The Transparent Hypnotist

Happy World Hypnotism Day!!!

Today is a really big day for the hypnosis community. It is a day when we all get together to help educate the world about the positive aspects of hypnosis. Granted everyday is World Hypnotism Day here on the Transparent Hypnotist, but I feel a pang at the idea that I am still on travel and this post is the only contribution I am currently able to make.

For those who are interested in learning more about this momentous day, you can visit www.worldhypnotismday.com. They offer downloads, information, and a listing of events going on all over the world. You might just find an event in your area.

Therefore, my Sunday Question is – what are you doing for World Hypnotism Day?

Photograph by mbostock

Zipped up.

Warm. So VERY, VERY warm. No more nights of lying awake on my Thermarest dwelling on the cold air that surrounds me. No more chattering teeth. No more uncontrollable shivering (from the cold, that is).

This is how it is in the comfort of my new Zero Degree sleeping bag. Ah (and sigh), life is good. If you recall (or not), my last camping experience was a frigid affair and I began to secretly (okay - I know, nothing is a secret when you blog about it) covet a Zero Degree sleeping bag. I even wrote about putting it on my Christmas wish list.

But the thing is, I never actually made a list. I never really spoke to anyone about wishes and lists (other than you). Sure I blogged about it, but I never really wrote a finalized version. If I had made one, I would have felt a nagging guilt about selfishness and gluttony. I would have wished for things for others had I really written one.

So Christmas morning arrived and there was one large box for me from my partner. I shook it before gleefully ripping the paper off. It was fairly light. As I opened the top flaps of the box, I was greeted by a black mesh bag and I knew, I just knew it was the very longed for sleeping bag.

“Did you read my blog?” I asked him in a laughing way. He is one of those sorts of people who will say that they really do not read blogs because doing so consumes too much time. So, one might say that he is not a regular reader of the Transparent Hypnotist.

“Actually, I did read your post about the sleeping bag - after I had ordered it. Then I knew I was on the right track.”

Ah, the law of attraction, perhaps? I had put my wants out there into the cyber universe. Maybe all those other things I had wished for for others will or has happened as well. That means my volunteer programs for helping abused women gain self-esteem (using hypnosis, NLP, and some counseling) will manifest in the new year. Excellent.

So this is where I am going with the Sunday Question - do heartfelt wishes work on the same principle as the law of attraction (you attract what you want or think about)? What do you think?

And yes, I am back in the blogging sphere today, still not home, but enjoying this communing from the comfort of a memory foam mattress. I have been told the coffee is on and dripping.

Photograph by jfravel

The whip sound is a quiet whack only heard by my mind as I sit in the darkness, dwelling, trying to let go. The reverberation of a stupid mistake only hits the surface luckily, so the scars if any will heal. And heal they have, turning from immediate burn into a golden lesson that I can hope I have learned and will not repeat.

I am talking about a mistake I made with a client awhile ago. Recently it surfaced in my thoughts, so despite the fact that sometimes sharing a mistake is the hardest post of all to write, it seems to want to be told.

It begins with the story of a client who came to me to be a better golfer. It seems that she would shake or freeze before making the final putt. We did one session involving traditional hypnosis. For a week or two it did the trick, but then there she was back on my doorstep. Only this time, she came with a sob story. She had been laid off, had no money, her husband had been in a car accident…and the list went on. Being empathetic, I felt terrible for her. And then the pitch came. She wanted to keep working with the hypnosis but could not afford to keep wasting money on something that did not work.

Warning bells should have gone off, but alas, there was nothing but the quiet ache of her pain. So, I did something my mentors had warned me never to do. I made a deal with her. She could pay me after the session when the hypnosis worked. I would love to tell you that she became a world class golfer, but alas, it was not so. I really wanted to do client centered hypnosis with her dealing with her husband’s accident, but she absolutely refused to go in that direction (one of the sessions indicated guilt feelings in that area - he was home suffering, so why should she be out on the golf course having a great time?). After three more sessions with no results, I had to end our time together.

I believe the sessions did not work because of the reasons mentioned above, but also because they held no value to her. There was no commitment to change on her part, no ramifications if it did not work. The lesson I learned is that clients have to be really committed to making their changes - they have to be willing to work on the issues themselves. If they hold back or think that it is all the hypnotist, it certainly is not.

Now that I have shared my own whipping post with you, the Sunday Question is are there times when you do not monetarily charge clients for your services and if so, how has that worked out?

