What are YOU looking at?!?!?!

In the work that I do, and in my life, I often see people who seek me out for assistance in managing their lives, their emotions, their pain and behavior. Fairly often, as we talk about what is going on, how it began, where the roots are, I come to the realization that in addition to whatever role they are playing in our interaction, they are often holding up a mirror, that I might take a look in that mirror in relation to my own life.

It is a concept that I've been aware of, and have worked with for a very long time! I don't remember now, who first explained it to me as; "the things that bother you the most about other people, are the same things that bother you about yourself." I've found that to be troublingly accurate, time and again.

Combine that with long held beliefs that: 1. We either learn how to, or how not to do things from the people in our lives. 2. That everyone is doing about as well as they can in any situation, given where they are in their own lives. 3. That these interactions can be a part of the "Sacred Contracts" (see Carolyn Myss' book) that we've formed with people in our lives, and it has provided me with some thought provoking, outlook changing guidance for my life.

Yesterday, I was asked to do a hypnosis session for a dear friend, who has experienced some chronic pain from a autoimmune situation. She was having a particularly challenging time with it, so we did some work.

As we were talking, I was reminded of a session from Sheila Granger's Hypnosis Growth Club that I'm a member of. Where the individual doing the training talked about the difference between hating your pain, and loving it, accepting it, releasing it.

My friend and i were talking about the situation, and I was reminded about everything I've mentioned above. It was a lightening bolt moment in terms of the direction I needed/wanted to take with the hypnosis session we were about to start.

Let me backtrack for a moment. I remember a decade ago, having a conversation with my son about my life. Who I was, where I was, what I was doing. All the normal stuff of middle age. As we talked, I said something like: "I've got no hard feelings for any one, or any situation in my life. Because I've come to realize that every painful step, every hard lesson, every broken heart has contributed to create the man that I am. Had I not had each and every one of those experiences, I would necessarily BE someone other than who I am, or would be SOMEPLACE other than where I am." Despite my enormous pile of human frailties, and my desire to get better-and-better, I'm happy with the man I've become, and overall with the life I am living.

To get to a place where I could be grateful for those who broke my heart, were heavy handed, physically and emotionally abusive... because those experiences helped me to grow, to become stronger, to realize what I would and would not tolerate from others, or from myself was transformational.

Applying those same sorts of ideas to the matter at hand, proved to be powerful for my friend. Under hypnosis, I asked her to embrace the pain, the limitations. To look with eyes of gratitude for the lessons she had been taught about herself in the daily facing of that which she REALLY wished to leave behind.
At one moment, I encouraged her to have a conversation with the disorder, with the pain... to tell them how she felt. The gratitude for being taught that she was stronger and more powerful than the pain or the disorder. That she learned that when she found herself walking through hell, it was best to keep putting one foot in front of the other no matter what.

Then, we did some work with light and color circulating through her body, re-igniting the Divine design, returning every cell, every nerve to the factory original setting. As that color beam left her body, I encouraged her to visualize the brick wall that she had co-created, that stood between where she was, and the life she KNEW she was here to live, the life that she had envisioned. Each brick was inscribed with a word or phrase that in some what had been programmed into her belief of who she was, and what she was capable of. Some of the bricks she inscribed, others were contributed by well meaning family/teachers/ministers and others. That powerful beam of color vaporized the bricks, one by one until the wall was a crumbled mass of rubble.

I asked her to step over that rubble into the life that she has imagined. KNOWING that she was ready, deserving, and totally in alignment with all that goodness.

There was quite a bit more to the process, but it involves concepts and conversations she and I had shared that would likely not translate to this writing.

When we were done, she was feeling really good. I heard from her later that it truly had shifted some powerful things for her, and I know her well enough to know that she will take the concepts and tools we used, and continue to work with them, for her own continued healing, but also with her clients to help them make some powerful changes.

Given that I can be a thinker (sometimes OVER thinker), I spent some time after this session, taking a look at myself. Really, it is a continuation of some ongoing work and process that began late and 2020 (I'm guessing). Who are the people that I still need to forgive (more)? What are the pains I need to look at for blessings and lessons? What additional healing/letting go/allowing would be good for me?

What about you?