I received a phone call awhile ago from a new client who had found me during her research on the internet. She wanted me to help her remember her childhood, because she was having difficulty recalling, and she was forgetting events that had occurred recently.
“I am so forgetful,” she said, “that if I saw an ex-boyfriend walking down the street, I would not remember him.”
I was pretty sure I could help her, and she set an appointment.
The poor lady had suffered an awful life. I was not surprised she wanted to forget her childhood, or at least appeared to have forgotten parts of it. Her father was a professional gambler, a con man. Her mother was a professional card dealer. Because of her dad’s penchant for conning, the family moved frequently and suddenly. Aside from continually being on the run, her parents were drinkers and mentally and physically abused her and her brother.
The family on the go meant she attended 18 different high schools.
Later, living in New York, she was diagnosed with tongue and throat cancer. She underwent chemotherapy and ultimate recovery by herself. No family or friends were around to support her.
Time to Move Again
After her cancer went into remission, she moved to Los Angeles 10 years ago to pursue her career. She was having trouble meeting new people. When she met persons she wanted to befriend, they would stop returning her calls. Lonely, isolated, overloaded and depressed, her business was not as successful as it needed to be.
Finally she gained a great amount of strength from her one true passion —marathon running. She ran at least 6 to 8 marathons a year. They kept her spirits up. She loved the concentration required to train and to run the marathons.
This lady also is a somnambulist, a deep- level hypnotic candidate, the kind stage hypnotists look for and bring up on stage.
As such, she had no filters to all that was happening around her, causing her to be continuously overloaded with stimuli. The accumulation left her dazed.
She was not focusing on anything as she shifted from event to event in her daily life.. Her eyes had the look of someone not seeing outside of herself.
This kind of look would lead others to believe that she was not paying any attention to them, that she was only physically present. This is common among somnambulists who do not know that they are walking around in this state of deep hypnosis.
Not a New Experience
I have been a clinical hypnotherapist for over 20 years and have seen this kind of person before. Once I had hypnotized her, she began to “feel” when she was present- focused or in a state of hypnotic overload. Once she distinguished the differences, she learned how to create filters to block the bombarding stimuli. Subsequently, she became more discerning about what she listened to and what she looked at. She slept better, became more focused and increased her energy.
It was important for her to understand her behaviors, to realize that being the person she was, neither was right nor wrong, good nor bad. Some of us find it easy to be outgoing and communicative. Others are reserved, uncomfortable in groups. I have written before as to how here in the United States more than elsewhere people are expected to be more outgoing. Those who are not, often are judged to have something wrong.
When my client learned her behaviors stemmed from childhood, that her difficult upbringing made her more comfortable being alone or in one-on-one situations. She was a normal person. This discovery allowed her to be herself without feeling guilty.
En route to recovery, she doesn’t want to remember her childhood as much as she did when we met. Trying to remember all the negative things in her early life was not as constructive as what she wanted to become. Slowly she started to act more like the person she wanted to be. Her business became more successful and she is no grew. She no longer is burdened by stimuli. More upbeat than before, she smiles, makes new friends — and keeps them.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me by telephone, 310.204.3321, or by email at nickpollak@hypnotherapy4you.net. See my website at www.hypnotherapy4you.net