Photograph by Malene Thyssen

Sluggish and snail paced, the internet is moving like a tortoise in a race against a rabbit. It is made all the slower from my own head, which is filled with yuck. A Christmas cold perhaps. A glass of Airborne sits fizzing next to me (lemon-lime flavor), but I shall buck up a bit, go in search of the prefect Christmas tree and retire to a cup of cocoa.

And because the thought process is not any quicker than the internet, I will keep the Sunday Question a simple matter. It is honor of my own need to keep happy thoughts going during the chaos of commercialism that abounds at this time of year - hence the do or die attitude of finding the right tree (or in my case, large potted plant).

What do you do to keep optimistic during the holiday season?

Photograph by hlkljgk

Maybe it is time to change my Christmas Wish List again. I have gone from wanting chairs, to funds to help others, and now back to something more “me” oriented. Yes, this is definitely something I want - a zero degree sleeping bag. I have a pretty decent all-weather sleeping bag, but last night I camped in the mountains to be ready for a sunrise hike, and was numb from the cold by the time the sun showed itself. I am not sure I have ever been so cold. I did not sleep and it kept occurring to me that people actually do die from hyperthermia. I understand that whole idea a little too well. First my feet froze (even after doing the whole, unsnug the smart-wool socks thing. Then it was my mind that iced up again. No amount of relaxation exercises seemed to do it for me. No one to sooth me into a hypnotic rest and help me past the slight fear of dying not-so-alone, in the forestry cluster.

But finally morning arrived or at least the sounds of my co-habitees filled the air with breath puffing out of their mouths like non-toxic smoke. Coffee was made and I found myself slowly unzipped and hiking boots laced.  Several other’s who were camping with me all claimed they were too hot during the night. Go figure. I think perhaps, I am just not a cold-weather sort of gal.

There have been other times in my life when I have felt the cold slithering up under my clothes, infecting my body with its icy-fingertips of bone-saturating numbness. Normally, I am not in the elements when this happens and I can do a  little self-hypnosis, a little visualization of imagined warmth permeating the barrier of imaginary ice, melting it away and I can feel the seductive warmth of normal blood flow heating those areas (always my feet, thank you very much).

So, the Sunday Question is in honor of the the fact that cold actually got to me this time. What do you do when you get cold? But before you answer with comments such as: turn up the heat, put on more socks, or use hot-water bottles - put yourself in the mountains in a sleeping bag sometime in the middle of the night, oh, and you are alone in the sleeping bag. What do you do to keep warm so that you can sleep?

Photograph by mikebaird

There are no birds chirping outside my window, in fact the only real noticeable sound is the hum of the heating system. I guess the birds have migrated and have left me here alone (for the time being) to contemplate artificial tweets. Yes, I am talking about the chirp, chirp, chirp of the busy internet nest known as Twitter.

Last month when I was busy with my journey of apple fasting, I thought it would be fun to give Twitter a go, thus letting people know in a short succinct way what was happening with the fast. As the week progressed I began to lag on my tweets and have not really gone back to it (until today when I began writing this post).

I am apparently missing something. I notice lots of short one-liner repartee that goes on between people. Is that the draw? The idea of being connected and only having to write short amounts in volley to what someone else writes?

Debbie Lane, a few months ago mentioned she had gone to a seminar on blogging and they suggested Twitter as a must. I know she is busy Twittering now as I write this (Debbie did you leave entrecard?), but I am not sure I get this whole phenomenon. I read about it constantly. It seems to always be somewhere in the internet news. So what is the deal?

My question for the day is what purpose does Twitter serve for you? Why do you or do you not Twitter? How has it benefitted you?

P.S.

If you are looking for me on Twitter, I am ellieblunt.

Art by Eddi 07

One of the discussions on this blog from the past week was about the idea of hypnosis susceptibility (sorry, Michael). This is the idea that one can tell if another person can be hypnotized and to what level before even beginning trance work. We looked at Speigel’s eye roll method for testing hypnotizability. This has lead to several questions, which I think should be asked here. Rather than having one Sunday Question, I have two.

The first question for hypnotists is: what is your personal philosophy about hypnotizability or a person’s susceptibility to hypnosis?

Now on to another question: do you do any testing before inducing hypnosis  to see how a person will react to your form of hypnosis?

Photograph by mr.beaver

There is a part of me that could on just tiptoeing past today’s subject, pretending to be oblivious to it, and go about my posting in my everyday sort of fashion – pouring a cup of coffee, munching a granola bar, writing, and letting the atmosphere of Sunday envelope me in its safety net of peacefulness. But, no, not today – no more.

