Hypnosis Skills Lab
The Inner Operating System is a practical way to pause, notice, receive, and move with clean timing.
Use this page when you want the cards to read more like practice patter. The card faces stay short; this gives each one more breath.
001
No-thing at all. Gather. Yourself. Remember who you are. Drop your shoulders. Relax your jaw. Take one easy breath out.
Everything around you slows down to a stop.
You become more present to the here and now.
Drop your shoulders.
Soften your jaw.
Take in a long, slow, cleansing breath that is so familiar.
As you exhale, allow it to be long, intentionally long. Drift to the end of that exhale and arrive close to yourself, in your own space.
002
Take in a deep breath. As you slowly exhale, remember who you are. Allow the mind to bring you the frame, feeling, and essence of you.
Take in a deep breath, and as you slowly exhale, the mind brings you the frame, the feeling, and the essence of you arriving now.
This is an example. Your own boot statement may use different words, a posture, a place, a person, a prayer, a memory, or one clear instruction that brings you back.
You may begin to feel a big sparkly feeling as you arrive back home. Remember, you are light and free. You are kind and resourceful. You care deeply about others, and that light illuminates the world around you.
Your focus creates waves of love and connectivity wherever you go.
Imagine it now, as you walk or drive through town, on a plane or a train, the wonderful light that is you: colorful and bright, like a lighthouse when others are in the dark. You radiate goodness and truth. People feel safe around you. You breathe and pause as your first move.
You love yourself and others.
And you are free.
003
Drop your shoulders. Relax your jaw. Slow down your exhale. Relax the back of your tongue. Allow your eyes to soften.
Relax and drop your shoulders.
Soften your gaze.
Relax your face.
Allow your mouth to come open, ever so slightly, with a small space between your upper and lower teeth. This relaxed position sends messages of comfort and relaxation throughout your entire body.
Imagine it now: colors of relaxation moving through your body.
Relax. Relax. Relax.
You are in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time, which is here and now.
Gradually slow down your breathing to that long and slow exhalation.
That long and slow exhalation is like a best friend, always taking you right back home.
Slow the breath even more, until you feel as if you have arrived at the Still Point.
Calm and focused mind.
Relaxed and comfortable body.
Expansive and free heart.
004
Feel the space around your body. Allow your awareness to spread wider than the room, as if you have poured yourself across a beautiful canvas.
Bring your attention to a sense of spaciousness all around you.
The more you notice the sense of space, the more spacious you feel.
Allow yourself to spread out and really feel spacious, as much as you want. All the way out, out to the moon, the stars, out to the galaxy.
So spread out.
Finally enough room for everything to unpack, unravel, unfold.
Everything has a space.
And now anything that does not belong to this space is freed.
You feel lighter, calmer, and free.
005
Imagine a point of light at your center, representing your condensed, full state at your highest potential, well organized. Allow it to become brighter, and as it does, feel it in your body. Notice its color. Notice how it feels like you.
Bring your attention to a feeling inside: your soul, your essence.
Now imagine breathing in as your energetic self concentrates to a point of light.
Like a star.
Like a laser.
Very powerful.
This is the kind of power that makes changes with intention.
Breathe in and experience the gravity of the power that is you.
You honor and respect it.
006
Intention names the WHAT. Discernment listens for the WHEN. Settle until the timing is clean enough to move.
Imagine you come to a fork in the road.
Before choosing, you pause.
Not because you are lost.
Because pausing is wise.
Because the pause gives the deeper parts of your mind time to organize, refine, and notice timing.
Take in a deep breath. Focus on no-thing in particular.
Allow the subconscious mind to bring forward a feeling, an image, a knowing, or a simple sense of yes, no, wait, or not yet.
You may notice the Sun and the Moon here.
The Sun asks: what do you want?
The Moon asks: when is the right time?
And if you feel rushed, pause again.
God does not rush.
Sometimes the decision is yes. Sometimes the decision is no.
