How To Stop Thumb Sucking

Hello, I'm Ben Hass. I'm a certified hypnotherapist, and I'm going to show you tools and techniques to help you unlock your potential. I'm going to show you how you can stop thumb-sucking.

Make sure you're relaxed and comfortable, that you're not going to be disturbed for the next couple of minutes, and we'll begin. What do you see, feel, and hear when you get that urge to suck your thumb? Perhaps you can trigger those feelings just by bringing your thumb to your mouth. Pretend your eyes are cameras, and take a snapshot of that moment.

We're going to call this your 'cue picture.' Now close your eyes, and we're going to create a new picture, this time with yourself in it. How are you going to look when you've made the changes you desire? Put this in the picture, notice how you feel, what you can see, and what you can hear.

Let's add some positive qualities to this, like confidence and inner strength, and anything else you desire, anything else desirable - just chuck it in. We're going to call this your 'desired outcome photo.' Now, take this picture and make it bigger, double its size.

Make it brighter. Make it even brighter - amplify that brightness. That's right.

Make it fill the whole of your mind's eye. Now, just send it way off in the distance. Now, clear your mind, make it blank again, and we're going to bring back that cue picture, the first picture.

Bring back that snapshot. Now, I want you to make this big again, so make it really big and really clear. But in the bottom left-hand corner, I want you to put the desired outcome picture, but it's going to be very dim.

In a moment, I'm going to say the word, 'swish,' and when I do, I want you to shrink down the cue picture and make really bright and really big so it covers the whole of the cue picture, that desirable outcome picture. And we're going to do this quickly in the time it takes me to say 'swish.' So, are you ready? Let's go.

'Swish!' Good. Open your eyes. We're going to try that again.

So, close your eyes, get the original - the cue picture up, make sure it's filling the whole screen, that it's bright and clear, and in the bottom left-hand corner, we have the desired outcome photo. And we're going to make that desired outcome photo really big and bright, so that it covers the cue picture. Are you ready? And 'Swish!' Good.

We're going to do it a couple more times. Open your eyes. Close them again.

And 'Swish!' one more time. Open your eyes. Close your eyes.

And 'Swish!' Excellent. Take a break for ten minutes, and when you come back, think about that old habit, and notice how you think about it differently, and how when you think about it, the new desired outcome comes to mind. You may find that no matter how hard you try, this new desirable outcome comes straight to your mind.

And that's how you stop thumb-sucking. .