#nlp

I was reading a colleague’s post about the importance of indirect language in hypnosis and NLP. She mentioned that if you’re not careful, you can end up sounding like a Talking Heads song.

And I realized I’m exactly the kind of person who would start swapping synonyms just so everything doesn’t sound the same:

“I’m not going to repeat you may find… I’ll say perhaps you’ll notice… no, better it could be interesting to discover… no, that sounds forced… okay, I’ll just rewrite the whole sentence.”

And suddenly the script becomes a linguistic ritual instead of an induction.

But here’s the issue: changing synonyms doesn’t necessarily solve the problem.

If the pattern is:

Permissive opening

Progressive suggestion

Deepening

More deepening

Surrender

Even if you change the words, the brain still detects the same architecture.

In Ericksonian hypnosis, it’s not so much about avoiding repetition of words. It’s about varying:

Rhythm

Sentence length

Attentional direction

Type of suggestion (sensory, cognitive, metaphorical)

You may find yourself relaxing… You may notice your breathing slowing… You may feel your body soften…

Notice what stays the same:

Same beginning: pronoun (“You”) + permissive verb (“may find/notice/feel”). Same rhythm: stress on “You,” then a two-syllable verb, then the content. Same attentional direction: all suggestions point directly to a specific internal experience (relaxation, breathing, bodily sensation). Same syntax: subject + auxiliary verb + main verb + complement.

The human brain, especially in focused attention states (like the beginning of an induction), is a pattern-recognition machine. When it detects a strongly marked rhythmic pattern, one of two things tends to happen:

Habituation: the brain gets bored, disengages, and suggestibility decreases. It becomes background noise.

Ritual detection: the conscious mind recognizes a technique being applied mechanically. “Ah, I know what’s coming next. They’re trying to relax me.” That awareness can activate resistance.

Repetition, instead of inducing trance, can induce monotony — or at best, a kind of “grandma hypnosis” (someone falls asleep because it’s dull, not because they’re actually in trance).

You can break the pattern like this:

There’s nothing you need to do. Just notice what’s already happening. Breathing takes care of itself. And sometimes the body knows how to settle before the mind understands why.

✦ On Shiny Things & Structure ✦ A skeptical reflection on hypnosis trends. It dismantles the allure of NLP and redefines the true requirements for profound trance. Consider this a philosophical fragment for practitioners.

✦ ᚺ ᚢ ᚲ ᚺ ✦

Then comes NLP. Something modern. Something shiny.

Yes—thought and language matter. Yes—meaning shapes experience.

But if Neuro-Linguistic Programming were the holy grail, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, wouldn’t it be far more consistent and effective?

Perhaps someone read the word programming and thought: brain = computer.

Sure. A pre–Windows 95 computer, complete with blue screens.

You use what works. Not what promises miracles.

And finally, the part that actually annoyed me:

The idea that Ericksonian hypnosis is only for intelligent minds.

Milton Erickson was a genius. Many of us study him for years and still fall short.

What he worked with was not intelligence. It was:

metaphor

ambiguity

flexible language

Ericksonian work is for creative minds, for rich inner worlds, for symbolic thinkers.

People like those who read and write on Tumblr.

The world is full of idiots who are highly hypnotizable. And full of creative people who make excellent subjects.

Intelligence is not the requirement.

Structure is.

My nest shrinks, suffocates. Walls split me off , safe? Or caging me like a lab rat? Screw it. Safe enough.

PING

Fucking headlines burn my eyes. Can’t rip out this neural shit the Above, those greedy codelords, won’t let me. Stupid move, taking their free implant. They’re out here trawling for suckers, turning us into meat-machines, our brains just hackable merch. Neon City our collective incubator Mind the hive, dear reader.

Doomscrolling this garbage again. Walls clamp tighter, breathing faster Am I the last one not fried? No

something’s off. This spark in my chest isn’t theirs.

Guess I’m not safe in my head. Guess we’re all lost as hell, but we’re not their drones yet. Stumbling, clawing toward some raw dawn.

This is a Love Warriors Zone!

Listen to understand, not to respond.

make this World Great again!

maybe i am a dreamer but i am not the only one!

Don't Worry Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin 🎵

Not a steamy piece of erotica, sorry.

I've been reading through @h-sleepingirl 's book, Kinky NLP, and have been absolutely loving it, not just as a educational piece on effective, healthy hypno-play, but I'm also finding it endlessly useful as a hypnofic writer.

Something that I always thought was a little odd in my own writing is how...overwritten I tend to get with some of my hypnofic stuff. I typically don't skip on detail and love using descriptive adjectives and adverbs to describe sensation, visual stimulus, auditory, etc. If you're a writer (erotic or otherwise) you've probably run into the cliched advice to leave out excessive adverbs/adjectives in order to let your reader's imagination do the work. That's worth considering in most writing (and well worth knowing when to break that rule) and it's something I'm mindful of in my vanilla writing.

