The Hypnosis of Anxiety and Depression
Anxiety and depression are, in many ways, forms of hypnosis. From a conversational hypnosis lens, hypnosis is any unconscious emotional focus. When your mind and body lock into worry, rumination, or hopelessness, you’re in a trance. It’s not something you consciously choose it just happens. And most of us live in these trances far more than we realize.
The subconscious is the real driver. It runs most of your life on autopilot, learning through repetition, absorbing everything it’s fed without judgment. That’s why you don’t memorize through effort alone you memorize through repetition. It’s also why repeated negative thoughts can become beliefs, and those beliefs can shape your emotions, your behaviors, even your identity. What begins as a single thought can end up defining who you think you are.
The ego uses this system in a tricky way. It convinces you that assuming the worst keeps you safe. That vigilance may have been useful once, but when it becomes the way you operate all the time, it traps you in suffering. And our culture reinforces it. Doom-scrolling, stress-as-status, endless headlines of fear all of it is a kind of cultural hypnosis, programming us to stay in loops.
Those loops look like this: a thought sparks an emotion, the emotion feeds a belief, the belief becomes identity, and identity fuels the next thought. Round and round it goes. And the more you repeat it, the more permanent it feels. But here’s the truth: it isn’t permanent. It’s conditioning. And conditioning can be changed.
The way out is deceptively simple. Breath interrupts the loop. Awareness interrupts the loop. Even reframing your inner dialogue interrupts the loop. Every time you catch yourself and say something new even if it feels corny at first you are practicing self-hypnosis. That’s neuroplasticity at work: the brain wiring itself in response to where you place your focus.
You can also work with the natural hypnotic states you already enter every day. Right before you fall asleep, ask yourself better questions: How can I move through this faster? What can I do tomorrow to feel better? What choices will support me? When you wake up, prime yourself with loving thoughts. These transitional states the sunsets and sunrises of the mind are when the subconscious is most open and creative. That’s why hypnotherapists guide people into these states intentionally. But you can learn to work with them on your own.
In the long run, the goal is to live consciously hypnotized aware of what’s programming you, and choosing to program yourself with intention. That means noticing what music, media, conversations, and foods are shaping your state. Every input is a suggestion. The question is whether those suggestions are serving you, or keeping you in the loop.
You’ll know when you’re ready to stop being programmed by unconscious conditioning and start programming yourself with intention. When that time comes, I’ll always be here. Hypnosis is not just a tool for change, it’s a way of healing our own hearts and when we heal our hearts, we heal the world around us.
