Chapter 8

The Fourth Step: Giving Back

Michael’s palms were sweaty, his heart was beating too loudly, and his thoughts weren’t what they needed to be. He knew his pattern. If he won the first two matches, he would win everything. No one could touch him. If he lost one and won one, anything could happen. He had never recovered from losing the first two matches, and that’s exactly where he was at that moment—two down. His coach knew it, too, and was already cursing, pacing back and forth, and running his hands through his hair every other word. “Tennis is a mental game! You need to know you can win this despite what happened in the first two matches. Your body is trained for this! Michael, you need to get your mind on board. You need to get your head in the game. We’ve come too far!”

All of the money Michael had saved from working at the deli the past summer was gone, spent on strings, rackets, and shoes. All he could think about was what a waste it had all been. His mind was filled with the grossness of the deli counter, covered in stale cream cheese, and how everyone came in from the town lake nearby. They would be tan and salty, and he noticed how pale his hands looked as he handed them their lunch. All of this was set to a soundtrack of his parents yelling.

During his entire childhood, his divorced parents fought over the cost of lessons and the traveling from tournament to tournament. It had seemed worth it when he received scholarship offers to all his top choice schools. But he was sure it was all about to vanish and all those fights, all that money, and all those hours spent practicing or working instead of going to the lake like everyone else would have been for nothing.

And Michael was right. After losing the next match, he was out of the tournament, and his school’s last chance of placing that season was over. The ride back to campus was somber. The other players were angry with him. His knees were acting up again, and there was a shooting pain every few minutes in his shoulder. He started to think the thoughts he had every time he lost. “I had straight A’s in school. I don’t have to do this.” But as soon as he was back on the court and once he heard that perfect “pop” of the ball on his 120 mile/per hour serve, those thoughts would give way to, “No one can touch me. I love this!”

The next morning at practice, for the first time ever, the good thoughts never came. He gave it a week, but they didn’t come back. The love of the game had also vanished along with his hopes for a winning season. He called his parents to announce that he was quitting. He knew they would revoke his athletic scholarship, which was twice that of any academic scholarship offered. So, he sent in his application to a community college back home. His coach was both angry and relieved. On a good day, this student was better than anyone who had ever played on their team in the eighty-year history of the college, but the coach needed players he could count on consistently.

On the way out of the gym for the last time, Michael’s coach said to him, “You have the potential to be great. Henry Ford said, ‘Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.’ What that means is your only limitation is your mind. You had better learn that, son, or your life will be nowhere near as bright as it could have been.”

It was two years before Michael picked up a racquet again. A friend’s father from the community college threw a graduation party for their class at a fancy tennis club. As soon as he walked through the gates, he felt at home. The minute his hand touched the racquet, he felt a rush of adrenaline, and he knew it: “No one can touch me.” No one there knew his history with the sport. They watched in awe as the sleeping tiger came to life, first beating all of the students, then the club members, and finally tying the club’s head instructor. He was on fire, he felt alive, and almost immediately thereafter, he felt deep regret for having given up tennis.

The instructor walked toward the net to shake Michael’s hand, “Awesome volley, man! You could have gone pro. Why didn’t you?”

He looked into the instructor’s eyes and said, “My mental game was weak. I gave it up after letting down my team at nationals.”

The instructor turned serious, yet sincere, and said, “That’s such a shame. Come by tomorrow. Here’s a guest pass. I want to show you a few things.”

The next day, Michael was up earlier than he had been in months. He could barely sleep. Even despite the few moments of regret that kept creeping in, he felt alive. His favorite recurring dream came back, in which he beat Roger Federer with the girl who dumped him right before prom sitting in the stands. He was practicing his backhand movement the whole way as he walked to the club.

