Each year, on the day after the NGH convention, I come home with my head chock full of ideals. One of those is the echo of feedback I get every year from other hypnotists who ask me, 'when are you going to teach your class on UFOs again?' I have to tell the person that my class proposal got rejected several years in a row. Yet every day, a new person contacts Explore with Hypnosis with the same comment, "Nobody believes me, but..."
This year, I think I'll put in for a workshop that boils the extraordinary experience down to its essence. The core of the experience - the shattered reality - revolves around one question. What can you do to heal the pain when nobody believes you?
I went to several classes on topics such as chakra balancing, energy healing and past-life regression. In each case, there was a common theme, techniques (however new-agey) that appear to be quite effective. They are each ways, tools in the toolbox, aiding hypnotists in work with their clients. But what happens when the client comes into the hypnotherapist's office with something truly unusual? What happens when the story the client brings in goes beyond the paradigm box of the hypnotist or other provider?
Extraordinary experiences don't necessarily need to involve the "U" word (silently, looking both ways, he whispers the three forbidden letters 'U-F-O'). They can involve a lot of different unusual events. These can include near-death experiences (anyone who has had one will tell you there is nothing "near" about them), sudden psychic awakenings and spiritual experiences, unexpected kundalini awakenings during meditation, shamanic journeys that resulted in more than the journeyer bargained for - and/or simply feeling lost on the spiritual/metaphysical road of life. The common thread is that, for the person sitting in my office, the experience was either unexpected or uninvited.
I don't know of anyone who would voluntarily undergo most of the experiences in this general category of events. Yet for each, the trial ultimately seems to lead to an awakening. I call it the Forge of God, that time in life where God subjects you to fire and torment, ultimately forging an entirely new you. Yet the Forge of God is a fiery place and in the process of remaking you, it leaves that "you" with a lot of stress and pain to work out. It leaves that "you" with a shattered reality that needs to heal.
Whether it is the UFO abductee in my office, the person undergoing paranormal or metaphysical challenges, physical injuries or mind-body health issues, each person has a story to tell. It's often a story of karma, past-life and present-day challenges and/or a host of extraordinary events. In each case, few people in the world seem willing to listen with an open mind and empathetic heart.
During late night calls, and/or when the experiencer is sitting in my studio, I oh-so-often find myself listening to the same narrative. It's begins with "you're going to think I'm crazy but..." - and proceeds from there. And buried within each is the plaintive voice alone in their own private wilderness crying:
"...nobody believes me"