Sometimes not deciding is the decision.
And sometimes the wise move is the Third Option, the path you could not notice while you were still rushing.
When the next move becomes clear enough, allow yourself to choose it and feel good about choosing.
Note: "God" here means the concept of the divine, not any one tradition: your own divine or wisest self, if that's how you hold it. The point isn't a belief, it's a question: does your wisest self ever need to rush?
007
Think of something you want more of. Notice the smallest movement toward it.
Bring to mind something you want more of.
Not the thing you think you should want. The thing that gives something back to you.
Notice what happens in the body when you think of it.
Does the breath change?
Does the chest lift?
Does the body lean, brighten, open, or become curious?
Even one small movement toward life counts.
That is the beginning.
The body often knows the direction before the conscious mind has finished explaining it.
Allow the body to show you one small movement, and allow that to be enough for now.
008
Catch the old way. Break state. Stop the forward momentum in the unwanted direction. Allow the unwanted to dissipate from awareness.
Away is a perfectly good move.
Sometimes the wise move is not to force yourself toward something better. Sometimes the whole move is to stop the forward momentum in the unwanted direction.
If you want to change direction, stop first.
Not everything is a 180-degree turn.
If you miss your exit on the way to Seattle, you do not keep driving all the way to California.
You get off the freeway.
You stop the old momentum long enough to reorient.
You do not have to hate it. You do not have to make a speech about it.
Catch the old way.
Break state.
Stop.
Allow the unwanted to dissipate from awareness.
Then the stack can continue: Still Point, Discernment, Toward.
And as it does, new understanding unfolds.
From there, Toward can find what is wanted.
009
Pause and notice: what part of you is driving right now? The rushed part, the protective part, the tired part, the wise part?
Before the old response takes the wheel, pause and notice who is driving.
Is it the rushed part?
The protective part?
The tired part?
The part that wants relief right now?
Or the wiser part of you that can notice more of the road?
You are not here to shame any part of yourself.
You are here to notice the driver before you hand over the keys.
That moment of noticing is powerful. It interrupts the automatic path.
It gives the wise self a chance to sit up, breathe, and choose.
010
Pause. Soften. What is it like? What do you notice? Allow the word to become specific enough to work with.
Some words are true, but not yet useful.
Stuck may be true.
Overwhelmed may be true.
Resistant, confused, frozen, tired: all of these may be true.
But the mind can do more when the word becomes experience.
Pause. Soften. Ask: what is it like?
Then ask: what do you notice?
If it is confusion, there may be more than one thing creating interference.
If it is conflict, there is definitely more than one thing creating interference.
If it is stuck, allow the stuckness to become specific.
You may notice a pathway, a pressure, a direction, a texture, a rhythm, a location, a shape, or a knowing.
There is a pathway. You are moving along. Then, boom. Stuck.
Is that true?
Now ask the deeper parts of the mind: what would it take to move through and beyond this stuckness?
Punch through it. Evaporate through it. Let it dissipate. Find the opening. Move through and beyond.
011
Ask: what is the what? What am I giving my powers of focus to right now?
Focus has a cost.
It costs time.
It costs energy.
It uses the powers of attention.
So ask yourself: what is the what?
What am I giving my powers of focus to right now?
Is this worthy of my focus?
Is this useful?
Is this mine?
The brain can scatter, and sometimes scattering is useful.
But when you gather focus, allow it to gather around something worth having.
Allow the lens to become clear. Allow your focus to serve your life.
012
Find the smallest evidence that something is already moving in a better direction. Count it. Allow it to matter.
Small success counts.
Noticing sooner is success.
Stopping sooner is success.
Catching yourself is success. Choosing one breath is success.
You do not have to wait for the whole mountain to move before you recognize movement.
Find the smallest evidence that something is already moving in a better direction.
Count it.
Allow it to matter.
This is how the upward spiral begins.
Not with perfection.
With recognition.
