• Blogs >
• Health Blog >
• My Experience with Hypnotherapy

15 May 2008 06:39 PM

My Experience with Hypnotherapy

by Aimee Amodio | More from this Blogger

I was at a writing retreat in March 2007 in the Quinault rainforest in Washington State. Four days of nothing but rain and writing -- no cell phone service and no internet. It was heavenly! (And productive -- I wrote ten thousand words on a novel over the long weekend.)

One of the writers there was a licensed hypnotherapist. While we were both taking a break from writing, he offered to hypnotize me. I'd never been hypnotized before, and said so. We chatted for a few minutes about what hypnotherapy could do, and how it worked. Curious, I agreed to give it a try.

Then he asked me what I wanted to work on. I mentioned that I'd been experiencing a lot of frustration relating to taking care of my grandmother, and the pressure I was under. I was angry that the Alzheimer's disease was stealing my grandmother, and had no outlet for that feeling.

I closed my eyes and he started to talk. I don't remember word for word what he said, but it was basically about relaxing. Closing my eyes and breathing deeply. Feeling the weight lifting off my shoulders, the stress melting away.

And because I wanted to relax, wanted the stress to go away, it did. I sank deeper into the chair and experienced the present. No worries, no stress, no frustration. It felt like my other senses -- hearing, smell, touch -- got stronger.

He told me it was okay to feel angry. To acknowledge the anger, but not let it rule me. Nothing world shattering. He didn't make me cluck like a chicken. He just acknowledged that I felt anger, and that it was okay to feel how I felt. That my emotions -- whatever they were in that situation -- were real and valid.

It felt good. He asked me if I wanted to keep going, and I thought about it. I didn't feel like I needed to keep going, and said so. He brought me out of the relaxed state and I opened my eyes.

And that was it. Even now, more than a year later, I remember how good it felt to just accept that it was okay to feel angry. Could I have come to the same conclusion without help? Probably. Could I have learned to relax so deeply and just be in the present for a little while? Possibly. But with a trained hypnotherapist to guide me, it was easy.

Learn more about Aimee Amodio

Aimee is a fiction writer... dog lover... music lover...

View Full Profile | More from this Blogger

Send this to a friend