When he got there, the instructor met him at the court and said, “We’re not going to play today. Come with me.” Michael was disappointed but intrigued, so he followed. They went to the club’s theater and sat down in front of the screen. The instructor turned to him and said, “I was never as good as you were yesterday. Even in my prime, I wasn’t as strong, fast, or agile as you were after two years of not playing. But back when I was playing pro, I won a lot of games because I cultivated what I could… and that was my mind. The really fast, really strong players didn’t focus on this because they could beat ninety percent of the rest of the players out there with what they already had. But once you get to the elite level, it all becomes mental. If you haven’t been training for that… well, you know firsthand exactly what can and usually happens. I don’t know why they don’t teach this the first day of tennis camp when you’re eight years old, but here it is.”

The instructor got up and turned on the projector. An antiquated opening screen popped up with the title “Self-Hypnosis for Athletes.” Surprised and a little annoyed, Michael turned to the instructor and said, “I saw a hypnotist once. They had a show at my high school in the auditorium. It was ridiculous. People danced around like idiots. How is this going to help me?”

The instructor’s tone was both serious and motivating as he said, without taking his eyes from the screen, “What exactly do I have to gain by taking time out of my day to show you this for free?”

Michael blinked a few times and realized he felt like he was back with a coach. That felt good—someone to tell him what to do and how to be better. He had missed that. He smiled and turned his attention back to the screen.

The video taught relaxation techniques that turn off the fight, flight, or freeze mechanisms that tend to show up when you’re losing or have made a mistake. It showed how to detach from the past and prepare for what’s coming next through visualization, breathing, and hypno-affirmations. It taught how the body and mind can’t tell the difference between what’s imagined and what happens in real life. Imagining defeat is actual defeat to the body and mind, and they react accordingly. Imagining winning is actual glory to the body and mind, and again, they react accordingly. The video taught how to enter into a “flow state” where the mind and body are relaxed enough that muscle memory, reflexes, and something that even seems a little magical—intuition—can take over. It taught that this winning frame of mind—the mind that moves beyond defeat quickly and prepares effectively to win in the blink of an eye—can be etched into the subconscious mind. It can become part of the blueprint of who we are.

When the video ended, the instructor turned to Michael and said, “How have you experienced this already in your life?”

“When the first thought I have as I pick up the racquet is, ‘I can’t lose; no one can touch me,’ they truly can’t. Then, if I win, I feel it even more for the next match until I really do feel like it’s just me and the ball and everything melts away.”

“That’s because the endorphins we release when we win prime us to win again. Confidence, joy, and self-worth all release chemicals that allow us to open up, loosen up, and trust ourself. Defeat, shame, and anger are all restricting emotions. We close off and tighten up. Our agility is diminished, and the mind begins to overthink. The thing is, you can ‘fake it till you make it,’ meaning that with hypnosis you can train your body to release the same feel-good endorphins before every match, even if you just lost.”

The instructor continued to explain. “You have to train your mind rigorously and that flow state, the state of peak performance, can be available to you at all times. So, does this mean it works one hundred percent of the time? If it did, Serena, Federer, and Djokovic would never have lost a game. So, it doesn’t guarantee that you’ll win, but with enough practice, it means you’ll be in a winning state of mind when you start the match, which at your level, is where you have to be.”

Michael was riveted, as the instructor made this hypnosis stuff sound even better. “Hypnosis can also heal injuries faster. There was a study done at Harvard Medical School that showed patients with hypnotherapy healed broken bones forty percent faster than the control group who didn’t receive hypnotherapy. And you can use it to train your brain to be more strategic. If for nothing else, you can use it to detach from past mistakes and lost matches. Every time we think about a game we lost or a mistake we made, we strengthen that tendency in the mind. This gives power to the part of our brain that we need to strengthen in order to win and also to continue enjoying the game even in the face of defeat. I hope you’ll use this tool every day for the rest of your life.”

The instructor put his hand out to shake Michael’s hand. “I can’t thank you enough,” Michael said. “You’ve given me my game back. Please let me buy you lunch for taking all of this time today.”

The instructor smiled and said, “Another time; I have to go practice my own self-hypnosis. I recently started studying French, and after that, I have ballroom dancing with my wife. Without this stuff, I wouldn’t have made it past one class. I was all toes. Now? Watch out Dancing with the Stars!”

