Why Hypnotherapy?

All hypnosis is self hypnosis. Hypnotherapy is really just a way to help coach one through self hypnosis. The depth of trance depends on the participant, the rapport with the hypnotist, and the limits of your imagination. Your experience depends on the depth you allow yourself, and on the leading talents of your hypnotist.

I started hypnosis training in 2009, and one of the early classes focused on Past Life Regression. The instructor guided us through a regression to discover why we chose hypnotherapy as a profession. As I was attending online, I wasn’t sure I would have a worthy experience. At least not one as intense as my first time. I had been hypnotized for the first time about 6 years before this, but it was one on one in a hypnotherapist’s office, and he had me wear dark glasses with strobing lights on the inside. I remember feeling just outside my body, my consciousness hovering over my own head but still feeling tethered to my body, I could feel my clothes and a coolness on my skin, I felt both perspectives. Although we were in a private room, I could hear the goings on throughout the office, it was as if my awareness was expanded, I heard the front door opening and closing and murmurs of the conversations of others, as if I was in the hall or waiting room. During that session, he had me imagine myself in a heavy overcoat, with pockets full of papers, each paper told a story of a painful memory. He instructed me to take each paper out of the pockets and read them one by one in my mind. There were so many papers in the pockets. As I read them I threw them in a pile, and it came to be a large mound of papers, almost as tall as myself. He instructed me to throw the pile into a bonfire. I wept as I did this, and when I was finished and was awoken the hypnotist asked me how long I thought I was under. I answered, “20 minutes?” He said, “try 2 hours.” My face was streaked by tears, but I felt so much lighter. That was when my healing began.

So back to my Past Life Regression class. As I made myself comfortable in my office chair, facing the computer, eyes closed, the instructor brought us through a progressive relaxation from head to toe, and took us back through time and space through our current life, into the white light, and asked us to be shown a life in which we would understand our purpose for pursuing hypnotherapy. In hypnosis, I saw my feet first. They were bare, and they were dark brown. As I scanned up my body, I wasn’t wearing much. I had a thin cloth around my hips, tied like a skirt. I was female, around 50 years old, and I could feel the weight of a heavy necklace around my neck and chest, the strands of beads were red, blue, and black. My braided hair had some grays. I wore a headpiece made of leather and cloth and beads. I was the advisor to the elders of my tribe. I was a seer, and a healer, and a mother. The instructor took us through the death day, because most times the death has an important message. On my death day, I knew I was leaving this world. My successor as advisor was also my daughter in that life, and that daughter was my current life’s daughter, Nadia. She and I performed a ritual to transfer my mantle to her, and I died in her arms peacefully. That is my favorite death, so far. After you die you ask for clarity. I learned that, although I was an advisor to the leaders of my tribe in that life, in this current life I am also asked to BE a leader, as well as seer, healer, and mother.

Hypnotherapy continues to help me discover myself through my inner world and outer behaviors coming into alignment. It is my desire that many people may come to love and understand themselves, because when we do, we can love and understand everything else. A wise woman said, “ Stop trying to love people, it’s too complicated, start trying to understand them. When you really understand someone, you understand what’s right for them.” (- Teal Swan). We start with ourselves and then we can ripple that out. I want to live in a world where we are curious about the beings around us, so much so that we each feel seen, heard, felt and understood. Although I feel resistance to leadership, I consider myself a bit of a pioneer, perhaps that is how I will lead the way.

Change yourself; Change the world. As below, so above. I’ve always wanted to be part of a small rebellion, let the battle begin.