© 2000 Terence Watts
A fairly unusual induction method which works well for almost anybody. Standard ‘settling down’ introduction, then:
Now I’m going to ask you to concentrate on your breathing for a few moments… but I wonder if you can imagine a very strange idea… a very strange idea indeed… I wonder if you can imagine that you can actually breathe… through your finger-tips…
just imagine that rather strange idea that you can actually breathe in through your finger-tips… imagine that you can feel the air moving into your hands… quite slowly at first… just with a faint tingling sensation which you might feel on the back of your hands… or perhaps in your palms…
and then just imagine that feeling moving slowly along your arms… through your elbows… just imagine that comforting flow of air moving through your elbows into your upper arms… and then into your shoulders… both arms… both shoulders… maybe finding again that faint tingling sensation… perhaps in your elbows or forearms this time…
then moving down through the body…
down into your legs… and through the thighs… through the knees into your shins and calves… and again, you might feel that faint tingling sensation, just there, just below your knees… then down through your ankles and into your feet… and out through the feet…
And you can find a great deal of calmness and easiness… in that rather strange idea that you can breathe in through your fingers…
that you can actually feel the air moving through your whole body… in one single, warming, comforting… unidirectional flow… and because it is a unidirectional flow of air…. moving through your whole body in one single comforting flow…
the calmness and relaxation you breathe in… simply doesn’t get involved with the tensions and stresses that you breathe away from yourself… the calmness and relaxation that you breath in… simply doesn’t get involved with the tensions and anxieties that you breath away from yourself…
so that with each breath you take… with each word I speak… you find yourself becoming steadily more and more… relaxed… with each breath you take, with each word I speak… you become steadily more and more… relaxed…
beginning now, perhaps, to notice the weight of your head against the back of the chair… wondering if that weight might seem to gently increase as you relax even more… the weight of your feet on the footrest… wondering if that weight, too, might seem to gently increase… even as you think about it… and some people can find that sensation of total relaxation…
that feels as if they are actually beginning to sink gently through the chair… actually beginning to sink gently through the chair… so that it seems almost as if the chair is beginning to envelop you… you are so relaxed… a good feeling… a feeling of great calmness and safety… great calmness…
that increases with each breath you take, with each word I speak… as you continue to breathe in through your fingers… allowing that comforting, warming, relaxing flow of air… to move through your whole body and out through your feet…
And this is something you can do for yourself whenever you want to… simply settle yourself into a comfortable position… with your eyes closed… then simply imagine yourself breathing in through your fingers…. imagine that flow of air comforting and relaxing every part of your body…. then breathing out through your feet…
and each time you breathe out just say to yourself: “Relax… now…”… just saying: “Relax… now…” to yourself with each breath you breath… will act as a trigger to your subconscious mind…
and on the fourth time you say it… on the fourth time you say it… you’ll find yourself to be more relaxed… than you’ve ever been before…
(Now to a suitable deepener if necessary.)
© 2000 Terence Watts