The Transparent Hypnotist

I’m back with my coffee cup in hand. I really missed you all this past week.

With little Internet access these last several days and much time for contemplation, I discovered a simple truth of life. It is up to each of us to pay attention to ourselves, help others when we can, but to know that there are some things others must do for themselves. Perhaps this seems simplistic, but I think it is so easy for each of us (do gooders) to charge in without thought of consequence to rescue someone from themselves. Things difficult for others seem so easy for us to decipher, and there we are, feet past the threshold, perhaps taking over, making comments and suggestions to ease someone else’s burdens, especially loved ones. But truth be told, by doing for one’s self or letting others proceed without interruption is a fundamental way of learning.

Perhaps we learn the lesson of just “being there” while raising children or perhaps we learn it in small revolutions (like this one). It seems a simple concept, but harder to implement. The desire is to help, but maybe the other person needs to learn to ask for “help.” By helping when help is not sought, it creates friction in relationships, potential unhealthy dependency, or it may just cause others to avoid seeking help when necessary.

This comes about after observing friends and family this past week as some struggled with illness and injury, job dissatisfaction, and job changes. In watching different dynamics, I came to the conclusion it was best to offer help (not charge in and just do it), listen and ask a few clarifying questions, and continue my lot in life, being the quintessential mental cheerleader, trusting in the learning process within others. It was also a lesson in patience.

And this lead to thoughts about my role as a hypnotist. Client success occurs most often when the people seeking my services really want and are ready for assistance in learning about themselves. Success is when the client supposedly seeking help, understands that they are helping themselves. It is they who actually make the changes they want to make. For those hoping I will instantly take away or change something for them (turning them into zombies to do as I bid them), they maybe sadly disappointed.

My retreat is going along well, but I decided to pay a visit to the local library to check in and see what is happening in Ellie’s World. LOL.

I received this from Frank Munkle, who along with his partner and wife Louise, are regressionists. I hope you enjoy it! (And Frank and Louise, it was great meeting you last week!).

A woman I will call “K” came for a private session. I questioned why she wanted the regression. She told me that she wondered why she has such a strong dislike for fish. She didn’t want to eat fish. In fact, she didn’t even want to eat near people who were eating fish. She also mentioned that she had an emotional feeling about the sinking of the Titanic. A motion picture about the sinking of the Titanic had recently been showing in the theaters - so I thought that was the reason why she had those feelings. (I discovered later that I was wrong)

When “K” was regressed, she found that she was in Italy in the early 1700’s. She was a healer and used herbs to help people recover from minor illnesses. According to the established church, no one except for trained physicians, priests and nuns, was allowed to be involved with healing. The church considered it blasphemy if others were attempting to do healing as Jesus did. A minor town official discovered that the woman was involved with healing and warned her to stop. She did not stop her healing practice. Later, when the town official learned that the woman was still doing the healing, he sent two of his employees to get rid of her. They captured the woman and put her into a boat. They took her out into the bay and threw her overboard. Next, she told me that as her soul was going up above the water, she could look down and see fish eating pieces of her body where she was floating. Hundreds of years later, when the Titanic struck an iceberg and was sinking, my client was on the other side of life helping those traumatized souls who had drowned when the Titanic sank.

From the perspective of those victims who had drowned as the Titanic sank and their souls went to the other side of life, whose soul was more qualified to empathize with them than a soul who had been deliberately drowned when she was thrown into the bay off the coast of Italy? So, then she knew why she disliked fish and why she felt the connection with Titanic. Also, in this life, the town official is her brother.

This is not the end of the story. The woman I regressed called me a few weeks later and told me she had been shopping in a large grocery store. The clerks were offering small samples of various foods to the customers. Naturally, “K” did not stop her cart as she passed a display where free samples of fish were being offered. Suddenly, she thought, “There is no reason now for me to dislike fish.” So, she backed up her cart and accepted the fish sample and she enjoyed it.

Well, I would do another esoteric Saturday, but alas, I am in the process of packing up and heading out on retreat. So, I will leave any fun hypno references up to you. Feel free to post for me.

I will be staying in a non-Internet place, but will check in periodically, so please don’t give up on the transparent hypnotist. I’m just going to be a little more ethereal this coming week.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and Happy Mother’s Day to all who celebrate that particular holiday.

As Frank Munkel says:

Rather than HAVE a good day - MAKE a good day.

Sometimes I meditate. Sometimes I relax with breathing work. Sometimes I just sit and listen to the wind whispering through the trees. And sometimes, often even, I practice self-hypnosis.

I had a client recently ask me who hypnotizes me and was totally surprised when I said “me.” Yes, the perfect segway to help her learn how to do it for herself. At first she looked puzzled and asked, “But you said all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. Who guides you?” And I could see the confusion, but again was thrilled for the segway and spent the remain time with her teaching this wonderful tool.

Her last question to me was, “Why do you teach people how to do this? Won’t they stop coming to you?” I didn’t dare tell her that it seems like many people who have the tool either don’t take the time to practice and there seems to be huge number who prefer to have a “guide.” I just wished her well with it, told her to keep in touch, and practice, practice, practice.

