Last Updated on February 10, 2025

Wake up and come to your senses

The most important part of hypnosis is at the end.

That’s when you wake up from the trance.

This past week, as democracy in the United States has been imploding under the forces of fascism, I’ve been feeling quite good.

“Alexa, play ‘It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)’ by REM.”

To be clear, I don’t feel good because of the events happening in the world, but despite them.

And in fact any time anyone has felt good, it’s been despite negative things happening in the world.

Just open a history book!

There have always been wars, genocides, authoritarian leaders, falling empires, greedy oligarchs, and pandemics.

So if we’re gonna be happy and free, it’s going to be despite these things.

Waking up from the doomer trance

Last year I felt bad most of the year because of negative events happening in the world.

Then in November, I finally decided enough was enough.

I was experiencing chronic headaches, brain fog, low motivation, fear, and sadness.

But I also knew that I had the tools to resolve these things…because I’d done it before.

I committed to dedicating two hours a day to dealing with the stress that had accumulated in my nervous system.

I asked myself, “What did I do last time that really worked?”

And I thought, “Oh right, I wrote an article about it.”

I re-read my own article and realized I had been doing Pattern Interrupt Methods.

So I started doing Pattern Interrupt Methods again.

I’d bring up some fear or sadness or anger on purpose for a couple minutes, and then do something else to interrupt the pattern.

I danced, I tapped on my body, I meditated, I did slow breathing, I did anything and everything to feel good instead of feeling bad.

Then I thought about the same thing again, in rounds, over and over.

And it worked.

I woke up from “the world is doomed” trance.

I’ve even started feeling quite optimistic that humanity will be OK.

Perhaps we’re just going through growing pains before something better emerges.

Specifically, it looks to me like we’re exiting The Punishment Paradigm and entering The Progress Paradigm.

And The Punishment Paradigm is having an “extinction burst” right now, where it flails about before finally letting go.

This is literally the paradigm shift from fear to love.

Trancebreaking

That doesn’t mean that “the world is doomed” trance doesn’t come back for me sometimes.

But I’ve broken its hold over me.

I can recognize it more quickly, and get out of it more quickly.

I’m still doing two hours a day of meditation and movement most days.

I figure it’s working for me, so I’ll just keep doing this forever.

But now I’ve realized an even more direct way of “waking up” from unpleasant trances.

Just come to your senses — literally.

I call this “Trancebreaking.”

Awake and aware

You can do this right now if you want.

Look up from the screen for 30 seconds and just see everything you see.

Take in all the visual sensations, all the way out to your peripheral vision.

Even if you’re in a very familiar place, look for things that are new, that you haven’t noticed before.

Then listen for everything you hear.

Keep adding all the things you hear together, including it all.

Then feel everything you feel in your body.

All your skin, all your muscles, all the sensations inside your body too.

Now see, hear, and feel everything all at once.

Add smell and taste in there too if you want.

And you can even add the sense of space around your body.

Try to pay attention to everything simultaneously.

You can do this completely imperfectly and it still works.

This is the practice of waking up from a trance.

Trance-forming

You can then practice “waking up and coming to your senses” by deliberately going into a negative trance and then waking back up to this awareness.

If you do that 3, 4, 5 times with an unpleasant thought, it will either diminish in emotional intensity or even completely pop you out of the trance.

You’ll have broken the spell, broken the trance.

It won’t suck you in anymore.

You’ll think differently and feel differently.

And then you can create a better trance, something based in love and joy.

Your imagination will be online again, and you can see positive possibilities.

I’ve found this to be so simple, yet so powerful.

And on the count of 3 you’ll wake up from whatever negative trance you’ve been in lately.

1…2…and 3!

Wide awake, welcome back!

Have a wonderful week of awakening,

 

 

 

~Duff
(they/them)

P.S. I recently taught “trancebreaking” in my Joy of Doing weekly coaching class, on Feb 2nd and Feb 9th. If this sort of thing interests you, you can learn more about the group here.