Harnessing Your Mind’s Natural Focus
Your brain is always listening—so what are you telling it to focus on?"
Our minds are incredibly powerful, and the Reticular Activating System (RAS) plays a key role in shaping our reality. Acting like a personal assistant for your brain, the RAS filters and prioritizes information, bringing your attention to what aligns with your thoughts, beliefs, and goals. As a hypnotherapist, I see this as a powerful tool for transformation—when we work with the subconscious, we can train the RAS to notice opportunities, solutions, and pathways that support the changes we want to make. Understanding and harnessing this process can be a key step in aligning your dreams with reality and creating lasting transformation in your life.
So, what is the science behind RAS? your brain receives massive amounts of sensory information, sights, sounds, smells and heaps of other details. Your conscious mind can only process a fraction of The daily intake.
The RAS, a bundle of nerves located in the brainstem, acts like a gatekeeper, filtering out unnecessary stimuli and allowing in what aligns with your current focus and beliefs.
Ever noticed how when you're thinking of buying a certain type of car, you start seeing it everywhere? That’s your RAS at work. The car was always there, but now your brain is actively scanning for it because it has been marked as necessary. This same process applies to any area of life—whether it’s finding new opportunities, boosting confidence, or improving relationships.
So, how can you intentionally direct your RAS to work in your favour? The key lies in consciously setting your focus.
Here are some simple but powerful ways to do that:
Define Your Goals Clearly – Your RAS thrives on specificity. Rather than saying, “I want to be successful,” define precisely what success means to you. Clarity primes your brain to notice the right opportunities, whether it's a new career, financial stability, or personal growth.
Engage in Daily Visualization – The more vividly you imagine achieving your goals, the more your brain perceives them as real. Close your eyes and picture yourself living your ideal life—what do you see, hear, and feel? This process strengthens the neural pathways that support goal achievement.
Use Positive Affirmations – Repeating empowering statements like “I am confident and capable” helps reinforce the beliefs you want to adopt. Your RAS will start filtering in evidence that supports these, affirmations making them feel more natural over time.
Surround Yourself with Reinforcement – The people, media, and environments you engage with shape your subconscious. Read books, listen to podcasts, and spend time with those who align with your aspirations. This primes your brain to focus on success.
Take Inspired Action – While mindset is crucial, action solidifies results. When your RAS presents opportunities aligned with your goals, seize them! This reinforces the connection between intention and reality.
Harnessing Your Mind’s Natural Focus: This is where hypnotherapy becomes a powerful tool for transformation. The subconscious mind influences the Reticular Activating System (RAS), and hypnosis works by directly accessing this deeper level of awareness. While traditional mindset shifts often rely on willpower alone, hypnosis allows us to bypass the critical, analytical mind and communicate directly with the subconscious. And that is exactly where the RAS operates.
Your beliefs, habits, and thought patterns are stored in the subconscious. Suppose you've ever struggled with self-doubt or limiting beliefs. In that case, your RAS has likely been unconsciously reinforcing those patterns—filtering in experiences that confirm them and filtering out evidence to the contrary. We can rewrite these mental scripts through guided hypnosis, clearing old roadblocks and installing new, empowering beliefs directly to the subconscious.
This shift is profound. Instead of your RAS unconsciously prioritizing self-sabotaging thoughts or reinforcing outdated fears it, actively seeks confidence, opportunities, and success. The more you engage with hypnosis, the stronger these new neural pathways become, making positive change feel natural and effortless.
Your mind is an extraordinary instrument, and your RAS is the key to unlocking its full potential. When you learn to direct your subconscious focus with hypnosis, you’re no longer just hoping for life to align with your desires—you’re actively programming your mind to make it happen. You can shape your reality through, visualisation affirmations or the deep reprogramming power of hypnosis. So, what will you focus on today?
Let’s work together to harness the power of your subconscious and create the life you truly want.