In Memory of a Healer

GIL BOYNE, 1924-2010

While I never had the pleasure of meeting of meeting Gil Boyne I owe him a great debt. Gil Boyne educated, among the thousands, Tim Simmerman, who then taught Matthew Brownstein, who is now teaching me. I am very sad that I was not able to meet him before he passed but I will always be thankful for the great impact he has left behind. The following is his obituary from his website.

Gil Boyne died on 5th May 2010 at his home in London, after a brief illness. Having been admitted to hospital and been given a diagnosis a week previously, he told his wife Ann that he was very ready to go, that he wanted to pass away at home and he didn’t want to linger. He left hospital on 4th May, arrived home and passed away around 8.45 on Wednesday morning. His wife, his daughter and his grandchildren were with him. He was 85 years old.

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OMG, I've gotten so behind on posting on here, like you don't even know. I've just gotten so behind with everything going on in life and class and such. I've got so many ideas for blog posts and information and I just haven't found the time to put it together. Hopefully I should be able to get started on that soon. I got this idea that going to do one blog posted day to catch up on the ideas and topics that I've been wanting to blog about but we'll see how that happens. I'm very happy to be back in school, it's been really strange to notice how much I missed it while I was gone, life just felt so incomplete and it's really unusual but really powerful too.which is not to say I didn't miss my UUCL friends, but my friends and classmates at FIH are so important to me as well as all of the important emotional change I've been going through.

So anyway, I wish everyone luck, good health, and the best and hopefully you should be hearing more from me soon! Love you all!

Aika

Happy Beltane!

Happy Beltane indeed everyone!
I had the good fortune this week to be able to convince my supervisor to let me work Wednesday instead of Thursday so I was able to travel up to the Ocala National Forest and surprise my good friends Theresa, Alysia, Tom, Tracie and Bowen. I could only stay for the day, and I'm very sad I couldn't do the whole event this year but I still have school this weekend and it's very important that I not miss anything. I wish everyone then a very happy Beltane and week and I'll see you all on May 9th if not sooner!
Aika

Biting at the Bit

I started experiencing a strange feeling over the last few weeks.
On Monday evenings, I wake up, get dressed, eat, and drive to work. Once I get to work I find myself asking this question,

"Why am I still here?"

It's like my mind is finding it harder and harder to adapt to the soul crushing monotony of menial labor where my ability to help people is small and my pay is even less.
The first week it was just a strange sense of disorientation, like when you haven't done some habitual task for several days and find yourself trying to find your bearings again.
The next week the sensation was much more pronounced and the question "Why am I still here" first arrived. I started to see the negativity and hopelessness around me and was just like, "I gotta get out of here."
Tonight it came back even stronger and brought with it even more symptoms. I spent most of Sunday night watching the TLC show "Hoarders: Buried Alive" and getting so incredibly pissed that they were subjecting these people to useless unsuccessful treatments at the hands of bumbling Psychotherapists and 'Professional Organizers' (what are they gonna do? Make more space for them to fill???) when they could get at LEAST 3 times as much success in 1/100th the time with effective Hypnotherapy!

*sigh*
Do I think I'm ready to open my own practice? No, not in the least.
Do I want to? Well not right now, I have enough foresight to know I haven't learned near enough for that yet.
Do I want to help others? A most emphatic YES.

Any takers?

Aika

Holy Breathwork Batman!

Wow...
...just wow.

If you ever have a chance to experience breathwork (and since most all of you know me personally you will,lol) do so! I had heard for weeks vague references to breathwork and the powerful effects it could cause, but all those anecdotes pale in comparison to actually experiencing it for yourself.

Matthew started out today by explaining how breathwork works and how I was supposed to breath, the cadence, posture, etc. He explained that we would be working in 4-5 10 minute cycles of breathing and checking in between segments to see what I was feeling or experiencing. I may not have an emotional reaction immediately, that most people don't start to have a reaction until about 3 cycles in and some longer than that, it just depends on the person and how deep their emotions are buried.

So I laid flat in the recliner, he put out the lights (except for the light from his computer screen) and I began to breathe.

Starting out my mouth seemed to dry up quickly and I would occasionally lapse out of breathing, in which case Matthew would tap on his knee and signal me to continue breathing. I made it through probably 2 full cycles before I started to have a reaction, though I did report the tingling in my arms and legs, alternating heat and cold in my chest, etc.

Finally I started to have a reaction. It hard to determine exactly how it went down in hindsight, but I'll try and assemble it to the best of my abilities.