With the moment you say: oh, I caught it, and now I am doing something different.
013
Drop your shoulders. Relax your jaw. Slow down your exhale. Relax the back of your tongue. Allow your body to come back to center.
The Alpha Sequence is the practiced pathway into the Still Point.
Drop your shoulders.
Relax your jaw.
Slow down your exhale.
Relax the back of your tongue.
Allow your eyes to soften.
Allow the body to recognize this sequence. It is simple on purpose.
Simple enough to remember.
Simple enough to use.
Simple enough to become yours.
And as the body comes back to center, the mind begins to follow.
From center, the next move becomes easier to know.
014
Notice the message arriving. Is this hunger, anger, tiredness, boredom, loneliness, or missing fulfillment?
A craving is not random.
It is not simply an enemy passing by like the wind.
It is often a message.
It may be hunger.
It may be anger.
It may be tiredness, boredom, loneliness, or missing fulfillment.
It may be comfort.
It may be a change of state.
Notice the message arriving.
Receive the message.
Honor the need.
Then choose the path that gives back to your life instead of borrowing from tomorrow's happiness.
015
Imagine one delicious bite, or one beautiful ski turn, or one breath under blue water. Taste it, feel it, enjoy it, and allow the body to receive.
The mind can imagine pleasure in enough detail for the body to receive some of the benefit.
So imagine one delicious bite.
Not the whole thing.
One perfect bite.
Taste it.
Feel it.
Enjoy it.
Or imagine one beautiful ski turn. One breath under blue water. One slow morning with light coming through the window.
Allow the body to receive through imagination.
This is not pretending in a childish way. This is practicing the mind's ability to re-experience, receive, and be nourished by what is good.
016
Look at the path you keep taking. Then make one good thing more convenient: the walk, the water, the art room, the recording, the chair.
Convenience is powerful.
The convenient thing gets chosen more often.
That is not a character flaw.
That is design.
So look at the path you keep taking.
What is easy to reach?
What is already set up?
What is calling for you every day?
Then make one good thing more convenient.
The water.
The walk.
The art room.
The recording.
The chair.
Put the better path where your life can find it.
017
When you catch yourself, say: oh, I caught it. This is where I used to keep going. Now I am doing it differently.
The catch counts.
Awareness is the first movement.
When you catch yourself, say: oh, I caught it.
This is where I used to keep going. This is where I used to make it worse.
This is where I used to turn one mis-take into a collapse. And now I am here.
Now I am pausing.
Now I am doing it differently.
Allow the catch to become dopamine. Allow the catch to become fulfillment.
Allow the catch to become evidence that the new pathway is already forming.
018
Start with the word. Ask: what is it like? What do you notice?
This is the universal metaphor gate.
Not what does it mean.
Not why is it here.
What is it like?
Some minds give images.
Some give sensation, movement, pressure, temperature, rhythm, memory, location, sound, color, shape, or knowing.
The move is not to make a picture.
The move is to allow the vague word to become experience.
And once the experience becomes specific, you can begin to work with the mind in its own richer language.
019
If the mind gives you a garden, road, room, pressure, sound, rhythm, or knowing, stay with it. Notice what belongs there and what changes.
One good metaphor gives the mind a world to work inside.
If the mind gives you a garden, stay in the garden.
Notice the soil.
The gate.
The weather.
The path.
The tools.
What is growing.
What needs light.
What needs water.
What needs to be removed.
You do not have to rush out of the metaphor to explain it.
Stay long enough for the metaphor to become useful.
Let it teach.
020
Add the missing information. Add the price tag, the warning label, the truth-in-advertising line, or the sense from ten steps back.
Sometimes the problem is not willpower.
Sometimes the problem is that the experience is incomplete.
So add the missing information.
Add the price tag.
Add the warning label.
Add the truth-in-advertising line.
Add the sense from ten steps back.
Allow the mind to notice the whole experience.
Not just the quick relief. Not just the bright wrapper. Not just the first five minutes.
