The Gulf in Golf

Golf. There's a subject.

Henry Bolduc recently said:

I don't believe in golf. I've never played it, but maybe if I did I would believe in it more - a few million people probably do. I see them out there with sticks and little white balls, and they seem happy, driving around in those little bumper cars.

I love this! It so applies to what hypnotist do. Just because people may have never experienced hypnosis or past life regression (in Henry's case) or perhaps have a skeptics view point, this does not take away validity.

Interestingly enough, golf seems to pop up a lot theses days. Clients wanting to improve their game, lose the yips, and create better personal concentration. And there they are and here I am, much like Henry. This is probably one of my weaker areas, helping those with personal change for game improvement. I suspect it maybe because I have never been particularly interested in playing sports (yet I enjoy going to professional sport events - go race horse Hypnosis). I can intellectualize about it, but it is so frustrating. I have good success with fringe issues, confidence building, concentration in general, anxiety release, and yet helping those with golf performance and yips seem to elude me. Any thoughts?

The Sunday Question: Making A Living

Somewhere along the way, it may be something that nags the mind, it may be the expectations of those who influence us, or maybe, just be it it seems very interesting or perhaps even easy - but we all choose our way in the world and how we plan to survive.

Hypnosis, at first seemed much like the latter to me, interesting and easy. Are you smiling, those of you in the know? I so did not know the half of it. What I did know is that I knew people who had made huge emotional and physical changes due to hypnosis. I knew people who had gone the route of other "therapies" and who seem to stay locked in a course that included many years of said therapy. How could one not be attracted to hypnosis then in the field of healing work?

So over the years, I studied and read, read and practiced and one day, threw all caution to the wind and opened an office to pursue clinical hypnosis (not complete caution - I did create and have maintained a business plan and utilize small business counseling when needed). That's all I do. No teaching, no shows. I do offer community guided meditations though and occasional workshops on self-hypnosis, etc.

I won't say it has been easy or as lucrative as I had hoped. What I have truly learned is that it seems to be a lot about marketing. And recently I have gotten a small itch to think about doing stage work (though the thought isn't completely loud, yet).

Now I wonder, just how everyone else out there is doing with the idea of using hypnosis to make their living and how they approach it. Do they teach? Do shows? Or are there others who just practice in a clinical setting?

...That the babe was a hypnotist

They couldn't tell why that tiny eye
Would make them writhe and twist,
They found it so, but how could they know
That the babe was a hypnotist?
Another esoteric Saturday with many thanks going to
Terry O'Brien and his collection of hypnosis trivia
at www.hypnosisinmedia.com. The above quote is from a
J.M. Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle comic opera called
JANE ANNIE or, The Good Conduct Prize.

Here is the summary of the plot:
Set in a girls' boarding school and the golf green
attached to it. Bab,described by the authors as a
"bad girl," plans to elope, but cannot decide whether
to marry Jack the lancer or Tom the press student. Jane
Annie, the school's "good girl," schemes to take one
of them (Jack) off her hands, and calls on her powers
of hypnotism to accomplish it.
This is too much fun and a lovely coincidence.  I have had a long
love affair with Barrie's writings. He had me at "Clap your hands
if you believe in fairies." (Yep, Peter Pan).

So Terry, you made this rainy Saturday interesting already.
So the question is - do the boys in question accept the hypnotic
suggestions of marriage?

Read the play to find out.  LOL.

A Good Thought for the Day

After much coffee (and coffee cake) this morning with my friend Jessa and discussing the problems of the world (with personal issues), she offered the best advice her mother has ever given her:

Is it going to matter in ten years?

Sharing

All of you who are reading this and commenting - you guys are wonderful!!! Your comments and participation are more than I had hoped for and so thank you for taking the time to read this and share your knowledge and expertise. Just know that it is all deeply appreciated!

And in honor of you, I thought I'd share Michael Raugh's relaxation mp3 (with his permission). It is at http://www.secondtrances.com/stressrelief.mp3. He uses Terri Watts's Seven Plus or Minus Two induction and utilizes great suggestions for relaxation. Whether you are familiar with the induction or not, it is fun and Michael has a great voice. I know this induction, so it was interesting to actually hear it for a change (and a good mental exercise from reciting it in my head like Catechism and to just enjoy listening).

Enjoy!

Leggs

Something odd that I have noticed:

When I have clients with back to back appointments (or with as much as an hour in between), they seem to show the same patterns. Does this happen to anyone else?

The best example of this was a client who came to me for weight loss. In the middle of the session, she began to move for legs, not just a little, but like chair dancing. When I brought her out, she said she was shocked. Her husband had told her she had restless leg syndrome, but she didn't believe him. She said she became aware of it during the session and was unable to stop herself from moving. All is well that ends well, though. She has lost weight and her husband's insomnia has also disappeared (she went to a doctor about the legs...I know, I know - hypnosis would have probably helped that as well, but you can only bring a horse to water, there's only so much you can make them drink;).

Here's the oddity. My next client was with someone I had worked with before and found to be calm in her manner when hypnotized. So, in the middle of her session, she begins to move her legs restlessly. Now, one might think it was the inductions orsuggestions I had given, but I used two totally different inductions and techniques (I even listened to the session recordings to see if I had inadvertently given an odd suggestion. I found nothing.) When I brought her out, she had no memory of moving her legs.

How odd, but this sort of thing seems to happen often (not the legs, hadn't seen it before, hadn't seen it since).

Clip art provided by www.designedtoat.com/nat.htm.

On the Fly and trancing out

No coffee today, sadly. Well, there will be coffee but it will be while sitting in traffic listening to a book on tape as I head toward the office.

Here's a question for all the practitioners of the mind arts reading this: When doing trance work, do you trance out as well? I've heard that Erickson did and that was a huge part of his success.

I've heard others talk about it too as not being such a good thing, especially if you read scripts. Heard one story (no names mind you) about one such hypnotist losing his place in the middle of a session and asking the client where he was. Ah, the stuff of urban legends.

I find that I do have a tendency to go into a hyper state of awareness with certain clients provided that I am appropriately relaxed and completely focused. And I admit, I use notes (ever the purple clipboard) to help me keep my place or if there is specific wording I want to get absolutely correct in the suggestion portion. It keeps me in a certain awareness.

So, anyone else? Oh, and what are your views on trance? Some say it is what happens during hypnosis, others say there is no such thing as a trance.