At some point I began to have 'impressions' as I call them and the first few times I pushed them aside thinking my thoughts were wandering. I quickly realized though that my impressions were of my bedroom as a child and I quickly realized that this must be the memory breaking through so I brought it back and began to look in. The details were, while not startling, pretty vivid. I couldn't remember every detail of the room, but in my defense it was dark so I couldn't exactly see everything, though I did have a very strong grasp of the layout of the room.

As I started to sink into the scene I began to cry, and immediately looked in expected to find sadness, being as the emotion had come up before. However I started to get the feeling, very quickly actually that this wasn't sadness, it was something else.

Fear.

Very soon I wasn't looking down on the scene so much as I was IN the scene, I was having a revivication (re living a memory). I was curled up in my water bed, my arms wrapped tight around my knees, though I can't tell if I was sitting up or laying on my side. I began to hear footsteps coming toward my room and I saw the shadows of two feet stretch out from under the door.

At this point my revivication became an abreaction, I started to feel the emotions of the memory incredibly intensely, I was sobbing, thrashing my head and finally reaching up to cover my face in my hands. My simple fear morphed into abject terror, a level of panic I'm not sure I can recall ever feeling before. Thoughts were racing through my head on my terror driven adrenaline high, there was a man standing outside my door, a man I knew but I still could not name and I kept repeating "He mustn't know, He mustn't know." Slowly the shadows receded and the man walked past my door and into the kitchen beyond and I broke down sobbing in relief.

At this point my adult self was able to disengage from the abreaction and look at the scene objectively again. I was still crying, I was still feeling it, but a part of my mind could disengage and begin the investigating process. I imagined my adult self all around the child me (who I came to age at 5 yr old) and started the questioning, "Who was that? Who? Who?" With every breath I imagined like I was drawing water from a well, every outtake thinking "Who? Who?" and imaging that I was pulling out the information.

After a couple of minutes I was not able to glean who the man was, though I reinforced the information I already stated, and instead switched to "Why? Why must he not know?" (note I may have asked what he must not know first but this got no answer either way). After a few times asking why he must not know I got the answer, "Because he will act" he would act upon this knowledge. As I stated before I got no direct response to 'what' however there were other mitigating circumstances and feelings that occurred that implied an answer, however I'm not comfortable discussing them online. Maybe after further treatment, but not now.

After several minutes of questioning it became apparent that I could get no new information and, since I knew my time would be up soon anyway, I began to disengage and did what felt right, I comforted the little girl. I told her it was okay, that the danger is long since passed and that there's nothing to fear now. You can calm down and relax, rest. My breathing evened and the tears stopped and I was able to come out of the exercise and explain to Matthew what had happened (I hadn't spoken during the experience). He and I discussed it, he said it was a perfect session by the way, lol, and he thought it couldn't have gone better. We made plans to try regression therapy next week and he assured me that even though it seemed I'd done a good job of wrapping up the memory so it wouldn't bother me in the mean time, that I was welcome to pull him aside at any time this weekend if I was facing any difficulties.

As I talked with him afterward I told him I sat there with this incredible sense of ecstasy. I felt amazing, even having seen what I had seen, having faced the possible issues I would face, I felt fantastic.

Then I tried to get up out of the chair.
And I fell over.
I was drunk on Oxygen, get that.

I have never been so dizzy and had so much vertigo. Though at the time I was still in an intensely blissful state so it was a minor hindrance (trying not to walk into walls) and I remember laughing openly in the parking lot as I leaned against my car and tried to get the world to stop swimming. Finally my balance evened out and I went out for lunch, still in a smashing good mood.

However I hadn't been out of the office 30 minutes before I started to deflate like a balloon. The euphoric feeling left and I was left completely drained of energy, my lunch sitting in my stomach like a rock. I went home and tried to nap for an hour and a half but to little avail (it's hard to sleep when you've got fries sitting on your gut.) So I got up and headed to class early and settled in sluggishly.

Thankfully I was the first to arrive and I had a chance to ask Matthew about the situation and he assured me that it was normal and that I would be right again after a good nights sleep. So reassured that nothing had gone terribly wrong I made it thorough class and even found my strength and sense of balance return somewhat so that I'm not so bad off now as I write this. I as still tired though and I'll probably head right to bed after this.

Thanks to everyone who reads this, you don't have to of course and please know I value you all very dearly as friends. I can't wait to see you all soon.

