And when I tell’em I am a hypnotherapist, the first question that pops up is “Can you hypnotize me?”
Well yes I can, but why??
I come across people every day, and regardless of their gender, faith, education and background, all equally fascinated by the mere fact that I hypnotize people for a living. And while they question, I can of course see the visuals going through their minds: a pendulum, a couch, some invisible rays, perhaps some music and a dark room. Kind of how it used to be in ancient times and kind of what we can still find happening in vintage pictures of Mesmer.
As ancient as the method is, so are the myths attached to it. For most hypnotism is just a mode of entertainment where by the hypnotist amuses the audience by pricking needles into the hands of subjects without anesthesia or by turning them into wooden planks-either way using a pendulum to hypnotize!
Yet the fact remains that hypnotism is widely used for curing all types of phobias; from the fear of height to the fear of being alone, the anxiety of exams and the nervousness of a job interview, from quitting smoking to losing weight. Trust me there is a huge list of things people suffer from, which doesn’t even qualify for being published here. And 90 percent of the time, the pendulum is NOT used. Its only words; the right words that leads first into a trance and then the therapeutic procedure. My own pendulum hides happily and snugly in my handbag as a souvenir.
When we spend most of our days in a certain environment, it slowly grows over us. So has Hypnosis grown on me. I remember attending the first workshop of Hypnosis years back, the little details, when I discovered I am a stage 6 subject (Subject for deep Hypnotism); when I witnessed a charming young lady getting rid of her fear of climbing stairs through “Swish Pattern Technique”. When I saw the pain this boy went through while going through Age Regression. So much so as now I talk, walk, eat and even sleep in it.
Since then it had been a never ending journey. I did many intensive courses at the prestigious National Guild of Hypnotists, USA, being called “Baby Hypnotist from Pakistan” as one of the youngest hypnotherapists there. Then NLP further improved my understanding of it as to me NLP is a better and more refined version of Hypnosis. Of course I cant ask every young man who comes my way to close his eyes and lie down on the couch. However I can definitely “Meta-model” and get to the reality of his claims. I can definitely tell when one is being fictitious or in simple words lying or when someone is quoting facts.(Though at times all of us want to believe what we want to and not what it really is) Yes Hypnosis and NLP have definitely polished my skills: communication, control, management.
Every day so many new cases, stories, every one new from the other, generally relationship problems deep rooted in forms of fears and phobias. People desperately trying to look for answers, way outs, solutions. I see studs and hunks crying like babies, dolls bursting with anger, even tweens and kids fighting their own Brutus’. This battle within breaking them apart.
And in all these years, I’ve learnt that “being happy” is a relative term. We all have our own shades of glasses that we put on every day and view the world through them. For some the world is blue, for some yellow, for others red. And so sometimes “being happy” comes in yellow, and other times in green. The key is to find your own color of happiness-what ever it may be!
