The Art of Simply Being: Understanding Meditation, Hypnosis, and the Nature of Thought

Meditation is often wrapped in mystery, imagined as something reserved for monks, gurus, or people seeking an unreachable state of bliss. In truth, meditation is beautifully simple. It is the deliberate act of stepping back from your thoughts and allowing yourself to simply be.

Imagine your thoughts as clouds drifting across the sky. You can watch them pass from a distance — or you can jump onto one and allow it to carry you away into stories, feelings, and memories. When you become absorbed in a single thought, it is as though you have climbed onto a cloud and been swept along by it.

But here lies the most important realisation: you are not the clouds. Just as the sky remains vast and unchanged no matter what passes through it, you are not your thoughts. Thoughts arise in the mind — but they are not who you are.

Consider a knife spreading butter. The knife is a tool; it performs an action, but it is not the act itself. Likewise, the mind produces thoughts — but those thoughts do not define your essence. When we mistakenly identify with our thoughts, we fall into the illusion that they are what we are.

Ask yourself the question, “Who am I?” You may reply, “I am kind,” “I am a teacher,” “I am creative.” Each of these answers is a thought, a label. So who — or what — is the “I” that notices those thoughts appearing?

Meditation gives you space to step back and recognise thoughts for what they are: passing movements within awareness. In this space beyond identification, you experience presence, calm, and clarity — a settling into your true awareness.

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Meditation and Hypnosis — How They Differ and How Both Can Help

Meditation and hypnosis both work with the mind, but they do so in very different ways — and each has a powerful role in personal change and wellbeing.

Meditation: Observing the Mind

In meditation, you cultivate open awareness. Thoughts arise and pass, and rather than engaging with them, you gently return to stillness. Over time, meditation helps you:

• Develop emotional resilience
• Reduce stress and anxiety
• Increase clarity and self-awareness
• Experience a deeper sense of peace and presence

Meditation does not try to change thoughts. Instead, it helps you disidentify from them, revealing that you are more than the stories the mind creates.

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Hypnosis: Working with the Subconscious Mind

Hypnosis engages the mind in a different way. Rather than stepping back from thoughts, hypnosis guides you into focused attention and deep relaxation, where the subconscious mind becomes highly receptive to positive suggestion.

In this state, unhelpful patterns, habits, or beliefs can be gently reshaped. Hypnosis is commonly used to support people with:

• Confidence and self-esteem
• Phobias and anxieties
• Smoking cessation and habit change
• Weight management and emotional healing
• Stress reduction and personal growth

Where meditation helps you observe thoughts, hypnosis helps you transform them.

Meditation opens awareness. Hypnosis directs it.

Both can lead to profound change — one through stillness, the other through guided inner work.

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Expert Hypnotherapy on the Isle of Man

At Setanta Hypnotherapy Clinic in Peel, Isle of Man, highly experienced hypnotherapist Mary Nathan has been serving the Manx community for more than 20 years. Combining professional expertise with compassionate care, Mary uses clinical hypnosis to help clients overcome emotional and psychological barriers, rediscover confidence, and create genuine, lasting change.

Whether you are seeking the calm clarity of meditation or the transformative effect of hypnosis, both approaches can guide you towards a healthier relationship with your thoughts — and a deeper connection with your true self.

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Conclusion

The next time you sit in meditation, remember: you are not your thoughts. You are the awareness behind them — the calm, steady sky through which thoughts pass.

And when you choose hypnosis, you are choosing to work compassionately with the mind — reshaping patterns that no longer serve you and opening the door to change.

Both practices, in their own way, help you return to what has always been there: your natural state of presence, peace, and inner strength.

Contact

Please use our website Appointment Page to book a Free consultation with Mary.