Aika

Please Disregard Previous Post

I should have know the moment I got too uppity and "Yay I'm healing!" that I was gonna get shit kicked by reality.

Today we did the fleshing out of Suggestion Therapy. It was very interesting when we discussed it and did an example where the entire class was the patient.
The way it works is first the client gives a list of physical symptoms of a problem (say common allergies symptoms). Then the hypnotherapist, through the use of stem sentence completion, uncovers the emotions behind said symptoms (like anger, sadness, guilt or fear). The Hypnotherapist then uses more stem sentence completion to dig down deep to the core beliefs in the subconscious that cause the emotions, that cause the symptoms (like weak, unworthy, unlovable, out of control). You then use more stem sentence completion to uncover the clients opposites to these words (the beliefs, emotions and symptoms) and then use these words to create meaningful suggestions to help them to nullify the erroneous beliefs.
It was all very interesting and effective.

Until you have to actually go through it.

And let me tell you, it's like poking a bear with a stick.

I used the system on my partner Eden with some success, no intense emotional outbursts but he said he enjoyed the programming so that was good.

Then we got to me.

At first it was okay, I decided to go with my chronic post nasal drip which has been bothering me for about a month and a half. I figured that would be a safe topic, that wouldn't have me walking through too many minefields. Right?

...right.

Matthew happened to come upon my session early on and quickly noticed that as we progressed into emotions, I was beginning to strain at the seems of my tenuous self control. Matthew quickly intervened and pressed hard at the dam and pretty soon all the emotions and negative opinions I've held at bay for the last 6 months or better came rushing back, and pretty soon I was just shy of sobbing. But he didn't stop at the basic techniques we were working with, he used more advanced ones, along with 12 years of experience to really try and get at the root of my emotions and I was crippled. The reality that I had discovered hints of over the past couple of weeks was painfully obvious, I had dammed up my emotions many months ago and learned to live fairly happily. I was walking around for months, thinking I was recovering from years of negative self belief and really making headway, when all I'd done was distance myself from my emotions enough that I almost forgot that I had them.
I was devastated.

Matthew quickly finished after we had extracted enough belief words (the most painful part of the process) and left to check on the other groups, though not before a quiet and implied offer of one on one treatment if I was interested.

Eden and I trudged through the creation of the Key words, a process which was on some levels as traumatizing as the original extraction of the beliefs. You try answering the Question, "Instead of feeling worthless, how would you like feel? Instead of feeling unloved, how would you like to feel?" about 5 times each, It's like getting beaten with a sledge hammer over and over again. And while a lot of my initial emotions were sadness, through the key word creation they quickly turned into red hot anger and I had to stop myself on several occasions from lashing out at Eden. It just would have been so easy to tell him to shut the fuck up about the 5th time he asked me what I'd rather feel than worthlessness. Unfortunately I wasn't thinking much during the suggestion creation, other than absorbing myself in the chance to retreat and pull back in my analytical mind, so my suggestions, while pretty, weren't very believable, and thus didn't stick when he finally put me into hypnosis.

I spent the rest of class and most of dinner afterward catatonic as I used every available energy source in an attempt to patch up my dam.

I think that what hurt more than the emotions themselves, was the fact that I'd fooled myself into thinking I was cured, that I'd outgrown those childhood beliefs. I can't believe how foolish I was.

Right after Matthew offered to help, I was overwhelmed with the idea of his helping me. However as the evening drew on I began to second guess this idea, mostly because I realized:
This was gonna hurt.
It was gonna hurt A LOT.
I was perfectly fine and not hurting when I had this all wrapped up, and while it was still there, it didn't hurt.

I feel like such a hypocrite for crowing from the rooftops about my apparent 'success' when I was just as, if not more so, fucked up as I ever was.

On a positive note though, I suppose, I talked to Margaret (one of my classmate's who's also staying at NurAllah's) and we discussed our sessions and after I talked with her and let off some emotional steam I didn't find it so hard to patch myself up and regain my composure. I also think I've decided to ask Matthew if I could take sessions with him. It'll cost a bit more, but I'm committed to becoming a Hypnotherapist, and I need to come to terms with and solve my own issues before I can hope to help others with theirs.

Damn... when I said it was gonna hurt... I didn't really mean it!

Aika

Witch, Shaman, Hypnotherapist - The Healed Healer

I suppose I'll start out with a quick update on my current situation since I haven't posted anything in a while.