However, my hypno-erotica work tends to run counter to that. I love putting together a very rich, detailed scene filled with a variety of descriptive language. I certainly haven't had many complaints about it so far (zero, in fact) and that always made me curious.

I'm now learning that in NLP, this sensory descriptive technique is known as modality, and while sleepingirl reminds us that this idea is somewhat bunk in current psychology, it still is a powerful tool in writing and hypnokink. It can be argued that reading anything is a rudimentary form of guided meditation/trance and that should be doubly obvious in the genre of hypnofics. By using very sensual (not necessarily sexual) language and making sure I hit a variety of sensory predicates, I can invite my reader to more fully immerse themselves in the scene I'm creating.

Obviously, every reader is different, but typically I find that people enthusiastic about hypno fictions are (stay with me here) pretty comfortable, or at least curious, about entering light trance while they read. I'm starting to feel that maybe I understood this intuitively when I began my erotica writing so many years ago.

And What Finally Changes Everything

By Quit in 60 Minutes

Most smokers don’t fail because they’re weak.

They fail because they’ve been taught to fight nicotine with willpower alone.

And willpower is unreliable when stress hits at 11pm… after an argument… during a work crisis… sitting in traffic… or having a drink with friends.

That’s why so many smokers can go days, weeks, or even months without smoking — only to suddenly relapse and feel devastated.

The real problem isn’t the cigarette.

It’s the subconscious emotional programming attached to it.

Smoking Is Rarely About Nicotine Alone

For many smokers, cigarettes become tied to:

Stress relief

Routine

Identity

Reward

Social connection

Emotional escape

Over time, the brain creates powerful neurological associations.

Coffee = cigarette. Alcohol = cigarette. Stress = cigarette. Finishing work = cigarette.

Eventually, smoking stops being a conscious decision and becomes an automatic behavioural loop.

That’s why many smokers say:

“I don’t even realise I’m doing it.”

And this is also why nicotine replacement alone often doesn’t fully solve the deeper issue.

The Missing Piece Most Programs Ignore

Many quit-smoking systems focus purely on stopping the physical addiction.

But experienced smokers know the real battle is often psychological.

The cravings. The rituals. The anxiety. The emotional dependency.

This is where hypnotherapy and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) can become powerful tools.

At Quit in 60 Minutes in Liverpool, Sydney, the focus isn’t simply on “trying harder.”

The focus is on helping people:

interrupt subconscious smoking patterns,

calm the nervous system,

reduce emotional triggers,

and mentally transition into becoming a non-smoker.

Why Stress Is One of the Biggest Relapse Triggers

One of the most misunderstood aspects of smoking is the relationship between stress and nicotine.

Many smokers believe cigarettes calm them down.

But in reality, smoking often trains the nervous system to depend on nicotine to regulate stress responses.

This creates a cycle:

Stress rises

Craving appears

Cigarette temporarily relieves discomfort

Brain reinforces the pattern

Over time, the subconscious mind links emotional regulation to smoking behaviour.

Breaking this cycle requires more than discipline.

It requires retraining the response itself.

The Role of the Subconscious Mind

Hypnotherapy works by helping people enter a deeply relaxed and focused state where subconscious patterns become more accessible.

Contrary to popular myths:

you are not unconscious,

you are not being controlled,

and you cannot be forced to do anything against your will.

Instead, many people describe hypnosis as:

feeling deeply calm,

highly focused,

and mentally clear.

This relaxed state may help people disconnect emotional triggers from smoking behaviours and create new mental associations.

Why Many Smokers Relapse After Months

Relapse often happens because smokers remove the cigarette… but never change the underlying emotional programming.

That’s why certain triggers can suddenly reactivate cravings months later:

stress,

alcohol,

social environments,

complacency,

emotional overload.

At Quit in 60 Minutes, these are referred to as the “S.A.C.K.” triggers:

Stress

Alcohol

Complacency

Kinship (social influence)

Understanding these triggers can dramatically improve long-term success.

Becoming a Non-Smoker Is More Than “Quitting”

One of the biggest mental shifts is identity.

People who struggle often continue thinking:

“I’m a smoker trying not to smoke.”

Successful long-term quitters often shift toward:

“I’m simply not a smoker anymore.”

That subtle psychological change can be incredibly powerful.

Final Thoughts

Quitting smoking isn’t just about removing nicotine.

It’s about:

changing patterns,

calming the nervous system,

understanding triggers,

and creating a new relationship with stress and identity.

For many people across Liverpool, Parramatta, Campbelltown and greater Sydney, specialised quit smoking hypnotherapy has become an alternative path worth exploring.

Because sometimes the breakthrough isn’t forcing yourself harder…

It’s finally understanding how the mind created the habit in the first place.

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