They laughed as the instructor made his way to the door and out into the bright afternoon. When the door had closed, the young player smiled, closed his eyes, and took a nice, deep, letting-go breath.

The Fourth Step to Mental Freedom

My promise to you from the very beginning of the book was to teach you how to close your eyes and get free—to experience mental freedom and help you overcome the habits that have been chipping away at your self-esteem for years. At this point, I imagine if you scroll through the comments found using our #CloseYourEyesGetFree hashtag on social media, the stories of transformation will already be tremendously profound. To say the very least, I’m so incredibly proud of you.

By this point, if you’ve been following along with the recordings at CloseYourEyesGetFree.com, it’s likely that you already feel more motivated, and you’ve stopped attacking yourself with as much negative self-talk. You’re feeling more relaxed, confident, inspired, you’re sleeping better, and you’ve gained clarity about your life that you have never had before. At this stage, a few people typically comment that they felt very emotional letting all that stuff go. This is perfectly normal, and like everything else in life, it, too, shall pass. It’s also very common at this point in your progress to notice that you’re finally following through on completing work and projects that used to suffer from the habit of procrastination. That’s a hidden benefit we haven’t even discussed yet but will get to shortly. The truly beautiful thing is that I’m sure all of these improvements in your life are also already impacting the people around you for one very simple reason—when you focus on living your best life instead of fixing everyone else, you end up making a lasting contribution to this world. It’s a benefit to everyone who spends time with you.

To prepare you for the fourth step to mental freedom, I want to tell you the story of Calvin. He was the first little boy client I had ever worked with. He was just seven years old and so nervous during our first session that his mom had to sit outside my office and knock the whole time just so that Calvin was sure she was there.

Calvin had a severe eating disorder that had caused countless medical problems for his tiny body. He also had such a plethora of anxiety issues that it was impossible for him to lead a normal life. He had withdrawn from all of his friends and all of the activities he had once loved at school.

During his second hypnosis session with me, Calvin was calmer and less nervous, but there hadn’t been too drastic an improvement since the first session. I went home that night feeling seriously doubtful of my ability to help people. I kept asking myself, “Is this the right job for me? Can I even help anyone?” I felt angry about the state of a world where a sweet child like Calvin would ever have to suffer so much.

Calvin’s mom called me the next day. “What did you do?” My stomach dropped because she said it just like that. No “hi” or “hello.” All I could muster was an eloquent, “Well… um… uh…”

Calvin’s mother interrupted. “Calvin stayed in class all day long without crying, he played with a few children during the day at playtime, he ate some breakfast that morning without any fuss at all, he said he was thinking about going back to swimming class, he said he missed you, and he wants to play Transformers with you, Grace. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I have my little boy back!”

Again that night, I found myself feeling emotional but this time, my thoughts were entirely different. “Hypnosis is so powerful! Everyone needs this!” I felt renewed and inspired, just as I had after that first session with my now father-in-law, Alexandre.

Calvin had a few more sessions, and he continued to improve with flying colors. I can’t begin to tell you the joy I feel knowing that he won’t have to grow up with the negative subconscious programming he had when I first met him. He rid himself of those neuroses when he was young so that he would never have to watch them become stronger and more powerful over the years. Otherwise, those neurons would have continued to wire together into more deeply entrenched habits. This story brings us to step number four in our four steps to mental freedom—giving back.

Think About Others

After working with clients like Alexandre and Calvin, I wanted to help everyone overcome the core issues that hold them back from living their best life, and I wanted to do it as soon as possible before those neural pathways got any stronger. I created something called Grace Space, a “Netflix” of hypnotherapy programs, so that instead of working with one client at a time, which is all I had done up until that point, I could provide thousands of people with full-length hypnotherapy programs simultaneously. I also started live-streaming free hypnosis every day on apps like Periscope and now to growing audiences on Facebook Live.

