Relationships: How do they work and why is your relationship the way it is?
Relationships? What are they? What is a relationship? It's not something you can grasp, it's something you relate to something or someone. You have a relationship with your laptop, with your pet, with your wife or husband, with anything or anyone. You can have a relationship with anything.
You just don't relate, you do. Now what causes you to relate and what do you relate to
Your belief about how relationships work
About that, you believe all kinds of things about how it's done and how it should be done. That's your belief, but someone else may believe very different things.
Where you think it's important to have a relationship with an edding marker, someone else thinks it's ridiculous. The same is true with relationships you have with certain people or with a certain culture.
Such as Dutch culture, American culture, Indian culture, as well as your family culture. You relate differently to your father or mother than to your neighbor, for example.
If you think about it, you have many different beliefs about relationships. You have to manage all of that.
It happens unconsciously, but this requires a lot of brain space. In addition, it creates a lot of anxiety, because how do you deal with the cashier and with your mother? They are both women, so how do you deal with women? And then how then when there is a difference between those women.
So there are an awful lot of rules, which you follow unconsciously and automatically.
Those rules are your hypnosis.
After all, who says what the rules are? Who told you that you have to deal with people a certain way?
This is also your community. Your experiences and also other people who have shown you how to interact with people.
So that's the distortion.
Then you can find out who you are in a relationship with. Can you even have a relationship with someone else?
Is there anyone else?
Now we are taking another step further.
After all, can you "get out of your head" and see what's out there?
You can't, because you're in your head and your brain creates a picture of how you see it outside.
This is all light and we have given shapes and labels to it. Each word makes everything separate from everything else, while everything is one.
So hypnosis is separateness and the truth is that all is one.
So how can you have a relationship with someone else if we are all light? You can't then, but you can believe it. I am also in a relationship, I am even married.
Then you have a ring and are together until death do you part, but if we are all one you can never be separated.
It's all one big hypnosis.
It's fun when you think about it.
Like when you were very small there were no meanings to what you saw. That must have given so much peace. When you break free from the meaning you gave it, that gives so much peace.
You often know what something means from your past, because that's where you learned it.
What value do you give to people and business
Back to relationships, how can you relate to something or someone when everything is one. Then perhaps you are continually relating because it is one.
It’s difficult to break free from this kind of hypnosis because you often place a lot of value on such a relationship. You notice this when you lose a relationship—such as when someone dies, when your pet passes away, or when your belongings break or go missing.
Then you notice you've lost it, but you never had it. It didn't actually exist, so it doesn't matter.
This is easy to say, but super hard to deal with. Because for you, that relationship was real.
It's very simple, when someone I love dies, someone I relate to with love, I whimper. Then I do go off the rails for a while.
But if you zoom out, nothing happened except what I came up with.
When you think about that, wow man.
But maybe this blog is not for everyone.
But it gives me so much peace and space to think about this hypnosis. I notice to myself that I am much more present and I can understand much more. That's actually crazy, because I understand less and less of what is around me and therefore I understand more of what is around me. That sounds super paradoxical, but this is the way I am feeling and experiencing it right now.
This brings a great deal of peace of mind, which is why I can recommend that everyone take a moment to reflect—for example, on how and why you behave in your relationships. It often has to do with yourself. You want something from the other person; you’re getting something out of it. It has nothing to do with the other person.
Then you can say, "Yes, because I love that person because of..." And then again, it comes from yourself.
If you zoom all the way out, there is no relationship, because how can you have a relationship with yourself? You are part of everything, and in that sense, you have a relationship with yourself.
Relationships are very beautiful, though, because they mirror yourself. Many people run away from that. Then they leave and then it's because of the other person and that that's not right or whatever.
But really, it's up to you.
Beliefs and destructive relationships
If you’re hearing this while you’re in a destructive relationship —for example, if you’re being physically abused—you naturally won’t think that applies to you.
But if everything is one, then it is interesting to note that it occurs in your life. Of course it's because of the other person, but then of course you have to leave.
It's not smart to stay in a toxic relationship.
While you're out there, it's still helpful to consider for yourself, "Why does this appear in my world?" After all, why doesn't it happen to others?
First, you have to step out of that world and put an end to it, and then you can examine how you might have been unconsciously hypnotized into it. What do I believe about myself? That I’m not worthy? That I deserve it? What kind of nonsense is that?
You do this while looking at yourself with love and forgiveness. You don’t need to punish yourself further, because it’s already hard enough. But look at it more out of curiosity: what belief lies beneath it?
Changing them can take the next relationship you get to another level.
This can help you increasingly realize that everything is a form of light and love. It also means you’ll find yourself smiling more and more at whatever happens.
This is intense, but you can start with yourself. It can be good to smile at yourself from time to time. Of, "Yeah, there he goes again. See what he's doing again now in the relationship." And then smile to yourself, because that helps to come out of the hypnosis of what you call your relationship.
Also listen to this podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/4390913-03-kom-uit-de-hypnose-van-je-relatie
Hypnosis and relationship
Perhaps you’ve also considered relationship therapy. Research shows that hypnotherapy using Ericksonian techniques and NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) has positive effects and can be particularly beneficial in the context of relationship therapy[1].
For people with ADHD, hypnotherapy has also been shown to be effective in helping them improve their social relationships[2].
What hypnotherapy then helps with, for example, is figuring out your beliefs about your relationships. As above, the therapist then helps you determine why you are in a relationship with someone and also for that other person and in what way you can get through a door together again. How you can relate to each other in a more convenient way.
As mentioned, Ericksonian techniques and NLP techniques can be used for this purpose. What is special about this is that Erickson focuses primarily on the individual, so each person is looked at as a relationship and not necessarily as a couple.
Would you like to learn more about how hypnosis works and how it can help you view relationships differently? Then join us for a free online masterclass on hypnosis.
Or enroll in one of our training courses in which NLP and Erickson's techniques also play a major role.
[1] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1993-18647-001
[2] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maarit-Virta/publication/264382321_Better_long-term_outcome_for_hypnotherapy_than_for_CBT_in_adults_with_ADHD_Results_of_a_six-month_follow-up/links/56542e3308aeafc2aabba4bd/Better-long-term-outcome-for-hypnotherapy-than-for-CBT-in-adults-with-ADHD-Results-of-a-six-month-follow-up.pdf