I decided to take the room at NurAllah's house and things have been going well so far. I'll admit last weekend that I didn't sleep very well, but I'm not sure what it was due to. The bed was just this side of comfortable, being a thin day-bed (I'm in a different room this week and the mattress in here is much better), I've been having sinus/lymph node problems off and on for the last few weeks so my post-nasal drip was causing some discomfort. But also last weekend we covered/dove into Hypnotic inductions and deepening techniques, so I was hypnotized then brought back out quickly probably 30 times a day over those 3 days. A certain disorienting/exhausting feeling coupled with information overload I think is more to blame for my poor sleep though. But I had some very powerful experiences that weekend never-the-less, mostly including my inner subconscious mind.

Before I detail what happened, let me give you a general breakdown of the happenings inside my head.
There are a bunch on people up there, lol. And no, not in the 'split personality' sense, but simply in the 'parts' sense, there are a lot of 'me's' and each one has an identity and a job.
There's the Muse Me, the figure I often follow when on guided medatations and hypnosis.
There is the Prince Me, and also the Princess Me, my Anima and Animus (I know Jung only said you had one or the other but I'm androgynous so I have both). These two figures where some of the most prominent in my emotional growth and recovery over the last couple of years but I think that more recently they reached a end, or at least a break in their saga. It began with their creation in my mind, several years ago, starting with the Princess's story. She lived in a beautiful rose garden surrounded by and thick stand of Birch trees. These two plants have represented the feminine and masculine in me ever since. But anyway, the Princess tended the garden she could not leave, for the trees grew so close she could not slip through, and she silently waited for the Prince to come and reunite with her. My Prince self later showed herself and was very badly injured, she was bound tightly with razor sharp thorn vines and had been impaled on her own sword. I feel this represented a lot of my confidence and self identity, mortally wounded by myself and suffering a lot of emotional pain. During a very powerful visionary experience I had during a drum circle maybe a year or better ago I experienced her freeing herself from her bounds and in a crescendo of the music the sword was pulled free. This was the beginning of my path to healing. The vision ended with her laying unconscious at the base of a tree still wounded and bleeding, but no longer constantly reliving the injuries.
A while after that incidence I had another vision during a massage session of the Prince starting to heal, her wounds closing and her body becoming whole again. It ended with her standing and slowly making her way through the forest, looking for the princess. I had a few lesser visions after this one of The Prince searching before I came to the final vision in the arc. I had an incidence during a meditation where my Muse self was walking down a path in my mind and I happened to notice as we were heading toward somewhere else, the entrance to the Guarded Rose Garden. But it was not as I had last seen it. For a small moment I looked inside and not only was a path now open to the glen, but the garden was blanketed in snow, and the Princess was nowhere to be found. I thought this was a little odd but nothing much came of it until a later meditation. My Muse self was at the edge of a pond, touching the water to make ripples when a sound caused us to look up, and there stood the Prince. My Muse asked where she was headed and the Prince replied that she sought out the Rose Princess. Muse told her what she had seen in the garden and that the Princess was gone. The Prince was surprised but said that she would go to the garden and wait for the princess' return. Muse me watched her go and bid her rest well, for her journey had ended. Sure enough, the Prince entered the garden, lay down on one of the benches and quickly fell asleep.
I've not had any visions of the two of them since, and I do believe that, at least for now, their story is over.

Now last Saturday I was invited to an event after class, and I'll admit I didn't know what it was until I got there, but it was an Old-time dance society, Countra dance with dosi-does and waltzs and the like. It was very interesting and fun, though I got winded quickly (it was some good cardio let me tell you, lol). Now you have to have a partner for each dance and the first couple of dances the same man helped me out, since I'd never done this before. However after the second dance I was very winded and had to take a breather, but another man came up and asked if I would be his partner. I politely refused and said I needed to take a break. I sat the next dance out but when the next dance was starting up and I went to join the same man asked if I would be his partner now. I agreed and danced, a little confused but happy. After that dance I was quickly winded again and was going to take another break when I was approached by two more people to be their partner. I politely refused, when a thought entered my mind.
"Why on Earth are they asking to be my partner? It's not like I have anything to offer, I'm not worth their attention, they just don't know it."
...a short second after this thought and it's accompanying emotions went through me I pulled up short and realized what had happened. I stopped, everything going quiet around me as I focused inward and said, "Hello Id." And she said Hi back.