I have a question for this Sunday, one that has itched at me for a few months, and I can no longer remain silent. To preface it, for about a year on most Friday’s you can visit the transparent hypnotist and learn about other practitioners who indulge in hypnosis either full-time, part-time, or as a hobby. We have met many fascinating people who have answered my 10 Questions ranging from clinical hypnotists, psychologist, performers, and even one who engages in Femdom. Yet, if you look at the demographics, most are from the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia. There are large sections of the world missing. I have heard about a few hypnotists in India, have written to them to see if they too would participate, but have yet to hear back. So what about hypnotists in Asia, the Middle East, Central or South America, Africa, or Russia? I am sure there must some hypnotists in those areas.

Or how about this…minding my politically correctness (especially now that we will have a multicultural president in the White House), where are the African-Americans? Surely, there are a few brilliant souls out there in the hypnoworld that go beyond my lily-white demographics?

So, my Sunday Question is about multi-cultural or racially different hypnotists. Are you out there? Or, do you know of any? I would love to broaden the horizons of the 10 Questions. If so, please let me know by either commenting here or emailing me at ellie.blunt@gmail.com.

Hmmm. This past week has actually left me with much fodder for potential questions for today’s post. I have had two small cups of coffee, feed the cat, read the paper and have allowed two questions to remain on the chalkboard of my mind. For awhile I thought I would do the indecisive thing and present two today, but after all, it is the Sunday Question and that is not in plural form. Therefore, I have a solution - one that means you must come back tomorrow and answer the almost weekly poll. Ah, the joy of a weak cliff-hanger.

As it is a weekend more about relaxation for me, I am going to put on my proverbial work boots for just a moment and hike back to a surface level. Yeah, I heading back to my chair issue. A few of you were really helpful in your thoughts about what to do about seating in my office that might help clients feel more at ease. Currently, I do a lot of my pre-talk in the waiting area of my office, which includes a comfy couch and a straight-backed chair. This seating creates different height levels for clients and myself (the original problem stemmed from a certain personality type of client who insist on sitting in the straight back chair). I have decided that this is a good cue for me that may help me in the session (these seem to be the ones I have a more difficult time with establishing rapport, but I do not think it can be easily solved by seating arrangements) so I do not wish to change the waiting room. However, I do want clients to be more comfortable. I had thought about buying a couple of mission-style chairs for my office, but maybe doing the pre-talk in my office rather than the session room would mean making my clients stop at too many stations (though often they end up in my office when I print out their receipts or make other appointments).

This leads to today’s question:

If you were going to a hypnotist (or if that is a stretch for you - a massage therapist, acupuncturist, counselor, etc.) what would you prefer - to just go into one room for everything or would you mind having the interview or pre-talk part done in an office setting and why?

Photography by david.nikonvscanon

There is much to be thankful for this fall Sunday. There is hot coffee, a quiet cat, a comfy bed (yes, I have brought the laptop into the blanket confines of my current posture) and there is the loss of an hour. Yes, I am grateful for the loss because I slept an extra hour and still woke up at a reasonable hour. LOL.

The other thing for which I am grateful is that today my business line is still free from the various non-related work phone calls. Even though I have registered my phone on various “do not call lists,” I still get the annoying call or two that has no other function than to take up precious minutes of my life. Bet you can relate. Even though I have a policy of using Caller Id, it is a complicated practice for the business line. I am not comfortable letting all calls go to voice mail. There seems to be potential clients who are not comfortable leaving messages or they need to hear a friendly voice personally, helping eliminate the fear of dealing with a hypnotist. Usually, I satisfy my need to answer the phone by being aware of the local area codes and answering those. I let area codes two hundred miles or more away, eight hundred numbers, and private numbers to go to voice mail.

And yet…most of those types of callers do not leave a message. So there I am with a phone full of numbers and no idea who the numbers belong to and why they called me. I let them go in my nightly ritual of erasing censor, only to have the embers of my curiously oxygenated the next day when the same number reappears on the phone ID.

Sometimes, my curiously becomes engulfed with flames (on those particularly slow days). I find myself typing the number into a web search engine, hoping to find clues. Sure, I could answer the phone when it rings, but then I would have to find some way of getting rid of a telemarketer, hanging up on the political computers, or dealing with a charity I do not support. Yuck.

The positive thing about my phone number checking is that I am not alone. Take for instance www.reportphonenumbers.com, a site created just for the purpose of sharing information and experiences about questionable phone calls. When you visit the site, at the top of the screen is an area to type in the number in question. Upon hitting enter, you may see what other people have to say about the caller. If no one else has had an experience, then the site gives you an opportunity to cite your thoughts on the number. In this way you can help others know if they should actually take the call or not.

And yes, that leads us to the Sunday Question - how do you handle unwanted (or warranted) phone calls?