Let’s Just Skip the Part About Forgiveness And Get On To Part Where My Life Changes.

5/26/09
Valerie A. Grimes

Let’s Just Skip the Part About Forgiveness
And Get On To Part Where My Life Changes.

When clients visit me for a hypnosis session, it is usually after they have tried many other methods to relieve their emotional pain and are now ready to work on their failed relationship, addiction, feelings of anxiety or low self-esteem. Our process consists of four distinct phases required to bring about change that must be conducted in this order:

1) Discovery of Cause (Why Do I Feel Anxious? etc)
2) Emotional Release (Giving Voice to Inner Child)
3) Forgiveness (of Self or Others)
4) Re-learning (Placement of new belief system and process for strengthening)

However, where I see progress bogging down is with the third step -- the process of forgiveness to ourselves and/or others. Most clients want to skip the part about forgiveness and just get to the part where their life changes and they can be happy. Not going to happen.

We hear a lot about the benefits of forgiveness through DVDs, CDs, podcasts and books on the subject. But don’t those resentment gurus know how hard it is? Yes, but they also know it is possible, or they wouldn’t suggest it. Holding resentments affect the body’s ability to thrive. And, if one desires to improve one’s chances of being healthy, then releasing this resentment can free the body from stress and give them a sense of accomplishment, as feelings centered around an old experience begin to change. By letting the energy that was tied up in the resentment be redirected toward constructive decisions, one get closer to the kind of life one wants to live. And that is a lovely thing.

Effects of not forgiving

If you are experiencing regret, sadness, hurt, fear, guilt, blame, anger, resentment and sometimes even revenge, it is an indication of the need for forgiveness. If left alone, these feelings cause chemical reactions creating depression, physical ailments, chronic pain and suppression of the immune system. (For more on this, read: “Molecules of Emotion,” by Candace Pert). I have witnessed clients in various stages of cancer, all with the same common negative emotion – resentment. “The Course In Miracles” states, “All disease comes from a state of un-forgiveness.” Our lives just can’t flow freely when we hold onto resentment.

However, through forgiveness therapy, memories become powerless and no longer generate feelings of anger, rate, frustration, depression and resentment.
Making true peace possible.


I can’t confront the person.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean the person has to confront the perpetrator; forgiveness exists in the heart of the forgiver.

Emmit Fox created a visualization which places the person you want to forgive on stage, receiving praise from the audience, seeing them happy and full of confidence and sureness -- I’ve used this one before and I am amazed at how the client can get to this point especially considering some of the acts of the perpetrator. But to see one visualizing this person receiving love and praise is almost as if one can feel the room get warmer as the heart melts and opens into a state of true forgiveness. Keep in mind this is a process and it not usually achieved in one or two sessions. (Darn, there is really no magic hypnotic wand). The client only gets to this point after they have released anger and frustration and feel safe enough to do so.


Is the Law of Attraction Working For You?

Positive Self Talk and Affirmations won’t work unless accompanied by emotions that match the beliefs that are already in the subconscious. Orison S. Marden, the father of the success movement, states, “Our destiny changes with our thought; we shall become what we wish to become, do what we wish to do, when our habitual thought corresponds with our desire.” Hypnosis is a rapid method for matching thoughts to desires and desires to thoughts, so the Law of Attraction can work in a positive way.

Hypnotherapy facilitates true healing by releasing buried emotions and gives the client freedom to experience the person they truly are. One doesn’t need to know how, just willing and pick up the phone and call me.

www.valeriegrimes.com

The Lover's Shopping List

When you go to the store,
please don’t forget to pick up
some things for the one you love.

Intimacy is high on my list,
but it is also high on the shelf
and on one of those less frequented
isles with the canning
goods and boxes of barley.
You have to work to find it.

Forgiveness is a staple you
can’t do without. But is has
to be the pure stuff, the most
sincere form of forgiveness
the store has to offer.

Lightheartedness is always
good to have on hand, it
helps ease those tense moments
and turn them into laughter.
Better get a dozen of these.

Goodness and Love are a
combination that are marketed
in several ways, but the most
heartfelt kind begins with
our Creator who is goodness
and love, so you have to buy
this a special store.
(I hope you don’t mind making the
extra stop)

valerie grimes
9/20/98

Why do I feel so anxious?

