Gay Hypnosis for Self Confidence and Self Esteem

With all the cutting edge self hypnosis techniques available today there is just no reason why any gay man needs to feel the misery of a lack in confidence. For many years I used a questionnaire with all my new clinical hypnotherapy clients. There was a list of 'problems' that clients could read through and tick any that applied to them.

The fascinating thing was that almost ALL of them ticked 'Lack of Confidence' - regardless of what they had come to my clinic for! It was the single most frequent presenting problem- and it remains so to this day.

I soon realised that this issue of negative self perception was almost epidemic for the gay community. It seems that some gay men just get better at hiding it.

In response to this, I made the decision in 1992 to really focus my clinical practice on solving this issue for other gay men as effectively and easily as possible. I fully believe that powerful and natural Self confidence is our birth right - regardless of sexuality .

Everything about us instinctively 'knows' how to feel confident and assertive. We - like all animals - are hard wired for survival. A new born infant will automatically make it's needs felt with every fibre of its being. It doesn't worry about putting it's parent out or making a bad impression!

So - how do we gay men get trained Into a lack of confidence and low self esteem?

Well for any sexual minority this is not a hard one to figure out. Raised in a straight culture where we're made to feel like alien freaks - or worse - as children we go to enormous pains to hide our dark secret. We live with a terrifying fear of rejection if it gets exposed. Often of course that paralysing fear is all too real. Many gay men have had childhoods and school experiences which sounds more like forms of psychological torture.

I'm often amazed at just how resilient we are to survive such extremes of isolation, fear and self loathing. The isolation is I think the most harmful aspect. It's quite unique to sexual minorities.

In effect we are hypnotised by those homophobic early life circumstances - especially those from childhood and early adolescence. It can be a million and one things that combine to steer our innate confidence off track. Childhood fears, lack of reassurance, bad experiences at school can all have a compounding effect and actually influence the natural landscape of the subconscious mind.

These negative experiences then get temporarily hardwired and a kind of neural pathway gets reinforced every time we think or feel those negative feelings.

I sometimes get gay men writing to me saying they think their subconscious must not like them to make them feel these negative feelings. There could be nothing further from the truth. The subconscious mind just does what it's been 'programmed' to do - and the only problem is that it's difficult as an adult to get new and more useful information through to the subconscious part of the brain.

As children it was VERY easy - the subconscious was like a HUGE sponge absorbing all that new information - mostly the learning of language in the very first years of life. But its also forming 'perceptions and beliefs' about everything - including 'self concept' or perception. For us as gay men - what would that message have been?

"I'm the only one who feels this way" - "There's something wrong with me, I'm bad - not good enough, I'm unacceptable". "If they knew the truth they'd abandon me"! "If this ever comes to light I'll die - How could I ever live a happy life"?

The key thing here - is that even when hopefully we're lucky enough to 'come out' and accept ourselves - the issue is that this is a very conscious (adult) process. We may feel completely at peace with our sexuality - but the subconscious mind will still be left with core feelings of low self worth and the impact this has on confidence.

It's like the conscious mind and the subconscious are two very different countries - with different languages and cultures.

This means that we are at the risk of living our entire lives based on the random perceptions of a child! It really is as simple as that. We're ALL of us living in the past - and so it's then just the luck of the draw as to what happened then and far more significantly - how we interpreted that information all those years ago.

This is where its useful to understand a bit about child psychology - in particular something referred to as 'childhood egocentrism'. This describes as period of psychological development where, as young children, we can only see things COMPLETELY from our own perspective. For example - young children of separating parents will almost always see themselves as responsible for what's happening.

This is not because they have been accused or blamed - just that they can't easily see it any other way - "it's all about me isn't it?"

Anyone whose had children (and lots of gay men do!) will easily recognise this pattern of behaviour and perception. Of course it lessens as we get older until we hopefully get quite good at seeing things more accurately.

The problem here is that the chemical and behavioural patterns got set up by a VERY young child. We're left to endure the consequences well into adulthood. It becomes a self -fulfilling prophecy - a kind of sealed loop system in the brain. The more we feel these negative feelings the more likely we are to have negative experiences and so it goes on ... and on!

This is WHY Hypnosis - (and in this context 'gay Hypnosis') really is such a powerful natural phenomenon.

Hypnosis is like the passport taking us to the other country where suddenly we find we have all the right language to communicate very effectively for the first time.

In hypnosis we're able to get accurate and positive information through to the subconscious mind. Once it starts to receive this new information it is able to start a natural process of major reassessment. It's like throwing open the shutters and opening the windows to let the light and fresh air flood in.

In this way - all your conscious understanding is able to finally start to sort things out. It's a bit like freeing that isolated little boy from his prison and letting hi know he's safe and understood.

It's about creating new and powerful resources and behaviours for a totally different (positive) attitude to your life.

Hypnosis is the human brains natural way of creating deep relaxation. It's the stage we pass through when we fall asleep at night - or when we're in a deeply focused day dream - lying on a beach for example. Technically it's alpha state - a particular level of brainwave activity.

In this state the subconscious is more accessible. You're literally more 'open to suggestion'. Old negative (inaccurate) thoughts start to shift - ultimately to be replaced with accurate and productive ones.

Hypnosis in many ways is a kind of short cut - a cheat almost - because you're able to place the thoughts, images and perceptions you now consciously choose to live by - straight into your subconscious mind. So you can magnetize your perfect gay life towards you and truly live a rich and fulfilled life.

About the Author

Matt Kalitowski is a Global Gay Life Coach, Clinical Hypnotherapist and NLP Practitioner. He runs a thriving Phone Coaching Service with gay clients literally anywhere in the world. The Clinical Practice for Gay men and couples is based in Sydney Australia. He is also known for his effective range of cutting edge Self Hypnosis Audio products / Downloads.