Wednesday, August 8, 2007

The Negative and the Positive

Wow. Last night was my 101th post on this blog. How quickly time flies. Wish you were all here to celebrate, oh, but wait, you are. Mimosas for all (I wish, but it is a work day after all).

If you read my post from last night, you will then be aware that yesterday was not a stellar day for me. But now that morning has come yet again, the light illuminates much. I believe that life does imitate art. As I was cleaning out my files, I found some old negatives from past advertising I had done. What a wonderful thing. Out of every negative a positive can be made. Hence life. Hence this blog.

As humans, I think we are fairly loath to talk about failures - so I will not. Rather I will talk about a tough session and the positive aspects about it. It has been a while since I have worked with a resistant client, so I fear the theme for the next few days will be tainted with this subject. In fact, this one had to be the most resistive person I have ever worked with in my career. For the first time in a long while, I came home exhausted from it. I know, poor me.

But rather than wallowing in misery, even as it was happening, I realized the session was not a failure. The client still made many connections that hopefully will prove helpful. The rationalization and censor processes were still full on, but it did ebb enough to let some moments of discovery happen.

For those of you who believe in the Laws of Attraction and the more New Agey stuff out there, I am a believer, too (for those of you who are not, feel free to skip this paragraph, though I think it may be the apex of this post). Here is what I really believe. I believe that those who come to me for help, have been sent to me for a reason. Yes, I know, they want me to hypnotize them, but it more than that. They are there because there is something I can offer them, help them learn, and there is probably something I am suppose to learn from them. Yesterday is probably more of the latter. I learned why it is good to have many options available in one's personal tool box (why one must learn how to work with analytical, permissive, authoritative, resistant options). It is also good to learn how to combine them. I learned that my intuition is worth listening, too. It was dead on. And I learned sometimes it is good to just let things be. You cannot force someone to be somewhere that they are not. At some point it really is all up to them. And that is okay.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"IT'S ALIVE, I TELL YOU!!! THE TRANSPARENT HYPNOTIST IS ALIVE!!!"

Errr... or words to that effect. Nice to see you finding a positive in spite of the many fronts of negativity one can find themselves confronted with on a daily - hell, practically minute to minute basis in today's high paced stressed out "Oh god I need a trance" world.

Success is wonderful, and failure is that pit of the stomach drop feeling, and I know it quite well as I'm sure everyone does. But as long as you come out of the experience with something positive, I would put it as a solid win, but that's just me.

There is a simple rule that I've had to come to grips with, a simple fact of life, even as a hypnotist with the knowledge that hypnosis and the power of the unconscious mind are perhaps the greatest tools mankind actually has:

You can't help everyone.

Once you realize this most basic of truths and accept it, in spite of the seemingly negativistic statement it's actually a positive. Take from it the perspective that you can't help everyone, so that gives you pause and time to reflect on how to best help those you can and focus the intention like a laser. Remember: a laser is basically the same light coming off a single candle, it's just focused and given a little kick in the ass to spark it to that higher level.

As for the Law of Attraction, and "The Secret", I bought the book back in May but - dare I admit this in public as it were - I haven't read it yet. I told you I had a procrastination issue in an earlier post. :)

As it turns out, I've seen the DVD however, and the book is quite literally the same - the dialogue in the movie is basically the exact wording in the book, start to finish. So while it's nice to know I have the book as a backup, I find it more interesting to see the actual people "speaking" in the book actually speaking the same words in the movie. It's the audio-video-book version of the printed book, go figure.

Do I believe in it? Yes, I do. With good reason since it's true, and our thoughts do create our reality.

Now if I could just apply that "Secret" and do something with it. We'll see what happens. :)

Have fun, always...
Paul

The Transparent Hypnotist said...

Thanks, Paul! I like the laser analogy. And yes, the sort of client experience I had yesterday was the stomach-dropping experience, and it is a little hard to discuss it - buti agreed to be transparent in my hypnosis practice, so it seems relevant.

I once heard someone bemoaning a session that went bad, saying that he had had 100% success up to that point. But that was the point - up to that point. It would be great if a 100% success rate could exist, but I suspect it is like the concept of Utopia. Just a nice thought.