A client last week asked the question, "Why do I feel so anxious?" He was to the point that this anxiety was interfering with his new relationship and his job as well as decisions about basic human experiences. Anxiety is the habit of exaggerating the possibility of danger out of proportion. The this case, the client had a very old feeling of "the fear of being left alone". And what he constantly did was try and keep people close to him, so he didn't have to experience it (the feeling of being alone). Since he experienced this initial feeling of "the fear of being left alone" at a very early age, it never got an outlet so his body stayed in a state of emergency which resulted in anxious feelings.

What I did in the hypnosis session was use regression to follow the feeling back to the source of its origin, from there, he discovered that the fear was actually unfounded. He realized he was really never left alone. This is the true meaning of the word "phobia"...the fear of the fear.

If you have anxious feelings explore the fact that you can be experiencing the fear of rejection, fear of failure, or fear of criticism. Fear is a warning system in the body and needs to be released. This can be accomplished through hypnosis, insight therapies and perhaps meditation.

Change Your Thought, Change Your Mind.

I'm sure you have heard the term, Change Your Thought, Change Your Mind. I was watching "What The Bleep" again last night...it has been a few years, I love the scientific explanation how our brains are hard-wired to keep repeating the same patterns. One way to change that wiring is to become aware of the behavior or emotion and then to choose a different response (the basis of the movie). A smoking cessation client recently had success in this area, but it took him 3 months to do the reprogramming. The term Change Your Thought, Change Your Mind sounds instantaneous and it is to some degree, there is a shift, but it takes dedication to that process to have the reprogramming completely take effect. So, keep doing the correction you will get there. A canoe is always drifting off course, but with consistent steering corrections it gets down river and so will you.

Need to reduce stress? You can use your body or your mind.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that yoga studios are almost as common as Starbucks. And I’m sure you’ve heard yoga is very beneficial for stress reduction among other health benefits including improved circulation, reduced heart rate and muscle tone. And it is.

However, if you’ve tried yoga and it isn’t for you, there is another method that you can do in your sleep. Yes, you can reduce your stress and reduce anxiety while you sleep with hypnosis.

Hypnosis is known to improve health, here is an excerpt from Time Magazine (September 27, 2004) “A growing body of research supports the ancient practice (of Hypnosis) as an effective tool in the treatment of a variety of problems from anxiety to chronic pain. Rather than taking away one’s control, it enhances a person’s control, teaching them how to control aspects of their body’s function and sensation that they thought they couldn’t. Hypnosis is a form of highly focused attention-an induced state of mind that enables people to alter they way the perceive and process reality.
Studies using positron emission tomography (PET) have looked at what goes on in the brain during hypnosis. In one subject their hands were immersed in painfully hot water, but were told it was comfortably warm. This not only altered their perception of the pain but also altered blood flow in pain related parts of the brain.”

So, if time isn’t on your side or you find yoga too difficult but you need to reduce the stress or anxiety in your life, hypnosis may be an alternative.

OVERCOMING ANXIETY IN AN ANXIOUS WORLD

OVERCOMING ANXIETY IN AN ANXIOUS WORLD

You can take pills to control the anxiety, depression and fear coming from challenges of these tough economic times. Or you might choose alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs. But did you know there are far healthier and more effective ways to deal with everything being thrown at us today? The alternative is mind control, a process of training your mind to respond in a way that is based on your choice…but how do you make the jump to the other side?

DO YOU HAVE A FEAR OF FEELING?

The first step is the step that usually we want to skip…why? Because the first step can be painful, please note, I’ve emphasized Can. So what is the first step? It is feeling. Stopping and feeling. To stop running from what we are trying not to feel and stopping and feeling the emotion that we are working so hard not to feel. Our subconscious mind works to avoid things that are painful and to seek things that offer us pleasure. However this is a downward spiral, because the “drug” of choice never has the power to take away the source of the anxiety. But your mind does. I teach self-hypnosis to enable us to stop, feel, discover and transform. We have the power to transform our reality, what stops us is our fear. Life can be free and easy, it is not meant to be a struggle. If you are struggling, learn a new skill, the skill of mind control through self-hypnosis. Others use meditation, group therapy, insight therapies, or yoga to achieve similar results. No matter what healthy alternative you use, consider making the jump to the other side…and see what a difference it makes on your outlook and your health.