The Transparent Hypnotist

Well, I was away from web access this weekend, but still posted through email…only to find that the post never went through! Sorry about that…They should be there now. See you tomorrow.

So here is today’s Sunday Question:

Should I continue asking and discussing a Sunday Question?

Is it of interest? Or is it better to ask questions through out the week? Is the Monday Poll taking care of interactiveness of questions? Do you have a preference?

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Sent by Ellie Blunt via the free Email Scheduler service.
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Every now and then, you just have to let loose. Speeding along (within the legal limits – of course!), coming home late at night from a journey, there is nothing as wonderful as cranking the vehicle sound system up to keep the energy flowing. This was the case for me a few days ago.

I had been to dinner with friends earlier and we were discussing Esoteric Saturday. The topic of System of a Down came up and I was asked if I had heard their CD “Hypnotize. I had not, so I found myself propelled into the night, listening loudly to edgy, harder (this is not Elton John after all) riffs and lyrics.

I had to go to the lyrics to understand them and this is the part of the CD and song “Hypnotize” that references our art.

Why don’t you ask the kids at Tiananmen Square Was fashion the reason why they were there. They disguise it, hypnotize it. Television made you buy it. I’m just sitting in my car And waiting for my…She’s scared that I will take her away from there Her dreams and her country left with no one there. Mezmerize the simple minded Propaganda leaves us blinded. I’m just sitting in my car And waiting for my girl.

But perhaps you would like to listen to the song, too. So I have included it.

Visit the band’s site at http://www.systemofadown.com.

___________________________
Sent by Ellie Blunt via the free Email Scheduler service.
Register now at http://www.emailschedule.com

Coffee break again.

Looking at my email, I noticed a client has sent me an interesting link and a plea for help. The link is to The Breast Cancer Site. It is a site that creates awareness about breast cancer and also has a very interesting program that provides free mammograms to women in need. If you have been reading any of the hypnosis studies lately, you know then that there has been a study done that verifies that hypnosis is beneficial in the healing process to breast cancer patients (not that we needed verification, but the rest of the world appreciates it). So, it seems like this is a good time to support the awareness site.

Basically, when you go to the site, you click on a link that says “Click Here to Give - It’s Free.” Here’s how it works according to the site:

Your click on the “Click Here to Give - it’s FREE” button helps fund free mammograms for women in need — low-income, inner-city and minority women whose awareness of breast cancer and opportunity for help is often limited. Your click is paid for by site sponsors, and mammogram funding is provided to clinics throughout the U.S. through the efforts of the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

What the email I received from my client mentioned is that it takes 45,000 clicks to result in one free mammogram, so feel free to pass this on to anyone you know.

They show up, looking behind them, surveying the parking lot, reading my words on confidentiality and privacy closely, and tell me that they want no one to know that they are seeing a hypnotist. If we see each other in passing, I am not to be hurt if they do not “know” me. Then they breathe and unpack their life and fears.

And sometimes I wonder if those with a heightened sense of paranoia are not a little wiser than the rest of us. Today while perusing the blog world for marketing ideas, I came across
GimmieTheScoop.com (Random blatherings - I love it!), a so-called Marketing Blog. Though I am not sure I gained perspective in that area, it kept my attention. The blog has different sections for health, business, and politics, among others.

The recent post in health was about China’s food safety issues. Where have I been? Last I heard, one had to be careful with toothpaste, now food? See why perhaps those that are a little paranoid maybe right in their ideas? If you read the post before that one, there seems to be some issue with Chinese Medicine as well. Great. The articles do not go into great depth on specifics, but it is enough to make one read labels a little more closely. But what I want to know, does this affect Chinese Herbals? What are the ramifications?

I have been looking into Chinese herbs and their potential to help with PMS (it has been said, I am not sure by whom, that the Chinese do not have the problems we have with PMS). Now I guess I will move a little slower and even more cautiously.

And how will this affect the 2008 Olympics in Beijing? I had entertained an idea of trying to go on holiday then. Or am I just feeding into media frenzy?

On a more positive note, in their Business Blog section, there is a posting on some fabulous new toys that are coming out for businesses. I just might need a cell phone that is a transformer. Perhaps it will protect me from any intruder subplot planing to disrupt the tranquility of my garden room office.

So, as always, feel free to share your thoughts on the whole paranoia idea, Chinese medicine (hey, some of you are herbalist out there, I know you are there, let me hear from you), or if you too need a cell phone that doubles as a toy.

Today is a little more leisurely oriented. I had early morning task to attended to but here I am, actually taking a water break, rather than the caffeinated breaks I favor.

So, I guess this post will be about the leisure time of a hypnotist. I was discussing busy days with another hypnotist and he mentioned that he tends to schedule in four meditation breaks per day during office hours. It is how he rejuvenates.

I tend to try to put an hour between all sessions. It gives me time in case I run over a bit on a client, and time to clear my mind and start fresh for the next. This means my client load is less, but I feel much saner and effective than I would cranking people through. Though I know this is not necessarily the favored method of those trying to make high figure incomes.

When I first started out, I would find myself drained after doing a session, but as time has progressed, I find I often have more energy after working with certain clients. There are still some clients that can be a little tiring, usually the ones where rapport does not come naturally and I have to really work at creating a comfortable and trusting environment. These are the clients where the hour in between really pays off. I can take a short walk (to a coffee shop) and I do self-hypnosis on the way, clearing my head and just being an observer of my surroundings. I guess you could call this a walking meditation. By the time I have my coffee (or cafe au lait for the very difficult times) and am back at the office, unlocking the door, it feels like I am starting fresh.