Through this work I realized something very important that I had known during my college years when I was active with Habitat for Humanity, but which I had slowly and somewhat systematically forgotten while working in corporate America—that helping others, without an agenda or any personal gain, is the most powerful medicine in the world.

Just to be clear, focusing on helping others without taking full responsibility for cleaning up our own mind and life is not anywhere near as helpful as taking responsibility for our own mind and life, even if we never help anyone else. That’s why this is the fourth step to mental freedom and not the first. This is an advanced step.

It doesn’t mean you need to be perfect before you can make a difference in the lives of others. I don’t profess to be anywhere near perfect, but there’s a tendency to hide behind “making a difference in the world” when our own mind is filled with negativity, hate, and anxiety. Once we’ve found a new level of congruency within ourself, taking that peace out into the world is powerful medicine both for us and the people we help.

Remember: Since neurons that fire together wire together, every time you think about your problems and issues, you make them stronger. Interestingly enough, this entire book up until this point has been written for you about you, the habits and beliefs you want to overcome, the incredible life you want to design, your programming, your brain, your emotions, and so on. Although this is all extremely important and helpful, what’s one of the fastest ways to feel better? To stop thinking about yourself so much.

We all know that’s easier said than done. We’re all obsessed with ourselves! Every selfie we take and every heart or like we get makes us even more focused on what other people think of us because even more eyes are watching. I imagine as technology continues to develop, this tendency toward constant self-promotion and the cycle of constantly refreshing to see how many likes we have will only become more compulsive. Luckily there is an antidote.

The one surefire way to get you to stop thinking about yourself? Think about others.

Some people might say that altruism is inherently selfish, and I say, “Who cares?” When we help others, it makes us feel good, not just because we’re helping others but because the conscious mind can’t do two things at once. If your conscious mind is helping someone else, it can’t be thinking about you or your problems. So, it feels good both because it simply feels good, and it feels good because it doesn’t feel bad!

Just imagine going out for a day and helping someone in need—painting someone’s home, reading to less fortunate children, volunteering at a soup kitchen, or making a documentary on your iPhone about how to help stray animals. It’s impossible to feel bad for yourself when you’re focused on helping others. Writing a check can be incredibly powerful, but as far as cultivating tools that help us get out of our own mind, scribbling down a figure and our signature are just not the same as getting out into the world and getting our hands dirty (once we’ve taken the time to get our own mind right).

The truth is that we need one another. Even with all the training I’ve had and with all of the clients I’ve seen, I still go to other hypnotherapists for help. We can’t see our own blind spots because we’re too close to the issue. We’re so deeply embedded in the “story” that it can be extremely difficult for us to recognize that it is, in fact, just a story.

While writing this book, for example, I had to pull out all the stops of every tool I’d ever learned or taught. I realized that everything I created up until that point had a relative impermanence to it. I could delete the Instagram post, I could re-record the Grace Space track, I could edit or take down the YouTube video, and all of my live-streaming would be gone after 24 hours. But this book will be around forever. I told myself before I started writing that it would be fun and even “easy” because I would program my mind to believe that it was, and so it would be.

Well… when I had 20,000 words of the total 65,000 left to write, I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. I was certain everything I had said and would say was absolutely ridiculous and couldn’t help anyone. I felt ashamed about reaching out to my friends, even those who had gone through the exact same thing with their books, because I’m supposed to be the one who helps people overcome their stuff! I’m not supposed to even have “stuff” anymore, let alone find myself curled up in a ball on the couch crying to my husband that I was certain I needed to give the book advance money back to my editor because I was the worst writer on the planet!

The irony of writing this self-help book while I needed more self-help than I had needed in five years wasn’t lost on me. When I wasn’t crying, I was laughing or shaking my head in disbelief. So, what was going on?