Here’s my question for all the hypnotists out there: How many of you practice self-hypnosis and what is you preferred method?

As hypnotists, we inevitably have to be wordsmiths, poets, story tellers, (and more importantly) listeners, and watchers.

A few terms or concepts perhaps that maybe should be modified in our vocabulary:

Under - meaning that we put people under hypnosis, as in under my spell, under my bed? Under where? Or is this under as one would be in anesthesia? Still, seems odd.

Susceptible - wouldn’t receptive be a better word? People are susceptible to colds, not usually receptive.

Subjects - are we royalty (yes, again with the queen dreams)? The word also sounds so scientific and research based. With our clients, we may be experimenting in that we have to figure out what works for the client (assuming one is a client-based hypnotist), but it sounds so negative.

(I cannot take credit totally for these thoughts, only that I agree with them. A friend of mine brought it up the other day, saying these were thoughts mentioned in a workshop she had attended).

Okay, hypnotist, your thoughts, please.

Recently, I decided to explore sister modalities to the hypno realm, and tried a hypno-massage. If you ever have the opportunity I recommend trying it. It can be a wonderful and beautiful experience.

Basically, the idea is to use massage as a relaxation tool in order to bring one to an alpha level (oh why or why can’t it all be alphabetical - I so crave a natural order - with alpha being the waking or normal consciousness and beta being a the relaxation level? Perhaps I should have learned the Greek alphabet). My particular experience used a more guided imagery approach to help relieve some physical pains of which I have been suffering. The lady I saw is also an energy worker and intuitive healer. New age perhaps, but I’m so willing to take those routes before committing to a problem and the medication associated with it.

At one point my body began to tremble uncontrollably, which was interesting. After she helped me return to normal consciousness, she discussed her findings, which included perhaps having another physical and tweaking a few habits, along with some meditative suggestions.

All in all, I was extremely happy, felt a weight lifted and realized that some of my thoughts were reframed. Very nice.

Golf. There’s a subject.

Henry Bolduc recently said:

I don’t believe in golf. I’ve never played it, but maybe if I did I would believe in it more - a few million people probably do. I see them out there with sticks and little white balls, and they seem happy, driving around in those little bumper cars.

I love this! It so applies to what hypnotist do. Just because people may have never experienced hypnosis or past life regression (in Henry’s case) or perhaps have a skeptics view point, this does not take away validity.

Interestingly enough, golf seems to pop up a lot theses days. Clients wanting to improve their game, lose the yips, and create better personal concentration. And there they are and here I am, much like Henry. This is probably one of my weaker areas, helping those with personal change for game improvement. I suspect it maybe because I have never been particularly interested in playing sports (yet I enjoy going to professional sport events - go race horse Hypnosis). I can intellectualize about it, but it is so frustrating. I have good success with fringe issues, confidence building, concentration in general, anxiety release, and yet helping those with golf performance and yips seem to elude me. Any thoughts?

Somewhere along the way, it may be something that nags the mind, it may be the expectations of those who influence us, or maybe, just be it it seems very interesting or perhaps even easy - but we all choose our way in the world and how we plan to survive.

Hypnosis, at first seemed much like the latter to me, interesting and easy. Are you smiling, those of you in the know? I so did not know the half of it. What I did know is that I knew people who had made huge emotional and physical changes due to hypnosis. I knew people who had gone the route of other “therapies” and who seem to stay locked in a course that included many years of said therapy. How could one not be attracted to hypnosis then in the field of healing work?

So over the years, I studied and read, read and practiced and one day, threw all caution to the wind and opened an office to pursue clinical hypnosis (not complete caution - I did create and have maintained a business plan and utilize small business counseling when needed). That’s all I do. No teaching, no shows. I do offer community guided meditations though and occasional workshops on self-hypnosis, etc.

I won’t say it has been easy or as lucrative as I had hoped. What I have truly learned is that it seems to be a lot about marketing. And recently I have gotten a small itch to think about doing stage work (though the thought isn’t completely loud, yet).

Now I wonder, just how everyone else out there is doing with the idea of using hypnosis to make their living and how they approach it. Do they teach? Do shows? Or are there others who just practice in a clinical setting?

They couldn't tell why that tiny eyeWould make them writhe and twist,They found it so, but how could they knowThat the babe was a hypnotist?

Another esoteric Saturday with many thanks going toTerry O'Brien and his collection of hypnosis triviaat www.hypnosisinmedia.com. The above quote is from aJ.M. Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle comic opera calledJANE ANNIE or, The Good Conduct Prize.

Here is the summary of the plot:

Set in a girls' boarding school and the golf greenattached to it. Bab,described by the authors as a"bad girl," plans to elope, but cannot decide whetherto marry Jack the lancer or Tom the press student. JaneAnnie, the school's "good girl," schemes to take oneof them (Jack) off her hands, and calls on her powersof hypnotism to accomplish it.

This is too much fun and a lovely coincidence.  I have had a longlove affair with Barrie's writings. He had me at "Clap your handsif you believe in fairies." (Yep, Peter Pan).

So Terry, you made this rainy Saturday interesting already.So the question is - do the boys in question accept the hypnoticsuggestions of marriage?

Read the play to find out.  LOL.