I have been thinking a lot about doors lately.
Not the classic rock band The Doors – quick, don’t think about Jim Morrison singing, “C’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon now TOUCH me babe!”
You thought about Jim Morrison, didn’t you? Or maybe you don’t know who Jim Morrison is. Don’t google him or the song Touch Me until you’re done reading this, okay?
Good, now don’t think about standing in front of a door. It’s right in front of you.
And now that you are thinking about a door, you might as well take a closer look. Inspect it. See what you notice about it. You can close your eyes for a minute to help you get a really good look at it.
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Welcome back.
What did you see? I saw a heavy wooden door with one of those metal lion heads holding a door-knocker ring in its mouth in the center. It had carved wooden beams framing it and it was set in a stone wall.
Now, in a moment you will go back to your door again, but this time go ahead and open it and see what you find on the other side. You can close your eyes now.
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Interesting. What did you see?
When I opened my door I saw a bright white light filling the frame. As I walked through, there were a few seconds of nothingness – just more white light. Then I saw a lion standing there. It looked regal and calm, kind of like an old storybook illustration of a lion. It wanted me to walk alongside it and then we were walking together. I couldn’t really see the path or the environment around us. Then I got distracted because I am sitting in a coworking space and there is a lot of background noise and movement happening around me.
All of this happened, and all I did was think “door” and close my eyes.
That is the power of the door as a symbol. It implies with its very existence that there is something different on the other side. It is a boundary, a threshold, a demarcation. It separates two different spaces.
The human mind makes sense of everything in terms of spatial relationship, movement, and force/intensity. Relationships between people, situations, agreements, abstract concepts, emotions, everything. Whether we are aware of it or not, our brains process everything we think and experience this way.
When you are “stuck” in a job that you hate, you aren’t physically stuck there – no one has tied you to your desk (hopefully), and yet you will behave as though you are physically unable to leave it. I know from experience that it can feel extremely scary and dangerous to leave a steady job. When I think back to that feeling, it was definitely spatial. It was as if the job was a moving train and I was safe riding inside, but I had to cramp myself to fit into my seat and the train was taking me in the wrong direction.
My unconscious mind – and as a result, my body – believed that leaving the job required me to literally jump out of a moving train car, possibly breaking my bones in the fall, and then surviving alone in the desert wasteland stretching out around the train tracks. Of course, I understood rationally that none of that was physically real, but until I evolved that unconscious metaphor to something that felt safe, my unconscious mind wouldn’t let me put in my resignation.
And so doors – and in my definition of doors here I am including gates, portals, archways, tunnels, cave entrances, etc – are incredible symbols of transition. By moving through a door you are moving between realities. Your unconscious mind feels it intuitively. Transitioning from indoors to outdoors, from a space for relaxing to a space for working, from a place of uncertainty to a place with answers, from danger to safety. On the other side of the door you may find a new environment, a new feeling, a new version of yourself, a forgotten memory, a new life chapter, a treasure chest full of gold, or simply a different room.
Doors are one of my favorite symbols to use in hypnotic journeys when I am guiding a client on a search for insights, but they can be great for self-hypnosis meditations too. The key (pun intended) to opening the door to a truly impactful experience is priming. You want to signal to your unconscious mind that there is something significant on the other side of the door, and set the stage for it to show you what you need to see.
As you experienced earlier – if you weren’t too busy singing The Doors’ 1969 classic Touch Me to be able to concentrate – simply thinking “door” can create a cool experience in itself, but it can be a bit random. Why did I see a lion? I have no idea. Maybe it’s because my wife has been playing that I Always Wanted a Brother song from the new Lion King movie. But if you were already primed for a breakthrough without realizing it, the door might have spontaneously given you an answer to something you have been mulling over. If you had a revelation earlier, congratulations!
If not, try asking yourself this: What kind of answer am I looking for?
And then: When I get an answer about _____, what difference will that make for me?
And then: And when that happens, what difference will that make?
