The Transparent Hypnotist

Photography by Auzigog(cc)

Yikes!!!!

Age has set in and I am deteriorating on the spot. I have been having some eye problems (a suggestion imprinted for my mum’s eye problems back in January?) and apparently my sight has changed significantly from last year.  I thought it would be a simple get-new-lens-for-the-glasses, but it seems more complicated. My sight has changed so much so that with the new lens, I have perspective issues and headaches. I have been back to the optometrist twice and they told me to hang in there until next Monday. I asked why and the response is that it will take my brain a little while to catch up with the change. Apparently my mind is trying to compensate for the changes as compared to my old lens and it will take a little time for the mind to adjust to the new lens.

Soooooo…if it is a mind thing, then I can influence the change through hypnotism. I can nudge my mind into accepting the change a little sooner. However, as the headache looms large, I am having trouble focusing. Hypnotist out there, any suggestions for creating that change?

 
Photography by Foto-4-Life – (cc)

“I would like a cup of decaf coffee, please,” I say to the Starbucks clerk.

“We do not serve decaf after (insert an afternoon time here),” she says looking slightly apologetic. Then she goes on to say that they can make a mean decaf Americano for me (and I can dearly pay for that, thinks I).  Now, if I were in London, Paris, or even Toronto, I probably would have no problem with this Americano stuff, but alas, being in the United States, I just want a simple cup of decaf. Maybe it is not manly to want decaf (oh right - I am a female) after 4 p.m., but the truth is, I really want one. I want the taste and not the heart-fluttering-keep-me-up-all-night regular coffee. Instead of shelling out a few extra quarters for the Americano, I remain stubborn and head over to Au Bon Pain, who happily provides me with a simple cup of decaf coffee.

This is a pattern that has repeated itself since January (when no Au Bon Pain is available, I have been known to go with 7-11 low-octane). Like the normal Starbucks coffee, I am left with a bitter aftertaste, especially after asking the latest clerk who I could speak to about the decaf issue and being told “no one would care.” 

But, BUT, there has been a reprieve. I some how missed all the articles about the decaf lay-off back in January and therefore was not privy to one essential key element - coffee on demand at Starbucks. If they have the beans (even in the retail area) and someone requests a certain type of coffee, they can often french-press it. Yes, it takes an additional four minutes for the coffee to brew, but if you are prepared for it, four minutes is an acceptable wait (a prime opportunity to meditate). 

This past Sunday I decided to see if this would work. I asked the clerk for decaf. She offered me an Americano. I asked if she could french-press my decaf. Rather than giving me a polite answer, she stormed off, found her preparation instructions, located the french-press, and after six minutes (two extra minutes for some passive-aggressiveness), I go my decaf. 

For those of you wondering why I am taking up the space to write about this on a hypnosis blog (even if you are aware that I am a big coffee and tea drinker), here is my reasoning. Hypnosis is all about change, suggestion, and often behavior modification. Though I shall not hypnotize you (though I would love to pretend that my writing is that entrancing), a change is needed. Though I praise Starbucks for trying to conserve on waste (and expense), I feel that decaf drinkers are being treated very badly and Starbucks could use some encouragement in their behavior modification of dealing with my demographic in a more compassionate way. The more we do not give into the fancy decaf products (Amercianos, lattes, cappuccino, and the like) and just ask for decaf, maybe they will understand that we are as important as regular coffee drinker customers. I am one small person, but since January, I have spent over $50 in decaf at other places because I did not know that Starbuck’s would accommodate me.

Now for the suggestion part of the post - if you are a decaf drinker, please consider requesting a cup of regular decaf in the afternoon. The french-press makes it possible. You will probably have to request it.

Please join my crusade for decaf at Starbucks in the afternoon and evening. Blog about it, get the word out, and let the world know. If you do blog about this or have a decaf Starbuck story, leave a comment and I will follow up with some decent do follow link love. 

Sources:

• Starbucks to End Continuous Decaf Brewing After Noon (Update 2) - Bloomberg
• Starbucks Offering P.M. ‘Unleaded’ On Demand - Epoch Times
• Starbucks Calls Off Decaf–After 12 PM? - U.S. News Blog

Egregiously late again, I still owe Ellie and you a Monday post.  It should have had something to do with Memorial Day, I suppose, but that’s not quite where my heart is.

I mentioned my girlfriend, Julie, in posing the Sunday Question.  She’s back home now, 500 miles away, hopefully still smiling as much as I am.  Which has me thinking about how hypnosis comes in handy in the oddest ways.  Yes, even with a long-distance relationship.

Julie is a kinesthetic type, meaning her mind tends to represent and recall data in terms of body sensations.  Because her mind naturally leans that way, Julie is very good at recalling and even reproducing sensations of touch, texture, and warmth — she can even hallucinate them with very little prompting.  Which makes it very easy for me to send her a warm hug, for example, by posthypnotic suggestion.  It’s still not the same as physically being there with her, but it makes her feel good and I (being an auditory type) get to enjoy hearing her sigh when she feels it.

Skype is our friend, of course.  The call quality is generally outstanding and the price is unbeatable (free).  People who use computer voice chat also tend to do it with headsets, which eliminates the problem I mentioned before about dropping the phone.  I’ve talked with other hypnotists who’ve done whole sessions over Skype with distant clients and gotten very satisfying results.  No surprise, then, that another powerful way to connect is to do a form of guided visualization (or the kinesthetic/auditory equivalent) over that voice connection — with a little hypnotic help, we can create a shared space where we can sit together, cuddle, and talk.  It’s quite nice, and again adds to the feeling of connectedness that’s so hard to sustain across multiple state lines.