The Freudian model of the Id, Ego, and Super Ego is that the Id is your basest, carnal desires, your Superego is your morals and your ego is the figure in between trying to keep balance. As much as I know and accept this construct, the idea entered my head a long time back and manifested in it's own structure.
Ego is me, the me as I am, my conscious identity you could say.
SuperEgo is the idealized me, the me I hope and dream one day to be.
and Id is my Sadistic inner bully. She likes nothing better than to tear me down and make me so miserable I don't want to live. She and I used to be much closer, she was with me everyday and these where some of the darkest days in my life.
However as time has passed and I have grown, Id had been pushed back into the darkness, not allowed to intervene as she once had.
But this incident last Saturday showed very clearly that she was still there, ready to knock me down a few pegs if she thought I was getting too uppity.
It hurt a lot to realize that she was still there, and that she still had the power to so easily lay waste to my still fragile self-esteem.
The night ended on a poor note, I hid in the bathroom most of the rest of the next hour, too ashamed to go back to the dance floor, and when I decided to find the people I had come with to tell them I was leaving, I found that they had already left without looking for me. That added extra pain to my already hemorrhaging pride. Thankfully I was able to let the event go for the most part, letting go of the pain but left with the knowledge that the me that could wound me so deep was still alive and well.
The next day I asked one of the people from class why they left without finding me, and they said that they looked but hadn't checked the bathroom (it was a man) and that they actually left just before I had, so I hadn't been abandoned there s easily and I felt better about the situation.

Shortly after my conversation with R.G. (the classmate I talked to about leaving the dance) we had our daily group Hypnosis session. It was very similar to most guided meditations I've had, a lot of guided imagery that led us to a beautiful beach where after a progressive relaxation and a numeric amnesia exercise, I sat on my beach chair and absorbed the suggestions Matthew(the teacher) was giving. But after a certain suggestion, I can't recall exactly what it was though I know it had to do with healing inner wounds, I heard a sound.

My Muse self looked from the ocean to the source of the sound and I saw, lying about ten feet away on the sand, Id. The sunlight that had passed over my body to relax me earlier in the session was now focused on Id and she was crumpled on the sand in agony. Her cries were unearthly and pitiful. She cried, sobbed, screamed and groaned. She was writhing under the healing light and what looked like thick black crude oil was oozing out of her skin. She looked up at me and the look on her face was pure suffering, her expression was one that was begging for mercy.

I looked upon her and found that I didn't have any of the feelings I thought I might, or should. I didn't recoil in terror or disgust, and neither did I take any pleasure in her pain. Instead, I felt pity, unmeasurable pity.
Long had I viewed Id as my cruel tormentor, the dark part of myself that took pleasure in hurting me. But I saw then truly what she was. Ego is my conscious mind, SuperEgo is my higher mind/ my higher self, and Id was my subconscious, my inner 'well educated 10-year-old' who had long held evil lies as truth and had been poisoned by them. Just like bullies in real life, who often hurt others because it is a deference from hurting themselves, Id was not acting Sadistically but Masochistically, she was hurting herself, me, in the form of the other.

I stood from my seat on the sand and walked over to Id. She continued to look up at me, her face filled with sorrow. I knealt down beside her and gently stroked her hair, offering comfort to myself.
"It's going to be okay," I said, "I know it hurts now, but it's going to be okay, you'll be better soon."

Shortly before I decided to come to this school I bought a book on impulse called "Shamanism for Beginners" By James Endredy. I had never been much interested in the topic before, but I found myself engrossed in it's pages and with the Idea of "The Healed Healer" since most shamans are identified by having survived some illness or injury. They must be healed of their own injuries to heal the injuries of others.
I encountered this exact same philosophy here at Matthew's school, the idea of needing to heal your own emotional and physical wounds before you can heal those of others.

While I may not go so far as to call myself a shaman, I think my wanderings in this life have lead me to this path of the Healed Healer, and I finally feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel, like I'll finally be healed. Like I'll finally have meaning and purpose in this existence. It's like the prospect of being born anew.

As the day wore on Saturday, I noticed the pain of swollen lymph nodes in my neck. I hadn't had them in a few weeks so I was a but preturbed, until a thought occurred to me. Lymph nodes are a part of your bodies immune system that helps to fight infection and flush the associated waste from your body. The image of the black crude immediatly jumped to mind and I made a connection. My body was washing this negativity out.

"It's going to be okay," I thought to myself, "I know it hurts now, but it's going to be okay,"

"I'll be better soon."

Aika