Mar
2
2009
Conversational Hypnosis in Marriage
Author: robYou may not realize it, but you probably negotiate something almost every day.
Most of the time you are negotiating small stuff, like where to go to dinner with friends, or who’s turn it is to do the dishes.
But sometimes negotiations are much bigger. Like if buy a house or a car. Maybe you have to negotiate with suppliers or customers at work.
Using conversational hypnosis techniques can help you no matter what type of negotiating you do.
Let’s look at an example.
Wife: “Honey, its your turn to do the dishes.”
Husband: “No it’s not. I did them last night.”
Wife: ”Last night doesn’t count! We brought Chinese food in and used paper plates. You only washed 2 forks and 2 spoons.”
Husband: “Are you kidding me? We had a deal that we would take turns. It doesn’t matter how many dishes there are. It’s not my fault you wanted Chinese last night.”
Wife: “Chinese was your idea! Tonight I cooked and we have a kitchen full of dishes. I’m not doing them. It’s your turn!”
And so it goes…
What do you think will happen here? Maybe the husband does the dishes, or maybe he doesn’t. Either way, this kind of negotiation has a winner, and a loser. Somebody’s not going to be happy. In this example she is trying to force him to do them.
So what could the wife do different to get her husband to do the dishes? First, she could use some basic conversational hypnosis methods to get him to agree to do the dishes.
Here’s how it works
Before I tell you specifics you need to understand something very important about conversational hypnosis. When you use what I am about to show you, you are actually speaking to the subconscious mind.
Why is that important? Well, because the subconscious mind is the keeper of most of our knowledge. You and I are only aware of a very little of what we know. That’s because usually the subconscious mind let’s only the most important or urgent knowledge surface in our conscious mind.
Also, the subconscious mind is the real guardian of our values and ethics. You may think you know what you stand for… but sometimes you may be surprised. In fact, if most of us wrote down what was most important to us on a piece of paper, then had someone video us for a month, then compared what we did with what we said we believe in… well, most of us would be surprised…
So when you use hypnosis of any kind, you are getting past the conscious beliefs and speaking to the subconscious mind. By doing this you can really influence other people to do a lot of things, as long as those things don’t violate that person’s real values.
One of the reasons why conversational hypnosis is so good to use in negotiations is that most negotiations are not about people’s values, but are usually about benefits of some kind.
You usually wouldn’t negotiate your beliefs… you may argue or discuss them, but if you are willing to trade them for something material than you may not really believe what you think you believe.
So the husband in this example probably is not morally opposed to doing the dishes. He probably just doesn’t want to do them.
The wife can convince him to do the dishes, or maybe even make him want to do them, by using conversational hypnosis.
So how can she get him to want to do the dishes?
The first thing the wife can do is pick the right time and place to ask about the dishes. The middle of the superbowl is probably not the right time. Wait until he is not busy, relaxed and in a good mood.
The second thing the wife can do is make sure that she is in “rapport” with her husband. Rapport means that the wife and husband are happy to be around each other at the time, and that he is not suspicious of her motives. So if she tries to “butter him up” and it does not make sense to him, for whatever reason, they will not be in rapport with each other. Part of this is timing, the other part is that it has to be normal for the relationship.
When the wife knows she is in rapport with the husband, she can choose words that help the husband want to do the dishes. This can seem complicated, but when you do it, it’s actually very easy.
Rather than tell you all about the different types of words to use, Ill show you in the example.
Wife: “Hi honey. Did you enjoy dinner?”
Husband: “Yes it was great. I love your lasagna. Thanks for working so hard in the kitchen tonight.”
Wife: ”That’s ok. I had a break last night with the Chinese. I’m glad you had that idea. It made dinner a lot easier, and there were not many dishes.”
Husband: “It was good. I only had some forks and knives to wash. And I didn’t have to cook.”
Wife: “I know. It was nice to be able to relax after dinner. There are a ton of dishes to do tonight. Are you going to do them, now, or later?”
Husband: “I haven’t thought about it. I guess last night didn’t count. I’ll do them before bed.”
Wife: “Thanks honey. If you want we can do them together.”
So what was different this time?
For one thing, the wife “eased” into the negotiation and built some rapport with her husband. He even told her how much he appreciated her hard work in the kitchen.
She kept building rapport during the conversation by thanking him for the Chinese. She also slowly set the frame by subtly pointing out how easy the dishes were when they had Chinese.
When she asked her husband about doing the dishes she used what is called a “double bind” and an “embedded command.”
A double bind is when the question only gives the person choices that end in the same result. So she gave him the choices of either doing the dishes now, or doing them later. She did not give him the choice of not doing the dishes.
An embedded command is when a command is “hidden” in a sentence or question. When she asked her husband about the dishes, she told him to “do them” in the question.
And finally, she continued to build rapport when she offered to do the dishes together. That’s not only good for tonight, but the next time she negotiates with her husband, his subconscious will remember it!
You may think “that would never happen!” But you will be surprised what happens when you learn more about conversational hypnosis and start using it in your daily negotiations.