I could go on, but I didn’t clear this topic with Ellie beforehand and it would be dangerously easy to drift into Too Much Information. ;^)  So instead let me just suggest that those of us who work with people in relationships, or who are in relationships ourselves, take a few quiet minutes and ask, are we making the most of the tools we have at hand, for ourselves and for our clients?

<MR>

Ah, a cup of tea, a fire large in the fire place; one can almost look forward to the winter. Maybe.

I had an interesting client yesterday. She wants to change her eating habits before they cause problems. But she is a person definitely into the New Age school of thought, and I so enjoy those. I guess this is because I tend to fall on that side of philosophy. Well, it was a fabulous session. I guided her to a location where her issue was housed. And there it was, in the second chakra (here is the thing - I know little about the chakra’s - only what Ken Wilber has written about them in his book Up from Eden - and I am only on chapter four). And the answer to helping herself with her eating habits is the word “baby.”

It is so tempting and hard sometimes not to interpret these mind messages for others, but I tend to believe it is a message only the client can decipher. However, it will not stop me from writing about it here (my dearest client from yesterday, stop reading here. Just kidding). What interest me is that one could take it literally or not. It had not really occurred to me that when doing this type of hypno work, the mind maybe (and is) sending symbols to be deciphered. Puzzles, if you will. It reminds me a little of dream interpretation and all the potential symbols that Jung believed were delivered to us (I just cannot completely go with Freudian sexuality in everything). In my client’s case, she just had her first child. The child was a bit unexpected but welcomed none the less. However, it has been a bit difficult on many levels for her, and now she describes the second chakra as being an empty void. It is fascinating how many things that “baby” could mean in terms of this emptiness.

I think we tend to look at literal translations when we get these sort of messages, wanting them to be black and white. But I suspect they are rarely anything but grey.

Today’s wandering pondering is ongoing from yesterday’s conversation with Michael about subliminals. You cannot but help love all this stuff we learn about the mind and consciousness. One year, one thing is true. The next it is not. Then three years later it is true again. Perhaps this is why I did not do well in science classes when I was younger. There is too much that we do not know. There seems like there is little truth and a whole lot of hypothesis (I did better when we were allowed to do our own hypothesis). And that becomes a question of - is there ever truth? For one second it could seem so, but then reality shifts and bam, what was true is no longer.

Yes, I have been reading metaphysics again, well maybe not metaphysics, but about metaphysical concepts. I just finished Carlos Constanza’s Road to Ixland. And I am now beginning The Tibetan Book of the Death and Dying. How odd to find that you might be Buddhist if…But I digress.

Well, as I took my first sip of morning tea, a thought struck me about subliminals (okay tapped me, it is to early for a knock-down-drag-em-out mental conversation). The first ideas about them seemed to indicate a positive consumer response to visuals. Is it possible that indeed the old “put an image in the ice cube” type really did work well. Perhaps in those few years since then, our minds have adapted, subtly evolved? Perhaps we evolved enough for it to no longer be so effective. Now we are left with heftier tricks of subtle manipulation like the flashing of the image of a pretty girl and a one word command.

Just a thought.

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?

Still on a parenting kick, as I have a few clients I am working with in this genre (coincident? Universal consciousness? After I posted about childing-birthing hypno, a client just came to me to help her lessen anxiety about an upcoming adoption). In finding resources to send her way, I stumbled across an interview on the New Millennium Series (I think they are not very recent) with Charles Thomas Cayce, a child psychologist.

During this interview on raising children intuitively, he mentioned a story about his own daughter. She was (is?) a teenager who had some insomnia issues. So Dr. Cayce created a suggestion tape for her to listen to at night so she would sleep better. It worked and it sounds like the issues have gone away.

It is all good up to this point. He suggest other parent try this route - remembering that this is not hypnosis. WHAT? The tape part is all good, but why is it not hypnosis? He goes on to explain this. It is not hypnosis because when giving the suggestions, you as the parent, do not use commands or a commanding voice. You give gentle suggestions.

Ummm.

So therefore, is the definition for hypnosis something to the effect of: Hypnosis is a command issued to another during a relaxed state?

It is interesting to hear what the psychology world thinks about hypnosis. The odd notions that are batted about and then you have people like Dr. Eimer and Dr. Peterson who utilize it in their practices in a very positive way, very worthy of a hurrah from those who only practice it.

Perhaps I am not being fair to Dr. Cayce. He is the grandson of Edgar Cayce. If you ever look at any of the Cayce Readings of which Edgar Cayce gave when in a state of hypnosis, his conductor (nice word) used commanding language. And I am not judging Dr. Cayce’s utilization of hypnosis. I suspect if he does use it in his practice, he’s probably brilliant. His use of suggestion with his daughter is a wonderful story, but a rose by any other name is still a rose.

The Sunday question is when hypnotizing others do the suggestions you give affect you? In other words, do you find yourself experiencing the outcome the clients’ hypnosis?

Personally, a lot of my clients come to me with changes they internally want to make that are removed enough from me that I would never know if the suggestions I give would affect me. I am not a smoker, not currently addicted to anything (well, that may not be completely true - there is the morning coffee and or tea, but no one has ever come to me for caffeine issues), among others.

However, what I do notice is that when working with weight loss clients, I occasionally get personal benefit. It is usually with suggestions for eating only when the body needs food, not so much the mind. I find my snacking goes way down, as do my portion sizes.

How about you?