Take a minute to imagine and daydream until you have thoroughly immersed yourself, and new ideas and imagery are appearing. You can write down key words and feelings, and note any metaphors that come up around the subject.
Now, begin priming yourself to find the answers behind your door.
As an example, when I am guiding a client who wants to find greater confidence, that might sound something like this – and keep in mind that all of the key words are based on things that have come up in our conversation leading up to the exercise. This part would follow a quick meditation to relax and begin to drift inward:
Find yourself now, walking on a path. You get the sense that this path is leading you exactly where you need to go to find what you are looking for. Where you can find confidence – the kind of confidence where you can stand tall, acting decisively, feeling authentically you. The kind of confidence that is unshakeable, like a bright orange light, starting in your gut and spreading up into your heart, into your head, and out into every part of your body. When you can really feel a bright orange light like this, any feelings of doubt, of not being good enough, of being judged, all flow down out of your body and into the ground, and the orange gets brighter and brighter, and stronger and stronger. Feel that light starting to spread now, because with each step you take, you are getting closer, and closer, and closer to confidence like this.
And now, you find yourself standing in front of a door, and once again you sense that the answers to really feeling this kind of confidence are here, behind this door. And being who you are now, do you feel ready to open the door?
This is an important moment, because sometimes you won’t be ready to open the door yet. It is so loaded with meaning by now that going through the door has serious implications. In this case, going through the door means that your unconscious mind believes that this kind of confidence is possible and accessible for you.
Sometimes you need to find a key first. Sometimes you need to change something about yourself before entering. You may need help from someone, or from another version of yourself. Sometimes you need to ask the door if you will be able to come back out again, and have it reassure you that you will. In that place within you, standing in front of the door, ask what needs to happen for you to be able to open it, and your mind will show you.
Then… walk through. See what is on the other side. Explore, and see what kind of symbols, objects, messages, creatures, and people you find. Interact with them. Have fun. Have a breakthrough. It is incredible what your mind will show you.
Another fun exercise is setting an intention and priming yourself before walking through a physical door in waking life. You can pick a cool door in a place that is significant for you, like a stone archway deep in the woods, or an ornate wooden door in an old building. Think to yourself, “As I walk through this door, I will feel confidence, like a ball of bright white light in my heart, expanding and filling my body from head to toe.” Really pay attention to the experience of walking through the door, and see what happens.
I used to use a variation of this when I was commuting into Manhattan on the subway, heading to that dreaded corporate job I was talking about earlier. On especially bad days, I would play some Linkin Park or System of a Down on my earbuds, really leaning into the spirit of teen anguish and allowing myself to feel it. Then, as we approached my stop, I would think to myself, “As I step through the train doors and walk through the station, I will become the person I need to be to make it through today. I will see today as an opportunity to learn more about myself and my ability to get through situations of discomfort and frustration. By the time I walk up the stairs and onto the street, my rage will be transmuted into determination and my energy will go towards creating a path out of this situation.”
If I needed some extra oomph, I would press play on Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!! by the Vengaboys right as I stepped out of the train doors. It’s impossible to go from Nu Metal to Vengaboys and not feel a shift happen. Many days I laughed my way up the steps among all the scowling commuters, and as I emerged out onto the sidewalk, a flock of pigeons would flap up into the air and I would smile up at the sky.
Give it a try sometime!
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I participated in an inner child workshop yesterday – I had a little table set up selling my Self-Transformation Journals and doing live hypnotic gift sessions. There was a cool synchronicity – Two different participants received the same gift from their unconscious on the other side of their door – a magic wand that gave them the power to create their own world. It was beautiful to witness each of them smiling and laughing as they created a new world full of possibilities.
Your unconscious mind knows just how incredible you are and how awesome your life can be. You can feel it, can’t you? It wants to evolve the mental blocks and limiting beliefs into unstoppable confidence and happiness and joy and peace and ease.
It really can be as easy as breaking on through to the other side.