Hi All,

Sorry this is getting out late.

Recently I had a couple of events that made me question my alertness (and frankly, my sanity). We thought we were having A/C problems in our master bedroom so I went crawling around in the hot attic to see if there were issues with the duct work that fed the vents in our room. Nothing seemed to be working. Then my wife went over to the thermostat and noticed that the system was "off". Turning it on solved the problem.

Later, we discovered that two of the faucets in the master bedroom, and one in the guest room were rattling when you turned them on, and water would just trickle, or not run at all. I called a plumber out, because I thought we had a plumbing issue. The plumber discovered in just a few minutes (and to my extreme embarrassment) that the valves controlling the flow of water to the faucets were closed or partially closed. Turning them all the way on fixed the plumbing issue.

I share these stories with you (reluctantly) because I realized that the reason the issues were even issues at all, was because I had made some invalid assumptions. I had "assumed" that the A/C unit was on, because I hadn't turned it off myself. I had "assumed" that the faucet valves were opened, because I hadn't turned them off myself.

This got me thinking. How many times do we "assume" things, based on our own personal knowledge, without taking into account the impact of the actions of others on the outcome?

What are some limiting assumptions that we make about our clients? "They will be difficult." "They will not achieve the change they want." "They won't be influenced by us." etc.

Given that, what are some empowering assumptions we could substitute that might yield better results? "We have great hypnotic subjects." "We have all of the skills and confidence we need to succeed." "Our clients will make fantastic personal gains and be successful."

If there is one thing that I have "re-learned" based on these recent events it's to "Question all assumptions and generalizations" and "Test, test, test" your ideas and your results. Approach each hypnotic encounter with confidence in yourself AND in your subject.

Michael C. White, C.Ht.