So Jane tells you during your mid-morning break that you look like you feel tired, run down, or unhappy. This is a surprise to you, as you had no idea this was how you felt.

Throughout the rest of the day, you took this in consideration, looked at yourself often in the each reflection you passed, and thought, Hey, I kind of do look tired.

Your emotional state begins to drop, you become irritable, or perhaps lazy or your body provides lack of energy. Good thing Jane told you this, otherwise you might have not noticed it, and continued your day as normal.

But wait. Wouldn't that have been a better thing? If Jane didn't tell you how you felt, would you have felt any different than what you feel now (hopefully that sentence wasn't confusing)?

Congratulations! You have just been hypnotized. That's right, Jane hypnotized you. Of course she didn't realize it at the time, but she did it all the same. How did this happen, and what did her “hypnosis” do to you?

Well, Jane gave you a Suggestion, by mentioning to you that you looked like you felt tired and unhappy. The power of other's opinions can affect anyone's mind in the most powerful way, if one lets it.

However, this opinion was a suggestion, which entered your mind and influenced the way you actually felt. When you heard what another person said about the way you looked, your mind began to see it as true, and the feelings manifested themselves within your body.

I'm sure this scenario has happened to you at one time or another, perhaps not in the same way with Jane (thanks a lot Jane!), but it has happened to you none the less.

When others suggest things about yourself, the world, the economy—it opens our mind to hear these things; and, if we're not careful, we can Accept these suggestions as fact. Which, by the way, it is very hard to determine fact from fiction these days (just watch the nightly news—wait, then again, don't watch the nightly news!), so you might be more apt to accept them.

This is hypnosis. Whenever a suggestion is told to your while in the trance state, your subconscious will accept everything as true. This is way every suggestion must be worded in the positive and present tense. Yeah, yeah, I know you have head this all before, but it makes a huge difference.

If you suggest to yourself that you will never find a job, or that you won't make any more money than you already make, then your mind will accept this as a true statement, and you will become even more unmotivated to look for a job, or a make a job for yourself, or find other, creative ideas to bring money into your life.

If you allow other people's suggestions about the world influence the way you think, you let other people hypnotize you. Don't let this happen! This could lead to negative attitudes about anything under the sun, which will prevent you from achieving your true potential and your overall success!

Hypnosis is a powerful, life changing tool, and it just isn't confined to a hypnotherapist office, or a hypnosis CD. It's everywhere—at our jobs, in our homes, in the newspapers—it seems as though there is no escape.

But, fortunately, you can protect your mind by always letting yourself know that everything in the world, and every manifestation in your life, is the result of your reaction to it, and every fact is not what other people say, it's what you have found to be true for yourself, and what has worked for you in contributing to your success.

Be well.