Content from “Can You Be A Hypnotist?” by Erika Flint
People who are hurting inside often behave inappropriately, and in ways they later regret and often hurt others in the process. It doesn’t make sense to continue to suffer from their hurtful behavior, we can understand that hurt people do hurtful things, and rise above that situation to experience a more peaceful and enlightened existence.
Cindy came to me to lose weight. She ate healthy at breakfast and dinner, which is surprising since most clients have their biggest eating issues with dinner and after dinner snacking. But with Cindy, her biggest issue was snacking at work.
And, like many clients, she knew what her issue was, but that wasn’t enough. Knowing her problem was not enough to help her stop it. There was much more going on.
Cindy described to me the last time she snacked at work, which happened to be the day prior. I asked her to go back right before she started snacking to tell me how she was feeling. We always go right before the behavior - not during the behavior. We want to know the thoughts and feelings prior to making the decision to snack.
The technique is called a Date-time Age Regression, because I’m asking her to go to a specific time, based on an event. There are other types of Age regression too, for example an Affect Based Age Regression, Symptom Age Regression, and Cognitive Age Regression.
I asked Cindy what was happening, what she was thinking, and how she was feeling in that moment before she decided to snack and eat something she knew she didn’t want to eat.
“I’m anxious. My co-worker Amy just looked at me and whispered to my other co-worker Michelle. I know they’re bad talking about me.”
I asked her about the anxiety, and she said she always has that feeling before snacking, so I asked her to follow that feeling to an earlier time in her life when she felt anxious just like that.
“I’m in school in front of the classroom, in second grade. It’s Ms. Billows’ class. It’s show and tell. I’m holding p a picture that I drew of my neighbor’s horse, Lacey.”
“She is telling me it’s the worst horse she’s ever seen in her life, and now the entire class bursts into laughter. I want to die.”
“Cindy,” I ask, “What do you wish you would have known back then about this situation, and about Ms. Billows, that you know now?”
After a few moments of thought, Cindy continued. “I wish I knew that Ms. Billows just lost her baby. I didn’t know that then. I learned that years later.”
“I know it wasn’t me or my horse, she was just hurting in her own way.”
That insight healed decades of pain for Cindy, for she was right. Ms. Billows never should have acted that way. Yet the reality is grown-ups act improperly all the time because they too, are hurting.
