It was a beautiful morning. As I awoke, songbirds chirped just outside the open window. A gentle breeze whispered through the screen as golden sunlight filtered through the curtains. It was the start of a beautiful summer day, yet on that day I felt oppressed. It felt as if I had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. I was going to be traveling in the next few days. I was organizing a meeting, and realized I had double booked myself to be in two places at once - over a thousand miles from each other. As I stood up, stepped into the shower, dressed and got ready for the day, I felt the weight of things I needed to get done that day. Suddenly, I realized I was experiencing something universal. It's called challenge and it's part of life.
For so many people, including myself, many of my friends, clients, and probably much of humanity, life is in a perpetual transition. It is something I often feel and it's one of the reasons I got interested in stress management. And now, for me, it's a reminder to recall some of those subconscious triggers. At that moment, I needed to use my own inner programming to reduce the feeling of challenge, to get the stress monster back in its cage.
In this case, for me at this moment, the challenges were minor. I simply had a lot of things to get done (including this blog entry/article). Part of the busy pace of life over the last few months - it meant spending a lot of time working with new clients, meeting other professionals, traveling to conferences and writing. It meant Explore with Hypnosis (http://www.explorewithhypnosis.com) is growing and as a result, taking more time. This is the life I love and have wanted to move into for years. Yet now, as I began to find myself myself within it, I began to wonder - when I will be able to get all of the things done I need to do?
A couple of days ago, I donated some hypnotic session time to a Buddhist fundraising event. I got to know some of the people there a bit, deepening my curiosity about both Buddhism and mindfulness. And one of the things I admire most about their whole philosophy is the level of serenity it seems to bring. Having been involved in Meditation for a few years, I'm always curious to learn more.
As I have travelled the path of TM, Mindfulness and Himalayan Tradition meditation, each has brought remarkable, rewarding experiences. Each has helped me center, explore the within and the beyond. Ultimately, each has shed new light on my age-old question - what is it all about?
The road continues to the horizon and beyond, beckoning me to explore ever further. As I explore, and as I study more about mediation, I realize again and again that's not ABOUT anything. It simply is. It is being in the now, being here, being present. It is a big lesson, one that is taught to each of us again and again and one that is now, today, in my face.
When I think about what hypnotic trance really is, it is simply a selective focus along with a suspension of disbelief. That disbelief can be the rejection of untruth, but it can also be the discernment that protects us from untruth. The human condition is often dominated by fear of the future, and anger, regret and guilt from the past. Thus we can find ourselves blindly accepting fears and worries, focusing on them and letting them become the dominating factors of our world. They are become a type of de-facto trance. In the words of Steven Wolinski, these are the 'Trances People Live'. In fact, I often find that when I do hypnosis work with someone, rather than taking the person into trance, I am actually helping them to come OUT of trance. In effect, I am un-hypnotizing them.
A couple of years ago, a client came to see me to help him with his problems around fear and anxiety. He had a lot on his plate, including difficulties at work, a difficult time in his marriage and a host of other issues. But as we began the pre-hypnotic interview, it became clear that he was fixed on the future. his issues were not with now, rather with how he was seeing the present day.
He was seeing his present day through the lens of anger, regret and guild from the past and fear of the future. Like so many of us, his memories of past difficulties seemed endless and overwhelming. To him, it seemed like they would continue to intrude into his life forever. He was in a continuous hypnotic trance - spontaneous, unpleasant and seemingly without end.
At one point, as he worried aloud about his present day difficulties, I just said 'STOP.' My tone was abrupt and he looked at me with a startled, puzzled expression on his face. But he stopped.
I asked him, 'look at the wall, what color is it?' - 'White,' he said.
'Wiggle your toes, what do they feel like?' I asked him.
He said nothing, but wiggled his toes (he was wearing sandals) and then his finger tips. He said nothing for another few seconds. Then his expression changed, as if he had experienced something brand new - and indeed he had. He had returned to the present moment.
We continued with this exercise for a time as I took him into hypnotic trance. When he was into hypnosis, I brought him back to this moment and we anchored it in his subconscious as he touched his finger to his thumb. It was a reminder to his inner mind that he could do this exercise at any moment. As we began deeper work in hypnotherapy, we intermittently re-activated this anchor, reminding him that regardless of what he was experiencing, whether in or out of hypnosis, he could bring himself back to the present. By simply touching his finger to his thumb, he could re-center himself in the here and now.
Now, back to the case of me vs my busy schedule. This is the momentary load I return to. Like the worried man in my studio, and probably like most of us in this day and age, I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the things on my plate. And like the worried man, I have to remember to stop, to return to the present moment. Touching my finger to my thumb, I can feel a moment of peace. As I wiggle my toes and feel the air on my face I can come out of trance and into the world of the Now.
Like the man in my studio, and probably like most of us, we need to remember to stop, to let in the summer morning, to include a little more "Now" in our day.