I’ve seen this with my clients enough times to know that there are layers to our ascension. When clients first come to me, there are usually a few very emotional sessions early on, during which we clean up past trauma. After that, few tears are shed for a number of sessions as the client builds up confidence. Once the clients hit a tipping point with self-love, the tears come back, but now they’re tears of joy. When that happens, my clients are elated, and feel as if they can do anything. They feel unstoppable, and it’s true! This is usually followed by a big life change—the next step up. Then, what happens? This new level is… well, new! It’s foreign, and the part of us that’s supposed to keep us safe by making sure we continue to do what’s familiar begins to freak out.

This book was the next level for me, and more than one meltdown ensued. The beautiful thing is that I know for sure that the calm confidence will be next, followed by tears of joy. Once my TV show about hypnotherapy is about to air, I’ll likely find myself curled up in a ball again a few times. And that’s okay. (I’m manifesting here: If you’ve loved what you’ve experienced with hypnosis so far, manifest a TV show with me so that we can make hypnosis even more mainstream!)

Every time this cycle happens, especially if we know it’s happening, the distance between sad tears and happy tears seems to get shorter, and the added benefit of perspective takes the edge off a bit. For a person who is truly enlightened, it appears these levels need not occur and that meltdowns are not a part of the trajectory. But, as I’m still decidedly not enlightened, I take solace knowing that my experiences of peace and congruency last longer now than ever. The meltdowns now pass quickly and are few and far between.

When the self-doubt did pop up, how did I break out of it? By shifting the focus from my own insecurities to you, the reader. Whenever I stopped asking my husband, “How does this sound, is that funny, does this make sense, do you think people will like it?” and started asking myself, “How can I best serve my future readers? How can I best provide them with the tools and information that will help them the most?” I could immediately get back to work.

The message here is simple: To interrupt the pattern of self-obsession, stop thinking about yourself so much. Get out into the world and make someone else’s day better. It’s the fourth step to mental freedom because it works like a charm and is an extremely powerful way to change your state of mind. The following script will help you redirect your focus so you, too, can give back as you get free.

Self-Hypnosis Process: Helping Others

I suggest reading through the following directions two or three times before beginning so that you will be able to follow along easily. Remember, there are video tutorials and audio recordings available to you at www.CloseYourEyesGetFree.com that will help you to become a self-hypnosis pro in no time at all.

• Begin by making note of your starting stress level. 10 = a full-blown panic attack and 0 = zero stress, no stress at all, the most relaxed a person can possibly be. Remember this number.

• Sit in a comfortable chair and place your feet flat on the ground, rest your hands gently in your lap.

• With your spine straight but comfortable, take 4 deep, slow breaths, inhaling through the nose for 4 counts and exhaling out the nose for 8 counts.

• Close your eyes and imagine gentle roots growing from the bottom of your feet down into the center of the Earth, grounding you.

• Imagine a color you love flowing in through the top of your head, all the way through your body, out the bottoms of your feet, and down those roots, down into the center of the Earth.

• Bring all of your focus and awareness and attention to the palms of your hands. Perhaps you can feel your palms tingling, perhaps you can feel your heartbeat in your hands, perhaps you notice a sensation of expansion in your hands. Just notice and breathe for a few moments (you can choose whatever length of time feels best, about 30 seconds is my personal favorite).

• With your eyes closed, count down from 10 to 1, saying “I am going deeper and deeper” after each number: Ten, I am going deeper and deeper. Nine, I am going deeper and deeper. Eight, I am going deeper and deeper. Seven, I am going deeper and deeper. Six, I am going deeper and deeper. Five, I am going deeper and deeper. Four, I am going deeper and deeper. Three, I am going deeper and deeper. Two, I am going deeper and deeper. One, I am going deeper and deeper…

• (Optional Step) Next, take a nice, deep letting-go breath, open your eyes, and, if you are comfortably able to do so, pick up this book or tablet and lift it up in the air so that your eyes are reading at an upward diagonal angle. Simply find the line where a wall meets the ceiling in your home. That is approximately where you want the center of your book to be—this does not need to be exact. If you are looking up at a diagonal, you are doing this correctly. Read the following hypno-affirmations at this upward diagonal angle until you have memorized them: I focus on others. I choose to help others. I ask myself, what can I do for the world today.

