Do you ever feel like you are on the verge of a big change in your life? That all you have to do is open some kind of mental door and step over that threshold to get something you've always wanted? But is this just not succeeding? If so, you may be suffering from internal conflict.
An unconscious conflict between two or more of your unconscious beliefs about how life works and how you are supposed to function in it.
The idea of internal unconscious conflict
The idea of internal conflict is not new. As early as World War I, psychiatrists were already talking about the unconscious conflict causing their patients to suffer from such things as nervousness or even hypochondria[1].
I am always looking for my unconscious conflict, because I know by now that it helps me move forward in life.
When I was still giving sessions, it was very common for people to be unaware of their internal conflict. Their unconscious conflict.
You may be aware of this, but even then it is often a challenge to resolve.
But being good at conflict resolution changes the question from the conscious conflict, to the unconscious conflict.
Once I know what the problem is I can solve it fairly easily. This is because I have been doing this for 15 years now. But the question now is much more often, "What do I need to solve?" Because what I don't know, I can't solve.
You may be able to resolve what you are experiencing, but not if you don't know why you are experiencing it. That makes it very difficult.
Case example of unconscious conflict
For example, I once had a woman who wanted to lose weight, but nothing was working. She had done Sonja Bakker, Weight Watchers and those shakes, because that was also in for a while. Eating only lettuce. All sorts of things. She had done almost all of those things. She also exercised enough and didn't eat sugars.
You would say she was doing just fine and should lose weight.
But that didn't work out.
We were talking and then I asked her when it happened. It started in her childhood, but she didn't know why.
Then I asked if perhaps serious things had happened in her childhood. That was the case. She had suffered from sexual aggression.
When she was young, she was very slim and at seventeen she was raped.
There she decided, in that moment, that she would never let that happen again. That she would make herself so ugly that no boy would ever again take it into his head to do such a thing. Within a year, she was 30 pounds heavier.
She hadn't forgotten this whole incident, of course, but she had forgotten that decision. We found that out in hypnosis.
This was the unconscious conflict. She wanted to lose weight, but that meant she would be raped.
And what's worse? Simple. Being raped, so she stayed fat.
It's not true. She is much older now, she has many more ways to bite off. She no longer needs that solution, but the unconscious mind thinks otherwise.
That's the unconscious conflict, and if you don't resolve it? Does it stay that way.
Regression to uncover your unconscious internal conflict
So to track down her unconscious conflict, I asked about an intense experience in the past. Now with her this was immediately obvious where that belief came from, yet most people have more subtle issues in their childhood that create unhealthy beliefs.
You can track those with regression. With the regression technique, you go back to the first moment when you received a signal that something was blocking you from doing what you actually wanted to do. The first time when it actually became clear that you were suffering from beliefs that were in conflict with each other.
Generally these are moments in childhood, because that is the period in your life when you determine how life works and how you are supposed to function in it. As a child, of course, you don't have all the knowledge and therefore this can sometimes lead to internal conflict.
Fortunately, you can look back at this with your adult knowledge and that way you can do something with that moment that will help you resolve this conflict. That's what a hypnotherapist then helps you with, or if you can do hypnosis yourself and know what you're doing, then you can resolve this with yourself as well.
Survival, innovation and frustration
What you also see in this example is that there is a frustration somewhere to take a step forward in your life, even though you consciously take all kinds of steps. For example, for survival you want to be slim, for that you try all kinds of things (innovate), but there is something that frustrates that process.
This idea with very different issues is portrayed, for example, in the movie Crash[2], but it also shows that you are certainly not the only one with one internal conflict preventing you from moving forward.
You also often see with changes in a company that people resist the change. They don't even have to be aware of this. Humor can then be used in that unconscious conflict to weaken the frustration[3].
This is also something you can take advantage of with hypnotherapy. With hypnotherapy, we do this as well. For example, if you find out that you have an internal conflict with a belief that makes no sense at all, ridiculing that belief can already do a lot to stop being bothered by it.
For example, you can repeat the belief in a funny tone or while doing the Plopsa gnome dance. As long as you can laugh about it, because then it is no longer a problem. This is something a hypnotherapist can also help you with if you see yourself as super serious.
Internal conflict and the functioning of your body
The example of not being able to lose weight while doing everything that logically should help you lose weight shows that your unconscious thoughts can affect how the body functions.
This is also often seen with other problems. If you are aware that emotions cause certain physical reactions you often think this is normal, such as sweating with anxiety. But if you unconsciously suffer from something and your body acts weird, you often see this as a symptom of that something is wrong[4]. But then there is often always the question of whether something is wrong with your body or with your unconscious.
Vaginismus , for example, is one such problem that can arise from unconscious fear of pregnancy or that childbirth will destroy your body. So on one hand you want a baby and yet on the other hand you don't.
Hypnotherapy is therefore also often used when you have symptoms that have no obvious physical cause, as there is often an unconscious internal conflict.
Internal conflict and moving forward in your life
Not only your body can suffer from internal conflict, but your personal development or what you get done in your life can also suffer from this conflict. For example, many people have an unconscious conflict about money in their minds. This often stops them from making more money or being a successful entrepreneur.
Or this could stop you from finding that perfect partner and true romance.
You may have an unconscious trauma and over the course of your life, you can then attract people to live through that trauma over and over again until you resolve this trauma yourself.
The reality you have within yourself is often reflected in your life. An unconscious internal conflict can become visible that way, as you keep experiencing something you don't really want to experience at all, until you start looking at it in a different way.
This is something you can do with hypnotherapy. You then begin to de-hypnotize yourself, so to speak, from your old view of your issues and re-hypnotize with a view that actually does help you move forward.
You can use this for your way of attachment, discovering new experiences, your identity and your development in competence in certain things (such as if you want to be good at something)[5].
Also listen to this podcast on unconscious conflict:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4Z6qovLYhH6yRBIq9DdvHw?si=5809e82fe76041e3
Want to learn more about the aforementioned hypnosis techniques and how you can use them to help yourself and others with unexplained physical problems or to resolve emotional issues? Then come to the free online master class on hypnosis.
If you specifically want to help others, enroll in the HIN's training program.
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