The whole experience gives discernment something real to work with.
021
Stress creates a fog: hard to see, hard to move. Center your awareness. Pause. Allow the fog to dissipate, and clarity arrives.
Sometimes stress creates a fog.
When there is fog on the road, you do not speed up.
You slow down.
You give yourself more room. You allow the fog to dissipate.
And as the fog begins to clear, clarity arrives.
You may not need a brand new road. You may simply need clearer weather.
So slow down.
Drop your shoulders.
Relax your jaw.
Allow the breath to lengthen.
Make the next decision from clearer weather.
022
Decide before the pressure arrives: that road is no longer mine. I am choosing life instead.
Some old roads are no longer on the menu.
You decide before the pressure arrives: that road is no longer mine. I am choosing life instead.
Not because someone took the road away from you. Because you are done giving your life to it.
Imagine removing that path as an option.
Not dramatically.
Clearly.
Cleanly.
The way you would change course if you missed the exit, instead of continuing all the way to California or Mexico.
You can change course.
You can choose life instead.
023
Cultivate anticipation on purpose. Make the good thing close, clear, vivid, meaningful, and worth having. Once it is stable, you can learn to generate it on purpose.
A strong towards gives the mind something worth moving for.
Meaning gives that movement a reason to last.
What does this mean to you?
How do you change as a person?
How does this change your life?
Some towards can be generated with a reliable process: music on the way to work.
A ritual.
A place.
A song.
A beginning that works every time.
And some towards must be cultivated.
Tended.
Given light.
Given detail.
Given proximity, certainty, immediacy, and sensory detail.
Cultivate the good thing until it becomes close enough, clear enough, vivid enough, meaningful enough, and worth having.
Then, when it is stable, you may learn to generate it on purpose.
024
Check the dials: proximity, certainty, immediacy, and sensory detail. Then ask what it means.
Anticipation gets stronger when you turn up the right dials.
Meaning gives the dials somewhere to point.
Proximity.
Certainty.
Immediacy.
Sensory detail.
Is the good thing close enough?
Does the mind believe it is possible enough?
Can some part of it begin soon enough?
Can you notice it as sensation, sound, image, movement, taste, scent, color, temperature, pressure, or knowing in the body?
You do not have to turn every dial at once.
Choose the dial that changes the experience.
Then turn that one.
Allow the towards to become more real.
025
Imagine or sense them in the next room, lighter somehow, with a real laugh or the feeling of a smile you remember. Place your wish in your heartspace and bring that energy when you think of them.
WISH is for the moments when you care deeply and cannot make the outcome happen.
Imagine or sense the person you love in the next room.
You are not in the room with them. You are holding them from a loving distance.
The sun is pouring in.
You may hear them laugh, or simply know that something has softened.
A genuine laugh.
You may see a smile on their face, or feel the smile you remember.
And from your heart, you offer a wish.
Not a demand.
Not control.
A wish.
May you remember how amazing you are.
May you find peace.
May you receive the help that is right for you.
Place that wish in your heartspace, like a clear ornament holding light.
And when you think of them, bring this love, this energy, this grace.
This is what you can offer.
And because you change, something changes.
026
Capture the state as best you can. Notice breath, face, jaw, shoulders, hands, posture, color, texture, temperature, light. Write the words that bring it back.
A state can be noticed, named, practiced, and returned to.
Capture the state as best you can.
Notice the breath.
The face.
The jaw.
The shoulders.
The hands.
The posture.
Notice color, texture, temperature, and light.
Give the state a word, symbol, sound, color, movement, or knowing.
Write the words that bring it back.
This is how the card becomes more than information.
It becomes a doorway.
And later, when you read it again, the body remembers.
The state returns.
The next move becomes easier.
027
Imagine or sense the words, moods, or weather of the day rolling off like water from a duck's back. Notice what remains yours.
Some things can touch the surface without entering the system.
Allow the words, moods, or weather of the day to roll off like water from a duck's back.