• Once you have memorized the hypno-affirmations, put the book back down and rest your hands comfortably in your lap.

• With your eyes closed, repeat the following hypno-affirmations you just memorized either silently in your mind or out loud, 10 times: I focus on others. I choose to help others. I ask myself, what can I do for the world today.

• Take another nice, deep, letting-go breath and with your eyes still closed, imagine helping others for the rest of your day until you curl up into bed tonight.

• Once you’ve spent 1–2 minutes imagining the rest of your day filled with good deeds of helping others, imagine the same color as before flowing in through the top of your head, all the way through your body, out the bottoms of your feet, and down those roots into the center of the Earth.

• Put a gentle smile on your lips, open your eyes, stretch your arms over the top of your head, and say, “Yes!”

• Notice your new number on the scale (remember 0 = zero stress, the most relaxed you can be) and congratulate yourself on how quickly you improved your state!

Here is a simple summary of the process in case you need to peek your eyes open at any point for a quick reminder:

• Notice starting stress level from 0 to 10.

• Take 4 deep breaths.

• Grow roots.

• Color.

• Notice your palms.

• Count down from 10 to 1 saying, “I am going deeper and deeper.”

• Hold the book on an upward diagonal angle to memorize the hypno-affirmations.

• Repeat the hypno-affirmations “I focus on others. I choose to help others. I ask myself, what can I do for the world today” 10 times.

• Imagine helping others.

• Color.

• Smile while opening your eyes and say, “Yes!”

• Notice new number on the scale of 0 to 10.

• Congratulate yourself for improving your state so quickly!

In this self-hypnosis process we added the fairly advanced step of memorizing the hypno-affirmations at an upward diagonal angle. Let’s take a look at why this is a powerful hypnotic technique.

Why do we lift the book up and memorize the hypno-affirmations on a diagonal before placing the book back down?

Our eyes tire more quickly when we look up for an extended period of time, which sends a message to our body to relax. Have you ever noticed yourself becoming very tired after staring at a computer screen for hours? You weren’t chopping wood or doing anything extremely physical for hours; you were simply sitting and typing—so why the exhaustion? The eyes become fatigued from the lights, and when the eyes become tired, it sets off a chain reaction for the entire body to relax deeply. In fact, this is why the silly swinging watch was a staple in early hypnosis; it simply tired out the eyes of the client and gave them something to focus on. Reading at an upward angle has a similar tiring effect and it can be very helpful for anyone new to hypnosis to use this technique to relax nice and quickly. You will likely find that you reach the theta brain wave state much faster than before and that you relax deeper now that you have added this step in. That being said, we simply want to be relaxed, not exhausted, so we only lift up the book for the time it takes to memorize those three hypno-affirmations before placing the book back down and resting our hands comfortably in our lap. While lifting it up, the exact location of the book does not matter, so please breathe easy if you are not lining the book up exactly where the wall meets the ceiling; an approximation is perfectly fine. In fact, this entire step is optional, so if it feels like it’s too much, feel free to omit.

Next Steps

Excellent! You have completed the Helping Others self-hypnosis process!

• Now, go ahead and visit www.CloseYourEyesGetFree .com to access this chapter’s hypnosis recording. Pop in your headphones, sit back, relax, and Close Your Eyes, Get Free.

• After you listen to the recording, please let me know how it went! Using the hashtag #CloseYourEyesGetFree on Instagram or Twitter, message me @GraceSmithTV your starting and ending numbers on the stress scale. Please also share with me three ways you plan to make a difference in the lives of others either today or tomorrow. By using the hashtag, you’ll get to see how other readers are improving right alongside you, plus I will have an opportunity to cheer you on!

• Move on to Chapter 9 and keep a lookout for all of the wonderful benefits that, no doubt, you are experiencing as a result of learning the power of hypnosis.