From Lucy Waterhouse, with thanks
I
was having a chat with my aunt about the course and she is having a
really difficult time with her life at the moment recalling events
that have happened in her childhood and I read her the following
script from my workbook: themselves “wearing a heavy rubber suit,
that is being filled with air, that air is blowing the suit up bigger
and bigger and bigger and the pressure is becoming terribly
uncomfortable, all that pain caused by all that pressure….
The pain
that was previously just in your legs is now all over and you know
that to get rid of it you have to take the suit off. You realise that
the suit is very familiar, almost as if you are wearing it all the
time, though nobody notices, you do, you can feel the pressure, feel
it now!(looking for uncomfortable facial expressions and distaste)
feel how that pressure is stopping you moving freely, the suit is so
heavy and restrictive, If only you could remember how to get out of
it. You realise that this suit has been stuck on your body for such a
long time and has stopped you from enjoying things that other people
get to enjoy because it is just so uncomfortable to move. Think….
Think about the day you put this suit on for the first time…. Was
it when you were a child? Or did you run about like all the other
children? Was it when you were a teenager? Or were you enjoying doing
the things that teenagers do? When did you put it on? I would like
you to move this finger (nominate a finger)
With
honest unconscious movement to let me know when you have remembered…
take your time…. Fantastic! Now you can remember the day all this
started, I want you to go back to a week before then when everything
was just normal. If you bumped your head or stubbed a toe it would
hurt but it would hurt appropriately and would return to normal
fairly quickly. I want you to take me back to the week before you put
on that pain suit. And I want you to remember exactly how you put it
on! Was it because you had been unwell physically?
Maybe a virus?
Maybe when you put it on it felt tight and safe and secure, maybe it
protected you from something. Somewhere inside you knows what the
reason was that you put that painful suit on. I want you to remember
that now and when you do let me know by moving that finger…. Just
let it move all by itself, it doesn’t matter if the details are
vague to your conscious mind, to your unconscious all will become
clear and as your unconscious mind wants to keep you safe the reasons
for you wearing that suit are definitely your unconscious mind’s
way of protecting you. I want to help you to take off that suit now.
Remember how it went on…. Is it a zip at the back? Is it buttons?
Laces? Clips? I want you to reach towards whatever is keeping that
suit on and undo it…….feel the relief as the pressure releases
from the suit….
Feel how much softer and more comfortable your legs
and arms and shoulders feel, feel how much easier it is to move
around! Feel how much looser and freer you are! Now I know that you
still have the ability to get back into that suit so I want to do
something with that suit now…. So we know it’s air tight…. So
what could we possibly do to get rid of it? When you look around you
notice a canister of helium. Why don’t we fill up that pain suit
with helium, so that it is light as a feather….
Fill it right up,
and keep filling it until you run out of helium….. Just keep
filling it and filling it, making it lighter and lighter…. The
helium has run out and there’s a tiny bit of space left in it… I
want you to blow all that remains of the pain into that pain suit……
and as you have done that now and you are no longer bound by its
oppressive suffocating sensation, you will be able to feel normal
amounts of pain at appropriate times, like if you bump your head or
stub your toe….. But these pains will last a few moments then just
pass like they are floating away on the wind….
Now what shall we do
with this pain suit? It’s so light now and has all the discomfort
that you had in your body as a result of fibromyalgia caught up
inside it…. I have an idea….. With your new lightness and your
new ability to move freely and comfortably with ease and grace, you
run, yes RUN up that little hill over there, barefoot, feel the cool
grass on your feet, feel the warm sun on your back….. the smell of
fresh air that you hadn’t noticed for so long because the pain suit
was in the way, but now you are holding it, sealed and full of helium
on top of that hill about to free yourself from all that pain and
invite all the warmth comfort and energy of the nature around you….
Now reach up as high as you can and let go of that big balloon, let
it go, that pain suit just floats higher and higher, disappearing
upwards and further and further upwards. Getting smaller and smaller
and no longer a part of you….. letting it go now… letting it go,
letting it float and drift and disappear…… just a speck now……
just a tiny speck, only YOU can control you now…….. Now there you
are, completely content that any pain that you feel as a result of
injury will be appropriate for the injury you have sustained. The
pain that is a warning will still be felt, but maybe from now on it
won’t be a [ain, it will be a different sensation, like a whirring
or a fluttering, just enough to alert you to the existence of
something wrong that needs to be dealt with. Remember…… that suit
has floated so far away now that you can’t even see it….”
….After
reading this script to my aunt, outside the formal hypnotherapy
setting and just in the manner of reading it aloud, without directly
going through an induction etc, it still had a profound effect on
her. She reported feeling lighter, feeling like she had handed over
the stress that she was going through to the person who it pertains
to, basically she revealed that she had been raped by her sister’s
husband when she was 16 after years of grooming. She listened
intently over the telephone to me reading the script which after
listening to her I intuitively thought that this was the best thing I
could offer her by way of support and she took a huge sigh almost
sounding like she had breathed out much of the doubt and pain she had
carried following opening up to her sister that afternoon and said,
very positively, ‘I have carried this for years, like it is my pain
and shame to bear, but now I feel like I have given it away’. I
offered her some more formal sessions of hypnotherapy over the coming
weeks when I know she will be feeling especially vulnerable and will
need reassurance and balance to help her to feel more in control. She
agreed that it would be a good idea and we have arranged some time
for her.
I
have found during this course that my desire to work with clients who
are at the end of their lives has intensified. Since completing my
first diploma over a year ago and practicing hypnotherapy regularly
in various capacities, working with groups, working individually and
with pairs of people I have become more resolute about using my
skills in a palliative care setting, working with adults and children
to come to terms with their situation and helping to heal and restore
balance to their minds and bodies at what could be a deeply traumatic
time. I would love to use what I have learnt to make people
physically and mentally and emotionally more comfortable and at ease
with what they are going through. I have mentioned this in another
part of my reflective journal and feel that it is something that I
need to investigate and learn more about. I have found a tutor who
runs a palliative care course near to where I live and will be taking
part in that the next time that it runs, and I have been sending
emails to a local hospice with a view to going in to do some sessions
with their day hospice group for relaxation and achieving balance as
well as with a view at some point in the near future to going in and
working with their residents who are receptive to such a treatment.
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