How about you? Do you have ways in which you regroup between sessions or work?

There is a certain type of gloomy day that really appeals to me, the kind with a few thunderheads lurking in the far-off, no harsh glare to reality, just a softness of light. One can turn on the glow of a subtle lamp or enjoy the candle light in the mid-afternoon. No need to draw the shades (if you have any) and no client voices complaining about the light being too bright (ah, but that is why opne should always have eye pads handy).

And I have this fabulous dream (yes, I am doing that weekly exercise of the idea of changing things about) of moving my office into a conservatory off my non-existent home in the middle of London. An oasis of greenery and glass without the sound of cell phones buzzing in constantly. It would be in the back, overlooking a courtyard of boxwood. How wonderful such an office would be on a gloomy day or during the twilight hours. This is my dream office in reality. I am not so keen for a dimly lit space (as you may already know).

So I looked up the idea of Conservatory in England (ah, to be in England in…the Fall?) and found Anglian Home Improvements. I am torn between the Edwardian and the Garden Room versions, though I suppose it would depend on what housing I had at the time. A good comfy chair, leather (distressed) would be perfect for either. And some sort of antique rug would be nice as well. One could even work a nice induction into the falling rain on the roof glass.

The positive thing about this fantasy is that I can coordinate it. All I would need is a basic structure and this same company could take care of all my Home improvements so that everything would coordinate in modern technologies. Antiques windows and such are lovely, but I think something sound and new would be well worth consideration. If one company handled it all, the doors, the windows, even the roofing and garage doors could be coordinated. How handy it would be to just make one phone call, one meeting and that would be that. I am sure there would be more to it, but how sweet it would be to just deal with one place for it all. Plus Anglian has been serving the UK for more than 36 years, so they have plenty of experience with dealing with slightly neurotic females and their fantasies. I suspect they could handle me with kid gloves (a necessary when spending lots of money).

S0, there you have it. Another flight of fantasy. But you know, when you start actually looking into it, perhaps it is more like future planning, the beginning of a new manifestation.

Today is a gulp it down and hope the taste is good because there is little time to savor the tea.

I am back to thinking about smokers. Upon Michael’s recommendation awhile back, I read Terrance Watts’ Easy Quit Smoking Program. I found it to be brilliant and pretty detailed. The author gave lots of clues on how to deal with all types of people and their habits. His approach involves a bit of acting during the pre-talk, but if you can pull it off, on paper it sounds powerful.

So recently, I decided to employ some of the techniques. Well, I guess when one starts new things it is good to be challenged up front to get the worst out of the way. So, it always seems to go for me (yep, tiny pity party). What a strange thing this universe is…sometimes it seems like tough love, as opposed to a kinder approach.

I share this with you because, I am trying to be transparent, but it also helps me learn. My client was interesting. He was in the medical profession and had watched people die from lung cancer. Lots of disassociation there. He said it did not bother him to think about himself going through such a disease and death. His view of death was one that if it happened two minutes from now, that would be fine. And yes, he would take a risk if I offered him two cigarettes, one being a stick of cyanide and he would not know which one. Then he asked me if I had ever been a smoker, which I have not and he said that was obvious.

So, rather than justify myself and my empathy of the quiting game, I followed Mr.Watt’s model and asked the dear doc why he had even come to me and wanted to give up the cigs. Now here he had a fine reason. He felt shame every time he recommended patients to stop smoking; he did not want to be a hypocrite anymore. So that is where I went with forming suggestions for the session.

And that is that, I must run along with the rest of the day.

So, have you looked at the world from an upside down perspective, yet? I am looking at the world from a sleepy perspective at the moment.

Here is a question (no, I am not waiting until Sunday): Where are people getting the idea that they need a potential booster session or that they need some sort of reinforcement for hypnosis to be truly effective?

Is it because hypnotists tell them this in order to get more business? Is it a lack of self-trust?

I do offer a more than one session option in my pricing, but I do this for the concept that there may be several things that the client would want to work on, such as is the case with weight loss, where one might need suggestions for portion control, self-esteem, and exercise motivation. So, I would do three sessions for this, not the same thing over and over again.

What I also wonder is if the brain occasionally rebels against repeating the suggestion over and over again for instance as one might do with an audio product. If they use the same audio to help them fall asleep at night, might it get to the point where it does just the opposite?

Well, I am working at home today in honor of Labor Day. How about you? It is a simple kind of day, as I have opted out from the exotic coffee and am going for a regular cup of 8 O’clock brew.

Do you do Yoga? I do, though probably not as much as I should or would like too. It really goes quite nicely with the hypnosis lifestyle. Do you like that, hypnosis lifestyle? It is all about mind discipline or consciousness. From proper three-part breathing, to meditation, to finding the tolerance of a pose while various parts of the body are active and others are not. You learn what the body can do and what it should not do - honor the body.

Last week, we were doing a simple forward bend from the hip crease (so you bent over with a flat back as opposed to curving the back) and our yoga teacher had us open our eyes (I am very guilty of doing much of my yoga practice with eye’s closed) and look at the world from this new perspective. Sounds very simple, I know, but it was profound as well. It was the idea of acclimating ourselves to seeing the world a little differently and how we fit into this new perspective. I suggest you try it (you do not have to do the yoga part, just carefully bend over, have your legs spread just a bit, and look through your legs at the world upside down). It is an odd thing, but the idea of just looking at things differently is powerful. It is what we do with hypnosis. We change our perspective to make something better within and it changes our relationship with the world.

It might even make for a good exercise in general, especially when one finds one self potentially caught in a way of thinking that is not productive. Just change your perspective literally and go from there…