaxation! I like the mini-vacation indiction for that kind of thing).
• Contact your local radio and TV station, and offer to explain how to do simple, self-relaxation and calming breathing. Don't think of this as a promotional opportunity for your business: be all-give and no-promo on these.
• Offer to speak to classrooms at your local schools, explaining the benefits or self-hypnosis for relaxation and giving a free demo.
• Set up and offer a weekly or monthly free group hypnosis for relaxation and anxiety release for your community.
• Record a relaxation session or instructional guide to getting started in self-hypnosis and upload it as an MP3 to your web site, YouTube (10 minute limit there), and the Internet Archives (free media). Give it away for free, to anyone. Make it simple, and really aim to help people release excess, unhealthy stress.
• Blog freely about simple techniques for relaxation and anxiety reduction, with examples and tutorials.
• Talk with people you meet at the supermarket line, around your neighborhood and around your office. Point them to resources that will give them information about how to relax, including your free group guided meditations, MP3s, private sessions and more.

This is a time that we as hypnotherapists can really shine. Let's show everyone the best we have.