Not because you are numb.
Because you are clear.
Notice what is not yours to carry.
Notice what remains yours.
Allow the surface to release what the deeper self does not need to hold.
028
If it feels like a wall, notice again. Is there a door, a handle, a gate, a window, a ladder, or a path around?
A wall may be real, but it may not be the whole experience.
If it feels like a wall, let it be a wall for a moment.
Notice its height.
Notice its texture.
Notice where it begins and where it ends.
Then notice again.
Is there a door?
A handle?
A gate?
A window?
A ladder?
A path around?
The wall may be information. It may not be the final answer.
029
Notice the buzzing. Let it settle enough to find one flower, one direction, one next useful place to land.
Busy energy can move everywhere without moving toward what matters.
Notice the buzzing.
Not wrong.
Not bad.
Just busy.
Allow the buzzing to settle enough to find one flower.
One direction.
One next useful place to land.
Then land there, and let that be enough for now.
030
Allow the mind to consider three clean possibilities: through, over, around.
A block is not always solved by pushing harder in one direction.
Allow the mind to consider three clean possibilities.
Through.
Over.
Around.
Through may be direct.
Over may require perspective.
Around may require patience and a wider view.
031
Notice the old road clearly. Then notice the new road forming: perhaps smaller, quieter, cleaner, and more alive.
The old road may be familiar without being yours anymore.
Notice the old road clearly.
Notice how often you have traveled it.
Notice where it goes.
Notice what it costs.
Then allow the new road to begin to form.
It may be smaller.
Quieter.
Cleaner.
More alive.
You do not have to make the old road disappear.
You choose the road that gives back.
032
Imagine the bridge between where you are and where you are going. Notice what it is made of, and where it begins.
A bridge allows the mind to move from here to there without pretending the gap is gone.
Notice where you are.
Notice where you are going.
And now notice the bridge between the two.
What is it made of?
Wood, stone, light, rope, trust, practice, timing?
You do not need the whole crossing right now.
You need to know where it begins.
033
Allow the river to show you the movement. Around the stone, between the banks, toward the opening that is already there.
A river does not fight the stone and does not disappear into it.
It finds the next open path.
Allow the river to show you the movement.
Around the stone.
Between the banks.
Toward the opening that is already there.
This is not giving up.
This is movement choosing its way.
034
Add the missing price tag. Not as punishment. As truth-in-advertising for the whole experience.
Some choices feel different when the hidden price tag becomes available.
Add the missing price tag.
Not as punishment.
As truth-in-advertising for the whole experience.
What does this cost later?
What does it borrow from tomorrow?
What does it take from your energy, time, body, focus, or freedom?
When the whole experience is available, the choice can change.
035
Allow the mind to add the missing piece: the context, the timing, the need, the truth, the resource, or the next small movement.
Sometimes the mind cannot move because one piece of the experience is missing.
Allow the mind to add the missing piece.
The context.
The timing.
The need.
The truth.
The resource.
The next small movement.
When the missing piece arrives, the experience changes.
And when the experience changes, the next move may become obvious.
036
From the Still Point, allow. Stop pushing, chasing, and crowding the system.
Allowing is a state.
It is close to stillness, but not identical.
Stillness is the center point.
Allowing is what happens when stillness has enough trust in it.
The system stops interfering.
No gripping.
No forcing.
No bracing.
No rushing.
This is active non-interference.
From the Still Point, allow.
Notice what changes when you stop forcing.
037
When something feels weird, silly, strange, or like it does not make sense, pause. Allow it to count. Notice what the weird thing may be showing you.
Sometimes the answer arrives first as, "that's weird."
The conscious mind may discount it because it does not make sense yet.
But that weird thing may be exactly where the signal is.
It may point to conflict.
It may point to confusion.
It may point to something the deeper mind is trying to make available.
Let weird count before you explain it away.
Pause there.
Notice what the weird thing may be showing you.