This past Tuesday, July 20, 2010, I was doing a hypnosis session via telephone with one of my clients living in Los Angeles. Although I had done a number of sessions in the past with this particular client, the focus for this session was on her self-esteem. At the age of 35, this attractive woman was still struggling with how she appeared to those around her. Was she pretty? Do men find her attractive?
One specific memory she related to me was that when she was 13, she asked her mother if she was pretty. She vividly recalled her mother answering her by saying
“Alice, you are a beautiful person on the inside.”
In Alice’s mind, she took this to mean that she was not very attractive looking and for over 20 years, this perception of herself has had a huge impact on the image of herself and her self-esteem. Even though the mother may have meant well by the comment, the mind of a 13-year-old, full of emotions, can be intensely impacted by comments regarding personal looks.
During Alice’s session, I recreated that moment in her life. I had Alice go back to that specific moment when her mother made that comment. I then changed the words. I had her mother resonating the words; you are a beautiful young lady, over and over again. When the session was done, it was as though that incident was powerfully changed in Alice’s mind. She told me the next day that she could see and hear that event just as we had created it the night before and could not even recall how the original event occurred. One might refer to this as creating a “false memory”. In Alice’s case, this “false memory” will hopefully impact her in a positive way, give her more confidence around men and feel more self-confident in general.
The “coincidence” regarding this session is that after the session, I went to see the new movie Inception. I only heard that it had good reviews and was not familiar with the story line. Well, this was a fantastic movie, with tremendous visuals. The basic focus of the movie, trying to create a thought in someone’s mind as if it was his or her own experience really was not a whole lot different than what I successfully did with Alice earlier that day.
Sometimes changing thoughts are productive and sometimes they can be destructive. As I contemplated writing this entry, I could not help but recall a client I saw a few months ago who came to me extremely distraught. This 60-year-old gentleman had a daughter in her thirties who now was claiming that he molested her when she was a young girl. Only he and god will know for sure if this did or did not happen. I happen to believe him and I feel that this unfortunate client is the victim of “false memory syndrome”. His daughter was going through therapy and had just ended a destructive relationship with a boyfriend. Then, through the course of her therapy it came out that her father had supposedly molested her when she was young. Another piece of information is that when she was a teen she went through a period of dressing “goth”.
“False memory syndrome”, although not real common is also not extremely rare either. I was able to help the father by coming to the undertanding that regardless of what he was accused of, he could stay calm and relaxed. He had no control over what his daughter said or did. I helped him to focus on the areas he could control.
So you see, creating thoughts in the mind can be either beneficial or devastating. Fortunately, my assistance in creating beneficial thoughts crosses into many areas of a person’s life, from health, to relationships, from inner peace to inner happiness.
As for Inception, go see it. And then come see me if you would some assistance in creating and changing your world.
Be well!